Where did the Soviet Union go wrong?

[flaming bolshevik]

Where did the Soviet union begin it's path to capitalism?

[Red Shaker]

The failure of the Soviet Union to move to begin the abolishment of the wage system as soon as the civil war ended in 1921 was a strategic error of the Bolsheviks. This error led to the ultimate defeat of the dictatorship of the working class in the early 50's. This is one of the key lessons revolutionaries today need to learn. Winning workers to abolishing the wage system is key to building communism.

[BIXX]

The Soviet Union never left the path to capitalism.

[4thInter]

Became a beauracracy that betrayed the people.

[Skyhilist]

When they decided that there goal was to manage capital in a new way rather than to destroy it.

[Skyhilist]

The Soviet Union never left the path to capitalism.

Also this. The SU basically just brought capitalist markets under state control and made them less interesting by offering much less variety. Economically, they just replaced the capitalist class with another (and this time even less creative) state-centered ruling class.

[tuwix]

Where did the Soviet union begin it's path to capitalism?

From the beginning. When there is an elite (the vanguard party) supposed to govern, it's just obvious that this elite will want govern everything. It was illusion that new elite will not become new upper class. The vanguard party just became a new bourgeoisie.

[Ritzy Cat]

It was essentially the evolution of a Tsarist state that took control of the industries and rapidly industrialized them. Then it all died out. Heil Tsar Stalin I.

[Brutus]

The Bolshevik party ceased to be a genuine communist party. Socialism is a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society, so Russia had never stopped being capitalist. When the Bolshevik party ceased to be a communist party, Lenin's policy of state capitalism as “the development of capitalism under the control of the proletarian state” became simply the development of capitalism.

The isolation of proletarian dictatorship will inevitably lead to it's degeneration, so that the revolution didn't spread was the cause of death. They also inherited much of the tsarist state apparatus, which was due to the emergency measures taken during the civil war.

[Left Voice]

When they allied with the bourgeois and capital rather than fighting them. Look at Soviet actions in Spain to see what it became.

[Brutus]

When they allied with the bourgeois and capital rather than fighting them. Look at Soviet actions in Spain to see what it became.

Well, that's when they fought for the interests of Russian capital, which was happening long before Spain with the invasions of Georgia and so on.

[piet11111]

Failing to empower the people and instead creating a new bureaucracy.

Though i can sympathize with the extremely difficult situation the bolsheviks found themselves in finding themselves leading a revolution in the middle of a world war and then being invaded by foreign army's along with the domestic white army's wreaking havoc.

By the time things calmed down they found themselves with a firmly entrenched bureaucracy.

I suppose its rather alike the current situation in Venezuela.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

first time i've seen a truly sensible thread on this topic on revleft!

[BolshevikBabe]

From the beginning. When there is an elite (the vanguard party) supposed to govern, it's just obvious that this elite will want govern everything. It was illusion that new elite will not become new upper class. The vanguard party just became a new bourgeoisie.

Vanguard parties aren't "elites", and this analysis is based in a liberal voluntarist narrative of "power corrupts", which if so means we might as well not even bother trying to change society. I'd like good concrete evidence as to how the vanguard party became a "new bourgeoisie", since I can't find any evidence that labour-power was a commodity in the USSR until near the very end.

[BolshevikBabe]

Anyway, as for where the U.S.S.R. "went wrong", I think some aspects of it endangered it from the very beginning, but overall the process that eventually saw capitalism restored in the U.S.S.R. didn't begin until the late 1940s, when a revisionist grouping began to gain strength within the CPSU. This grouping represented an emerging technocratic class which gained strength at the cost of the party itself. These changes in social being led to changes in social consciousness - the ideology of the revisionist line within the CPSU was one based in the humanism/economism couplet, which basically saw the class struggle renounced in favour of the "state of the whole people" and "peaceful co-existence" with imperialism* on the one hand, and the principles of "peaceful competition with capitalism" and primacy of the productive forces emphasized on the other. Both had their roots in the Stalin period, when Stalin was inconsistent over the question of productive forces vs relations of production (favouring the former in the famous Dialectical and Historical Materialism and the latter in Economic Problems in the U.S.S.R., which was denounced as left-deviationist after his death) and also on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which he generally supported, but was inconsistent over on several occasions - for example, when he claimed class struggle no longer existed in the U.S.S.R. But there was a two-line struggle within the CPSU, and the revisionist line only became victorious after Stalin's death.

The distortions of revisionism didn't destroy socialism in the U.S.S.R. by themselves - it was the emergence of a second economy in the U.S.S.R. which led to the rise of another class altogether with a petit-bourgeois social consciousness that gave revisionism an even stronger basis in class. This bred corruption within the party and led to the destabilization of the planned economy, combined with constant economic reforms which tried to fix it by introducing more market mechanisms into it, and inevitably made it worse. Finally things came to a head in the 1980s when perestroika led to the all-out destruction of the distorted socialism left - ever so many quantitative changes led to a qualitative change from socialism back to capitalism.

*Lenin, Stalin and Mao also had policies of "peaceful co-existence", but these differed heavily from that of Khrushchev, for instance. This article (http://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/polemic/peaceful.htm) is a good explanation.

[DOOM]

I seriously don't understand the idea behind vanguard at all. The base and the superstructure are still influencing us at the revolutionary stage. The vanguard however was in the position to do things capitalism drives them to, like benefiting from their gained power, exploiting workers, using authority, falling for ideology, being mysoginic etc.
Believing that the vanguard is somehow perfectly sheltered from the effects of capitalism is somehow idealist.

[BolshevikBabe]

I seriously don't understand the idea behind vanguard at all. The base and the superstructure are still influencing us at the revolutionary stage. The vanguard however was in the position to do things capitalism drives them to, like benefiting from their gained power, exploiting workers, using authority, falling for ideology, being mysoginic etc.
Believing that the vanguard is somehow perfectly sheltered from the effects of capitalism is somehow idealist.

I don't think anybody believes that though, otherwise revisionism/dogmatism wouldn't be problems.

As for the rest I've largely addressed it above. You really don't understand the "idea behind vanguard", because you don't understand what a vanguard party is.

[exeexe]

Soviet Union was build on concentrated power. Concentrated Power demands concentrated capital. To get that you need exploitation. So power leads to capitalism or some other kind of exploitation.

[BolshevikBabe]

In that case, we'll always live under exploitation since power isn't a purely negative force but also a constructive one which needs to be contextualized to be analyzed. There will still be "power" without the state, it will simply differ in its exercise and manifestation.

[exeexe]

yeah well i edited power to concentrated power. Dont know if you wrote that after or before my edit.

[BolshevikBabe]

yeah well i edited power to concentrated power. Dont know if you wrote that after or before my edit.

I wrote it before, but "concentration" still doesn't really answer many questions. For a start off, from what I've read it doesn't really reflect how the U.S.S.R. actually functioned accurately, but more crucially, it's still based in a narrative of power as a corrupting force through which capitalism will be restored. Many anarchists have had to resort to some concentration of power during difficulties - it's less about that and more about assuring a link between the masses and the leadership, which is what the point of the vanguard party was, since contrary to liberal and anarchist conceptions, it's the most class conscious elements of the proletariat and not simply an "elite". It's a very metaphysical and idealist view of power to see it in simple terms of a greedy corrupt elite that exists for-itself. It needs to be based in actual class dynamics.

I don't understand how the link between "concentrated power" and "concentrated capital" works either.

[exeexe]

Its a psychological thing. If you get power your brain will change. Important concepts like moral and justice will not be a part of who you are any longer.

But also just open your eyes just a little bit. Since Babylon every dictator had all the riches he could acquire from the population he would be the ruler of. Like the roman empire, Napoleon, the kings and queens of europe and the latest example would be Viktor Yanukovych, he was the president of Ukraine but got smashed of the throne. This is just a small picture of what he had collected
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02832/Viktor-Yanukovych_2832109b.jpg

Just take the story of The Lord of the Ring!

In this story they are to destroy the ring because the ring is so powerful that you cant rule over it, its the ring that rules over you. The ring is a metaphor for the state, and yes JR Tolkien was an anarchist (a strange anarchist though).
jfxdlWje5nk


Here is another quote which analyses TLOTR:


Once borne, the Ring can corrupt the bearer as absolutely as the power promised. The Ring is such a symbol of power that one does not possess it, but is possessed by it (I 72). Just as Bilbo needs Gandalf's help to leave the Ring behind (I 56 - 58), and as Gollum "could not get rid of it" (I 83), so too Frodo cannot throw the Ring into the fire, either in the comfort of his own Hobbit hole (I 90), or on the brink of the Cracks of Doom (III 269). Clearly, the Ring's only purpose is, as the epigraph tells us, "to rule" and to "bind."
The Ring's seduction of Saruman the White, once head of the White Council, is slow but successful. His initial desire for "power, power to order all things...for that good which only the Wise can see" (I 339) (the vanguard party anyone?) is an early symptom of his corruption. His repetition of the key word "power" is a sign that this is what he seeks more than an order for the good of others. However, his desire denies community with the natural world, the necessity of working together, and respecting the intrinsic value of all living beings. His growing ability to render his own land desolate, and later to destroy the gardens and trees of the Shire, are signs of his growing evil.
The Ring's ability to completely possess its bearer is a reflection of its anticommunal nature. The Ring represents a complete focus of energy on oneself; it is the epitome of consumption. To seek absolute power is to refuse to be part of a whole, to deny fellowship and, as a result, to search constantly but vainly to satisfy oneself. Thus, the symbol of Sauron is a single eye, homonym of "I" and antonym of "we", of the concept of community.

http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/513/870

There are some guys that have studied how power change people. There are forexample this team of Joris Lammers, Adam Galinsky and Diedrik Stapel, and there is also a guy called Andy J. Yap who is studying social hierarchies power and status.

So if you want to know more about this subject you can try google those names or perhaps even ask them a few questions.


"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

[ComradeOm]

Where did the Soviet union begin it's path to capitalism?1918. The (understandable) inability to halt the economic collapse of the Russian economy, the advanced nature of which was after all a root cause of the Revolution, fatally marked and doomed the emerging Soviet state. The result was little more than the complete annihilation of the Russian proletariat as a class. I don't have my reference works on hand but the figures are startling: between famine, unemployment, civil war and plague, there was a collapse in industrial employment and mass depopulation of the cities*. The most militant workers who remained engaged with the soviets tended to be drawn into state work - spreading the revolution, fighting the Civil War, etc, etc.

Thus the very foundation on which this new proletarian state was to be built (ie the proletariat) essentially vanished. This had dire consequences for the Bolshevik Party (which prior to October had been a mass democratic movement) but more so for the soviet movement itself. The organisation that was supposed to drive the creation of the new society (or at the very least act as a counterpoint to the Sovnarkom) was rendered hollow.

So 1918 is the year in which the economic decline is revealed to be terminal, the dissolution of the proletariat gathers pace, the connection between the soviets and their constituency is broken (ditto with the Bolsheviks) and the year in which the Party and state begin to step into the void. It's also the critical year that shaped the emerging Soviet state.

Which is very different to some of the answers offered above. Those who argue that capitalism was inevitable, and that there was never anything socialist about Soviet power, are ignoring the real attempts and aspirations to build exactly that - socialism. Ditto with the standard critique of the 'vanguardist' strawman - the Bolsheviks didn't con or force their way into power and such an analysis does nothing to explain the class nature of either the Revolution or its degeneration. Finally, those who suggest that if X policy had happened or Y was in power sooner, etc, are looking for answers in a fairly facile political analysis. I don't see any of these are particularly productive.

*IIRC, Moscow lost 50% of its population in the years post-1917; Petrograd was even worse.

[Blake's Baby]

The Soviet Union, as others have said, never stopped being capitalist.

Where it 'went wrong' was in being part of a world where the world revolution was murdered, primarily on the streets of Berlin but also Shanghai and other places (not least, some places in the Soviet Union).

It is not possible to establish a communist society in one country. So, given that the political revolution had occurred in Russia (ie, the working class had taken control of the state... for the moment it's not important the party of the working class then took power from the working class) it was necessary for the political revolution to take place in other countries. This did not happen successfully. So the social revolution (that is the re-organisation of capitalism to produce for need not profit) was impossible. In a world of one or proletarian 'bastions' (still capitalist states, but under workers' control) and a ring of hostile capitalist powers, production needs to be geared to many things other than fulfilling the needs of the working class or the rest of the population.

[exeexe]

So the social revolution (that is the re-organisation of capitalism to produce for need not profit) was impossible

Of course it was possible. The communist party just didn't allow it to happen. The social revolution were already taking place in various places but when the communist party realized that the workers were taking over they had to show who were the boss, so everything the workers had gained in the revolution they now lost it because the communist party decided to be an enemy of the working class.

And so it was no longer a working class revolution but a communist party revolution

[Blake's Baby]

Do you think socialism is possible in one country? A country what's more that is a) fighting a civil war, b) occupied/invaded by 15 other countries, and c) has just come out of a brutal world war lasting 3 years that has left millions dead and the economy in ruins?

[Invader Zim]

Vanguard parties aren't "elites", and this analysis is based in a liberal voluntarist narrative of "power corrupts", which if so means we might as well not even bother trying to change society. I'd like good concrete evidence as to how the vanguard party became a "new bourgeoisie", since I can't find any evidence that labour-power was a commodity in the USSR until near the very end.

Who controlled the means of production in the Soviet Union, the workers or a Party elite? If it looks, swims, and quacks like a duck...

[BolshevikBabe]

@exeexe, trying to explain serious power dynamics in terms of armchair psychology and popular culture isn't going to get you very far in actually understanding the nature of states.

No-one thinks it was possible to establish a "communist society in one country". The question was whether socialism could be built at all in one nation at a time, something which Lenin and Stalin argued it could, whereas Trotsky believed the revolution would have to be held in permanence until western Europe finally overthrew capitalism. That's all "socialism in one country" is about, it's not some theory which says communism can magically happen in a single country surrounded by capitalist nations. Most Marxist-Leninists would argue that revolution should be spread to other countries as much as is possible, but that this isn't always possible due to material factors - in the case of the U.S.S.R., the fact the country was wrecked by years of war and famine.

As for "control" of the means of production, you're going to have to be more clear about what "control" means, because it's not simply a matter of ownership, there's a distinction to be made between ownership and operation.

[Blake's Baby]

Socialism is communism, BolshevikBabe, notwithstanding Lenin's attempt to define them differently.

You have to explain what you think the difference between them is.

[BolshevikBabe]

Socialism is communism, BolshevikBabe, notwithstanding Lenin's attempt to define them differently.

You have to explain what you think the difference between them is.

The difference is precisely what Lenin pointed out it is? I'm a Marxist-Leninist, not an ortho Marxist, and this whole trend of seeing Lenin as corrupting Marx's True Message somehow is getting really grating, especially when it's left-communists and anarchists claiming to know best what Marxists believe.

Marx barely actually used the word "socialism" in terms of modes of production, so I don't know where you're pulling that from.

[exeexe]

Do you think socialism is possible in one country? A country what's more that is a) fighting a civil war, b) occupied/invaded by 15 other countries, and c) has just come out of a brutal world war lasting 3 years that has left millions dead and the economy in ruins?

Do you think USSR was the only country being weak after WW1?
Also why should we even dare to go for a socialist economic model when the capitalist model is so much better? Because thats what you are saying right? Only with a capitalist mode of production can the USSR hold back its enemies.

[exeexe]

As for "control" of the means of production, you're going to have to be more clear about what "control" means, because it's not simply a matter of ownership, there's a distinction to be made between ownership and operation.
Well i mean both. Owning (or occupying) and operating..

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Where did the Soviet Union go wrong?

This questions already supposes that States like the Soviet Union actively "go" somewhere and are wholly in control of their sorry fate. The USSR was a State that was born into a hostile world of capitalist imperialism.

Imperialism is the name of the game, the current world order, and its main proponent states are and have been the hegemonic forces on the world even at the strongest period of Socialism. Imperialism is how humans have been getting things done, and then all of a sudden there is a communist revolution in Russia which defies it. Naturally all the reactionary forces of Imperialism united to overthrow it. Yet, the revolutionaries in Russia were very dedicated and aware of the teachings of scientific socialists like Marx, and used their motivations and conviction to persuade the People of Russia to follow them and not the Aristocracy.

The reason the Russian revolution started to disintegrate at around the end of the civil war, was quite obviously a lack of belief and conviction in the international revolution in those who had survived the war. The class enemy had successfully defeated the communist insurrections in Germany 1919, 1920, 1923, Hungary 1919, Finland 1918. By the time the Bavarian Soviet Republic had assumed state power, the only thing that was standing in between a USSR that spanned from Siberia to the heart of Europe was a lack of revolutionary leadership in the country of Austria to further agitate, encourage and make real the mass calls for a Soviet Republic in Vienna as well.

Had history been a little more kind to the communists in the years 1918-1923, and had the communists of such powerful industrial nations as Germany (1919-23), France ('44&'68), Spain, and Italy ('45) been more determined in and aware of their revolutionary endeavors, the global balance of power would have easily shifted in favor of communism.

[Lev Ulyanov]

The USSR was broke. It needed investment of goods, materials and technology from outside the country in order to build up an infrastructure which would compound Russian simple labour to the degree where the people wouldn't need to slave away 24/7 just to meet their basic needs and to produce adequate defences, and would be able to produce efficiently and in sufficient quantities, without too much work - in that sense, it needed elements from capitalism, and what should have happened was the introduction of the bare minimum of these elements alongside elements from socialism along the lines of what later would become Trotsky's theory of combined development, much like Nicholas II needed bourgeois weaponry and technology to maintain his rule during the early 1900s. Issues started to emerge when power was increasingly taken away from the Soviets and given to everybody else; the Party, private industry in the latter stages of the NEP, wealthy peasants... not to mention the single most critical problem of the USSR - the establishment of a new standing army, turning the dictatorship of the proletariat and its militia into the oppression of the proletariat by a special body of armed men. The absolute power afforded to the bureaucracy by the presence of this armed force led to the decades of infighting that would follow, reaching its peak in Stalin's ordering of the execution of hundreds of soldiers and tens of seasoned generals and military leaders, as well as the assassination of his political rivals throughout the Party.

To be true, there was no real choice - an army was needed to defend the USSR from the capitalist/fascist forces rallying on all fronts. Yet the moral of the story is: the revolution does need to be held in permanence, until the workingmen of all nations unite, the nation-state ceases to exist, and there is no longer any need for the standing army. Otherwise, all projects to establish socialism are doomed to failure, from within, or from without.

[Blake's Baby]

Do you think USSR was the only country being weak after WW1?
Also why should we even dare to go for a socialist economic model when the capitalist model is so much better? Because thats what you are saying right? Only with a capitalist mode of production can the USSR hold back its enemies.

My apologies.

Do you think socialism in one country was possible after World War One (or at any other time), even if that country is Germany, or Spain, or Turkey, or Syria, or the Belgian Congo, or Siam?

"...Because thats what you are saying right? Only with a capitalist mode of production can the USSR hold back its enemies."

Errm, of course I am, because a 'socialist mode of production' can't happen until after capitalism has been defeated (unless you think Stalin was right), and therefore, it it's a state fighting another state (or more than one state), has a national economy etc, then it is by definition not socialist.

BolshevikBabe, so socialism is communism, and communism is communism, and communism is impossible in one country except when it's socialism, is that right? I know very well 'what Marxists believe', as I am one. What I'm a little hazy over is what Marxist-Leninists believe, as Lenin was very unclear. Be clear about this, when we say 'socialism in one country is impossible' we mean socialism, AKA communism. Communism is impossible in one country. Socialism is impossible in one country. I don't care that you don't mean the same thing by these two statements. If you mean, the first phase of communist society is possible in one country, that's still communism. So you think communism is possible in one country. If you think a higher phase is not possible in one country, say that.

[Wonton Carter]

When they betrayed the people by overtaking the soviets (workers councils) and placing Party-appointed heads with unquestioning loyalty to the Party in charge of the councils, and began to suppress any other leftist movements.

[Blake's Baby]

When they betrayed the people by overtaking the soviets (workers councils) and placing Party-appointed heads with unquestioning loyalty to the Party in charge of the councils, and began to suppress any other leftist movements.

And if they hadn't, could the Soviet Republic have instituted socialism?

[Broviet Union]

It seems pretty obvious that if you attempt to build a socialist revolution in one isolated country, you will reach a point where National Interest and the interest of the World Revolution are seen to be the same, and then you start to shift to the Right.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Vanguard parties aren't "elites", and this analysis is based in a liberal voluntarist narrative of "power corrupts", which if so means we might as well not even bother trying to change society. I'd like good concrete evidence as to how the vanguard party became a "new bourgeoisie", since I can't find any evidence that labour-power was a commodity in the USSR until near the very end.

The issue isn't that power corrupts, it's that the state and party becomes alienated from the working class and takes on different economic interests. In particular, the bureaucrat needs to keep his job by keeping commodity production high and efficient so as to maintain the state economy and preserve its ability to pay back foreign debts, purchase commodities from abroad and so on. The bureaucrat is not accountable to the workers but his managers in the political class.

Labor was a commodity for the soviet state insofar as commodities were being produced by Soviet labor and exported to other countries to fuel industrialization.

[exeexe]

And if they hadn't, could the Soviet Republic have instituted socialism?
No a republic is a state, and a state is antisocial. If you want socialism you must let people do the job

[exeexe]

My apologies.

Do you think socialism in one country was possible after World War One (or at any other time), even if that country is Germany, or Spain, or Turkey, or Syria, or the Belgian Congo, or Siam?

yes its always possible if people wants it



Errm, of course I am, because a 'socialist mode of production' can't happen until after capitalism has been defeated (unless you think Stalin was right), and therefore, it it's a state fighting another state (or more than one state), has a national economy etc, then it is by definition not socialist.

So how do you defeat capitalism if you cant use socialism to defeat capitalism? The answer is ofcourse then you will never be able to defeat capitalism. You dont get rid of capitalism and then you have a void and then you fill that void up with socialism. No you force capitalism out of the system by introducing socialism. Socialism is the very thing that defeats capitalism.

A socialist mode of production can happen whenever people wants it to happen.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

It was fucked from the beginning. Tbh, thees no singular event which marked the ultimate death of the revolution, more a long series of unfortunate events such as the murder of Chernyi, Nikiforova and other members of the black guard or the suppression and defeat of the Workers' Opposition, the retention of the wage system and wage differentials, the retention of the state in general, the emergence of a bureaucratic monolith, Kronstadt, Tambov, etc. There's numerous instanances where the actual demands of the workers were ignored and suppressed and in which any genuine semblance of "workers' democracy and self-management," was crushed and capitalism was allowed to flourish into what we see today. Not to mention of course economic and material factors as well.

[Sinister Intents]

Why do all the threads I can legitimately add content to happen when I'm at work? Then I'm late and everyone has beat the shit out of this dead horse.

I'll just add that the Soviet Union betrayed socialism and persecuted the anarchists and real communists. Lenin instated the NEP ensuring the path of capitalism and anything potentially socialistic became the harmless puppets of a cruel, godlike state.

[BolshevikBabe]

The NEP which was repealed only 8 years later, and which was more or less necessary at the time because the kulaks had the Bolsheviks over a barrel?

As for persecuting "real" communists and anarchists, I'm presuming you're referring to Makhno's warlord state which he only maintained by bartering with the kulaks. Add that in with the fact he posed an objectively counterrevolutionary force which caused major problems for the Red Army and could have led to a White Army victory and uh...

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The NEP which was repealed only 8 years later, and which was more or less necessary at the time because the kulaks had the Bolsheviks over a barrel?

Aside from it wasn't necessary at all and again, paved the way for what we see today.


As for persecuting "real" communists and anarchists, I'm presuming you're referring to Makhno's warlord state which he only maintained by bartering with the kulaks. Add that in with the fact he posed an objectively counterrevolutionary force which caused major problems for the Red Army and could have led to a White Army victory and uh...

Any Left oppositional group, whether Communist, Anarchist or otherwise was systematically suppressed, dismantled or destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the name of securing the "victory of the revolution." Meanwhile flagrant class colloborationism and capitalism vis a vis the NEP is allowed. Workers strikes, uprisings and rebellions are met with swift suppression. Workers demands are repeatedly ignored. Trade unions and so forth become subordinate to the Bolshevik government and become essentially useless. But of course, the Russian people were obviously to stupid and backward to govern themselves and like a donkey, needed Farmer Lenin and his "vanguard," to guide them. The people just "didn't get it" and couldn't see the bigger picture and how obviously all of their demands were stupid and counter-revolutionary. Further your portrayal of Makhno, the black guard, and the Free Territory is highly inaccurate to say the least. I don't know why Bolshevik hysteria is still being accepted as history.

[BolshevikBabe]

I'd like to see some evidence that it wasn't neccesary, given that at the time it was the only means of securing the worker-peasant alliance. Not that I understand how a policy which was repealed before the 1920s ended was what turned the USSR capitalist anyway.

As for unions becoming "useless", that's only the case if you think the purpose of unions is to disrupt the building of actual socialism, given that unions had a major amount of input into central planning and wielded a great amount of power over management.

[Sinister Intents]

Ugh.... let's never forget Kronstadt and many many other examples of persecution of real communists and anarchists because they posed a threat to a violent capitalist state. Fuck Trotsky and his role in Kronstadt, fuck Lenin and Stalin aand that hideous scar on socialism the USSR and other fake communist countries left. The Soviets would have killed me for being an anti authoritarian socialist that wanted free soviets.

[Sinister Intents]

Oh and the unions in the USSR provided no worker's control. There existed competition and a nationalized means of production.

[BolshevikBabe]

Okay, well that isn't really analysis, it's just a bunch of swearing and anger. I'm sure I wouldn't exactly have been high on the love-list of the USSR for much of its existence, given that I'm a trans woman, but the fact is that it was a socialist country which played a huge role in combating imperialism, fighting for racial & gender equality, and industrializing a broken, famine-stricken, wartorn nation which was a borderline feudal backwater.

With regards to workers control, certainly it wasn't perfect, but it was about as ideal as could be achieved in the circumstances the USSR found itself in. In 1934, the USSR abolished its department of labour and turned over control of the country's labour legislation to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, reasoning that the labour unions of the country were the best arbiter of the workers demands. Certainly there were higher paid professions, but not by a great degree - the maximum wage was 10x as much as the average worker for much of the USSR's existence, which compares favourably to the 110x of the United States at the time (closer to 400x today). I don't know what you mean by "competition", other than socialist emulation, which can't be honestly compared to capitalist competition. As for nationalization, yeah, so what? That by itself doesn't prove anything about a country being socialist or not. It may not fit your ideal model of socialism, but it's impossible to say it's capitalist, since labour-power was not a commodity in the U.S.S.R.

The U.S.S.R. was far from perfect, I don't think any honest Leninist would dispute that, but I'm not having ultras repeat liberal garbage about how it was this Orwellian "totalitarian" hell, because I'm afraid that's false.

[Remus Bleys]

The ruling circles of Great Britain and France have of late been attempting to depict themselves as champions of the democratic rights of nations against Hitlerism, and the British Government has announced that its aim in the war with Germany is nothing more nor less than the "destruction of Hitlerism." It amounts to this, that the British and, with them, the French supporters of the war have declared something in the nature of an "ideological" war on Germany, reminiscent of the religious wars of the olden times. In fact religious wars against heretics and religious dissenters were once the fashion. As we know, they led to the direst results for the masses, to economic ruin and the cultural deterioration of nations. These wars could have no other outcome. But they were wars of the Middle Ages. Is it back to the Middle Ages, to the days of religious wars, superstition and cultural deterioration that the ruling classes of Great Britain and France want to drag us? In any case, under the "ideological" flag has now been started a war of even greater dimensions and fraught with even greater danger for the peoples of Europe and of the whole world. But there is absolutely no justification for a war of this kind. One may accept or reject the ideology of Hitlerism, as well as any other ideological system; that is a matter of political views. But everybody will understand that ideology cannot be destroyed by force, that it cannot be eliminated by war. It is, therefore, not only senseless but criminal to wage such a war as a war for the "destruction of Hitlerism," camouflaged as a fight for "democracy."

http://www.histdoc.net/history/molotov_31101939.html

Compare "friendly relations with Germany" to the stalinists later going on about how America was a champion of freedom and democracy. 1939 certainly isn't the point of degeneration (one can find that much sooner) but it's very indicative of how even on an ideological level, the ussr was indistinguishable from any other bourgeois state, how it would radically change all lines and views, pretending that they never existed, and would in fact seek to be allies with other bourgeois states. Regardless of if you agree with Lenin's statement that one should make treaties with the bourgeoisie to defend the socialist country, you cannot even find a hint of this in the Stalinist play at geo politics. Whereas in here (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm) Lenin speaks of retreating, and when going on the offensive, the only ally is the international proletariat and it must stand opposed to all the bourgeoisie ("a holy war") that will not opportunitistly support the bourgeoisie over the proletarian, but only the proletarian. Lenin repeats time and time again that the only "deal" that can be made is the opportunity to retreat, or a war. On the other hand, Stalin makes allies, he fights for "the defense of democracy" when it suites him (flip flop and vagueness - much like the russian lefts lenin criticized), he invades and tries to "normalize relations," he attempts to get allies - even joining the United Nations (contrast this to Lenin's criticism of the League of Nations).
How in the world anyone can look at the ussr as a shining Bastion of socialist theory is completely beyond me. The mere idea alone that the bourgeois class will help the proletarian (instead of the proletarian using the individual bourgeois as a way for management, with them getting paid at most a working persons wage, gaining no profit, and under the complete control of the proletarian class) should be the death knell to this idiotic notion.

[Diogenese]

When they gave Stalin membership.

[Sinister Intents]

Okay, well that isn't really analysis, it's just a bunch of swearing and anger. I'm sure I wouldn't exactly have been high on the love-list of the USSR for much of its existence, given that I'm a trans woman, but the fact is that it was a socialist country which played a huge role in combating imperialism, fighting for racial & gender equality, and industrializing a broken, famine-stricken, wartorn nation which was a borderline feudal backwater.

With regards to workers control, certainly it wasn't perfect, but it was about as ideal as could be achieved in the circumstances the USSR found itself in. In 1934, the USSR abolished its department of labour and turned over control of the country's labour legislation to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, reasoning that the labour unions of the country were the best arbiter of the workers demands. Certainly there were higher paid professions, but not by a great degree - the maximum wage was 10x as much as the average worker for much of the USSR's existence, which compares favourably to the 110x of the United States at the time (closer to 400x today). I don't know what you mean by "competition", other than socialist emulation, which can't be honestly compared to capitalist competition. As for nationalization, yeah, so what? That by itself doesn't prove anything about a country being socialist or not. It may not fit your ideal model of socialism, but it's impossible to say it's capitalist, since labour-power was not a commodity in the U.S.S.R.

The U.S.S.R. was far from perfect, I don't think any honest Leninist would dispute that, but I'm not having ultras repeat liberal garbage about how it was this Orwellian "totalitarian" hell, because I'm afraid that's false.

I'm at work, hence shitty posts, so I'll get back to you

[PhoenixAsh]

It went wrong with the Bolsheviks...and their goal to gain state power. Lenin's quote of Plekhanov:

"If in a burst of enthusiasm the people elected a very good parliament...then we ought to make it a very long parliament and if the elections have not proved a success, then we should seek to disperse parliament not after two years but, if possible, after two weeks."


And so it went with the Constitutional Assembly...where the Bolsheviks failed miserably and to their absolute chagrin because they weren't wanted, needed or even part of the solution.

In establishing their power base they needed to protect it. In order to protect it they needed a police force...and that police force used brutal terror to consolidate Bolshevik power by repressing exactly that group the Bolsheviks purposed they represented with indiscriminate violence and repression. More often than not, as was very often proven, this police force used lies, falsified evidence and a whole slew of bourgeois tactics in order to execute its job and stifle any revolutionary movement that could threaten Bolshevik power.

Bolsheviks tend to brush this repression aside or diminish it or worse, even legitimize it. But those are the facts. It didn't bring socialism; it didn't bring communism...it didn't bring empowering of the working class. It brought subjugation of the working class and repression and estrangement.

The October revolution was the counter revolution. Or as Goldman said:

"I have never denied that violence is inevitable, nor do I gainsay it now. Yet it is one thing to employ violence in combat as a means of defence. It is quite another to make a principle of terrorism, to institutionalise it, to assign it the most vital place in the social struggle. Such terrorism begets counter-revolution and in turn becomes counter-revolutionary."

[PhoenixAsh]

When they gave Stalin membership.

Stalin was a continuation of Bolshevik policy and its logical conclusion.

Lenin wrote about the DotP: Workers control can become a national, all-embracing, omnipresent, extremely precise and extremely scrupulous accounting

How does this not lay the foundation of an incredible state bureaucracy? Where there is bureaucracy there is a fixation on procedures for procedures sake. Which is fine and well if the system can be overhauled and critically analyzed. But that was not the case in the USSR. And the foundations for this were already present in the Oktober revolution and Bolshevik policy/ideology when they imposed their ideology on the working class and using violence against their critics and opponents. In doing so they lost touch with the working class. And in losing touch with the working class they created uncritical obedience to bureaucratic dogma inherent in the system they created.

[Blake's Baby]

Never understood the 'Anarchist' fetish for the Russian parliament*. 'Smash the State! Unless it's a warmongering bourgeois republic, in which case, boo hiss evil Anarchist sailors for suppressing it ... I mean evil Bolsheviks!'

*I say that as someone who was an Anarchist, from my teens into my mid-30s.

[Dagoth Ur]

Tzarist Russia had a massive bureaucracy, Soviet Russia did too, so does modern Neoliberal Russia. It's a historic issue for Russia in particular (in fact the USSR inherited quite a lot of horrible birthmarks from its Tzarist womb). Lenin recognized he was saddled with this problem and that the system of purging was absolutely necessary to destroy its institutional power. This is one of the areas where Stalin can be was playing it too safe. Stalin himself came to realize this in his later years and had apparently designs on some massive bureaucracy purge in the months leading up to his death (although his ability to enact this even if he hadn't died is dubious).

Khrushchev basically enshrined the bureaucracy when he ended the purges for good. The inherent stratification (financially and in terms of more general interests) among workers this caused could only have led to perestroika, Yeltsin, and the demise of the most advanced worker's nation to ever exist.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Never understood the 'Anarchist' fetish for the Russian parliament*. 'Smash the State! Unless it's a warmongering bourgeois republic, in which case, boo hiss evil Anarchist sailors for suppressing it ... I mean evil Bolsheviks!'

*I say that as someone who was an Anarchist, from my teens into my mid-30s.

Well, comrade, have you not received the memo? Zheleznyak was an evil Bolshevik, the true anarchists were Chernov and Gots. No gods, no masters - except the Constitutional Assembly!

[Comrade Chernov]

Socialism is a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society, so Russia had never stopped being capitalist.

lolwut

No, Communism is the classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society. It hasn't been reached yet. It likely won't be reached for centuries, because it's an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change.

Socialism refers, in general, to government control of the economy. In Marxist theory, socialism is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The state still exists, it's just controlled by the proletarians rather than the bourgeois. Marxism-Leninism went further with this concept via the Vanguard Party.

