Was Stalin even communist? Why did the revolution fail?

[RO17]

Was Stalin even communist?

He was a part of a elite ruling class over the USSR and enforced statist policies and repressed his people, this is far removed from marxism-leninism or marxism.

Another note: Why did the revolution fail? Why did the politburo get filled with bourgeoisie no better than the Czarist government. Was it because the surrounding states failed to have a revolution? Why did Lenin feel that he needed to have the NEP effectively turning the USSR into a bourgeoisie-state capitalist country? Why would he turn his back on the very ideals he supported so much?

[motion denied]

Stalin was a communist, yes. Whether or not he was a good one is up to you.

Enforcing statist policies and repressing autonomous working class movements, I'd argue, is a key point of marxism-leninism. Remember Hungary 56? Prague 68?

The political revolution was quite successful, the Bolsheviks and the proletariat took power. However, it failed to evolve into a social revolution because of many factors such as isolation, civil war, backwardness of Russia, weak productive forces and some mistakes by the CP.

The NEP was pragmatic par excellence. The peasants wanted it and soviet economy was reduced to ashes due to the civil war. We should remember that history is not governed by our will and drop some of our own voluntarism.

Pretty bad response (I'm a bit drunk and I seem to forget some things) but I hope I could be of some help.

[tuwix]

Was Stalin even communist?

He was a part of a elite ruling class over the USSR and enforced statist policies and repressed his people, this is far removed from marxism-leninism or marxism.


At the begining of his career, maybe he was. But as a leader he wasn't communist at all. Instead of eleminating state he's created bloody regime. Instead of freedom he gave to people a terror. Instead of equality a new rulling elite. Instead of road to socialism a stet capitalism.




Another note: Why did the revolution fail? Why did the politburo get filled with bourgeoisie no better than the Czarist government. Was it because the surrounding states failed to have a revolution? Why did Lenin feel that he needed to have the NEP effectively turning the USSR into a bourgeoisie-state capitalist country? Why would he turn his back on the very ideals he supported so much?

IMHO, strengthening of state was main reason. Instead of giving power to inhabitants of Russia, they created a brutal and very strong state. And this bureaucratic creature just collapsed.

[motion denied]

At the begining of his career, maybe he was. But as a leader he wasn't communist at all. Instead of eleminating state he's created bloody regime. Instead of freedom he gave to people a terror. Instead of equality a new rulling elite. Instead of road to socialism a stet capitalism.

No leader can give the proletariat freedom. To quote Kollontai:


The Workers' Opposition has said what has long ago been printed in the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels: the building of Communism can and must be the work of the toiling masses themselves. The building of Communism belongs to the workers.



IMHO, strengthening of state was main reason. Instead of giving power to inhabitants of Russia, they created a brutal and very strong state. And this bureaucratic creature just collapsed.

While I agree that strengthening the State is a terrible obstacle to socialism, we cannot blame only bolshevik policies. That's politicism. Why did the bureaucracy arise? What led to the strengthening of the State? Bolsheviks did it just because?

If the state has the power to 'give' someone power, it's still alienated from the workers (ok, any state is a form of alienation, but I think I made myself clear).

[RO17]

Stalin was a communist, yes. Whether or not he was a good one is up to you.

Enforcing statist policies and repressing autonomous working class movements, I'd argue, is a key point of marxism-leninism. Remember Hungary 56? Prague 68?

The political revolution was quite successful, the Bolsheviks and the proletariat took power. However, it failed to evolve into a social revolution because of many factors such as isolation, civil war, backwardness of Russia, weak productive forces and some mistakes by the CP.

The NEP was pragmatic par excellence. The peasants wanted it and soviet economy was reduced to ashes due to the civil war. We should remember that history is not governed by our will and drop some of our own voluntarism.

Pretty bad response (I'm a bit drunk and I seem to forget some things) but I hope I could be of some help.
In what policies was Stalin remotely communistic? The NEP turned the USSR in a capitalist state and it would never change after that.

What did the economy matter to them anyways? Wasn't this a communist movement? So what use this an economy have to the people?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Stalin was a revolutionary who participated and helped lead one of the most significant workers' movements in history, and we should never forget that, but he was also an opportunistic individual willing to sate his own ambitions over the bodies of his comrades.

However, the revolution didn't fail because of one individual or even a group of individuals. The revolution was isolated in Russia, an underdeveloped semi-feudal state, having been crushed by reactionaries in Germany, Italy, Hungary etc and civil war wrecked a lot of cohesiveness of the workers. Lenin and the bolsheviks did what they could to maintain control in the face of White reaction from within and imperialist intervention from without and improve the lives of the working classes in the Soviet Union. These policies lead to a layer of bureaucrats assuming the role of a defacto-bourgeoisie but there was little else that was possible considering the material conditions. The lessons we can learn from the Russian Revolution are important and one of the main ways we can confirm that proletarian revolution needs to take hold across the world and not be isolated in one region or nation.

