Anti-Revisionist ML vs ML [Archive]

Ismail

27th October 2013, 17:58

The USSR, China, Albania, Vietnam, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Romania, and every other country with a party that claimed to uphold Marx, Engels and Lenin also claimed/claims to uphold Marxism-Leninism, so it can become quite vague when not clarified. The term "anti-revisionism" refers to those who oppose the line of the 20th Party Congress, which slandered and negated the character and work of Stalin as the continuer of Lenin, declared that socialism could be obtained via the parliamentary road, that imperialist wars were no longer inevitable owing to the existence of nuclear weapons and the balance of forces in favor of socialism in the world, etc.

Within the next few years the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR was declared to have fulfilled its historical role and thus a so-called "state of the whole people" had supposedly replaced it as class struggle allegedly came to an end, with the coercive aspects of the state supposed to decline while "communist self-administration" would gradually replace state functions. This, of course, ran counter to Stalin's analysis that class struggle would not only continue (as would the dictatorship of the proletariat) under socialism, but that the state would likewise continue to exist and would in turn strengthen its organs of coercion and self-defense. The Soviet revisionists also rehabilitated Titos and presented Yugoslavia as a "socialist country."

Those behind these revisions of Marxism-Leninism had taken control of the party and the state, constituted themselves as a new bourgeoisie, and restored capitalism while transforming the CPSU into a bourgeois party. The foreign policy of the USSR was transformed from one of proletarian internationalism into that of social-imperialism (as Lenin defined it, "socialism in words, imperialism in deeds.") The USSR thus became nothing more than a rival imperialist superpower of the USA, employing similar aggressive and neo-colonialist methods. By this point Soviet "Marxism-Leninism" had become a parody of actual Marxism-Leninism. The regimes in Eastern Europe save for Albania had likewise followed the revisionist road. All these revisions were proclaimed to be the result of "creative development" and an understanding of "new situations" in the world, but in fact had ulterior, anti-Marxist and anti-socialist motives.

The post-1956 Soviet position was that the anti-revisionists were "dogmatists," "sectarian," etc. Concerning Albania's stand, Khrushchev claimed in 1961 that, "All that was bad in our country at the time of the cult of the individual manifests itself in even worse form in the [Party of Labour of Albania]. It is no longer a secret to anyone that the Albanian leaders maintain their power by resorting to force and arbitrary methods. . . Where are the Albanian Communists who founded the Party and fought against the Italian and German fascist invaders? Almost all of them have fallen victim to the bloody crimes committed by Mehmet Shehu and Enver Hoxha." And "to put an end to the cult of the individual would mean, in effect, to relinquish key posts in Party and government, and that is something they do not want to do." He even called for the overthrow of the government, saying that "we are confident that the time will come when the Albanian communists and the Albanian people will have their say and the Albanian leaders will then be held responsible for the damage they have inflicted on their country, their people and the cause of building socialism in Albania."

The Soviet revisionist position on China was that Mao had opportunistically decided to uphold Stalin in order to further his allegedly chauvinistic aims against the USSR and the other "socialist countries," that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was a catastrophe for the cause of socialist construction in China, that Chinese policies "split the national liberation movements" and played into the hands of US imperialism, etc. You can find the Soviet revisionist attitude on Maoism here (see the third entry): http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Maoism

For what it's worth, you can find the Soviet revisionist definition of Marxism-Leninism itself here: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Marxism-Leninism

And Soviet revisionist ranting about Stalin from a 1968 work of theirs:

Special mention should be made of the gross subjectivist errors made during the Stalin personality cult period. There were violations of socialist democracy and of the Leninist standards of political and Party life. The principle of collective leadership was ignored. One man made most of the decisions, often profoundly erroneous and contrary to the objective laws governing the development of socialist society.

The errors and abuses stemming from the Stalin personality cult went against the basic principles of socialism, its essence, its mission and morality. They were not rooted in the socialist system as such, and constituted a departure from its substance and the, objective general line of development. Indeed, what could there be in common between socialism, on the one hand, and the violations of socialist democracy and legality, on the other? Socialism is the result of the free endeavours of the people. Its development and consolidation is impelled by the productive and political activity of the millions. Socialism and people's democracy are inseparable. True and consistent democracy expressing the rockbottom interests of the working people, for its part, is inconceivable without socialism. Democracy is not simply a means of achieving socialism. It is part and parcel of socialism as the goal of the working-class liberation struggle. This is how Marx, Engels and Lenin conceived it. As for the hideous un-Marxist cult of one person, it is incompatible in all respects with socialist democracy and constitutes an outright negation of the creative activity of the masses, of their freedom and constructive initiative.

There is also this other aspect: socialism is real humanism, the practical embodiment of respect and devotion to man. Socialism is built in order to make man happy, to emancipate his labour, his thoughts, his conscience from outside compulsion, to open up for man all the opportunities of untrammelled development. There can be nothing in common between this mission of socialism and the cult of one man attended by violations of legality and crude restraints on human rights.

There is no denying the fact that the Stalin cult retarded the development of socialist society. But one thing is certain: it could not alter the nature of socialism. Socialism has emerged beyond the frontiers of one country. It has grown into a world socialist system. This bore out the objective character of the laws governing the making of socialist society. Stalin abused the trust put in him by the Party and the people and did great damage to socialist democracy. But nothing on earth could hold up the revolutionary stride of the Party and the people, their revolutionary creativeness, spurred by the great socialist idea.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has taken every step to root out the personality cult and its harmful consequences, and to preclude all departures from the principles of socialist democracy.

To be sure, the foes of communism have other opinions about the Stalin cult. They have everything to gain from portraying it as an innate feature of socialism. To make their point, they say socialism is contrary to "human nature" and therefore has to rely on violence, on a "strong man." But their contention is untenable; it is paradoxical and illogical to maintain that socialism, which expresses the basic interests of the people, has to be imposed on the people by force.

All anti-communist efforts to identify socialism with the personality cult are prompted by the wish of discrediting the new society and imputing qualities to it that would make it unacceptable and repulsive.

Yet all these champions of democracy who howl about the Stalin cult keep totally silent about the crying lawlessness, the fascist abuse, the wholesale killings and savage racist discrimination in some of the capitalist countries. While they attack the personality cult that once existed in the Soviet Union, these sham democrats and quasi-humanists see fit to justify the genocide loosened on the people of Vietnam, the terrorism against the Negro populations, and plead tearfully for the release of imprisoned nazi executioners.

Their attempts to portray socialism as antidemocratic and totalitarian cannot conceal the fact that socialism yielded not only a new economic system best adapted to fulfil the wishes and aspirations of the masses, but also a new form of political government best adapted to fulfil the sovereign will of the people.
anti-revisionism usally is the idea that with the death of one person an entire system will magically change, as an example with the death of stalin/mao the su/china ceased to be "socialist" and thats all because stalin/mao died and kruschev/deng took over. of course much is written about anti-revisionism but it boils down to the above.You mean like Trots think that the "Stalinist bureaucracy" magically triumphed as soon as Lenin died? It's very easy to strawman other people's positions, but I don't see how that's productive.

LiamChe

27th October 2013, 19:21

Thanks for the replies, I think I'm starting to understand what Anti-Revisionist ML, is. I have never heard of Hoxha before, but he definitely sounds like someone I should study. So far I have been reading Marx and Lenin, however I would like to broaden that to Stalin, Mao, and even Hoxha. Obviously, I'm still quite new to Marxism-Leninism, so I still need to develop my own ideas and what not. Does anyone know of any good resources, books, etc on Anti-Revisionist ML?

(PS I've noticed that anti-ML sentiment is quite high on this forum:unsure:)

Ismail

27th October 2013, 21:06

See the reading list contained in the description of the ML group: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=46

(PS I've noticed that anti-ML sentiment is quite high on this forum:unsure:)Soviet Empire (http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/) is full of self-styled MLs but it's generally inactive. I always found it strange how the strongest real-world "communist" tendency (formerly pro-Soviet parties that think the USSR was socialist 'till Gorby) seems to have the smallest Internet presence, then again the size of the communist movement in English-speaking countries (sans South Africa) is nowadays tiny.

LiamChe

28th October 2013, 00:29

I've started reading some of the texts, so far I am finding them quite informative. What were some of the factors that caused the USSR and other Socialist countries to become revisionist? It seemed like it became a widespread pandemic. How can communists in the future prevent something like that from happening again?

I also noticed that there tends to be a sharp divide between Marxist-Leninists and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. I am aware of some of the basic ideological differences, but why does there seem to be so much hostility? The differences seem so minor and both seem to be striving for the same thing

TheGodlessUtopian

28th October 2013, 00:52

I also noticed that there tends to be a sharp divide between Marxist-Leninists and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. I am aware of some of the basic ideological differences, but why does there seem to be so much hostility? The differences seem so minor and both seem to be striving for the same thing

Ultimately it boils down to a question of revisionism: some M-L's consider Maoism so be a right-wing deviation, others do not see it so. Hence you will see comrades taking complaint with the interaction with the peasantry and working class, Mao's conception of the United Front, and the bloc of four classes. The differences may seem small at first but they can become tricky ideological thorns.

Questionable

28th October 2013, 01:13

I've started reading some of the texts, so far I am finding them quite informative. What were some of the factors that caused the USSR and other Socialist countries to become revisionist? It seemed like it became a widespread pandemic. How can communists in the future prevent something like that from happening again?

Bill Bland wrote a book on the subject, aptly titled "The Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR."

Here is the introduction which briefly summarizes the Marxist-Leninist analysis of it: http://www.marxists.org/archive/bland/1980/restoration-capitalism-soviet-union/introduction.htm

Here is the full text: http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

reb

28th October 2013, 01:31

lol so I was right to laugh at Bill Bland. That article is so full of shit that I can't believe that you are posting it in good faith. The first sentence is where the real bullshit begins "After the Russian Revolution of November 1917, the official ideology of what became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was Marxism-Leninism". After? Yeah, way to use vague language to obscure history. try after the death of Lenin.

And it turns out that Bill Bland was in some way involved with that dumb website of classes that is linked to in the marxist-leninist group page. Presenting this incoherent dribble as marxism is beyond a joke. It is clearly just taking Stalin's Russia and then trying to justify every turn in policy that it took. Just look at this mess:

"5. HOW IS PRODUCTION REGULATED UNDER SOCIALISM?
Since profit (the motive and regulator of production under capitalism) has been abolished, production is regulated under socialism by centralised state planning, based on maximum democratic consultation with consumers so as to secure the maximum possible satisfaction of the needs of the working people."

The regulator of production under capitalism isn't profit, it's the law of value. Of course, Bill Bland can't say this because Stalin himself admitted that the law of value existed in the soviet union. But of course, profit wasn't abolished in the soviet union either and neither were prices they were just suppressed in speeches and on paper, but that's a different question altogether. I'm also laughing really hard at the "democratic consultation". Yeah, the working class had so much control over production, owned it infact, and the state that it had to go through this intermediate stage with the state. The phrase itself is so stupid. "Democratic consultation"? Really?

That whole thing is full of so much bullshit that it's just a joke. The worst thing is that it takes all of the agency out of the proletariat and turns it into a mindless mass that needs educating by the party.

La GuaneÃ±a

28th October 2013, 01:47

Comrade, if you want an idea of what current ML organizations look like, you could check out the KKE(Greece), PCV(Venezuela) or the PCI(Maoist) from India.

Questionable

28th October 2013, 02:50

lol so I was right to laugh at Bill Bland. That article is so full of shit that I can't believe that you are posting it in good faith.

Oh, please do tell. I'm sure this will end like every other encounter you've had with a Marxist-Leninist on this forum; you'll rant and rave about how stupid and laughable we are, and then when confronted, you'll say you don't debate with 'Stalinists' and essentially run away. Just like you did with me in the dictatorships thread, just like you did with Ismail in private messages.

The regulator of production under capitalism isn't profit, it's the law of value. Of course, Bill Bland can't say this because Stalin himself admitted that the law of value existed in the soviet union.

"Admitted" is an accusatory word and incorrect to use. Stalin stated that the law of value was connected to commodity production, that it did not undermine production in the USSR, but it existed and had to be taken into account, while also trying to diminish it on the way to communism:

"In our country distribution takes place according to labour. We have qualified and unqualified labour. How should we define an engineer's work? It is multiplied simple labour. With us incomes are distributed according to labour. It cannot be that this distribution happens independently of the law of value. We think that the entire economy is run according to the plan, but it does not always happen this way. There is a lot of spontaneity with us also. We knowingly, and not spontaneously, make calculations according to the law of value. In their system the law of value operates spontaneously, bringing in its wake destruction, and demands huge sacrifices. In our system the character of the law of value undergoes a change, it acquires a new content, a new form. We knowingly, and not spontaneously, set prices. Engels speaks of leaps. It is a risky formula, but it can be accepted, if we correctly understand the leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom. We must understand freedom of will as necessity recognised, where the leap means a transition from spontaneous inevitability to the recognition of necessity. In their system the law of value operates spontaneously and it leads to large-scale destruction. But we should conduct things in such a way that there are fewer sacrifices. The necessity resulting from the operation of the law of value must be used by us consciously."http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv4n2/5convers.htm

But does this mean that the operation of the law of value has as much scope with us as it has under capitalism, and that it is the regulator of production in our country too? No, it does not. Actually, the sphere of operation of the law of value under our economic system is strictly limited and placed within definite bounds. It has already been said that the sphere of operation of commodity production is restricted and placed within definite bounds by our system. The same must be said of the sphere of operation of the law of value. Undoubtedly, the fact that private ownership of the means of production does not exist, and that the means of production both in town and country are socialized, cannot but restrict the sphere of operation of the law of value and the extent of its influence on production.http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch04.htm
This is in contrast to the Soviet revisionists, who stated that the law of value actually regulated production.

But of course, profit wasn't abolished in the soviet union either and neither were prices they were just suppressed in speeches and on paper, but that's a different question altogether.

I don't know of any Soviet writings where they claimed to "suppress" profit or prices. The argument was that it was now part of a social profit, rather than being claimed by a bourgeoisie class.

There were also some interesting experiments in eliminating the status of certain products as commodities once an abundance had been created. Here's an example from an interview by your old pal Bill Bland:

JP: This is backtracking a bit, but I think that you visited the Soviet Union before the war?

WB: I went on holiday, in 1937.

JP: I think that when you were there they were trying the experiment of making bread free in the shops?

WB: They took the view at that time that communism was something to be introduced by instalments, not over night, not all at once in every field but gradually so that once production in a particular commodity became sufficient so this particular article could be communised, and at that time in Moscow I was informed that bread was now free. You could go into a shop and help yourself. Nothing else as far as I know, bread, yes.

JP: And they didn’t have people cleaning out the bakeries and taking all the bread?

WB: It worked. After all, you don’t, in most parts of the country, pay for your water by the gallon, it doesn’t mean you turn your tap on deliberately just to get something for nothing. People don’t, and I think its only a small step to changing peoples attitudes to realise that there is no point in taking more than you want.

http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.firstwave/bland-interview.htm

That whole thing is full of so much bullshit that it's just a joke. The worst thing is that it takes all of the agency out of the proletariat and turns it into a mindless mass that needs educating by the party.

You'll find no Marxist-Leninist writings that refer to the proletariat as a "mindless mass," which is a more fitting description of internet LeftComs such as yourself that swarm every thread related to the USSR. The Party is rather the highest form of working-class organization, and the only one historically proven to be capable of revolution.

Of course LeftCom sects such as the "Marxist-Humanist Initiative" have a huge problem with communists who try to actually do anything.

Comrade, if you want an idea of what current ML organizations look like, you could check out the KKE(Greece), PCV(Venezuela) or the PCI(Maoist) from India.

Don't forget influential 'Hoxhaist' organizations such as the PCMLE in Ecuador.

Ismail

28th October 2013, 02:55

The regulator of production under capitalism isn't profit, it's the law of value. Of course, Bill Bland can't say this because Stalin himself admitted that the law of value existed in the soviet union.I don't see how Bland "can't say this" if Stalin himself affirmed, contrary to certain Soviet revisionist economists at the time, that the law of value continued to exist in the Soviet economy. What's funny is some Trots actually denounce Stalin on this point and claim he was "wrong," supposedly because of his "muddled" understanding of Marxism.

The point is that the law of value (and thus profit as understood in the capitalist context) is controlled by the planned economy, it does not determine production (which it does in capitalism) but is taken into account.

I'm also laughing really hard at the "democratic consultation". Yeah, the working class had so much control over production, owned it infact, and the state that it had to go through this intermediate stage with the state. The phrase itself is so stupid. "Democratic consultation"? Really?Lenin spoke of the need for transmission belts and schools of communism, such as the trade unions. The interests of workers of all sorts of industries, with their differing situations, can hardly be reconciled through the workers' state otherwise.

Remus Bleys

28th October 2013, 21:34

Thanks for the replies, I think I'm starting to understand what Anti-Revisionist ML, is. I have never heard of Hoxha before, but he definitely sounds like someone I should study. Gonna study Ancient Mesopotamia next? Its certainly interesting, and I try to read what Ismail posts, but thats dead and gone

So far I have been reading Marx and Lenin, however I would like to broaden that to Stalin, Mao, and even Hoxha. Obviously, I'm still quite new to Marxism-Leninism, so I still need to develop my own ideas and what not. Does anyone know of any good resources, books, etc on Anti-Revisionist ML? Wait... so you havent even read stalin yet you are already a self described marxist-leninist?

(PS I've noticed that anti-ML sentiment is quite high on this forum:unsure:)Well, it is a leftist forum.

I always found it strange how the strongest real-world "communist" tendency (formerly pro-Soviet parties that think the USSR was socialist 'till Gorby) seems to have the smallest Internet presence, then again the size of the communist movement in English-speaking countries (sans South Africa) is nowadays tiny.
Im not trying to be facetious here, but could that be because they are all out doing something? Or its the fact that they are all old?

Remus Bleys

28th October 2013, 21:43

Anti-revisionists claim ideological orthodoxy to Marx, Engels, and Lenin. They also uphold Stalin as a great leader of the proletarian masses, or whatever other meaningless rhetoric you could use to praise the man. ARs, however, are usually split down Hoxha-Mao lines. The former arguing that Mao was a rightist and his policies were anti-Marxist, whereas the latter argue that Mao advanced Marxism-Leninism to a higher stage. Maoists usually insist that Hoxha was wrong in dismissing Maoism when he criticised Deng- throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Anti-revisionists come in two ways, one is a hoxhaists the other is a maoist. They claim ideological orthodoxy not to Marx, Engels or Lenin but to Stalin.

However, anti-revisionists are typically maoists, considering the fact hoxhaism exists rarely outside of revleft.

Rural Comrade

28th October 2013, 21:53

However, anti-revisionists are typically maoists, considering the fact hoxhaism exists rarely outside of revleft.

This is because Hoxhaism does not exist. Only those who uphold Marxist-Lenninism and Anti-Revisionism (I think thats part of the ML label regardless but oh well). Some may have wish to fallow Hoxha's path as if it were its own tendency but it isn't.

LiamChe

28th October 2013, 21:59

You'll find no Marxist-Leninist writings that refer to the proletariat as a "mindless mass," which is a more fitting description of internet LeftComs such as yourself that swarm every thread related to the USSR. The Party is rather the highest form of working-class organization, and the only one historically proven to be capable of revolution.

Of course LeftCom sects such as the "Marxist-Humanist Initiative" have a huge problem with communists who try to actually do anything.

I have noticed that these "Ultra-Lefts/Leftcoms" tend to love trolling MLs on here.

Wait... so you havent even read stalin yet you are already a self described marxist-leninist?

The term Marxism-Leninism may have been termed by Stalin, but Marxism-Leninism is deeply routed in Marx, Engels, and Lenin, whom I've decided to study first. I have only read overviews of some of Stalin's work.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

28th October 2013, 22:05

Remus Bleys

28th October 2013, 22:07

I have noticed that these "Ultra-Lefts/Leftcoms" tend to love trolling MLs on here. Funny from the guy who clearly knows nothing about his own tendency.

The term Marxism-Leninism may have been termed by Stalin, but Marxism-Leninism is deeply routed in Marx, Engels, and Lenin, whom I've decided to study first. I have only read overviews of some of Stalin's work.:rolleyes:
Yeah sure. Why not?

You came on to learning to learn and I am teaching you. Marxist-Leninism is the ideology of stalin, and when one says "Marxist-Leninist" (Marxism-Leninism ?) they mean the ideology of Stalin and Stalinist USSR.

Remus Bleys

28th October 2013, 22:27

You mean like Trots think that the "Stalinist bureaucracy" magically triumphed as soon as Lenin died? It's very easy to strawman other people's positions, but I don't see how that's productive.

Trotskyists do think that though Ismail. They're crazier than you!

Anyway, this in-and-of-itself is a bit of straw, as Per Levy isn't a trotskyist.

Questionable

29th October 2013, 01:32

Im not trying to be facetious here, but could that be because they are all out doing something? Or its the fact that they are all old?Well, the PSL, a Brezhnevite organization in Chicago, has an online recruitment page with testimonies from members describing their positive experiences with the party, most of them appearing to be young.

Source: http://www.pslweb.org/party/join/

This statement is pretty asinine nonetheless because it implies Revleft is like some sort of great hub of leftist activity. It's really a single droplet in the ocean of activity. It's really interesting to note that the Marxist-Leninist group is the second largest in the whole forum, yet 90% of its members no longer post. In a lot of cases they were banned for various reasons, and in many others they got tired of people like Remus dragging down the intellectual level of the forum and decided enough was enough.

They claim ideological orthodoxy not to Marx, Engels or Lenin but to Stalin.This is complete bogus. The truth is that Marxist-Leninists consider there to be a direct line of continuity through Marx and Stalin, so by upholding Stalin we obviously uphold his predecessors.

However, anti-revisionists are typically maoists, considering the fact hoxhaism exists rarely outside of revleft.This is, once again, just plain wrong, and is really laughable coming from someone who describes himself as an "Ultraleft Leninist." There are multiple 'Hoxhaist' parties in the world, notable ones being in Ecuador, Spain, and Canada. There's also an international organization called the the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) which has regular conferences and publications, with most of its members being based in Latin America.

You came on to learning to learn and I am teaching you.You are teaching him that Left-Wing Communism is an infantile disorder by belittling a newcomer asking honest question because he doesn't conform to your sectarianism, and for that, I should be thanking you.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 01:38

Well, the PSL, a Brezhnevite organization in Chicago, has an online recruitment page with testimonies from members describing their positive experiences with the party, most of them appearing to be young.

Source: http://www.pslweb.org/party/join/I don't believe propaganda. I see its worth, but that doesn't make it credible.

This is complete bogus. The truth is that Marxist-Leninists consider there to be a direct line of continuity through Marx and Stalin, so by upholding Stalin we obviously uphold his predecessors.
Im not having a repeat of this.

This is, once again, just plain wrong, and is really laughable coming from someone who describes himself as an "Ultraleft Leninist." Irony is lost on Hoxhaists it seems.
Also, I am inspired by both ultraleftists and lenin.

There are multiple 'Hoxhaist' parties in the world, notable ones being in Ecuador, Spain, and Canada.I am not sure about the Spain or Canada, but the party in Ecudor is irrelevant.

There's also an international organization called the the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) which has regular conferences and publications, with most of its members being based in Latin America.
Left communism has the ICC and ICT

You are teaching him that Left-Wing Communism is an infantile disorder by belittling a newcomer asking honest question because he doesn't conform to your sectarianism, and for that, I should be thanking you.
You are showing what an ass you are again. I have no time nor patience for someone who denies that what you know as marxism-leninism everyone else knows as stalinism.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 01:45

This statement is pretty asinine nonetheless because it implies Revleft is like some sort of great hub of leftist activity. It's really a single droplet in the ocean of activity. It's really interesting to note that the Marxist-Leninist group is the second largest in the whole forum, yet 90% of its members no longer post. In a lot of cases they were banned for various reasons, and in many others they got tired of people like Remus dragging down the intellectual level of the forum and decided enough was enough.
.:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
I can't believe I missed this.
Wow, so its the guy who literally uncritically supports everything some nobody of some shithole country (am I making you mad yet?) said and did who holds the intelligent debates?
roflmao

Questionable

29th October 2013, 01:49

I don't believe propaganda. I see its worth, but that doesn't make it credible.I think it's more believable that the demographic distribution of Marxist-Leninist organizations does indeed include young people than saying this is a conspiracy of old people.

Irony is lost on Hoxhaists it seems.The only irony here is that a 'Left Leninist,' a tendency which was literally invented on Revleft, is calling Marxist-Leninists an internet phenomenon, especially when he's empirically wrong.

I am not sure about the Spain or Canada,It would probably be wise of you to not speak authoritatively on a topic which you admit to knowing nothing about.

but the party in Ecudor is irrelevant.Irrelevant according to whom? You? It was significiant enough to gain parliament seats in a recent election, and has an armed branch which actively carries out struggle against the Ecuadorian state, and is significant enough to be placed on a list of terrorist organizations.

Left communism has the ICC and ICTI never claimed LeftComs didn't have some kind of equivalent. The point was that your accusation of Marxist-Leninists being a Revleft tendency is totally incorrect.

I have no time nor patience for someone who denies that what you know as marxism-leninism everyone else knows as stalinism.You were patient enough to bully a newcomer who arrived here looking for help learning.