As for the OP...I'd say it began the path away from socialism with Lenin's New Economic Policy, though pragmatic realpolitik always prevails over idealism. It was what the USSR needed to prevent utter economic collapse, and it worked. Probably the final straw when the USSR lost all right to be called socialist is when economic bureaus and whatnot were allowed to engage in competition with each-other (I believe it was in the 60s that this happened but don't quote me on it).

[4thInter]

Another thing would have to be the years of economic gridlock. Stalin failed to meet some requirements of rebuilding the CCCP after The Great Patriotic War. Krushev could of dismantled Stalins beauracracy but he was put on "vacation" after the missile crises.

[BolshevikBabe]

Khrushchev did try to take on the emerging petit-bourgeois class that was coming through the second economy through the anti-parasite laws, but it was the wrong medicine for the job - the problem was that he thought decentralization in the direction of markets would fix things, when it just made them worse.

[Blake's Baby]

lolwut

No, Communism is the classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society. It hasn't been reached yet. It likely won't be reached for centuries, because it's an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change.

Socialism refers, in general, to government control of the economy. In Marxist theory, socialism is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat...

Oh my monkey ancestors.

Have you actually read any Marx at all?

Here's an apposite quote from 'The Critique of the Gotha Programme, Part IV' (the link is in my sig if you want to check it and the MIA hasn't taken it down):

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

No-where does Marx call this period of revolutionary transformation 'socialism': for him and Engels, socialism and communism are the same thing (hence the description of Marxist communism as 'Scientific Socialism'). Marx talks about a 'first phase' of communist society, in which capitalism has been overthrown but production is not suitably developed, and 'a higher phase' in which all human needs and wants are able to be met. Neither of these phases he refers to as 'socialism'.

Lenin however does refer to one of these phases as socialism, but not the dictatorship of the proletariat. He is referring to the 'first phase of communist society', in 'State and Revolution', where he says 'what Marx calls the first phase of communist society, which is commonly called socialism' (which it wasn't, I know of no other writer who so uses the term before 1918).

Most of us don't care how you think socialism and communism differ, but you have to understand that if we say 'socialism', that means '= to communism'. You don't get to redefine how other people use words, when they wrote texts using the words as we understand them, not how you understand them.

[PhoenixAsh]

Never understood the 'Anarchist' fetish for the Russian parliament*. 'Smash the State! Unless it's a warmongering bourgeois republic, in which case, boo hiss evil Anarchist sailors for suppressing it ... I mean evil Bolsheviks!'

*I say that as someone who was an Anarchist, from my teens into my mid-30s.

Actually the anarchists argued against the ConAss as being undemocratic and a bourgeois relic. And as should have happened the ConAss should have been abandoned immediately in favor of the soviets...like the anarchists were first to argue. In fact Anarchists disbanded it.

The Bolshevik did not. Only after they failed to gain a majority in their favored parliament did they suddenly change course. Which of course is pure hypocrisy and underlines only their opportunistic power hunger.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Constitutional Assembly was dispersed by the anarchist sailors that made up the guards of the Tauride Palace. The Bolsheviks simply ignored them (the Assembly, not the sailors, some of who would go on to participate in the Red Army).

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah, and the fact that 'anarchists' are taking the Bolsheviks to task for doing something that the Anarchists advocated at the time - when it was Anarchists who did it anyway - shows their hypocrisy.

It was the co-operative movement in Russia, which was heavily dominated by the Mensheviks, that first put forward the slogan 'all power to the soviets', in fact.

[Brutus]

lolwut

No, Communism is the classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society. It hasn't been reached yet. It likely won't be reached for centuries, because it's an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change.

Socialism refers, in general, to government control of the economy. In Marxist theory, socialism is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The state still exists, it's just controlled by the proletarians rather than the bourgeois. Marxism-Leninism went further with this concept via the Vanguard Party.

No, in Marxist theory socialism refers to the society that supersedes capitalism, after the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transition between capitalism and communism (more specifically, the lower stage of communism, which some people have taken to referring as socialism due to a misreading of State and Revolution). You may want to read this (http://marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm) and rethink whether your views on socialism and proletarian dictatorship are, in fact, "Marxist theory" like you say they are, or whether you're talking tripe and passing it off as Marxist theory.

And "government control of the economy"? Britain under DORA in WW1 was socialism, as was Germany?

[PhoenixAsh]

The Constitutional Assembly was dispersed by the anarchist sailors that made up the guards of the Tauride Palace. The Bolsheviks simply ignored them (the Assembly, not the sailors, some of who would go on to participate in the Red Army).


You mean the Bolsheviks participated in them and then called for reelections because there was no clear split between left-SR and right-SR. Only after that call did they abandon it.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yeah, and the fact that 'anarchists' are taking the Bolsheviks to task for doing something that the Anarchists advocated at the time - when it was Anarchists who did it anyway - shows their hypocrisy.

It was the co-operative movement in Russia, which was heavily dominated by the Mensheviks, that first put forward the slogan 'all power to the soviets', in fact.

Actually. The Bolsheviks didn't do anything. Which was the point. Which you fail to understand.

And as for the quote. Anarchists applied it before the Bolsheviks. I don't much care who applied it before them. But that is what should have happened...and not, like the Bolsheviks, play bourgeois parliament in order to get some votes and then when failing to do so make a 180 on policy.

Now I appreciate you white knighting that obvious power hunger of the Bolsheviks and try to shift the focus of the debate...I really do. There isn't much else besides that than just admitting the facts and tat can't be a comfortable place to be.

And those facts clearly are that the Bolsheviks wanted one thing and one thing only: gain power for their minority elite over the majority class. In order to do so they were willing to use any and all bourgeois methods: elections in bourgeois power structures; employ extra judiciary police force; employ terror, violence and repression and argue that workers should submit totally to the state and work alongside capitalists.

[Left Voice]

Are the massive, clearly reactionary changes instigated by Khrushchev in themselves where the Soviet Union went wrong, or were those reactionary changes a reflection of the underlying reactionary contradictions that were already bubbling under the surface during the Stalin era? It's not a trivial difference - if Khrushchev was a leader that reflected the general direction that the CCCP was already beginning to take, that is different to Khrushchev himself dragging the CCCP down a reactionary path.

I guess that question is mainly aimed at MLs who uphold the pre-Khrushchev Soviet Union.

[BolshevikBabe]

Are the massive, clearly reactionary changes instigated by Khrushchev in themselves where the Soviet Union went wrong, or were those reactionary changes a reflection of the underlying reactionary contradictions that were already bubbling under the surface during the Stalin era? It's not a trivial difference - if Khrushchev was a leader that reflected the general direction that the CCCP was already beginning to take, that is different to Khrushchev himself dragging the CCCP down a reactionary path.

I guess that question is mainly aimed at MLs who uphold the pre-Khrushchev Soviet Union.

Base has primacy over superstructure, so I think a proper Marxist-Leninist should argue that Khrushchev's reforms reflected real economic class interests - I'd argue this was based in a sort of technocratic petty-bourgeoisie, created by the contradiction between physical and mental labour, which obviously brings with it the kind of mindset that fuelled many of the Khrushchev reforms - productive forces determinism for example, as well as the concept of "peaceful competition with capitalism", which clearly stems from that logic.

[tuwix]

Vanguard parties aren't "elites"


Yes, they were and are:

Elite

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite



I'd like good concrete evidence as to how the vanguard party became a "new bourgeoisie", since I can't find any evidence that labour-power was a commodity in the USSR until near the very end.

The process was described even before Lenin came to power by Bakunin. After the Lenin's achievements there were many who described this process (Kautsky for example). It's time to read something else than Lenin's or Stalin's works...

[Dagoth Ur]

So called "soviet bourgeoisie" are something that never existed. The Nomenklatura were overpaid, this is clear, but they didn't even approach the western upper middle-class and they derived their income from labor, not from holding the means of production and living lives of leisure.

That is exactly why they supported the break-up of the USSR because otherwise they couldn't get to bourgeoisie levels of wealth and control over the MoP.

[tuwix]

^^The "Nomenklatura" was a state capitalism bourgeoisie because they were real owners of the means of production. Certainly, in such countries there wasn't such inequality in wealth and incomes, but it doesn't change a fact that the party was real owner of whole state.

[Dagoth Ur]

The nomenklatura did not own the party. They exerted disproportionate power but the workers were always a powerful force in the Soviet Union. And, again, the nomenklatura were workers. They were like a labor aristocracy without a bourgeoisie.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You mean the Bolsheviks participated in them and then called for reelections because there was no clear split between left-SR and right-SR. Only after that call did they abandon it.

They "abandoned it" - it would be more accurate to say that they ignored it - after the Constituent Assembly refused to recognise the decrees of the Bolshevik-PLSR government on land and peace. Such a tragedy.


It was the co-operative movement in Russia, which was heavily dominated by the Mensheviks, that first put forward the slogan 'all power to the soviets', in fact.

That said, to the minority of Mensheviks who raised the slogan it meant something else than it did to the Bolsheviks. And to the Bolsheviks it meant at least two things. When the Bolsheviks first raised the slogan they were aware that the Mensheviks and Esers who held a majority in the soviets would never allow themselves to seize power - the slogan was aimed at winning the masses of the proletariat over to the Bolsheviks and demonstrating practically the petit-bourgeois, opportunist nature of the Mensheviks and of the Esers.

Later it meant only this - "power to the proletariat". That was the point. The nature of the institutions that would bring the proletariat to power was secondary - soviet, trade union, factory committee, Constituent Assembly, the glavki, whatever. Hindsight talks about the "power-hunger" of the Bolsheviks. That is true. But not hunger for their own power (they could just as easily have become "socialist" ministers in the Provisional Government, and people like Kamenev might well have wanted something like that), but proletarian power. That, in practice, means the dictatorship of the proletarian party.

[PhoenixAsh]

Right. Power to the proletariat. Except the party minority considered itself to be the proletariat more so than the proletariat itself....which the Bolshiviks didn't trust being ale to lead themselves. So they needed to be beaten into submission to the Bolshevik elite and which recreated the working class as mindless drones working under the direction of capitalists....and a proletariat they executed and tortured by droves.

Lenin:
Unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of the labour process...the revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process

Trotsky:
the working class...must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded just like soldiers. Deserters from labour ought to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps

Lenin: Get down to business all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaries and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them, Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running an economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic

[Tim Cornelis]

With regards to workers control, certainly it wasn't perfect, but it was about as ideal as could be achieved in the circumstances the USSR found itself in.

That "workers' control" was not perfect is essentially an admission of the non-proletarian class character of the Soviet Union. If "workers' control" was not perfect, it implies that there was another social group that leveraged their power in relation to the Soviet proletariat, and compromised the existence of workers' control. In other words, there was class society with a proletariat and ruling class. In a socialist society this couldn't possibly be a dilemma since the producers possess all decision-making power. But in fact, there was no "workers' control" there were enterprise managers who directed and commanded the workers, and the workers were only permitted to give feedback and communicate their desires, with the managers seeking to accommodate these without any sort of accountability (consultative management). This means that the works councils and co-determination that exists in Western Europe has workers more empowered than the Soviet proletariat at any time.


In 1934, the USSR abolished its department of labour and turned over control of the country's labour legislation to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, reasoning that the labour unions of the country were the best arbiter of the workers demands.

Trade unions in the USSR were functionaries of management, seeking to promote and enhance labour productivity at the expense of the workers' well-being.

"Workers' living standards declined sharply from 1928 to 1933 by at least half, to a bare subsistence level. Part of this was the disastrous outcome of agricultural Collectivization, but part of it was deliberate policy: to finance the forced industrialization of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) by squeezing the workers with simultaneous pay-cuts and production speed-ups. After 1933, living standards began to recover, but only precariously. For example, by 1937, wages had climbed back to 60% of the 1928 level. Nearly all investment was directed to heavy industry and weapons, rather than consumer goods for working families. Despite a shortage of workers for new industrial projects, fierce repression of independent union activity ensured that wages would remain low."
http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/labor-discip.html

This doesn't sound like any policy designed by working people, it sounds exactly like policy designed by a ruling class seeking capital accumulation (or economic growth) at the expense of the working class). It is delusional to think that any sort of workers' democracy existed, or that a workers' democracy would choose to increase the rate of exploitation immensely. And trade unions, as functionaries of the Soviet ruling class, facilitated this increased rate of exploitation through various means.


Certainly there were higher paid professions, but not by a great degree - the maximum wage was 10x as much as the average worker for much of the USSR's existence, which compares favourably to the 110x of the United States at the time (closer to 400x today).

Class society or capitalism isn't defined by income disparity


I don't know what you mean by "competition", other than socialist emulation, which can't be honestly compared to capitalist competition. As for nationalization, yeah, so what? That by itself doesn't prove anything about a country being socialist or not. It may not fit your ideal model of socialism, but it's impossible to say it's capitalist, since labour-power was not a commodity in the U.S.S.R.

I don't see why labour-power was not a commodity in the USSR. There was a dispossessed working class owning nor controlling means of production, and therefore confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property, and therefore were compelled to sell their labour-power to state, the employer.

But just because something is not capitalism does not make it socialism. It is quite clear to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Marxist method that socialism is based on common property and associated labour, and therefore is 'commodity-less'. And in fact, the Stalinist logic that altering the conditions of market exchange somehow turns society socialist, is nothing short of inverted Proudhonism. Stalinism, therefore, is utopian and bourgeois-socialism.


Base has primacy over superstructure, so I think a proper Marxist-Leninist should argue that Khrushchev's reforms reflected real economic class interests

Khrushchev's reforms... In other words, power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the Communist Party, and not the workers or producers. In other words, there was no workers' state. Either decision-making power was distributed and possessed by producers (or 'workers'), in which case the workers voted away 'socialism', or decision-making power was concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the party-state, in which case there was no workers' state to begin with, let alone socialism!

Or did a dozen men wrestle control and power from the workers with ease, without resistance, completely peacefully taken away their means of production, their decision-making power, their political and economic empowerment, and the workers just accepted this?

As a proper Marxist, we should argue that the reforms in the Soviet Union were in response to the material conditions, the economic base, and economic stagnation. There was a constant downward trend in the growth rates of the USSR from 1937 onwards. The growth rate and reproduction of the Soviet economy was sustained by the “massive quantitative mobilization of productive resources” (p. 68, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience) as well as the large volume of available labour-power. The rate of growth for constant capital was many fold that of the growth of living labour, “there was no corresponding growth in the productivity of social labour.” (p. 77, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). In other words, the source for economic growth (or capital accumulation) in the USSR was its massive resources of labour and raw materials, yet there was stunted growth of labour productivity and stunted growth of technical improvements of the methods of production. That the methods of production, fixed capital, were notoriously and comparatively outdated and old can be seen as an affirmation or indication of the crisis of absolute over-accumulation of capital in the Soviet Union. Invention, innovation, diffusion, and incremental improvements were falling or consistently low (p. 73, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). Gorbachev noted that “the structure of our production remained unchanged and no longer corresponded to the exigencies of scientific and technological progress.” (p.74, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). The reason for this was that the implementation of new innovative technology in production disrupted the production process temporarily and managers obstructed this, as it threatened reaching their production quotas, with no additional future rewards as prospect.

The economic stagnation and eventual economic decline can thus be seen as the crisis of absolute over-accumulation. In an effort to correct this, the management of capital had to re-invent itself. The various reforms implemented under the rule of subsequent Soviet leaders, particularly the Liberman reforms and the reforms of the Gorbachev era, (market-oriented reforms) were intended to make capital's management more efficient.

This would be a Marxist analysis, based on the material conditions, rather than some idealist notion of revisionism of magically reappearing petty bourgeois class interests.

How anyone can understand the Marxist method and see in the USSR socialism escapes my comprehension, and I would argue those that do do not in fact understand the Marxist method. Socialism is free of commodity production, free of commodity-monetary exchange, free of capital, free of wage-labour, and socialism is associated labour without money or commodities based around common property.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Well, according to the BBC, it's making a come back!

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a deal with his counterparts from Kazakhstan and Belarus to create an economic union.
Moscow says the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) of ex-Soviet states will create a shared market and help integrate economic policy, starting next year.
Critics say the project is an attempt to revive part of the old Soviet Union.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko predicted Ukraine would join the bloc eventually.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27619156

[BolshevikBabe]

Yes, they were and are:

Elite

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite



The process was described even before Lenin came to power by Bakunin. After the Lenin's achievements there were many who described this process (Kautsky for example). It's time to read something else than Lenin's or Stalin's works...

1. No they weren't, read Lenin
2. Bakunin, really? You do realize his critique of "authoritarianism" was based heavily in the fact that he thought capitalism and Marxism were both part of a Jewish conspiracy?

As for "reading something else than Lenin's or Stalin's works", I read plenty. I think you're the one who needs to read beyond anarchist caricatures of what Lenin was, especially if you're reading as terrible a theorist as Bakunin.

[BolshevikBabe]

That "workers' control" was not perfect is essentially an admission of the non-proletarian class character of the Soviet Union. If "workers' control" was not perfect, it implies that there was another social group that leveraged their power in relation to the Soviet proletariat, and compromised the existence of workers' control. In other words, there was class society with a proletariat and ruling class. In a socialist society this couldn't possibly be a dilemma since the producers possess all decision-making power. But in fact, there was no "workers' control" there were enterprise managers who directed and commanded the workers, and the workers were only permitted to give feedback and communicate their desires, with the managers seeking to accommodate these without any sort of accountability (consultative management). This means that the works councils and co-determination that exists in Western Europe has workers more empowered than the Soviet proletariat at any time.

No, it doesn't "admit" that at all. The fact is that class struggle continues under socialism. If I was admitting worker's control wasn't perfect under communism, you might have a point, but I'm not, so you don't. As for your description of how managers "directed" and "commanded" the workers, I'm afraid that doesn't reflect reality very well at all - in fact, workers were basically impossible to fire and had a heavy amount of leverage over management which basically kept them subdued to the working class in many aspects. Co-determination was fundamentally different, because it still very much retained a capitalist class - management's wages barely bore much of a difference to the workers for most of the USSR's existence.




Trade unions in the USSR were functionaries of management, seeking to promote and enhance labour productivity at the expense of the workers' well-being.

"Workers' living standards declined sharply from 1928 to 1933 by at least half, to a bare subsistence level. Part of this was the disastrous outcome of agricultural Collectivization, but part of it was deliberate policy: to finance the forced industrialization of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) by squeezing the workers with simultaneous pay-cuts and production speed-ups. After 1933, living standards began to recover, but only precariously. For example, by 1937, wages had climbed back to 60% of the 1928 level. Nearly all investment was directed to heavy industry and weapons, rather than consumer goods for working families. Despite a shortage of workers for new industrial projects, fierce repression of independent union activity ensured that wages would remain low."
http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/labor-discip.html

This doesn't sound like any policy designed by working people, it sounds exactly like policy designed by a ruling class seeking capital accumulation (or economic growth) at the expense of the working class). It is delusional to think that any sort of workers' democracy existed, or that a workers' democracy would choose to increase the rate of exploitation immensely. And trade unions, as functionaries of the Soviet ruling class, facilitated this increased rate of exploitation through various means.

So basically, you're arguing that industrialization is Bad and that the USSR should have remained a semi-feudal country? Sounds very proletarian. Unfortunately, you still haven't shown this "ruling class" existed and was acting on a capitalist logic, especially since the trend after the 1930s was very much in the opposite direction - towards greater equalization.




Class society or capitalism isn't defined by income disparity

Then I'm afraid you're doing yourself a severe amount of damage since your theory relies on there being a ruling class which had a clear difference in income and was benefiting from the maintenance of "state capitalist" relations of production. You're basically admitting here that there wasn't one.




I don't see why labour-power was not a commodity in the USSR. There was a dispossessed working class owning nor controlling means of production, and therefore confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property, and therefore were compelled to sell their labour-power to state, the employer.

But just because something is not capitalism does not make it socialism. It is quite clear to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Marxist method that socialism is based on common property and associated labour, and therefore is 'commodity-less'. And in fact, the Stalinist logic that altering the conditions of market exchange somehow turns society socialist, is nothing short of inverted Proudhonism. Stalinism, therefore, is utopian and bourgeois-socialism.

You're pretending it worked that way though, that labour-power was a commodity. It wasn't. It was basically impossible, as I've said, for workers to be fired and even if they were the enterprises were forced to give them a large deal of compensation and re-training - iirc, 60% of workers laid off from enterprises were back in a new job within a week. There was no reserve army of labour, which again is fatal to your logic.

I never argued that it was a dichotomy between capitalism and socialism as such, though after the destruction of feudal property under the Bolsheviks, the choice was very much between socialist and capitalist relations of production of some sort. As for your complaints about "Stalinism" (a bullshit concept if ever there was one), you aren't making any sense. Stalin literallly never argued this, as reading his works would indicate, but obviously he was a totalitarian state-capitalist, so I'm guessing you're probably not going to do that.


Khrushchev's reforms... In other words, power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the Communist Party, and not the workers or producers. In other words, there was no workers' state. Either decision-making power was distributed and possessed by producers (or 'workers'), in which case the workers voted away 'socialism', or decision-making power was concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the party-state, in which case there was no workers' state to begin with, let alone socialism!

Or did a dozen men wrestle control and power from the workers with ease, without resistance, completely peacefully taken away their means of production, their decision-making power, their political and economic empowerment, and the workers just accepted this?

Now who's the utopian? The basic issue underlying this is that you think there can't be such a thing as socialism for the most part, and you want communism to manifest itself immediately. It'd be lovely if that were possible, but unfortunately, history has proven it isn't.

I don't believe "a dozen men" wrestled control and power away, I think, as most Marxist-Leninists do, that class struggle continues under socialism. The revisionist reforms had a material class basis, but you're assuming here that I have a vulgar, voluntaristic view of how revisionism arises, when I don't.


As a proper Marxist, we should argue that the reforms in the Soviet Union were in response to the material conditions, the economic base, and economic stagnation. There was a constant downward trend in the growth rates of the USSR from 1937 onwards. The growth rate and reproduction of the Soviet economy was sustained by the “massive quantitative mobilization of productive resources” (p. 68, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience) as well as the large volume of available labour-power. The rate of growth for constant capital was many fold that of the growth of living labour, “there was no corresponding growth in the productivity of social labour.” (p. 77, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). In other words, the source for economic growth (or capital accumulation) in the USSR was its massive resources of labour and raw materials, yet there was stunted growth of labour productivity and stunted growth of technical improvements of the methods of production. That the methods of production, fixed capital, were notoriously and comparatively outdated and old can be seen as an affirmation or indication of the crisis of absolute over-accumulation of capital in the Soviet Union. Invention, innovation, diffusion, and incremental improvements were falling or consistently low (p. 73, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). Gorbachev noted that “the structure of our production remained unchanged and no longer corresponded to the exigencies of scientific and technological progress.” (p.74, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience). The reason for this was that the implementation of new innovative technology in production disrupted the production process temporarily and managers obstructed this, as it threatened reaching their production quotas, with no additional future rewards as prospect.

First of all, I want to know what measure of economic growth we're using here, secondly, even if growth rates did fall (which I doubt they did "consistently"), that could well have been because the growth rate of the Soviet economy in the 1930s was at the fastest pace ever recorded in history.

I don't understand where you're implying there was all this available labour-power; almost every economist has indicated the exact opposite problem, that there was a labour shortage in the USSR. Your basic argument here is one based in the productive forces, which was actually the key focus of Soviet development from the mid 50s onwards, as well as implying that the Soviet Union was capitalist, in which case you need to prove labour-power was a commodity; something which hasn't yet happened, and won't, because until the final years of the Soviet Union, it wasn't.


The economic stagnation and eventual economic decline can thus be seen as the crisis of absolute over-accumulation. In an effort to correct this, the management of capital had to re-invent itself. The various reforms implemented under the rule of subsequent Soviet leaders, particularly the Liberman reforms and the reforms of the Gorbachev era, (market-oriented reforms) were intended to make capital's management more efficient.

Your entire argument here is based in the USSR being capitalist, which again, you haven't proved to me.


This would be a Marxist analysis, based on the material conditions, rather than some idealist notion of revisionism of magically reappearing petty bourgeois class interests.

Why are you debating that strawman over there when you could be debating me?


How anyone can understand the Marxist method and see in the USSR socialism escapes my comprehension, and I would argue those that do do not in fact understand the Marxist method. Socialism is free of commodity production, free of commodity-monetary exchange, free of capital, free of wage-labour, and socialism is associated labour without money or commodities based around common property.

And here we come to the key problem, which is that you use socialism and communism as synonyms, whereas I don't. A socialist society still has to contend with vestiges of capitalism which still exist within it, especially in the case of something like the USSR, where there was still a strong feudal mode of production even in 1917. I'd certainly argue that the objective laws of capitalism were and had been shaping the Russian economy for some time by 1917, but we're looking at Russia as a social formation, which means it isn't just this or that. Lenin himself argued in the 1890s that Russia had as many as 4 modes of production operating within it.

Basically, this all comes back to the question of labour-power as a commodity; that is the ultimate defining characteristic of capitalism, and if you don't have that, whatever you have, you don't have capitalism.

[tuwix]

1. No they weren't, read Lenin


:D And maybe you'll say that he is most objective person of his own case? :D
Have you ever read any definition of elite or just ignore it, because you don't like it?



2. Bakunin, really? You do realize his critique of "authoritarianism" was based heavily in the fact that he thought capitalism and Marxism were both part of a Jewish conspiracy?


There are Marx's quotes that could be recognized as antisemitic. But your turning the discussion into antisemitic arguments is a proof of merit's lack in your opinion.



As for "reading something else than Lenin's or Stalin's works", I read plenty.


Apparently inconvenient definitions to your theories don't belong to what you read...



I think you're the one who needs to read beyond anarchist caricatures of what Lenin was, especially if you're reading as terrible a theorist as Bakunin.

Marx was theorist as well as Bakunin. But another time you don't show any merit in your opinions beside hatred to some persons from the past.

[BolshevikBabe]

:D And maybe you'll say that he is most objective person of his own case? :D
Have you ever read any definition of elite or just ignore it, because you don't like it?

I know what an elite is, it's just that the theory of the vanguard party bears no resemblance to it whatsoever, and it's based in in this ultraleft notion that vanguardism is the same as Blanquism when it clearly isn't.




There are Marx's quotes that could be recognized as antisemitic. But your turning the discussion into antisemitic arguments is a proof of merit's lack in your opinion.

Why, because one of your heroes was a disgusting piece of shit who no leftist should defend? Marx certainly made quotes that can be seen as anti-Semitic, and we should condemn them. The difference is, his theories weren't based on the notion that the Jewish controlled everything. Bakunin's were.




Apparently inconvenient definitions to your theories don't belong to what you read...

A bit like your definition of "market" then, amongst other things. Pot, meet kettle.




Marx was theorist as well as Bakunin. But another time you don't show any merit in your opinions beside hatred to some persons from the past.

Hatred which is very practical, given that aside from all the anti-Semitism, Bakunin's works are based in a voluntaristic and idealist view of power, one which fails to describe how power actually works in any way.

[tuwix]

^^ Much of hatred and lack of merit still...

And elite's definition shows exactly how vanguard party is an elite.

Elite

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

[BolshevikBabe]

^^ Much of hatred and lack of merit still...

And elite's definition shows exactly how vanguard party is an elite.

This could go on forever.

[PhoenixAsh]

Sp what exactly do you consider to be the definition of "elite" ?

[tuwix]

Elite

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The nomenklatura did not own the party. They exerted disproportionate power but the workers were always a powerful force in the Soviet Union. And, again, the nomenklatura were workers. They were like a labor aristocracy without a bourgeoisie.

Are you not aware of how horrifically corrupt the fSU actually was? Why are you speaking of these people as innocent actors? This is like saying the bourgeois in America has no control over the GOP/Democratic party. Of course they do. Tf.

[BolshevikBabe]

Elite

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

Okay. Now explain how a vanguard party, properly understood, is one.

[tuwix]

^^ If you don't understand how obvious it is, I don't there is anyone on this world able to explain it to you...

[PhoenixAsh]

Okay. Now explain how a vanguard party, properly understood, is one.

How do you equate the Bolsheviks to this defintion?



Plus give us your definition of "elite" so we can all get on the same page when we read each others post.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Okay. Now explain how a vanguard party, properly understood, is one.

Not to just interrupt you guys but personally I think you're being intellectually disingenuous. How the fuck is a vanguard not an elite group? Did they or did they not seize, maintain and control the means of production, natural resources, the state, all of it's associated organs, etc?

[BolshevikBabe]

^^ If you don't understand how obvious it is, I don't there is anyone on this world able to explain it to you...

If it's so obvious, then it should be easy to explain, even to a statist numbskull like me.

@PhoenixAsh, I'm willing to largely agree with the one tuwix posted, on the face of it.

@VoX p°PuŁï, alright, you're arguing something, but I'm not seeing how it's linked to the theory of the vanguard party.

[tuwix]

I'm not seeing how it's linked to the theory of the vanguard party.

IMHO the greatest problem is that you don't see how the theory was put in practice...

[BolshevikBabe]

IMHO the greatest problem is that you don't see how the theory was put in practice...

I do actually, because there was very clearly a vanguard party in the USSR. What I don't see is how a) the theory posited an "elite" taking over the USSR or b) how in practice, the party became an elite.

[tuwix]

^^It was just "a small group of people who controled a disproportionate amount of wealth and political power." As simple, as that.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

@VoX p°PuŁï, alright, you're arguing something, but I'm not seeing how it's linked to the theory of the vanguard party.

Babe, can I call you babe? Imma call you babe anyway (you can call me Vox or Voxxy), do not play games with me. We both know what we are talking about. This is silly. I understand you have ideological commitments to defend such a theory but come on. Everything I just said has everything to do with the vanguard party or the Bolsheviks in regards to them functioning as an elite or "special," group which controlled a disproportionate amount of wealth, power and influence.

[BolshevikBabe]

^^It was just "a small group of people who controled a disproportionate amount of wealth and political power." As simple, as that.

This is where we run into problems however, for this has nothing to do with the theory of the vanguard party, even if we accept the existence of an elite of the Soviet Union (which I would, albeit only on the second condition of political power - a power elite, as C. Wright Mills called it)

[tuwix]

^^ Well, some theories just fail... :)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would be willing to bet that none of the people who are talking about "the elites" ("elites", seriously? is this a site for socialists or we-are-the-99% liberals?) have never read, say, What is to be Done? or Lenin's speeches on the agrarian question.

[BolshevikBabe]

^^ Well, some theories just fail... :)

I don't consider the overthrow of the bourgeois Russian Republic by the Bolshevik vanguard party a failure, I'm afraid. Quite the opposite.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I would be willing to bet that none of the people who are talking about "the elites" ("elites", seriously? is this a site for socialists or we-are-the-99% liberals?) have never read, say, What is to be Done? or Lenin's speeches on the agrarian question.

I fail to see what this has to do with liberalism. I mean, rly dog? Elite groups exist in reality, I'm sorry. The bourgeoisie themself are an elite group.

[tuwix]

I don't consider the overthrow of the bourgeois Russian Republic by the Bolshevik vanguard party a failure, I'm afraid. Quite the opposite.


You know very well that I didn't mean that. However, turning the Russian Republic in so-called Soviet Russia and the into the SU failed too. Will you argue that the SU has not collapsed too?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I fail to see what this has to do with liberalism. I mean, rly dog? Elite groups exist in reality, I'm sorry. The bourgeoisie themself are an elite group.

The bourgeoisie are a class.

[synthesis]

The bourgeoisie are a class.

...and they are an elite. Elite can be used as an adjective or as a descriptor. It doesn't have to be a category in itself.

[BolshevikBabe]

You know very well that I didn't mean that. However, turning the Russian Republic in so-called Soviet Russia and the into the SU failed too. Will you argue that the SU has not collapsed too?

Yes... 74 years later. So clearly other factors were at work in that particular event.

Contrary to me only reading Lenin and Stalin, I'd say the people who acted so dumbfounded when I contradicted them over the meaning of vanguardism are the ones who don't read beyond their ideology - if you had done, you'd know a vanguard party, far from being some Blanquist elite which seizes power and commands from above, consists of the most class-conscious elements of the proletariat and working class - this because consciousness is unevenly developed, and the vanguard acts as a means of spreading this consciousness further. I admit to doing a bit of Socratic questioning in this thread, but at the end of the day, you all acted as if it's some a priori assumption that vanguardism = elitism, when that's complete bollocks.

If you're going to critique a theory, at least learn what it is please.

[PhoenixAsh]

Not all vanguard parties are elitist and not all vanguard parties set out with the intent or objective to become elitist. However most do descend into elitism and a severe erroneous believe that they adequately represent the proletariat and know what is good for the proletariat. Whether by intent or design or as a consequence of making the absolute failure of policies, the Bolsheviks became elitist as soon as the Oktober revolution. And one can very adequately argue that this was a result of decisions, positions and ideology present before the Oktober.

Aside from the Bolsheviks there has not been a vanguard party which did not descend down this path after power became an option.

[synthesis]

If you're going to critique a theory, at least learn what it is please.

Why do you keep going on about the theory when everyone else is pretty clearly talking about historical events and processes?

[BolshevikBabe]

Why do you keep going on about the theory when everyone else is pretty clearly talking about historical events and processes?

Because the argument was about the theory, and even in terms of practice, processes etc., vanguardism doesn't explain the "elite" theory which anarchists and "libertarian" leftists use. If you want to believe there was some kind of elite in the Soviet Union in the sense in which you use it, fine, but don't pretend it has anything to do with the vanguard party because the fact is it doesn't. Unless all organization is "elitist", that is.

[Tim Cornelis]

No, it doesn't "admit" that at all. The fact is that class struggle continues under socialism.

No it doesn't. And it reveals a thorough misunderstanding of the nature of socialism to claim that it will.


If I was admitting worker's control wasn't perfect under communism, you might have a point, but I'm not, so you don't.

Socialism and communism are the same thing: a post-revolution classless society. I also don't see how it invalidates my point. The fact of the matter is is that there was, as you admit implicitly, 'power sharing' between two social groups: the workers and those above them, the ruling class.


As for your description of how managers "directed" and "commanded" the workers, I'm afraid that doesn't reflect reality very well at all - in fact, workers were basically impossible to fire and had a heavy amount of leverage over management which basically kept them subdued to the working class in many aspects.

That doesn't relate to what I said. Enterprise managers were in control, they had power within the scope of their enterprise, not the workers. Whether they had a lot of bargaining power (or not, which I think you exaggerate as it was impossible for workers to freely organise independent trade unions to struggle for their interests against the Soviet ruling class and as also can be seen from the attack on the worker's well-being as I quoted) does not change the class character of the Soviet Union.


Co-determination was fundamentally different, because it still very much retained a capitalist class - management's wages barely bore much of a difference to the workers for most of the USSR's existence.

Co-determination is different indeed, it accords more power to the working class than consultative management.


So basically, you're arguing that industrialization is Bad and that the USSR should have remained a semi-feudal country? Sounds very proletarian.

This is a red herring to deflect attention from the point. My point is not an ought, it's an is. It's not relevant what I wanted for the USSR, nor have I argued that.


Unfortunately, you still haven't shown this "ruling class" existed and was acting on a capitalist logic, especially since the trend after the 1930s was very much in the opposite direction - towards greater equalization.