[RO17]

Stalin was a revolutionary who participated and helped lead one of the most significant workers' movements in history, and we should never forget that, but he was also an opportunistic individual willing to sate his own ambitions over the bodies of his comrades.

However, the revolution didn't fail because of one individual or even a group of individuals. The revolution was isolated in Russia, an underdeveloped semi-feudal state, having been crushed by reactionaries in Germany, Italy, Hungary etc and civil war wrecked a lot of cohesiveness of the workers. Lenin and the bolsheviks did what they could to maintain control in the face of White reaction from within and imperialist intervention from without and improve the lives of the working classes in the Soviet Union. These policies lead to a layer of bureaucrats assuming the role of a defacto-bourgeoisie but there was little else that was possible considering the material conditions. The lessons we can learn from the Russian Revolution are important and one of the main ways we can confirm that proletarian revolution needs to take hold across the world and not be isolated in one region or nation.
So after fighting the imperialist powers of instability why couldn't they dissolve the government?

[Delenda Carthago]

IMHO, strengthening of state was main reason. Instead of giving power to inhabitants of Russia, they created a brutal and very strong state. And this bureaucratic creature just collapsed.
What a bunch of bs.:)

After 1944, more and more "the State", and by that of course I mean the Central Planning, was loosing ground to Market economy, something that ended up in Perestroika and the dissolve of USSR from inside and above(by the leadership of CPSU). I dont know where do you people get all that nonsense.

[Czy]

Here's my short analysis of Stalin, I think it's pretty balanced.

Comrade Stalin's personal merits:

Even Trotsky admitted that he was a shrewd realpolitiker and organizer.

Successes and achievements:

Under him, the USSR went from one of the world's most backward states to arguably the most technologically sophisticated.

Was able to out maneuver Churchill, who had already out maneuvered FDR, and take a nice chunk of Europe that Churchill had been trying to get.

He crushed the Japanese at Khalkin Gol in 1939--an indication of how much more proficient the USSR was militarily compared to tsarist russia, which was humiliated by Japan in 1905.

Winner of 1929-38 Soviet (instead of Royal) Rumble.

I think it actually speaks well of him that he amended his theories when they didn't work out, like the Third Period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Period) nonsense.

Basically won WWII.

Personal faults:

Notoriously paranoid. Probably a result of the political battles that were the bulk of his life, but he concentrated too much on consolidating his own power and defending his position; not enough in expanding the revolutionary gains to the people.

Was possessive and proud of his theories, even when not working well. For instance, before Lenin came back with the April Theses, Stalin was using Pravda to promote cooperation with the bourgeoisie—even while a lot of Bolsheviks had already moved on from the Stagist theory and were ready for a socialist government. He stuck with Lenin, but after Stalin was in charge he seemed to have gone back to asking backward countries (like China for instance) to support their native bourgeoisie. It was a theory that was discredited by Russia that he held on to (though, in fairness, it probably had a lot to do with politicking).

Comrade Stalin's mistakes:

He all but gave up on a world revolution after the Third Period, deciding that protection of the USSR was what was most important. Say what you will, that formula of "Socialism in One Country" crashed and burned in the end.

He didn't do enough about fascism, swinging and missing in defining it—going so far as to instruct German communists to vote for the NAZIs (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1993/trotsky4/05-nazis.html#p3)—though he did eventually drop the theory after the fascists won.

His purges went too far in most cases. For instance, while we can agree a stable army is a good thing, calling the POUM back to be liquidated and allowing all their territory to fall to Franco during the Spanish Civil War probably didn't help much. In the general, a lot of talent that could have been used defaulted upon his shoulders and those around him. At the end of his life, his Doctor's Plot paranoia may well have killed him.

[Comrade Jacob]

Ahhhhhhhhhh, not this bloody thread again!

He was a communist get over it, whether you think he was a swell-chap or a monster is an opinion.

[Tim Cornelis]

The Russian revolution failed with the introduction of war communism in 1918, which disintegrated organs of workers' power. The soviets lost their sovereignty and became extensions of top-down Bolshevik rule while factory committees were replaced by harsh discipline, Taylorism, and one-man management.


As for the rank and file of the workmen, the new system was scarcely conducive to enthusiasm on their part. In the first place they were forced to give up definitely the idea that the workmen employed in each particular enterprise were going to own or at least control that enterprise. This idea had been carefully inculcated in them by the demagogical agitators, and the introduction of nationalization was, indeed, a disappointment to them. For under the system of nationalized industry, the workmen became simply servants of the state, forced to submit to the officials appointed by the state in precisely the same manner in which they had been formerly forced to submit to private entrepreneurs and their managers. Moreover, immediately after the apparatus of management was somewhat put together under nationalization, the Soviet authorities began to exact labour discipline, which, naturally, appeared so hard and prosaic to the rank and file of the workmen after the revolutionary carousal, that the task of obtaining efficiency under the circumstances became increasingly difficult.
The Economics of Communism

All power was centralised and concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the Bolshevik Party, thereby they had substituted themselves for the working class. Their policies contrasted with the wishes of the workers, and their enforcement meant the recreation of class dynamics and class antagonisms between the party-state and the working class. By 1922, the Bolsheviks had lost legitimacy in the eyes of the peasants (a major class still, in fact, it had even grown in comparison to 1916) and a significant proportion of the proletariat. They could not re institute the organs of workers' power without losing power themselves. Hence, a new class society was born.