(am I making you mad yet?)

I feel rather calm. Usually it's you who gets angry, starts cussing at Ismail and I, and typing in huge bold text about how stupid we are.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 01:59

The PCMLE doesn't "actively carry out armed struggle against the Ecuadorian state." I think it did in the 70's, then it created the MPD.

From a 2004 interview (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv10n1/ecuador.htm):

PCMLE is not a legal party, so we put up candidates through another political formation called the Movement for Popular Democracy (MPD). MPD is not a Communist Party on its own and only a means of expressing the goals of the PCMLE – it is a democratic and patriotic party. It is legal and anyone can join it.

Through the MPD, we always had our own candidate for Presidential elections since 1978. In 1986 our candidate was the fourth out of eight candidates for presidency.

The MPD has passed the 5 percent of votes required, more than 200,000 votes, to be a recognized political party in Ecuador and we have three deputies in parliament. At the local level we have over 160 councillors in various cities. To give some context about the electoral situation in Ecuador you must know that the largest party in the country receives only 12 percent of the votes and we have 5 percent.

Within the PCMLE we don’t think we can get power through peaceful means. We participate in the elections but not to get power, it is only a step in that direction. ‘Popular power cannot be constructed step by step – it has to be taken forcefully. We want to make a big front against neo-liberalism. One way is through the MPD.

We are also seeking to create the conditions for armed struggle. We are not calling for a socialist revolution but a democratic and anti-imperialist one. It is not possible to go for socialist revolution in the first step.Jaime Hurtado was the MPD candidate for President in the 80's and 90's. The PCMLE was recognized by the Party of Labour of Albania as a fraternal party and Hurtado and others did visit the country during the socialist period. He was assassinated during the 1999 election.

It is worth noting that unlike the revisionist parties in Ecuador, the MPD is firmly against the Correa government and its pseudo-leftist rhetoric.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 02:03

I haven't been studying Marxism-Leninism that long, but I have been confused about a term I've heard people use and that is Anti-Revisionist Marxism-Leninism. Is this a type of ML ideology or just another name for Marxism-Leninism? If they are different, then what is the difference between ML and Anti-Revisionist ML?

The "Revisionism" term you refer was just a slander used to conceal national rivalries and geo-political interests.

It hadn't any real or ideological substance unlike the original "revisionism" term which was applied to those who defended a "gradualist" way of achieving socialism by the ones who continued advocated an immediate overthrowing of the existing political institutions and social relations.

The term "revisionism" as applied in the second half of the XX Century completely ignores material conditions and social relations which basically deprives Marxism (-Leninism) of its cornerstone: the scientific and materialist approach of the world and its social process.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:04

I think it's more believable that the demographic distribution of Marxist-Leninist organizations does indeed include young people than saying this is a conspiracy of old people.
How many are committed Marxist-Leninists? Compare that too how many are left liberal lifestylists who feel radical because theyre part of an active party?

But yet again, you use argumentum ad populum. Which is strange for a self described american communist to use

The only irony here is that a 'Left Leninist,' a tendency which was literally invented on Revleft, is calling Marxist-Leninists an internet phenomenon, especially when he's empirically wrong.Straw is half off where Questionable lives.

It would probably be wise of you to not speak authoritatively on a topic which you admit to knowing nothing about.
So I didnt you fuck.

Irrelevant according to whom? You? My family in Ecuador. Unless you, an american teenager, know more about Ecuadorean politics than Ecuadorean. Unless you care to demonstrate how exactly any of this matters.

It was significiant enough to gain parliament seats in a recent election,:laugh:
How utterly Revolutionary.

and has an armed branch which actively carries out struggle against the Ecuadorian state,edit: I see Ismail has shown this to be wrong.

and is significant enough to be placed on a list of terrorist organizations.How edgy.

Hamas literally fits all of these descriptions.

I never claimed LeftComs didn't have some kind of equivalent. The point was that your accusation of Marxist-Leninists being a Revleft tendency is totally incorrect. I didn't say marxist-leninism, i said hoxhaism (anti-revisionist marxist leninist whatever), which is irrelevant.

You were patient enough to bully a newcomer who arrived here looking for help learning.
I didn't "bully" him. He's already subscribed to Mao and Stalin without ever reading them. Then he starts spouting shit off he doesn't know.
I remember when I did that, people needed to be aggressive about it to get me to stop.

I feel rather calm. Usually it's you who gets angry, starts cussing at Ismail and I, and typing in huge bold text about how stupid we are. I do that to help you and Ismails reading comprehension; you both obviously can't understand the essence of an argument or the main ideas without it being boldly and largely pointed out to you, but even then.
And does anyone think that you are completely innocent?
Get the fuck off of your cross you martyr.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:05

The "Revisionism" term you refer was just a slander used to conceal national rivalries and geo-political interests.

It hadn't any real substance unlike the original "revisionism" term which was applied to those who defended a "gradualist" way of achieving socialism by the ones who continued advocated an immediate overthrowing of the existing political institutions and social relations.

The term "revisionism" as applied in the second half of the XX Century completely ignores material conditions and social relations which basically deprives Marxism (-Leninism) of its cornerstone: the scientific and materialist approach of the world and its social process.No doubt praising Ba'athist Iraq and the Burmese military junta as pursuing "non-capitalist development," as the Soviet revisionists did, was just one of many ways they expressed their "scientific and materialist approach of the world and its social process." Nothing revisionist about presenting persons like Nasser and Nehru as "building socialism" either, right?

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 02:12

No doubt praising Ba'athist Iraq and the Burmese military junta as pursuing "non-capitalist development," as the Soviet revisionists did, was just one of many ways they expressed their "scientific and materialist approach of the world and its social process."

This is a good example of the idealistic nature of the ML Anti-Revisionism.

Just because the USSR praised Ba'athist Iraq and the Burmese military junta as pursuing "non-capitalist development" this means that social relations were subverted in USSR and capitalism was restored.

We have other good examples though like the XX Congress of the CPSU.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:13

This is a good example of the idealistic nature of the ML Anti-Revisionism.

Just because the USSR praised Ba'athist Iraq and the Burmese military junta as pursuing "non-capitalist development" this means that social relations were subverted in USSR and capitalism was restored.Yes, the Albanians and Chinese literally argued that the moment the Soviet revisionists praised the Burmese regime, this meant capitalism was restored in the USSR. Where do you people come up with these inane non-answers and strawmen?

The fact is that under Stalin the likes of Nasser and Nehru were denounced. Under Khrushchev and onwards a difference of 180 degrees was adopted; Stalin's policy was denounced as "sectarian" and "dogmatic," Nehru went from being denounced as a comprador bourgeoisie of British and American imperialism to a leader presiding over the "construction of socialism" in India. This new-found praise for Nehru tied into the imperialist relationship the USSR proceeded to enter into with India, which was part and parcel of the Soviet revisionists adopting a social-imperialist foreign policy line, which was based on the restoration of capitalism they were presiding over in their own country.

Questionable

29th October 2013, 02:16

How many are committed Marxist-Leninists? Compare that too how many are left liberal lifestylists who feel radical because theyre part of an active party?There's obviously no way for me to measure the ideological purity of each member of the party, but if you're going to accuse them of being mere radical liberals, I'd say the burden of proof is on you.

But yet again, you use argumentum ad populum.I'm critically supportive of the PSL. Their activism is good, but their theory and history, as well as their Dengist lines on nations like China, is flawed. The reason I bought them up in the first place is because you said Marxist-Leninist parties were full of old people.

Regardless, I still think it's laughable that Leftcoms want to vilify active movements. The PSL isn't correct simply because it has numbers, but it does say a lot about their strategy and tactics as opposed to Leftcom groups which often end up being intellectual cadres with no connection to the working-class.

Straw is half off where Questionable lives.It amuses me how badly you try to accuse me of using strawman arguments, but you have literally not used the definition correctly since you began doing so. Not once.

So I didnt you fuck.You claimed that 'Hoxhaists' were a Revleft phenomenon. When I pointed out the existence of influential 'Hoxhaist' parties, you admitted that you knew nothing about them, meaning you were speaking out of your ass at first.

My family in Ecuador. Unless you, an american teenager, know more about Ecuadorean politics than Ecuadorean.You haven't really explained what makes them irrelevant. Based on what I can tell, they're irrelevant because you don't like them. You've given me no reason to think differently.

How utterly Revolutionary.Leninists have never denied using parliament to draw popularity to themselves, although they realize that it won't result in revolution, which is the line that the MPD follows.

The rest of your "criticisms" of the PCMLE are juvenile and without substance.

Get the fuck off of your cross you martyr.There's that temper flaring up again.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:17

My family in Ecuador. Unless you, an american teenager, know more about Ecuadorean politics than Ecuadorean. Unless you care to demonstrate how exactly any of this matters.FYI I spoke to a random Ecuadorian on a gaming site once, who was not at all a communist. He was aware of the MPD, mainly through its influence among teachers. As for communists, I knew a Chilean commie whose professor said he was a member of Acción Proletaria, the pro-Albanian party in that country.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:19

I'm critically supportive of the PSLDone.
There is literally no point in ever talking or replying to you ever again.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:21

FYI I spoke to a random Ecuadorian on a gaming site once, who was not at all a communist. He was aware of the MPD, mainly through its influence among teachers.Anecdotal evidence is the best.
As for communists, I knew a Chilean commie whose professor said he was a member of Acción Proletaria, the pro-Albanian party in that country.
Im only really aware of Ecuadoran and American politics, as I said.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:24

Anecdotal evidence is the best.You're the one who brought up your Ecuadorian family. The fact is that a non-communist Ecuadorian (who was posting about a video game on a site dedicated to said game) knew what the MPD was and could even criticize its policies from a liberal position. This is what he said back then:

MPD is a political party that is very close to the syndicates of teachers, normaly they stand for fair things, like salaries and health care for teachers. But now they are asking for something unfair.
The goverment has taken good care of teachers and in return the goverment wants to evaluate the teachers and if any teacher is not qualified, they could get fired (first capacitation, later a second exam and if failed also, then fired). Well the MPD party is supporting the teachers syndicates without hesitation.This is a pretty good indication that the MPD is not irrelevant. How many non-communist Ecuadorians could name whatever "left-communist" group (if any) exists there?

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:31

You're the one who brought up your Ecuadorian family. The fact is that a non-communist Ecuadorian (who was posting about a video game on a site dedicated to said game) knew what the MPD was and could even criticize its policies from a liberal position. This is what he said back then:
This is a pretty good indication that the MPD is not irrelevant. How many non-communist Ecuadorians could name whatever "left-communist" group (if any) exists there?
The difference of course, Ismail, is that my family is not some random anon I met on a gaming site. My family is someone who has deep connections with someone.

And even if all of your story is true, I am currently housing a girl from the former East Germany (granted born in 95) who doesn't even know what the DDR is. One person's evidence is not enough.
I would say my extended family is. Even if you don't believe me, its proof enough for me.

Some people are more politically knowledgable about others.
In addition, ones stance on education is not evidence for being revolutionary or not. Im sure the CPUSA supports strikes.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:33

The difference of course, Ismail, is that my family is not some random anon I met on a gaming site. My family is someone who has deep connections with someone.

And even if all of your story is true, I am currently housing a girl from the former East Germany (granted born in 95) who doesn't even know what the DDR is. One person's evidence is not enough.
I would say my extended family is. Even if you don't believe me, its proof enough for me.

Some people are more politically knowledgable about others.
In addition, ones stance on education is not evidence for being revolutionary or not. Im sure the CPUSA supports strikes.You said the PCMLE and MPD were irrelevant. I pointed out they are not. You obviously wouldn't consider the PCMLE revolutionary no matter what, and I could not care less what you think is and isn't "revolutionary."

As an aside, a February 2013 post on a political forum by someone knowledgeable about Ecuadorian politics, discussing the MPD in relation to other parties/coalitions:

It is heavy linked with the trade unions, especially the teachers' union (UNE) and in the past the party had covertly traded its support in return of retaining unions' privileges. It also had sometimes employed violence but never follow the path of armed struggle as the Shining Path did in Peru. In 2002, the MPD supported Gutiérrez's candidacy but broke with him when he endorsed a privatization agenda. However, in a bizarre move, it reentered coalition with Gutiérrez in November 2004 until the fall of the latter in April 2005 and was subsequently punished by voters in the 2006 elections.

The MPD supported Correa's government until the passage of a law reforming the notoriously ineffective education system. The law undermined the patronage of the UNE over the recruitment of teachers and, according to Correa's opponents, set up a new patronage on behalf of Correa.

The MPD tends to have his best results in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, also one of the poorest Ecuadorian provinces, and home to important oil refinery. Afro-Ecuadorians account here for around 45% of total population. MPD had historically been the only party to actively promote Afro-Ecuadorians to effective leadership positions. In 1984, it nominated Jaime Hurtado as the first Afro-Ecuadorian to run in a presidential election and Hurtado became then the party's leader until his assassination in 1999. Lenín Hurtado, Jaime's son, is a a MPD bigwig and is currently running for Guayas deputy.

While the MPD could be seen as a sectarian and corrupt party, it however has achieved some local success. In 2000, trade-unionist Ernesto Estupiñán was elected mayor of the dilapidated and dirty city of Esmeraldas (the first Afro-Ecuadorian mayor of a major city) and successively transformed it into a modern city with functional infrastructure. For some reason, he faced a difficult reelection in 2009 and barely defeated his Roldosist opponent. That same year, the MPD candidate to prefect (equivalent to U.S. governor) of Esmeraldas province defeated his PAIS opponent, a former provincial leader of PRIAN, by ten points.This makes it very obvious that the MPD is not irrelevant.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 02:35

Yes, the Albanians and Chinese literally argued that the moment the Soviet revisionists praised the Burmese regime, this meant capitalism was restored in the USSR. Where do you people come up with these inane non-answers and strawmen?

You just proved my point.

The fact is that under Stalin the likes of Nasser and Nehru were denounced. Under Khrushchev and onwards a difference of 180 degrees was adopted; Stalin's policy was denounced as "sectarian" and "dogmatic," Nehru went from being denounced as a comprador bourgeoisie of British and American imperialism to a leader presiding over the "construction of socialism" in India. This new-found praise for Nehru tied into the imperialist relationship the USSR proceeded to enter into with India, which was part and parcel of the Soviet revisionists adopting a social-imperialist foreign policy line, which was based on the restoration of capitalism they were presiding over in their own country.

The relationship between India and USSR was already changing in the last years of Stalin and the trade relations between the two countries were formed while Stalin was still in charge.

The idea of a USSR non-imperialist under Stalin and a USSR imperialist post-Stalin is another good example of how idealistic ML Anti-revisionists are and shows how weak its argument line is.

synthesis

29th October 2013, 02:39

Regardless, I still think it's laughable that Leftcoms want to vilify active movements. The PSL isn't correct simply because it has numbers, but it does say a lot about their strategy and tactics as opposed to Leftcom groups which often end up being intellectual cadres with no connection to the working-class.

If I had to choose, I'd rather do nothing than be a part of an anti-working class organization that has uncritically supported disastrously anti-working class figures and movements and whose ideology has never accomplished anything except perhaps furthering the mode of capitalism in their respective countries.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:40

You just proved my point.Except I was being sarcastic. The polemics against Soviet revisionism had already begun before the Burmese junta took power.

The relationship between India and USSR was already changing in the last years of Stalin and the trade relations between the two countries were formed while Stalin was still in charge.Of course trade relations were formed, why wouldn't they be? That has nothing to do with presenting Nehru and Co. as "socialists," nor with establishing an imperialist relationship vis-à-vis India.

"In June 1955 Nehru went to Moscow on an official visit during which he was accorded honours never before granted to a foreign non-Communist statesman. Hasty steps were taken to eliminate from Soviet textbooks and reference books the earlier, Stalinist, assessment of Nehru as a 'lackey of imperialism', and his book, The Discovery of India, full of non-Marxist ideas, was brought out in a Russian edition. He was also permitted the unprecedented honour of addressing a mass open-air meeting in Moscow. In talks with the Soviet leaders, he agreed to an increase in Soviet-Indian trade and the Russians undertook to construct a steel mill in India."
(David Floyd. Mao Against Khrushchev: A Short History of the Sino-Soviet Conflict. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1963. p. 24.)

What's funny is that Soviet social-imperialism in India was actually studied quite a bit by anti-revisionists. You can find ample evidence of this relationship here: http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7-Ch4.pdf

And in the chapter "Soviet Economic Relations with India and Other Third World Countries" here: http://www.bannedthought.net/USSR/RCP-Docs/SovietUnion-Debate1983.pdf

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:43

You said the PCMLE and MPD were irrelevant. I pointed out they are not. You obviously wouldn't consider the PCMLE revolutionary no matter what, and I could not care less what you think is and isn't "revolutionary."
Social Democratic parties can't be Revolutionary...

As an aside, a February 2013 post on a political forum by someone knowledgeable about Ecuadorian politics, discussing the MPD in relation to other parties/coalitions:
This makes it very obvious that the MPD is not irrelevant.
This quote literally proves my point.

" It also had sometimes employed violence but never follow the path of armed struggle as the Shining Path did in Peru."

"In 2002, the MPD supported Gutiérrez's candidacy but broke with him when he endorsed a privatization agenda. However, in a bizarre move, it reentered coalition with Gutiérrez in November 2004 until the fall of the latter in April 2005 and was subsequently punished by voters in the 2006 elections."

"The MPD supported Correa's government until the passage of a law reforming the notoriously ineffective education system. The law undermined the patronage of the UNE over the recruitment of teachers and, according to Correa's opponents, set up a new patronage on behalf of Correa."

"While the MPD could be seen as a sectarian and corrupt party, it however has achieved some local success. "

Honestly, they sound like social democrats. Which is nice and all, but it isn't communist nor is it revolutionary.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:47

This quote literally proves my point.I don't know why you bolded the bit pointing out they didn't become the Ecuadorian version of the Shining Path. Not like "left-coms" advocate armed struggle under a vanguard to begin with.

In the end you claimed the PCMLE and MPD were irrelevant. Are you ready to recant that remark?

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:53

I don't know why you bolded the bit pointing out they didn't become the Ecuadorian version of the Shining Path. Not like "left-coms" advocate armed struggle under a vanguard to begin with.

In the end you claimed the PCMLE and MPD were irrelevant. Are you ready to recant that remark?
As far as doing things in parliament? Yes they are irrelevant. As far as unions? They have influence. Not as much as you are making it out to be.
As far as change? Realistically? No.
Revolutionaries? Nope.

In the purpose of this discussion, I assumed we were talking about relevant to Revolution. In which case, no I won't.

They aren't even revolutionary by their own standards, regardless of what the left com view is.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 02:56

In the purpose of this discussion, I assumed we were talking about relevant to Revolution. In which case, no I won't.Realistically speaking, no group on this entire planet is "relevant to Revolution" in the sense of being able to affect one right now. As far as having an influence among leftists, though, I'd say that the PCMLE and MPD do clearly have such influence. Remember, the MPD is not just comprised of PCMLE members.

reb

29th October 2013, 02:56

Come on, the OP asked a genuine question, "What are MLs/Anti-revisionists?" not "Why are anti-revisionists stoopid?"

It is a grim day when I read a thread and find posts by anti-revisionists more theoretically sound than posts by their detractors. Ismail and Questionable are taking the time to write considered posts, citing relevant ML sources. And the responses they're getting? One-liners!

For fuck's sake, take a few minutes to engage seriously, or at least post some links. Trolling is vulgar internet-Marxism.

If I can't post about how anti-revisionist marxism is revisionist and shouldn't be taken seriously then the whole world of internet marxism is doomed. There is no way that people should take those hack citations to be worth anything.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 02:58

Realistically speaking, no group on this entire planet is "relevant to Revolution" in the sense of being able to affect one right now. As far as having an influence among leftists, though, I'd say that the PCMLE and MPD do clearly have such influence. Remember, the MPD is not just comprised of PCMLE members.
By which I meant broader terms. Revolutionary under any circumstances.

If anything, I'd say they're as detrimental as social democrats.

I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.

LiamChe

29th October 2013, 03:11

As far as doing things in parliament? Yes they are irrelevant. As far as unions? They have influence. Not as much as you are making it out to be.
As far as change? Realistically? No.
Revolutionaries? Nope.

In the purpose of this discussion, I assumed we were talking about relevant to Revolution. In which case, no I won't.

They aren't even revolutionary by their own standards, regardless of what the left com view is.

So you'd rather revolutionaries sit on their butts and do nothing to help show the proletariat that a communist society is possible? That's a very idealistic view. If the working class could bring communism to existence without the help of a Communist Party, then we would already be living in a communist society today. But we as revolutionaries must face reality and devise strategies to win over the working class and mobilize them to overthrow capitalism (so long as those tactics are solely in Proletarian interests). Winning over Unions is anything but irrelevant. Its a way for Organizations like the PCMLE and MPD, to get their message to the masses and for there to be a truly anti-capitalist movement present within the Worker's movement.

Remus Bleys

29th October 2013, 03:17

So you'd rather revolutionaries sit on their butts and do nothing to help show the proletariat that a communist society is possible? That's a very idealistic view. If the working class could bring communism to existence without the help of a Communist Party, then we would already be living in a communist society today. But we as revolutionaries must face reality and devise strategies to win over the working class and mobilize them to overthrow capitalism (so long as those tactics are solely in Proletarian interests). Winning over Unions is anything but irrelevant. Its a way for Organizations like the PCMLE and MPD, to get their message to the masses and for there to be a truly anti-capitalist movement present within the Worker's movement.

Its funny you thought I was criticizing them being with unions. (However, I might, depending on labor aristcrcay, Next time I see my aunt ill ask.)
I was criticizing them for being pro capitalist and for being social democrats, not revolutionaries.
As synthesis said, id rather join an truly (in the sense that ismail was talking about) irrelevantleftcom group than an antiworking class group.
Which ismail should understand, as he is a hoxhaist in america.

On phone right now,if I wasn't id address your other bs criticism.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 03:26

Of course trade relations were formed, why wouldn't they be? That has nothing to do with presenting Nehru and Co. as "socialists," nor with establishing an imperialist relationship vis-à-vis India.

It showed how USSR-India relations were already changing in the last of Stalin years and how its trade relations began before Stalin died.

Imperialist relationship? I don't remember of any Soviet leader post-Stalin of violating India sovereignty and forcing decisions upon their government. I do remember some soviet leader doing this with another sovereignty country though.

As far as calling Nehru a socialist I don't see how that magically changes social relations in USSR.

"Russian concern at the prospect of declining influence in Asia soon became apparent in the efforts they made to improve relations with India. In June 1955 Nehru went to Moscow on an official visit during which he was accorded honours never before granted to a foreign non-Communist statesman. Hasty steps were taken to eliminate from Soviet textbooks and reference books the earlier, Stalinist, assessment of Nehru as a 'lackey of imperialism', and his book, The Discovery of India, full of non-Marxist ideas, was brought out in a Russian edition. He was also permitted the unprecedented honour of addressing a mass open-air meeting in Moscow. In talks with the Soviet leaders, he agreed to an increase in Soviet-Indian trade and the Russians undertook to construct a steel mill in India."(David Floyd. Mao Against Khrushchev: A Short History of the Sino-Soviet Conflict. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1963. p. 24.)

And then what? Social relations changed in USSR after the steel mill was constructed in India?

What's funny is that Soviet social-imperialism in India was actually studied quite a bit by anti-revisionists. You can find ample evidence of this relationship here: http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7-Ch4.pdf

And in the chapter "Soviet Economic Relations with India and Other Third World Countries" here: http://www.bannedthought.net/USSR/RCP-Docs/SovietUnion-Debate1983.pdf

Even more funny than that are those "anti-revisionist" articles which are nothing more than political propaganda and are easily debunked by a more impartial source.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 03:32

It showed how USSR-India relations were already changing in the last of Stalin years and how its trade relations began before Stalin died.No it doesn't, the establishment of trade relations began, I'm pretty sure, not long after India itself declared independence. Lenin and Stalin strove to establish diplomatic and trade relations with all countries willing to cooperate with the USSR in these areas on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, including with such countries as the UK and USA (whose respective communist parties denounced their governments for trying to undermine the Soviet Union and its economy through their obstructionist policies in the 20's and 30's.)

No one is taking issue with the fact that the USSR under Lenin onwards traded with other countries. That's not where charges of social-imperialism under the revisionists lay.

Imperialist relationship? I don't remember of any Soviet leader post-Stalin of violating India sovereignty and forcing decisions upon their government. I do remember some soviet leader doing this with another sovereignty country though.Actually Soviet social-imperialist agreements did bound India to Soviet dictate and economic plunder, as the two articles make clear.

As far as calling Nehru a socialist I don't see how that magically changes social relations in USSR.It doesn't. It does, however, indicate that such relations were changing, unless you can explain otherwise why the Soviet Government and Party theoreticians changed their positions within two years of Stalin's death, not just on India but on all sorts of countries.