Well I have, you just deny it without refuting my point. The Soviet proletariat, disempowered, disenfrenchised, on the one hand, and the Soviet ruling class, the upper layers of the party-state, in whose hands power was concentrated, on the other. I have also shown how worker's needs were sacrificed for the sake of capital accumulation, which you also essentially ignored.


Then I'm afraid you're doing yourself a severe amount of damage since your theory relies on there being a ruling class which had a clear difference in income and was benefiting from the maintenance of "state capitalist" relations of production. You're basically admitting here that there wasn't one.

What? I honestly don't understand how a relatively low income inequality somehow invalidates the actual class and power relations, how it cancels out the diverging common relationship toward the means of production between different social groups. I don't think it does.

Again, income disparity is not a proper framework of analysis of class society -- the Marxist method is.


You're pretending it worked that way though, that labour-power was a commodity. It wasn't. It was basically impossible, as I've said, for workers to be fired and even if they were the enterprises were forced to give them a large deal of compensation and re-training - iirc, 60% of workers laid off from enterprises were back in a new job within a week. There was no reserve army of labour, which again is fatal to your logic.

The absence of a reserve army of labour does not magically cancel the commodity properties of labour-power, it just means that labour discipline is difficult to invoke. You have not given an argument why labour-power was not a commodity.


I never argued that it was a dichotomy between capitalism and socialism as such, though after the destruction of feudal property under the Bolsheviks, the choice was very much between socialist and capitalist relations of production of some sort. As for your complaints about "Stalinism" (a bullshit concept if ever there was one), you aren't making any sense. Stalin literallly never argued this, as reading his works would indicate, but obviously he was a totalitarian state-capitalist, so I'm guessing you're probably not going to do that.

I fail to see your point. It's irrelevant what Stalin explicitly argued (otherwise we should judge capitalism by the works of Adam Smith, an idealist exercise), it matters what existed in practice, and the (implicit) logic that it carries. And the Stalinist logic is very clear, and I would characterise it as inverted Proudhonism, and that Proudhonism lives on today behind as facade of Marxism and Leninism, i.e. as Stalinism.


Now who's the utopian? The basic issue underlying this is that you think there can't be such a thing as socialism for the most part, and you want communism to manifest itself immediately. It'd be lovely if that were possible, but unfortunately, history has proven it isn't.

That is not what I wrote in the text you're replying to. And this is really started to become an interesting pattern with Stalinists, as I've asked this question (Either decision-making power was distributed and possessed by producers (or 'workers'), in which case the workers voted away 'socialism', or decision-making power was concentrated in the hands of the upper layers of the party-state, in which case there was no workers' state to begin with, let alone socialism!) many many times and not a single time so far has anyone given me a direct answer, always trying to change the subject. So I'm going to ask you again.

But yes, communism follows immediately after the revolution. And if you reject this as utopian you might as well be denouncing the Marxist method as such. It also beggs the question, if you can reform yourself from socialism 'back' toward capitalism, what do you imagine the path toward communism looks like? Reforms too? Because then you can add idealist and reformist to the list of utopian, bourgeois, and inverted Proudhonism.

Immediate, by the way, does not mean instantaneous. But the construction of communism begins immediately with the revolution and it is finished when the revolution's over.


I don't believe "a dozen men" wrestled control and power away, I think, as most Marxist-Leninists do, that class struggle continues under socialism. The revisionist reforms had a material class basis, but you're assuming here that I have a vulgar, voluntaristic view of how revisionism arises, when I don't.

That doesn't explain anything. The notion of class struggle in socialism is of course utterly nonsensical as well.


First of all, I want to know what measure of economic growth we're using here,

The standard one?


secondly, even if growth rates did fall (which I doubt they did "consistently"), that could well have been because the growth rate of the Soviet economy in the 1930s was at the fastest pace ever recorded in history.

That's pure speculation, whereas my argument is backed my empirical data and facts, and it's not isolated to the USSR either. For example, the DPRK has had the same problem:


We also note that although North Korea is known to have adopted a resource mobilisation strategy for growth, its economy was subject to slowing down of the growth rates of labour input from the early 1980s, which was an additional cause for the stagnation. In a market economy such as South Korea, slowing down of labour growth was offset by the increase of labour productivity or technological progress. Yet, in the case of North Korea, slower labour growth was accompanied by slower or negative growth in labour productivity. These are found to be major causes of the economic stagnation.
…
These findings suggest that North Korea’s poor economic performance was deeply rooted in the system. North Korea relied heavily on the mobilisation of inputs for economic growth but failed to procure an opportunity for a “take-off” based on technological advancement.
Kim, Byung-Yeon; Kim, Suk Jin; Lee, Keun. 2007. Assessing the economic performance of North Korea, 1954–1989: Estimates and growth accounting analysis. Journal of Comparative Economics.

From 1937 the Soviet economy's growth rates started to slow down, from the 1960s onward to stagnate, from the mid-1980s, the economy started to decline.


I don't understand where you're implying there was all this available labour-power; almost every economist has indicated the exact opposite problem, that there was a labour shortage in the USSR. Your basic argument here is one based in the productive forces, which was actually the key focus of Soviet development from the mid 50s onwards

I think you complete misunderstand my point. Yes there was a labour shortage, which does not really refute my point, in fact it's complementary to my point. The Soviet economy's initial impressive growth rates were sustained by the quantitative mobilisation of the resources which Russia possessed but were underutilised or uncultivated due to the comparatively backward conditions of Russia. The command economy was an effective means to mobilise these resources, the abundant raw materials and labour reserves. But economic growth or capital accumulation sustained by mere quantiative mobilisation cannot last, and will hit a ceiling of diminishing returns, what Marx called the crisis of the absolute over-accumulation of capital. Without continual revolutionising of the methods of production, productivity will stagnate. With full employment you cannot increase your labour supply further for additional economic growth, as there is simply no labour reserve to tap into. As such, the Soviet ruling class resorted to additional labour discipline to squeeze out that extra bit of surplus value that was to be reinvested commodities to generate future surplus value (the process of capital in other words).

This is what happened in the Soviet Union, what happened in the DPRK, what happened in East Germany, what happened in any command economy as they are inherently flawed due to being structurally inefficient and inneffective in capital accumulation and therefore they will always reform themselves back to liberal capitalism.


as well as implying that the Soviet Union was capitalist, in which case you need to prove labour-power was a commodity; something which hasn't yet happened, and won't, because until the final years of the Soviet Union, it wasn't.

I have given you a reason or argument why labour-power was a commodity, and you have not challenged this, or maybe I missed it. If not, instead of flat out denying it, maybe you can give a counter-argument.


Your entire argument here is based in the USSR being capitalist, which again, you haven't proved to me.

See above.

But no, that argument stands firmly. The Soviet economy stagnated because it failed to continually revolutionise the methods of production, and to combat this, Soviet leaders were forced to implement market-oriented reforms. Whether we just describe it as this, or apply Marxist terminology and call it the crisis of the absolute over-accumulation of capital is not relevant if we merely want to describe the reasons for the Soviet decline and its ultimate collapse.


Why are you debating that strawman over there when you could be debating me?

I don't consider it a strawman. The notion that a classless society will have class struggle and petty bourgeois class interests without petty bourgeoisie, might as well be magic.


And here we come to the key problem, which is that you use socialism and communism as synonyms, whereas I don't. A socialist society still has to contend with vestiges of capitalism which still exist within it, especially in the case of something like the USSR, where there was still a strong feudal mode of production even in 1917. I'd certainly argue that the objective laws of capitalism were and had been shaping the Russian economy for some time by 1917, but we're looking at Russia as a social formation, which means it isn't just this or that. Lenin himself argued in the 1890s that Russia had as many as 4 modes of production operating within it.

I don't consider this relevant to my argument at all. The social formation that follows a social revolution through a dictatorship of the proletariat is one based on associated labour based on social ownership, which did not exist in the USSR. The USSR was not a semi-state or a workers' state as power was concentrated in the hands of the Khrushchevs and other such people. It was a conventional state: top-down, conventional military, police, conventional bureaucrats, laws and legislation, money and tax payers, salaries and wages, ministers, diplomats, secretaries of state, heads of state. It was not qualitatively different from your average bourgeois state, merely quantitatively.


Basically, this all comes back to the question of labour-power as a commodity; that is the ultimate defining characteristic of capitalism, and if you don't have that, whatever you have, you don't have capitalism.

Arguably (although I don't think capitalism is captured by this one feature, although essential), but if you don't have that it does not follow that therefore it's socialism.

Socialism is based on social ownership, with power in the hands of the producers, not managers or bureaucrats or politburo or the upper layers of The Party whom are not subject to external control, it is based on associated labour in place of wage-labour. Associated labour, on its turn, is incompatible with commodity production (which existed in the USSR as I think most/all Stalinists admit). Claiming the USSR was socialist is not a revision of the Marxist method and removing its scientific character, it's a rejection of the Marxist method.

[PhoenixAsh]

I would be willing to bet that none of the people who are talking about "the elites" ("elites", seriously? is this a site for socialists or we-are-the-99% liberals?) have never read, say, What is to be Done? or Lenin's speeches on the agrarian question.

Reading WITBD is quite useless you know?

Since the non Russian translations seem to completely qualify everything that is said for Elitism within Leninist interpretation of Vanguardism.

...however the debate will immediately disintegrate into lengthy discussions of the quality of translation and the contemporary meaning of Russian words chosen by Lenin.

And then of course there remains the question which one of the versions of WITBD we should read? The original one or the Lenin-abridged one?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

...and they are an elite. Elite can be used as an adjective or as a descriptor. It doesn't have to be a category in itself.

They really aren't, though. "Elite", used as either an adjective or noun, describes a small group, usually conceived as arrogant and self-absorbed, that holds an overwhelming amount of influence, power, whatever. That is not how the bourgeoisie is. The bourgeoisie is not simply "the 1%" (ugh), but anyone who owns the means of production and extracts surplus value from their workers to a significant enough degree. The owners of Lockheed-Martin are part of the bourgeoisie. But so is the owner of the local fair-trade organic market.


Reading WITBD is quite useless you know?

Since the non Russian translations seem to completely qualify everything that is said for Elitism within Leninist interpretation of Vanguardism.

...however the debate will immediately disintegrate into lengthy discussions of the quality of translation and the contemporary meaning of Russian words chosen by Lenin.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you've read too much Lih, poor soul. I think most translations are good enough.

[synthesis]

They really aren't, though. "Elite", used as either an adjective or noun, describes a small group, usually conceived as arrogant and self-absorbed, that holds an overwhelming amount of influence, power, whatever. That is not how the bourgeoisie is. The bourgeoisie is not simply "the 1%" (ugh), but anyone who owns the means of production and extracts surplus value from their workers to a significant enough degree. The owners of Lockheed-Martin are part of the bourgeoisie. But so is the owner of the local fair-trade organic market.

You are disingenuously reading Occupy rhetoric into arguments that are really quite basic and more in line with Marxism than this idea that socialism and communism are not synonyms. Obviously the top-down power structure of the Soviet Union did not mean that only the people at the very top of the bureaucracy had power and influence over the working class and the means of production.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You are disingenuously reading Occupy rhetoric into arguments that are really quite basic and more in line with Marxism than this idea that socialism and communism are not synonyms. Obviously the top-down power structure of the Soviet Union did not mean that only the people at the very top of the bureaucracy had power and influence over the working class and the means of production.

Here is an interesting exercise: can you cite a single paragraph in which Marx, Engels or Lenin use the term "elite" as anything but a term of derision? Now, how many paragraphs of liberal and, as you put it, "Occupy" rhetoric can you cite that use the same term?

The notion that the Soviet bureaucracy had political control and therefore they were a ruling class (or "elite") might be basic, but it doesn't have much to do with Marxism. Obviously none of the Marxists considered, for example, the Napoleonic bureaucracy to have been a ruling class. Or "elite".

For the record, I don't use the term "socialism" to mean "the dictatorship of the proletariat". But that's neither here nor there. The point is that a lot of people are basically advancing liberal arguments about things they have no knowledge of.

[PhoenixAsh]

Here is an interesting exercise: can you cite a single paragraph in which Marx, Engels or Lenin use the term "elite" as anything but a term of derision? Now, how many paragraphs of liberal and, as you put it, "Occupy" rhetoric can you cite that use the same term?

The notion that the Soviet bureaucracy had political control and therefore they were a ruling class (or "elite") might be basic, but it doesn't have much to do with Marxism. Obviously none of the Marxists considered, for example, the Napoleonic bureaucracy to have been a ruling class. Or "elite".

For the record, I don't use the term "socialism" to mean "the dictatorship of the proletariat". But that's neither here nor there. The point is that a lot of people are basically advancing liberal arguments about things they have no knowledge of.

O really? And aren't we using it as a derisive term? When we say the Bolsheviks are an elite...we do NOT mean that as a compliment. And I am sure neither do the users who say vanguard parties are elitist use it as anything other than derisive...I am perfectly sure they don't use it as a compliment either.

So you are contradicting yourself again. When Marx, Lenin and Engels use the term in derision it isn't liberal but when those who use the term to criticize Lenin then suddenly it is liberal.

It seems to me you liberally adjust the term liberal to what agrees with you and what doesn't.

[synthesis]

Here is an interesting exercise: can you cite a single paragraph in which Marx, Engels or Lenin use the term "elite" as anything but a term of derision? Now, how many paragraphs of liberal and, as you put it, "Occupy" rhetoric can you cite that use the same term?

So your problem is merely semantic?


The notion that the Soviet bureaucracy had political control and therefore they were a ruling class (or "elite") might be basic, but it doesn't have much to do with Marxism.

Leave it to a Trot to say that the degree to which a bureaucracy controls the means of production "doesn't have much to do with Marxism."

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Nah, they use the term to deride those who consider themselves to be an "elite", or who give off that impression, as Lenin did concerning some of the people who wrote for the Kommunist. And it's almost always in inverted commas.

Edit:


So your problem is merely semantic?

No? My problem is that people are increasingly using liberal terms and advancing a liberal analysis. Just the other day I had the pleasure of reading about how "socialists" are for Ma and Pa shops because they're not evil corporations.

[synthesis]

My problem is that people are increasingly using liberal terms and advancing a liberal analysis

Of course it seems like a liberal analysis if you believe, as you do, that uppity workers holding spontaneist, non-centralist politics are "deformed by liberal ideology."


Just the other day I had the pleasure of reading about how "socialists" are for Ma and Pa shops because they're not evil corporations.

I was part of that discussion, remember? I'm pretty sure you 'thanked' most of my posts on the topic. The first sentence of this post is based on what you said in that same thread.

[PhoenixAsh]

This still does not clarify how calling Bolshevik elitism for what it is suddenly becomes advancing "liberal analysis"....especially as that argument therefore must entail Marx, Lenin and Engels surely were advancing liberal analysis as they used the term.

I also like how you slyly just called Luxembourg a liberal

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Of course it seems like a liberal analysis if you believe, as you do, that uppity workers holding spontaneist, non-centralist politics are "deformed by liberal ideology."

"Uppity workers", wow. In my experience, the fetishists of decentralisation and federalism tend to be petit-bourgeois, and ostentatiously so. But, again, that's neither here nor there. I don't think many Left Communists or platformists would talk about "the elites". Sure, I think some of these currents are the result of ideological pressure of the liberal bourgeoisie on the proletarian movement. But I wasn't talking about them - I was talking about actual, dyed-in-the-wool liberals and social-democrats.


I was part of that discussion, remember?

I know! That's why I'm surprised that you don't see what a problem we have with those people. I never said you were a liberal, mind.

[Црвена]

When the Bolsheviks came to power. As soon as they ceased to be a revolutionary activist group and became the ruling party, they lost their identity and just became totalitarian capitalist. Also, dictatorship of the proletariat will never work.

[PhoenixAsh]

notice Vincent West just calling anarchism petit-bourgeois....while advocating a system which actively argued that socialism was simply capitalism for the benefit of everybody.

[RyanBerry98]

After Stalin, when the revisionist Khrushchev came into power. His reforms deeply struck socialism, his economic reforms weakening democratic centralism and planning, his political reforms stopped the purging of bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.

By the late 70s, there the USSR was capitalist, factories functioned to make profit.
Gorbachev's reforms brought more Western, more modern capitalism, however, the transition could not be completely successful until Yelstin destroyed Soviet political power and the political socialism that barely existed.

If it hadn't been for a few good men the USSR would have died years before 1991, but to a large extent, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics already was dead.

[synthesis]

"Uppity workers", wow. In my experience, the fetishists of decentralisation and federalism tend to be petit-bourgeois, and ostentatiously so. But, again, that's neither here nor there.

See, I have had the opposite experience. A few years ago, I was disheartened to learn that the user "thesadmafioso" had been made a moderator, because the only thing I knew about him was this statement he made prior to becoming a mod, even though several users called him out on it:


And? Yes I "insulted" working people, they are a malleable and ignorant bunch more often than not. Have you tried talking to your average working man? They care for little more than their own self interest, of course they need the proper guidance if they are to be molded into an implement of revolution.

When I brought this up - in a thread in the now-invisible Members' Forum - guess who defended him, or at least said that his statements were not contradictory to Leninist principles? Here's a hint: they were all Trotskyists. (In fairness, at least one Trotskyist called him out on it as well, in the original thread, but that was Kleber, a Very Cool Guy™.)


I don't think many Left Communists or platformists would talk about "the elites". Sure, I think some of these currents are the result of ideological pressure of the liberal bourgeoisie on the proletarian movement. But I wasn't talking about them - I was talking about actual, dyed-in-the-wool liberals and social-democrats.


I know! That's why I'm surprised that you don't see what a problem we have with those people. I never said you were a liberal, mind.

Here's the issue. I do see what a problem "those people" present. Where our differences come in is that you have repeatedly conflated "those people" with ultralefts and anarchists, despite your claim in the first quote above that you haven't, because you think that working class communists who don't adhere to centralism have been tainted by "those people" and their ideological influence.

So now that you've found ultralefts and anarchists talking about "the Bolshevik elite," you ignore repeated clarifications that the term is synonymous with "the Bolshevik ruling class" because it's more convenient to insist that because they used a word that Occupy left-liberals also use, that their analysis have been "deformed by liberal ideology" or that they are in fact "dyed-in-the-wool liberals." It all ties back into this idea that only bourgeois liberals criticize the Bolsheviks for taking power away from the working class, and the way you have zeroed in on the use of one word with complete disregard for context to try to prove that is just odious and dishonest.

[tuwix]

If you're going to critique a theory, at least learn what it is please.

You Leninists think that only you know Lenin's theory apparently... I'm pretty sure that everyone discussing this thread exactly know what was Lenin's concept of vanguard party and that it had to only the highest and wisest representation of working class and in Lenin's opinion not an elite... But it was his only wishful thinking.

It was an elite according to its definition:

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

See, I have had the opposite experience. A few years ago, I was disheartened to learn that the user "thesadmafioso" had been made a moderator, because the only thing I knew about him was this statement he made prior to becoming a mod, even though several users called him out on it:


And? Yes I "insulted" working people, they are a malleable and ignorant bunch more often than not. Have you tried talking to your average working man? They care for little more than their own self interest, of course they need the proper guidance if they are to be molded into an implement of revolution.

When I brought this up - in a thread in the now-invisible Members' Forum - guess who defended him, or at least said that his statements were not contradictory to Leninist principles? Here's a hint: they were all Trotskyists. (In fairness, at least one Trotskyist called him out on it as well, in the original thread, but that was Kleber, a Very Cool Guy™.)

Oh, you're going to get me into trouble. See, as far as I can tell thesadmafioso was part of the Workers' International League, the American Grantists, who are, I'm sure, perfectly nice people, at least the new cadre, but they have this theory that the proletariat is organically connected to social-democratic parties. So it's not really surprising that they would view the proletariat as self-absorbed and ignorant. Most of the older Trotskyist members seem to be Grantists as well, so...

That said, it is true that the proletariat should not be idealised, and should not be tailed. Communists present to the proletariat a communist programme, which should contradict the existing consciousness of the broad strata of the proletariat, particularly when it is reactionary.

I don't see what any of this has to do with the vanguard party, though, particularly since the adherence of the Grantists to this concept is nominal at best. Parties of the proletarian vanguard aren't supposed to be buried in social-democratic formations.


Here's the issue. I do see what a problem "those people" present. Where our differences come in is that you have repeatedly conflated "those people" with ultralefts and anarchists, despite your claim in the first quote above that you haven't, because you think that working class communists who don't adhere to centralism have been tainted by "those people" and their ideological influence.

"Tainted" is a ridiculous moral term. What I said was that decentralist tendencies in the socialist movement are the result of pressures by the liberal bourgeoisie. But that doesn't mean that the people who adhere to some sort of anti-centralism are liberals, not necessarily. Trotsky's analysis of the black question in America was to a large extent the result of ideological pressure of American Stalinism, does that make Trotsky a Stalinist? It doesn't.


So now that you've found ultralefts and anarchists talking about "the Bolshevik elite," you ignore repeated clarifications that the term is synonymous with "the Bolshevik ruling class" because it's more convenient to insist that because they used a word that Occupy left-liberals also use, that their analysis have been "deformed by liberal ideology" or that they are in fact "dyed-in-the-wool liberals." It all ties back into this idea that only bourgeois liberals criticize the Bolsheviks for taking power away from the working class, and the way you have zeroed in on the use of one word with complete disregard for context to try to prove that is just odious and dishonest.

What ultralefts and anarchists? Good grief, tuwix is a market "socialist" and PhoenixAsh supports the Dutch SP because "the working class doesn't exist in the Netherlands". I consider them both to be about as anarchist as NGNM85.

The problem with the term "Bolshevik ruling class" is that, again, it could mean a lot of things. What sort of class was this "Bolshevik ruling class"? A bourgeoisie? A "bureaucratic class", whatever that means?

[PhoenixAsh]

I see you are up to your usual tricks of straw man arguments and red herrings.

waht I actually said is that the SP is a non revolutionary party which is not traditional social democratic but is closer to democratic socialism. I have repeatedly stated that I don't support the SP nor vote for the SP but that the SP is currently the only alternative to austerity measures hitting the working class and therefor in the current political spectrum the best alternative for the working class to save itself from liberals and conservatives.

I also stated that the Dutch working class is not comprised of what is traditionally related to workers and that the working class lacks any consciousness and doesn't consider itself to be working class. The term working class is seen as a huge insult in the Netherlands.

See...This is why you are such a dangerous and asinine character here. Your insistance on false quotations, correlations, red herrings and straw manning.


http://www.revleft.com/vb/best-munincipal-election-t187685/index2.html?highlight=Netherlands

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Right, I'm a "dangerous character" because I call you out on your reformist bullshit. Oh, you don't support the SP, it's just the only party that is fighting austerity and entryism in the SP is "the best bet for the revolutionary movement" (from the thread you so graciously linked to). Now, where have I heard all of this before? Could it be that people who support Die Linke, SYRIZA and other sots-dem formations rely on such arguments?

You are, however right to note that you never said the working class doesn't exist in the Netherlands, you just implied that it was insignificant (again, from the thread you linked to - you stated that the number of proletarians in the Netherlands was low and that they "don't feel they exist", whatever that means), necessitating support for bourgeois groups like the SP with their commitment to small business etc.

Also, do people who talk about "democratic socialism" feel they're fooling anyone? It's a rebranding of social democracy, but fundamentally it's the same old shit in a different rhetorical package.

[PhoenixAsh]

Right, I'm a "dangerous character" because I call you out on your reformist bullshit. Oh, you don't support the SP, it's just the only party that is fighting austerity and entryism in the SP is "the best bet for the revolutionary movement" (from the thread you so graciously linked to). Now, where have I heard all of this before? Could it be that people who support Die Linke, SYRIZA and other sots-dem formations rely on such arguments?

No you are a dangerous character because you straw man and use red herrings while at the same time preaching an ideology which you brand as revolutionary socialism in which you actively advocate the necessity for murdering workers. And then of course there is you diminishing rape by Bolshevik officials in execution of their official party function.

You are straw manning here once again.

What I said is that in the current Dutch political landscape the only party actively fighting the austerity measures is the SP. Which is objectively true. Considering this; the SP is currently the best party for working class members to vote for unless they want a further reduction of workers rights, protection and income. THAT is something you conveniently leave out of your equation but is very important for the context of my argument.

For entryism, you know...a policy most often advocated by Trotsky and Trotskyists :rolleyes: , the SP is currently the most ideal party since it has a radical history and large numbers of active members amongst which most of the revolutionary left in the Netherlands. A swing to the left in that party will greatly support the creation of currently absent class consciousness. This doesn't mean I support entryism. It is a objective analysis of the situation in the Netherlands.

Why? Because there is NO viable revolutionary alternative attm in the Netherlands.

Now I know you would be extremely happy when workers get fucked even more by the system. But I am not. And when I evaluate the political reality I am happy when the Dutch working class swings to the left towards the SP instead towards the right towards the PVV and VVD like is happening.




You are, however right to note that you never said the working class doesn't exist in the Netherlands, you just implied that it was insignificant (again, from the thread you linked to - you stated that the number of proletarians in the Netherlands was low and that they "don't feel they exist", whatever that means), necessitating support for bourgeois groups like the SP with their commitment to small business etc.

Also, do people who talk about "democratic socialism" feel they're fooling anyone? It's a rebranding of social democracy, but fundamentally it's the same old shit in a different rhetorical package.

Personally I would love for the working class in the Netherlands to consider themselves working class.

But the fact of the matter is that most of the working class is not active in traditional working class professions. The number of factory workers and harbour workers in the Netherlands for example are in fact very small. Most of the working class, the vast majority, is working in tiny to small companies so that active organisation in unions or mass workplace organization is in fact extremely difficult.

To give you a lay out. Only 8% of the companies in the Netherlands holds more than 20 employees.

Besides that, most of these do NOT consider themselves working class at all and refuse to be associated with the term. Class consciousness is non existent and most employees consider themselves to be lower middle class. The word "worker" (arbeider) is considered an insult or derogative term by the vast majority of the working class in the Netherlands.

Historically speaking the Dutch society has been compartimentalized (verzuiling). You can check this with all Dutch members. And this culture of verzuiling only very recently began to crumble but still has huge influence on the Dutch working class. Communism is almost non-existant in the Netherlands and the ONLY two parties which have the term Communism in their name are known to perhaps 2000 Dutch at most. Most will react totally surprised to hear we still have these parties at all.

This complicates the creation of a revolutionary mass movement and mass orginization of workers when agitating. This should be of particular interest for you. There is no vanguard party.

Anarchists traditionally do not have parties either. And even less known than Communist parties are Anarchist groups.

But given the fact that you do not give a shit about actual workers and worker realities...you completely fail to consider my arguments in that thread in context of social political realities in Holland.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Right, because class consciousness is created by people voting for reformist parties. Anyway, here's an interesting exercise - take the above rant, replace "the Netherlands" with "America", "the SP" with "Democrats", and what do we have? A typical post by a Democrat supporter like Red Rose or NGNM85 - why, even the misuse of semicolons is the same. It's uncanny.

[BolshevikBabe]

You Leninists think that only you know Lenin's theory apparently... I'm pretty sure that everyone discussing this thread exactly know what was Lenin's concept of vanguard party and that it had to only the highest and wisest representation of working class and in Lenin's opinion not an elite... But it was his only wishful thinking.

It was an elite according to its definition:

In political and sociological theory, an elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

I was hoping this was going to be an actual argument, only to discover it was just you showing your ignorance of Leninist theory again. It doesn't matter how many times you re-post that definition, you were and are wrong.

[PhoenixAsh]

Except the US isn't a multi party system. What you seem to forget. The US reality is completely different from that in the US.

Now all of this is relevant if it weren't for the fact that you asinine lay use you common strategy of prosecutionism and you are falsely correlating two different arguments I made.
You would give Freisler a serious run for his money.

First I said entryism with the SP is logical and the best suited party for entryism.
Second I said the SP is currently the best option for the working class within the current political spectrum when they want to protect themselves right now from further breakdown of workers rights and austerity measures.

Neither of these are support for the SP but with idiots like you on this website there is no room for any realistic debate since you do not give a fuck about workers outside of your little sectarian counter revolutionary ideology.

Which you do not have aside from the usual clap trap of: organizing and starting a revolution. Neither of those however are viable short term options which are needed right now becUase of socio political realities. Which you don't seem to understand.

Neither my arguments are objectively untrue and I am open for YOUR suggestions as how the working class is to proceed with realistic short term alternatives that would protect them from further breakdown of workers rights and austerity.

There are however no short term alternatives. And like I repeAtedly argued in the other thread but which you conveniently keep leaving out of the equation this whole situation is caused by the complete bankruptcy of the Dutch revolutionary movement...and while we scramble to rebuild the revolutionary movement...I will ask again like I asked FSL: what is your short term alternative?

[Remus Bleys]

Why do leftists always want to do things? It has been shown time and time again that the bourgeois state is in complete control and domination by the capitalist class and its hold over the state apparatus is developed to the point where it cannot be reversed. Capitalism will universally alienate the worker, it will squash and exploit them, it will create a huge amount of unproductive labor and it will prevent a huge amount of people from working, and those that can? So what - their labor is violently assured that it is squandered by capitalist anarchy, that it goes to benefiting capital and not the workers. And what of the times that the state blesses us with social democracy? This simply makes workers more content, and requires a Vanguard, which has been participating in autonomous class struggles since day one, in order to clearly show the struggle is not yet over, that more needs to be fought.
The false prophets of Reformism try to seduce the worker and normalize them into the capitalist mode of production, and you think that class consciousness is something that can be gained from encouraging people to vote for such claptrap? Besides, PhoenixAsh, aren't you that despicable twit that is against welfare?
Communism is not something that one is rewarded by after voting for the leaders of social democracy (and neither is social democracy, for that matter). Communism is the result of the class struggle (as is social democracy - the state tries to end class struggle until it breaks out in its logical conclusion of violent insurrection and proletarian dictatorship, which will then establish communism), Communism will not be a walk in the park, and Communism cannot be won by praising the bourgeoisie as "the best option we have." Communism is the result of the realization that capitalism cannot provide a solution for the working class, that the Capitalist system is the root of the intolerable conditions that the proletarians face on a day to day basis.
The fact you cannot even comprehend this simple truth is so obviously connected to the self-parody, mockery of an "analysis" of the Soviet Union you ostensibly cling to. Do you think that what people ideologically believe isn't class-based, isn't based in the real world, and that consequently the views you express in one instance come from the complex formation your interests, environment, circumstances, etc - which will then inform your view on another subject? How daft are you?

[PhoenixAsh]

And how daft are you that you are making an argument I didn't make. But since you are daft enough to grab back to slogan ism of vanguard parties which must guide the workers to class consciousness and resolution I will ask again: what the fuck do you propose workers to do when there is no fucking vanguard? Starve? Simply accept the inevitability of reduced rights and survivability? Because: sorry all revolutionary lines are busy. Please hold until the nearest Bolshevik is available to tell you what to do, where to do it and how to think?

[PhoenixAsh]

Nice detail. Currently Trotskyists are using entryism in the SP to radicalize it. Yes...I can see how Trotskyism and Bolshevism is sooooo revolutionary.

[Remus Bleys]

And how daft are you that you are making an argument I didn't make. But since you are daft enough to grab back to slogan ism of vanguard parties which must guide the workers to class consciousness and resolution I will ask again: what the fuck do you propose workers to do when there is no fucking vanguard? Starve? Simply accept the inevitability of reduced rights and survivability? Because: sorry all revolutionary lines are busy. Please hold until the nearest Bolshevik is available to tell you what to do, where to do it and how to think?
Gawd I shouldn't known this argument was going to happened. The only thing communist can do is to act in the interests of communism, and to abandon this for social democracy is to ensure one doesnt even get social democracy. The class struggles for a better life, and the vanguard is involved with this from the beginning, and shows the real movement for communism. When workers are starving, they will be hopefully fighting for their interests and the state will try to end the struggle for a better life and contain it within the context of capitalism (giving social democracy), the vanguard will continue its struggle until the class realizes its true struggle and abolishing capitalism, preventing starvation from occurring ever again.
What if the worker doesn't struggle for better life? Then they starve. This is unfortunate and despicable - but it is the reality of capitalism, of capital's domination. I am not a communist because I want to retain capitalism, but because I want to abolish the base of poverty. Capitalism sucks, and economic determinism shows the falsity of voluntarism, and marxism has shown again and again the fact that capitalism will ruin and exploit the workers, no matter what form it takes, marxism has shown that giving up on the class struggle for a few reforms damns the proletarian to the only intolerable conditions that it allows. The reality of the situation is shit, the point is to change it, this can only be achieved through autonomous class struggle led by the vanguard.
I have now repeated myself and will not do so again. The difference between you and me is that I am a communist, and you are a social democrat who thinks the bourgeoisie will help the workers achieve whatever you think socialism is.

[BolshevikBabe]

Nice detail. Currently Trotskyists are using entryism in the SP to radicalize it. Yes...I can see how Trotskyism and Bolshevism is sooooo revolutionary.

Well yes, actually, since Bolsheviks have carried out a revolution, while social democrats never have. How long do we have to keep voting for social democratic parties before people realize it isn't a substitute for revolutionary organization? So many leftists I know recently got indignant at me for not voting in the European elections, when the only choices were between Tories, Labour, UKIP, Lib Dems, Greens etc. - it doesn't matter that Labour is maybe a shade more to the left than the others, we can't keep pursuing this praxis of "just vote Democrat/Labour/SP", because it doesn't work - instead we just become pressure groups for social democratic parties to smile at while they ignore us.

[tuwix]

I was hoping this was going to be an actual argument, only to discover it was just you showing your ignorance of Leninist theory again. It doesn't matter how many times you re-post that definition, you were and are wrong.

I may not know Leninist theory because it ultimately failed, but I think I know it enough. But you aren't able to understand easy definition. According to this definition, the vanguard party is an elite. And your ignorance won't change that.

[BolshevikBabe]

I may not know Leninist theory because it ultimately failed, but I thin I know it enough. But you aren't able to understand easy definition. According to this definition, the vanguard party is an elite. And your ignorance won't change that.

Thanks for finally admitting you don't know it (and then repeating once again that a vanguard party is an elite, when it isn't). Also, there's no measure you can use that says Marxism-Leninism "failed" that doesn't also apply to anarchism, left-communism and other far-left movements. We're all in crisis, deal with it.

Don't bother replying to this because I'm not engaging in this asinine IS SO! IS NOT! IS SO! IS NOT! back and forth any longer.

[tuwix]

^^ Apparently, you have problems in terms of reading with understanding. I've written that I may not know. But your lack of understanding of the easy definition that shows exactly how the vanguard party is an elite only proves that...

[BolshevikBabe]

ice cream
noun
a frozen food containing cream or milk and butterfat, sugar, flavoring, and sometimes eggs.

I think this conclusively proves the vanguard party is actually an ice cream.

[PhoenixAsh]

Let me put this in simple terms so even the Bolschewiki can understand this:

you failed. your revolution failed. your ideology failed. because of your utter miserable failure socialism is mostly dead. start recognizing this.

second. I don't vote. I don't encourage people to vote. While you are collectively masturbating over your past and long gone glory days when you missed your opportunity and you are collectively degenerating the revolutionary debate into long winded rhetoric over semantics and why Stalin was good or bad and why Trotsky was a traitor real revolutionaries and those who warned you prior to your little state capitalist adventure are working to rebuild the movement from the damage you have caused and the legacy you left.