From 1928 onward, economic growth (aka capital accumulation) was permitted through the massive mobilisation of Russia's resources, labour and natural resources. Technological progress was stunted because managers resisted the implementation of innovations in productive activity, which meant outdated methods of production. Once the volume of labour-power could no longer be expanded (full employment and enforcement of labour discipline) and the cultivation of natural resources did no longer wield sufficient returns (from the 1960s onward), the USSR began its path toward stagnation and its subsequent degeneration and collapse.

Marxist-Leninists argue that "capitalist restoration" occurred because the elite within the communist party had implemented capitalist reforms. This reveals two things:
1) They implicitly admit there was no workers' state
2) The Marxist-Leninist ideology is idealistic.
It's additionally implausible that "capitalist restoration", which would entail stripping workers of decision-making power, occurred without exposed or violent conflict between the revisionists and the workers.

The 'market reforms' implemented from the 1960s onward corresponded to the stagnation of the economy, and were an attempt to remedy it. That is, they had real economic (that is, materialist) underpinning, as opposed to 'revisionism'.

Further Reading:


The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience by Chattopadhyay

[WilliamGreen]

Was Stalin even communist?

He was a part of a elite ruling class over the USSR and enforced statist policies and repressed his people, this is far removed from marxism-leninism or marxism.

Another note: Why did the revolution fail? Why did the politburo get filled with bourgeoisie no better than the Czarist government. Was it because the surrounding states failed to have a revolution? Why did Lenin feel that he needed to have the NEP effectively turning the USSR into a bourgeoisie-state capitalist country? Why would he turn his back on the very ideals he supported so much?

I think your first sentences are right on.

That's a by-product of "Rulers".

[RO17]

The Russian revolution failed with the introduction of war communism in 1918, which disintegrated organs of workers' power. The soviets lost their sovereignty and became extensions of top-down Bolshevik rule while factory committees were replaced by harsh discipline, Taylorism, and one-man management.



All power was centralised and concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the Bolshevik Party, thereby they had substituted themselves for the working class. Their policies contrasted with the wishes of the workers, and their enforcement meant the recreation of class dynamics and class antagonisms between the party-state and the working class. By 1922, the Bolsheviks had lost legitimacy in the eyes of the peasants (a major class still, in fact, it had even grown in comparison to 1916) and a significant proportion of the proletariat. They could not re institute the organs of workers' power without losing power themselves. Hence, a new class society was born.

From 1928 onward, economic growth (aka capital accumulation) was permitted through the massive mobilisation of Russia's resources, labour and natural resources. Technological progress was stunted because managers resisted the implementation of innovations in productive activity, which meant outdated methods of production. Once the volume of labour-power could no longer be expanded (full employment and enforcement of labour discipline) and the cultivation of natural resources did no longer wield sufficient returns (from the 1960s onward), the USSR began its path toward stagnation and its subsequent degeneration and collapse.

Marxist-Leninists argue that "capitalist restoration" occurred because the elite within the communist party had implemented capitalist reforms. This reveals two things:
1) They implicitly admit there was no workers' state
2) The Marxist-Leninist ideology is idealistic.
It's additionally implausible that "capitalist restoration", which would entail stripping workers of decision-making power, occurred without exposed or violent conflict between the revisionists and the workers.

The 'market reforms' implemented from the 1960s onward corresponded to the stagnation of the economy, and were an attempt to remedy it. That is, they had real economic (that is, materialist) underpinning, as opposed to 'revisionism'.

Further Reading:


The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience by Chattopadhyay
Thank you for the information, but I thought that Marxist-Leninism is realistic. I like the revolution part of it and the establishment of a vanguard party and overthrow the current power. But I disagree with the centralization that it implements central planning state wide. I think that there should be a government that is ran by workers that regulate their own area/region. Like if NYC was a commune, they would have their own 'government' they operates through par-democracy, I do not know how you will make people not tried of voting though.

But I like the idea of it and some of the things it lies down for a successful revolution.

[Remus Bleys]

Goddamnit. I hate when people get this confused.
Marxist-Leninism = Stalinism.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Thank you for the information, but I thought that Marxist-Leninism is realistic.

I'm pretty sure Tim Cornelis uses idealist as opposed to materialist, as theoretical positions.


I like the revolution part of it and the establishment of a vanguard party and overthrow the current power. But I disagree with the centralization that it implements central planning state wide.

Marxism-Leninism isn't the theory of vanguard parties. Marxist-Leninism is the ideology of the counterrevolution - it came up both as a term and as a "theory" after the revolution had failed. It wasn't Marxist-Leninism that overthrew the state, it was the workers and the Bolshevik Party.