Even more funny than that are those "anti-revisionist" articles which are nothing more than political propaganda and are easily debunked by a more impartial source.Great, let's hear of a source that debunks the specific allegations made in regards to Soviet social-imperialism in India.

synthesis

29th October 2013, 03:49

So you'd rather revolutionaries sit on their butts and do nothing to help show the proletariat that a communist society is possible? That's a very idealistic view. If the working class could bring communism to existence without the help of a Communist Party, then we would already be living in a communist society today. But we as revolutionaries must face reality and devise strategies to win over the working class and mobilize them to overthrow capitalism (so long as those tactics are solely in Proletarian interests). Winning over Unions is anything but irrelevant. Its a way for Organizations like the PCMLE and MPD, to get their message to the masses and for there to be a truly anti-capitalist movement present within the Worker's movement.

The fact that you refer to Marxist-Leninists as "we" and the working class as "them" is very telling.

And yes, I'd personally rather that you "sit on your butts and do nothing" than further pollute the name of Marxism with this substitutionist, paternalistic garbage.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 03:51

No it doesn't, the establishment of trade relations began, I'm pretty sure, not long after India itself declared independence. Lenin and Stalin strove to establish diplomatic and trade relations with all countries willing to cooperate with the USSR in these areas on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, including with such countries as the UK and USA (whose respective communist parties denounced their governments for trying to undermine the Soviet Union and its economy through their obstructionist policies in the 20's and 30's.)

LOL. So I say that trade relations began before Stalin died. You say no and then....you say that it began when India declared independence when Stalin was obviously alive.

Actually Soviet social-imperialist agreements did bound India to Soviet dictate and economic plunder, as the two articles make clear.No, the articles don't make anything clear. But feel free to point out examples of Indian ministers being called to Moscow to be forced by the soviet government to take decisions more favorably to the USSR.

It doesn't. It does, however, indicate that such relations were changing, unless you can explain why the Soviet Government and Party theoreticians changed their positions within two years of Stalin's death, not just on India but on all sorts of countries.Stalin himself changed his position several times on all sort of matters. That is part of the scientific method which is not static or religious like anti-Ml pretend to be.

Great, let's hear of a source that debunks the specific allegations made in regards to Soviet social-imperialism in India.What specific allegations are you talking about?

Ismail

29th October 2013, 03:59

LOL. So I say that trade relations began before Stalin died. You say no and then....you say that it began when India declared independence when Stalin was obviously alive.Anyone can see what I said: "Of course trade relations were formed, why wouldn't they be? That has nothing to do with presenting Nehru and Co. as 'socialists,' nor with establishing an imperialist relationship vis-à-vis India."

Again, no one is taking issue with the fact trade relations existed. What is important is what the content of those relations were, because obviously the economic relationship between, say, France and Côte d'Ivoire had little in common with that between Socialist Albania and Tanzania. It is up to you to find an imperialist relationship existing between India and the USSR under Stalin.

No, the articles don't make anything clear. But feel free to point out examples of Indian ministers being called to Moscow to be forced by the soviet government to take decisions more favorably to the USSR.I point out imperialist relationships based on Lenin's criteria, you point out the opposite.

Stalin himself changed his position several times on all sort of matters. That is part of the scientific method which is not static or religious like anti-Ml try to be.There was nothing "scientific" about what the Soviet revisionists did in revising the analysis of countries like India, Egypt, Yugoslavia, etc., unless you'd like to argue otherwise.

What specific allegations are you talking about?The allegations made in the two PDFs. The first one is only 21 pages and of those pages 4-8 deal with India. I'm pretty sure you can read five pages.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 04:13

Anyone can see what I said: "Of course trade relations were formed, why wouldn't they be? That has nothing to do with presenting Nehru and Co. as 'socialists,' nor with establishing an imperialist relationship vis-à-vis India."

Again, no one is taking issue with the fact trade relations existed. What is important is what the content of those relations were, because obviously the economic relationship between, say, France and Côte d'Ivoire had little in common with that between Socialist Albania and Tanzania. It is up to you to find an imperialist relationship existing between India and the USSR under Stalin.

You messed up pretty bad here. The question was when trade relations began between India and USSR. Simply as that.

I point out imperialist relationships based on Lenin's criteria, you point out the opposite.

And how it was a imperialist relationship between USSR and India based on Lenin's criteria?

There was nothing "scientific" about what the Soviet revisionists did in revising the Soviet analysis of countries like India, Egypt, Yugoslavia, etc., unless you'd like to argue otherwise.

Sure there is. Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt (Yugoslavia is another matter).

The allegations made in the two PDFs. The first one is only 21 pages and of those pages 4-8 deal with India. I'm pretty sure you can read five pages.

I red it. And I ask again. What specific allegations?

Ismail

29th October 2013, 04:23

You messed up pretty bad here. The question was when trade relations began between India and USSR. Simply as that.And I pointed out the question was irrelevant, because the issue was not trade relations.

Sure there is. Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt (Yugoslavia is another matter).How were they changing? How did India ever get closer to "constructing socialism"? How can a regime that carried out a sterilization campaign against the poor (as Indira Gandhi's did) be considered in any way favorable to the working-class? How can a regime that imprisoned Communists (as Nasser's did) be considered as pursuing the "non-capitalist road"?

I red it. And I ask again. What specific allegations?For example, PDF page 6: "Most of the Soviet economic 'aid' goes to build entire industrial enterprises that are constructed under the direction of Soviet engineers and bosses. Even an Indian parliamentary committee was forced to criticize the Soviets 'overbearing attitudes in much the same way as the government found fault with Americans in the past.' By keeping the blueprints and the engineers firmly in Soviet hands, the social-imperialists further maintain the dependence of India on the USSR...

In fiscal year 1971 to 1972, India asked Moscow for a new loan of 200 million rupees while it still owed 400 million! By 1968 the 'debt service ration' reached 28% of India's export earnings. This means that 28% of all the money India takes in from the sale of commodities around the world goes simply to make payments on Soviet loans. The situation is so bad that even an Indian writer sympathetic to the Soviet Union writes, 'It is not unlikely that in coming years the credits from the USSR will be used for repaying old debts and credit receipts will only mean that India's export earnings will be available mostly for importing goods and services.' This is the same as re-financing your home—you borrow more money to pay the bank you borrowed from in the first place. This is further proof of the subservience of India to Soviet social-imperialism...

In 1972, Mishra, the Indian Minister of Foreign Trade, said, 'India was ready to undertake production of labor intensive items for the Soviet Union', and that 'India could specialize in certain fields and items and produce them to meet Soviet requirements as well.' On June 9, 1972, the Journal of Commerce reported that India and the Soviet Union were negotiating four conversion deals under which Indian plants will actually process Soviet raw materials and then re-export the finished product back to the Soviet Union. This is nothing other than the runaway shop!"

There's also the issue of how foreign agreements with India were "tied," as mentioned on page 5 of the PDF. This was not unique to India; a bourgeois academic article noted that, "Moscow enforced severe restrictions on the economic aid that flowed to Africa. Loans and trade credits supplied could only be spent in the Soviet Union and other CMEA countries... in Guinea, Soviet help in building a bauxite plant at Kindia was to be repaid with deliveries of 2 million tons of bauxite ore a year for 30 years, assuring the Soviets a steady supply of the mineral. Interestingly, when an American company, Agripetco, tried to reach a similar agreement in Ghana in 1980, there was an uproar and charges of 'American exploitation.'" (Problems of Communism Jan-April 1992, p. 213.)

RedBen

29th October 2013, 05:13

(PS I've noticed that anti-ML sentiment is quite high on this forum:unsure:)
there are marxist lenninists here. lots of shit slinging and sectarian arguments, but marxist lenninists are here, just like trots, anarchists... ect. read and decide for yourself who you think is a revisionist, and also keep in mind you may not accept everything marx ever wrote as gospel truth. keep an open and objective mindset. don't take everything to heart, just do your research and don't let an anonymous online insult sway you. read and judge for yourself. you may find you are not a ML, you might find you are and hold it close to your heart. at the end of the day accept constructive answers to your questions and don't give too much thought to very negative ones. there are days and weeks worth of reading you will dedicate your life to easily. happy reading.

Old Bolshie

29th October 2013, 16:54

And I pointed out the question was irrelevant, because the issue was not trade relations.

Yes it was. Lets look at it:

It showed how USSR-India relations were already changing in the last of Stalin years and how its trade relations began before Stalin died.

No it doesn't, the establishment of trade relations began, I'm pretty sure, not long after India itself declared independence.

You contradicted pretty badly here.

How were they changing? How did India ever get closer to "constructing socialism"? How can a regime that carried out a sterilization campaign against the poor (as Indira Gandhi's did) be considered in any way favorable to the working-class? How can a regime that imprisoned Communists (as Nasser's did) be considered as pursuing the "non-capitalist road"?

Not by chance you sounded like a young idealist right now. Lets see: Stalin not only imprisoned more than the triple of communists imprisoned by Nasser and Nehru combined as he killed them in thousands.

As far as the sterilization campaign goes it also shows how idealistic your argument. Not that it matters but the Indian government didn't conduct a sterilization against the poor (the program was voluntary) but even if it did that fact itself doesn't change the material conditions or social relations of a country pretty much like social relations in USSR didn't change when Stalin criminalized homosexuality or prohibited abortion.

By keeping the blueprints and the engineers firmly in Soviet hands, the social-imperialists further maintain the dependence of India on the USSR...

This is the same as re-financing your home—you borrow more money to pay the bank you borrowed from in the first place. This is further proof of the subservience of India to Soviet social-imperialism...

This is nothing other than the runaway shop!"

Interestingly, when an American company, Agripetco, tried to reach a similar agreement in Ghana in 1980, there was an uproar and charges of 'American exploitation.'" (Problems of Communism Jan-April 1992, p. 213.)

Unfortunately for you and that political propaganda the numbers of trade relations between India and USSR show it otherwise:

In the period from 1953 to 1971 India had a favorable trade balance TWELVE times and the USSR EIGHT.

Source: India-USSR Relations, 1947-1971: From Ambivalence to Steadfastness, Volume 1

But lets say that this is imperialism as according to your theory (so much for the Lenin's theory :grin:) In that case one as to assume that USSR social-imperialism began with.....Stalin. Remember something called "SovRom"? I knew you knew it.

Ismail

29th October 2013, 17:37

You contradicted pretty badly here.No I didn't, and the issue of trade relations is still irrelevant to the subject. Nowhere in the two PDFs is there any argument that the USSR's relationship with India was social-imperialist due to the fact trade relations existed. What is important, as I said, is the nature of those relations. The USSR under Lenin and Stalin sought trade with virtually every country except those it refused to recognize due to feeling them illegitimate (e.g. the USSR refused to trade with Francoist Spain, whereas instead recognizing a Republican government exiled in Mexico.)

Not by chance you sounded like a young idealist right now. Lets see: Stalin not only imprisoned more than the triple of communists imprisoned by Nasser and Nehru combined as he killed them in thousands.It was the Soviet revisionists who praised Nasser and Nehru while they were suppressing working-class movements, and even claimed they were marching on the road to socialism while they did these things. The fact is that the Soviet line on Egypt and India under him correlated to the actual facts at hand: that both regimes were bourgeois, anti-communist and reactionary. Your attempts to try and turn this into a debate on Stalin will not succeed.

As far as the sterilization campaign goes it also shows how idealistic your argument. Not that it matters but the Indian government didn't conduct a sterilization against the poor (the program was voluntary) but even if it did that fact itself doesn't change the material conditions or social relations of a country pretty much like social relations in USSR didn't change when Stalin criminalized homosexuality or prohibited abortion.Wow, a voluntary sterilization program for the poor. I don't quite think that's how it went about in practice. What's ironic is that the Soviet prohibition on abortions was based on the idea that women could actually be mothers under socialism, rather than forced into poverty and thus presented with abortion as a lesser evil to an unwanted and uncared-for child (which was the original Bolshevik rationale for legalizing abortions.) Soviet strategy was based on high birthrates, Indian strategy was... not, because India was a capitalist state which could not plan population growth in proportion to economic development.

Unfortunately for you and that political propaganda the numbers of trade relations between India and USSR show it otherwise:Cuba also had a "favorable trade balance" as a neo-colony of Soviet social-imperialism, that doesn't actually explain the relationship. As is pointed out in the second PDF, the Soviets specifically undermined the ability of their Indian counterparts to trade with the West where they could find certain better deals. The unequal relationship between the USSR and India was intentionally kept up, with one example being that "in all Soviet projects, the credit agreement is comprehensive so that the Soviet staff take responsibility for everything. Soviet technological and managerial control is maintained until project completion. They employ large numbers of their own nationals as necessary... In matters like open cast coal mining, Indian technicians are fully qualified to plan and conduct the operations. But the Soviets insisted on their agencies being appointed as technical consultants as the price of aid given to buy Soviet coal-mining equipment." (PDF page 69) Together with things like keeping blueprints for themselves (FYI they used such control over them as attempted blackmail in Albania during 1960-61) it is pretty obvious that such a policy does not encourage self-reliance in economic development.

As the author notes, "The tying of aid with trade has meant that the USSR could export machinery and equipment, which would not have sold (for competitive reasons) in hard currency markets, at high monopolistic prices to the Third World - thus earning super profits." (PDF page 71.)

You have not actually disputed the concrete examples of Soviet social-imperialism I offered in my last post. I am pretty sure it is because you cannot.

As for the "SovRoms" see: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2679130&postcount=108

Old Bolshie

30th October 2013, 01:32

No I didn't, and the issue of trade relations is still irrelevant to the subject. Nowhere in the two PDFs is there any argument that the USSR's relationship with India was social-imperialist due to the fact trade relations existed. What is important, as I said, is the nature of those relations. The USSR under Lenin and Stalin sought trade with virtually every country except those it refused to recognize due to feeling them illegitimate (e.g. the USSR refused to trade with Francoist Spain, whereas instead recognizing a Republican government exiled in Mexico.)

Again, I said that trade relations began before Stalin died and you replied negatively stating that trade relations began when India declared independence.

Either you don't know when Stalin died or you don't know when India declared independence.

It was the Soviet revisionists who praised Nasser and Nehru while they were suppressing working-class movements, and even claimed they were marching on the road to socialism while they did these things. The fact is that the Soviet line on Egypt and India under him correlated to the actual facts at hand: that both regimes were bourgeois, anti-communist and reactionary. Your attempts to try and turn this into a debate on Stalin will not succeed.

Stalin also suppressed communists and yet he also claimed to march towards socialism. The only difference is that Stalin considered himself a communist which makes his position even more aggravated and reactionary than the other two.

Wow, a voluntary sterilization program for the poor. I don't quite think that's how it went about in practice. What's ironic is that the Soviet prohibition on abortions was based on the idea that women could actually be mothers under socialism, rather than forced into poverty and thus presented with abortion as a lesser evil to an unwanted and uncared-for child (which was the original Bolshevik rationale for legalizing abortions.) Soviet strategy was based on high birthrates, Indian strategy was... not, because India was a capitalist state which could not plan population growth in proportion to economic development.

So women can be mothers under socialism? What a surprise:glare:.

And basing on high birthrates or not determines if one country is socialist or capitalist?

Cuba also had a "favorable trade balance" as a neo-colony of Soviet social-imperialism, that doesn't actually explain the relationship.

Yes it does. Actually it explains everything. The soviets were paying for Cuban sugar ELEVEN times higher the world price of the sugar. The trade was so unfavorable for the USSR that when the Perestroika was implemented and market mechanisms began to appear in the Soviet economy there were strong calls by the liberal wing of the CPSU to change the economic relationship with Cuba. This was hardly the relationship of an imperialist nation with its colony.

As is pointed out in the second PDF, the Soviets specifically undermined the ability of their Indian counterparts to trade with the West where they could find certain better deals. The unequal relationship between the USSR and India was intentionally kept up, with one example being that "in all Soviet projects, the credit agreement is comprehensive so that the Soviet staff take responsibility for everything. Soviet technological and managerial control is maintained until project completion. They employ large numbers of their own nationals as necessary... In matters like open cast coal mining, Indian technicians are fully qualified to plan and conduct the operations. But the Soviets insisted on their agencies being appointed as technical consultants as the price of aid given to buy Soviet coal-mining equipment." (PDF page 69) Together with things like keeping blueprints for themselves (FYI they used such control over them as attempted blackmail in Albania during 1960-61) it is pretty obvious that such a policy does not encourage self-reliance in economic development.

So the Soviets were imperialists because they were undermining India's ability to trade with the West and on the other hand the soviets were imperialists because they were letting the East Bloc countries trading with.....the West. This pretty shows the incoherence of your speech.

But if the Soviets were imperialists because they undermined other countries abilities to trade with the West you must also consider Stalin to be an imperialist since he did it with the entire East Bloc.

As the author notes, "The tying of aid with trade has meant that the USSR could export machinery and equipment, which would not have sold (for competitive reasons) in hard currency markets, at high monopolistic prices to the Third World - thus earning super profits." (PDF page 71.)

What great super profits USSR had when its trade balance was unfavorable most of the times. That makes a lot of sense.

You have not actually disputed the concrete examples of Soviet social-imperialism I offered in my last post. I am pretty sure it is because you cannot.

LOL. Concrete examples? Do you mean the blueprints? That's only imperialism in your twisted social-imperialist argument. I presented a fact that denies any imperialist relationship between the two countries. On the contrary, India was getting much more favorable conditions from the Trade relations with USSR than the soviets.

As for the "SovRoms" see: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2679130&postcount=108

What about it? You just said: "It was the Soviet revisionists who dissolved the SovRoms, for example."

Is this all what you have to say about it?

Red Commissar

30th October 2013, 03:22

(PS I've noticed that anti-ML sentiment is quite high on this forum:unsure:)

To be honest you often have people from different tendencies claiming that this forum is against their particular set of beliefs or that there's too much of x tendency here. In a few weeks we'll probably have a user claiming that this forum is in fact overrun with stalinists.

Sea

30th October 2013, 05:41

People who uphold Hoxha's line:
Marx and Engels - not revisionists
Lenin - not a revisionist
Stalin - not a revisionist
Trotsky - revisionist
Mao - revisionist
Tito - revisionist
Kim Il Sung - revisionist
Khrushchev - revisionist
Brezhnev - revisionist

Anti-Bolshevik left-coms:
Marx and Engels - not revisionists
Lenin - revisionist
Trotsky - revisionist
Stalin - revisionist
Mao - revisionist
Tito - revisionist
Kim Il Sung - revisionist
Khrushchev - revisionist
Brezhnev - revisionist

Trotskists:
Marx and Engels - not revisionists
Lenin - not a revisionist
Trotsk - not a revisionist
Stalin - revisionist
Mao - revisionist
Tito - revisionist
Kim Il Sung - revisionist
Khrushchev - revisionist
Brezhnev - revisionist

Maoists:
Marx and Engels - not revisionists
Lenin - not a revisionist
Trotsky - revisionist
Stalin - kinda sorta revisionist-ish
Mao - not a revisionist
Tito - revisionist
Kim Il Sung - revisionist
Khrushchev - revisionist
Brezhnev - revisionist

and so on and so forth

So splain to me how denouncing people as revisionists somehow makes pro-Hoxha people more dogmatic than everyone else.

synthesis

30th October 2013, 05:47

Every historical figure who is criticized for being revisionist is considered to be revisionist in a different way. Every historical figure that is "upheld" is upheld in exactly the same way - by which I mean uncritically. Hence, it could be said that the more historical figures someone upholds, the more quantitatively dogmatic they are.

Ismail

30th October 2013, 17:44

Again, I said that trade relations began before Stalin died and you replied negatively stating that trade relations began when India declared independence.I didn't reply negatively, I said that yes, I'm sure trade relations did begin when Stalin was in office, probably not long after India went independent considering that the USSR supported such independence. But once again, so what? Unless you're going to argue that such trade masked an imperialist relationship, it has no relevance to this discussion.

And basing on high birthrates or not determines if one country is socialist or capitalist?No, stop with the strawmen.

Yes it does. Actually it explains everything. The soviets were paying for Cuban sugar ELEVEN times higher the world price of the sugar. The trade was so unfavorable for the USSR that when the Perestroika was implemented and market mechanisms began to appear in the Soviet economy there were strong calls by the liberal wing of the CPSU to change the economic relationship with Cuba. This was hardly the relationship of an imperialist nation with its colony.You forget the strategic value Cuba had for the Soviet social-imperialists, and the fact that they encouraged the perpetuation of Cuba's monoculture economy in order to secure its everlasting dependence on the USSR.

Furthermore, as one person pointed out (http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?t=32840):

It is true, as some argue, that the Soviet Union paid Cuba far above the world market price, but less than 20% of the world's sugar was (and still is) sold at that price! The U.S. does the exact same thing to places like the Philippines and Haiti, but certainly not out of benevolence or in order to help those nation's economies! Long-term above-market contract-price contract arrangements are advantageous because they secure an assured quality and quantity of sugar at an assured time, which is of great importance for the continuous operation of vast markets. Even the Cuban Central Bank itself admitted that "Soviet aid to Cuba conceals Soviet extraction of Cuban surplus value"- something that blatantly admits that this ain't simply trade between two socialist nations!

The USSR's loans to cover Cuba's negative balance of trade ($5 billion) were on unequal terms and were on the exact terms of America's old loans during the Batista era. Even the Soviet-Cuban oil trade was imperialistic too: Cuba imported more oil than it needed, but used all of it for re-exporting at world market prices to Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. so that it could pay off its debts to the USSR. It paid for the oil by selling 3/4 of its sugar to the USSR- which meant that 56.25% of Cuba's economic output went to the USSR instead of its own people! This uneven trade relation still continues today, with the former Soviet republics and Western European/E.U. nations continuing to do the exact same thing to Cuba- in fact, Cuba gets most of its oil that it uses not from its own oil wells or from the former USSR; it has to import from other Latin American nations such as Venezuela because of the vampiric imperialist relations it has trapped itself in.By the early 70's there were various bourgeois politicians in the US calling for an end to the extensive military and economic aid to South Vietnam, I doubt this meant that US economic policy towards the South wasn't based on imperialism.

So the Soviets were imperialists because they were undermining India's ability to trade with the West and on the other hand the soviets were imperialists because they were letting the East Bloc countries trading with.....the West. This pretty shows the incoherence of your speech.I like how you're trying to sidestep the imperialist relationship between the USSR and India by trying to shift the discussion to an unrelated subject, that of the USSR's imperialist relationship with Eastern Europe.

And you also haven't justified the Soviet revisionist claim that India and Egypt were "building socialism"/pursuing "non-capitalist development" under Nehru and Nasser. All you've said is, "Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt," which is a non-answer, especially since the Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked the Stalin-era line as "sectarian" and "dogmatic," not "oh, Stalin wasn't alive to see the new conditions that now exist in these states" (which would be an untenable claim to make given that literally two years passed between the line of Stalin and the about-turn of the Soviet revisionists on the subject.)

Thirsty Crow

30th October 2013, 18:22

You mean like Trots think that the "Stalinist bureaucracy" magically triumphed as soon as Lenin died?
Actually a valid point (boiling down to "one person in leadership was crucial for the development of the party and socialism"). Too bad the jab at Trots misses the point.

Old Bolshie

31st October 2013, 02:16

I didn't reply negatively, I said that yes, I'm sure trade relations did begin when Stalin was in office, probably not long after India went independent considering that the USSR supported such independence. But once again, so what? Unless you're going to argue that such trade masked an imperialist relationship, it has no relevance to this discussion.

Yes you did reply negatively when I said that trade relations between India and USSR began while Stalin was still in charge.

You forget the strategic value Cuba had for the Soviet social-imperialists, and the fact that they encouraged the perpetuation of Cuba's monoculture economy in order to secure its everlasting dependence on the USSR.

Cuba had a strategic value like the East Bloc had a strategic value for Stalin's USSR in the post-war years. I don't think the Cubans were forced to follow its economic development path by the USSR since even after more than 20 years of the USSR's collapse they maintain the same monoculture economy.

Furthermore, as one person pointed out (http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?t=32840):

This is just another piece of political propaganda which is based on no evidence like the other stuff about India which the statistics easily debunk. In the case of Cuba is even more ludicrous knowing that Soviet officials were highly concerned about the harm which the relationship with Cuba was causing to the USSR's economy.

By the early 70's there were various bourgeois politicians in the US calling for an end to the extensive military and economic aid to South Vietnam, I doubt this meant that US economic policy towards the South wasn't based on imperialism.

The difference being that the bourgeois politicians in the US were doing it for internal political reasons and not because the economic relationship with South Vietnam was unfavorable for the Americans and hurting the US economy, which was the soviet case with Cuba.

I like how you're trying to sidestep the imperialist relationship between the USSR and India by trying to shift the discussion to an unrelated subject, that of the USSR's imperialist relationship with Eastern Europe.

I'm not trying to sidestep nothing. You presented some propaganda texts with ZERO evidence. I showed to you real figures of the trade relationship between the two countries.

And I did the same thing you did when you referred to US when we talk about USSR trade relationship with other countries. You see a similarity between USSR and US and I see similarity between Stalin and his successors.

And you also haven't justified the Soviet revisionist claim that India and Egypt were "building socialism"/pursuing "non-capitalist development" under Nehru and Nasser. All you've said is, "Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt," which is a non-answer, especially since the Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked the Stalin-era line as "sectarian" and "dogmatic," not "oh, Stalin wasn't alive to see the new conditions that now exist in these states" (which would be an untenable claim to make given that literally two years passed between the line of Stalin and the about-turn of the Soviet revisionists on the subject.)

As I said before the view of Stalin on India was already changing in the last years of his life with the Korean War being determinant for it.