In that context I personally do not vote. I do not encourage people to vote (quite the opposite) but I recognize most people do vote. And when those in the working class do they are best served in the current political spectrum by the SP. The SP is also the best and most logical choice for entryism. Which ironically is hugely and most often advocated by supposed Bolsheviks like the Trotskyists. I know this little fact is hard for you vanguardists to swallow. But there it is.

Don't let reality get in the way of your daydreaming that your little bourgeois counter revolution actually served the working class which you managed to alienate, oppress and exploit.

[BolshevikBabe]

Anarchists failed. Anarchist revolutions failed. Anarchism has failed. See how easy it is to do this? And lol, bc the Naxalites and Maoists in Nepal are totally just "collectively masturbating", whereas anarchists are really driving forward revolutionary progress. You don't get it do you? WE ARE ALL IN THE SHIT, IT ISN'T JUST LENINISM, OR TROTSKYISM, OR ANARCHISM. THE ENTIRE LEFT IS IN CRISIS.

You're a reformist, just admit it.

[PhoenixAsh]

We are not all in this together. Bolsheviks aren't revolutionaries and do not belong in the revolutionary left...They propagate state capitalism, created a state capitalist system and they created acounter revolutionary anti working class ideology.

That the entire revolutionary left is in crisis is something I argued in the link I send.

The conclusion I draw is that because of this crisis we in the Netherlands do not have a viable revolutionary alternative. We are working on that. Since Bolsheviks fucked up the actual revolutionary left is in shambles.

The reformism you want to see in my is the fact that I recognize current socio political reality. that reality is that there is no revolutionary left alternative for the working class in the current spectrum.

given that reality it is impossible for the working class to defend itself in the short term. many are not class conscious. that means they vote. And within the system their best choice to defend their interests is the SP.

This is fact. It isn't advocacy for the SP. It isn't endorsing the SP. It isn't liking the SP. It is the objective reality that within the current political reality of the Netherlands the working class is only protected from an increase in austerity and a protection of workers rights by the SP.

now you can read in that what you want. I understand that your collective mental capacities are unable to process that that is simply a fact of the political realities. stating this fact isn't endorsing social democracy. It isn't reformism.

I can also understand that it is hard to comprehend that when it comes to entryism (which all of you conveniently forget is also a Trotskyist and therefore Bolshevik thing)
the SP is the most rational and most viable choice for several mentioned reasons.

This isn't endorsing entryism. This isn't saying this is a revolutionary strategy. It is however a reality when considering entryism and it's purpose.

All of this of course in your eyes is endorsing the SP. which of course for any character with even a modicum of intelligence and reading comprehension is obviously not true. It is stating facts.

[BolshevikBabe]

The Bolsheviks "fucked up" (lol) so the answer is... voting social democrat, despite the fact that never achieves anything for us but creating the mentality capitalism is okay and just needs "reforming" or "taming". Makes sense.

You're wasting time criticizing me over entryism though, I'm not a Trotskyist.

[PhoenixAsh]

Again though I do have to note a continued failure to provide alternatives for the working class in the absence of a revolutionary alternative. The only thing we get from these stalwart defenders of the working class is platitudes and sloganism and a profound lack of caring/victim blaming.

you have got to love the vanguard: "if you are not with us then fuck you"

[PhoenixAsh]

The Bolsheviks "fucked up" (lol) so the answer is... voting social democrat, despite the fact that never achieves anything for us but creating the mentality capitalism is okay and just needs "reforming" or "taming". Makes sense.

You're wasting time criticizing me over entryism though, I'm not a Trotskyist.

I have never said anywhere the answer is to vote social.democrat. what I did say but what you doorknobs fail to realize is that in the current political spectrum the SP is the only short term option for the working class to get some protection since it is currently the only party opposed to austerity and further demolishing of workers rights.

[BolshevikBabe]

I think your constant blaming of every problem with the modern revolutionary left on Marxist-Leninists/Trotskyists proves quite conclusively that you're just as obsessed with the past and "collectively masturbating" over Makhno and Catalonia as we are with Stalin/Trotsky, Khrushchev/Mao or Mao/Hoxha battles.

[Remus Bleys]

Phoenix do you think I am a trotskyist? Do you think that it was ideology - and not material circumstances - that caused the Russian revolution to fail?

[PhoenixAsh]

Both. But ultimately I think it was the faults inherited in the Bolshevik ideology that made the revolution fail and since they were, because of their ideology, not suited to deal with the material conditions....

[PhoenixAsh]

I think your constant blaming of every problem with the modern revolutionary left on Marxist-Leninists/Trotskyists proves quite conclusively that you're just as obsessed with the past and "collectively masturbating" over Makhno and Catalonia as we are with Stalin/Trotsky, Khrushchev/Mao or Mao/Hoxha battles.

Plenty wrong with Mahkno and Catalonia. But there is a huge difference as well...I am not constantly arguing that I have the only way and others are therefore reformist. I am not saying you do this or Remus does this. I am however saying that the person that brought up the issue is.

[Remus Bleys]

Not suited to deal with what? The spread of the revolution? Not suited to do what the impossible task of socialism in one country? For all your talk of "elitism" you sure expect the bolsheviks to be gods, or at the very least, supermen. :rolleyes:

[PhoenixAsh]

I don't. I think the Bolsheviks were wrong from the outset. specially when they thought they could and should speak for the working class and be the ones who knew what was best for the working class instead of the actual working class. I never said they were gods...I am saying that they supposed they knew better than the class they purposed to represent and used violence and terror to subjugate the working class.

To use your own terms...They measured themselves to be Gods.

[Remus Bleys]

So if, say, the councils were in complete control and had no party to animate the state (somehow - such would be impossible, but for the purpose of the argument I will let that slide) something analogous to stalinism would not happen? So, you are saying, that the Bolsheviks were the reason the Revolution failed - so, logically, if your precious anarchists were in charge, then socialism in one country would be possible?

[PhoenixAsh]

No. Socialism in one country is impossible unless that country is completely self sustaining. However Stalin and the bureaucracy was an inevitable result of Bolshevik policy and ideology.

What ultimately went wrong is the ideological need for uniformity and conformity without actually being accountable. The dogmatic notion that the vanguard is the working class and therefore can not be contradicted or can not be wrong and workers should conform to party discipline will grind every revolution into the ground.

Anarchists had a better idea of organizational. One which would have engaged the working class and not alienated it. This does not mean Anarchism will hold all the answers but pluriformity and open debate instead of violence and terror will ensure isolation will be prevented.

[synthesis]

Wow, so this has turned into an epic tendency clusterfuck. Awesome. I do think it speaks to how far Revleft has come that the Trotskyist(s) and the Marxist-Leninist(s) have had to take each other's side in a debate about where the Soviet Union went wrong. Hopefully they will both be extinct on this forum within a few years.


Oh, you're going to get me into trouble. See, as far as I can tell thesadmafioso was part of the Workers' International League, the American Grantists, who are, I'm sure, perfectly nice people, at least the new cadre, but they have this theory that the proletariat is organically connected to social-democratic parties. So it's not really surprising that they would view the proletariat as self-absorbed and ignorant. Most of the older Trotskyist members seem to be Grantists as well, so...

That user was not a Trotskyist at that point in time, let alone a member of any specific party; he was just a petit-bourgeois college student with an arrogant and paternalistic view towards the working class, just more honest about it than most.


That said, it is true that the proletariat should not be idealised, and should not be tailed. Communists present to the proletariat a communist programme, which should contradict the existing consciousness of the broad strata of the proletariat, particularly when it is reactionary.

Go back and actually read that thread and then tell me if you still want to say "that said, it is true..." in reference to anything he said. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.


I don't see what any of this has to do with the vanguard party, though, particularly since the adherence of the Grantists to this concept is nominal at best. Parties of the proletarian vanguard aren't supposed to be buried in social-democratic formations.

It has less to do with the theory of the vanguard party than with the chauvinist approach of modern petit-bourgeois vanguardists to it. You argued that decentralization is a petit-bourgeois fetish and I wanted to demonstrate what happens when the petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialist gets his hands on vanguard theory.


The problem with the term "Bolshevik ruling class" is that, again, it could mean a lot of things. What sort of class was this "Bolshevik ruling class"? A bourgeoisie? A "bureaucratic class", whatever that means?

Whatever people intend it to mean - I believe it became bourgeois, but that's not the point - it is dishonest to keep focusing on the contemporary associations of a single word in their rhetoric to try to prove the charge of liberalism, especially because that word is accurate.

[BolshevikBabe]

Why is it so surprising that M-Ls and Trotskyists should have a similar line on the Russian Revolution and Lenin? We both uphold them, our differences are over the USSR after Lenin's death, which hasn't been the focus of this thread for quite a while.

[PhoenixAsh]

Stalinists and Trotskyists traditionally do not consider each other to be Bolsheviks or true Leninists. Neither considers the other to be anything less than a perversion.

[PhoenixAsh]

Incidentally an hour ago I drove by Beerta which holds the only community in Holland were communists participate in the municipal council. THis is a very small municipality. Probably a couple of 100 people there. The average age of these communists is well into the late 60's I believe and most of them are certainly some abstraction of Stalinists.

[synthesis]

Why is it so surprising that M-Ls and Trotskyists should have a similar line on the Russian Revolution and Lenin? We both uphold them, our differences are over the USSR after Lenin's death, which hasn't been the focus of this thread for quite a while.

Well, that's not what's surprising. These debates used to always turn into Trots versus Stalinists (versus anarchists, in Kronstadt debates) which reflected the makeup of the board, and the fact that you two are on each other's side, although perhaps not in the best of circumstances, is heartwarming to me, as someone who thinks that Lenin's theories have no place in modern capitalism.

[BolshevikBabe]

Meh, I'm prepared to work with any leftist who I think puts forward a generally correct line in a discussion or on an issue, and often ortho-Trots are far more capable of doing that than Dengists/Juchists, to name two "Marxist-Leninist" groupings. I've worked with anarchists before irl, where there's real concrete issues to be fought and not just punch-ups over who was counterrevolutionary in which uprising

[Remus Bleys]

Phoenix ash, you have a contradicting opinion. I just want you to acknowledge that if socialism in one country is impossible (which we agree upon) then something similar to stalinism would have happened regardless of if the bolsheviks were in power or not - because stalinism is the result of the revolution not spreading to the world. Of course, to admit this is to admit that it was not the big bad bolsheviks fault.
You have the conflicting and contradicting view that Vanguards are somehow bad (odd, even rhule speaks of Vanguards) and that it is solely the working class minus the party (as if the party is not a part of the class!) yet chalk all of the revolution up to the sole views of the central committee of the bolsheviks. So what were the bolsheviks to do anyway? How could stalinism be avoides if the revolution didn't spread? What policies could've avoided stalinism of the revolution didn't spreas?
This talk of looking just at Russia implies that it was the policy of Russia that would determine if the revolution would succeed or not - which implies that socialism in one country would be possible had they not been so "bureaucratic." You are like a stalinist in this case, and this is your refusal to look at the broader picture.
BUT OH NO LENIN AHHHH SCARY

[Tim Cornelis]

Phoenix ash, you have a contradicting opinion. I just want you to acknowledge that if socialism in one country is impossible (which we agree upon) then something similar to stalinism would have happened regardless of if the bolsheviks were in power or not - because stalinism is the result of the revolution not spreading to the world. Of course, to admit this is to admit that it was not the big bad bolsheviks fault.

That's an assumption you're making. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for an isolated workers' state to have existed or exist.


So what were the bolsheviks to do anyway? How could stalinism be avoides if the revolution didn't spread? What policies could've avoided stalinism of the revolution didn't spreas?

Organs of workers' power could have been permitted, continued, implemented, or spread, in other words, a workers' state could have existed.

[PhoenixAsh]

Actually I have given many arguments in this thread to argue my case with specific quotes.

I also argued that vanguards are will inevitably devolve a revolution whether it sets out to do so or not since they will inevitably, given historically it always happened like that, will isolate themselves from the working class by presuming they are the sole voice of proper working class interests.

Now you make an argument that the vanguard is working class. This however is not entirely true. While most member may be so at most the vanguard will Form a subset of the working class. Just as there were working class elements opposing the revolution they both do not speak and can not speak for the working class unless they involve the working class instead of subjugation them.

In the case of Bolshevism it held all the elements of Stalinists. Stalinismus is the logical conclusion of Bolshevik ideology. It was in here in it. It did not happen because of revolution in one country. It happened because of the ideology ultimately depend's on bureaucracy.

While I agree any revolution in one country will fail it will fail differently depending on ideology. Stalinism was very preventable as was revolution not spreading. It was the failure of the Bolsheviks to recognize the necessity to support different revolutionary tendencies and their need for complete power that made that impossible.

[Rurkel]

That's an assumption you're making. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for an isolated workers' state to have existed or exist.

For how long, though? Making production a priority and workers' power are in conflict, especially when you start with such a dire situation as the Soviet government did in the beginning of the USSR.

[PhoenixAsh]

Also: fuck the counter revolutionary autocorrect on my bourgeois phone. ;) :mad:

[Tim Cornelis]

For how long, though? Making production a priority and workers' power are in conflict, especially when you start with such a dire situation as the Soviet government did in the beginning of the USSR.

Not "especially" in such a dire situation, but I think exclusively in such situations production as well as industrialisation would be in conflict, as we saw under Stalinism that the rate of exploitation was incredibly high, perhaps higher than in Western bourgeois society to subtract as much surplus value to invest in industries. But then, what's the point of industrialisation if it just creates capitalism without workers' power?
So the alternative would be the maintain workers' power and have it on stand-by until the next revolutionary wave, and see if to what a extent (a modest degree of) industrialisation is possible under workers' power. I'd say it should be possible to industrialise, albeit in a slower pace than under Stalinism (but with no remotely comparable human cost).

[Rurkel]

True in general, but this also has to be balanced against the internal opposition (I'm referring to the civil war here) and external threats. Not an easy feat by all measure.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Except the US isn't a multi party system.

...except it is?

I mean, what, are you going to whine about how the big bad Democrats and Republicans prevent "third parties" from getting their slice of the parliamentary pie? Newsflash: most of those "third parties" are bourgeois. Including all that are actually interested in winning elections.

Are you going to complain about money corrupting politics next? The more you talk the more you sound like a rad-lib.


First I said entryism with the SP is logical and the best suited party for entryism.
Second I said the SP is currently the best option for the working class within the current political spectrum when they want to protect themselves right now from further breakdown of workers rights and austerity measures.

And people said the same thing about Die Linke, and they said the same thing about SYRIZA, and they'll say it about whatever social-democratic formation wins the sympathies of the opportunists next. And when the SP votes for austerity measures like Die Linke has done the opportunists will pretend that nothing has happened.


Which you do not have aside from the usual clap trap of: organizing and starting a revolution. Neither of those however are viable short term options which are needed right now becUase of socio political realities. Which you don't seem to understand.

Neither my arguments are objectively untrue and I am open for YOUR suggestions as how the working class is to proceed with realistic short term alternatives that would protect them from further breakdown of workers rights and austerity.

You already ruled out the only realistic option - proletarian organisation and militancy. Because, and this is the refrain we have been hearing from the opportunists for something like a hundred years, the working class is weak, the working class is small, the working class is this and that. Now, if this were true, all it would mean is that nothing can be done. Voting for bourgeois parties will not protect the workers from anything, and all of the existing reforms were won only when the backs of the bourgeoisie were uncomfortably close to a wall.

It's not true, though. The RSDRP was able to organise the workers in conditions that were a hundred times more taxing than those the socialist movement experiences in the Netherlands. If the Dutch left founders from defeat to defeat, from sell-out to betrayal, it's their fault.


Nice detail. Currently Trotskyists are using entryism in the SP to radicalize it. Yes...I can see how Trotskyism and Bolshevism is sooooo revolutionary.

Here is another nice detail: the "entryism" practiced by many Trotskyist groups has nothing to do with the politics, however justified or unjustified, of the French Turn. Entry into bourgeois workers' parties (and that means workers' parties, not parties of bored petit-bourgeois students) is intended to cause a split, not "radicalise" bourgeois formations. The notion of "radicalising" social-democratic groups in Pabloist nonsense.

Of course, many ostensibly Trotskyist groups are nothing more than sots-dem clubs; I don't feel particularly obliged to defend the practice of these people just because they claim to be Trotskyist.


I think this conclusively proves the vanguard party is actually an ice cream.

Are you tired of bourgeois flavours? Then try The Vanguard, the new ice cream from the Chief Dairy Administration. Each ice cream comes with an action figure of comrade Trotsky executing a Eser sailor.


Awesome. I do think it speaks to how far Revleft has come that the Trotskyist(s) and the Marxist-Leninist(s) have had to take each other's side in a debate about where the Soviet Union went wrong.

It's interesting that you left out the Bordigist. In any case, why should this be odd? Obviously I think Marxists-Leninists are wrong about a lot of things, but I also think they are right about many things, namely things like partyism and opposition to a "party of the entire class" (or "people").


Hopefully they will both be extinct on this forum within a few years.

Right, hopefully half of the serious, revolutionary members of this site will leave because of an increasingly hostile and stultifying atmosphere so the liberals masquerading as socialists can have discussions about whether we should look up to Proudhon or Lassalle free of us mean old vanguardists.


That user was not a Trotskyist at that point in time, let alone a member of any specific party; he was just a petit-bourgeois college student with an arrogant and paternalistic view towards the working class, just more honest about it than most.

So what does that prove? Here, in this very thread, we have the "anarchist" and anti-vanguardist PhoenixAsh arguing that since the working class is so crap in the Netherlands the only way workers can stop austerity is by voting for his favourite bourgeois outfit. If that isn't an arrogant, petit-bourgeois view, I don't know what is.


Go back and actually read that thread and then tell me if you still want to say "that said, it is true..." in reference to anything he said. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

What thread? You haven't provided any links and the search function of this site is a bit of a mess, automatically placing OR between each term (manually inserting AND doesn't seem to work either).


It has less to do with the theory of the vanguard party than with the chauvinist approach of modern petit-bourgeois vanguardists to it. You argued that decentralization is a petit-bourgeois fetish and I wanted to demonstrate what happens when the petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialist gets his hands on vanguard theory.

That doesn't add up, really, since you yourself say that thesadmafioso was not a Grantist when he made that post. Do you think the petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists who uphold decentralisation are any better? I don't see much of a difference between Healy and Drury, to be honest, or between Hansen and Holloway.


Whatever people intend it to mean - I believe it became bourgeois, but that's not the point - it is dishonest to keep focusing on the contemporary associations of a single word in their rhetoric to try to prove the charge of liberalism, especially because that word is accurate.

No, that pretty much is the point. As Marxists we should talk in class terms, if a term is compatible with any theory about the class composition of Soviet society that's a bit of a problem. And, as I said, both users are clearly liberals, not because they used the word "elite" once, but because one is a market "socialist" and another a shill for a bourgeois party.

I mean, you're trying to portray this exchange as mean old Leninist me and BolshevikBabe (and Bleys, an actual Left Communist) baiting the ultra-lefts, but I specifically stated I don't consider the esteemed gentlemen to be ultra-lefts, that would be an insult to the ultras.

[Lev Ulyanov]

After reading through six pages of what has descended into what is no more than ***** fighting, I can't help but comment. It seems as though the petty Left Communist vs. Stalinist arguments are making their resurgences here, and this is leading nowhere.

Marx used the words 'socialism' and 'communism' interchangeably. OK. We get that. So fucking what. Marxism did not end with Marx, and later traditions of Marxism, such as the Marxism-Leninist tradition, use the word 'socialism' to mean something else, or the political transition period between capitalism and communism. Others call this the first stage of communism. FINE. We don't need two words to refer to the same thing. How about we stop debating on whether socialism is first stage communism, final stage communism, or communism in general, and just use the bloody word to mean what the Leninists use it to mean, seeing as the rest can just use the word 'communism'?

I'm bloody pissed off at having every argument along these lines degenerate into what Marx meant by the word socialism. Why do we need to constantly go on about this stuff? I suspect that this is born of the hatred that ultra-leftists/left communists/anarchists etc. have for Leninists and Stalinists. Well, I'm a filthy Trot. I like what I've read of Lenin's work, and I hate Stalin coz he's a fascist pig. That doesn't allow me to pass judgement on fellow comrades, though, does it? That is the true elitism, and all who engage in this pettiness are more elitist than anybody else. There is an anarchist in my team who doesn't like Lenin, we work fine together. We organise events with the (Stalinist) Communist Party of Malta, and we work fine together.

Mind you, I'm not saying that we should ignore ideological disputes. It's just this 'Bakunin is a pig!' 'Lenin is a dictator!' talk doesn't do much good to anybody, and that perhaps (rue the thought!) we should be a bit flexible with one another. This is also extremely relevant to the topic, you know... the Bolshie/Menshie ***** fight was one of the reasons why the USSR went down the road it did.

[synthesis]

It's interesting that you left out the Bordigist. In any case, why should this be odd? Obviously I think Marxists-Leninists are wrong about a lot of things, but I also think they are right about many things, namely things like partyism and opposition to a "party of the entire class" (or "people").

It's "odd" - strange word to describe my observation, but whatever - because it reflects the changing demographic of Revleft towards lesser and lesser degrees of centralism. I think this has as much to do with 90% of Marxist-Leninists (justly) getting banned whenever the Red Army rapes come up, but I'd like to think it also has to do with Revleft moving away from ultra-centralist ideologies.


Right, hopefully half of the serious, revolutionary members of this site will leave because of an increasingly hostile and stultifying atmosphere so the liberals masquerading as socialists can have discussions about whether we should look up to Proudhon or Lassalle free of us mean old vanguardists.

Revleft has fewer liberals masquerading as socialists now than there has ever been, whether you recognize it or not. And again, what I am criticizing in this particular instance, and what you refuse to recognize due to an uncharacteristic level of defensiveness, is not "vanguardism" - although I don't think the theory does enough to prevent substitutionism - but the use of vanguardist theory by petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists to express openly chauvinistic attitudes towards the working class.


So what does that prove? Here, in this very thread, we have the "anarchist" and anti-vanguardist PhoenixAsh arguing that since the working class is so crap in the Netherlands the only way workers can stop austerity is by voting for his favourite bourgeois outfit. If that isn't an arrogant, petit-bourgeois view, I don't know what is.

Yes, it is, sorry PhoenixAsh, but it is. But I'm talking to you, not him. Petit bourgeois attitudes towards both Leninism and social democracy are equally repugnant to me.


What thread? You haven't provided any links and the search function of this site is a bit of a mess, automatically placing OR between each term (manually inserting AND doesn't seem to work either).

Okay, you see the little arrow by thesadmafioso's name in that quote? Click it and it will take you to that particular post in that thread. That's where the colon and the number comes in in the quote tag, if you've ever noticed how it comes up when you click the Quote button. I actually went to the trouble of getting the post number manually and typing it in so you could see the thread for yourself.


That doesn't add up, really, since you yourself say that thesadmafioso was not a Grantist when he made that post. Do you think the petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists who uphold decentralisation are any better? I don't see much of a difference between Healy and Drury, to be honest, or between Hansen and Holloway.

I'm boycotting responses where you just drop people's surnames with no explanation as to what you actually mean theoretically. You do this in practically every other post and I'm not going to indulge it here.


No, that pretty much is the point. As Marxists we should talk in class terms, if a term is compatible with any theory about the class composition of Soviet society that's a bit of a problem. And, as I said, both users are clearly liberals, not because they used the word "elite" once, but because one is a market "socialist" and another a shill for a bourgeois party.

Just because you don't think the term is specific enough doesn't mean it's inaccurate. Wasn't Vox Populi the first user to defend the use of that term? You're expounding on your criticism here but when I originally responded it was a completely shallow and superficial critique of their analysis.


I mean, you're trying to portray this exchange as mean old Leninist me and BolshevikBabe (and Bleys, an actual Left Communist) baiting the ultra-lefts

Ah, no. This has all been directed at you specifically. That's because I saw parallels between what you are saying here and what you said about spontaneism and resistance to centralism among the German and Italian working classes being the "deforming influence of bourgeois ideology" as well as the cause of the failure of the German revolution. Don't drag those posters into this.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Okay, you see the little arrow by thesadmafioso's name in that quote? Click it and it will take you to that particular post in that thread. That's where the colon and the number comes in in the quote tag, if you've ever noticed how it comes up when you click the Quote button. I actually went to the trouble of getting the post number manually and typing it in so you could see the thread for yourself.

Fair enough. I actually didn't see the arrow, partly because I have the attention span of a drugged-up goldfish, and partly because I have a pretty bad hangover. So, I'll read the thread and then reply to the rest.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's "odd" - strange word to describe my observation, but whatever - because it reflects the changing demographic of Revleft towards lesser and lesser degrees of centralism. I think this has as much to do with 90% of Marxist-Leninists (justly) getting banned whenever the Red Army rapes come up, but I'd like to think it also has to do with Revleft moving away from ultra-centralist ideologies.

I think it has more to do with the hostility many members and quite a few of the staff show to Marxists-Leninists, as well as people who are ideologically close to Marxists-Leninists, like the Marcyists. It really is grating to SPGB-ers bait Hoxhaists because Hoxhaist groups tend to be small and relatively un-influential or admins shutting down every discussion about restricting or banning certain categories of users with threats to restrict or ban "Stalinists". You might think that's all fine, I think it's symptomatic of a site that is slowly sliding back into complete self-absorbed irrelevance and faux leftist posturing.


Revleft has fewer liberals masquerading as socialists now than there has ever been, whether you recognize it or not.

I beg to differ. Sure, things are not as bad as the glory days of technocrats and "liberal socialists" (or at least, what I've seen of the glory days), but they're slowly getting there. In the time I have been here a lot of intelligent, good and knowledgeable posters have been banned and, while there are a lot of new quality users, the number of liberals and worse seems to be on the rise.


And again, what I am criticizing in this particular instance, and what you refuse to recognize due to an uncharacteristic level of defensiveness, is not "vanguardism" - although I don't think the theory does enough to prevent substitutionism - but the use of vanguardist theory by petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists to express openly chauvinistic attitudes towards the working class.

Alright, so, having read the thread, what thesadmafioso was saying has nothing to do with vanguardism. A vanguard party organises the vanguard, the most advanced strata and layers, of the proletariat. To say that the proletariat is an "alterable implement of the intelligentsia" (eh?) is not vanguardism but technocracy. Unsurprisingly, the starter of the thread in question was, if I'm not mistaken, a member of the Brotherhood of Nod a technocrat.

Vanguardism is simply an opposition to the Kautskyist notion of a "party of the entire class", a recognition that the proletariat is not a homogeneous class formation but is comprised of numerous strata and special groups.

But yeah, that thread was a train-wreck. What I meant to say is that the proletariat is not free of reactionary ideas and that, unlike opportunists such as the former American Workers' League, communists need to challenge reactionary ideas within the proletariat itself, not tail them.

I really don't think "substitutionism" is a thing, that is I tend to view politics in other ways. That's neither here nor there.


I'm boycotting responses where you just drop people's surnames with no explanation as to what you actually mean theoretically. You do this in practically every other post and I'm not going to indulge it here.

Sorry, I thought you would be familiar with the people in question. I guess Trotskyist in-fighting sort of takes away your ability to judge these things objectively.

Gerry Healy was the leader of the Trotskyist group variously known as the Club, SLL or WRP, a group whose literary orthodoxy was matched only by their reactionary social positions. The "mature" WRP found itself a sponsor in Qaddafi and various other bourgeois leaders in the Middle East, and played a part in fingering Iraqi communists to Saddam Hussein.

John Drury was, and indeed to the best of my knowledge still is, an ostensible left communist, associated with the journal Aufheben, who was outed as a police consultant, resulting in a scandal.

The "honest revisionist" (as the SL call him) Hansen was the leader of the American SWP after Canon, one of the founders of Trotskyism and the former leader of the SWP, retired. He had a bit of a Castro fetish and was ultimately ousted by an even more pro-Castro group around Barnes. Like all members of the United Secretariat, he claimed guerrillas and students were the true revolutionary groups, and not the workers.

Holloway is, primarily an academic, "socialist" who thinks that the revolution can be won when people "stop making capitalism". It's a bit unfair to call him an ultra-left, but he is certainly no vanguardist.

So there you have it - two "vanguardists", two "anti-vanguardists", one a neat parallel of the other. Where's the difference? My point was that both those who support the vanguard party and those who oppose it can be petit-bourgeois quasi-socialists with a disdain for the working class.


Just because you don't think the term is specific enough doesn't mean it's inaccurate. Wasn't Vox Populi the first user to defend the use of that term? You're expounding on your criticism here but when I originally responded it was a completely shallow and superficial critique of their analysis.

I actually have no idea what the politics of VP are, the only time I've noticed them posting something political was in a conspiracy-theory thread, which doesn't bode well.

And I think it's more than fair to criticise sloppy terminology cribbed from the liberals. Of course using it doesn't make you a liberal. But it does raise some questions.


Ah, no. This has all been directed at you specifically. That's because I saw parallels between what you are saying here and what you said about spontaneism and resistance to centralism among the German and Italian working classes being the "deforming influence of bourgeois ideology" as well as the cause of the failure of the German revolution. Don't drag those posters into this.

Honestly, I can't for the life of me see the parallel.

[Comrade #138672]

The Soviet Union was crushed by counterrevolution from everywhere, both from within and from without. Stalin was the personification of the counterrevolution from within.

[PhoenixAsh]

So what does that prove? Here, in this very thread, we have the "anarchist" and anti-vanguardist PhoenixAsh arguing that since the working class is so crap in the Netherlands the only way workers can stop austerity is by voting for his favourite bourgeois outfit. If that isn't an arrogant, petit-bourgeois view, I don't know what is.

Except that I am not arguing this and you are fully aware of this....but your fondness of quoting out of context and straw man argument actually prevents a thorourh discussion on the topic....which is both pressing and relevant.

Ironically what I am arguing is an anlysis made by the Dutch communist party in the late 90s. That party by that time was thoroughly Leninist. So it is fun to see you attack it as petit bourgeois.
The traditional working class is disappearing in the Netherlands and a such traditional working class mentality is changing. Because the Dutch revolutionary left has al but vanished and is ineffective to answer this change in attitudes and mentality it is got increasingly isolated from the working class. It requitres other forms of organization and other forms of formulating ideology. Traditional communist parties which base their ideology on mass movement, mass parties are ineffective because of the fragmentation of the Dutch working class. While the Dutch revoltionary left is scrambling to rebuild and is finding ways (but failing so far) to reconnect with the working class....the working class is on its own.

Now you desperately want to see my argument as saying the working class is shitty. Why? Because you are part of the same group of people who will continue to enforce their narrow view of what is to be done on the working class in order to subjugate them. Much like the quotes I provided in this thread you are a traditionalist and unable to adopt to socio political change. This is why you advocate mass murder, targetting women and children and excuse horrible crimes against workers all in the interest of the working class. Ironically that attitude is on of the reasons why the working class en masse ignores communists these days. But worse still your ideological answers are outdated and do not resonate with the Dutch working class. So new ways of communicating the message need to be found. Guess what...vanguardists are the LEAST likely to be able to do that.

Since you, as much as the revolutionary left, has no answers that will work on the short term or provide viable solutions to accute problems...the working class is on its own in a landscape which is for all intents and purposes devoid of revolutionary arguments and voices and dominated by capitalists.

Now, real revolutionaries are actually concerned about the working class. Unlike you we do not have the attitude of fuck them as long as they do not get class conscious they deserve what they get and they cant save themselves but actually realize they need to work harder and find new way to reach the working class. That work will take time. Russian working class consciousness did not develop overnight. It took decades of work.

Some revolutionaries think entryism is the answer. If you are so inclined the SP is the best option to do so since that party has a revoltuionary tradition and the most class conscious working class memmbers will be more likely to be found there. This is not an argument for entryism, but it is a reality. There is another argument for the SP as an candidate for entryism and that is that their membership base is already very active in activist activities.

And since there is no revolutionary alternative but there are very real and pressing attacks on the working class the logical choice within the current political spectrum of the Netherlands and the best alternative of all the non revolutionary parties for the working class is the SP.

This is not endorsing voting, nor endorsing the SP, nor is it endorsing the parliamentary system. This is objective analysis. It is not petit bourgeois mentality. It is a simple fucking fact...a fact which you may find very inconvenient....but hey...you are a Leninist and Lenin argued that socialism was simply capitalism for the benefit of everybody and workers should submit to capitalists to learn from them how to run their lives (see earlier quote)....so fuck your inconvenience.

That attitude within the working class needs to be accepted. There are reasons for them. The main reason is the absence of the revoltuionary left from the political scene. This is not because as your re herring says arguing that the working class is shitty. It is recognizing that your vanguard parties are failing and failing hard to engage the working class. Incidentaly before we have that argument again...so are the Anarchists which in the Netherlands have long been marginalized and are mainly be found in the autonomous and antifa scene. Although they are more pressent than traidtional vanguardists.

Now...personally I am happier the SP gains votes than crypto fascists like the PVV. Plus I am also happy that the working class, unlike when they vote traditional liberal parties, at least seem to be getting more class conscious or at least more aware that they have interests which are not at all answered by the other parties. As I have said from the start in the other thread. The SP is not revolutionary. It isnt exactly social democrat either. But it is not a revolutionary solution at all nor a solution for the long run. However considering all factors in the current political spectrum and the absence of a short term revolutionary movement of any size and kind the current short term alternative workers have to chose from is the SP.

I know you think differently and would probably not give a shit about the working class unless they become class conscious. Which is why you revert to sloganism and posturing instead of providing a working solution or alternative or actually debating what is to be done rather than attacking the analysis...which is not helpful at all and actually helps the bourgeois.

Again. This is not endorsing workers to vote, vote for the SP or endorsing the SP nor entryism. It is an objective analysis of the situation in the Netherlands.

Rather than attacking the analysis the working class would be better served, the revolutionary left (of which I do not consider you and your bourgeois proto capitalist ideology to be a part) would be better served if we used the analysis as a starting point to discuss an alternative solution...or simply come up with a better analysis than your Bolshevik friends (of which by the way I used to be a part at the time when they made it) have until now.














In the meantime

[ComradeOm]

I've been struggling to muster any enthusiasm to return to this thread. On the one hand, there's a lot of nonsense to be corrected but, on the other, there's a lot of nonsense. (Like how you can have capitalism without capitalists, markets or the profit motive.) So I'll just tackle one particular bugbear for now and might return later for more.


Which of course is pure hypocrisy and underlines only their opportunistic power hunger.You know, for a set of hypocritical, power-hungry opportunists, the Bolsheviks were remarkably lucky.

They were lucky that the Russian proletariat was stupid enough to believe their lies to the point of joining the party en masse and increasingly vote for them throughout 1917. And this was to the degree that at every arena (from the soviets to the unions to the factory committees to the local dumas to the Constituent Assembly itself) the Bolsheviks or Bolshevik policies were favoured by the proletariat. How lucky that those working class morons didn't perceive Lenin's true ambitions.

They were lucky that when the Bolsheviks unanimously voted in favour of forming an all-socialist government at the Second Congress of Soviets the Mensheviks and Right SRs decided to walk out. What a cunning ploy by Lenin to advocate a Soviet government with the sole purpose of 'provoking' his opponents into joining the counter-revolution.