[RO17]

Goddamnit. I hate when people get this confused.
Marxist-Leninism = Stalinism.
What is a realistic alternative? Marxist-Leninism I think would work when it is not an isolated revolution.

[Comrade Jacob]

Goddamnit. I hate when people get this confused.
Marxist-Leninism = Stalinism.

And Stalinism = "Socialism in one country" theory
I too hate it when it gets confused.

[RO17]

I'm pretty sure Tim Cornelis uses idealist as opposed to materialist, as theoretical positions.



Marxism-Leninism isn't the theory of vanguard parties. Marxist-Leninism is the ideology of the counterrevolution - it came up both as a term and as a "theory" after the revolution had failed. It wasn't Marxist-Leninism that overthrew the state, it was the workers and the Bolshevik Party.
Never mind then, I guess I am not a Marxist-Leninist after all.

I believe in a vanguard party, that communities should self govern, and that the world should still be connected so science can advance. I think that democracy is the best thing for representation as the workers generalize their conditions there will be no classes and so the idea of Proletariat dictatorship is assuming that there is still bourgeoisie?

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat is what the proletariat does while it is going about suppressing capitalism, collectivising property, generalising its conditions and fighting the world civil war.

[RO17]

Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat is what the proletariat does while it is going about suppressing capitalism, collectivising property, generalising its conditions and fighting the world civil war.
Then is it a democracy? Who would be the head of the 'dictatorship'? Who would get the power?

[Remus Bleys]

The proletariat

[RO17]

The proletariat
But if the bourgeoisie is suppressed and there is no more classes, there would be no capitalist or worker, it would just be humans/people/etc. Who would be the 'dictator of the proletariate'.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Was Stalin even communist?

He was a part of a elite ruling class over the USSR and enforced statist policies and repressed his people, this is far removed from marxism-leninism or marxism.

Another note: Why did the revolution fail? Why did the politburo get filled with bourgeoisie no better than the Czarist government. Was it because the surrounding states failed to have a revolution? Why did Lenin feel that he needed to have the NEP effectively turning the USSR into a bourgeoisie-state capitalist country? Why would he turn his back on the very ideals he supported so much?

Stahp, you're gonna hurt Ismails feels. :crying:

[GiantMonkeyMan]

But if the bourgeoisie is suppressed and there is no more classes, there would be no capitalist or worker, it would just be humans/people/etc. Who would be the 'dictator of the proletariate'.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term given to the period of time where the working class has seized power but remnants of the old capitalist order remains and must be dismantled. The term has been obfuscated due to misunderstanding of 'dictatorship' and a conflating of the term with the late Soviet Union and its politburo. Think of it in terms of this: we live currently in the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, society is controlled by a minority of private property-owning individuals, but we fight to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, where society would be controlled by the majority the working class, and will use this period to destroy the last relations of capitalism and establish a classless society. There wouldn't be a single 'dictator' or a dictatorship for the class but a dictatorship of the class where the proletariat can determine its own fate.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Stahp, you're gonna hurt Ismails feels. :crying:
What has Ismail got to do with this? I'm certain you're more than capable of adding to the discussion in a way that best suits the 'Learning' forum, there's no need to bring up individuals who aren't even part of the thread in order to get in your sectarian post of the day.

[Frank56]

Was Stalin even communist?

He was a part of a elite ruling class over the USSR and enforced statist policies and repressed his people, this is far removed from marxism-leninism or marxism.

Another note: Why did the revolution fail? Why did the politburo get filled with bourgeoisie no better than the Czarist government. Was it because the surrounding states failed to have a revolution? Why did Lenin feel that he needed to have the NEP effectively turning the USSR into a bourgeoisie-state capitalist country? Why would he turn his back on the very ideals he supported so much?

This is my first post. To me this is the most important question, we must answer. Why did the Bolshevik revolution fail? I read all the posts, and find myself agreeing with many of the posts. I hope I can reply to most of them. I don't know if its permissible to quote short paragraphs from Marx for example. Lenin provided sufficient quotes by Marx and Engels, to demonstrate his views of the state were indentical with Marx and Engels. So that is why I disagree with:


He was a part of a elite ruling class
over the USSR and enforced statist
policies and repressed his people, this
is far removed from marxism-leninism
or marxism.

I need some pointers on using code. I don't know if I used correctly.

[bluemangroup]

The Russian revolution failed with the introduction of war communism in 1918, which disintegrated organs of workers' power. The soviets lost their sovereignty and became extensions of top-down Bolshevik rule while factory committees were replaced by harsh discipline, Taylorism, and one-man management. The soviets still existed by 1919, well into 1920, 1921, etc. while Soviet Congresses continued to meet periodically until the adoption of the 1936 Soviet constitution.

The Petrograd Soviet met regularly during the entirety of the civil war as did the Moscow Soviet.

War communism didn't dissolve the soviets. Rather, the soviets became bureaucratized and unwieldy as the Soviet state grew massively and swiftly to meet the demands of the civil war.

