National Council of Communists?

[Malesori]

What is the story with the group "National Council of Communists for an Ideological Fightback"? Looks to be like a Stalinist reaction to the deviations of the mainstream CPUSA.

http://ideologicalfightback.com/

[Jared K Cooper]

Keep in mind that Stalin tried to make the country more democratic in the later years, believe it or not. I won't go into that here.

What's going on is that the CPUSA is really just a bunch of social democrats in the power for the party, and they kick out or mess with anyone who disagrees with them. It is, by no means, a party of Marxist-Leninism at the moment. It is a backwards, reactionary group of social democrats. We need to change this. We, The communists of the United States, need to take back our party.

[tuwix]

Keep in mind that Stalin tried to make the country more democratic in the later years, believe it or not. I won't go into that here.

By killing more and more people? :D

[reb]

What's going on is that the CPUSA is really just a bunch of social democrats in the power for the party, and they kick out or mess with anyone who disagrees with them. It is, by no means, a party of Marxist-Leninism at the moment. It is a backwards, reactionary group of social democrats. We need to change this. We, The communists of the United States, need to take back our party.


Sounds exactly like a stalinist party.

[ArisVelouxiotis]

What is the story with the group "National Council of Communists for an Ideological Fightback"? Looks to be like a Stalinist reaction to the deviations of the mainstream CPUSA.

http://ideologicalfightback.com/

Isn't CPUSA Stalinist?What deviations?

[Jared K Cooper]

How is social democracy "Stalinist"? He tried to incorporate more general democracy for the population in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. Besides, the CPUSA rejects the ideas of violent opposition, which is fundamental to any communist movement. By even that one concept, the CPUSA is no longer a real communist party. No longer a vanguard party.

[Blake's Baby]

I think it's more that Stalinism is form of social-democracy, rather than social-democracy being a form of Stalinism.

[reb]

I think it's more that Stalinism is form of social-democracy, rather than social-democracy being a form of Stalinism.

Social-democracy with bayonets.

[Rusty Shackleford]

So there was this time shortly after WWI where social democrats with guns and bayonets killed social democrats with guns and bayonets

[Blake's Baby]

Not sure I follow. When did Stalinists go to war with social democrats after WWI, given that Stalinism didn't develop until the late 1920s?

[Thirsty Crow]

I think it's more that Stalinism is form of social-democracy, rather than social-democracy being a form of Stalinism.
It doesn't make sense to claim that it's "more" that Stalinism is a form of social democracy than vice versa:

1) any reliable quantification procedures here to validate this "more"?

2) the assessment is anyway false since modern social democracy is both different in its theoretical and political postulates, as well as its political practice, and in its historical origin from Stalinism which is entirely the child of the failure of the revolutionary wave and subsequent effects upon the Russian state apparatus

It's quite another thing that communists rightly see the common function in both Stalinism and social democracy; but that can't justify the uncritical reduction of one to the other (either way the reduction proceeds)

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think Stalin is 'entirely the child of the failure of the revolutionary wave'. I think a lot of Second International baggage (leading role of the party, conquest of state power, nationalisation as a route to socialisation etc) was still part of the Bolsheviks' ideological apparatus. While the revolution was moving forward, the Bolsheviks (and the working class as a whole) were able to go beyond the previously existing theories and practices of Social Democracy.

Faced with the failure of the revolutionary wave, the RCP under Stalin was faced with a situation of administering a so-called 'workers' state' (or whatever it was supposed to be). There was no positive revolutionary ddynamic left. What remained was the social-democratic idea of using the state to implement 'socialism' through the agency of the 'workers'party' that held state power.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Not sure I follow. When did Stalinists go to war with social democrats after WWI, given that Stalinism didn't develop until the late 1920s?

Weimar Republic, 1919-20s. Those that ended up becoming social democrats with guns were killed by social democrats with guns. I'm not predicting alternate history future, but the organzations that were fighting and targeted ended up aligning with social democrats with guns.

[Jared K Cooper]

social democrats wouldn't use guns.. that's the point of social democracy. To change things "peacefully and through the system"