They were lucky when the Mensheviks and SRs again rejected Bolshevik offers for a socialist coalition government in the Vikzhel negotiations that November. Again, Lenin's ability to use mind-altering powers was demonstrated when the opposition decided to fight rather than accept a compromise.

They were lucky when the flawed Constituent Assembly decided to seal its own fate by rejecting the October Decrees and the concept of Soviet Power. How fortunate that this corresponded not just to the Bolshevik position but that of the Left SRs. What lies Lenin must have told to convince the latter, plus the anarchists, to close the Assembly.

(They were lucky that the closure of the Assembly went almost unnoticed throughout the country, a reflection of its irrelevance following the establishment of Soviet Power, and that the Bolsheviks again had a majority at the following Third Congress of Soviets.)

They were lucky when the Left SRs decided to unilaterally break with the Soviets via a campaign of assassination. I wonder how Lenin secretly engineered this reversion to type by the SRs, thus providing him with the opportunity to crush them and take control of the Cheka (until then a heavily-SR organ).

If the Bolsheviks were opportunists then it was because others provided them with countless opportunities. If they were power-hungry then it was because they inherited power by default, as others repeatedly shunned their offers of compromise. How lucky for them, right?


Stalin was a continuation of Bolshevik policy and its logical conclusionIndeed. So much of a continuation was he that his programme involved killing off almost every other prominent figure from the pre-Stalin days and a wholesale cultural revolution.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

They were lucky when the Mensheviks and SRs again rejected Bolshevik offers for a socialist coalition government in the Vikzhel negotiations that November. Again, Lenin's ability to use mind-altering powers was demonstrated when the opposition decided to fight rather than accept a compromise.

To be fair, the Bolshevik offers were mostly the work of Kamenev and were fought by Lenin. And why shouldn't they have been? A revolutionary government is formed, and then a weird semi-union (the VIKZhel included the representatives of the management as well as the workers) decides to throw a fit and demand the inclusion of everyone from the Mensheviks to the Popular Socialists in the government. As if the Bolsheviks should have accepted that.

(Note that this would have been the equivalent of Luxemburg and Liebknecht forming a joint government with Ebert and Noske if the German Revolution had succeeded.)


They were lucky when the Left SRs decided to unilaterally break with the Soviets via a campaign of assassination. I wonder how Lenin secretly engineered this reversion to type by the SRs, thus providing him with the opportunity to crush them and take control of the Cheka (until then a heavily-SR organ).

Not only that, Lenin was able to use his mind-controlling powers to convince most of the PLSR to denounce their central committee and ultimately join the Bolsheviks (either directly or through parties such as the Popular Communists, the PLSR(Minority) etc.).

[Dave B]

The Vikzhel negotiations were actually sabotaged by Lenin and in the end the majority of the Bolshevik CC who was opposed to them.

The negotiations were supported by the Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev who ‘resigned’ over the issue. See for instance footnote 4


https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/29b.htm

It is discussed in some detail in The Mensheviks After October By Vladimir N. Brovkin from page 16- 35.


Completely different of course to ComradeOm's facile statement.


Lenin’s response at the time was to arrest the supporters of ‘Vikzhel fraction’and close down their newspapers to put them under duress in order to get them to pull out.

Lenin’s attitude to Vikzhel is perhaps best described later by Trotsky;





When we are told that “there is no [central] power,” [B]then we must put them under arrest, and we’ll do it. Then they can talk all they please about the horrors of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Now, if we were to place the members of the Vikzhel under arrest – I could understand that. Let them howl about the arrests.



The delegates from Tver [The peasant delegate from Tver demanded at the Congress of the Soviets on October 25 (November 7) the arrest of Avksentiev and other conciliationist leaders of the then Peasant Alliance. – L.T.] said at the Congress of the Soviets, “Arrest them all” – here is something I can understand. Here you have a man who understands the dictatorship of the proletariat. Our present slogan is: No compromise, i.e., for a homogeneous Bolshevik Government.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/ssf/sf08.htm

[There were some ‘right’ Mensheviks who had been opposed to the Vikzhel negotiations from the beginning.]

The closure of the constituent assembly did not go unnoticed

There was a large protest of 10’s of thousands against its closure a few days later.

21 demonstrators were machine gunned to death according to the Bolsheviks own records; page 59 Brovokin the Mensheviks after October.

Others credible sources put it at around 80.

Martov on the eve of the demonstration asked Lenin if he would shoot the demonstrators and have repeat anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905.

The answer was a yes.

That was in Jane Burbanks book.

The workers did not join the Bolshevik party on mass, the membership of the Bolshevik party was never more than 1% of the population.

It reached a maximum of about 800,000 around 1919 I think before being purged back to less than 400,000 on Lenin’s insistence on keeping it a party of the elite 1% ruling over the remaining 99%.

[ I think the membership of the Bolshevik party did rise to around 5% in the 1930’s under Stalin]


The constituent assembly on its only circa 14 hour sitting did not reject any resolution on the relationship of the soviet to the constituent assembly. It voted to defer the issue in order to deal with immediate issues on the arrangements for an immediate armistice and re distribution of land to the peasants.

Lenin, like any good capitalist, was always opposed to the unions having any say in even the appointment of their own mangers.

V. I. Lenin THE PARTY CRISIS
Pravda No. 13, January 21, 1921



Why have a Party (of a state capitalist class), if industrial management is to be appointed ("mandatory nomination") by the trade unions nine-tenths of whose members are non-Party workers? Bukharin has talked himself into a logical, theoretical and practical implication of a split in the Party, or, rather, a breakaway of the syndicalists from the Party.

http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/TPC21.html

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Vikzhel negotiations were actually sabotaged by Lenin and in the end the majority of the Bolshevik CC who was opposed to them.

The negotiations were supported by the Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev who ‘resigned’ over the issue.

What actually happened was that Kamenev made promises without consulting the Central Committee, who were understandably somewhat displeased about this fact, particularly considering Kamenev's and Zinoviev's behaviour up to that point.


Lenin’s response at the time was to arrest the supporters of ‘Vikzhel fraction’and close down their newspapers to put them under duress in order to get them to pull out.

What "VIKZhel fraction"? The Mensheviks and some of the Esers? To the best of my knowledge their papers continued to come out, although if they were closed down, they have only themselves to blame for participating in sabotage.


The closure of the constituent assembly did not go unnoticed

There was a large protest of 10’s of thousands against its closure a few days later.

21 demonstrators were machine gunned to death according to the Bolsheviks own records; page 59 Brovokin the Mensheviks after October.

Others credible sources put it at around 80.

Brovkin is a good historian, but his willingness to believe the Mensheviks gets the better of him at times. The first sentence of the paragraph you cite repeats the myth that Bolsheviks closed down the Constituent Assembly; his only source for the claim that Red Guards (not "Bolsheviks") gunned down people who protested the closure of the Constituent Assembly is... the Menshevik Deich.


The workers did not join the Bolshevik party on mass, the membership of the Bolshevik party was never more than 1% of the population.

And the proletariat was a numeric minority in Russia. In the Second Congress of Soviets the Bolsheviks had ~300 delegates, and the Mensheviks ~90.


It reached a maximum of about 800,000 around 1919 I think before being purged back to less than 400,000 on Lenin’s insistence on keeping it a party of the elite 1% ruling over the remaining 99%.

Do I even need to say anything anymore?

[Dave B]

The source for the number shot comes from a Bolshevik one page 59 footnote 39.


“Sverdlov at the third congress of Soviets 12 January 1918.”

Yes the factory workers were a minority in Russia and only a minority of them, less than nine tenths of the unionised ones, were in the Bolshevik party.

And of course the ‘real proletarians’ (ie the elite Bolshevik Bourgeois Intelligentsia) didn’t work in factories then any more now than they do now.


Very often the word “workers” is taken to mean the factory proletariat. But it does not mean that at all. During the war people who were by no means proletarians went into the factories; they went into the factories to dodge the war. Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm


The elite Bourgeois Intelligentsia went into the state capitalist Bolshevik Party to dodge working in factories.




We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves…… the vanguard ….. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, ……….., the vanguard. We are the state.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

[Dave B]

The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry Liaison Officer at General Headquarters

TELEGRAM NO. I925

AS 4486 Berlin, 3 December 1917

The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important war aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain. The task therefore was gradually to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the front in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks.

It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda, to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party.



The Bolsheviks have now come to power; how long they will retain power cannot be yet foreseen. They need peace in order to strengthen their own position; on the other hand it is entirely in our interest that we should exploit the period while they are in power, which may be a short one, in order to attain firstly an armistice and then, if possible, peace. 1 The conclusion of a separate peace would

mean the achievement of the desired war aim, namely a breach between Russia and her Allies. The amount of tension necessarily caused by such a breach would determine the degree of Russia's dependence on Germany and her future relations with us. Once cast out and cast off by her former Allies, abandoned financially, Russia will be forced to seek our support. We shall be able to provide help for Russia in various ways; firstly in the rehabilitation of the railways; (I have in mind a German Russian Commission, under our control, which would undertake the rational and co-ordinated exploitation of the railway lines so as to ensure speedy resumption of freight movement), then the provision of a substantial loan, which Russia requires to maintain her state machine. This could take the form of an advance on the security of grain, raw materials, &c, &c, to be provided by Russia and shipped under the control of the above-mentioned commission. Aid on such a basis the scope to be increased as and when necessary would in my opinion bring-about a growing rapprochement between the two countries.

Austria-Hungary will regard the rapprochement with distrust and not without apprehension. I would interpret the excessive eagerness of Count Czernin to come to terms with the Russians as a desire to forestall us and to prevent Germany and Russia arriving at an intimate relationship inconvenient to the Danube Monarchy. There is no need for us to compete for Russia's good will. We are strong enough to wait with equanimity; we are in a far better position than Austria-Hungary to offer Russia what she needs for the reconstruction of her state. I view future developments in the East with confidence but I think it expedient for the time being to maintain a certain reserve in our attitude to the Austro-Hungarian government in all matters including the Polish question which concern both monarchies so as to preserve a free hand for all eventualities.

The above-mentioned considerations lie, I venture to believe, within the framework of the directives given me by His Majesty. I request you to report to His Majesty accordingly and to transmit to me by telegram the All-highest instructions.

KUHLMANN





GERMANY AND THE REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA 1915-1918

Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry

EDITED BY

Z. A. B. ZEMAN

LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK TORONTO

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ah, yes, those evil Bolsheviks, disrupting the war effort of the democratic Entente. What horror.


The source for the number shot comes from a Bolshevik one page 59 footnote 39.

The problem is, not having access to the Petrog. golos, I have no idea what Sverdlov said. As things stand, we know that Deitch claimed that the Red Guards attacked "peaceful demonstrations" (from the title of his article). We know that Sverdlov claimed that 21 people had been shot. That is all. We don't know if demonstrations took place, and if they did, what kind of people attended them. Workers or yunkers? Sailors or professionals? To sum up, we don't know anything. And no one else seems to have noticed the event.


Yes the factory workers were a minority in Russia and only a minority of them, less than nine tenths of the unionised ones, were in the Bolshevik party.

Not just the factory workers but the workers, full stop, unless you want to claim that peasants are workers. And yes, the Bolsheviks were always few in number. That was intentional. The motto was "better less, but better". The Bolsheviks were professional revolutionaries, not a club for every Grisha who would show up at a meeting once and, once a month, buy the party newspaper.


And of course the ‘real proletarians’ (ie the elite Bolshevik Bourgeois Intelligentsia) didn’t work in factories then any more now than they do now.

[...]

The elite Bourgeois Intelligentsia went into the state capitalist Bolshevik Party to dodge working in factories.

What an utterly dishonest statement. Perhaps you would like to explain where the Bolshevik members of the trade unions and the factory committees came from. Maybe Tomsky and Shlyapnikov coalesced out of thin air when the time was right.

And as anyone who has lived in an area affected by war can tell you, Lenin was right. Peasant and other elements sometimes come into the factories. This is understandable; that is, after all, much preferable to being shot at the front. But one does not become a proletarian having worked one day; class concerns long-term employment.

Furthermore, it is extremely dishonest to portray the statement that at the time of writing (when, note, the war was over) proletarians had no incentive to go into factories as anything other than self-criticism, particularly since it is preceded by a discussion of bureaucratic stupidity on part of the Bolshevik administration.

And good grief, you use elipses liberally. Quoting the paragraph you butchered in full, and in context:

"The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yot got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state. State capitalism is capitalism that we must confine within certain bounds; but we have not yet learned to confine it within those bounds. That is the whole point. And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be. We have sufficient, quite sufficient political power; we also have sufficient economic resources at our command, but the vanguard of the working class which has been brought to the forefront to directly supervise, to determine the boundaries, to demarcate, to subordinate and not be subordinated itself, lacks sufficient ability for it. All that is needed here is ability, and that is what we do not have.

Never before in history has there been a situation in which the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political power and had state capitalism existing along side it. The whole question turns on our understanding that this is the capitalism that we can and must permit, that we can and must confine within certain bounds; for this capitalism is essential for the broad masses of the peasantry and for private capital, which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the peasantry. We must organise things in such a way as to make possible the customary operation of capitalist economy and capitalist exchange, because this is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible. All the rest is not an absolutely vital matter to this camp. They can resign themselves to all that. You Communists, you workers, you, the politically enlightened section of the proletariat, which under took to administer the state, must be able to arrange it so that the state, which you have taken into your hands, shall function the way you want it to. Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in this past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction. This is the main thing that must be remembered in regard to state capitalism. In this main field we must start learning from the very beginning, and only when we have thoroughly understood and appreciated this can we be sure that we shall learn.

Now I come to the question of halting the retreat, a question I dealt with in my speech at the Congress of Metalworkers. Since then I have not heard any objection, either in the Party press, or in private letters from comrades, or in the Central Committee. The Central Committee approved my plan, which was, that in the report of the Central Committee to the present Congress strong emphasis should be laid on calling a halt to this retreat and that the Congress should give binding instructions on behalf of the whole Party accordingly. For a year we have been retreating. On behalf of the Party we must now call a halt. The purpose pursued by the retreat has been achieved. This period is drawing, or has drawn, to a close. We now have a different objective, that of regrouping our forces. We have reached a new line; on the whole, we have conducted the retreat in fairly good order. True, not a few voices were heard from various sides which tried to convert this retreat into a stampede. Some—for example, several members of the group which bore the name of Workers’ Opposition (I don’t think they had any right to that name)—argued that we were not retreating properly in some sector or other. Owing to their excessive zeal they found themselves at the wrong door, and now they realise it. At that time they did not see that their activities did not help us to correct our movement, but merely had the effect of spreading panic and hindering our effort to beat a disciplined retreat."


Note: the state is the workers, not the Bolshevik party. This should also answer your claims about "state capitalism", and Lenin's understanding of the same.

[Dave B]

The gunning down of constituent assembly demonstrators incident has been reported in numerous places including a contemporary one from Maxim Gorky; where he also compares it to the bloody Sunday event of January 9th 1905.

Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography , Tova Yedlin page 122

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ah, yes, Gorky, the otzovist, the God-builder, the coalitionist, such an impartial source! Of course, even he admits that "workers and" officials participated in those demonstrations, so it seems the demonstrations were another Kadet affair of which there were a hundred each day in Petrograd.

[Dave B]

It is also mentioned briefly in the Twelve Who Are To Die [1922]


The Bolsheviki assert that they resort to capital punishment as a necessary means of defense of the workers' and peasants' government against counter revolutionists,against „the enemies of labor". This assertion is contradicted by the
fact that since the establishment of the Bolshevist government in Russia there has been no cessation of mass executions of workers and peasants.



It is sufficient to recall such events as the shooting up of the workers' demonstration in defense of the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd, January 5, 1918; the mass slaughter at Astrachan, when thousands of workers were shot, sabered or drowned in the Volga for demanding bread, -— to be more exact, for demanding the reestablishment of free trade in grain; the bombardment of Elisaveipolin Azerbaidjan, when 20 000 mussulmen, in the overwhelming majority workers and peasants, were murdered; the repeated shooting of strikers in all large cities of Soviet Russia; the firing upon workmens' meetings for adoption of antibolshevist resolutions; the shooting of peasant hostages for the desertion of recruits or in reprisal for the activity of partisan detachments; the shooting of peasants or the destruction , of whole villages for non-payment of grain taxes.

Who will undertake to measure the blood of workmen and peasants shed in those terrible days of 1918 when a……….

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's not as if Martov is a better source, but alright, let's say this is true. What of it, then? We still don't know the character of the demonstration, the class of the participants, and most importantly, we don't know the sequence of events. But there is in principle nothing wrong with the proletarian authorities taking a hard stand against those who would restore the bourgeois republic.

Now about the other points?

[Dave B]

It is also mentioned by Jane Burbank Intelligentsia and Revolution page 23

Where she gives two references to news reports from January 6 and January 12

[Dave B]

What are the other points?

It can wait i going out in 10 minutes.

Gorky gave a detailed description of the people on the demonstration.

[Brutus]

Gorky gave a detailed description of the people on the demonstration.

It supported the formation of a bourgeois republic. The workers participating (among the Kadets, officials, Mensheviks and other pro-bourgeois elements) were hardly class-conscious. So what, we should tail the working class- a small grouping of the working class- despite it's counter-revolutionary demands, just because they're workers? Let the communists all chant the slogan "British jobs for British workers", because that's what some proletarians have done!

Also, bugger off with your font size.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What are the other points?

Well, first of all there is the matter of your implicit support for the Entente. I remember robbotnik blowing up at the suggestion that the SPGB supported the British intervention after WWI, and now you, an ostensible SPGB supporter, are claiming that the evil Bolsheviks were funded by the Kaiser to undermine the war effort.

If only the Messrs. Mensheviks and Esers remained in power, then you would have stopped that mad brute sooner, no?

Then there is the matter of your fabrications concerning the Bolshevik group and its membership. Again, I ask you: where did the Bolshevik trade-unionists and factory committee members come from?

Do you think peasants are workers? Why do you constantly talk about a minority of factory workers in Russia when workers in general were a minority?

How are you able to consistently misrepresent Lenin's position on state capitalism when you've quoted one of the workers where he explains it? Have you not read the work, have you not understood the work, or are you just being dishonest?


It can wait i going out in 10 minutes.

We're not going to shoot you for that.

[Dave B]

It is also reported in Abramovitchs the Soviet Revolution page 127; including a Maxim Gorki quote/description.

Abramovitch begins;


……..where it was met by fire from the military guards. It was officially admitted that there were 21 dead (footnote 34)……….

That footnote seems identical to the Brvokin one.

ie


(34) This admission was made in a speech by the chairman of the VTsIK, Sverdlov, at a meeting of the congress of soviets on January 11th (24). 1918. Novaya Zhizn, January 13 (26), 1918.


The number of wounded was never known..




And then Abramovitch then goes on to quote from his own extract of Gorki’s article that ends with;


………On January 5th they fired on the unarmed workers of Petrograd. They fired without previous warning, fired from ambush, through gaps in railings, like cowards, like true assains……(footnote 35)





(35) Novaya Zhizn January 9th (22) 1918.

What really matters here is the issue of lying Leninist historians.

Or in other word why has nobody heard of this and doubts that it ever happened?

After the hundreds of books written on the Russian revolution by the blood sucking parasitical Bolshevik bourgeois intelligentsia, who have never done a days productive work in their lives, for the erudition of the casual elements who work in factories like myself?

[ComradeOm]

The Vikzhel negotiations were actually sabotaged by Lenin and in the end the majority of the Bolshevik CC who was opposed to them.And? There are two points here:

I chose my words carefully in the above post. It was Lenin that brainwashed the masses, Lenin that provoked the Mensheviks, Lenin that blah, blah, blah. Lenin was the evil genius at the heart of the Bolshevik Party. That's the level of facile nonsense that you provide. The closest you get to 'analysis' is portraying Kamenev as the leader of some anti-Lenin faction; this is a gross simplification of the Bolshevik Party, with its myriad factions, committees and regional actors. The CC served as a democratic body, one in which Lenin was often out-voted on major items. Yet to hear you and others speak, the entire Soviet movement marched to his every command.

(Including this. The reality is that Kamenev had approval from both the Bolshevik CC and the Soviet CEC to enter into negotiations. This was re-confirmed by the CC on 01 Nov, a vote that Lenin pointedly lost.)

Secondly, none of the above actually changes the point I was making. The Bolsheviks offered a compromise coalition government and the Mensheviks and Right SRs rejected it. Simples. Yet this is taken to be a example of Bolshevik intransigence.

(To provide more detail: On the night of 29 Oct the Bolsheviks were willing to settle but the Mensheviks and Right SRs chose to walk away, seeking instead to crush the Soviets by force. When it became apparent that the Cadet Rising had failed, they returned to the negotiating table but with the demand that the new government would not be based on the soviets and that it would exclude Lenin and Trotsky. This would have been a gross betrayal of the mandate provided by Congress and was rejected by the Bolshevik CC on 02 Nov.)

But then, Dave's sentiments lie, as always, with the Mensheviks and the Provisional Government. When they walk away it's no doubt responsible statesmanship, when the Bolsheviks later reject their weak offer it's because the perfidious Lenin "sabotaged" a deal.


There was a large protest of 10’s of thousands against its closure a few days later.

21 demonstrators were machine gunned to death according to the Bolsheviks own records; page 59 Brovokin the Mensheviks after OctoberWhen and where. I strongly suspect that you're wrong - the figure of 21 dead undoubtedly relates to clashes on the morning of the 05 Jan, that is before the CA had commenced. So when did this post-CA protest happen that led to exactly the same number of casualties?

[Edit: I see, you are indeed referring to the shooting on the fifth. Unfortunately, your ability to ferret out quotes far exceeds your critical faculties: this was not a response to the closure of the Assembly.

As for the "character of the demonstration", Figes, hardly a pro-Bolshevik, describes it as: "Far fewer workers and soldiers had turned up than expected, so the crowd was largely made up of the same small active citizenry - students, civil servants and middle-class professionals - who had taken part in the earlier march of 28 Nov". Rabinowitch, who Dave obviously has access to but has selectively and dishonestly quoted from (typical for him), notes that "it is clear that [factory workers and soldiers] constituted a relatively small minority of the marchers". It didn't help that the demonstration was held under the slogan of the "All Power to the Constituent Assembly" and came against a backdrop of SR militant activity/preparation.]


The workers did not join the Bolshevik party on mass, the membership of the Bolshevik party was never more than 1% of the populationReally? Hundreds of thousands of workers joining the party in the space of a year qualifies as explosive growth by any standard. You either don't know the meaning of the term 'en masse' or are being deliberately obtuse. To deny that the Bolsheviks experienced an explosive growth in membership, and was overwhelmingly the party of choice of the proletariat in 1917, is delusional. (I don't put that past you.)

But then why would membership ever stretch into the tens of millions? 900k in 1919 would account for roughly 50% of the urban proletariat at the time (the actual percentage was of course lower - around 30% IIRC). That was the Bolshevik's constituency and, along with the soldiers, the working class was the basis of the soviet movement. The Bolsheviks were never a peasant party.


The constituent assembly on its only circa 14 hour sitting did not reject any resolution on the relationship of the soviet to the constituent assembly. It voted to defer the issue in order to deal with immediate issues on the arrangements for an immediate armistice and re distribution of land to the peasants.No, the Constituent Assembly explicitly rejected a motion to recognise Soviet Power and its decrees. It did so in favour of a Right SR that entirely ignored the soviets while calling for the CA to pass watered-down versions of the October Decrees; that is, implicitly challenging the legislative power that the Congress of Soviets had assumed in October.

(Hence, incidentally, the deep irony of the Mensheviks and Right SRs struggling to pass laws on "immediate issues" that had been legislated on months previously.)

[synthesis]

Honestly, I can't for the life of me see the parallel.

The parallel is between 1. the argument that the Bolsheviks coming to represent an "elite" of some sort is a "liberal analysis" and 2. the idea that the spontaneism and non-centralism of the German and Italian working classes - because of which their revolutions failed, you say, in contrast to the Russian revolution where the workers accepted centralism - was a result of "the deforming influence of bourgeois ideology." In other words, Luxembourg was bringing "ideological pressures of the liberal bourgeoisie" upon those working classes, leading them to their demise at the hands of the SPD et al.

Honestly, and I don't mean this in a negative way, there were plenty of valid responses in the rest of your post but I don't really feel that those matters are important enough to delve further into, just for the sake of time and relevance. But if there's anything specific I should respond to let me know.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The parallel is between 1. the argument that the Bolsheviks coming to represent an "elite" of some sort is a "liberal analysis" and 2. the idea that the spontaneism and non-centralism of the German and Italian working classes - because of which their revolutions failed, you say, in contrast to the Russian revolution where the workers accepted centralism - was a result of "the deforming influence of bourgeois ideology." In other words, Luxembourg was bringing "ideological pressures of the liberal bourgeoisie" upon those working classes, leading them to their demise at the hands of the SPD et al.

I'm afraid I still don't see the parallel. There might be one if you assume that spontaneists, as a rule, consider the Bolsheviks to have been an "elite", but that's not a very charitable assumption. Groups like the KAPD had theories of the Bolshevik state that, while incorrect in my less than humble opinion, were at least attempts to give a Marxist analysis of Soviet society and its division into classes. An "elite" is not a class, it's a liberal buzzword. On this very thread we have people who apparently think that Lenin purged the Bolshevik party because having more than 1% of the population in the party just wasn't elite enough.


Honestly, and I don't mean this in a negative way, there were plenty of valid responses in the rest of your post but I don't really feel that those matters are important enough to delve further into, just for the sake of time and relevance. But if there's anything specific I should respond to let me know.

Well, I think the important question is, what do you mean by "vanguardism"? Because what you seem to consider vanguardism sounds like stodgy old technocracy to me, and is not something any Leninist party advocates.


What really matters here is the issue of lying Leninist historians.

Or in other word why has nobody heard of this and doubts that it ever happened?

After the hundreds of books written on the Russian revolution by the blood sucking parasitical Bolshevik bourgeois intelligentsia, who have never done a days productive work in their lives, for the erudition of the casual elements who work in factories like myself?

It's a minor miracle that you can work in a factory, stuck on your high horse as you are. Being a worker doesn't make you infallible or a good socialist. Healy and Thornett, who you should be familiar with (two leaders of the WRP), were also workers, Thornett for most of his life. Now, how about you answer my questions?

[PhoenixAsh]

The question of course remains why of the Bolsheviks were massively supported they felt the need to abolish every democratic process and abolish the ca and eventually the soviets by subjugation them to party rule instead of the other way around.

[Blake's Baby]

Because bourgeois democracy produces a bourgeois republic?

Of course, the problem is not the abolition of the Constituent Assembly, it's the establishment of the Council of People's Commissars. The problem is not that the Bolsheviks were against bourgeois democracy, but that they were too wedded to Second International notions of the role of the proletarian party. Not that they were against the state, but that they weren't against the state enough.

The soviets should have been the power in Russia. The Bolsheviks should have worked in them. Instead they created a new parallel state structure and denied the working class the opportunity to fully steer the ship of state (and that's exactly what it was at that point, a state that was in the hands of the working class - not an abolished state or a 'socialist state' (whatever that means) or a 'workers' state', just a state in which the working class had taken political control). The Bolsheviks took control from the working class.

But that pales into insignificance when held up against the fact that even if they hadn't, the revolutiopn was still doomed if limited to Russia. Contra those 'Anarchists' who insist socialism in one country is possible if 'the people' (whoever they are) want it enough (ergo, as socialist society wasn't established in Russia, 'the people' didn't want it, which also isn't the fault of the Bolsheviks), even if the soviets had retained power, the Soviet Republic would still have had to fight the Whites, and the Interventionists, and coped with famine and economic breakdown. The soviets would have been forced to assume state functions in order to protect the 'red bastion'. The measure might not be exactly the same but they may not have been significantly different. In the context of an isolated revolution, what choices are there, realistically?

[PhoenixAsh]

of course we also won't be talking about the fact that by August 1918 the workforce consisted of a third of government officials. but naturally the domination of the bureaucracy comes as a complete surprise and all those Bolsheviks purged by Stalin years later were of course powerless to do anything about that in the meantime. or they simply hadn't really noticed (which is contradicted by policies btw). In any case they utterly failed to safeguard the state against it.

also: sorry Blake, my participation today is fragmented because of personal life getting in the way. I have glanced through your post buz since it deserves a more thorough reading and a more thorough reply I will have to put that off to tomorrow. My apologies.

[Dave B]

Well this is what my opponents say on party membership;


Alan Woods and Ted Grant
Lenin and Trotsky—what they really stood for Chapter 7
Lenin's Struggle Against Bureaucracy




In February, 1917, the Bolshevik Party had no more than 23,000 members in the whole of Russia. At the height of the Civil War, when party membership involved personal risk, the ranks were thrown open to the workers, who pushed the membership to 200,000. But as the war grew to a close, the party membership actually trebled reflecting an influx of careerists and elements from hostile classes and parties.
Lenin at this time repeatedly emphasised the danger of the Party succumbing to the pressures and moods of the petty-bourgeois masses; that the main enemy of the revolution was:

"everyday economics in a small-peasant country with a ruined large industry. He is the petty-bourgeois element which surrounds us like the air, and penetrates deep into the ranks of the proletariat. And the proletariat is de-classed, i.e. dislodged from its class groove. The factories and mills are idle - the proletariat is weak, scattered, enfeebled. On the other hand the petty-bourgeois element within the country is backed by the whole international bourgeoisie, which retains its power throughout the world." (Works, vol. 33, page 23)

The "purge" initiated by Lenin in 1921 had nothing in common with the monstrous frame-up trials of Stalin; there was no police, no trials, no prison-camps; merely the ruthless weeding out of petty-bourgeois and Menshevik elements from the ranks of the Party, in order to preserve the ideas and traditions of October from the poisonous effects of petty-bourgeois reaction. By early 1922, some 200,000 members (one-third of the membership) had been expelled.



http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/1969/lat/7.htm

I think those numbers are about right, I have checked my archived stuff and it looks like the membership had peaked at 611,000 at the beginning of 1920 at the ninth congress.

It was quickly trimmed back by Lenin to less than 400,000.

I had a number in my head of something in the high 700,000’s but I can’t find anything reliable that high from the Lenin archive.

Did I mention Rabinowitch in this thread?; I honestly can’t remember and I won’t check.

I do actually remember thinking about him because I ‘seemed to remember’ he had some pictures of the demonstration in his book and also ‘I seem to remember’ that he went as far as to say there was warning shots but no one killed etc etc.

Which is a bit better than a total lie of complete omission even if it is still a lie.


I have given multiple, independent, contemporary and corroborated historical references to this event and spent much less time on commenting on it myself.

It is worth mentioning that I always try to make the effort of providing source material with as much help to locate it as possible eg page numbers etc.

It looks like the detailed Maxim Gorky account was published in his own newspaper on the 9th January. It talks about how the idea of the constituent assembly had been an aspiration of the working class since before 1905 etc how thousands had been killed, and sent to the gallows etc, under the Tsar fighting for it. And ; yet now the peoples commissars gave the order to shoot down the crowd demonstrating in honour of this idea……….


The same idea that the Bolsheviks, Lenin and Trotsky were supporting less than two months before.

Actually I don’t think it was a particularly important Bolshevik atrocity in the general scheme of things.

[I will apologise the demonstration and shooting took place on the 5th whilst the constituent assembly was sitting.]

I am not sure if that makes thing worse or better; people were aware that the Bolsheviks were planning to shut it down.


A very short account I ‘remember’ reading on the proceedings of the constituent assembly, details of which are extremely difficult to obtain.

Was that the first discussions or debate etc was on what was to be discussed or debated and in what order etc. The Bolsheviks wanted a resolution basically saying that the constituent assembly must completely and immediately submit to the soviet etc etc put forward first.


[There had been discussions prior to its election eg from Zinoviev on it operating under a system of dual power or 'combined type'.]


Or if you like more broadly speaking the relationship between the constituent assembly and the Soviet.



The vote was against placing that matter as one of the first items on the agenda.

If you have a non Bolshevik source for the proceedings of that day I would be really interested in it.

Gorky was not a complete shit and had been a friend of Lenin’s eg

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/feb/07mg.htm

These kind of spurious comments about me supporting Entente or whatever; for putting up a quotation to demonstrate that the German capitalist class considered that the growth in support for the Bolsheviks was due to their financial support is beneath contempt.

I thought it was an interesting case of live history repeating itself.

The American neo-cons financing a fascist coup in Ukraine today and the Kaiser doing the same thing in Russia in 1917.

[Blake's Baby]

So, what you are saying Dave B, is that the Bolsheviks were neo-fascists supported by the Kaiser, because in mid-1917 they supported the Constituent Assembly and wanted Russia out of the war (positions shared by yourself)? So, are you a neo-fascist supported by the Kaiser too?

[Dave B]

There is also the following I had in a word file, even though I can't remember where I got it from; I think it is interesting enough as it fits in with other stuff and has some new additional material.


The Bolsheviks decided to take harsh measures in response. On January 5 (18), 1918, the newspaper Pravda ["Truth"] published a resolution signed by Moisey Uritsky (1873-1918), a member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, prohibiting any rallies or demonstrations in regions adjacent to the Tauride Palace. The resolution went on to state that any such demonstrations would be suppressed by military force.


Despite the threats, the demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly did take place in Petrograd. According to several estimates, the lead column numbered around 60,000 persons. It was composed of blue-collar and white-collar workers, the intelligentsia, and students. They moved toward the Tauride Palace and were fired upon by machine guns and rifles of Bolshevik regiments of Latvian and Lithuanian Red Army soldiers. According to official data published on January 6 (19), 1918 in the newspaper Izvestiya VTsIK ["News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee"], 21 persons were killed and several hundred were wounded.



The dead included prominent members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Even the proletarian writer Maxim Gorky was unable to hold back his indignation about the events: "The People's Commissars fired upon the workers of Petrograd without warning and ambushed them, firing through openings in fences in a cowardly way, like real murderers.


I am sure I will respond to Blakes^ post soon.

[Five Year Plan]

So the highlights of what I have taken away from the painful task of reading ten pages of this thread:

1) It is not important to read Lenin (though, oddly, it is okay to cherry-pick out-of-context quotes by him), because he was a cynical, power-hungry and terrible human being who just invented arguments to suit whatever option at the time concentrated the most authority in his hands, which was his underlying goal the entire time.

2) People who adhere to Bolshevism as a revolutionary form of organization, or harken back to that tradition, are not revolutionary and cannot call themselves revolutionaries at all. Bolshevism is not a revolutionary ideology. They don't seek to overthrow the bourgeois state as part of a process of establishing communism.

3) Arguing publicly on a website accessible by any Dutch worker that supporting the Dutch SP is the best option for the Dutch working-class to avoid the catastrophes of austerity is not "supporting the Dutch SP." Apparently, arguing that a political party represents a best possible option is not an example of what we old timers refer to as "propagandizing" and is therefore not the same as "supporting," just because it doesn't involve the casting of ballots.

4) Calling a group "elites" represents a sterling example of class analysis.