Attempts to democratize the soviets after Lenin's death in the mid-1920's were met with mixed success - voting in the soviets was significantly increased at the local level, but the evils of a large Soviet bureaucracy still persisted.


Instead of eleminating state he's created bloody regimeThe regime was far from bloody, especially taking into account that repression in the USSR mainly fell on the Kulaks as the Soviet government was seeking to carry out Lenin's plans for agriculture by collectivizing peasant farming in the interests of the poor and middle peasants.


Instead of freedom he gave to people a terrorThe Great Purge, on the other hand, IMHO happened owing the the machinery of terror - i.e. the Cheka, living on in the form of the NKVD. According to E.H. Carr, the author/historian of the fourteen-volume history on the USSR, the GPU (later to become the OGPU, the NKVD, and then the KGB) was an attempt at creating an accountable security arm of the Soviet government which wouldn't possess the extraordinary powers granted to the Cheka.


Instead of equality a new rulling elite.Under Lenin, soviet democracy had become bureaucratic and thus isolated from the masses - the civil war only aggravated matters as leading (Bolshevik) party cadre were sent away from the district soviets (the heart of soviet democracy) to work in bureaucratized soviet government departments and to serve in the Red Army faraway on the civil war fronts.

Under Stalin the bureaucracy had entered its mature stage IMHO - While under Lenin it was still in the infantile stage. (Lenin, in his last few writings, was shocked by how bureaucratic the Soviet state had become and under such short notice)


In what policies was Stalin remotely communistic? The NEP turned the USSR in a capitalist state and it would never change after that. I think Lenin said it best when he pointed to state-capitalism as the main type of economy in the nascent Soviet state, using the German Empire as a prime example. Russia wasn't ripe for socialism, he argued, instead a retreat had to be made which gave concessions to the petty-bourgeois peasantry and foreign capitalists.

However, after the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan IMHO the USSR was clearly socialist (however distorted socialism had become by that point)

[servusmoderni]

I'd take Stalin anytime over the modern brain-dead politicians. Like Hollande or Cameron.

[Brutus]

I'd take Stalin anytime over the modern brain-dead politicians. Like Hollande or Cameron.

Considering i, as a communist, am statistically less likely to be shot for my Marxism under Cameron than under Stalin, I'll take the openly bourgeois politicians.

[servusmoderni]

Considering i, as a communist, am statistically less likely to be shot for my Marxism under Cameron than under Stalin, I'll take the openly bourgeois politicians.

Why would Stalin have you shot? Unless you're some sort of Bourgeois, you would have been alright. Stalin is still considered by many to have been the greatest leader of the Soviet Union.

[Remus Bleys]

Why would Stalin have you shot? Unless you're some sort of Bourgeois, you would have been alright. Stalin is still considered by many to have been the greatest leader of the Soviet Union.
You see, Brutus is a left quasi-leninist kaut. And while I don't particularly care for that tendency, he's a real communist. So yeah, stalin would have him shot. Because we are saying Stalin was a bourgeois politician.

[Tim Cornelis]

Not because I'm a bourgeois would have likely been killed, but rather because socialist opposition to Soviet bourgeois rule would have been deemed "counter-revolutionary."

---------------------
Not even Marxist-Leninists were safe.


Of the 1400 leading German communists, a total of 178 were killed in Stalin's purges, nearly all of them residents of Hotel Lux.[6] By comparison, the Nazis killed 222 of those 1400 leading German communists. Within the top leadership itself, there were 59 Politburo members between 1918 and 1945, six of whom were killed by Nazis and seven by the Stalinist purges.[6] The saying among the German communists was, "What the Gestapo left of the Communist Party of Germany, the NKWD picked up."[3]

As a leading German communist, you'd be statistically safer under Hitler than under Stalin -- that should tell you enough really.

Wikipedia page Hotel Lux.

Of the 1,966 delegates of the 17th congress in 1934, 1,108 of them had been arrested for "counter-revolutionary" crimes by 1939.

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

------------

And the thing is, firstly, Stalin is considered one of the greatest leaders for an array of nationalist reasons (he turned the USSR into a superpower, that is, an imperialist competitor), secondly, a dictatorship of the proletariat has no "head of state". The entirety of the USSR was a bourgeois construct.

[Red HalfGuard]

secondly, a dictatorship of the proletariat has no "head of state".

Oh, you're an anarchist?

[Tim Cornelis]

Oh, you're an anarchist?

How am I to interpret this? That everyone whom does not ascribe bourgeois features such as heads of state, ministers, militarism, public administration through legislation from above to the dictatorship of the proletariat, is an anarchist?

[Communist(stalinist)]

great stalin was always communist. And revolution never failed because it was lead by the great vladimir lenin.

[Remus Bleys]

Where's the ussr then?

[Communist(stalinist)]

Ussr collapsed. But I believe that it will be back again.