This led Stalin to give an interview to Radhakrishnan, a rare event at the time in Moscow. At this crucial meeting Radhakrishnan impressed Stalin with Nehru's socialist leanings and his attitude to the Spanish War, among another stands.

The Diplomatic Ideas and Practices of Asian States

In the same interview Stalin regarded Nehru as a friend and not as an enemy.

Another good example of how the relationship was growing between Stalin and India was Nehru's tribute to Stalin in his death.

So yes, the changing of the view of USSR on India began with STALIN.

Ismail

31st October 2013, 18:21

Yes you did reply negatively when I said that trade relations between India and USSR began while Stalin was still in charge.No I didn't, anyone can see the replies in this thread for themselves. And again, the issue is pretty much irrelevant to the argument if the Soviet revisionists turned trade relations into imperialist relations or not.

Cuba had a strategic value like the East Bloc had a strategic value for Stalin's USSR in the post-war years. I don't think the Cubans were forced to follow its economic development path by the USSR since even after more than 20 years of the USSR's collapse they maintain the same monoculture economy.That's because after more than 20 years since the USSR collapsed that monoculture economy still does a good job of keeping the present regime in power. It does not do anything for the cause of socialism in Cuba and retains the same neo-colonial economic situation as under Batista.

The difference being that the bourgeois politicians in the US were doing it for internal political reasons and not because the economic relationship with South Vietnam was unfavorable for the Americans and hurting the US economy, which was the soviet case with Cuba.The Vietnam War cost the US billions of dollars with no end in sight.

I'm not trying to sidestep nothing. You presented some propaganda texts with ZERO evidence. I showed to you real figures of the trade relationship between the two countries."Zero evidence"? A number of sources are provided in both links, a number actually coming from Soviet revisionist texts themselves. The "favorable trade balance" you provided

As I said before the view of Stalin on India was already changing in the last years of his life with the Korean War being determinant for it.Which tells us nothing unless you can somehow link Stalin's supposedly "changing views" with the claim made by the revisionists that India was "building socialism."

In the same interview Stalin regarded Nehru as a friend and not as an enemy.No doubt the USSR was interested in friendly relations with India. It was also interested in friendly relations with the Afghan monarchy. Again, this has nothing in common with claiming that the Indian National Congress was "building socialism," or the fact that until 1955 Soviet authors continued to criticize the INC for its dependence on Western imperialism in the economic field.

Another good example of how the relationship was growing between Stalin and India was Nehru's tribute to Stalin in his death.Many people paid tribute to Stalin. Nehru had visited the USSR in the 20's and had always been impressed by it. Nehru had praise for Lenin as well, as did many third world leaders.

Old Bolshie

1st November 2013, 02:35

No I didn't, anyone can see the replies in this thread for themselves. And again, the issue is pretty much irrelevant to the argument if the Soviet revisionists turned trade relations into imperialist relations or not.

Yes you did and I already provided the quotes where you contradict yourself or you show ignorance about the date of India's independence or Stalin's death.

That's because after more than 20 years since the USSR collapsed that monoculture economy still does a good job of keeping the present regime in power. It does not do anything for the cause of socialism in Cuba and retains the same neo-colonial economic situation as under Batista.

So if it is of Cuban's regime interest to have that monoculture economy that means that it was not imposed by USSR against its will.

The Vietnam War cost the US billions of dollars with no end in sight.

Lol. I wasn't expecting to read this in a leftist forum. It is well-known that a big number of US companies profited from the Vietnam War specially those related to the military industry. And your comparison between an economic relationship of two countries and a war is absurd at minimum.

"Zero evidence"? A number of sources are provided in both links, a number actually coming from Soviet revisionist texts themselves. The "favorable trade balance" you provided

Political propaganda is no evidence or source.

Which tells us nothing unless you can somehow link Stalin's supposedly "changing views" with the claim made by the revisionists that India was "building socialism."

Obviously there is a link between Stalin's changing of view and USSR's post-Stalin stance on India. The source I provided in the previous post refers to the Korean War as the turning point of the relationship between USSR and India and explicitly talks about Stalin's change of view on India:

Indian diplomacy in the Korea went through at least two main volte-faces...The second one, which had the positive effect in changing Stalin's view of Nehru's India, occurred after the Chinese unleashed their military forces against Gen. MacArthur's armies... Nehru reversed his position on the 38th parallel ceasefire... This specific deed was a turning point in Indo-Soviet and Indo-US relations.

The Diplomatic Ideas and Practices of Asian States

No doubt the USSR was interested in friendly relations with India. It was also interested in friendly relations with the Afghan monarchy. Again, this has nothing in common with claiming that the Indian National Congress was "building socialism," or the fact that until 1955 Soviet authors continued to criticize the INC for its dependence on Western imperialism in the economic field.

It was not a simply matter of "friendly relations". It was a clear turning point of the position of Stalin and USSR on India.

If Stalin still regarded Nehru as a lackey of British imperialism first he would have refused to receive the Indian ambassador, Radhakrishnan, like he had done some years before when he refused to receive Nehru's sister who was the Indian ambassador in USSR before Radhakrishnan. Furthermore, Stalin only received personally 3 ambassadors later in his life, 2 of them being of India.

Many people paid tribute to Stalin. Nehru had visited the USSR in the 20's and had always been impressed by it. Nehru had praise for Lenin as well, as did many third world leaders.

Many people may have paid tribute to Stalin but certainly not many people praised his thought and actions like Nehru did.

Ismail

1st November 2013, 05:55

Yes you did and I already provided the quotes where you contradict yourself or you show ignorance about the date of India's independence or Stalin's death.I don't show ignorance of either, I simply stated that formal trade relations were probably established not long after India went independent.

So if it is of Cuban's regime interest to have that monoculture economy that means that it was not imposed by USSR against its will.What the will and objective interests of the Cuban regime is, and what the will and objective interests of the people (especially the working-class) is, are two separate things. Various neo-colonial regimes are headed by leaders who could care less that the preside over economies dependent on one cash crop, since they profit off of collaboration with imperialist countries quite well. The fact is that Castro came to power on a platform of ending the lopsided economy, and those to the left of him such as Che pressed for such a policy to be carried out.

Lol. I wasn't expecting to read this in a leftist forum. It is well-known that a big number of US companies profited from the Vietnam War specially those related to the military industry. And your comparison between an economic relationship of two countries and a war is absurd at minimum.Yes, various companies profited, that still didn't change the fact that it was a very expensive war for the US government, aside from it being a deeply unpopular war, both of which combined to make it easy for various bourgeois politicians to declare their opposition to said war.

Political propaganda is no evidence or source.It's not like these are wall posters; the first work seeks to explain the process of capitalist restoration in the USSR using a variety of sources, including Soviet revisionist ones. The latter work is a collection of viewpoints either supporting and opposing the capitalist restoration thesis. Reducing them to mere "political propaganda" makes as much sense as labeling most anything significant Lenin ever wrote (such as his work on imperialism or The State and Revolution) as such, since they obviously had a polemical purpose to them.

Obviously there is a link between Stalin's changing of view and USSR's post-Stalin stance on India.Not really, considering that the Soviet revisionists attacked the Stalin-era views. Case in point, the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia declared that, "In Soviet historical literature until the mid-1950’s, there was an incorrect, one-sided evaluation of [Mohandas] Gandhi’s role in the sociopolitical life of India and in the anti-imperialist struggle of the Indian people." Up until that point Gandhi had been strongly criticized, including by Stalin.

The source I provided in the previous post refers to the Korean War as the turning point of the relationship between USSR and India and explicitly talks about Stalin's change of view on India:It is worth noting that the 1951 Program Document (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/1951prog.htm) of the Indian CP, which was reaffirmed at a subsequent party congress concluded in January 1954, declared among other things that, "Four years of the Nehru government in power has belied the hopes of the masses in every respect. Experience has led them to the conclusion that the government of National congress that rose to power on the basis of the heroic struggle of the masses is a government pledged to the protection and preservation of parasitic landlords and the wealth of the princes of India, who for centuries had supported the foreign invaders and jointly with them robbed our people and our country. Experience is also leading them to the conclusion that the government of the National Congress was installed in power by the consent of British imperialists because it was a government pledged to the protection and preservation of foreign British capital in India. In every sphere of life of the masses, the government has failed to carry out its promises to the people. Everyday life for the masses has worsened while the landlords and profiteers have enriched themselves more and more at the expense of the people."

That India took a better stand on issues relating to the Korean War was no doubt a welcome move; that this somehow would lead up to claiming that India was "constructing socialism" under the leadership of the INC does not at all follow. The fact is that the Soviet revisionists put forward their "non-capitalist path of development" from 1955 onwards concurrently with attacks on Stalin-era theories relating to the colonial and dependent countries. Nationalism, for instance, was said to have been treated "dogmatically" under Stalin as a "purely negative" phenomenon.

It was not a simply matter of "friendly relations". It was a clear turning point of the position of Stalin and USSR on India.In terms of diplomatic relations yes, in terms of India's economic structure, and in terms of Soviet theory on the class nature of the Indian state, no.

If Stalin still regarded Nehru as a lackey of British imperialism first he would have refused to receive the Indian ambassador, Radhakrishnan, like he had done some years before when he refused to receive Nehru's sister who was the Indian ambassador in USSR before Radhakrishnan. Furthermore, Stalin only received personally 3 ambassadors later in his life, 2 of them being of India.See my comments above. An improvement in diplomatic relations does not mean that an anti-Marxist line is taken on the country in question.

Many people may have paid tribute to Stalin but certainly not many people praised his thought and actions like Nehru did.Literally his entire tribute (http://www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/1953/stalin.htm) was concerned with Stalin as a person: "He showed an indomitable will and courage which few possess... people may agree or disagree with many things that he did or said. But the fact remains that he built up that great country, which was a tremendous achievement... I have known people who were associated with Marshal Stalin or the work that Marshal Stalin did and who subsequently disagreed with him. They told me that while they disagreed with him, they felt a personal wrench because of the personal bond that had arisen between them and him, even though they had not come near him or had merely seen him from a distance. So here was this man who created in his lifetime this bond of affection and admiration among vast numbers of human beings, a man who has gone through this troubled period of history. He made mistakes in the opinion of some or he succeeded—that is immaterial—but everyone must necessarily agree about his giant stature and about his mighty achievements."

I don't see any praise for Stalin's theoretical side. I see a sort of praise a bourgeois statesman could have made, which fits Nehru quite well.

Five Year Plan

1st November 2013, 11:43

Actually a valid point (boiling down to "one person in leadership was crucial for the development of the party and socialism"). Too bad the jab at Trots misses the point.

It might have been a valid point if it had some basis in reality. Trotskyists don't think the Stalinist bureaucracy "magically triumphed" the moment Lenin drew his last breath. That would be personality-cult nonsense. Trotskyists, beginning with Trotsky himself, take great pains to explain the triumph of the bureaucracy over the working class as an uneven process that had begun to occur well before Lenin's death, and didn't culminate in a regime requiring a forcible overthrow until the early 1930s. Leave it to Ismail, who complains about how people unfairly characterize the "Khrushchevite" counter-revolution as consisting of Stalin just keeling over, to make the same kind of ridiculous over-simplification of the Trotskyist view.

Ismail

1st November 2013, 13:32

It might have been a valid point if it had some basis in reality. Trotskyists don't think the Stalinist bureaucracy "magically triumphed" the moment Lenin drew his last breath. That would be personality-cult nonsense. Trotskyists, beginning with Trotsky himself, take great pains to explain the triumph of the bureaucracy over the working class as an uneven process that had begun to occur well before Lenin's death, and didn't culminate in a regime requiring a forcible overthrow until the early 1930s. Leave it to Ismail, who complains about how people unfairly characterize the "Khrushchevite" counter-revolution as consisting of Stalin just keeling over, to make the same kind of ridiculous over-simplification of the Trotskyist view.Except I wasn't making a "ridiculous over-simplification," I was pointing out that "the Albanian and Chinese position is that Stalin died and capitalism was thus magically restored" was no more accurate than a strawman argument I jokingly presented as the Trot position. No one claims that the seeds of revisionism didn't exist in Stalin's time; they had to exist, just as they existed in Lenin's time, because the process of class struggle does not end under socialism (contrary to the Khrushchevite revisionist claims), and because of the continued existence of those remnants of class society which gave a material basis to revisionism (for instance, the differences between mental and manual labor.) The fact that Stalin in his last days had to pen Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (a work denounced as "left-deviationist" following his death) is evidence that the struggle remained acute.

Remus Bleys

1st November 2013, 19:26

(contrary to the Khrushchevite revisionist claims).
or contrary to what marx said

Five Year Plan

2nd November 2013, 01:03

Except I wasn't making a "ridiculous over-simplification," I was pointing out that "the Albanian and Chinese position is that Stalin died and capitalism was thus magically restored" was no more accurate than a strawman argument I jokingly presented as the Trot position. No one claims that the seeds of revisionism didn't exist in Stalin's time; they had to exist, just as they existed in Lenin's time, because the process of class struggle does not end under socialism (contrary to the Khrushchevite revisionist claims), and because of the continued existence of those remnants of class society which gave a material basis to revisionism (for instance, the differences between mental and manual labor.) The fact that Stalin in his last days had to pen Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (a work denounced as "left-deviationist" following his death) is evidence that the struggle remained acute.

I just wanted to be sure we were on the same page that the "Trot position" you established was a caricature. Thank you for clarifying.

Trap Queen Voxxy

2nd November 2013, 01:07

Basically, it's a bunch of ideological idiocy, in a nutshell.

Old Bolshie

2nd November 2013, 02:09

I don't show ignorance of either, I simply stated that formal trade relations were probably established not long after India went independent.

Yes and I stated just before that trade relations began before Stalin died.

What the will and objective interests of the Cuban regime is, and what the will and objective interests of the people (especially the working-class) is, are two separate things. Various neo-colonial regimes are headed by leaders who could care less that the preside over economies dependent on one cash crop, since they profit off of collaboration with imperialist countries quite well. The fact is that Castro came to power on a platform of ending the lopsided economy, and those to the left of him such as Che pressed for such a policy to be carried out.The issue here was not if the will and objective interests of the Cuban regime is the same of the Cuban people or not but rather if the Soviets forced the Cuba government to follow that economic development path.

Yes, various companies profited, that still didn't change the fact that it was a very expensive war for the US government, aside from it being a deeply unpopular war, both of which combined to make it easy for various bourgeois politicians to declare their opposition to said war.The US government and the US Congress are political instruments of the American bourgeoisie. So if the American bourgeoisie was profiting from the war the fact that the war was becoming too expensive for the government was really little relevant and the main concern of the opposition to the war had little to do with economics.

It's not like these are wall posters; the first work seeks to explain the process of capitalist restoration in the USSR using a variety of sources, including Soviet revisionist ones. The latter work is a collection of viewpoints either supporting and opposing the capitalist restoration thesis. Reducing them to mere "political propaganda" makes as much sense as labeling most anything significant Lenin ever wrote (such as his work on imperialism or The State and Revolution) as such, since they obviously had a polemical purpose to them.Those sources used to substantiate that capitalist restoration thesis come from reforms which were subsequently dropped and thus became irrelevant. We already discussed this in another thread. Aside from this, even if those reforms were fully implemented that still wouldn't change the nature of the social relations although I agree that it could have been a starting point to do it.

Not really, considering that the Soviet revisionists attacked the Stalin-era views. Case in point, the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia declared that, "In Soviet historical literature until the mid-1950’s, there was an incorrect, one-sided evaluation of [Mohandas] Gandhi’s role in the sociopolitical life of India and in the anti-imperialist struggle of the Indian people." Up until that point Gandhi had been strongly criticized, including by Stalin.You didn't see correctly what I said. I said a link between Stalin's changing of view and USSR's post-Stalin stance on India. I didn't say Stalin's view of India before it changed to which it corresponds the Ghandi period.

It is worth noting that the 1951 Program Document (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/1951prog.htm) of the Indian CP, which was reaffirmed at a subsequent party congress concluded in January 1954, declared among other things that, "Four years of the Nehru government in power has belied the hopes of the masses in every respect. Experience has led them to the conclusion that the government of National congress that rose to power on the basis of the heroic struggle of the masses is a government pledged to the protection and preservation of parasitic landlords and the wealth of the princes of India, who for centuries had supported the foreign invaders and jointly with them robbed our people and our country. Experience is also leading them to the conclusion that the government of the National Congress was installed in power by the consent of British imperialists because it was a government pledged to the protection and preservation of foreign British capital in India. In every sphere of life of the masses, the government has failed to carry out its promises to the people. Everyday life for the masses has worsened while the landlords and profiteers have enriched themselves more and more at the expense of the people."The CPI was independent from Moscow and a good example of that is how they maintained their opposition to Nehru even after USSR's began to support India. So the attempt to somehow link the CPI's position with the USSR's one is fruitless here.

That India took a better stand on issues relating to the Korean War was no doubt a welcome move; that this somehow would lead up to claiming that India was "constructing socialism" under the leadership of the INC does not at all follow. The fact is that the Soviet revisionists put forward their "non-capitalist path of development" from 1955 onwards concurrently with attacks on Stalin-era theories relating to the colonial and dependent countries. Nationalism, for instance, was said to have been treated "dogmatically" under Stalin as a "purely negative" phenomenon.The reversal of India's position on Korea was just the beginning of the change and not the end of it as it's obvious. Then you had the conversations between Stalin and Indian officials where they were able to expound their political and economic goals which were much closer to Stalin's ideas than Stalin initially thought. All of this had an impact on Stalin besides the Korean issue.

In terms of diplomatic relations yes, in terms of India's economic structure, and in terms of Soviet theory on the class nature of the Indian state, no.

See my comments above. An improvement in diplomatic relations does not mean that an anti-Marxist line is taken on the country in question.
One thing is clearly related to another in this specific case. Otherwise Stalin wouldn't not have changed his posture on India which was initially a posture of distrust and then became a posture of close cooperation. It is perfectible plausible that Stalin may have turned his opinion on India once he saw India getting closer to USSR and taking stances against the British interests since he considered the Indians to be "running dogs of the imperialism".

Literally his entire tribute (http://www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/1953/stalin.htm) was concerned with Stalin as a person: "He showed an indomitable will and courage which few possess... people may agree or disagree with many things that he did or said. But the fact remains that he built up that great country, which was a tremendous achievement... I have known people who were associated with Marshal Stalin or the work that Marshal Stalin did and who subsequently disagreed with him. They told me that while they disagreed with him, they felt a personal wrench because of the personal bond that had arisen between them and him, even though they had not come near him or had merely seen him from a distance. So here was this man who created in his lifetime this bond of affection and admiration among vast numbers of human beings, a man who has gone through this troubled period of history. He made mistakes in the opinion of some or he succeeded—that is immaterial—but everyone must necessarily agree about his giant stature and about his mighty achievements."

I don't see any praise for Stalin's theoretical side. I see a sort of praise a bourgeois statesman could have made, which fits Nehru quite well.In the tribute Nehru praises "the way he (Stalin) built his great country".

So unless you think Stalin acted against his though in the way he built USSR Nehru is praising his socialist ideas.

He also speaks about "how his influence...will continue to exercise people’s minds and inspire them."

Ismail

2nd November 2013, 03:49

Yes and I stated just before that trade relations began before Stalin died.You claimed that trade relations only came about near the end of Stalin's life, which I found a bit strange a claim, and instead argued that they probably began not long after India achieved independence. In any case the subject is, again, irrelevant.

The issue here was not if the will and objective interests of the Cuban regime is the same of the Cuban people or not but rather if the Soviets forced the Cuba government to follow that economic development path.Evidently the new Cuban bourgeoisie felt confident its interests were best served by perpetuating the neo-colonial economy they had swore to end while in the jungle fighting against Batista's forces. This is made clear by how slavishly loyal Castro became towards Soviet social-imperialism, which included endorsing its invasion of Czechoslovakia and fighting on its behalf in Angola and Ethiopia.

The US government and the US Congress are political instruments of the American bourgeoisie. So if the American bourgeoisie was profiting from the war the fact that the war was becoming too expensive for the government was really little relevant and the main concern of the opposition to the war had little to do with economics.Obviously the fact that various politicians were positioning themselves as "anti-war" candidates owed much to do with the mass discontent the war created, yet the fact is that various politicians also felt that the war was misdirected and that the "fight against Communism" could best be served elsewhere.

Those sources used to substantiate that capitalist restoration thesis come from reforms which were subsequently dropped and thus became irrelevant. We already discussed this in another thread. Aside from this, even if those reforms were fully implemented that still wouldn't change the nature of the social relations although I agree that it could have been a starting point to do it.I like how I specifically cited—and have been arguing with you about—instances of Soviet social-imperialism in India as noted in those two works, and now suddenly you're attacking them because of their treatment of policies of capitalist restoration inside the USSR. It's almost like you... can't actually refute the points made that the USSR acted as an imperialist power in India.

You didn't see correctly what I said. I said a link between Stalin's changing of view and USSR's post-Stalin stance on India. I didn't say Stalin's view of India before it changed to which it corresponds the Ghandi period.Soviet theorists continued to denounce the INC and Gandhi up until the advent of Soviet revisionism. That diplomatic relations between the USSR and India improved in the last few years of Stalin's leadership did not alter the correct analysis the Soviets provided of the class nature of India and of Gandhi's ideology.

The CPI was independent from Moscow and a good example of that is how they maintained their opposition to Nehru even after USSR's began to support India. So the attempt to somehow link the CPI's position with the USSR's one is fruitless here.You haven't actually cited how Soviet theorists in Stalin's time changed their view of India.

In the tribute Nehru praises "the way he (Stalin) built his great country".

So unless you think Stalin acted against his though in the way he built USSR Nehru is praising his socialist ideas.This is absurd. Nowhere in his tribute does Nehru mention socialism, let alone scientific socialism. If one were to actually read tributes offered by the leadership of the communist parties you would see how differently they were presented.

Keep in mind, also, that Nehru was a close ally of Tito, and always stressed the difference between his Indian "socialism," which had next to nothing to do with Marxism, and Marxism-Leninism.

He also speaks about "how his influence...will continue to exercise people’s minds and inspire them."Yes, that happens when you turn a country from impoverishment and isolation into a world power that defeated a massive military machine intent on exterminating said country. Again, none of this has anything to do with socialism.

And you still haven't explained what "material conditions" changed in India to, in any way, make the Soviet revisionist claim that it was "building socialism" justifiable. You seem to be going so far as to claim that Nehru was some sort of secret Marxist and that Stalin was only just beginning to find this out.

or contrary to what marx saidBut what about what Stalin said? Let us quote him, criticizing Zinoviev in 1926:

Engels said that a proletarian revolution with the programme set forth above could not take place in one separate country. But the fact is that, in the new conditions of the class struggle of the proletariat, the conditions of imperialism, we have in the main already accomplished such a revolution in one separate country, in our country, having carried out nine-tenths of its programme...

Of course, if Engels were alive, he would not cling to the old formula. On the contrary, he would heartily welcome our revolution, and would say: “To the devil with all old formulas! Long live the victorious revolution in the U.S.S.R.!”And just as Zinoviev tried to mask his opportunism with the words of Marx and Engels, so did the Soviet revisionists attempt to mask their bourgeois, social-fascist dictatorship by appealing to Marx and Engels against the supposed "distortions" of Stalin. Ironically it was the triumph of revisionism in the USSR that made clear Stalin's limited understanding of class struggle under socialism, which was duly noted by both the Albanians and the Chinese.

Remus Bleys

2nd November 2013, 03:53

Thank you Ismail for showing everyone that Anti-revisionist ml upholds whatever Stalin says over the theory and methodology of Marx.

edit: This only really works if you believe the ussr was socialist. Which, this position, ironically enough, requires revisionism. The revision of stalins revision of marx wasn't a good thing mind you, and no one (with half a brain) would advocate for it. Even theough they ditched the part of socialism with class struggle, they kept the part about the ussr being socialist.

Questionable

2nd November 2013, 07:20

Thank you Ismail for showing everyone that Anti-revisionist ml upholds whatever Stalin says over the theory and methodology of Marx.

Marxist-Leninists can't really show that because Stalin never deviated from Marx's line.

As I've explained before, Engels' statements in 'The Principles of Communism' are based on the outdated hypothesis that revolution would occur in the most advanced capitalist countries, rather than a semi-feudal autocracy like Russia. It doesn't make any sense to use his statements as an argument against socialism in Russia because he isn't even saying that socialism is impossible in one country. He is saying that, because of the interconnectedness of the advanced capitalist countries, a revolution in one will send a shockwave through all the others. Had the revolution occurred in the USA or UK instead of Russia, this probably would have happened. But because of the new conditions brought on by imperialism, it didn't, and a new approach was necessary.

This only really works if you believe the ussr was socialist.

Actually, the quotation Ismail posted is from 1926. The Soviets didn't consider Russia socialist until the mid 1930s. Stalin is speaking of the prospects of revolution within one country.

Which, this position, ironically enough, requires revisionism.

Revisionism refers to stripping Marxism of its revolutionary content. There is a difference between that and the creative development of theory, which Stalin advocated.