[Five Year Plan]

It's "odd" - strange word to describe my observation, but whatever - because it reflects the changing demographic of Revleft towards lesser and lesser degrees of centralism. I think this has as much to do with 90% of Marxist-Leninists (justly) getting banned whenever the Red Army rapes come up, but I'd like to think it also has to do with Revleft moving away from ultra-centralist ideologies.

Based on what I have seen when browsing older threads, this supposed move away from "ultra-centralist ideologies" is, in fact, quite centralist, and there definitely seems to be a recurring pattern in place where members of the forum who at least attempt to adhere to the basic canons of Bolshevism are hounded and trolled by committed users and forum moderators in discussions, with the tacit approval of the administration. This happens to the point where either the poster responds in kind to the escalation, at which point he is banned for basically doing the same thing that his unpunished interlocutors did, or the user bites his tongue and lives to fight another day. This second option remains palatable for only so long, however, and users will often opt to leave on their own rather than have to go through it again and again. A recent example of this that comes to mind is inertia/9mm, who whatever his formal affiliation with the CWI was, was definitely in the camp of actual Bolshevism. But there are many others. I know I have come close to leaving permanently, and I haven't been here nearly as long as Vincent or 9mm were.

Now my point in bringing this up isn't to whine about unfair life is. It's to make clear that people who tend to engage in the trolling and harassment (and sometimes outright stalking from thread to thread) are overwhelmingly wedded to what is functionally a soc-dem vision, even though this often takes the label of "CWI" (which buries itself long-term in social democratic parties, effectively becoming their extension) or even "anarchist" ("overthrowing all forms of state isn't on the agenda, so we'll just have to support this or that bourgeois or soc-dem party").

This social dem vision is one that fetishizes setting and uniting the working masses in motion, and believes that programmatic clarity is "sectarian" and "divisive." So on the face of it, they would seem to be anti-centralist. Yet look who isn't welcome and who is driven out: posters like 9mm and countless others who, when not outright banned, have simply stopped posting out of disgust and frustration. That is not unity, and its certainly not decentralization. It's a concerted act of power, that reaches all the way to the top of the board administration, that drives out sections of the "revolutionary left." Sometimes this takes place under the guise, as articulated helpfully by Phoenix in this thread, that this or that ideology isn't really revolutionary, so its adherents don't belong on the forum in the first place. But the guise is irrelevant. It's functionally "centralization," albeit under a different form. You, synthesis, might agree with the politics of the people behind these antics, and that's fine. Just don't pretend that it's anything other than what it clearly is, whether you support it or not.


Revleft has fewer liberals masquerading as socialists now than there has ever been, whether you recognize it or not. And again, what I am criticizing in this particular instance, and what you refuse to recognize due to an uncharacteristic level of defensiveness, is not "vanguardism" - although I don't think the theory does enough to prevent substitutionism - but the use of vanguardist theory by petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists to express openly chauvinistic attitudes towards the working class.As Vincent West explained systematically, petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists can use many different pretexts to try to substitute their grand all-knowing vision for the agency of the working class. Vanguardism should not be singled out as unique in this regard.

[SeanSouth]

The Soviet Union went wrong because opportunists and revisionists weren't completely purged so when Krushchev took over he could denounce Stalin and put the country on the path to Capitalism.

[ComradeOm]

The question of course remains why of the Bolsheviks were massively supported they felt the need to abolish every democratic process and abolish the ca and eventually the soviets by subjugation them to party rule instead of the other way around.You seem to have missed the title of this thread.

But let me be clear: there is no question that in 1917 through to early 1918 the Bolsheviks were the most popular party of the Russian proletariat. This was demonstrated, ironically enough, by the Constituent Assembly - they swept the board in the working class areas of Petrograd and other urban centres. It wasn't until mid-1918 that this support began to weaken (and even then, only relatively) as the economic collapse showed no sign of halting.

Everything has to proceed from this reality; the question becomes not how the Bolsheviks stole into power but how a democratic and revolutionary mass movement degenerated. Which is very different from talk of party dictatorship or power-hungry opportunists, etc. Asking 'what went wrong' requires an understanding of the events, not some superficial analysis that paints the Bolsheviks as a set of power-hungry thugs and assumes that it all went wrong from there.


Of course, the problem is not the abolition of the Constituent Assembly, it's the establishment of the Council of People's Commissars. The problem is not that the Bolsheviks were against bourgeois democracy, but that they were too wedded to Second International notions of the role of the proletarian party. Not that they were against the state, but that they weren't against the state enough.

The soviets should have been the power in Russia. The Bolsheviks should have worked in them. Instead they created a new parallel state structure and denied the working class the opportunity to fully steer the ship of state (and that's exactly what it was at that point, a state that was in the hands of the working class - not an abolished state or a 'socialist state' (whatever that means) or a 'workers' state', just a state in which the working class had taken political control). The Bolsheviks took control from the working class.Except that the role of the Party was conditioned by circumstances rather than doctrine.

For example, far from looking to install a 'dictatorship of the party', the Bolshevik Party itself atrophied in the months post-October. Outside of the CC, party work almost stopped entirely as its members and activists transferred their activity to the soviets. It's hard to argue that the Bolsheviks set out to create "a parallel state" when their party membership in, say, Petrograd more than halved between October 1917 and June 1918*. It wasn't until mid-1918 that this policy was reversed and efforts made to rebuild the Party's ranks as an organ of government.

Of course, by the time that the Party was revived as a key element of the Soviet apparatus it was no longer the organisation it had been in 1917. Frankly, had it remained the democratic mass organisation it had been then, well, there wouldn't have been that much of a problem.

*Largely because Bolshevik members, as exactly the most militant workers, were being drawn into the soviets and Red Army. The Bolsheviks were working through the soviets. Interestingly enough, the latter were hardly ideal either: soviets had never been designed as organs for class rule and were unwieldy at best.

[DenizGezmis1995]

Where did the Soviet union begin it's path to capitalism?
it was a totalitarian movement from the start despite my deep admiration for the power of charisma of both Lenin and Trotsky and both of their harsh criticisms of Stalin. They were both advocates of democratic centralism which although a decent theory was difficult in practice and led to the massive state bureaucracy which stagnated and destroyed the soviet economy. Also the outlawing of all other socialist groups that disagreed with the Marxist- Leninist/ Stalinist method of socialism, notably the anarchists and left communists. These may seem like minor poltical issues that have little to do with the progress of socialism in the U.S.S.R but the undercurent of other leftists movements that can challenge and oppose the sometimes absurd measures of the soviet union in socialist implementation are very important. without any opposition the unaccountable bureaucracy is allowed to flourish. not to mention the absolute failure of centrally planned economy which will always pale in comparison to decentralized economics that allows for greater economic freedom and thus the incentive to labour. in conclusion the hard-line Stalinist approach of the soviet union was its death rattle and it had already begun by the time of Lenin and Trotsky, Stalin merely put the nail in the coffin and discredited socialism by exporting his horrid fascist brand of socialism worldwide. Long life libertarian socialism, anarcho syndicalism, anarcho communism, and last but not least Orthodox Marxism!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It looks like the detailed Maxim Gorky account was published in his own newspaper on the 9th January. It talks about how the idea of the constituent assembly had been an aspiration of the working class since before 1905 etc how thousands had been killed, and sent to the gallows etc, under the Tsar fighting for it. And ; yet now the peoples commissars gave the order to shoot down the crowd demonstrating in honour of this idea……….

That's because Gorky was an example of what Hegel called the beautiful soul, his head filled with morality to the extent that no room was left for politics. The convocation of the Constituent Assembly was a bourgeois-democratic demand that the Bolsheviks (and Mensheviks) shared with the KaDets and even the left wing of the Octobrists if I'm not mistaken. But in 1918, the autocracy was dead, quite literally. The question of proletarian power had posed itself. To insist on old democratic demands in those conditions is either stupidity or treason. Likewise with universal suffrage. This was another democratic demand that generations of socialists struggles and died for. But one of the first acts of any proletarian authority will be to restrict the suffrage to proletarians and certain other groups, excluding the bourgeoisie. The old struggle was not pointless; but now it has been made obsolete by changing circumstances.


These kind of spurious comments about me supporting Entente or whatever; for putting up a quotation to demonstrate that the German capitalist class considered that the growth in support for the Bolsheviks was due to their financial support is beneath contempt.

Yes, the quotation demonstrates just that, if "the German capitalist class" means "one mid-level bureaucrat", "growth in support" means "printing a newspaper", and most importantly, if you accept the entire telegram as legitimate. The comments about your support for the Entente are not "spurious"; should I bring up the time you tried to prove that the Czech Legions were good guys who would have "kicked the shit out of the Central Powers" (your own words (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2391979&postcount=72) - how sad that they didn't have an opportunity to show those Krauts what they've got coming, eh?) if only the evil German-sponsored Trotsky hadn't stopped them.


The American neo-cons financing a fascist coup in Ukraine today and the Kaiser doing the same thing in Russia in 1917.

So how does an ostensible worker become a Menshevik drone? How does anyone, anyone in their right mind, look back at the rotten edifice of the Organising Committee and go "yeah, those people really had the right idea"? Really? The Bolsheviks were fascists before fascism existed, apparently.


There is also the following I had in a word file, even though I can't remember where I got it from; I think it is interesting enough as it fits in with other stuff and has some new additional material.

I think you got it from a site affiliated with David Icke, since it mentions a "Red Army" at least a week before the Red Army was formed, so some kind of time travel was apparently involved. Also it talks about "the people's commissars" firing upon demonstrators, which leaves one with a hilarious image of Dybenko, at the end of his wits, snapping and gunning down entire crowds by himself.

[Dave B]

From the unknown source the bit;

‘The People's Commissars fired upon the workers of Petrograd without warning and ambushed them, firing through openings in fences in a cowardly way, like real murderers.

Was their own quotation of Maxim Gorky.

[I seem to remember it was from a fairly recent book written by a Russian, I might have got it from the library.]

I placed a clear caveat on it as an un-sourced material that corroborated other material.

It was very similar to Abrahamovitch’s Gorky quotation.

[Abrahamovitch for instance had gaps in railings]

Abrahamovitch also had the Gorky quotation with the People's Commissars in inverted comma’s- whatever that means or who cares.

I have not seen the entire Gorky article; don’t suppose anyone has it?

I never said the Czech Legions were the good guys I said they were not whites and were opposed to their ‘own’ version an oppressive imperial autocratic Austrian-Hungarian ‘Tsar’ and only wanted Czech independence.

As I understand it the political orientation of the Czech Legions was somewhat mixed as is often the case with broad national independence movements.

It wasn’t one Telegram it was many telegrams demonstrating the policy of creating chaos in your enemies backyard by financing anybody conveniently to hand irrespective of their political orientation eg the anti Semitic fascists in Ukraine and Al-Qaeda in Syria etc.


REPORT NO. 26

A 4166 Petrograd, 24 January 1918

An identical report has been sent to the State Secretary.

Judging by purely external signs, the power of the Bolsheviks seems to have secured itself to some extent during the last few days. Whether or how long this positive trend will last remains to be seen. Since political life here moves entirely in convulsive spasms, one must always be prepared to reckon with very brief stages.

For the moment, however, the big planned coups of the Smolny government have been successful. Since it depended on the support of the Red Guard and of marines rather than on the army proper and thus had control of the streets, it was not very difficult for the government to send the Constituent Assembly, whose opening looks more and more like a farce, home after little more than twenty-four hours and, in place of this unacceptable body, to summon the Convention, which supports the government unconditionally.

In all other fields, too, the government is following the well-tried formula: 'If you won't be my brother I'll beat your brains in.' The press could hardly be more completely gagged. With the exception of the party organs Pravda and Izvestia, all the newspapers are strictly censored and, if necessary, severely punished.* Political opponents, too, enjoy short shrift. Politicians, deputies, editors, and other such members of the opposition live under a continual threat to their liberty, if not worse. Those arrested last week include Shamanski, the president of the Red Cross. There is no means of knowing how many other people may have shared this fate, as only very few cases are admitted publicly and the government presumably 'works' mainly in secret.

The great sensation of the last few days was the murder of the ex-Ministers Shingarev and Kokoshkin. Because of their poor state of health, these two men had been taken from the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul to a hospital, where they were shot by marines on the night after their admission. Kokoshkin was shot dead, but Shingarev only died after several hours suffering. At first sight, the crime bore all the marks of a simple political murder, but the governing clique denies any complicity, claiming that, on the contrary, the murder was contrived by the opposition in order to secure for themselves a weapon against the Bolsheviks.

Mirbach

1 The Kaiser's marginal remark: 'We shall have to do the same with our gutter-press.'


Mirbach later became the permanent German ambassador in Petrograd and was assassinated by the SR’s.

[PhoenixAsh]

The Bolsheviks never had the majority vote in the entire country. And halfway through 18 they lost significant support when their votes dropped by 60% across country and 30% in the cities. Even more so Menshevik and left-SR gained significantly in soviets which were then disbanded with force (even after Bolsheviks held re elections). Cross country proletarian mass strikes were common and there were dozens of peasant revolts against the Bolsheviks.

I would hardly call that marginal losses.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

There will never be any agreement on this issue. This is just a perfect environment for a tendency war, and all the tired arguments have been thrown around. There is almost nothing left to say.

I think the more interesting discussion to ignite is whether or not the SU was capitalist and at what point did it become capitalist. Whatever your position, explain how exactly it was capitalist or not capitalist and to what point. There is only one definition of capitalism and socialism, so it should be a simple matter.

[Brutus]

It was and always was capitalist. Capitalism exists on a universal level: it can't be abolished in parts.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

It was and always was capitalist. Capitalism exists on a universal level: it can't be abolished in parts.

I don't think that's true. I'm not trying to advocate socialism in one country, but I don't think capitalism must exist on a universal level. It does right now, yes. But what about feudalism? It wasn't abolished universally. There were some parts of the world that were feudal and parts that were capitalist at one point. Bourgeois revolution occurred rapidly but it didn't occur in one singular wave.

Anyway, what would you say if one region of the world did see the proletariat seizing the means of production in that particular area? Just because it's likely to fail doesn't mean that socialism hasn't occurred for a brief period of time. Not that that's desirable, of course.

[Remus Bleys]

it was a totalitarian movement from the start despite my deep admiration for the power of charisma of both Lenin and Trotsky and both of their harsh criticisms of Stalin. They were both advocates of democratic centralism which although a decent theory was difficult in practice and led to the massive state bureaucracy which stagnated and destroyed the soviet economy. Also the outlawing of all other socialist groups that disagreed with the Marxist- Leninist/ Stalinist method of socialism, notably the anarchists and left communists. These may seem like minor poltical issues that have little to do with the progress of socialism in the U.S.S.R but the undercurent of other leftists movements that can challenge and oppose the sometimes absurd measures of the soviet union in socialist implementation are very important. without any opposition the unaccountable bureaucracy is allowed to flourish. not to mention the absolute failure of centrally planned economy which will always pale in comparison to decentralized economics that allows for greater economic freedom and thus the incentive to labour. in conclusion the hard-line Stalinist approach of the soviet union was its death rattle and it had already begun by the time of Lenin and Trotsky, Stalin merely put the nail in the coffin and discredited socialism by exporting his horrid fascist brand of socialism worldwide. Long life libertarian socialism, anarcho syndicalism, anarcho communism, and last but not least Orthodox Marxism!

Honestly you should read some history before ever posting again. What does it matter if it was totalitarian from the start? Is the proletariat supposed to allow the bourgeoisie to flourish, to vote, to have a say in government? How exactly did these two men, Lenin and Trotsky, all by themselves cause the events that occurred in Russia? How did they radically change an entire economic and political regime? How on earth do you explain events that led to the creation of the October revolution that weren't the result of Lenin or Trotsky?
Democratic Centralism is an awkward formula that shouldn't be upheld - many Democratic decisions of the bolsheviks shouldn't have been kept anyway.
The biggest mistake - or lie - in your post is that the left communists and the anarchists were illegalized. The left communists were a part of the bolsheviks for a rather long time, lenin even polemicized against them - but did not kick them out. Anarchists likewise were not "illegalized" rather if they rebelled against the proletarian state their rebellions were crushed.
Of course this does not apply to the Stalinist era, but even then, not all those to the "left" of Lenin were liquidated.

[motion denied]

I don't think that's true. I'm not trying to advocate socialism in one country, but I don't think capitalism must exist on a universal level. It does right now, yes. But what about feudalism? It wasn't abolished universally. There were some parts of the world that were feudal and parts that were capitalist at one point. Bourgeois revolution occurred rapidly but it didn't occur in one singular wave.

Anyway, what would you say if one region of the world did see the proletariat seizing the means of production in that particular area? Just because it's likely to fail doesn't mean that socialism hasn't occurred for a brief period of time. Not that that's desirable, of course.


Capitalism, expansive and uncontrollable as it is, is the first mode of production that exists worldwide. Feudalism was never universal. It did not exist in Brazil, for example.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Capitalism, expansive and uncontrollable as it is, is the first mode of production that exists worldwide. Feudalism was never universal. It did not exist in Brazil, for example.

Ahh ok very good point. I didn't consider this. But then the next question is, if socialism must be universal (which I certainly advocate), then how does revolution even occur? There MUST be a time when parts of the world are socialist while parts of the world are capitalist. Otherwise, the proletariat in Africa, in the UK, in the US, in Mongolia, they would all have to simultaneously rise up to destroy capitalism and I know you don't see that happening right?

[Remus Bleys]

What is so hard for you to understand Ace steel? Proletarian dictatorship =/= socialism. Proletarian dictatorship is still fundamentally capitalist, but it is capitalism that is being attacked, and, just as an aside, will include reforms that while completely compatible with the capitalist mode of production, would never be allowed or followed by the bourgeois state.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

What is so hard for you to understand Ace steel? Proletarian dictatorship =/= socialism. Proletarian dictatorship is still fundamentally capitalist, but it is capitalism that is being attacked, and, just as an aside, will include reforms that while completely compatible with the capitalist mode of production, would never be allowed or followed by the bourgeois state.

So you're saying that socialism will not be achieved under the dotP? Then what is the objective? For each dotP to maintain it and merge with each other until it encompasses the globe? And then it is still fundamentally capitalist even after that? I am not trying to troll, I am legitimately trying to understand this thought process.

[Remus Bleys]

Honestly the dissolution of the Proletarian state is the point of socialism. Socialism will not have a state but a government of (over) people - a state is a product of class struggle, socialism destroys and abolishes all classes. This is in very basic 101 reading. I suggest you readthe Gotha Critique by marx, then read Lenin's State and Revolution,. If you already did, re read them. Then read this https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/ch07.htm

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Honestly the dissolution of the Proletarian state is the point of socialism. Socialism will not have a state but a government of (over) people - a state is a product of class struggle, socialism destroys and abolishes all classes. This is in very basic 101 reading. I suggest you readthe Gotha Critique by marx, then read Lenin's State and Revolution,. If you already did, re read them. Then read this https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/ch07.htm

Will do, I haven't read it. So it seems you're equating socialism with communism. I suppose it's only Marxist-Leninists that see the dotP as completely building socialism, which they do not equate with communism.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, you're partly right. The revolutionary dictatorship (notice the word 'revolutionary') must spread and unite - this is the world revolution. But 'the revolution' is in this sense not 'socialist'. The political revolution brings the proletariat to be the ruling class in society. It cannot simultaneously be the ruling class in society, and not exist as a class. But classes cannot disappear until the basis for classes (that is, property) also disappears, and this cannot happen until all property has been collectivised.

So for a classless society to be constructed, capitalism must be done away with everywhere, all private property must be converted first to public property, under the control of the revolutionary dictatorship. Yes, it must merge with other revolutionary dictatorships - one of the strawmen brought out against the notion of 'world revolution' is that revolutions don't happen at the same time. We agree, it's very likely (almost impossible not to be the case) that the working class will take power first in one place then another. We just don't pretend that the revolution, in a single country, has anything to do with 'socialism'.

It's not 'fundamentally capitalist' once the revolution has encompased the globe, however. To divide something (the globe) you must have two parts. You can't divide the globe into one. Once the revolution goes 1%, 2%, 3%.... 98%, 99%, 100%, something else happens. Quantity is transformed into quality. Once there are no hostile capitalist countries to overcome, there is no need for an external security apparatus. Once everyone is engaged in production and decision-making, there is no 'working class' and no 'government'. By generalising its own condition and spreading its revolution (and revolutionary dictatorship) the working class overcomes both capitalism and the division of the world into states.

That process is the basis for the creation of socialist society, it isn't socialism itself.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Well, you're partly right. The revolutionary dictatorship (notice the word 'revolutionary') must spread and unite - this is the world revolution. But 'the revolution' is in this sense not 'socialist'. The political revolution brings the proletariat to be the ruling class in society. It cannot simultaneously be the ruling class in society, and not exist as a class. But classes cannot disappear until the basis for classes (that is, property) also disappears, and this cannot happen until all property has been collectivised.

So for a classless society to be constructed, capitalism must be done away with everywhere, all private property must be converted first to public property, under the control of the revolutionary dictatorship. Yes, it must merge with other revolutionary dictatorships - one of the strawmen brought out against the notion of 'world revolution' is that revolutions don't happen at the same time. We agree, it's very likely (almost impossible not to be the case) that the working class will take power first in one place then another. We just don't pretend that the revolution, in a single country, has anything to do with 'socialism'.

It's not 'fundamentally capitalist' once the revolution has encompased the globe, however. To divide something (the globe) you must have two parts. You can't divide the globe into one. Once the revolution goes 1%, 2%, 3%.... 98%, 99%, 100%, something else happens. Quantity is transformed into quality. Once there are no hostile capitalist countries to overcome, there is no need for an external security apparatus. Once everyone is engaged in production and decision-making, there is no 'working class' and no 'government'. By generalising its own condition and spreading its revolution (and revolutionary dictatorship) the working class overcomes both capitalism and the division of the world into states.

That process is the basis for the creation of socialist society, it isn't socialism itself.

I think my issue is that I had the notion that people who uphold the dotP also believe that under the dotP, socialism can be completed. And in that case, they believe socialism is a lower phase of communism. But I guess that was a misconception. So, how do you classify the dotP then? It would have to be capitalist. And in that case, why would people bash the SU for being capitalist when the dotP is supposed to be capitalist?

[Blake's Baby]

However anyone else wants to classify things is up to them. I consider myself to be a Marxist and my schema I think is the same as Marx's.

Capitalist society -> revolutionary transformation under the dictatorship of the proletariat -> socialist (or communist) society, in its first and higher phases.

Under the revolutionary dictatorship, capitalism is being changed into something else. For that change to occur, it has to start with capitalism. Until that change is complete, you don't have socialist (communist) society. You may have left capitalist society behind but not yet arrived at socialist society. And economically, though more and more of the economy is in the working class's hands, you can't really talk about socialism until there are no divisions of property and class. So yeah, continued existence of capitalist states will still make the world economy capitalist, will still make the world system statist, even in the revolutionary territories.

I don't 'bash the SU for being capitalist'. I just try to get people to acknowledge that it was instead of pretending nationalising industry is 'socialist'.

There are arguments about whether the SU really was 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' or a party-state that fell prey to a particularly pernicious form of Second-International confusion about the role of the proletarian organisation, and importantly why this should happen, but they're a side question to whether or not the SU was capitalist.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

However anyone else wants to classify things is up to them. I consider myself to be a Marxist and my schema I think is the same as Marx's.

Capitalist society -> revolutionary transformation under the dictatorship of the proletariat -> socialist (or communist) society, in its first and higher phases.

Under the revolutionary dictatorship, capitalism is being changed into something else. For that change to occur, it has to start with capitalism. Until that change is complete, you don't have socialist (communist) society. You may have left capitalist society behind but not yet arrived at socialist society. And economically, though more and more of the economy is in the working class's hands, you can't really talk about socialism until there are no divisions of property and class. So yeah, continued existence of capitalist states will still make the world economy capitalist, will still make the world system statist, even in the revolutionary territories.

I don't 'bash the SU for being capitalist'. I just try to get people to acknowledge that it was instead of pretending nationalising industry is 'socialist'.

There are arguments about whether the SU really was 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' or a party-state that fell prey to a particularly pernicious form of Second-International confusion about the role of the proletarian organisation, and importantly why this should happen, but they're a side question to whether or not the SU was capitalist.

Well you are certainly coherent in your thought process. You admit that it was capitalist and that capitalism still exists under the dotP and will always exist under the dotP. But doesn't that call for perhaps an entirely new classification of dotP? For instance, was Cuba a dotP? Was Yugoslavia? Because you can't claim that they weren't on the basis of them being capitalist since capitalism still exists under the dotP.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Based on what I have seen when browsing older threads, this supposed move away from "ultra-centralist ideologies" is, in fact, quite centralist, and there definitely seems to be a recurring pattern in place where members of the forum who at least attempt to adhere to the basic canons of Bolshevism are hounded and trolled by committed users and forum moderators in discussions, with the tacit approval of the administration. This happens to the point where either the poster responds in kind to the escalation, at which point he is banned for basically doing the same thing that his unpunished interlocutors did, or the user bites his tongue and lives to fight another day. This second option remains palatable for only so long, however, and users will often opt to leave on their own rather than have to go through it again and again. A recent example of this that comes to mind is inertia/9mm, who whatever his formal affiliation with the CWI was, was definitely in the camp of actual Bolshevism. But there are many others. I know I have come close to leaving permanently, and I haven't been here nearly as long as Vincent or 9mm were.

Now my point in bringing this up isn't to whine about unfair life is. It's to make clear that people who tend to engage in the trolling and harassment (and sometimes outright stalking from thread to thread) are overwhelmingly wedded to what is functionally a soc-dem vision, even though this often takes the label of "CWI" (which buries itself long-term in social democratic parties, effectively becoming their extension) or even "anarchist" ("overthrowing all forms of state isn't on the agenda, so we'll just have to support this or that bourgeois or soc-dem party").

This social dem vision is one that fetishizes setting and uniting the working masses in motion, and believes that programmatic clarity is "sectarian" and "divisive." So on the face of it, they would seem to be anti-centralist. Yet look who isn't welcome and who is driven out: posters like 9mm and countless others who, when not outright banned, have simply stopped posting out of disgust and frustration. That is not unity, and its certainly not decentralization. It's a concerted act of power, that reaches all the way to the top of the board administration, that drives out sections of the "revolutionary left." Sometimes this takes place under the guise, as articulated helpfully by Phoenix in this thread, that this or that ideology isn't really revolutionary, so its adherents don't belong on the forum in the first place. But the guise is irrelevant. It's functionally "centralization," albeit under a different form. You, synthesis, might agree with the politics of the people behind these antics, and that's fine. Just don't pretend that it's anything other than what it clearly is, whether you support it or not.

I would also mention the sheer frustration of trying to communicate with people whose views have little to do with revolutionary socialism. Often I find myself using the same, or at least similar, words as other posters, but meaning something else entirely. Then there are the posters whose views are coherent but whose vision for society is alien to anything I consider revolutionary, socialist or appealing. Finally there are people whose posts make me suspect I've gone mentally ill, or perhaps that they've gone mentally ill, because I can stare at them for hours and still not find anything sensible.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is very little of the sort of discussion I would like to be having on this site - something analogous to when comrades from abroad come, you take them out to coffee and so on, and you discuss politics. And it's going to be heated at times, more so than on the site, I might add, but at least you get the feeling you all want the same thing and are, generally speaking, "on the same page". Here I can't write two posts without some of the replies resting on liberalism, coop fetishism, democracy fetishism, creepy Democrat tailing and so on and so on - it gets quite grating. And it gets tiring.

Some of the Bolsheviks on this site, some of the Left Communists, and some anarchists are the only ones that make the thing worthwhile - the thought of more than half of these people being driven away is something I find chilling.

[Blake's Baby]

I claim they weren't, on the basis that the working class wasn't exercising its revolutionary dictatorship. There was this part from the post above that touches on this question:


...
There are arguments about whether the SU really was 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' or a party-state that fell prey to a particularly pernicious form of Second-International confusion about the role of the proletarian organisation, and importantly why this should happen, but they're a side question to whether or not the SU was capitalist.

It's arguable that for a short period, the SU was genuinely a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. I don't think I'd accept any argument that said that Cuba or Yugoslavia also were.

[synthesis]

I'm afraid I still don't see the parallel. There might be one if you assume that spontaneists, as a rule, consider the Bolsheviks to have been an "elite", but that's not a very charitable assumption. Groups like the KAPD had theories of the Bolshevik state that, while incorrect in my less than humble opinion, were at least attempts to give a Marxist analysis of Soviet society and its division into classes. An "elite" is not a class, it's a liberal buzzword. On this very thread we have people who apparently think that Lenin purged the Bolshevik party because having more than 1% of the population in the party just wasn't elite enough.

Okay, I'll try again.


You said that an analysis of a Bolshevik "elite" - wherein you didn't actually care to check whether they were using a liberal definition or using it as shorthand to mean "bourgeoisie" or some sort of "ruling class" - is a "liberal analysis."
Before that, you said that spontaneism and resistance to centralism among the German and Italian working classes represented the "deforming influence of bourgeois [liberal] ideology." (I'm just quoting that because it's tiring to keep trying to paraphrase it, not because I think it's a particularly odious quote.)
These two are similar in that if one recognizes that the Bolsheviks were centralist, then there is room to argue - you don't have to agree, but there is room for, say, an anarchist to argue that the Bolshevik state took power away from the working class.
Since the German and Italian working classes were "privileged" enough, according to you, to be able to hold spontaneist politics, they would have rejected centralism.
So, saying that the centralist Bolsheviks being a ruling class of some sort is a "liberal analysis" is comparable to saying that the German and Italian working classes, who you say rejected centralism, were "deformed by liberal ideology."

That's all. It doesn't have anything to do with the attitudes of spontaneists towards the Bolsheviks at the actual time of the revolution, just with the way you and I look at it now. If that isn't enough to explain the comparison I made, I don't know what is.



Well, I think the important question is, what do you mean by "vanguardism"? Because what you seem to consider vanguardism sounds like stodgy old technocracy to me, and is not something any Leninist party advocates.

You're conflating my arguments with those of other users, as well as different arguments in different places. I specifically said that I'm not intrinsically opposed to vanguardism but that in practice I think there's not enough to the theory about avoiding substitutionism, which I guess you don't think exists or is a problem.

In the case of thesadmafioso, the issue was the dichotomy between how you saw "fetishes for federations and opposition to centralism," I think (that's paraphrased) as petit-bourgeois, whereas I saw centralist attitudes towards the working class - that it can't carry out revolution without your Trotskyist messiahs - to be petit-bourgeois in nature. In both our cases of course it's all based on personal observations, not anything to do with the theory itself.


As Vincent West explained systematically, petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists can use many different pretexts to try to substitute their grand all-knowing vision for the agency of the working class. Vanguardism should not be singled out as unique in this regard.

This is a fair point.

However, I'm not sure where Vincent West "explained it systematically." Can you quote these systematic explanations for me? Because I never noticed any points like that, certainly not explained systematically, and in that case the beginning of your sentence would make you an unnecessarily patronizing dick. With that part cut out, I'd agree with this in full.

[synthesis]

Also, aufheben and Vincent West, if the two of you want to insist that Revleft has gotten more liberal over time I'll go ahead and let you do so. I'm not going to get into an argument about the changing political demographics of the forum with two people who have been here for a combined total of less than two years.

[PhoenixAsh]

So the highlights of what I have taken away from the painful task of reading ten pages of this thread:

1) It is not important to read Lenin (though, oddly, it is okay to cherry-pick out-of-context quotes by him), because he was a cynical, power-hungry and terrible human being who just invented arguments to suit whatever option at the time concentrated the most authority in his hands, which was his underlying goal the entire time.

I have read Lenin. And basically yes. The Bolsheviks always took the road which would ensure power to the Bolsheviks. Not just with Lenin but with Trotsky and Zinoviev to name a few. The cognitive dissonance between the idea that emancipation of the working class could come through the party and the party alone while subsequently divorcing the working class of all actual direct political power is engrained in Bolshevik ideology.




2) People who adhere to Bolshevism as a revolutionary form of organization, or harken back to that tradition, are not revolutionary and cannot call themselves revolutionaries at all. Bolshevism is not a revolutionary ideology. They don't seek to overthrow the bourgeois state as part of a process of establishing communism.

Except it isn't e revolutionary form of organization. It uses the exact same structures the bourgeoisie uses only they call it "workers control" which in fact means control over the state and workers by the party....devoid of any workers emancipation while maintaining the previously existing relationship of workers to the means of production while subjugating them to the exact same capitalists they pretended to combat.

A fact which is highly illustrated when Felix stated that the prison camps were filled with workers instead of the bourgeois.



3) Arguing publicly on a website accessible by any Dutch worker that supporting the Dutch SP is the best option for the Dutch working-class to avoid the catastrophes of austerity is not "supporting the Dutch SP." Apparently, arguing that a political party represents a best possible option is not an example of what we old timers refer to as "propagandizing" and is therefore not the same as "supporting," just because it doesn't involve the casting of ballots.

Actually I haven't argued that at all. Learn to read.


4) Calling a group "elites" represents a sterling example of class analysis.

Unfortunately this is what your precious Bolsheviks amounted to. And in fact the Bolshevik privileges were exactly the reason there were mass strikes against them which they repressed by using indiscriminate violence.

[PhoenixAsh]

Based on what I have seen when browsing older threads, this supposed move away from "ultra-centralist ideologies" is, in fact, quite centralist, and there definitely seems to be a recurring pattern in place where members of the forum who at least attempt to adhere to the basic canons of Bolshevism are hounded and trolled by committed users and forum moderators in discussions, with the tacit approval of the administration. This happens to the point where either the poster responds in kind to the escalation, at which point he is banned for basically doing the same thing that his unpunished interlocutors did, or the user bites his tongue and lives to fight another day. This second option remains palatable for only so long, however, and users will often opt to leave on their own rather than have to go through it again and again. A recent example of this that comes to mind is inertia/9mm, who whatever his formal affiliation with the CWI was, was definitely in the camp of actual Bolshevism. But there are many others. I know I have come close to leaving permanently, and I haven't been here nearly as long as Vincent or 9mm were.

Now my point in bringing this up isn't to whine about unfair life is. It's to make clear that people who tend to engage in the trolling and harassment (and sometimes outright stalking from thread to thread) are overwhelmingly wedded to what is functionally a soc-dem vision, even though this often takes the label of "CWI" (which buries itself long-term in social democratic parties, effectively becoming their extension) or even "anarchist" ("overthrowing all forms of state isn't on the agenda, so we'll just have to support this or that bourgeois or soc-dem party").

This social dem vision is one that fetishizes setting and uniting the working masses in motion, and believes that programmatic clarity is "sectarian" and "divisive." So on the face of it, they would seem to be anti-centralist. Yet look who isn't welcome and who is driven out: posters like 9mm and countless others who, when not outright banned, have simply stopped posting out of disgust and frustration. That is not unity, and its certainly not decentralization. It's a concerted act of power, that reaches all the way to the top of the board administration, that drives out sections of the "revolutionary left." Sometimes this takes place under the guise, as articulated helpfully by Phoenix in this thread, that this or that ideology isn't really revolutionary, so its adherents don't belong on the forum in the first place. But the guise is irrelevant. It's functionally "centralization," albeit under a different form. You, synthesis, might agree with the politics of the people behind these antics, and that's fine. Just don't pretend that it's anything other than what it clearly is, whether you support it or not.