[Per Levy]

Ussr collapsed. But I believe that it will be back again.

how does the famous marx quote goes? history repeats itsself, first as tragedy then as farce. that says it all pretty much.


great stalin was always communist. And revolution never failed because it was lead by the great vladimir lenin.

didnt you say you've read so much of marx? where in marxs writing it is stated that great men need to lead anything? another one of the most famous marx quotes is that the emancipation of the working clas can only be done through the working class. that means that not some great leaders, or head of states can bring about that emancipation but the working class itself must to that.

[Communist(stalinist)]

Yes marx didn't say so, I know. But Did he say that about revolution? No. He told after revolution. After revolution there must be a socialist state that will help with the world revolution. After the world revolution happens, we will be able to build communism, and there must be no leader. But he never told this about revolution. Revolution must be leaded by someone. Any war must be leaded.

[Per Levy]

Yes marx didn't say so, I know. But Did he say that about revolution? No. He told after revolution. After revolution there must be a socialist state that will help with the world revolution. After the world revolution happens, we will be able to build communism, and there must be no leader. But he never told this about revolution. Revolution must be leaded by someone. Any war must be leaded.

marx said something about a socialist state? i have my doubts about that, please point me to that work of marx that speaks about a "socialist state". marx did speak about the dictatorship OF the porletariat, what you are glorifying was a dictatorship OVER the proletariat. and the dictatorship of the proletariat would be lead, as the name suggest, by the proletariat through institutions like councils/soviets or whatever workers think is a good way of organizing their power.

[ind_com]

Ussr collapsed. But I believe that it will be back again.

It will be back again. Our movements have their ups and downs, but anti Stalinists never get anywhere. They just remain isolated from the working class and help capitalism by denouncing all socialist regimes.

[Communist(stalinist)]

When I said there must be no leader, I meant that there must be only 1 leader - people. And all people - proletarians. Yes, marx never referred to socialist state, engels did.

[Tim Cornelis]

It will be back again. Our movements have their ups and downs, but anti Stalinists never get anywhere. They just remain isolated from the working class and help capitalism by denouncing all socialist regimes.

Because they weren't socialist regimes and denouncing capitalism in all their manifestations does not aid capitalism. "Ups and downs" is a euphemism for roughly 1/3rd of the world living under Marxist-Leninist rule (or, nationalised central planning) in the 1950s, and due to a highly inefficient and ineffective management of capital, now only 0.5% live under such rule (Cuba 10 million, DPRK 25 million). And even Cuba is now liberalising its economy. This is not an "up" followed by a "down", this is utter collapse of a bourgeois political movement that has proven itself impotent time and time again.


When I said there must be no leader, I meant that there must be only 1 leader - people. And all people - proletarians. Yes, marx never referred to socialist state, engels did.

There will be proletarians under communism, how? Where did Engels talk about a "socialist state". In all of the Marx and Engels archive, there is not a single reference to "socialist state":

https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=site:www.marxists.org/archive/marx/+%22socialist+state%22&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

The Soviet Union was a capitalist state.


The workers were separated from the objective conditions of their labour and confronted it as alien property (wage-labour and private class property, irrespective of the judicially expressed notions of state ownership)
The workers were employed by the state employer to produce commodities and have surplus value extorted from them through harsh labour discipline
Workers' needs were residual relative to the primary objective of the accumulation of capital
The Soviet enterprises were reciprocally autonomous units for producing commodities, thereby constituting singular capitals.
The monetary-commodity exchange between Soviet enterprises and consumers constitutes generalised commodity production and combined with socialist emulation falls well within the definition of the competition of capitals, irrespective of the existence of market forces an sich.


If McDonald's buys all productive resources in Ireland the result would be an economic system virtually identical to that which existed in Russia (1928-1990). It was by no means the socialist mode of production (i.e. cooperative and associated labour; common property; and production for use).

Furthermore, there are more Russians that regret the collapse of the Soviet Union than there are Russians that regret the decision to adopt a market economy. This shows that the Soviet Union and (what most wrongly identify as) socialism are not regarded as synonyms which raises the question, if Lukashenko claims to wish to restore the Soviet Union, does this entail the resurrection of its economic system as well? Given the move towards liberalisation this is very doubtful. What seems more likely is a political unit corresponding to the Soviet territory with a restricted and regulated social market economy.

Lastly, if Lukashenko is a socialist: what policies has he enacted that are concrete steps toward the realisation of common property and associated labour?

[Communist(stalinist)]

I said proletarians must rule everything, this is communism. All people must be proletarians. And yes engels talked about socialist state.
The great Soviet Union was always socialist (building communism). And how can you know more than me about my motherland and fatherland - ussr? I am russian, live In russia, so I know more about ussr.

[Brutus]

I said proletarians must rule everything, this is communism. All people must be proletarians. And yes engels talked about socialist state.

If there are proletarians in communism, something has gone horribly wrong.


so I know more about ussr.
Evidently not, as your posts have shown.