Ironically, it is your position which could arguably be called revisionism, since instead of taking the position that the victorious proletariat can begin constructing socialism within their own country, you basically say that they were doomed once it didn't spread beyond their borders. Hence, you're using bastardized Marxism to deny the prospects of the revolution in Russia, thus stripping it of its revolutionary content.

synthesis

2nd November 2013, 08:18

The Soviets didn't consider Russia socialist until the mid 1930s.

They considered Russia to be a classless, stateless society by the mid 1930's?

Ismail

2nd November 2013, 20:31

They considered Russia to be a classless, stateless society by the mid 1930's?Stalin in 1936 (http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SC36.html):

Our Soviet society has already, in the main, succeeded in achieving socialism; it has created a socialist system, i.e., it has brought about what Marxists in other words call the first, or lower, phase of communism. Hence, in the main, we have already achieved the first phase of communism, socialism. The fundamental principle of this phase of communism is, as you know, the formula: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." Should our Constitution reflect this fact, the fact that socialism has been achieved? Should it be based on this achievement? Unquestionably, it should. It should, because for the U.S.S.R. socialism is something already achieved and won.

But Soviet society has not yet reached the higher phase of communism, in which the ruling principle will be the formula: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," although it sets itself the aim of achieving the higher phase of communism in the future. Can our Constitution be based on the higher phase of communism, which does not yet exist and which has still to be achieved? No, it cannot, because for the U.S.S.R. the higher phase of communism is something that has not yet been realized, and which has to be realized in the future. It cannot, if it is not to be converted into a programme or a declaration of future achievements.
"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.)

Remus Bleys

2nd November 2013, 21:08

Ismail, quoting is not an argument, this only works if Synthesis or anyone else take Stalin's word as gospel truth, or already are committed believers of marxism-leninism.

While I see the need for propaganda, using it as a credible source is laughable.

Our Soviet society has already, in the main, succeeded in achieving socialism; it has created a socialist system, i.e., it has brought about what Marxists in other words call the first, or lower, phase of communism. Hence, in the main, we have already achieved the first phase of communism, socialism."The Soviet society has achieved socialism; it has achieved socialism, i.e., it has achieved socialism. Hence we have achieved socialism."

The fundamental principle of this phase of communism is, as you know, the formula: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."Distribution is not what socialism is based on. It is production.

Should our Constitution reflect this fact, the fact that socialism has been achieved? Should it be based on this achievement? Unquestionably, it should. It should, because for the U.S.S.R. socialism is something already achieved and won."Should our constitution, which is the embodiment of a state, reflect the accomplishment of achieving a stateless society?"

But Soviet society has not yet reached the higher phase of communism, in which the ruling principle will be the formula: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," although it sets itself the aim of achieving the higher phase of communism in the future."Our society is only on the first phase, as I have stated above, which means that we have yet to achieve the second phase."

Can our Constitution be based on the higher phase of communism, which does not yet exist and which has still to be achieved? No, it cannot, because for the U.S.S.R. the higher phase of communism is something that has not yet been realized, and which has to be realized in the future. It cannot, if it is not to be converted into a programme or a declaration of future achievements. "Can our Constitution incorporate a lie? No, of course not, I always tell the truth. No, we are in the first phase, not the second phase. If something didn't happen now, it will have to happen in the future. In order to achieve something in the Future, we have to work for it."

I mean, how are these boring repetitions and tautologies in the slightest bit interesting?

Whats even more interesting from this last bit is the idea that higher phase communism can be put in a Constitution.

Perhaps the most absurd part of this is that it doesn't really address what synthesis said, it would only do this if you took what Stalin said as the Gospel truth. There is no reason to believe that socialism has been achieved.

Nevermind it believes that putting something in a Constitution affects the economy. Yes, the Superstructure totally affects the Base. How utterly anti-revisionist. :rolleyes:

Now, Molotov.

We have achieved only the first, the lower phase, of communism. "We have succeeded in gaining the first phase of communism."

To be directly contradicted by:

Even this first phase of communism, socialism, is far from being completed, it is built only in the rough.
"However, we have yet to create the first phase of communism."

In our country the parasitic classes, i.e., all and sundry capitalists and little capitalists, have been liquidated. "We have destroyed the ruling class. They no longer exist." Wait, wait. How did the capitalist class come back under Khruschev's time then? Didn't they get destroyed? Whats the point of class struggle against the Bourgeoisie when they are gone?

Thanks to this, the exploitation of man by man has been abolished. Some moralism, statement that exploitation is gone, reinforcing the notion the USSR is a paradise.

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. Some more bullshit about how the USSR is a paradise. I wonder why Molotov would insist the USSR was so great. Also, an attempt at internationalism.

Both the two classes which exist in the U.S.S.R. are building socialism and come within the system of socialist economy."Even though me and stalin both said we have achieved socialism, we are building it. Also, even though socialism is classless, two different classes come with socialism."

But although both are in the same system of socialist economy, Even though both are existing in peaceful coexist society without class struggle,

"The working class in its work is bound up with state socialist property (the property of the whole people), The working class is inseparable from the state property (this same property is owned by more than just the working class),"

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.By stating that worker co-ops and collective farming are part of socialist, legitimacy is given to the notion that the Kibbutz are socialist and that worker co-ops aren't petty-bourgeoisie.

This connection with different forms of socialist property primarily determines the different position of these classes. Reinforces that worker co-ops and collective farming is inherently socialist, and says that private property can co-exist with socialism.

This also determine the somewhat different paths of further development of each of them.
"Basically, we are treating these classes differently, but its okay, even though they are treated differently (because seperate classes need to be treated differently (this bit is true)) because they are both socialist."

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. Well, this could be true, if it were a capitalist mode of production that would make the peasant a proletariat, thus making the once peasant part of the proletariat, which is the revolutionary class for the progression of capitalism into socialism and communism. Wait a second...

Unfortunately, the analogy doesn't work (why would Molotov admit to having the capitalist mode of production?) because that would imply that the change from a class based capitalism to a classless socialism would be gradual.

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.)
(emphasize added)
"We have to realize gradual reforms in a Congress of some sort will be the only way to achieve communism."

No wonder CP's around the world are so liberal.

Iosif

2nd November 2013, 22:15

to the people dissing the soviet union like a pack of capiatlist tear jerking cry babies, what has your tendency done? nothing! ultra leftists have only gone about trying to bad mouth actually existing socialism, actively trying to break it up and objectivly working for the capitalists. you ultra left scum make me sick. how can you people deny the gains made by stalin? the mass industrialisation made it a power to combat the nazis! it provided health care and education to people!

Remus Bleys

2nd November 2013, 23:35

to the people dissing the soviet union like a pack of capiatlist tear jerking cry babies
You're so fucking macho.

what has your tendency done? nothing!Do nothing is better than being counterrevolutionary.
Also, where the hell is your "Actually existing socialism" and why did it go away?

ultra leftists have only gone about trying to bad mouth actually existing socialism,Ultralefts have pointed out the anti-communism that is inherent in the phrase "actually existing socialism"

actively trying to break it up and objectivly working for the capitalists.Proof.

you ultra left scum make me sick. how can you people deny the gains made by stalin? Who is denying the gains made by stalin?

the mass industrialisation made it a power to combat the nazis! So did Churchill and FDR.

it provided health care and education to people!By this logic Europe (and even the Americas) is socialist.

Questionable

3rd November 2013, 00:02

While I see the need for propaganda, using it as a credible source is laughable.What an asinine thing to say. Marxist-Leninists uphold the theoretical teachings of Stalin and (to a lesser extent) Molotov. Here are those theoretical teachings.

Honestly, what the hell are you even going on about here? If we follow your logic, any source can be dismissed as "(whatever ideology the source belongs to) propaganda." It's intellectual laziness.

Besides, it's not as if this is a wall poster.

"The Soviet society has achieved socialism; it has achieved socialism, i.e., it has achieved socialism. Hence we have achieved socialism."It fulfilled the requirements of establishing socialism based on what was described by Marx and Lenin.

Distribution is not what socialism is based on. It is production.The Soviets actually argued that the expansion of the productive powers needed to be prioritized over consumer goods, so I don't see how this is a criticism of the USSR.

I don't even see how this can be taken as meaning that the Soviets were defining the mode of distribution as the primary feature of socialism. They're simply acknowledging what Marx and Lenin said about bourgeois right persisting in the lower phase of communism.

"Should our constitution, which is the embodiment of a state, reflect the accomplishment of achieving a stateless society?"Because socialism is not synonymous with communism. I'm fairly certain I remembered you asking where Marx and Engels defined it as such, and you couldn't.

The funny thing is that Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin all agreed on the division of socialism and communism into separate stages. I can at least understand anti-Lenin Leftcoms for taking this stance because they reject Leninism, but for someone who considers himself an 'Ultraleft Leninist,' I'd expect them to address their apparent disagreement with Lenin.

I mean, you told me that your opinion is that Marx used socialism and communism synonymously, while Lenin invented the stage interpretation (which isn't true because he clearly outlines how he drew his theories from Critique of Gotha, but I digress). Yet, somehow you excuse Lenin for doing this, while giving Stalin ten kinds of hell for it.

Your position is inconsistent, unless you've finally decided to denounce Lenin as well.

Perhaps the most absurd part of this is that it doesn't really address what synthesis said, it would only do this if you took what Stalin said as the Gospel truth. There is no reason to believe that socialism has been achieved.Well, we can analyze how the mode and relations of production were configured in Stalin's time, as many works do. But since you seem to be a firm advocate of ad hominem, I'm guessing those arguments will be lost on you.

Nevermind it believes that putting something in a Constitution affects the economy. Yes, the Superstructure totally affects the Base. How utterly anti-revisionist.Could you please highlight the part of the Constitution which says the superstructure affects the base? The Constitution actually says that it's basing itself in the current economic stage, the lower phase of communism, as opposed to the higher phase which has not yet been achieved.

To be directly contradicted by:There is a distinction between "achieved" and "completed" in this case.

Wait, wait. How did the capitalist class come back under Khruschev's time then? Didn't they get destroyed? Whats the point of class struggle against the Bourgeoisie when they are gone?I've posted the link to Bill Bland's Restoration of Capitalism before. I'll do it again (this is only the introduction, full work is posted on the site): http://www.marxists.org/archive/bland/1980/restoration-capitalism-soviet-union/introduction.htm

However, I know exactly how this will go; you'll complain that Bill Bland is an idiot and cannot be trusted, therefore you'll choose to ignore what he's saying, then you'll complain that Marxist-Leninists can't account for their own history, a common tactic seen on Revleft.

Remus Bleys is a kind of Danny Torrance. He hopes that if he closes his eyes and counts to ten, Marxist-Leninist counter-arguments will disappear once he reopens them.

Look, all scorn aside, if you truly want answers to the USSR's history, you do yourself a great injustice by willingly inflicting ignorance upon yourself. Maybe by reading Bill Bland's work, you'll actually learn something about the USSR.

Besides, if you're so strong in your beliefs, it would only be a simple matter of debunking the text

Some moralismSaying that exploitation is gone is hardly moralism. I see no appeal to bourgeois notions of good and evil here.

If that's moralism, then surely the majority of communists are infected by this moralism, since we all make the abolition of exploitation our goal!

Even though both are existing in peaceful coexist society without class struggle,Actually, the collectivization effort and the Moscow Trials are both seen as periods of intense class struggle by Marxist-Leninists, the former against the kulak class. The poor peasants and artisans can be transformed into members of the urban working class through collectivization. This position is consistent with Leninism.

No wonder CP's around the world are so liberal.Ironically, it was the denunciation of Stalin and the embracing of "national paths to socialism" and other anti-revolutionary concepts that lead to liberalization of the Communist Parties. An example of an individual who spearheaded this type of thing is Earl Browder.

Old Bolshie

3rd November 2013, 01:37

You claimed that trade relations only came about near the end of Stalin's life, which I found a bit strange a claim, and instead argued that they probably began not long after India achieved independence. In any case the subject is, again, irrelevant.

No, you retard, I stated that trade relations began before Stalin died. I said before Stalin died because you usually state that revisionism began when Stalin died. Here is the quote again:

It showed how USSR-India relations were already changing in the last of Stalin years and how its trade relations began before Stalin died.
Evidently the new Cuban bourgeoisie felt confident its interests were best served by perpetuating the neo-colonial economy they had swore to end while in the jungle fighting against Batista's forces. This is made clear by how slavishly loyal Castro became towards Soviet social-imperialism, which included endorsing its invasion of Czechoslovakia and fighting on its behalf in Angola and Ethiopia.That still doesn't mean that the soviets forced the monoculture economy upon the Cuban regime. I must say, however, that the view of Cuba as a neo-colonial regime of USSR is idiotic at minimum. The purpose of a relationship between an imperialist power and a colony is to the former be benefited from that relationship at the expense of the latter and not otherwise

Obviously the fact that various politicians were positioning themselves as "anti-war" candidates owed much to do with the mass discontent the war created, yet the fact is that various politicians also felt that the war was misdirected and that the "fight against Communism" could best be served elsewhere.So it was a problem of geo-politics and not a problem of hurting the US economy.

I like how I specifically cited—and have been arguing with you about—instances of Soviet social-imperialism in India as noted in those two works, and now suddenly you're attacking them because of their treatment of policies of capitalist restoration inside the USSR. It's almost like you... can't actually refute the points made that the USSR acted as an imperialist power in India.LOL. It was you who suddenly brought up the works about the restoration of capitalism in USSR, not me. As far as a supposed soviet imperialism goes I've already refuted.

Soviet theorists continued to denounce the INC and Gandhi up until the advent of Soviet revisionism. That diplomatic relations between the USSR and India improved in the last few years of Stalin's leadership did not alter the correct analysis the Soviets provided of the class nature of India and of Gandhi's ideology.Sure it did, otherwise Stalin wouldn't have changed his posture towards India which was initially hostile and then changed to a more opened one, with an increasing concern of Stalin and Soviet officials on India.

You haven't actually cited how Soviet theorists in Stalin's time changed their view of India.You haven't cited any soviet theorist either except for Stalin.

This is absurd. Nowhere in his tribute does Nehru mention socialism, let alone scientific socialism. If one were to actually read tributes offered by the leadership of the communist parties you would see how differently they were presented.He didn't need to do it. Is clearly implicitly in his words when he praises about Stalin influence and the way he built USSR. Unless you consider Stalin's influence to be non-socialistic or the way he built USSR non-socialistic either. The fact is that Nehru adopted aspects of the USSR economy in India's economy.

Keep in mind, also, that Nehru was a close ally of Tito, and always stressed the difference between his Indian "socialism," which had next to nothing to do with Marxism, and Marxism-Leninism.As a materialist I don't give a shit if the Indian "socialism" had anything to do with Marxism-Leninism or not. He could even claimed that he was a National-Socialist. What matters is what he done and not what he said.

Another idiotic idealistic issue of Anti-revisionists ML is that they give too much importance to words and not to much to actions, policies or other material aspects. That's certainly not marxist and much less materialistic.

Yes, that happens when you turn a country from impoverishment and isolation into a world power that defeated a massive military machine intent on exterminating said country. Again, none of this has anything to do with socialism.See my comment above. Unless you consider Stalin's influence to be non-socialistic Nehru is praising his influence which necessarily is socialist.

And you still haven't explained what "material conditions" changed in India to, in any way, make the Soviet revisionist claim that it was "building socialism" justifiable. You seem to be going so far as to claim that Nehru was some sort of secret Marxist and that Stalin was only just beginning to find this out.
I don't know if Nehru was a secret marxist or not but he certainly was influenced by socialist ideas. He adopted an economic model based on five years plan, embarked on an agrarian reform, attempted to introduce cooperative farming only frustrated by the right-wing faction of the Congress, took anti-imperialist stances on crucial issues, among other issues. This clearly contradicted the notion that Nehru was just an imperialist running dog and Stalin realized it.

Ismail

3rd November 2013, 19:30

I'll just reply to two points in Remus' post, since Questionable replied to most others:

"We have destroyed the ruling class. They no longer exist." Wait, wait. How did the capitalist class come back under Khruschev's time then? Didn't they get destroyed? Whats the point of class struggle against the Bourgeoisie when they are gone?The conditions for the development of a new bourgeoisie still exist, not to mention that so long as socialism has to exist side-by-side with capitalism, it is obvious the latter will try to overthrow the former.

By stating that worker co-ops and collective farming are part of socialist, legitimacy is given to the notion that the Kibbutz are socialist and that worker co-ops aren't petty-bourgeoisie.As Lenin wrote (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm) in 1923, "Under our present system, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises because they are collective enterprises, but do not differ from socialist enterprises if the land on which they are situated and means of production belong to the state, i.e., the working-class."

No, you retard, I stated that trade relations began before Stalin died. I said before Stalin died because you usually state that revisionism began when Stalin died. Here is the quote again:Except there is nothing revisionist about trading with a state, nor is there anything inherently imperialist about such a thing, so once more I have to ask: who cares? Unless the USSR under Stalin was engaging in the neo-colonial exploitation of India, it has no relevance whatsoever to the argument.

That still doesn't mean that the soviets forced the monoculture economy upon the Cuban regime.Castro was a willing lackey of Soviet social-imperialism, I don't see how that changes anything, as if the relationship between two countries is determined by what their leaders personally think of said relationship.

Sure it did, otherwise Stalin wouldn't have changed his posture towards India which was initially hostile and then changed to a more opened one, with an increasing concern of Stalin and Soviet officials on India.No it didn't, unless you'd like to give me evidence in the form of a changed Soviet stance on India in the theoretical realm from, say, 1951 to 1953.

You haven't cited any soviet theorist either except for Stalin.Alrighty, here's a Soviet theorist from 1950, taken from Colonial Peoples' Struggle for Liberation, pp. 36-38: "The ruling circles of India and Pakistan have betrayed the interests of the people and are applying all their energies to creating the most favourable conditions in these Dominions for the domination of foreign capital.... In the postwar years American capital is penetrating the economy of India still more actively. The specific weight of the USA in the imports of India rose from 7.4 per cent in 1938 to 30.3 per cent in 1947 and equalled Britain's share.... The USA and Britain continue to obstruct in every way the importation of industrial equipment into India and Pakistan. Their trade with these Dominions bears even at present a clearly expressed colonial character. In spite of these facts, the leaders of the ruling parties of India and Pakistan, the National Congress and the Muslim League, talk as though a 'bloodless revolution' had taken place in their country, as though they had attained 'independence' ... it is impossible to achieve any economic advance under conditions of the domination of the monopolies of imperialist countries, and under conditions when the ruling circles in India and Pakistan pursue a policy dictated by the interests of the exploiting classes."

The fact is that Nehru adopted aspects of the USSR economy in India's economy.Plenty of countries throughout the 1950's-80's adopted elements of national economic planning. It did not make them socialist; in many cases it was a way for a weak national bourgeoisie to assert itself or for a comprador bourgeoisie to more efficiently exploit the working-class and peasantry. The Soviet revisionist line that India was "building socialism" in part because of such planning is absurd and ignores the class content of the Indian regime.

As a materialist I don't give a shit if the Indian "socialism" had anything to do with Marxism-Leninism or not. He could even claimed that he was a National-Socialist. What matters is what he done and not what he said.In other words he had blatantly anti-Marxist theories yet somehow was building a socialist society in India. For a "materialist" you seem to think you can build socialism through idealism.

Another idiotic idealistic issue of Anti-revisionists ML is that they give too much importance to words and not to much to actions, policies or other material aspects. That's certainly not marxist and much less materialistic.Tito, Nehru and Nasser co-founded the "Non-Aligned Movement" together, that's hardly "just words," it demonstrates that Nehru was cut from the same nationalist and anti-communist cloth as Tito and Nasser.

Also I'm pretty sure there's a significant difference in a tribute that says "Stalin built up a strong country and beat Hitler" and a tribute that says "Stalin further developed Lenin's glorious theories and advanced the cause of communism for all mankind, building socialism in the USSR, defeating the Trotskyites and other opportunist forces" and what have you, which were the sort of tributes given by communist parties. Again, plenty of bourgeois figures paid tribute to Stalin, just as plenty of bourgeois figures (e.g. Atatürk) paid tribute to Lenin. The fact you can't distinguish between the types of tributes offered is rather concerning.

I don't know if Nehru was a secret marxist or not but he certainly was influenced by socialist ideas. He adopted an economic model based on five years plan, embarked on an agrarian reform, attempted to introduce cooperative farming only frustrated by the right-wing faction of the Congress, took anti-imperialist stances on crucial issues, among other issues. This clearly contradicted the notion that Nehru was just an imperialist running dog and Stalin realized it.So in short you concur with the Soviet revisionists that India was, in some way or another, "building socialism."

That's all I needed to know.

Remus Bleys

3rd November 2013, 20:46

I'll just reply to two points in Remus' post, since Questionable replied to most others: You both know I don't talk to Questionable.

The conditions for the development of a new bourgeoisie still exist, So, if the "new" bourgeoisie are able to form, how exactly are they different than the old one? How are these Bourgeoisie able to form?

In addition,
The organisation of society in such a manner that the exploitation by one person of the labour of his neighbour would be impossible, and where everyone will be allowed to enjoy the social wealth only to the extent of their contribution to the production of that wealth.
So, how could a society that has abolished "the exploitation of man by man" and have full worker control of the economy just loose that? How could a new Bourgeoisie occur?
Finally, did a new Bourgeoisie occur? You're probably going to tell me about managers and the bureaucracy, but if that is the case, what was the economic, the class, difference of the USSR under Stalin and Khrushchev?

not to mention that so long as socialism has to exist side-by-side with capitalism, it is obvious the latter will try to overthrow the former.
Socialism can't exist side-by-side with capitalism, they are both global systems.

As Lenin wrote (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm) in 1923, "Under our present system, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises because they are collective enterprises, but do not differ from socialist enterprises if the land on which they are situated and means of production belong to the state, i.e., the working-class."
This would work nice, except that the 1923 USSR was different from the 1936 USSR, and for this to be applicable, 1936 Russia would need to be a dictatorship of the proletariat.

It is still not the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for it.
He is stating that worker co-ops with a proletarian government does not necessarily mean that socialism is being built, but that socialism can be built out of this. So, just because Molotov is saying that worker co-ops (if such a thing even existed, and no Molotov's speech is not proof of that) are around does not mean Socialism exists.
And what mode of production do these worker co-ops use? Do they follow the law of value? Just because worker's own the means of production does not change the mode of production, as Marx said, "the process of production has mastery over [human beings], instead of the opposite.” (Capital, Vol. I, Peguin/Vintage ed.,p. 175).

Ismail

3rd November 2013, 21:28

Finally, did a new Bourgeoisie occur? You're probably going to tell me about managers and the bureaucracy, but if that is the case, what was the economic, the class, difference of the USSR under Stalin and Khrushchev?The link in my signature gives various works demonstrating how the USSR from Khrushchev onwards had restored capitalism and pursued a social-imperialist foreign policy. In addition there is also Bill Bland's work which makes clear the various steps the revisonists undertook in all fields, from nationality policy to the law of value: http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

And what mode of production do these worker co-ops use? Do they follow the law of value?As Stalin noted in his work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/EPS52.html),

The collective farm is an unusual kind of enterprise. It operates on land, and cultivates land which has long been public, and not collective-farm property. Consequently, the collective farm is not the owner of the land it cultivates.

Further, the collective farm operates with basic implements of production which are public, not collective-farm property. Consequently, the collective farm is not the owner of its basic implements of production.

Further, the collective farm is a cooperative enterprise: it utilizes the labour of its members, and it distributes its income among its members on the basis of workday units; it owns its seed, which is renewed every year and goes into production.

What, then, does the collective farm own? Where is the collective-farm property which it disposes of quite freely, at its own discretion? This property of the collective farm is its product, the product of collective farming: grain, meat, butter, vegetables, cotton, sugar beet, flax, etc., not counting the buildings and the personal husbandry of the collective farmers on their household plots. The fact is that a considerable part of this product, the surplus collective-farm output, goes into the market and is thus included in the system of commodity circulation. It is precisely this circumstance which now prevents the elevation of collective-farm property to the level of public property. It is therefore precisely from this end that the work of elevating collective farm property to the level of public property must be tackled.

We still have no developed system of products-exchange, but the rudiments of such a system exist in the shape of the "merchandising" of agricultural products. For quite a long time already, as we know, the products of the cotton-growing, flax-growing, beet-growing and other collective farms are "merchandised." They are not "merchandised" in full, it is true, but only partly, still they are "merchandised." Be it mentioned in passing that "merchandising" is not a happy word, and should be replaced by "products-exchange." The task is to extend these rudiments of products-exchange to all branches of agriculture and to develop them into a broad system, under which the collective farms would receive for their products not only money, but also and chiefly the manufactures they need. Such a system would require an immense increase in the goods allocated by the town to the country, and it would therefore have to be introduced without any particular hurry, and only as the products of the town multiply. But it must be introduced unswervingly and unhesitatingly, step by step contracting the sphere of operation of commodity circulation and widening the sphere of operation of products-exchange.

Such a system, by contracting the sphere of operation of commodity circulation, will facilitate the transition from socialism to communism. Moreover, it will make it possible to include the basic property of the collective farms, the product of collective farming, in the general system of national planning.Of course the Soviet revisionists attacked this view of Stalin's.

Remus Bleys

3rd November 2013, 21:47

The link in my signature gives various works demonstrating how the USSR from Khrushchev onwards had restored capitalism and pursued a social-imperialist foreign policy. In addition there is also Bill Bland's work which makes clear the various steps the revisonists undertook in all fields, from nationality policy to the law of value: http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html
I'm not going to wade through Bill Bland's shit.