As Vincent West explained systematically, petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists can use many different pretexts to try to substitute their grand all-knowing vision for the agency of the working class. Vanguardism should not be singled out as unique in this regard.

That is rich.

After instituting a state capitalist government while divorcing the working class of any real power and continuously belittling the working class as being to fucking dumb to manage themselves (yes...all Lenin/Trotsky etc) and ensuring domination by use of advocated terror against workers and calling for their total subjugation under party control while at the same time bloodily prosecuting just about every tendency in the revolutionary left which did not agree with your little capitalist enterprise and warned you on every turn about the obvious dangers...and decades of inability to prevent degeneration; rampart bureaucracy; state terror and a complete and utter failure to bring about any form of workers emancipation at all before and after the civil war and writing all this off as resulting "material conditions which were so very difficult" instead of the inherent huge gaping ideological flaws which were already pointed out decades before there even was a revolutionary potential in Russia...

Users who adhere to the basic canons of Bolshevism are now being hounded.

Sure.

You are not hounded. You are being called out.

A Unity? After Bolsheviks still refuse to acknowledge their many, many ideological faults and still excuse their often repeated brutal prosecution of non Bolsheviks?

You have got to be kidding me.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Well this has turned into a sectarian shitstorm

[motion denied]

Well this has turned into a sectarian shitstorm


We're in Revleft after all...

[Remus Bleys]

Sectarianism is not putting the interests of one group over another group - this is good in many cases, one should always put the interests of the proletariat and proletarian organizations over the interests of any group or individuals regardless of if they claim to be communist or not. Real communists, as the Manifesto states, have the same interests of the class (conversely, to be a communist you must fight for the interests of the class). An example of sectarianism is not working with workers (when such work would benefit the communist movement) because they belong to a different group and working with them would make he other group popular. An example of intransigence would be polemicizing against the leaders of those groups, showing the workers the limitations of said groups, pointing out the real struggle, not falling to opportunism etc. Destroying the sects that pose a threat to class autonomism (which obviously includes the vanguard and the party) is a cornerstone of communist activity.
To hell with "Left Unity."

edit: I guess I made or semi unclear: Sectarianism is putting the needs of a sect over the needs of the class.

[PhoenixAsh]

Because bourgeois democracy produces a bourgeois republic?

Of course, the problem is not the abolition of the Constituent Assembly, it's the establishment of the Council of People's Commissars. The problem is not that the Bolsheviks were against bourgeois democracy, but that they were too wedded to Second International notions of the role of the proletarian party. Not that they were against the state, but that they weren't against the state enough.

I can partially agree on this. However I think the notion that they weren't against the state enough is shy of their actual position. Far before the outbreak of civil war the Bolshevik party was arguing the centralization of power in the party in order to do so the state institutions left by the bourgeois were used in order to gain control over the state and when that didn't work the CA was disbanded and other ways to control the state were used, such as centralized military power, a police force etc. However the notion of a state to ensure a state-capitalist mode of production was always the main goal.


The soviets should have been the power in Russia. The Bolsheviks should have worked in them. Instead they created a new parallel state structure and denied the working class the opportunity to fully steer the ship of state (and that's exactly what it was at that point, a state that was in the hands of the working class - not an abolished state or a 'socialist state' (whatever that means) or a 'workers' state', just a state in which the working class had taken political control). The Bolsheviks took control from the working class.

Agreed.

Which is more adequately called: counter revolution.


But that pales into insignificance when held up against the fact that even if they hadn't, the revolutiopn was still doomed if limited to Russia. Contra those 'Anarchists' who insist socialism in one country is possible if 'the people' (whoever they are) want it enough (ergo, as socialist society wasn't established in Russia, 'the people' didn't want it, which also isn't the fault of the Bolsheviks), even if the soviets had retained power, the Soviet Republic would still have had to fight the Whites, and the Interventionists, and coped with famine and economic breakdown. The soviets would have been forced to assume state functions in order to protect the 'red bastion'. The measure might not be exactly the same but they may not have been significantly different. In the context of an isolated revolution, what choices are there, realistically?

There are two main elements that go hand in hand. The material conditions and severe flaws in Bolshevik ideology. Both were instrumental in the collapse of the revolution. The absence of either however would not have led to the success of the revolution. Taking out the material conditions would still leave the Bolshevik ideology inherently flawed and unable to create working class empowerment. Taking out the Bolshevik ideology and exchange it for Anarchist ideology would also result in a failed revolution.

However. Bolsheviks, like Trotsky, would, till the very end, argue the choices the Bolshevik party made were essentially the correct result of correct ideological and principled analysis and blame the entirety of the failure of the revolution on the material conditions or, in some cases, on Stalin and the (suddenly appearing as it often seems in their arguments) bureaucracy.

So the question would most likely not be if the revolution would have succeeded. The question would be how it would have failed when Bolsheviks had not been the sole ruling party and workers emancipation and empowerment was implemented and at what cost.

There are very good arguments to be made that a different approach to the economic situation, the absence of the institution of terror against workers etc. would have created far more favorable economic circumstances. Without recreating the relationship of the workers to the means of production as under capitalism only now with the added problems of state repression and coercion by those who pretended to act in their name and as executing their will and therefore could not be opposed.

[Five Year Plan]

Sectarianism is not putting the interests of one group over another group - this is good in many cases, one should always put the interests of the proletariat and proletarian organizations over the interests of any group or individuals regardless of if they claim to be communist or not. Real communists, as the Manifesto states, have the same interests of the class (conversely, to be a communist you must fight for the interests of the class). An example of sectarianism is not working with workers (when such work would benefit the communist movement) because they belong to a different group and working with them would make he other group popular. An example of intransigence would be polemicizing against the leaders of those groups, showing the workers the limitations of said groups, pointing out the real struggle, not falling to opportunism etc. Destroying the sects that pose a threat to class autonomism (which obviously includes the vanguard and the party) is a cornerstone of communist activity.
To hell with "Left Unity."


No, sectarianism means putting the interests of a sect over the interests of working-class emancipation. It's a form of what Trotskyists have called, in the context of intra-party disputes, "personal combinationism."

Then, you have the operational definition used on Revleft, which just illustrates the point Vincent West was making in his last post about how far removed most users on this site are from even a basic understanding of revolutionary terminology, history, and theory. According to that definition, "sectarianism" basically means asserting a principled political argument in a way that divides the working class on the basis of some issue or question.

[Remus Bleys]

No, sectarianism means putting the interests of a sect over the interests of working-class emancipation. It's a form of what Trotskyists have called, in the context of intra-party disputes, "personal combinationism."

Then, you have the operational definition used on Revleft, which just illustrates the point Vincent West was making in his last post about how far removed most users on this site are from even a basic understanding of revolutionary terminology, history, and theory. According to that definition, "sectarianism" basically means asserting a principled political argument in a way that divides the working class on the basis of some issue or question.

Well yeah. I re read my post and totally and completely stand by it and I also agree with yours. I edited my post after re reading it (before your reply) and tbh I am confused by what you mean by "no." I think you are misreading me because I don't see any contradiction between what you are saying and what I am saying other than the fact you reference trotskyists and I would reference the Rome Theses.

[motion denied]

This is all necrophilia at this point. Actually, it only shows how devoid from struggles Revleft members are. I wish I could find a quote by Paul Mattick where he says that this excessive preoccupation (obsession, at times) about the past means little concern about the present and future, communism as a hobby or historical curiosity...

Well, that's now a meta-thread. I refrain from derailing any further, sorry.

[Five Year Plan]

That is rich.

After instituting a state capitalist government while divorcing the working class of any real power and continuously belittling the working class as being to fucking dumb to manage themselves (yes...all Lenin/Trotsky etc) and ensuring domination by use of advocated terror against workers and calling for their total subjugation under party control while at the same time bloodily prosecuting just about every tendency in the revolutionary left which did not agree with your little capitalist enterprise and warned you on every turn about the obvious dangers...and decades of inability to prevent degeneration; rampart bureaucracy; state terror and a complete and utter failure to bring about any form of workers emancipation at all before and after the civil war and writing all this off as resulting "material conditions which were so very difficult" instead of the inherent huge gaping ideological flaws which were already pointed out decades before there even was a revolutionary potential in Russia...

Users who adhere to the basic canons of Bolshevism are now being hounded.

Sure.

You are not hounded. You are being called out.

A Unity? After Bolsheviks still refuse to acknowledge their many, many ideological faults and still excuse their often repeated brutal prosecution of non Bolsheviks?

You have got to be kidding me.

Your post here consists of an argument of why you think the Bolsheviks were counter-revolutionary. But if you had read a little more carefully, you would have seen that the post of mine to which you are responding did not take a position one way or other on that question. It was a statement of fact about how people espousing Bolshevism are treated on the forum in relation to how other people who espouse views traditionally grouped under the rubic of revolutionary leftism are treated. As I said, you can agree with that differential treatment, spend paragraph after paragraph defending why that treatment exists (as you seem to be doing in your reply), but don't deny it's there.

If it were a matter of board policy that Bolshevism is counter-revolutionary, then people espousing those views should be either restricted or banned, and your above reply about how the Bolsheviks were objectively counter-revolutionary would be a reasonable justification. The way things are run now, however, is that there is a fiction that anarchists, left-communists, Marxists-Leninists, Kautskyists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc., are all treated equally. In reality, however, there is hidden structure of advantages and disadvantages assigned to these various groups, and it operates in a hidden and unofficial way through administrative sanction, selective enforcement of rules, and so on. Stalin would seriously blush at some of it.

The irony, of course, is that these hidden prerogatives, operating as they do is the most undemocratic and hidden ways, is deployed by the same people on this forum who fetishize democracy and scream "bloody murder!" at the thought that the Bolsheviks canceled an election here, or violated a "civil liberty" there. By the very rubric of "revolutionary" bona fides that these people espouse, they cannot be trusted politically. Yet here they are, many of them, managing a political discussion forum about revolutionary leftist politics.

[synthesis]

Your post here consists of an argument of why you think the Bolsheviks were counter-revolutionary. But if you had read a little more carefully, you would have seen that the post of mine to which you are responding did not take a position one way or other on that question. It was a statement of fact about how people espousing Bolshevism are treated on the forum in relation to how other people who espouse views traditionally grouped under the rubic of revolutionary leftism are treated. As I said, you can agree with that differential treatment, spend paragraph after paragraph defending why that treatment exists (as you seem to be doing in your reply), but don't deny it's there.

If it were a matter of board policy that Bolshevism is counter-revolutionary, then people espousing those views should be either restricted or banned. The way things are run now, however, is that there is a fiction that anarchists, left-communists, Marxists-Leninists, Kautskyists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc., are all treated equally. In reality, however, there is hidden structure of advantages and disadvantages assigned to these various groups, and it operates in a hidden and unofficial way through administrative sanction, selective enforcement of rules, and so on.

The irony, of course, is that these hidden prerogatives, operating as they do is the most undemocratic and hidden ways, is deployed by the same people on this forum who fetishize democracy and scream "bloody murder!" at the thought that the Bolsheviks canceled an election here, or violated a "civil liberty" there.

Oh my God, dude, you have no idea how played out this shit is. Literally every tendency has at some point or another insisted that there is some sort of BA or forum conspiracy against them. And not that I'm supporting them or even arguing against you but in most cases they have actual bans to try to prove their point, whereas your only examples seem to be self-requested deactivations.

[Five Year Plan]

Oh my God, dude, you have no idea how played out this shit is. Literally every tendency has at some point or another insisted that there is some sort of BA or forum conspiracy against them. And not that I'm supporting them or even arguing against you but in most cases they have actual bans to try to prove their point, whereas your only examples seem to be self-requested deactivations.

And if I started listing the highly questionable bans that I've noticed from just the past few months of searching the forum, you'd shrug your shoulders and say, "yeah, members of every tendency can list a few unfair bans." And my point is that in proportion to their numbers on the forum, those attempting to adhere to Bolshevism (in a non-opportunist form) are disproportionately singled out. When you throw the self-requested deactivations into the mix, it's even more staggering, really.

Not only that, in yet another instance of what I have been describing, I would probably be banned for "apologizing" for whatever those people were supposedly banned for.

Now would you like a link to the post where Vincent systematically explained how vanguardism is not unique to "substitutionism"?

[PhoenixAsh]

Your post here consists of an argument of why you think the Bolsheviks were counter-revolutionary. But if you had read a little more carefully, you would have seen that the post of mine to which you are responding did not take a position one way or other on that question. It was a statement of fact about how people espousing Bolshevism are treated on the forum in relation to how other people who espouse views traditionally grouped under the rubic of revolutionary leftism are treated. As I said, you can agree with that differential treatment, spend paragraph after paragraph defending why that treatment exists (as you seem to be doing in your reply), but don't deny it's there.

I have read carefully. I chose to focus on the word choice.

There are two levels of this. User and administration.

Yes most, but not all, Bolsheviks are treated differently by a vast number of users, myself included, based on the fact that either there is a structural unwillingness and inability to engage on the basis of ideology without Bolsheviks tending to denounce every other tendency as being petit-bourgeois, liberal, counter revolutionary, social democrats or what else there is plus in a complete rejection of any form of ideological introspection on the results of the revolution and the Bolshevik position and treatment of other tendencies.

Notice that there are huge glaring exceptions to this.

However when it comes to administration....



If it were a matter of board policy that Bolshevism is counter-revolutionary, then people espousing those views should be either restricted or banned.

It isn't.



The way things are run now, however, is that there is a fiction that anarchists, left-communists, Marxists-Leninists, Kautskyists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc., are all treated equally. In reality, however, there is hidden structure of advantages and disadvantages assigned to these various groups, and it operates in a hidden and unofficial way through administrative sanction, selective enforcement of rules, and so on.

I don't think there is. Enforcement of the rules remains inevitably subjective to a certain degree there is an overall balance in imbalance. I think the make up of the board administration is a fairly accurate representation of most large tendencies with several Bolshevists and Marxist-Leninists.


The irony, of course, is that these hidden prerogatives, operating as they do is the most undemocratic and hidden ways, is deployed by the same people on this forum who fetishize democracy and scream "bloody murder!" at the thought that the Bolsheviks canceled an election here, or violated a "civil liberty" there. By the very rubric of "revolutionary" bona fides that these people espouse, they cannot be trusted politically. Yet here they are, many of them, managing a political discussion forum about revolutionary leftist politics.

Given the fact that we are not talking about cancelling an election here and violating a civil right there but about the structural oppression of the emancipation of the working class and subjugating them to state capitalist mode of productions while divorcing them from their own revolution...I am not entirely sure if you get the criticism.

However that said I do not see this slanting of the BA towards Bolshevist discrimination much less a BA conspiracy against Bolshevist ideology.

What does remain so is that Bolsheviks in some form or another have managed to violate in percentile significant numbers some very fundamental board rules or come very close to it. For example when it comes to crimes committed by the Red Army after their liberation of Germany.

That said. The conclusion that the BA can not be trusted politically because of this perceived difference of treatment is problematic.

[PhoenixAsh]

This is all necrophilia at this point. Actually, it only shows how devoid from struggles Revleft members are. I wish I could find a quote by Paul Mattick where he says that this excessive preoccupation (obsession, at times) about the past means little concern about the present and future, communism as a hobby or historical curiosity...

Well, that's now a meta-thread. I refrain from derailing any further, sorry.

The problem is that the past is not the past and the same means of organization and of stated goals are still used and repeated today. This is urgent and important.

As long as the notion exists that the 1917 revolution was a socialist triumph or a success for the working class and that the failure of that revolution was simply a result of the material condition these modes of organization will remain. Without repairing the structural ideological flaws there can be no successful revolution.

[Five Year Plan]

I have read carefully. I chose to focus on the word choice.

There are two levels of this. User and administration.

Yes most, but not all, Bolsheviks are treated differently by a vast number of users, myself included, based on the fact that either there is a structural unwillingness and inability to engage on the basis of ideology without Bolsheviks tending to denounce every other tendency as being petit-bourgeois, liberal, counter revolutionary, social democrats or what else there is plus in a complete rejection of any form of ideological introspection on the results of the revolution and the Bolshevik position and treatment of other tendencies.

Thanks for at least being open about what I was thinking you would try to deny. Bolsheviks are treated differently for "denounc[ing] every other tendency...." What you call "denouncing," many users (and by no means all of them "Bolsheviks") would describe as "making an argument on the basis of political principle." On this distinction, see the post I made to Remus Bleys above about how revleft users (and moderators, too, unsurprisingly) seem to think that there is something inherently harmful about political disagreements.

If you want to claim that what is harmful isn't the political disagreement or denouncing per se, but instead a way of doing it that lacks any kind of principled argument, then I'd expect that the rules regarding "trolling" would come into play.

But then I would expect them to be enforced equally, including on anarchist moderators whose primary motivation on revleft seems to be denouncing Bolsheviks without having mastered basic points of fact in regards to the Russian Revolution.

As I was alluding to in a prior post, it's the most undemocratic who scream the loudest about Bolsheviks' supposed lack of concern over democracy, while the loudest and most frequent denunciations come from those most peeved about how Bolsheviks "denounce" people.

Freud would have a field day with you. You project onto others then attack all your own worst qualities. There are some moderators with some pretty terrible politics on this forum, but at least they (for the most part) at least appear to try to conduct themselves with a reasonable degree of impartiality and fairness. Your politics aside, you are by far the worst moderator on this forum. You are quite close to just admitting matter-of-factly that you pull rank in debates because you don't like what "Bolsheviks" (or "you Trotskyists"?) are saying.

[PhoenixAsh]

Thanks for at least being open about what I was thinking you would try to deny. Bolsheviks are treated differently for "denounc[ing] every other tendency...." What you call "denouncing," many users (and by no means all of them "Bolsheviks") would describe as "making an argument on the basis of political principle." On this distinction, see the post I made to Remus Bleys above about how revleft users (and moderators, too, unsurprisingly) seem to think that there is something inherently harmful about political disagreements.

It isn't the political disagreement but what that political disagreement has entailed in the past in terms of repression and executions. Vehement disagreement is not problematic at all. It was however excruciatingly problematic to the Bolsheviks to the point of work camps, torture and execution. To such a point that even prior to 1922 Bolshevik opposition within the Bolshevik party had to be afraid of speaking their minds.


If you want to claim that what is harmful isn't the political disagreement or denouncing per se, but instead a way of doing it that lacks any kind of principled argument, then I'd expect that the rules regarding "trolling" would come into play.

See above.



But then I would expect them to be enforced equally, including on anarchist moderators whose primary motivation on revleft seems to be denouncing Bolsheviks without having mastered basic points of fact in regards to the Russian Revolution.

O I have mastered the basic points of the revolution enough to understand that no matter what argument is brought up and not matter how many quotes you use to substantiate the claims by how many Bolsheviks those quotes will either be argued to be taken out of context, the specific Bolshevik was problematic, the views hadn't matured yet, or were the result of the material conditions...or just about any other excuse which doesn't actually mean the need to critically confront and assess the Bolshevik ideology and politics themselves which is always and ultimately above any form of reproach.


As I was alluding to in a prior post, it's the most undemocratic who scream the loudest about Bolsheviks' supposed lack of concern over democracy, while the loudest and most frequent denunciations come from those most peeved about how Bolsheviks "denounce" people.

And yet for all your rhetorics it is ironic that since Bolsheviks historically have the attitude to denounce the most people and tendencies, in their official literature, they seem awfully whiny about discrimination when being denounced. Is there an actual tendency the Bolsheviks haven't send to the work camps or to the cellars of the Ch k in droves?

But of course we can't denounce you for that. Since you were all acting in the best interest of the proletariat....when of course you weren't shooting, torturing, or coercing them or their families. :rolleyes:

And if we do...well...Freud would have a field day with us. Interesting. There apparently isn't an intellectual dishonesty you wouldn't stoop too.


Freud would have a field day with you. You project onto others then attack all your own worst qualities. There are some moderators with some pretty terrible politics on this forum, but at least they (for the most part) at least appear to try to conduct themselves with a reasonable degree of impartiality and fairness. Your politics aside, you are by far the worst moderator on this forum. You are quite close to just admitting matter-of-factly that you pull rank in debates because you don't like what "Bolsheviks" (or "you Trotskyists"?) are saying.

I pull rank? Well that is genuinely hilarious to the point that I am wondering of you are actually lucid at the point of writing this. Could you actually point me to where I have taken administrative action against Bolsheviks or argued for their restriction? Or could you perhaps point me to where I actually have taken administrative action against users at all in the time frame I moderated while you were a member here? You are simply making this shit up as you go along in order to facilitate your pitiful self victimization here.

[PhoenixAsh]

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/zinoviev.html


n January 1920, G. ZINOVIEV, President of the Central Executive Committee of the Third International, sent a letter to the Industrial Workers of the World. It appeared in a 1920 issue of One Big Union Monthly, a regular publication of the IWW that appeared up until about World War 2.
It is an interesting document. Given what Zinoviev wrote in the letter and the actual conditions that existed in Russia at the time, we can safely say that Stalinism did not invent doublethink or systematic lying as a political principle. As we will prove, the arguments and descriptions of Zinoviev amount to little more than a deliberate distortion. In plain words, lies pure and simple.

It may be argued that Zinoviev lied because of the dire situation the Russian Revolution was facing. By lying, he helped ensure that the revolution was not defeated by gaining supporters for it in America and elsewhere. However, such a position fails to understand the power of truth nor the corrupting influence of lies. As the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once wrote, "to tell the truth is a communist and revolutionary act." A real social revolution cannot base itself on lies as those taking part in it must be in a position to understand it, criticise it and make the appropriate decisions to push it forwards. If only a few have the truth, only they will have meaningful power. Clearly, by systematically lying in his letter, Zinoviev showed that Bolshevism and Soviet Russia were not communist nor revolutionary. By lying Zinoviev did not defend the revolution, he betrayed its spirit just as the Bolsheviks had betrayed its promise.

It may be argued that this critique is based on hindsight. Perhaps, but the facts we document here were known at the time. As Kropotkin argued (in his "Letter to the Workers of Western Europe") one year before Zinoviev wrote his letter to the I.W.W:

"the Russian revolution . . . is trying to reach . . . economic equality . . . this effort has been made in Russia under a strongly centralised party dictatorship . . . this effort to build a communist republic on the basis of a strongly centralised state communism under the iron law of a party dictatorship is bound to end in failure. We are learning to know in Russia how not to introduce communism." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 254]

Clearly, Kropotkin and other anarchists at the time were well aware of the failures of the Bolshevik experiment, failures Zinoviev fails to mention in his letter. As such, this analysis has strong similarities with the work of anarchists in Russia at the time. Given that their critique was a product of their experiences during the revolution, it cannot be said that my analysis is purely the benefit of hindsight.

I shall present an anarchist analysis of Zinoviev's comments. His words are indented while mines are not. In addition,I will concentrate on the divergence between Zinoviev's rhetoric and the reality of the Bolshevik Russia. His analysis of the class struggle in the USA at the time will not be discussed.

The Communist International to the I.W.W.

An Appeal of the Executive Committee of the Third International at Moscow

COMRADES AND FELLOW WORKERS:

<snip>

Now is no time to talk of "building the new society within the shell of the old." The old society is cracking its shell. The workers must establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which alone can build the new society.

An article in the ONE BIG UNION MONTHLY, your official organ, asks, "Why should we follow the Bolsheviks?" According to the writer, all that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia has done is "to give the Russian people the vote."

This is, of course, untrue. The Bolshevik Revolution has taken the factories, mills, mines, land and financial institutions out of the hands of the capitalists, and transferred them to the WHOLE WORKING CLASS.

This is, of course, untrue for two reasons.

Firstly, the Bolsheviks may have given the Russian people the vote, but they ensured that it counted for nothing. The Bolsheviks centralised power into the hands of the Council of People's Commissars, effectively reducing the soviets to bodies carrying out the orders flowing from the top. Moreover, they also systematically disbanded, by force, soviets which had non-Bolshevik majorities elected to them. Needless to say, marginalising and disbanding soviets hardly equals giving the working class a meaningful vote. The Bolsheviks may have claimed to be in favour of soviet democracy and power, but their actions proved otherwise

Secondly, the Bolsheviks did take "the factories, mills, mines, land and financial institutions out of the hands of the capitalists" but they were not "transferred" into the hands of the working class. Rather they were transfered into the hands of the state and run by state appointed managers. The working class did not manage or control the means of life, others did. As such ownership was purely formal and hid the continued wage slavery of the workers by judicial forms. Ultimately, ownership is a juridical concept. What matters is whether workers manage their own work. If they do not, then they are still alienated from both the means of production and the product of their labour. The Bolsheviks had not changed the social relationships within society, just who was telling the working class what to do. The net effect of nationalising the means of life simply meant different bosses for the workers. The Bolsheviks claimed to be creating socialism but their actions proved otherwise.

Alexander Berkman provides an excellent overview of what had happened in Russia after the October Revolution:

"The elective system was abolished, first in the army and navy, then in the industries. The Soviets of peasants and workers were castrated and turned into obedient Communist Committees, with the dreaded sword of the Cheka [political para-military police] ever hanging over them. The labour unions governmentalised, their proper activities suppressed, they were turned into mere transmitters of the orders of the State. Universal military service, coupled with the death penalty for conscientious objectors; enforced labour, with a vast officialdom for the apprehension and punishment of 'deserters'; agrarian and industrial conscription of the peasantry; military Communism in the cities and the system of requisitioning in the country . . . ; the suppression of workers' protests by the military; the crushing of peasant dissatisfaction with an iron hand. . ." [The Russian Tragedy, p. 27]

The aim of this analysis is to show the realities of Bolshevik rule, as summarised by Berkman, and the rhetoric of the Bolsheviks, as summarised by Zinoviev. In the analysis that follows I will prove that the two do no meet. Zinoviev was a leading member of the Communist Party who took an active part in the Russian Revolution, Civil War and party meetings. There is no way his letter could have been a product of ignorance and so we have an example of the systematic lying usually associated with Stalinism.

Before continuing, it is useful to indicate some of the hidden meaning begin Bolshevik terminology. Once you understand that certain expressions are mere euphemisms then Bolshevik rhetoric becomes easier to decode and understand.

The key to understanding Zinoviev's claims is to understand that for Bolshevism there exists a great confusion between working class power and party power. For example, Lenin argued in 1921 that "[t]o go so far in this matter as to draw a contrast in general between the dictatorship of the masses and the dictatorship of the leaders, is ridiculously absurd and stupid." He stressed that "[t]he very presentation of the question -- 'dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship of the class, dictatorship (Party) of the leaders or dictatorship (Party) of the masses?' -- is evidence of the most incredible and hopeless confusion of mind . . . [because] classes are usually . . . led by political parties. . . " [Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, p. 27 and pp. 25-6] If the Bolshevik party is in power then the working class rules and so the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and th "dictatorship of the party" are effectively the same thing. Needless to say, they are not. If the party holds power then the working class does not. If the party dictates then it dictates to the working class.

This confusion of party power with working class power explains Zinoviev's claim that the Bolsheviks had transferred the means of production to the "WHOLE WORKING CLASS." If we take the term "WHOLE WORKING CLASS" as a euphemism for the state, then his words are correct. The Bolsheviks had expropriated the capitalist class by means of nationalisation. This simply replaced the capitalist class with the state, leaving the working class in exactly the same position as before. Instead of being wage slaves to a capitalist, they had become wage slaves to the state.

We understand, and share with you, your disgust for the principles and tactics of the "yellow" Socialist politicians, who, all over the world, have discredited the very name of Socialism. Our aim is the same as yours - A COMMONWEALTH WITHOUT STATE, WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, WITHOUT CLASSES, IN WHICH THE WORKERS SHALL ADMINISTER THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION FOR THE COMMON BENEFIT OF ALL.
And yet these aims are to be pursued using means that are directly opposite to them. The state, government and classes are to be used to abolish state, government and classes. Workers shall administer production and distribution, but first they are to be dispossessed of such activity and placed under one-man management. Classes will be abolished, but first the proletariat must remain the proletariat and have no control over their work or workplaces. The state will be abolished, but first it is necessary to strengthen it, create an army, police and secret police (the Cheka) separate from the mass of people (and in direct opposition to Lenin's claims in State and Revolution). Government must end, but first it must be turned into the dictatorship of a party and become the most centralised the world has ever seen.

Indeed, Trotsky (in 1920) brought this nonsense to its height in his infamous work Terrorism and Communism:

"Both economic and political compulsion are only forms of the expression of the dictatorship of the working class in two closely connected regions . . . under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State . . . Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction. . . No organisation except the army has ever controlled man with such severe compulsion as does the State organisation of the working class in the most difficult period of transition. It is just for this reason that we speak of the militarisation of labour."

So, in order to ensure free labour under communism, the working class must be subjected to the militarisation of labour. To ensure that the state disappears, we must increase its power, scope and size. Yet we are to believe that this militarisation of life and labour will have no effect on those subject to it nor those who impose it. And supporters of Bolshevism call anarchists utopians and idealists!

Ends are not independent of means, just as the end of a journey is dependent on the path taken. You cannot end up in Paris if you follow the signs leading to Rome. This means that how a socialist society would look like and work is not independent of the means used to create it. In other words, a socialist society will reflect the social struggle which preceded it and the ideas which existed within that struggle as modified by the practical needs of any given situation. If the means are authoritarian, the ends will also be so. If the means deny freedom and working class autonomy, then so will the ends.

Thus, if the end is a society of free and equal individuals co-operating to manage their affairs then the means cannot be in contradiction to them. If they are, if the means are based on inequality, authoritarianism and hierarchy then the ends will also be marked by inequality, authoritarianism and hierarchy.

This means that if the ends are specified as "A COMMONWEALTH WITHOUT STATE, WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, WITHOUT CLASSES, IN WHICH THE WORKERS SHALL ADMINISTER THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION FOR THE COMMON BENEFIT OF ALL" then the means must reflect these goals. Thus the revolution must be marked by organisations organised in a libertarian way which will allow working people to manage their affairs directly, without need for government or appointed managers. Instead of centralising power at the top of the social pyramid, as the Bolsheviks did, power must be decentralised back the hands of the working class and their organisations. This means that workers' self-management of production must be encouraged, working class autonomy, freedom and democracy protected and encouraged and working class administration of society formalised. This is what the Bolsheviks failed to do. As Samuel Farber notes, "there is no evidence indicating that Lenin or any of the mainstream Bolshevik leaders lamented the loss of workers' control or of democracy in the soviets, or at least referred to these losses as a retreat, as Lenin declared with the replacement of War Communism by NEP in 1921." [Before Stalinism, p. 44]

This argument does not mean that anarchists think that we can jump straight from capitalism to a fully developed socialist society. Of course the capitalist class will resist and so a revolution will have to defend itself. As Bakunin argued:

"the federative alliance of all working men's associations . . . constitute the Commune . . . all provinces, communes and associations . . . by first reorganising on revolutionary lines . . . [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces . . . [and] organise a revolutionary force capable defeating reaction . . . [and for] self-defence . . . [The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation. . . " [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170-2]


However, if you seek a society without government, classes and state then it can only be achieved by self-management and organisation from below upwards. The experience of Bolshevism shows the clear linkage between means and ends.

We address this letter to you, fellow-workers of the I.W.W., in recognition of your long and heroic services in the class war, of which you may have borne the brunt in your own country, so that you may clearly understand our Communist principles and program.
We appeal to you, as revolutionaries, to rally to the Communist International, born in the dawn of the World Social Revolution.

However, without presenting an accurate picture of the realities of the Russian Revolution, of how Bolshevik "principles and program" had been applied in practice, any such understanding will hardly be clear. Essentially Zinoviev is asking us to judge Bolshevism by what it says about itself, not what it actually does. In this, they differ sharply from Marx who had argued that we must judge people by what they do, not by what they say.

If we do judge the Bolsheviks by what they did, not by what they said, then it quickly becomes clear that real revolutionaries cannot help but reject the "principles and program" of Communism.

We call you to take the place to which your courage and revolutionary experience entitles you, in the front ranks of the proletarian Red Army fighting under the banner of Communism.
Ironically, the example of the so-called proletarian Red Army presents us with a clear example of what is meant by the "banner of Communism." Let us quote the founder of this "proletarian" Red Army, Trotsky, on its nature. Writing in 1922, he argued that:

"There was and could be no question of controlling troops by means of elected committees and commanders who were subordinate to these committees and might be replaced at any moment . . . [The old army] had carried out a social revolution within itself, casting aside the commanders from the landlord and bourgeois classes and establishing organs of revolutionary self-government, in the shape of the Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies. These organisational and political measures were correct and necessary from the standpoint of breaking up the old army. But a new army capable of fighting could certainly not grow directly out of them . . . The attempt made to apply our old organisational methods to the building of a Red Army threatened to undermine it from the very outset . . . the system of election could in no way secure competent, suitable and authoritative commanders for the revolutionary army. The Red Army was built from above, in accordance with the principles of the dictatorship of the working class. Commanders were selected and tested by the organs of the Soviet power and the Communist Party. Election of commanders by the units themselves -- which were politically ill-educated, being composed of recently mobilised young peasants -- would inevitably have been transformed into a game of chance, and would often, in fact, have created favourable circumstances for the machinations of various intriguers and adventurers. Similarly, the revolutionary army, as an army for action and not as an arena of propaganda, was incompatible with a regime of elected committees, which in fact could not but destroy all centralised control." [The Path of the Red Army]

Trotsky admits that the "Red Army was built from above, in accordance with the principles of the dictatorship of the working class." Which means, to state the obvious, appointment from above, the dismantling of self-government, and so on are "in accordance with the principles" of Bolshevism. These comments were not made in the heat of the civil war, but afterward during peacetime. Notice Trotsky admits that a "social revolution" had swept through the Tsarist army. His actions, he also admits, reversed that revolution and replaced its organs of "self-government" with ones identical to the old regime. When that happens it is usually called by its true name, namely counter-revolution.

This just one example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" destroying democracy exercised by the working masses and replacing their democratic organisations with appointees from above.

The rationale behind this attack on working class democracy is significant and worth discussing. It was used again and again by the Bolsheviks to eliminate the gains of the revolution (for example, workers' self-management of production). Trotsky provided this rationale on March 28th, 1918, when he gave a report to the Moscow City Conference of the Communist Party. In this report he stated that "the principle of election is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has been, in practice, abolished by decree" and that the Bolsheviks "fac[ed] the task of creating a regular Army." Why the change? Simply because "political power is in the hands of the same working class from whose ranks the Army is recruited." Of course, power was actually held by the Bolshevik party, not the working class, but never fear:

"Once we have established the Soviet regime, that is a system under which the government is headed by persons who have been directly elected by the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, there can be no antagonism between the government and the mass of the workers, just as there is no antagonism between the administration of the union and the general assembly of its members, and, therefore, there cannot be any grounds for fearing the appointment of members of the commanding staff by the organs of the Soviet Power." [Work, Discipline, Order]

Of course, most workers' are well aware that the administration of a trade union usually works against them during periods of struggle. Indeed, so are most Trotskyists as they often denounce the betrayals by that administration. Thus Trotsky's own analogy indicates the fallacy of his argument. Elected officials do not necessary reflect the interests of those who elected them. That is why anarchists have always supported delegation rather than representation combined with decentralisation, strict accountability and the power of instant recall. In a highly centralised system (as created by the Bolsheviks and as exists in most social democratic trade unions) the ability to recall an administration is difficult as it requires the agreement of all the people. Thus there are quite a few grounds for fearing the appointment of commanders by the government -- no matter which party makes it up.