[Communist(stalinist)]

No I said there are no proletarians in communism. You got me wrong. In communism, there must be no classes. But as I said, what is the dictatorship of the proletariat? We make revolution, proletariat rules, and starts building communism. So after that there must be no classes. That is what I mean. And again, I lived in ussr and know that it was like a paradise on earth.

[Per Levy]

And again, I lived in ussr and know that it was like a paradise on earth.

now im sure you're a massive troll, the SU a paradise on earth? are you kidding? how old were you when the SU collapsed? id love to know.

[Communist(stalinist)]

16

[Per Levy]

and what was the paradies on earth like? why didnt the soviet citizens stand up and protect their paradise? why did all go down the gutter if it was such a paradise?

[Communist(stalinist)]

American(gorbachev's) propoganda worked. Sure Soviet Union was not a paradise all the time. Only during stalin. How could it be paradise during the rule of a bastard like khrushev? And compared to what happens in russia now, it was more than paradise.

[Per Levy]

your standarts of what counts as a paradise are pretty damn low i have to say. its also funny that you say that under stalin, the holy, the SU was a paradise(just ask the the people livng in the ukraine at that time they can tell you all about the paradise), since you didnt live back then. how do you know?

[faridpasha]

When ussr collapsed I was 27 years old, and I agree with that guy, it was a paradise. And also holodomor is an american invention.

[Communist(stalinist)]

There was no holodomor as usa state told the world about it. There was famine in all territory of ussr after revolution. Not because of goverment,it was because of civil war.

[Tim Cornelis]

I don't think this guy is a troll, just a very insufferably ignorant fool. Yeah, this is the learning forum, but the question of OP is already answered, and communist(stalinist) is not responding to any counter-arguments made.

[human strike]

If a communist is someone who communises, then no, Stalin was not a communist.

If a communist is someone who calls themselves a Communist or belongs to an organisation that calls itself Communist, then yes, Stalin was a communist.

A communist can be either (or possibly even both) of those things but I'd argue one of those is very superficial.

[Red HalfGuard]

How am I to interpret this? That everyone whom does not ascribe bourgeois features such as heads of state, ministers, militarism, public administration through legislation from above to the dictatorship of the proletariat, is an anarchist?

...Yep, sounds like standard anarchism to me. Can I interest you in some Crimethinc?

[ind_com]

This is not an "up" followed by a "down", this is utter collapse of a bourgeois political movement that has proven itself impotent time and time again.


This sentence fits best while describing the anti-Stalin left movement in the last century.

[Tolstoy]

Stalin was little more than a cheap bureaucrat who served as the gravedigger of the revolution

Further, Stalin was the real revisionist, overhauling international revolution and all of Lenins ideals in favor of "Socialism in One Country"

[Red HalfGuard]

And what, exactly, was the USSR supposed to do? Wait patiently for the first world proletariat (remember, the USSR was backwards and third world at the time) to make revolution?

There's no way to win with left-idealists. If you don't export communism, it's "socialism in one country". If you do, it's "social-imperialist".

[Per Levy]

And what, exactly, was the USSR supposed to do? Wait patiently for the first world proletariat to make revolution?

well all bolsheviks around the russian revolution and the russian civil war were convinced that without a revolution in the west they wouldnt be able to achieve socialism. in other words, hold out long enough in hope that workers in other countries have a suscessful revolution. it didnt happen sadly.


(remember, the USSR was backwards and third world at the time)

how about you fuck off, the ussr was in no way "third world" the ussr was build upon the corpse of one of the most powerful imperialist countries in the world at that time, and while it was in its beginning weaker then the russian empire in its peak, it did went strong in both military and industrial pretty quickly. so fuck off with you first world romanticization.


There's no way to win with left-idealists.

agreed, idealists like yourself are quite horrible.


If you don't export communism

oh we had communism that could be exported, in the last century? a statless, classless, money less society that somehow exports communism through a army of a state?


it's "socialism in one country".

well blame comrade stalin for that lovely term.


If you do, it's "social-imperialist".

the ussr was imperialist, dont need to put a social before it.

[Tim Cornelis]

...Yep, sounds like standard anarchism to me. Can I interest you in some Crimethinc?

The absence of a bourgeois state sounds like anarchism to you? Mind boggling. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a central network of organs of workers' power. It is workers' associations managing production and workers' councils directing political affairs. Power flows from the bottom-up, that is from the workers and their organs of political and economic power. In contrast, the Soviet state was a top-down state defending capitalist relationships of production (wage-labour). Soviet workers were disempowered, disenfranchised and subject to strict labour discipline. Simply stating this is anarchism is ludicrous and unsubstantiated. By such logic, any opposition to bourgeois hegemony can be denounced as "anarchism." Of course, Lenin himself was denounced as an anarchist for this very reason: advocating soviet power instead of parliamentarianism. I suppose in 1915 you would have done the same.


And what, exactly, was the USSR supposed to do? Wait patiently for the first world proletariat (remember, the USSR was backwards and third world at the time) to make revolution?