As Stalin noted in his work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/EPS52.html),This doesn't contradict anything that I say.

Of course the Soviet revisionists attacked this view of Stalin's.
http://images.wikia.com/legomessageboards/images/d/db/640px-Squidward_Meme_-_Nobody_Cares.pngstop saying this

Questionable

3rd November 2013, 22:29

You both know I don't talk to Questionable.

This is a pretty lame getaway from my post. I'm guessing your reasoning was how I said I was critically supportive of the PSL. It really makes zero sense for you to begin ignoring me based on that, since I pretty much taught you about the PSL shortly before you denounced me. You showed blatant ignorance of the organization when I first brought it up, and now you apparently consider yourself enough of an expert on them to judge me not worthy of being spoken to for being critically supportive of them.

The funny thing is that your initial criticism of the PSL was that it was party full of old people. After I disproved that, your criticism changed to it being full of radical liberals instead of Marxists. It's obvious that your real agenda is negating any Marxist-Leninist organization on any grounds, regardless if it makes sense or not. You're far more close-minded than any 'Stalinist.'

I'm not going to wade through Bill Bland's shit.

Saw it coming.

Remus Bleys

3rd November 2013, 22:34

Actually jackass, I was talking about the CPUSA when I said old people, and that wasn't a criticism, I was responding to why they didn't do anything.
I know what the PSL is, it just slipped my mind and I thought it was about the CPUSA.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

3rd November 2013, 22:35

Ismail: What relations to the means of production existed under Stalin and under Kruschev? What did he do to take the "workers power" away?

Old Bolshie

4th November 2013, 01:32

Except there is nothing revisionist about trading with a state, nor is there anything inherently imperialist about such a thing, so once more I have to ask: who cares? Unless the USSR under Stalin was engaging in the neo-colonial exploitation of India, it has no relevance whatsoever to the argument.

Stalin was engaging in the neo-colonial exploitation of India in the same degree his successors were.

Castro was a willing lackey of Soviet social-imperialism, I don't see how that changes anything, as if the relationship between two countries is determined by what their leaders personally think of said relationship.

The issue was if the Soviets forced the monoculture economy on the Cuban regime which you failed to prove so far.

No it didn't, unless you'd like to give me evidence in the form of a changed Soviet stance on India in the theoretical realm from, say, 1951 to 1953.

LOL. You need a piece of political propaganda to see how USSR altered its position on India? This pretty shows how idealistic and non-materialist you are. You completely ignore the material side of the issues. Compare the USSR stance on India during the initial years of independence and after the Indian volte-face in the Korean issue. It's obvious that there was a change on how Stalin and USSR officials viewed India.

Alrighty, here's a Soviet theorist from 1950, taken from Colonial Peoples' Struggle for Liberation, pp. 36-38: "The ruling circles of India and Pakistan have betrayed the interests of the people and are applying all their energies to creating the most favourable conditions in these Dominions for the domination of foreign capital.... In the postwar years American capital is penetrating the economy of India still more actively. The specific weight of the USA in the imports of India rose from 7.4 per cent in 1938 to 30.3 per cent in 1947 and equalled Britain's share.... The USA and Britain continue to obstruct in every way the importation of industrial equipment into India and Pakistan. Their trade with these Dominions bears even at present a clearly expressed colonial character. In spite of these facts, the leaders of the ruling parties of India and Pakistan, the National Congress and the Muslim League, talk as though a 'bloodless revolution' had taken place in their country, as though they had attained 'independence' ... it is impossible to achieve any economic advance under conditions of the domination of the monopolies of imperialist countries, and under conditions when the ruling circles in India and Pakistan pursue a policy dictated by the interests of the exploiting classes."

1950? LOL. The conversation between Stalin and Ambassador Radhakrishnan was in 1952. And what is exactly a soviet theorist? Somebody that walks through the Kremlin all day with the bible in his hands?

Plenty of countries throughout the 1950's-80's adopted elements of national economic planning. It did not make them socialist; in many cases it was a way for a weak national bourgeoisie to assert itself or for a comprador bourgeoisie to more efficiently exploit the working-class and peasantry. The Soviet revisionist line that India was "building socialism" in part because of such planning is absurd and ignores the class content of the Indian regime.

India was building socialism like Stalin's USSR was which means that in both cases socialism wasn't being build. The difference is that the soviet working class was even more exploited and oppressed than the Indian one.

In other words he had blatantly anti-Marxist theories yet somehow was building a socialist society in India. For a "materialist" you seem to think you can build socialism through idealism.

Idealism is to think that one needs to be necessarily a Marxist to "build" a socialist society. That's idealism. As a materialist I don't give a damn if Nehru was a Marxist or not.

Tito, Nehru and Nasser co-founded the "Non-Aligned Movement" together, that's hardly "just words," it demonstrates that Nehru was cut from the same nationalist and anti-communist cloth as Tito and Nasser.

Tito Nehru and Nasser were nationalists and anti-communists as Stalin or Hoxha were. Trying to differentiate them is idiotic specially when one of them murdered more communists than all of the others combined.

Also I'm pretty sure there's a significant difference in a tribute that says "Stalin built up a strong country and beat Hitler" and a tribute that says "Stalin further developed Lenin's glorious theories and advanced the cause of communism for all mankind, building socialism in the USSR, defeating the Trotskyites and other opportunist forces" and what have you, which were the sort of tributes given by communist parties. Again, plenty of bourgeois figures paid tribute to Stalin, just as plenty of bourgeois figures (e.g. Atatürk) paid tribute to Lenin. The fact you can't distinguish between the types of tributes offered is rather concerning.

No, you dumbfuck. Nehru didn't just said "Stalin built up a strong country and beat Hitler". He praised the way Stalin built USSR and his influence over the people.

So in short you concur with the Soviet revisionists that India was, in some way or another, "building socialism."

That's all I needed to know.

India was building socialism in the same degree USSR (during and after Stalin) was which means that...it wasn't. In both cases the working class didn't hold political-economic power and it was ruled by an oppressor regime.

reb

4th November 2013, 03:50

Ismail: What relations to the means of production existed under Stalin and under Kruschev? What did he do to take the "workers power" away?

By taking away "democratic consolation", comrade! What else could it have been? Do you not remember Bill Bland saying this without irony?

Flying Purple People Eater

4th November 2013, 04:15

Holy shit this learning thread has turned into a god-damned bloodbath.

reb

4th November 2013, 04:18

Sorry, wrong thread. Damn, ruined my punch line.

Yuppie Grinder

4th November 2013, 04:20

No, you retard, I stated that trade relations began before Stalin died. I said before Stalin died because you usually state that revisionism began when Stalin died. Here is the quote again:

yo dog just warnin ya people don't take kindly to that sort of language here, you're likely to get infracted
also, it's really not conducive to productive conversation

Old Bolshie

4th November 2013, 12:37

yo dog just warnin ya people don't take kindly to that sort of language here, you're likely to get infracted
also, it's really not conducive to productive conversation

I understand it and I usually don't use this kind of language but when almost every single post that you write is permanently attacked by the same user always with the same content you begin to loose your patience very easily which is the case with Ismail.

If I have a disagreement with some user and debate with him once I won't be keeping arguing the very same thing with him over and over again.

Ismail

4th November 2013, 21:34

Stalin was engaging in the neo-colonial exploitation of India in the same degree his successors were.Except I've given examples of the neo-colonial relationship between the USSR under the revisionists and India. You still haven't addressed them.

The issue was if the Soviets forced the monoculture economy on the Cuban regime which you failed to prove so far.Che Guevara certainly took issue with it. Castro didn't, since he found it comfortable being a lackey of Soviet social-imperialism and using the country's armed forces as mercenaries abroad on its behalf. Once again you seem to be taking the position that a country isn't exploiting another if the exploited country's leadership is a-okay with that, as if neo-colonial leaderships do not exist.

Compare the USSR stance on India during the initial years of independence and after the Indian volte-face in the Korean issue. It's obvious that there was a change on how Stalin and USSR officials viewed India.And yet you can't actually demonstrate these changes. Stalin, FDR and Churchill were allies during WWII, I don't think Soviet theorists claimed that the USA and UK were building socialism as a result.

And what is exactly a soviet theorist? Somebody that walks through the Kremlin all day with the bible in his hands?You asked for a quote from a Soviet theorist. Upon being presented with one you seek to belittle the very concept.

India was building socialism like Stalin's USSR was which means that in both cases socialism wasn't being build. The difference is that the soviet working class was even more exploited and oppressed than the Indian one.I don't recall things like caste systems and sterilization campaigns existing under Stalin, but alright then. Your attempts to look like you're equally denouncing all of these people, while in fact making apologia for all but one, shows once again how denouncing Stalin means upholding bourgeois nationalism, idealism, and revisionism.

Idealism is to think that one needs to be necessarily a Marxist to "build" a socialist society. That's idealism. As a materialist I don't give a damn if Nehru was a Marxist or not.And that puts you in the same "materialist" camp as Saddam Hussein, Julius Nyerere, and obviously the "socialism" of Nehru and Nasser, who spoke of how their countries were "different," how Marxist analysis mysteriously didn't apply to them, and how such concepts as the dictatorship of the proletariat were thus unacceptable.

If you think one can achieve "socialism" under such conditions then you obviously don't care much about the emancipation of labor to begin with. Like the Soviet revisionists, "socialism" in your mind is equated with nationalization and the establishment of a state-monopoly capitalist class.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

5th November 2013, 12:28

Ismail, what was the difference in the relations to the means of production under Stalin and Kruschev?

How/what did NK do to end "workers power"?

Old Bolshie

5th November 2013, 17:30

Except I've given examples of the neo-colonial relationship between the USSR under the revisionists and India. You still haven't addressed them.

Yes I already did. Those examples you gave are as much imperialists as the SovRoms. Actually, the SovRoms are much worst in terms of exploitation than the examples you gave of India.

Che Guevara certainly took issue with it. Castro didn't, since he found it comfortable being a lackey of Soviet social-imperialism and using the country's armed forces as mercenaries abroad on its behalf. Once again you seem to be taking the position that a country isn't exploiting another if the exploited country's leadership is a-okay with that, as if neo-colonial leaderships do not exist.

The issue was not if Cuba was exploited or not by the USSR but rather if their type of economy was imposed by the USSR on the Cuban regime which obviously wasn't.

And yet you can't actually demonstrate these changes. Stalin, FDR and Churchill were allies during WWII, I don't think Soviet theorists claimed that the USA and UK were building socialism as a result.

Your comparison between US/UK and India which was a newly born country is ludicrous. US or UK had political-economic paths long time established whereas the Indian one was still too much unknown as it proved afterwards. It is perfectible plausible that Stalin's view of India as an imperialist lackey changed once he saw India taking stances against British and American interests.

You asked for a quote from a Soviet theorist. Upon being presented with one you seek to belittle the very concept.

Not at all. I just wanted to clarify the concept since it's a very vague one.

I don't recall things like caste systems and sterilization campaigns existing under Stalin, but alright then. Your attempts to look like you're equally denouncing all of these people, while in fact making apologia for all but one, shows once again how denouncing Stalin means upholding bourgeois nationalism, idealism, and revisionism.

Since when Caste systems or sterilization campaigns determines if a country is socialist or not? It's like saying that the punishment of homosexuals in USSR made of the country a non-socialist one.

And that puts you in the same "materialist" camp as Saddam Hussein, Julius Nyerere, and obviously the "socialism" of Nehru and Nasser, who spoke of how their countries were "different," how Marxist analysis mysteriously didn't apply to them, and how such concepts as the dictatorship of the proletariat were thus unacceptable.

You perhaps didn't notice that I stated that India wasn't building socialism.

If you think one can achieve "socialism" under such conditions then you obviously don't care much about the emancipation of labor to begin with. Like the Soviet revisionists, "socialism" in your mind is equated with nationalization and the establishment of a state-monopoly capitalist class.

This was the funniest moment I had in my almost one year experience of RevLeft. A hardcore Stalinist accusing another user of not caring too much about the emancipation of labor. :lol:

JUST TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THE MIRROR, ISMAIL.

Ismail

5th November 2013, 19:48

Yes I already did.

The issue was not if Cuba was exploited or not by the USSR but rather if their type of economy was imposed by the USSR on the Cuban regime which obviously wasn't.You just denied only a few posts back that Cuba was exploited by the USSR. Now you're saying it's irrelevant and that what matters is if Castro cared or not. Well no, he didn't care, I'm sure neither did Mobutu, Pinochet, or any other dictators who happened to be backed by US imperialism instead.

Since when Caste systems or sterilization campaigns determines if a country is socialist or not? It's like saying that the punishment of homosexuals in USSR made of the country a non-socialist one.The Soviet revisionists describe the term "caste" in their encyclopedia as "an endogamous hereditary group of people that occupies a fixed place in the social hierarchy that is connected with a traditional occupation. A caste is limited in its social intercourse with other castes." I can't imagine a socialist society having such a system, no.

You perhaps didn't notice that I stated that India wasn't building socialism.But apparently the Soviets shouldn't have been so certain to write off India as building capitalism, according to every other reply of yours. Obviously with the hindsight of 60 years anyone would say that India was capitalist, but Marxist-Leninists didn't doubt this at the time either. The fact that you try to justify the about-turn imposed by Soviet revisionism demonstrates that you act as an apologist for their attempts to portray capitalism as socialism and neo-colonialism as proletarian internationalism.

Ismail, what was the difference in the relations to the means of production under Stalin and Kruschev?Under Stalin the means of production were controlled by the working-class and were socialist in content. Under Khrushchev the means of production were usurped by a new bourgeoisie which established a form of state-monopoly capitalism.

How/what did NK do to end "workers power"?A lot of Kim Il Sung's doctrines were based on Maoism, particularly his treatment of exploiting classes which he basically said could be "grown" into socialism à la Bukharin. Two years after Stalin died he openly proclaimed his metaphysical "Juche" ideology, which his son developed further to eventually result in the "Songun" policy, in which the army, and not the working-class, is declared the most revolutionary and leading force in society. So from the perspective of maintaining a proletarian line, the DPRK obviously failed in that regard.

As for economics, the DPRK has always sought to establish friendly relations with the imperialist states and earnest efforts begun in the early 90's to allow for foreign investments. Today the nominally "planned" economy in fact operates in many ways like a capitalist economy, as a number of bourgeois sources can attest, e.g. http://sinonk.com/2013/06/14/marketization-and-its-limits-state-private-enterprises-in-north-korea/

On the subject of Korean revisionism and its right-wing economic policies in the 40s and 50s see: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htm

Old Bolshie

6th November 2013, 12:09

You just denied only a few posts back that Cuba was exploited by the USSR. Now you're saying it's irrelevant and that what matters is if Castro cared or not. Well no, he didn't care, I'm sure neither did Mobutu, Pinochet, or any other dictators who happened to be backed by US imperialism instead.

And I still deny that Cuba was being exploited by USSR. But your original claim was that the Soviets forced the monoculture economy on Cuba which is clearly false.

The Soviet revisionists describe the term "caste" in their encyclopedia as "an endogamous hereditary group of people that occupies a fixed place in the social hierarchy that is connected with a traditional occupation. A caste is limited in its social intercourse with other castes." I can't imagine a socialist society having such a system, no.

And I can't imagine a socialist society where the homosexuals are imprisoned and sent to labor camps just because of their sexual orientation either. Again, this has very little to do if those countries were socialist or not because they weren't in either case not because they punished homosexuals or had a caste system but because their mode of production was simply not socialist.

But apparently the Soviets shouldn't have been so certain to write off India as building capitalism, according to every other reply of yours. Obviously with the hindsight of 60 years anyone would say that India was capitalist, but Marxist-Leninists didn't doubt this at the time either. The fact that you try to justify the about-turn imposed by Soviet revisionism demonstrates that you act as an apologist for their attempts to portray capitalism as socialism and neo-colonialism as proletarian internationalism.

I didn't justify anything. I merely pointed out how the turn of USSR on India began before Stalin died. And I already stated that India wasn't building socialism as USSR wasn't either in any point of its history.

What's more funny in your critique of "revisionism" is that all that critique fit perfectly well (even more well) on Stalin and Stalinism (and Leninism for that matter).

Ismail

6th November 2013, 21:22

And I still deny that Cuba was being exploited by USSR. But your original claim was that the Soviets forced the monoculture economy on Cuba which is clearly false.No, my original claim was that the Soviets treated Cuba like a neo-colony. Whether or not Castro cared about this (and he did, at any rate, annoy the Soviet revisionists in the early-to-mid-60s owing to his more "revolutionary" posturing) is immaterial to the existence or lack thereof of this relationship.

And I can't imagine a socialist society where the homosexuals are imprisoned and sent to labor camps just because of their sexual orientation either. Again, this has very little to do if those countries were socialist or not because they weren't in either case not because they punished homosexuals or had a caste system but because their mode of production was simply not socialist.Except it is theoretically possible to have a socialist society that happens to hold homophobic attitudes (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and what have you certainly never expressed sentiments to the contrary), whereas having a caste system is incompatible with socialism because it presupposes a permanent underclass and a permanent aristocratic class.

I didn't justify anything. I merely pointed out how the turn of USSR on India began before Stalin died.No you didn't, you pointed out an improvement in diplomatic relations. There is nothing to suggest that the Stalin-era USSR would have considered India as "building socialism," considering that the Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked Stalin for his supposed "dogmatism" and "sectarianism" on this point.

And I already stated that India wasn't building socialism as USSR wasn't either in any point of its history.And yet you still apologize for the Soviet revisionist position that India was "building socialism." You said, "Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt." Except they weren't. Both were capitalist states ruled by anti-communist regimes. Not to mention that you tried to minimize the sterilization campaign initiated by Soviet lackey Indira Gandhi (calling it "voluntary"), etc.

Old Bolshie

7th November 2013, 12:54

No, my original claim was that the Soviets treated Cuba like a neo-colony. Whether or not Castro cared about this (and he did, at any rate, annoy the Soviet revisionists in the early-to-mid-60s owing to his more "revolutionary" posturing) is immaterial to the existence or lack thereof of this relationship.

No it wasn't. You said that the soviets perpetuated the monoculture economy of Cuba. But even your claim that Cuba was a soviet neo-colony has already been refuted.

Except it is theoretically possible to have a socialist society that happens to hold homophobic attitudes (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and what have you certainly never expressed sentiments to the contrary), whereas having a caste system is incompatible with socialism because it presupposes a permanent underclass and a permanent aristocratic class.Homophobic attitudes are one thing. A state persecuting homosexuals is another. It could happen that Stalin himself wasn't even homophobic but what matters is that he promulgated a law against homosexuals. Obviously in a socialist society there can't be a state imprisoning homosexuals(even because there isn't a state in first place).

It also ludicrous that you consider that is possible to have a socialist society that happens to hold homophobic attitudes just because Marx or Engels never mentioned specifically that homophobic attitudes can't happen in a socialist society.

As far as the caste system goes you also show your ignorance here. Nehru himself was against the caste system and took decisive measures to eradicate it. Legal procedures were enacted to make caste discrimination illegal and punishable by law. The enacted laws were strictly enforced.

So the bullet just backfired to you.

And just to let it clear, my point was not that you can have a caste system or imprisonment of homosexuals in socialism but rather that USSR or India's mode of production wasn't determined by the existence of castes or homosexual persecution.

No you didn't, you pointed out an improvement in diplomatic relations. There is nothing to suggest that the Stalin-era USSR would have considered India as "building socialism," considering that the Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked Stalin for his supposed "dogmatism" and "sectarianism" on this point.And the improvement in diplomatic relations was obviously associated with a change of Stalin's view on India as I already quoted a source pointing out precisely this.

And yet you still apologize for the Soviet revisionist position that India was "building socialism." You said, "Material conditions were changing rapidly in under-developing countries like India and Egypt." Except they weren't. Both were capitalist states ruled by anti-communist regimes. Not to mention that you tried to minimize the sterilization campaign initiated by Soviet lackey Indira Gandhi (calling it "voluntary"), etc.And it is true that material conditions were changing rapidly in both India and Egypt as both countries were emerging from colony exploitation and fighting against the remains of it. And from a soviet perspective is perfectly normal that both countries were considered as building socialism since the soviets were considering that they were themselves building socialism before and after Stalin died which wasn't obviously the case.

However, India and Egypt were much as capitalist as it was Stalin's USSR as I already mentioned. And the sterilization campaign was voluntary indeed.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

7th November 2013, 14:10

Ismail

8th November 2013, 04:25

No it wasn't. You said that the soviets perpetuated the monoculture economy of Cuba.Well yes, obviously for Cuba to be a neo-colony it greatly helps that it has a monocultural economy, just like how the French established and maintained neo-colonial economies in West Africa at the time.

As far as the caste system goes you also show your ignorance here. Nehru himself was against the caste system and took decisive measures to eradicate it. Legal procedures were enacted to make caste discrimination illegal and punishable by law. The enacted laws were strictly enforced.

So the bullet just backfired to you.Bourgeois states have also enacted various "anti-racism" legislation, that doesn't change the fact that racism continues to exist, just as in India caste continues to be an important aspect of society.

And it is true that material conditions were changing rapidly in both India and Egypt as both countries were emerging from colony exploitation and fighting against the remains of it. And from a soviet perspective is perfectly normal that both countries were considered as building socialism since the soviets were considering that they were themselves building socialism before and after Stalin died which wasn't obviously the case.Actually the Soviet revisionists claimed they were building "communism," and declared that the dictatorship of the proletariat had supposedly accomplished its task, that class struggle had died out, that the state would begin to dissolve, etc. This ran completely counter to Stalin's view that class struggle would intensify, that the DOTP would exist so long as class struggle existed, and that the state organs would be strengthened, not relaxed.

And once more the Soviet attitude on Egypt under Stalin was much different from the attitude of the Soviet revisionists.

"Under the heading 'Egypt' in the Soviet encyclopedia which was published in September 1952, was written:

'On the night of 23 July 1952 a reactionary officers' group linked with the USA and headed by Gen. Najib seized power in Cairo. King Faruq was deposed on 26 July . . . the Regency Council and the government being controlled by Gen. Najib, who established a military dictatorship . . . The 1952 coup sharply aggravated Anglo-American differences concerning Egypt. After the coup, Najib began savage reprisals against the workers' movement, setting up drumhead courts martial.'

The first Soviet attack on the military rulers came as a result of the Kafr-al-Dawwar incident. On the night of 12 August, there was a strike of 500 workers at the Misr Textile Works in Kafr al-Dawwar near Alexandria. On 13 August, early in the morning, troops arrived from Alexandria. In the exchange of fire between the demonstrators and the army, one policeman, two soldiers and four workers were killed and many others wounded. To contain the unrest, the new leaders authorized the arrest of 545 workers. The military rulers assumed that communists were responsible for inciting the workers... Najib said that his government intended to take the strongest measures against communism in Egypt. According to him, the regime had 'recently brought the total of interned communists up to about 200'.

The Soviet press gave an accurate description of the events. It covered them under headlines like 'Shooting of strikers in Egypt' and 'Harsh suppression of the Egyptian textile workers' strike'. The Polish Press Agency concluded that the riots against the British under the Wafd government and the events in Kafr al-Dawwar had shown the potential strength of 'the Egyptian national movement'. The new rulers of Egypt and their 'hidden American-Nazi advisers', it said, were using bloody methods of terror against the workers.

Soviet criticism of Egypt's new leaders continued even when the latter's social policy tried to improve the status of peasants through the laws of agrarian reform decreed on 9 September 1952... Soviet commentators criticized it and indicated that the prospect for significant change was very small. In a Radio Moscow survey of Egypt, Vinogradov, a political commentator, did analyse accurately the implications of the reform... He concluded that the reform did not address the situation of the landless peasants and smallholders because they could not pay for the smallest piece of land confiscated from the landowners."
(Rami Ginat. The Soviet Union and Egypt: 1945-1955. London: Frank Cass & Co. LTD. 1993. pp. 157-158.)

Once again you attack the Stalin period as a way of covering for revisionism and bourgeois nationalism.

Old Bolshie

8th November 2013, 12:57

Well yes, obviously for Cuba to be a neo-colony it greatly helps that it has a monocultural economy, just like how the French established and maintained neo-colonial economies in West Africa at the time.

The option to have a monoculture economy belonged to the Cuban authorities, not to the Soviets. It was neither imposed nor encouraged by USSR. And the economic relationship between Cuba and USSR was highly disadvantageous for USSR which makes your talk about "neo-colony" a ridiculous one.

Bourgeois states have also enacted various "anti-racism" legislation, that doesn't change the fact that racism continues to exist, just as in India caste continues to be an important aspect of society.That's because you can't fight social-cultural elements of a society which results from the material conditions of it through governmental measures. Pretty much like the Soviet state or any other "socialist" state failed to eradicate religion through governmental force.

The issue here is the attitude of Nehru's government towards the Caste System which as I already proved was hostile to it and tried to eradicate it.

Actually the Soviet revisionists claimed they were building "communism," and declared that the dictatorship of the proletariat had supposedly accomplished its task, that class struggle had died out, that the state would begin to dissolve, etc. This ran completely counter to Stalin's view that class struggle would intensify, that the DOTP would exist so long as class struggle existed, and that the state organs would be strengthened, not relaxed.Stalin was the first to claim that the lower phase of communism had been achieved in the main in USSR which is completely absurd and ludicrous.

And once more the Soviet attitude on Egypt under Stalin was much different from the attitude of the Soviet revisionists.

"Under the heading 'Egypt' in the Soviet encyclopedia which was published in September 1952, was written:

'On the night of 23 July 1952 a reactionary officers' group linked with the USA and headed by Gen. Najib seized power in Cairo. King Faruq was deposed on 26 July . . . the Regency Council and the government being controlled by Gen. Najib, who established a military dictatorship . . . The 1952 coup sharply aggravated Anglo-American differences concerning Egypt. After the coup, Najib began savage reprisals against the workers' movement, setting up drumhead courts martial.'

The first Soviet attack on the military rulers came as a result of the Kafr-al-Dawwar incident. On the night of 12 August, there was a strike of 500 workers at the Misr Textile Works in Kafr al-Dawwar near Alexandria. On 13 August, early in the morning, troops arrived from Alexandria. In the exchange of fire between the demonstrators and the army, one policeman, two soldiers and four workers were killed and many others wounded. To contain the unrest, the new leaders authorized the arrest of 545 workers. The military rulers assumed that communists were responsible for inciting the workers... Najib said that his government intended to take the strongest measures against communism in Egypt. According to him, the regime had 'recently brought the total of interned communists up to about 200'.

The Soviet press gave an accurate description of the events. It covered them under headlines like 'Shooting of strikers in Egypt' and 'Harsh suppression of the Egyptian textile workers' strike'. The Polish Press Agency concluded that the riots against the British under the Wafd government and the events in Kafr al-Dawwar had shown the potential strength of 'the Egyptian national movement'. The new rulers of Egypt and their 'hidden American-Nazi advisers', it said, were using bloody methods of terror against the workers.

Soviet criticism of Egypt's new leaders continued even when the latter's social policy tried to improve the status of peasants through the laws of agrarian reform decreed on 9 September 1952... Soviet commentators criticized it and indicated that the prospect for significant change was very small. In a Radio Moscow survey of Egypt, Vinogradov, a political commentator, did analyse accurately the implications of the reform... He concluded that the reform did not address the situation of the landless peasants and smallholders because they could not pay for the smallest piece of land confiscated from the landowners."
(Rami Ginat. The Soviet Union and Egypt: 1945-1955. London: Frank Cass & Co. LTD. 1993. pp. 157-158.)

Once again you attack the Stalin period as a way of covering for revisionism and bourgeois nationalism.What you still didn't understand is that I don't simply attack Stalin's period but the all period of USSR as well. The issue is that social relations and USSR's mode of production didn't change in USSR from Stalin to his successors. Claiming that it did just because USSR changed its theoretical view on some countries is one of the most absurd and unmaterialistic things I have ever heard.

reb

8th November 2013, 13:34

The means of production were neither controlled nor managed by the proletariat under Stalin. It was the bureaucracy which had that role, and of which the proletarian masses did not make up.

The relations to the means of production remained the same under Stalin as under Kruschev; capitalist.

Comrade, the proletariat controlled the means of production through "democratic consultation" with the state! Of course they had control over it through being consulted, democratically of course. Those pesky revisionists changed this democratic consultation to... uh, consultation!

Remus Bleys

8th November 2013, 13:38

the populism inherent in names such as "revolutionarydemocracy.com" and "democratic consultation" is rather telling about the social democrat nature of stalinists.

reb

8th November 2013, 14:00

the populism inherent in names such as "revolutionarydemocracy.com" and "democratic consultation" is rather telling about the social democrat nature of stalinists.

Most of the arguments here are of an ideological nature and not a materialist one. There's plenty of factual evidence that workers were not in control of production in the form of decreased productivity, the need to allow people to earn more money, labor discipline and the restriction of labor movement, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Also a lot of the argumentation going on here stems largely from an anglophone centric perspective. The Russian word "kontrol" doesn't mean control as it does in English, it means to over see. The working class over seeing production is different entirely from the working class controlling or owning the production process.

And if this "democratic consultation" thing is a serious attempt at showing that workers in either revisionist or non-revisionist USSR controlled or did not control the economy then it's a very lazy one. The chief problems of the latter day soviets was that it could not consult fast enough hence all of the apologists for technology being the solution to capitalism in the form of processing power and cybernetics.

Idealism is at the heart here, totally divorced from material reality. Just look at all of the pseudo-conspiracy shit coming out from the anti-revisionists here.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

8th November 2013, 14:37

Most of the arguments here are of an ideological nature and not a materialist one. There's plenty of factual evidence that workers were not in control of production in the form of decreased productivity, the need to allow people to earn more money, labor discipline and the restriction of labor movement, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Never mind that a lot of the argumentation going on here stems largely from an anglophone nature. The Russian word "kontrol" doesn't mean control as it does in English, it means to over see. The working class over seeing production is different entirely from the working class controlling or owning the production process.

And if this "democratic consultation" thing is a serious attempt at showing that workers in either revisionist or non-revisionist USSR controlled or did not control the economy then it's a very lazy one. The chief problems of the latter day soviets was that it could not consult fast enough hence all of the apologists for technology being the solution to capitalism in the form of processing power and cybernetics.

Idealism is at the heart here, totally divorced from material reality. Just look at all of the pseudo-conspiracy shit coming out from the anti-revisionists here.

I'm not sure how anyone can just pass off all the strikes, the uprisings (East Germany 53, Hungary 56) which coincided with the spontaneous formation of workers councils. This is as clear as it gets. Its frustrating, to be honest. The arguments from Stalinists and Trots alike, are as you said, ideological and come from those who have never picked up Marx, besides the manifesto.

Ismail

9th November 2013, 05:46

The option to have a monoculture economy belonged to the Cuban authorities, not to the Soviets.Much in the same way it belongs to the leaders of other countries ruled as neo-colonies?

It was neither imposed nor encouraged by USSR.This is blatantly false, it was precisely the "favorable" Soviet trade with Cuba that ensured its state-capitalist leadership would have no incentives to promote anything other than the sugar monoculture.

That's because you can't fight social-cultural elements of a society which results from the material conditions of it through governmental measures. Pretty much like the Soviet state or any other "socialist" state failed to eradicate religion through governmental force.The material conditions for religion under socialism cease to exist. That is why it is able to be fought. The Soviet revisionists propagated the doctrine of "religious socialism" in describing the likes of Ben Bella and other bourgeois nationalists. Albania's anti-religious campaign did produce clear results.

What you still didn't understand is that I don't simply attack Stalin's period but the all period of USSR as well. The issue is that social relations and USSR's mode of production didn't change in USSR from Stalin to his successors. Claiming that it did just because USSR changed its theoretical view on some countries is one of the most absurd and unmaterialistic things I have ever heard.That the USSR under the revisionists revised foreign policy positions stemmed from the fact that they had seized state power and had begun to restore capitalism, it was not a cause, but an effect of such a process.

The fact is that you don't equally condemn "the all [sic.] period of the USSR," you act as an apologist for the revisionists. What of the Soviet neo-colonialist interventions in Afghanistan and, through their Cuban proxies, in Angola? You haven't shown me one policy of the Soviet revisionists that you think was inferior to the positions taken in Stalin's time. You constantly cover for Soviet social-imperialist expansionism abroad, its alliances with reactionary regimes which the revisionists prettified as "building socialism" or "pursuing the non-capitalist path of development," etc.

Old Bolshie

9th November 2013, 17:04

Much in the same way it belongs to the leaders of other countries ruled as neo-colonies?

In the same way the US, UK or any other independent state decides how it wanna run its own economy.

This is blatantly false, it was precisely the "favorable" Soviet trade with Cuba that ensured its state-capitalist leadership would have no incentives to promote anything other than the sugar monoculture.

The fact that the trade was favorably to Cubans was already an incentive for them. If their economic model was prejudicial to them they would have changed since they had all the autonomy to do it.

The material conditions for religion under socialism cease to exist.

Exactly, like for racism or caste system. The problem is that we haven't reach socialism yet, so religion and racism still exist.

That is why it is able to be fought. The Soviet revisionists propagated the doctrine of "religious socialism" in describing the likes of Ben Bella and other bourgeois nationalists. Albania's anti-religious campaign did produce clear results.

If the material conditions for the existence of religion still exist no matter what you will never eradicate it. None of the so called "socialist" regimes was able to do it precisely because the material conditions for its existence continued to exist despite of the efforts taken by each state to get rid of it.

That the USSR under the revisionists revised foreign policy positions stemmed from the fact that they had seized state power and had begun to restore capitalism, it was not a cause, but an effect of such a process.

But you still failed to show how social relations and the mode of production in USSR were subverted. Basically you're saying "USSR was socialist under Stalin, turned capitalism after he died and to prove it is the fact that the revisionists considered Nehru and Nasser as "socialists". This is not an explanation at all for the fact that USSR changed its mode of production.

The fact is that you don't equally condemn "the all [sic.] period of the USSR," you act as an apologist for the revisionists. What of the Soviet neo-colonialist interventions in Afghanistan and, through their Cuban proxies, in Angola? You haven't shown me one policy of the Soviet revisionists that you think was inferior to the positions taken in Stalin's time. You constantly cover for Soviet social-imperialist expansionism abroad, its alliances with reactionary regimes which the revisionists prettified as "building socialism" or "pursuing the non-capitalist path of development," etc.

Look, I condemn the entire period equally. My point is that there wasn't a change in USSR's mode of production and social relations between Stalin and his successors while you claim there was. In fact, my past 5 discussions with you has been around this subject which makes it a kind of annoying.

LOLseph Stalin

10th November 2013, 05:06

I'm just a regular M-L myself. I think the main difference lies in how one views post-Stalin leaders. I personally have a generally positive view of most of them, hence I differ from the Anti-revisionist view which really only upholds Stalin and Hoxha as true adherents of M-L thought.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 05:21

The fact that the trade was favorably to Cubans was already an incentive for them. If their economic model was prejudicial to them they would have changed since they had all the autonomy to do it.How did they have autonomy? Castro himself admitted in 1992 how disastrous the fall of the USSR was for the Cuban economy. He bound the country to Soviet social-imperialism.

Exactly, like for racism or caste system. The problem is that we haven't reach socialism yet, so religion and racism still exist.Religion and racism don't just magically disappear, they have to be fought.

But you still failed to show how social relations and the mode of production in USSR were subverted. Basically you're saying "USSR was socialist under Stalin, turned capitalism after he died and to prove it is the fact that the revisionists considered Nehru and Nasser as "socialists". This is not an explanation at all for the fact that USSR changed its mode of production.Probably because we weren't discussing the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, but the fact that the Soviet revisionists were presenting their anti-Marxist theses on world events, something you keep on defending them for doing. I mean the two chapters I directed you towards were part of whole books dealing with various aspects of capitalist restoration in the USSR and the social-imperialist foreign policy that developed from said restoration.

Look, I condemn the entire period equally. My point is that there wasn't a change in USSR's mode of production and social relations between Stalin and his successors while you claim there was. In fact, my past 5 discussions with you has been around this subject which makes it a kind of annoying.You don't condemn the "entire period" equally, you apologize for Soviet revisionism. You're doing it right now by refusing to acknowledge Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and Angola. You did it in prior posts by trying to justify the revisionist line on India and Egypt by citing nebulous changes in the "material conditions." Even your treatment of Stalin's attitude to India and Nehru was trying to claim that he was moving towards "realistic"/"accurate" assessment of them, and that the Soviet revisionists were basically correct in taking the same route.

Here's a question: if the USSR under the revisionists was capitalist, then how come they were apparently incapable of pursuing an imperialist foreign policy? In fact everything you've suggest leads one to the conclusion that Soviet foreign policy actually became more internationalist under the revisionists. You also praised the Soviet revisionists (in another thread) for encouraging bourgeois-nationalist trends in Eastern Europe. It reminds me of Trot arguments that go on about how "regardless of intention" Khrushchev did a good thing by "exposing" Stalin's "crimes," how "regardless of intention" he did a good thing by attacking Hoxha's "savagely repressive regime," how "regardless of intention" the revisionists were waging a defensive war in Afghanistan, etc.

The Cliffites at least claim that Soviet foreign policy was imperialist, but you don't have that same consistency.

Red HalfGuard

10th November 2013, 07:21

What of the Soviet neo-colonialist interventions in Afghanistan

Yeah! Long live the glorious socialist struggle of the...American funded...mujahideen....

Um

Something went wrong here.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:30

Yeah! Long live the glorious socialist struggle of the...American funded...mujahideen....

Um

Something went wrong here.No, the slogan was more like "long live the glorious struggle for national liberation waged by the Afghan people against the Soviet neo-colonialists and their local puppets." That the US and Pakistan interfered for their own purposes should surprise no one, but it does not change the character of the war.

As Hoxha noted at the time:

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.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 07:33

HOXHA: Expert of Afghan Foreign Relations
(and well, apparently everything else too)

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:37

HOXHA: Expert of Afghan Foreign Relations
(and well, apparently everything else too)Anyone could have been an expert on Afghan foreign relations back then, they went something like this: "Today the glorious Soviet people are rendering all sorts of fraternal and internationalist aid for our national-democratic revolution against the counter-revolutionary bandits and their imperialist backers. Also we are totally non-aligned and struggle for peace and security for the peoples of the world." Not too hard to know what line the lackeys of Soviet revisionism took.

Of course Hoxha didn't need to be an expert on Afghanistan to see that a social-imperialist behemoth was invading it in order to secure its sphere of influence there, and was willing to oppress the Afghan people in order to do so. Plenty of foreign communist parties, including Maoist ones, reported on the activity of the Afghan resistance and the inability of the Soviet invaders to subdue it.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 07:39

No ismail. Cite people other than Enver Hoxha, Ramiz Alia, and Bill Bland.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:43

No ismail. Cite people other than Enver Hoxha, Ramiz Alia, and Bill Bland.Alrighty, from a 1982 article (http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.hightide/rcp-maoists.htm) by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), on those Maoists who, following the disgraces committed under the "Three Worlds Theory," swung away from China and into the orbit of apologizing for Soviet social-imperialism:

The policy of the Soviet revisionists is a typically aggressive colonialist and neo-colonialist policy which is based on the power of capital and force of arms. Like the US imperialists, the Soviet social imperialists are striving everywhere to put out the flames of the revolution and the liberation struggles of the peoples as in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan...

The two superpowers separately and jointly constitute the main enemy of the proletariat and peoples, of socialism and revolution the main threat of war. The working class must oppose both. The thesis of “support one superpower against the other” directly calls on the workers to put their struggles under the wing of one or other superpower and to line up with one or the other side in the imperialist war which the superpowers and their allies are preparing.

The maoists also promote the demagogic claim of the Soviet chieftain Brezhnev that the Soviet Union allegedly will not use nuclear weapons first. An article in “The Worker” June 24, 1982, quotes Brezhnev’s speech at the UN Disarmament Conference to the effect that the Soviet Union “has assumed an obligation not to be the first to use nuclear weapons” and that this “pledge” of Brezhnev’s is “unconditional” and to take effect “immediately”. The British maoists express not one word of doubt as to whether the Soviet social imperialists are to be believed in this and instead put forward that Brezhnev’s offer is a step towards peace. They analyse that all the other imperialist powers, including the US, are against this offer of Brezhnev and that the movement against the war preparations of the superpowers must not make its aim to convince Reagan and the other imperialists to take a similar step to that of Brezhnev. Thus they conclude that ”the peace movement in western Europe and the US will now make it their major responsibility to force Reagan to follow the Soviet Union’s example and renounce any further use of nuclear weapons.”

Thus the workers are instructed to ignore the Soviet social imperialist invasion of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, to ignore its huge war preparations, its troops and military bases in other countries, etc., and see the Soviet Union as a factor for peace. They are called upon too to seek peace through “convincing Reagan”. Both superpowers and their allies make constant demagogic claims, including Reagan’s hypocritical offers to reduce nuclear weapons and troops in order to deceive the people of the world. The “C”PB (ML) maoists strive to bring the growing movement against the imperialist and social-imperialist war preparations under the wing of the Soviet social imperialists in order to assist their drive for world hegemony.

Red HalfGuard

10th November 2013, 07:45

I'm not a revisionist. But let's be real here. What groups were struggling for a progressive, socialist Afghanistan and could any of them oppose the Taliban?

Don't say "The Afghan People". Don't give me abstractions. Names, faces, soldiers under arms.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:45

You are clearly to caught up in accusing everyone of deviating from stalin to address what I was actually saying.What are you saying, exactly? Why should I bring in any other citations when you have none of your own? What made Hoxha's analysis of Soviet revisionist motives in launching their war of aggression in Afghanistan incorrect?

I'm not a revisionist. But let's be real here. What groups were struggling for a progressive, socialist Afghanistan and could any of them oppose the Taliban?

Don't say "The Afghan People". Don't give me abstractions. Names, faces, soldiers under arms.Well we know that the Northern Alliance opposed the Taliban, but both the formation of the Taliban by Pakistan's ISI and the formation of the Northern Alliance were well after the fall of the Soviet social-imperialist puppet regime.

There were various armed leftist and left-wing groups, from the ALO to Akhgar. Of course one cannot be too hard on the fact they never played a leading role in the resistance, seeing as how the enemy was flying a red flag and talking about "socialism" in Afghanistan while committing atrocities against its people and occupying the country.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 07:50

What are you saying, exactly? Why should I bring in any other citations when you have none of your own? What made Hoxha's analysis of Soviet revisionist motives in launching their war of aggression in Afghanistan incorrect?
I misread that post and promptly deleted my reply after double checking.

But if you read the kind of shit alone,
Everybody remembers the celebration of the inauguration of the water supply system at Postriba of Mbishkodra in 1974, in which Comrade Enver tok part. Indeed, the people have composed a song about this. He approached the new fountain with his calm firm step, rolled up his sleeves like a traveller weary and hot after a long journey, dashed a handful of water over his eyes and face and proposed a quite original toast, a toast with fresh water. How simple, how beautiful, how human! Not only Enver's ideas, but even his ordinary actions are unrepeatable.
Its a fucking cult and you know it.

Quoting fucking Hoxha and hoxha alone is an argument from authority. Really funny considering the fact that your opponent never agrees with hoxha, so the purpose is lost.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 07:51

ffs you accuse me of seeing only american imperialism.
but it seems as if all you can see is ussr imperialism. Leading you to supporting Islamism.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:52

Again, what made the Albanian position wrong?

ffs you accuse me of seeing only american imperialism.
but it seems as if all you can see is ussr imperialism. Leading you to supporting Islamism.Except Hoxha's own quote makes nonsense of that claim. The Albanians condemned the US invasion of Grenada, its intrigues in Nicaragua, etc. no less than they condemned the acts of Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 07:56

Again, what made the Albanian position wrong?
Because it overturned a semi-progressive state in favor of one rampant of child sex slavery, Islamism, misgony, and racism?

Except Hoxha's own quote makes nonsense of that claim. The Albanians condemned the US invasion of Grenada, its intrigues in Nicaragua, etc. no less than it condemned the acts of Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism.
Sure, he condemns US imperialism...
...And then supports the Muj.

:rolleyes:

Ismail

10th November 2013, 07:58

Because it overturned a semi-progressive state in favor of one rampant of child sex slavery, Islamism, misgony, and racism?What made it "semi-progressive" if it had no popular basis, was reliant on foreign troops entering and occupying the country in order to keep it in power, and repressed communists?

Sure, he condemns US imperialism...
...And then supports the Muj.

:rolleyes:As opposed to condemning Soviet imperialism but supporting their puppet regime in Afghanistan, which could only be maintained via occupation?

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 08:02

What made it "semi-progressive" if it had no popular basis, was reliant on foreign troops entering and occupying the country in order to keep it in power, and repressed communists?
First of all, fuck popular opinion. How a Stalinist can rely on argumentum ad populum is beyond me.
Secondly, this is also true of the Mujahideen.
Thirdly, read the fucking post dip.

Whereas you condemn "Stalinism" (and extend this to the post-Stalin period in the USSR) but support a Soviet-backed puppet regime.
eh not really. Both are bourgeois, and honestly I detest them both.
however PDPA > Mujahideen. The PDPA wasn't involved in child sex slavery (and even if they were, not nearly to the same extent as the Mujahideen).

How is this different than saying that Allende (who was a piece of shit) > Pinochet?

Ismail

10th November 2013, 08:10

First of all, fuck popular opinion. How a Stalinist can rely on argumentum ad populum is beyond me.In other words you are echoing the call of the Soviet revisionists, who praised military coups (as the "revolution" in Afghanistan was.) You do not carry out revolutions of either a bourgeois-democratic or proletarian character on the basis of blanquism.

Secondly, this is also true of the Mujahideen.No it wasn't, unless you can cite where the US invaded Afghanistan to prop it up.

however PDPA > Mujahideen. The PDPA wasn't involved in child sex slavery (and even if they were, not nearly to the same extent as the Mujahideen).In other words the forces of foreign occupation should be supported over the forces opposed to said occupation.

How is this different than saying that Allende (who was a piece of shit) > Pinochet?Allende is actually a good example of the importance of popularity: his various economic measures evidently threatened the interests of US imperialism in the country, and hi s ability to carry out these measures was because of the popularity he enjoyed by the working-class who elected him. The CIA worked to destabilize and ultimately overthrow his government. At no point did Allende use Chile as a base for Soviet troops (as Afghanistan became), nor was he installed by Soviet social-imperialism. The comparison makes little sense.

Remus Bleys

10th November 2013, 08:24

Ismail showing yet again his straw. Fucking obama had mass support, so did fascism. Did that make it "progressive"? What exact percentage makes something progressive or not.
And its bourgeois, so calling it blanquist is a bit of a msinomer.
Oh I know though! Ill just call remus a balnquist!

Uh... us support of the muj? Doesn't your hoxha quote go so far as to say that the americans were imperialist intervenors...

Allende had huge supported (especially in the form of aid) by theu ssr.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 08:29

Ismail showing yet again his straw. Fucking obama had mass support, so did fascism. Did that make it "progressive"? What exact percentage makes something progressive or not.Obama has no bourgeois-democratic revolution to carry out, whereas fascism obviously aims to suppress democratic liberties (not to mention proletarian movements in ascendancy.) Obviously not at all comparable to what I said.

Uh... us support of the muj? Doesn't your hoxha quote go so far as to say that the americans were imperialist intervenors...The Soviet revisionists and the Chinese gave arms to the Vietnamese, yet that did not change the character of the struggle the Vietnamese were waging against US occupation and the division of their country imposed by it. You wouldn't support the Afghan resistance even if the US hadn't armed parts of it, so this is really more of an aside.

Allende had huge supported (especially in the form of aid) by theu ssr.The Soviet revisionists were also the ones who encouraged him to take the "exciting" step of pursuing a parliamentary road to "socialism" in the first place, with predictably disastrous results as Hoxha noted at the time (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/hoxhachile.htm). That the Soviets sought to boost Allende for their own ends did not change the character of his actions against US imperialism in the country.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

10th November 2013, 13:05

I get the feeling that if the "Soviet revisionists" supported babies getting free diapers, Ismail would oppose it.

Old Bolshie

10th November 2013, 17:12

How did they have autonomy? Castro himself admitted in 1992 how disastrous the fall of the USSR was for the Cuban economy. He bound the country to Soviet social-imperialism.

If the US collapsed that would be disastrous for UK's economy. I don't think that UK is a neo-colony of US though.

Religion and racism don't just magically disappear, they have to be fought.

They disappear as long as the material conditions for its existence disappear as well. You could and you should fight it (pretty much like Nehru fought the caste system but wasn't able to end it) but as long as the material conditions for its existence don't go away they will always remain.

Probably because we weren't discussing the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, but the fact that the Soviet revisionists were presenting their anti-Marxist theses on world events, something you keep on defending them for doing. I mean the two chapters I directed you towards were part of whole books dealing with various aspects of capitalist restoration in the USSR and the social-imperialist foreign policy that developed from said restoration.

I wasn't defending them at all. Just stating that countries like India and Egypt were going through a volatile transition from colonial states to independent states with all the changes that it entails and in the case of India the change of the view of USSR on India and the relations between both countries began before Stalin died.

You don't condemn the "entire period" equally, you apologize for Soviet revisionism. You're doing it right now by refusing to acknowledge Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and Angola. You did it in prior posts by trying to justify the revisionist line on India and Egypt by citing nebulous changes in the "material conditions." Even your treatment of Stalin's attitude to India and Nehru was trying to claim that he was moving towards "realistic"/"accurate" assessment of them, and that the Soviet revisionists were basically correct in taking the same route.

Lol. I haven't speak one word about Afghanistan or Angola.

As far as India and Egypt goes just look above.

Here's a question: if the USSR under the revisionists was capitalist, then how come they were apparently incapable of pursuing an imperialist foreign policy? In fact everything you've suggest leads one to the conclusion that Soviet foreign policy actually became more internationalist under the revisionists. You also praised the Soviet revisionists (in another thread) for encouraging bourgeois-nationalist trends in Eastern Europe. It reminds me of Trot arguments that go on about how "regardless of intention" Khrushchev did a good thing by "exposing" Stalin's "crimes," how "regardless of intention" he did a good thing by attacking Hoxha's "savagely repressive regime," how "regardless of intention" the revisionists were waging a defensive war in Afghanistan, etc.