There's no way to win with left-idealists. If you don't export communism, it's "socialism in one country". If you do, it's "social-imperialist".

Left-idealists is a buzzword, unsubstantiated as well. I suppose this is what I should expect from you. What was the USSR suppose to do? How about, not maintain capitalist relations of production, not deploy forced labour, not initiate forced collectivisation.

You are also misrepresenting the position. First, social-imperialism is a Marxist-Leninist phrase. Second, we don't consider it exporting of communism because there was no communism.


This sentence fits best while describing the anti-Stalin left movement in the last century.

Hardly. An "up and down" would be more proper. The anti-Stalinist left (even prior to Stalinism) was relatively large at the beginning of the 20th century but had gradually declined globally into its current marginal position. In any case, we can't ascribe the failure of the non-Leninist, anti-Stalinist revolutionary left to a failure of managing capital neither effectively nor efficiently.

It's really tiring to witness the mental gymnastics Marxist-Leninists need to do to explain away the abysmal failure of Marxism-Leninism, the absolute refusal to learn from it, and adopting rather obvious idealism (revisionism of the Soviet elite -- which makes no sense as a workers' state rests on workers' power) to attempt to explain the decline of the Soviet Union.

[Communist(stalinist)]

Without stalin there will be no ussr (because if Trotsky ruled it, it will collapse the next day), and without ussr communism will not be as popular as it is today.

[faridpasha]

Any real marxist-leninist today is also stalinist. Note: I said marxist-leninist, not just marxist. Because marx didn't even know stalin, but lenin knew stalin and stalin was his best friend.

[Remus Bleys]

Communism popular? Are you fucking stupid?
Also great man of history theory is bunk.

[Per Levy]

Without stalin there will be no ussr (because if Trotsky ruled it, it will collapse the next day), and without ussr communism will not be as popular as it is today.

you know what, you've won, i give up. it is useless to write replys to you and your love for jesus, i mean stalin, and your great man theory line of thinking is just so wrong that i dont want anymore. for the first time being on this site i'll put someone on ignore.

[Brutus]

Without stalin there will be no ussr (because if Trotsky ruled it, it will collapse the next day), and without ussr communism will not be as popular as it is today.

It's kinda safe to say the USSR had stopped representing proletarian class interests by the time Stalin came to power, and this wouldn't have changed whether Trotsky ruled or not.

[Niccolo]

without stalin there will be no ussr (because if Trotsky ruled it, it will collapse the next day)

A baseless, emotionally charged statement without any evidence attached other than your clear bias against Trotsky, as propagated by the Soviet propaganda-machine.


and without ussr communism will not be as popular as it is today.

Sorry? The USSR collapsed and throughout the Cold War showed itself to be an unjust society just like the West if not worse, hardly the dream of the revolution realized. Considering that the USSR was state capitalist, I don't see how it helped the communist cause, and I'm not sure what Stalin had to do with helping this cause, other than create a direct parallel between "communism" and oppression - and in that case, he decreased "communism's" popularity.

[Communist(stalinist)]

You say you read marx. Do you know what marx sAid about religion? Opiate of the people, right? Jesus is related to religion.
And also I didn't say that it is popular. I said it is more popular than it would be without stalin.
Lenin always hated Trotsky, but it looks like you both support Trotsky, and hate stalin.

[Brutus]

Lenin always hated Trotsky, but it looks like you both support Trotsky, and hate stalin.
Quote me where I have said, in this thread, that I support Trotsky.

Opiate of the people, right?
He also said that the conditions that make people turn to religion (i.e. them belonging to an oppressed and exploited class) must be abolished before religion itself will.

[Blake's Baby]

And what, exactly, was the USSR supposed to do? Wait patiently for the first world proletariat (remember, the USSR was backwards and third world at the time) to make revolution? ...

Yeah, but that's just not true. It was the 5th biggest economy in the world in 1913. It was as capitalist as Germany or the USA or France. It had some massive concentrations of proletarians and the biggest and most modern factories in the world.


...There's no way to win with left-idealists. If you don't export communism, it's "socialism in one country". If you do, it's "social-imperialist".

It wasn't up to the Soviet State to 'export' revolution (let alone 'communism'). Is was up to the proletariat to make its revolution. It didn't. The Soviet State wasn't exactly to blame for that but the Bolsheviks certainly didn't help in many specific instances (eg, Turkey, Germany, China).

All the Soviet State could 'export' (apart from capitalist commodities like guns to shoot German workers) was the foreign policy of the Soviet State. Which is not the same as the interests of the working class.

[Lensky]

Without stalin there will be no ussr (because if Trotsky ruled it, it will collapse the next day), and without ussr communism will not be as popular as it is today.

Yeah, Stalin was one of the better candidates, considering that no Trotskyite has ever held an organization together for longer than a decade before it split into 10 different factions. However, there were better options than Stalin, like Tukhachevsky. Great men don't rule history, but they certainly do influence it. This is why certain generals win battles whilst others lose, leaders play a big role in exploiting material conditions for the best benefit.