The Cliffites at least claim that Soviet foreign policy was imperialist, but you don't have that same consistency.

We didn't speak of USSR's foreign policy in its plenitude but just over some specific issues and in those specific issues we discussed here (India and Cuba) you can't really talk of an imperialist-colony relationship.

The nature of the relationship between USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries was different from the relationship between USSR and the "socialist" countries out of the Eastern Bloc like Cuba, China or the NK.

While you can't speak of an imperialist relationship regarding the latter relationship you can certainly speak of it in the case of the former relationship (and the fact is that those countries out of the Eastern Bloc survived the fall of the USSR). The repression of Hungary's revolution or the invasion of Prague were certainly imperialists acts.

But again, it was Stalin who laid down the basis and enforced the imperialist relationship between USSR and the Eastern Bloc.

Ismail

10th November 2013, 21:39

If the US collapsed that would be disastrous for UK's economy. I don't think that UK is a neo-colony of US though.And if China collapsed I'd imagine the US would be in a pretty bad spot as well. Considering that all three are imperialist powers I don't see the relevance in comparing them to Cuba.

I wasn't defending them at all. Just stating that countries like India and Egypt were going through a volatile transition from colonial states to independent states with all the changes that it entails and in the case of India the change of the view of USSR on India and the relations between both countries began before Stalin died.Then why cite India's "five-year plans" and other demagogical maneuvers? Why bring up Nehru's "socialist" ideology? Why do you apologize for the Soviet revisionist theory of "non-capitalist development" which treats bourgeois nationalizations as supposedly anti-imperialist measures?

Lol. I haven't speak one word about Afghanistan or Angola.Because to do so would further show what a shill you are for any revisionist regime that waves a red flag.

While you can't speak of an imperialist relationship regarding the latter relationship you can certainly speak of it in the case of the former relationship (and the fact is that those countries out of the Eastern Bloc survived the fall of the USSR).I don't get the latter part of this statement, unless you're suggesting that 1989 comes after 1991 or that it could be expected that Eastern European countries like Poland or Bulgaria would literally cease to exist once the USSR fell.

I get the feeling that if the "Soviet revisionists" supported babies getting free diapers, Ismail would oppose it.Alternatively, you're an apologist for Soviet revisionism, seeing as how the closest comparison you can make in its invasion of places like Afghanistan and Angola is not with, say, the US invasion of Vietnam, but with giving babies free diapers.

Geiseric

10th November 2013, 22:25

First of all, fuck popular opinion. How a Stalinist can rely on argumentum ad populum is beyond me.
Secondly, this is also true of the Mujahideen.
Thirdly, read the fucking post dip.

eh not really. Both are bourgeois, and honestly I detest them both.
however PDPA > Mujahideen. The PDPA wasn't involved in child sex slavery (and even if they were, not nearly to the same extent as the Mujahideen).

How is this different than saying that Allende (who was a piece of shit) > Pinochet?

The PDPA was going to outlaw poppy seed production, that is what sparked the entire conflict. This is kinda funny because Ismail is being more ultra left than the ultra lefts. Now you see how I feel.

Old Bolshie

11th November 2013, 00:24

And if China collapsed I'd imagine the US would be in a pretty bad spot as well. Considering that all three are imperialist powers I don't see the relevance in comparing them to Cuba.

The relevance is that just because the fall of USSR was disastrous for Cuba that doesn't mean that Cuba was a Soviet neo-colony.

Then why cite India's "five-year plans" and other demagogical maneuvers? Why bring up Nehru's "socialist" ideology? Why do you apologize for the Soviet revisionist theory of "non-capitalist development" which treats bourgeois nationalizations as supposedly anti-imperialist measures?

Because Nehru's "socialism" was much as real as the soviet "socialism". So, from a soviet/stalinist perspective is perfectly acceptable to consider Nehru's India as "building socialism" since the soviets were stating that they were "building socialism" as well.

Because to do so would further show what a shill you are for any revisionist regime that waves a red flag.

Do you mean like you and other anti-revisionists idiots do for Stalin, Hoxha or Mao?

Nope. I already stated more than ten times in this thread that nowhere USSR in any point of its existence was getting closer or achieved socialism.

I don't get the latter part of this statement, unless you're suggesting that 1989 comes after 1991 or that it could be expected that Eastern European countries like Poland or Bulgaria would literally cease to exist once the USSR fell.

Now it is I who doesn't understand what you are trying to suggest. Just to let it clear the fall of the USSR didn't happened in one day. It was a process which began way before 1991. The collapse of the entire Eastern Bloc was part of this process as it's obvious.

Ismail

11th November 2013, 03:45

The relevance is that just because the fall of USSR was disastrous for Cuba that doesn't mean that Cuba was a Soviet neo-colony.And once again you're making a strawman argument: I point out the obvious dependence the Cubans had on the Soviet social-imperialists. I claim this is because Cuba was a neo-colony. You proceed to act as if I think Cuba was a neo-colony of the USSR because of this dependence, whereas it is an effect rather than the cause.

Because Nehru's "socialism" was much as real as the soviet "socialism". So, from a soviet/stalinist perspective is perfectly acceptable to consider Nehru's India as "building socialism" since the soviets were stating that they were "building socialism" as well.And yet even using your logic the Soviets under Stalin most certainly did not claim that India was "building socialism," nor did the Soviets under Stalin claim that Yugoslavia (headed by Nehru's ally Tito) was "building socialism" either, whereas the Soviet revisionists argued quite the contrary in both cases.

Also even the Soviet revisionists admitted that to Nehru "socialism" meant something different from scientific socialism. This, of course, did not prevent them from extolling Indian "socialism" regardless.

As for your logic itself, it's absurd. A "democratic socialist" who believes one can build and achieve socialism through the electoral machinery of the bourgeois state is almost certainly going to regard the USSR as having perverted socialist principles throughout its entire existence. Likewise Tito (who obviously claimed Yugoslavia was "building socialism") compared Stalin's policies to Hitler's while Yugoslav theorists, at least until the advent of Khrushchevism, declared that the USSR was state-capitalist.

Now it is I who doesn't understand what you are trying to suggest. Just to let it clear the fall of the USSR didn't happened in one day. It was a process which began way before 1991. The collapse of the entire Eastern Bloc was part of this process as it's obvious.Why did you mention that Eastern Europe "survived" the fall of the USSR and claim it as "the fact is"? The revisionist regimes certainly didn't.

I also don't understand why you go on about how the USSR is capitalist when apparently this capitalist state was either incapable or somehow unwilling to pursue imperialist policies abroad except in Eastern Europe for some reason. That's quite different from US imperialism, British imperialism, and any other imperialism, considering that imperialism is based on the logic of capitalism.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

11th November 2013, 15:15

Alternatively, you're an apologist for Soviet revisionism, seeing as how the closest comparison you can make in its invasion of places like Afghanistan and Angola is not with, say, the US invasion of Vietnam, but with giving babies free diapers.

Not sure how me calling you out on opposing things the "soviet revisionists" supported, just because they supported it, makes me an apologist for them.

Did my point go over your head? Inb4 Hoxha quotes instead of an actual articulation of your views...oops...too late.

Ismail

11th November 2013, 21:27

Not sure how me calling you out on opposing things the "soviet revisionists" supported, just because they supported it, makes me an apologist for them.Well lets see, in this thread, as far as I can remember, I have opposed the Soviet revisionist policies of:

1. Invading Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Angola;
2. Declaring places like India and Egypt as "building socialism" or otherwise pursuing "non-capitalist development";
3. Slandering and negating Stalin as the continuer of Lenin's work;
4. Liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat in theory and practice in the USSR in favor of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the whole people";
5. The whole restoration of capitalism thing.

There are various other policies the Soviet revisionists pursued, such as "peaceful coexistence," the idea that the USSR would defeat capitalism by "peacefully" competing with it economically, the claim that imperialist wars were no longer inevitable, the claim that socialism could be obtained via parliamentary measures and that social-democracy had changed its character, etc., all of which were totally logical for them as revisionists and renegades of Marxism-Leninism who usurped state power and constituted the new bourgeoisie.

Your claim only makes sense if you think there were policies the Soviet revisionists had that were worth supporting and I was "throwing the baby out with the bathwater," as it were.

Old Bolshie

12th November 2013, 00:13

And once again you're making a strawman argument: I point out the obvious dependence the Cubans had on the Soviet social-imperialists. I claim this is because Cuba was a neo-colony. You proceed to act as if I think Cuba was a neo-colony of the USSR because of this dependence, whereas it is an effect rather than the cause.

That's because your argument for Cuba being a soviet neo-colony was a statement from Castro saying that the fall of USSR was disastrous for Cuba and I merely showed how that can't be an argument at all for your point.

And yet even using your logic the Soviets under Stalin most certainly did not claim that India was "building socialism," nor did the Soviets under Stalin claim that Yugoslavia (headed by Nehru's ally Tito) was "building socialism" either, whereas the Soviet revisionists argued quite the contrary in both cases.

Also even the Soviet revisionists admitted that to Nehru "socialism" meant something different from scientific socialism. This, of course, did not prevent them from extolling Indian "socialism" regardless.

As for your logic itself, it's absurd. A "democratic socialist" who believes one can build and achieve socialism through the electoral machinery of the bourgeois state is almost certainly going to regard the USSR as having perverted socialist principles throughout its entire existence. Likewise Tito (who obviously claimed Yugoslavia was "building socialism") compared Stalin's policies to Hitler's while Yugoslav theorists, at least until the advent of Khrushchevism, declared that the USSR was state-capitalist.The logic is absurd to you because you clearly didn't understand. But I'll explain. If the USSR wasn't building socialism at all (including Stalin's period) and yet they claimed that they were doing it this means that Nehru's India was building socialism in the same degree of USSR which means that it wasn't building socialism at all. The same goes for Tito's Yugoslavia which wasn't building socialism. From this perspective, every claim of "building socialism" from any of those states loses any real meaning since none of them were real doing it and in the end becomes an empty slogan used merely for political purposes.

In fact, your claim that Yugoslav theorists considered Stalin's USSR as state-capitalist before the advent of Khrushchevism proves my point.

Why did you mention that Eastern Europe "survived" the fall of the USSR and claim it as "the fact is"? The revisionist regimes certainly didn't.A misunderstanding here. I didn't claim that the Eastern Bloc survived the USSR but rather the regimes which defined themselves as "socialist" out of the Eastern Bloc (Cuba, China or NK).

I also don't understand why you go on about how the USSR is capitalist when apparently this capitalist state was either incapable or somehow unwilling to pursue imperialist policies abroad except in Eastern Europe for some reason. That's quite different from US imperialism, British imperialism, and any other imperialism, considering that imperialism is based on the logic of capitalism.Just because a state adopts an imperialist attitude towards one group of countries that doesn't mean that adopts the same attitude towards another group of countries. The fact is that the attitude of USSR over the Eastern Europe was quite different of the attitude over other countries such as Cuba or NK. While these countries had political-economy autonomy from USSR, Eastern countries like Hungary or Czechoslovakia didn't. The explanation for this difference of attitude may be connected to the fact that the existence of "socialist" regimes in Eastern Europe was much more vital for USSR than "socialist" regimes in other parts of the world.

Ismail

12th November 2013, 01:54

That's because your argument for Cuba being a soviet neo-colony was a statement from Castro saying that the fall of USSR was disastrous for Cuba and I merely showed how that can't be an argument at all for your point.And again, you keep on making these inane comments. I actually gave concrete examples of Cuba being a Soviet neo-colony many posts before, you ignored them.

The logic is absurd to you because you clearly didn't understand. But I'll explain. If the USSR wasn't building socialism at all (including Stalin's period) and yet they claimed that they were doing it this means that Nehru's India was building socialism in the same degree of USSR which means that it wasn't building socialism at all. The same goes for Tito's Yugoslavia which wasn't building socialism. From this perspective, every claim of "building socialism" from any of those states loses any real meaning since none of them were real doing it and in the end becomes an empty slogan used merely for political purposes.Except you explicitly stated that it was perfectly natural for the Soviets to consider what India and Egypt were doing as "socialist." You can't actually address my rebuttal, especially the clear political implications for Indian and Egyptian communists if they are supposed to believe that the state they're operating in is supposedly "socialist" or orientated towards "non-capitalist development," and the fact that the Soviet revisionists evidently did not agree with the Stalin-era analysis of these states, an analysis which was clearly much more accurate and proletarian.

In fact, your claim that Yugoslav theorists considered Stalin's USSR as state-capitalist before the advent of Khrushchevism proves my point.Except you do think the USSR under Stalin was state-capitalist, so I guess it isn't an "empty slogan" after all.

Just because a state adopts an imperialist attitude towards one group of countries that doesn't mean that adopts the same attitude towards another group of countries. The fact is that the attitude of USSR over the Eastern Europe was quite different of the attitude over other countries such as Cuba or NK. While these countries had political-economy autonomy from USSR, Eastern countries like Hungary or Czechoslovakia didn't. The explanation for this difference of attitude may be connected to the fact that the existence of "socialist" regimes in Eastern Europe was much more vital for USSR than "socialist" regimes in other parts of the world.And no doubt the existence of reactionary, comprador regimes in Latin America was of great importance to US imperialism. That didn't change the fact that US trade relations with every pro-US regime assume an imperialist character in some way whereas in your view this was supposedly somehow not the case with Soviet social-imperialism, whose only imperialist relationships existed in Eastern Europe, which is convenient for you considering that you hold such relationships started under J.V. Stalin.

And this brings me back to Afghanistan, an example of Soviet social-imperialism outside of Europe, and which you refuse to comment on.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

12th November 2013, 12:37

Well lets see, in this thread, as far as I can remember, I have opposed the Soviet revisionist policies of:

1. Invading Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Angola;
2. Declaring places like India and Egypt as "building socialism" or otherwise pursuing "non-capitalist development";
3. Slandering and negating Stalin as the continuer of Lenin's work;
4. Liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat in theory and practice in the USSR in favor of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the whole people";
5. The whole restoration of capitalism thing.

There are various other policies the Soviet revisionists pursued, such as "peaceful coexistence," the idea that the USSR would defeat capitalism by "peacefully" competing with it economically, the claim that imperialist wars were no longer inevitable, the claim that socialism could be obtained via parliamentary measures and that social-democracy had changed its character, etc., all of which were totally logical for them as revisionists and renegades of Marxism-Leninism who usurped state power and constituted the new bourgeoisie.

Your claim only makes sense if you think there were policies the Soviet revisionists had that were worth supporting and I was "throwing the baby out with the bathwater," as it were.

My point is that you are unable to articulate a position, and just call anything the "soviet revisionists" did, wrong, even though they weren't much different from Stalin. Both capitalists. Both totalitarians.

Ismail

12th November 2013, 13:19

My point is that you are unable to articulate a position, and just call anything the "soviet revisionists" did, wrong,I don't get what you mean by "unable to articulate a position." Obviously the position I have on the Soviet Union under the revisionists is quite clear: it was state-capitalist and social-imperialist, it was a state in which a new bourgeoisie repressed the working-class at home and abroad and whose use of Marxism-Leninist verbiage was cynical and deprived of both revolutionary and scientific content. Pretty much any post of mine on the subject would make it clear I hold such views.

You still haven't answered my point: "Your claim only makes sense if you think there were policies the Soviet revisionists had that were worth supporting and I was 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater,' as it were." I also fail to see how your words that I criticize everything the Soviet revisionists did as wrong can't be thrown back at you, who appears to criticize the entirety of Soviet policy from Lenin onwards as wrong, only instead using vague terms like "totalitarian."

And again it is rather suspicious that you started making your unsubstantiated claim that "I get the feeling that if the 'Soviet revisionists' supported babies getting free diapers, Ismail would oppose it" as soon as I mentioned the aggressive war waged by the Soviet revisionists in Afghanistan. It clearly suggests that the Soviet revisionists did things worth praising, otherwise you would not have made the comment.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

13th November 2013, 15:21

I don't get what you mean by "unable to articulate a position." Obviously the position I have on the Soviet Union under the revisionists is quite clear: it was state-capitalist and social-imperialist, it was a state in which a new bourgeoisie repressed the working-class at home and abroad and whose use of Marxism-Leninist verbiage was cynical and deprived of both revolutionary and scientific content. Pretty much any post of mine on the subject would make it clear I hold such views.

You still haven't answered my point: "Your claim only makes sense if you think there were policies the Soviet revisionists had that were worth supporting and I was 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater,' as it were." I also fail to see how your words that I criticize everything the Soviet revisionists did as wrong can't be thrown back at you, who appears to criticize the entirety of Soviet policy from Lenin onwards as wrong, only instead using vague terms like "totalitarian."

And again it is rather suspicious that you started making your unsubstantiated claim that "I get the feeling that if the 'Soviet revisionists' supported babies getting free diapers, Ismail would oppose it" as soon as I mentioned the aggressive war waged by the Soviet revisionists in Afghanistan. It clearly suggests that the Soviet revisionists did things worth praising, otherwise you would not have made the comment.

Again, you're unable to explain the difference outside of rhetoric about "the workers sno longer had political/economic power" when, quite obviously, THEY NEVER DID.

So, did the workers elect to have Stakhanovism, managers who could fire and discipline workers, get sent sent to slave labour for political views, etc.? No. There was no dotp under Stalin, there was no workers management of the economy. Inb4 democratic consultation.

reb

13th November 2013, 17:43

I don't get what you mean by "unable to articulate a position." Obviously the position I have on the Soviet Union under the revisionists is quite clear: it was state-capitalist and social-imperialist, it was a state in which a new bourgeoisie repressed the working-class at home and abroad and whose use of Marxism-Leninist verbiage was cynical and deprived of both revolutionary and scientific content. Pretty much any post of mine on the subject would make it clear I hold such views.

You still haven't answered my point: "Your claim only makes sense if you think there were policies the Soviet revisionists had that were worth supporting and I was 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater,' as it were." I also fail to see how your words that I criticize everything the Soviet revisionists did as wrong can't be thrown back at you, who appears to criticize the entirety of Soviet policy from Lenin onwards as wrong, only instead using vague terms like "totalitarian."

And again it is rather suspicious that you started making your unsubstantiated claim that "I get the feeling that if the 'Soviet revisionists' supported babies getting free diapers, Ismail would oppose it" as soon as I mentioned the aggressive war waged by the Soviet revisionists in Afghanistan. It clearly suggests that the Soviet revisionists did things worth praising, otherwise you would not have made the comment.

You can't articulate why you describe the post-stalin era as being capitalist and not the stalin era without reference to just ideological squabbling. You gloss over all of the trade marks of capitalism in Stalin's Russia, and don't articulate the trade marks of capitalism in post-stalin Russia. You don't really appear to have any understanding of what capitalism is or what a social-relation is in the marxian sense, and you appear to just refer people to other people who can't explain it either. It boils down to "the USSR was socialist because Stalin said so".

So you are reduced to non-marxist explanations which involve conspiracy theories and other idealism.

Ismail

13th November 2013, 22:30

Again, you're unable to explain the difference outside of rhetoric about "the workers sno longer had political/economic power" when, quite obviously, THEY NEVER DID.

[quote]So, did the workers elect to have Stakhanovism,No, because it wasn't an issue of legislation, but of spontaneous efforts to increase working standards and the influence of the working-class over conservative and bureaucratic attitudes amongst managers. Stakhanovism was a mass movement encouraged by the Party.

managers who could fire and discipline workers,The question is who the managers were answerable towards and whose interests they were required to serve. That they had the power to discipline workers (part of the system of management Lenin called for) is offset by the fact that the trade unions had just as much a right to invalidate such decisions. The right for them to hire and fire was proclaimed in the 70s under the Soviet revisionists, FYI.

get sent sent to slave labour for political views, etc.?No, but then again they didn't elect to shoot white guardists and other reactionaries either. I don't see your point. You could certainly be a non-communist, as attested to by the fact that a great many non-party members existed within the trade unions, local and Union-level government organs, etc.

You can't articulate why you describe the post-stalin era as being capitalist and not the stalin era without reference to just ideological squabbling.Well first off I've repeatedly said to Old Bolshie that the debate I was having with him was not about the economy of the USSR proper under the revisionists, but about Soviet social-imperialism. Second, the fact you would consider as "ideological squabbling" such central questions as the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle itself, the inevitability of world wars under imperialism, the possibility of transitioning to socialism through reformist means, etc. reflects badly on you.

You gloss over all of the trade marks of capitalism in Stalin's Russia, and don't articulate the trade marks of capitalism in post-stalin Russia.Using this logic I could declare that according to "Subvert and Destroy" the "trade marks of capitalism in Stalin's Russia" were apparently "slave labor camps" and the existence of managers. This brings me to the third issue with your post, there already exist online the three main books covering capitalist restoration in the USSR. These are:

* http://marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html (by Martin Nicolaus, aka the guy who translated Marx's Grundrisse into English)
* http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7.pdf (by the Revolutionary Union, precursor to RCPUSA)
* http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html (by Bill Bland)

Not to mention various other analyses of the restoration of capitalism under the Soviet revisionists, a number of which are online. I have no reason to recapitulate their arguments when they're readily available for all to read. If I have to do such a thing, it's because the persons in question refuse to read or even glance over the works in question, as Old Bolshie did in regards to Soviet social-imperialism in India.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

15th November 2013, 03:30

reb

15th November 2013, 03:41

[
Well first off I've repeatedly said to Old Bolshie that the debate I was having with him was not about the economy of the USSR proper under the revisionists, but about Soviet social-imperialism. Second, the fact you would consider as "ideological squabbling" such central questions as the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle itself, the inevitability of world wars under imperialism, the possibility of transitioning to socialism through reformist means, etc. reflects badly on you.

Using this logic I could declare that according to "Subvert and Destroy" the "trade marks of capitalism in Stalin's Russia" were apparently "slave labor camps" and the existence of managers. This brings me to the third issue with your post, there already exist online the three main books covering capitalist restoration in the USSR. These are:

* http://marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html (by Martin Nicolaus, aka the guy who translated Marx's Grundrisse into English)
* http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7.pdf (by the Revolutionary Union, precursor to RCPUSA)
* http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html (by Bill Bland)

Not to mention various other analyses of the restoration of capitalism under the Soviet revisionists, a number of which are online. I have no reason to recapitulate their arguments when they're readily available for all to read. If I have to do such a thing, it's because the persons in question refuse to read or even glance over the works in question, as Old Bolshie did in regards to Soviet social-imperialism in India.

I'm referring specifically to your inability to connect with stalin's law of value existing with socialism and to the charge that revisionists introduced pro-market reforms. Their policies surrounding this is entirely secondary. The only sources that you have provided are those that accept that you can have the law of value under socialism, which you mean the lowest phase of communism, and they also ignore it's relation to the pro-market reforms. This isn't surprising because I doubt that they have read Capital, or much in the way of Marx and I know that you have read even less than they have if these are the only sources that you are providing. You are completely unable to provide an account of materialist development and have to resort to idealistic conspiracy theories where people try to subvert the meaning of socialism to ignorant masses.

Ismail

15th November 2013, 05:32

Ismail, articulate them yourself. What were the hallmarks of capitalism that came to exist under the "soviet revisionists", and no what I describe aren't the hallmarks, but are results of the hallmarks of capitalism.

Use you're words. No links. No quotes.The same as under "regular" capitalism: the means of production and of labor-power became commodities (e.g. the selling of machine-tractor stations to the collectives, something Stalin explicitly argued against), surplus-value was extracted by the new bourgeoisie on the same basis and through similar methods as the bourgeoisie of the West, etc. The only significant difference is that in the USSR and other revisionist regimes the form of capitalism was state-monopoly in content.

I'm referring specifically to your inability to connect with stalin's law of value existing with socialism and to the charge that revisionists introduced pro-market reforms. Their policies surrounding this is entirely secondary. The only sources that you have provided are those that accept that you can have the law of value under socialism, which you mean the lowest phase of communism, and they also ignore it's relation to the pro-market reforms. This isn't surprising because I doubt that they have read Capital, or much in the way of Marx and I know that you have read even less than they have if these are the only sources that you are providing. You are completely unable to provide an account of materialist development and have to resort to idealistic conspiracy theories where people try to subvert the meaning of socialism to ignorant masses.Your argument doesn't really work when you realize that Stalin was partially arguing against those Soviet economists who claimed the law of value didn't operate in the USSR on one hand, and the fact that the Soviet revisionists denounced Stalin's explanation of the law of value under socialism on the other, and finally that these same revisionists undertook actions Stalin explicitly opposed taking. Hell, lots of Trots think that Stalin was wrong or lying when he claimed the law of value existed in the USSR.

As for your claims to the supposed theoretical illiteracy of the works I provided, again, Nicolaus translated the entirety of the Grundrisse into English, while the RU and Bland works cite Capital multiple times. Many Chinese and Albanian articles on Soviet state-capitalism likewise quoted Marx's work as well.

And what is the claim that the USSR would achieve communism by 1980 and that class struggle had come to an end if not instances of the Khrushchevites "try[ing] to subvert the meaning of socialism" to a population who, as Stalin noted in one of his last speeches, still had much propaganda work to be done amongst them, and who at any rate obviously didn't expect the vanguard of the working-class to turn bourgeois yet still claim Marxism-Leninism for its own purposes.