Trotsky repeated this rationale when he argued in favour of militarisation of labour and one-man management. As he put it, "[i]t would be the most crying error to confuse the question as to the supremcy of the proletariat with the question of boards of workers at the head of factories. The dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private property in the means of production, in the supremacy over the whole soviet mechanism of the collective will of the workers and not at all in the form in which individual enterprises are administered." [Terrorism and Communism] However, without economic power at the point of production, without workers' self-management, working class political power would be weak. If capitalist economic relations existed in production, then how could socialist political forms exist? They cannot not and they did not. Trotsky's "collective will of the workers" is simply a euphenism for the Party. In the same work he argued that "it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party" and that there is "no substitution at all" when the "power of the party" replaces the "power of the working class." The party, he stressed, "has afforded to the Soviets the possibility of becoming transformed from shapeless parliaments of labour into the apparatus of the supremacy of labour." How labour could express this "supremacy" when it could not even vote for its delegates (never mind manage society) is never explained.

It could be argued that this "substitution" only came about due to the terrible circumstances of the Civil War. This is not the case. Trotsky's counter-revolution in the Red Army occurred before its start, as did the Bolshevik attacks on soviet democracy. Nor did Trotsky argue that this "substitution" was the result of objective conditions, rather he considered it as natural. He repeated this argument in 1937:

"The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is for me not a thing that one can freely accept or reject: It is an objective necessity imposed upon us by the social realities -- the class struggle, the heterogeneity of the revolutionary class, the necessity for a selected vanguard in order to assure the victory. The dictatorship of a party belongs to the barbarian prehistory as does the state itself, but we can not jump over this chapter, which can open (not at one stroke) genuine human history. . . The revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution . . . Abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved under capitalist conditions. The reason for the revolution comes from the circumstance that capitalism does not permit the material and the moral development of the masses." [Trotsky, Writings 1936-37, pp. 513-4]

<snip>
Capitalism is making desperate efforts to reconstruct its shattered world. The workers must seize by force the power of the State, and reconstruct society in its own interests.

By making this comment, Zinoviev confuses two things. Firstly, there is the "power of the State" and, secondly, there is working class power to reconstruct society. These two things are not the same. As Italian anarchist Luigi Fabbri argued:

"It is fairly certain that between the capitalist regime and the socialist there will be an intervening period of struggle, during which preoletarian revolutionary workers will have to work to uproot the remnants of bourgeois society . . . relying on the strength of their organisation . . . the proletariat . . . will need organusation to meet not just the demands of the struggle but also the demands of production and social life . . .

"The mistake of authoritarian communists in this connection is the belief that fighting and organising are impossible without submission to a government; and thus they regard anarchists . . . as the foes of all organisation and all co-ordinated struggle. We, on the other hand, maintain that not only are revolutionary struggle and revolutionary organisation possible outside and in spite of government interference but that, indeed, that is the only effective way to struggle and organise, for it has the active participation of all members of the collective unit, instead of their passively entrusting themselves to the authority of the supreme leaders.

"Any governing body is an impediment to the real organisation of the broad masses, the majority. Where a government exists, then the only really organised people are the minority who make up the government; and . . . if the masses do organise, they do so against it, outside it, or at the very least, independently of it. In ossifying into a government, the revolution as such would fall apart, on account of its awarding that government the monopoly of organisation and of the means of struggle." ["Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", in The Poverty of Statism, pp. 13-49, Albert Meltzer (ed.), pp. 26-7]

The state is a specific form of social organisation. It is based on the delegation and centralisation of power. As Malatesta put it, anarchist "have used the word State . . . to mean the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the power to make laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force." [Anarchy, p. 13]

In this, the Bolshevik state was exactly the same as any other state. It was based on the few (the Bolshevik leaders) governing the many (the working class). That the few claimed to be doing it for the many does not change the social relationships the state created. Nor does the claims of those in power have any bearing to what they do. Stalin, for example, argued that his rule expressed the interests of the working class. If we look at what the Bolsheviks did, it is clear they acted first and foremost to defend their own power, not that of the working class.

The state is centralised to facilitate minority rule by excluding the mass of people from taking part in the decision making processes within society. This is to be expected as social structures do not evolve by chance -- rather they develop to meet specific needs and requirements. The specific need of the ruling class is to rule and that means marginalising the bulk of the population. Its requirement is for minority power and this is transformed into the structure of the state (and the capitalist company).

Ironically, the Bolsheviks faced the same problems as the bourgeois during its revolution. The process of revolution in France and America saw popular organisations being created by the working population (town meetings in the USA, sections and communes in France). This caused the bourgeois a problem. As Kropotkin put it, "[t]o attack the central power, to strip it of its prerogatives, to decentralise, to dissolve authority, would have been to abandon to the people the control of its affairs, to run the risk of a truly popular revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie sought to reinforce the central government even more. . ." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 143]

The same problem faced the Bolsheviks. By centralising power under their control, they effectively dispowered the working class. Thus the seizure of "the power of the State" and workers "reconstruct[ing] society in its own interests" are two logically opposite things. If the state power is seized then the workers are not in power, the state is. If working people are in a position to reconstruct society then they have the power and so government does not exist. Bolshevism solves this problem by simply playing with words -- it confuses party power with workers power.

<snip>

Or the Social Revolution
Will the capitalists be able to do this?

They will, unless the workers declare war on the whole capitalist system, overthrow the capitalist governments, and set up a Government of the working class, which shall destroy the institution of capitalist private property and make all wealth the property of the workers in common.

This is what the Russian workers have done, and this is the ONLY WAY for the workers of other countries to free themselves from industrial slavery, and to make over the world so that the worker shall get ALL HE PRODUCES, and nobody shall be able to make money out of the labor of other men.

It cannot be denied that the capitalist government had been overthrown in Russia. Nor can it be denied that a government claiming to be "of the working class" had been created. Nor can it be denied that the institution of capitalist private property had been destroyed. However, "all wealth" was not in the hands of the workers, nor had industrial slavery been abolished, nor did the worker get all that he or she produced.

As far as the means of production went, the worker did not manage them. Rather, they were in the hands of state appointees. The role of workers were, as Lenin had argued, simply to obey -- just as they do in any capitalist firm. Indeed, Trotsky wanted to militarise labour and his ideas were introduced in many industries, most notably by himself on the railways. In 1920, he "started by placing the railwaymen and the personnel of the repair workshops under martial law. When the railwaymen's trade union objected, he summarily ousted its leaders and, with the full support and endorsement of the Party leadership, 'appointed others willing to do his bidding. He repeated the procedure in other unions of transport workers.'" [Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 67] He, like Mussolini, got the trains working again but it had as little to do with socialism as Italian Fascism.

Trotsky's perspective on this issue was simply following previous Bolshevik arguments and practice to their logical conclusion. Rather than being firm supporters of workers self-management of production, the Bolshevik leadership opposed it from the start. Needless to say, such a huge subject cannot be covered in this article. All we can do is present a few important points and refer readers to Maurice Brinton's The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control: 1917 to 1921 for details.

The Bolshevik leaders quickly started to undermine any form of workers' self-management of production. Lenin argued in Six Theses on the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government for "obedience, and unquestioning obedience at that, during work to the one-man decisions of Soviet directors, of dictators elected or appointed by Soviet institutions, vested with dictatorial powers." These theses were written between April 29th and May 3rd, 1918. In other words, before the start of the civil war at the end of May, 1918. Unquestioning obedience of appointed dictators is the hall-mark of capitalist production ("industrial slavery") and not of socialism. The practice of Bolshevism followed the theory.

As anarchist Peter Arshinov argued in 1923, a "fundamental fact" of the Bolshevik revolution was "that the workers and the peasant labourers remained within the earlier situation of 'working classes' -- producers managed by authority from above." He stressed that Bolshevik political and economic ideas may have "remov[ed] the workers from the hands of individual capitalists" but they "delivered them to the yet more rapacious hands of a single ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as earlier relations between labour and capital . . . Wage labour has remained what it was before, expect that it has taken on the character of an obligation to the State. . . . It is clear that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private capitalism." [The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 35 and p. 71]

Clearly, Zinoviev is not presenting an honest account of the situation of workers in the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" nor presenting an honest account of Bolshevik practice up to January 1920. Trotsky's dictatorship over the railway workers later that year was just continuing the policies started by Lenin in 1918.

But unless the workers of other countries rise against their own capitalists, the Russian Revolution cannot last. The capitalists of the entire world, realizing the example of the danger of Soviet Russia, have united to crush it. The Allies have quickly forgotten their hatred for Germany, and have invited the German capitalists to join them in the common cause.
Notice that Zinoviev mentions the foreign intervention in Russia and yet does not indicate that this has had any significant impact on the development of the Revolution. That Revolution "cannot last" indefinitely, but, apparently, the gains of that revolution Zinoviev lists in his letter still exist.This was a common feature of Bolshevism at the time. It was only with the rise of Stalinism did Leninists start to use the problems created during the Civil War as an excuse for the anti-socialist and anti-democratic activities of Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders. As Victor Serge noted in his memiors, during this period (later called "War Communism") "any one who, like myself, went so far as to consider it purely temporary was locked upon with disdain." [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 115]

Also, we must point out a certain ingenuity in later Trotskyist arguments that Stalinism can be explained purely by the terrible civil war Russia experienced. After all, Lenin himself stated that every "revolution . . ., in its development, would give rise to exceptionally complicated circumstances" and "[r]evolution is the sharpest, most furious, desperate class war and civil war. Not a single great revolution in history has escaped civil war. No one who does not live in a shell could imagine that civil war is conceivable without exceptionally complicated circumstances." [Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 80 and p. 81] If the Bolshevik political and organisational form cannot survive during the inevitable period of civil war, disruption and complicated circumstances associated with a revolution then it is clearly a theory to be avoided at all costs.

Moreover, the attacks on working class autonomy (i.e. the disbandment of soviets, the appointment of officers in the army and the appointment of managers with "dictatorial" powers, repression against left-wing and anarchist opponents) all started before the start of the Civil War and so can hardly be blamed on it.

<snip>
In order to destroy Capitalism, the workers must first wrest State power out of the hands of the capitalist class. They must not only SEIZE this power, but ABOLISH THE OLD CAPITALIST APPARATUS ENTIRELY.

For the experience of Revolutions has shown that the workers cannot take hold of the State machine and use it for their own purposes - such as the Yellow Socialist politicians propose to do. The capitalist State is built to serve capitalism, and that is all it can do, no matter who is running it.

And in place of the capitalist State the workers must build their own WORKERS' STATE, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

In and of itself, the notion that the capitalist state being built to serve capitalism is one anarchists had been arguing long before Lenin wrote "State and Revolution" in 1917. As Kropotkin put it, Anarchists "maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to which minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 170]

The question now arises of whether workers need to build their own state or not. Anarchists answer no, of course. We argue that it is impossible for the working class, as a class, to take power by means of a state. They can only do so in self-managed organisations which eliminate hierarchy. In Bakunin's words, the " future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal." [Op. Cit., p. 206]

By ending the division of society into governed and governors by universal self-management in working class organisations, the working class can destroy capitalism and resist attempts by minorities (ex-capitalists, would be "revolutionary leaders") to dominate them. Only by forming new organisations structured in a self-managed way can a new society be created. Giving power to a few leaders cannot do this. Real socialism cannot be worked out by a handful of people sitting at the centre, it has to be worked from below, by the people of every city, town and village.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Many members of the I.W.W. do not agree with this. They are against "the State in general." They propose to overthrow the capitalist State, and to establish in its place immediately the Industrial Commonwealth.

The Communists are also opposed to the "State." They also wish to abolish it - to substitute for the government of men, the administration of things.

But unfortunately this cannot be done immediately. The destruction of the capitalist State does not mean that capitalism automatically and immediately disappears. The capitalists still have arms, which must be taken away from them; they are still supported by hordes of loyal bureaucrats, managers, superintendents, foremen, and trained men of all sorts, who will sabotage industry - and these must be persuaded or compelled to serve the working class; they still have army officers who can betray the Revolution, preachers who can raise superstitious fears against it, teachers and orators who can misrepresent it to the ignorant, thugs who can be hired to discredit it by evil behavior, newspaper editors who can deceive the people with floods of lies, and "yellow" Socialists and Labor fakers who prefer capitalist "democracy" to Revolution. All these people must be sternly suppressed.

Zinoviev simply fails to understand that "stern suppression" cannot be the means to liberation. As Malatesta put it:

"If some people . . . have assumed the right to violate everybody's freedom on the pretext of preparing the triumph of freedom, they will always find that the people are not yet sufficiently mature, that the dangers of reaction are ever-present, that the education of the people has not yet been completed. And with these excuses they will seek to perpetuate their own power." [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 52]

Moreover, the strength of a revolution depends on the working masses being its masters. As Alexander Berkman argued, "the strength of the revolution . . . First and foremost, [is] in the support of the people . . . If they feel that they themselves are making the revolution, that they have become masters of their lives, that they have gained freedom and are building up their welfare, then in that very sentiment you have the greatest strength of the revolution. . . Let them believe in the revolution, and they will defend it to the death." Thus the "armed workers and peasants are the only effective defence of the revolution." This strength can only exist in liberty, so no attempt can be made to "defend" the revolution against mere talk, against the mere expression of an opinion. To "suppress speech and press is not only a theoretical offence against liberty; it is a direct blow at the very foundations of the revolution. . . It would generate fear and distrust, would hatch conspiracies, and culminate in a reign of terror which has always killed revolution in the pass." [ABC of Anarchism, pp. 80-81 and p. 83] Only a regime which no longer had the support of the working masses could "sternly suppress" opposition viewpoints. If the revolution sincerely reflected the interests, ideas and needs of the working people, then no amount of reactionary talk could get people to abandon their freedom. Zinoviev's comments simply indicate how unpopular the Bolshevik dictatorship had become in the eyes of the Russian masses (in early 1921, Zinoviev declared that the government's support among the working class had been reduced to 1 per cent).

Zinoviev is confusing two things. First, there is the issue of the defence of a revolution. Second, there is the question of the state. The two are not the same. The former can be achieved without a government, by empowering, arming and organising the whole revolutionary people. The state, we must stress, is the empowering, arming and organising a minority of a revolutionary people and the disempowering, disarming and dis-organising of the rest.The difference is important.This can be seen from the Russian Revolution.

The Bolshevik state used its armed forces to suppress workers' protests and organisations all during the Russian Civil War. Zinoviev himself was the head of the Petrograd Soviet which, in 1919, sent troops to break strikes in the city. In 1921, in response to a wave of strikes and the rebellion of Kronstadt, he was the head of the "Petrograd Defence Committee" which was "vested with absolute power throughout the entire province" and " took stern measures to prevent any further disturbances. The city became a vast garrison, with troops patrolling in every quarter. Notices posted on the walls reminded the citizenry that all gatherings would be dispersed and those who resisted shot on the spot. During the day the streets were nearly deserted, and, with the curfew now set at 9 p.m., night life ceased altogether." [Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, p. 142]

Ultimately, centralised power is used to impose the will of the leaders, who use state power against the very class they claim to represent:

"Without revolutionary coercion directed against the avowed enemies of the workers and peasants, it is impossible to break down the resistance of these exploiters. On the other hand, revolutionary coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable elements among the masses themselves." [Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 170]

In other words, whoever protests against the dictatorship of the party.

Of course, it will be replied that the Bolshevik dictatorship used its power to crush the resistance of the bosses (and "backward workers"). Sadly, this is not the case. First, we must stress that anarchists are not against defending a revolution or expropriating the power and wealth of the ruling class, quite the reverse as this is about how a revolution does this. Lenin's argument is flawed as it confuses the defence of the revolution with the defence of the party in power. These are two totally different things.

The "revolutionary coercion" Lenin speaks of is, apparently, directed against one part of the working class. However, this will also intimidate the rest (just as bourgeois repression not only intimidates those who strike but those who may think of striking). As a policy, it can have but one effect -- to eliminate all workers' power and freedom. It is the violence of an oppressive minority against the oppressed majority, not vice versa. Ending free speech harmed working class people. Militarisation of labour did not affect the bourgeoisie. Neither did eliminating soviet democracy or union independence. As the dissident (working class) Communist Gavriii Miasnokov argued in 1921 (in reply to Lenin):

"The trouble is that, while you raise your hand against the capitalist, you deal a blow to the worker. You know very well that for such words as I am now uttering hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers are languishing in prison. That I myself remain at liberty is only because I am a veteran Communist, have suffered for my beliefs, and am known among the mass of workers. Were it not for this, were I just an ordinary mechanic from the same factory, where would I be now? In a Cheka prison or, more likely, made to 'escape,' just as I made Mikhail Romanov 'escape.' Once more I say: You raise your hand against the bourgeoisie, but it is I who am spitting blood, and it is we, the workers, whose jaws are being cracked." [quoted by Paul Avrich, G. T. Miasnikov and the Workers' Group]

This can be seen from the make-up of Bolshevik prisoners. Of the 17 000 camp detainees on whom statistical information was available on 1 November 1920, peasants and workers constituted the largest groups, at 39% and 34% respectively. Similarly, of the 40 913 prisoners held in December 1921 (of whom 44% had been committed by the Cheka) nearly 84% were illiterate or minimally educated, clearly, therefore, either peasants of workers. [George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police, p. 178] Unsurprisingly, Miasnikov refused to denounce the Kronstadt insurgents nor would he have participated in their suppression had he been called upon to do so.

It is clear that there the suppression that Zinoviev is advocating was not being directed just against the enemies of the revolution, but rather against all those who opposed the Bolshevik government, including workers. This can only occur when power is centralised into the hands of a few, when the revolution creates a new "state" rather than organising the defence of a free society.

Moreover, Zinoviev is also confusing the revolution with a fully developed socialist society. Anarchists and syndicalists are aware that it is not possible to "immediately" create "the Industrial Commonwealth," if by that it is meant a fully communist society. Anarchists are well aware that "class difference do not vanish at the stroke of a pen whether that pen belongs to the theoreticians or to the pen-pushers who set out laws or decrees. Only action, that is to say direct action (not through government) expropriation by the proletarians, directed against the privileged class, can wipe out class difference." [Luigi Fabbri, "Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", in The Poverty of Statism, pp. 13-49, Albert Meltzer (ed.), p. 30] As such, immediately after all a revolution there will be need to defend it against attempts to overthrow it and re-introduce class society.

It is, however, essential that the "Industrial Commonwealth" be introduced as soon as possible if by that term we mean workers' direct management of society by their own organisations which, in turn, are run and controlled by them directly. As Murray Bookchin puts it:

"There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration . . . Assembly and community must arise from within the revolutionary process itself; indeed, the revolutionary process must be the formation of assembly and community, and with it, the destruction of power. Assembly and community must become 'fighting words,' not distinct panaceas. They must be created as modes of struggle against the existing society, not as theoretical or programmatic abstractions. . . The factory committees . . . must be managed directly by workers' assemblies in the factories. . . neighbourhood committees, councils and boards must be rooted completely in the neighbourhood assemble. They must be answerable at every point to the assembly, they and their work must be under continual review by the assembly; and finally, their members must be subject to immediate recall by the assembly. The specific gravity of society, in short, must be shifted to its base -- the armed people in permanent assembly." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, pp. 167-9]

In this sense, it is essential that an "Industrial Commonwealth" is created immediately as "[o]nly freedom or the struggle for freedom can be the school for freedom." [Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 59] This, however, does not mean that defence of the revolution is not essential, it is. And it is a defence against attempts to introduce new tyrannies just as much as it is a defence against overthrown ones.

To break down the capitalist State, to crush capitalist resistance and disarm the capitalist class, to confiscate capitalist property and turn it over to the WHOLE WORKING CLASS IN COMMON, - for all these tasks a government is necessary - a State, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in which the workers, through their Soviets, can uproot the capitalist system with an iron hand.
This is exactly what exists in Russia today.

Unfortunately what "exists in Russia" was somewhat different that this. The "soviet power" (i.e. the Bolshevik government) had, by the time Zinoviev wrote this letter, had become little more than the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party. As Zinoviev himself admitted later in 1920:

"soviet rule in Russia could not have been maintained for three years -- not even three weeks -- without the iron dictatorship of the Communist Party. Any class conscious worker must understand that the dictatorship of the working class can by achieved only by the dictatorship of its vanguard, i.e., by the Communist Party . . . All questions of economic reconstruction, military organisation, education, food supply -- all these questions, on which the fate if the proletarian revolution depends absolutely, are decided in Russia before all other matters and mostly in the framework of the party organisations . . . Control by the party over soviet organs, over the trade unions, is the single durable guarantee that any measures taken will serve not special interests, but the interests of the entire proletariat." [quoted by Oskar Anweiler, The Soviets, pp. 239-40]

Clearly, Zinoviev knew that the Russian workers had no real say through their soviets. The Communist Party made all the decisions and the workers, like workers in a capitalist society, had to carry them out (or be classed as an enemy of the revolution and either shot or imprisoned).

BUT THIS DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT IS ONLY TEMPORARY.
We, Communists, also want to abolish the State. The State can only exist as long as there is class struggle. The function of the Proletarian Dictatorship is to abolish the capitalist class as a class; in fact, do away with all class divisions of every kind. And when this condition is reached then the PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP, THE STATE, AUTOMATICALLY DISAPPEARS - to make way for an industrial administrative body which will be something like the General Executive Board of the I.W.W.

Taking this literally, then Zinoviev is admitting that the working class in Russia are still proletarians, still dispossessed from the means of production and are not, in fact, running society in their own interests. The way to abolish the proletarian class, as a class, is for the working class to expropriate capital directly and place it under workers self-management. If this is not done, then that class remains proletarian and so remains subject to wage slavery, exploitation and oppression. In Russia, the economic position of the working class had not changed.

This was admitted by Lenin in Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. He noted, in passing, that the trade unions "are, and will long remain, a necessary 'school of Communism', a preparatory school for training the proletariat to exercise its dictatorship, an indispensable organisation of the workers for gradually transferring the management of the whole economy of the country to the hands of the working class (and not of separate trades) and later to the hands of all the toiling masses." [p. 34] If the working class does not manage the economy, then who does? If the working class does not do so, then it clearly is still the proletariat and the revolution has not changed its economic position at all. As such, "revolutionary" Russia was still a class society in which the proletariat was still following orders in production. Needless to say, the new ruling class of party officials and bureaucrats did not want to loose their power to the old ruling class, but the position of the proletariat had not changed.

In a recent leaflet, Mary Marcy argues that, although the I.W.W. does not theoretically recognize the necessity for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, it will be forced to do so IN FACT at the time of the Revolution, in order to suppress the capitalist counter-revolution.
This is true, but unless the I.W.W. acknowledges beforehand the necessity of the Workers' State, and prepares for it, there will be confusion and weakness at a time when firmness and swift action are imperative.

However, it is to confuse the defence of a revolution and the various working class organisations needed for the ex-proletariat to run society in its own interests with "the workers' state" which is the source of weakness. To consider the creation of a new state as simply defending a revolution implies a lack of understanding of both. As Malatesta argued:

"But perhaps the truth is simply this: . . . [some] take the expression 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to mean simply the revolutionary action of the workers in taking possession of the land and the instruments of labour, and trying to build a society and organise a way of life in which there will be no place for a class that exploits and oppresses the producers.

"Thus constructed, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' would be the effective power of all workers trying to bring down capitalist society and would thus turn into Anarchy as soon as resistance from reactionaries would have ceased and no one can any longer seek to compel the masses by violence to obey and work for him. In which case, the discrepancy between us would be nothing more than a question of semantics. Dictatorship of the proletariat would signify the dictatorship of everyone, which is to say, it would be a dictatorship no longer, just as government by everybody is no longer a government in the authoritarian, historical and practical sense of the word.

"But the real supporters of 'dictatorship of the proletariat' do not take that line, as they are making quite plain in Russia. Of course, the proletariat has a hand in this, just as the people has a part to play in democratic regimes, that is to say, to conceal the reality of things. In reality, what we have is the dictatorship of one party, or rather, of one' party's leaders: a genuine dictatorship, with its decrees, its penal sanctions, its henchmen and above all its armed forces, which are at present [1919] also deployed in the defence of the revolution against its external enemies, but which will tomorrow be used to impose the dictator's will upon the workers, to apply a break on revolution, to consolidate the new interests in the process of emerging and protect a new privileged class against the masses." [Malatesta, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, pp. 38-9]

The Workers' State

What will be the form of the Workers' State?

We have before us the example of the Russian Soviet Republic, whose structure, in view of the conflicting reports printed in other countries, it may be useful to briefly describe here.

The unit of government is the local Soviet, or Council, of Workers', Red Army, and Peasants' Deputies.

The city Workers' Soviet is made up as follows: each factory elects one delegate for a certain number of workers, and each local Union also elects delegates. These delegates are elected according to political parties - or, if the workers wish it, as individual candidates.

The Red Army delegates are chosen by military units.

For the peasants, each village has its local Soviet, which sends delegates to the Township Soviet, which in urn elects to the County Soviet, and this to the Provincial Soviet.

Nobody who employs labor for profit can vote.

The question, of course, is whether working people have a meaningful vote. Stalin organised elections, it did not mean that the Russian workers and peasants had a say under Stalinism. The same can be said of Lenin's regime as well.

Samuel Farber provides a good summary of Bolshevik actions which made the vote meaningless. In response to the "great Bolshevik losses in the soviet elections" during the spring and summer of 1918 "Bolshevik armed force usually overthrew the results of these provincial elections . . . [In] the city of Izhevsk [for example] . . . in the May election [to the soviet] the Mensheviks and SRs won a majority . . . In June, these two parties also won a majority of the executive committee of the soviet. At this point, the local Bolshevik leadership refused to give up power . . . [and by use of the military] abrogated the results of the May and June elections and arrested the SR and Menshevik members of the soviet and its executive committee." In addition, "the government continually postponed the new general elections to the Petrograd Soviet, the term of which had ended in March 1918. Apparently, the government feared that the opposition parties would show gains." [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, pp. 23-4 and p. 22]

Bolshevik opposition to the soviet democracy started a few months after the Bolsheviks seizure of power in the name of the soviets. A few more examples are worth accounting.

After a demonstration in Petrograd in favour of the Constituent Assembly was repressed by the Bolsheviks in mid-January 1918, calls for new elections to the soviet occurred in many factories. "Despite the efforts of the Bolsheviks and the Factory Committees they controlled, the movement for new elections to the soviet spread to more than twenty factories by early February and resulted in the election of fifty delegates: thirty-six SRs, seven Mensheviks and seven nonparty." However, the Bolsheviks "unwillingness to recognise the elections and to seat new delegates pushed a group of Socialists to . . . lay plans for an alternative workers' forum . . . what was later to become the Assembly of Workers' Plenipotentiaries." [Scott Smith, "The Social-Revolutionaries and the Dilemma of Civil War", The Bolsheviks in Russian Society, pp. 83-104, Vladimir N. Brovkin (Ed.), pp. 85-86]

In Tula, again in the spring of 1918, local Bolsheviks reported to the Bolshevik Central Committee that the "Bolshevik deputies began to be recalled one after another . . . our situation became shakier with passing day. We were forced to block new elections to the soviet and even not to recognise them where they had taken place not in our favour." [quoted by Smith, Op. Cit., p. 87] In the end, the local party leader was forced to abolish the city soviet and to vest power in the Provincial Executive Committee. This refused to convene a plenum of the city soviet for more than two months, knowing that newly elected delegates were non-Bolshevik. [Ibid.]

In Yaroslavl', the newly elected soviet convened on April 9th, 1918, and when it elected a Menshevik chairman, "the Bolshevik delegation walked out and declared the soviet dissolved. In response, workers in the city went out on strike, which the Bolsheviks answered by arresting the strike committee and threatening to dismiss the strikers and replace them with unemployed workers." This failed and the Bolsheviks were forced to hold new elections, which they lost. Then "the Bolsheviks dissolved this soviet as well and places the city under martial law." A similar event occurred in Riazan' (again in April) and, again, the Bolsheviks "promptly dissolved the soviet and declared a dictatorship under a Military-Revolutionary Committee." [Op. Cit., pp. 88-9]

Anti-Bolshevik historian Vladimir Brovkin indicates that there "are three factors" which emerge from the soviet election results in the spring of 1918. These are, firstly, "the impressive success of the Menshevik-SR opposition" in those elections in all regions in European Russia. The second "is the Bolshevik practice of outright disbandment of the Menshevik-SR-controlled soviets. The third is the subsequent wave of anti-Bolshevik uprisings." In fact, "in all provincial capitals of European Russia where elections were held on which there are data, the Mensheviks and the SRs won majorities on the city soviets in the spring of 1918." Brovkin stresses that the "process of the Menshevik-SR electoral victories threatened Bolshevik power. That is why in the course of the spring and summer of 1918, the soviet assemblies were disbanded in most cities and villages. To stay in power, the Bolsheviks had to destroy the soviets. . . These steps generated a far-reaching transformation in the soviet system, which remained 'soviet' in name only." ["The Mensheviks' Political Comeback: The Elections to the Provincial City Soviets in Spring 1918", The Russian Review, vol. 42, pp. 1-50, p. 46, p. 47 and p. 48]

Brovkin presents accounts from numerous towns and cities. As an example, he discusses Tver' where the "escalation of political tensions followed the already familiar pattern" as the "victory of the opposition at the polls" in April 1918 "brought about an intensification of the Bolshevik repression. Strikes, protests, and marches in Tver' lead to the imposition of martial law." [Op. Cit., p. 11]

These are just a few examples of what was happening in Russia in early 1918. We must stress that the Russian Civil War started in late May, 1918 and the net effect of which was, of course, to make many dissident workers support the Bolsheviks during the war. This, however, did not stop mass resistance and strikes breaking out periodically during the war when workers and peasants could no longer put up with Bolshevik policies or the effects of the war.

Simple disbandment was just one of the many tactics used. Parties and meetings were banded, activists arrested and opposition press censored (if not suppressed). During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks repressed all political parties, including the Mensheviks even though they "consistently pursued a policy of peaceable opposition to the Bolshevik regime, a policy conducted by strictly legitimate means" and "[i]ndividual Mensheviks who joined organisations aiming at the overthrow of the Soviet Government were expelled from the Menshevik Party." [George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police, pp. 318-9 and p. 332]

The Bolsheviks also created institutional barriers to democracy. Zinoviev's comment that each local Union also elects delegates is an example. It means, of course, that the workers have two delegates, one for their place of work, another for their trade union. Why does the local Union also get a delegate? Simple, because it allowed the Bolsheviks to pack the soviet with "delegates" representing the trade union officialdom, in other words, the Bolshevik party. As historian Alexander Rabinowitch noted, the elections to the Petrograd Soviet in the second half of 1918 saw continued Bolshevik control because of "the numerically quite significant representation now given to trade unions, [and] district soviets . . . in which the Bolsheviks had overwhelming strength." [quoted by Samuel Farber, Op. Cit., p. 33]

Every six months the City and Provincial Soviets elect delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which is the supreme governing body of the country. The Congress decides upon the policies which are to govern the country for six months, and then elects a Central Executive Committee of two hundred, which is to carry out these policies. The Congress also elects the Cabinet - The Council of People's Commissars, who are the heads of Government Departments - or People's Commissariats.
The People's Commissars can be recalled at any time by the Central Executive Committee. The members of all Soviets can be recalled very easily, and at any time, by their constituents.

These Soviets are not only LEGISLATIVE bodies, but also EXECUTIVE organs. Unlike your Congress, they do not make the laws and leave them to the President to carry out, but the members carry out the laws themselves; and there is no Supreme Court to say whether or not these laws are "constitutional."

Between the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets the Central Executive Committee is the SUPREME POWER in Russia. It meets at least every two months, and in the meanwhile, the Council of People's Commissars directs the country, while the members of the Central Executive Committee go to work in the various government departments.

Needless to say, Zinoviev fails to mention a few facts. The All-Russian Congress originally was meant to meet four times a year, but met only once in 1919 and once in 1920. Obviously "the supreme governing body of the country" was not considered that important for the actual governing of the country.Between late 1918 and throughout 1919, the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian congress of soviets did not once met in full session. In the first year of the revolution, only 68 of 480 decrees by the Council of People's Commissars (the Communist government) were actually submitted to the Soviet Central Executive Committee (and even fewer were drafted by it). Clearly, the "SUPREME POWER" in Russia was, again, considered irrelevent for those who did hold the real power.

Zinoviev clearly admits that, in practice, the soviets have delegated their power to the "Council of People's Commissars" which is the real power in "the Workers' State." As he says, it "directs the country," not the working class. The working class "ruled" Russia in the same sense they "rule" in any bourgeois democracy (i.e. they did not). When the Kronstadt sailors rose in rebellion for free elections to the soviets in February 1921, the response of the Bolsheviks was simply to repress them.

Nor does he mention that the right of recall was undermined by the Bolsheviks at an early stage. We have already discussed the disbandment of soviets before the start of the Civil War in late May 1918. Oligarchic tendencies in the soviets increased post-October, with "[e]ffective power in the local soviets relentlessly gravitat[ing] to the executive committees." Local soviets had "little input into the formation of national policy." They quickly had become rubber-stamps of the Communist government and "the party often disbanded congresses that opposed major aspects of current policy." [C. Sirianni, Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy, p. 204 and p. 203] Indeed, the Soviet Constitution of 1918 codified this centralisation of power, with local soviets ordered to "carry out all orders of the respective higher organs of the soviet power" (i.e. to carry out the commands of the central government).

The Organization of Production and Distribution
In Russia the workers are organized in Industrial Unions, all the workers in each industry belonging to one union. For example, in a factory making metal products, even the carpenters and painters are members of the Metal Workers' Union. Each factory is a local Union, and the Shop Committee elected by the workers is its Executive Committee.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the federated Unions is elected by the annual Trade Union Convention. A Scale Committee elected by the Convention fixes the wages of all categories of workers.

With very few exceptions, all important factories in Russia have been nationalized, and are now the property of all the workers in common. The business of the Unions is therefore no longer to fight the capitalists, but to RUN INDUSTRY.

This is an obvious lie. It can best be exposed by looking at the events of the Tenth Party Congress one year after Zinoviev wrote his letter. The attempts by the Workers' Opposition to introduce union running of industry in 1921 was combated by Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks. If the unions did run industry in 1920, then this debate would never have occurred.

As part of the campaign against the Workers' Opposition and Bukharin, Lenin argued that "[i]f we say that it is not the Party but the trade unions that put up candidates and adminstrate, it may sound very democratic . . . [but it] will be fatal for the dictatorship of the proletariat." He also noted when using "the syndicalist phrase 'mandatory nominations (by trade unions to management bodies)" and you "neglect to add, there and then, that they are not mandatory for the Party, you have a syndicalist deviation, and that is incompatible with communism and the Party Programme. . . you are giving the non-Party workers a false sense of having some increase in their rights, whereas in fact there will be no change at all." [Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 322, p. 324]

Similarly, in 1920 Lenin was boasting that in 1918 he had "pointed out the necessity of recognising the dictatorial authority of single individuals for the pursue of carrying out the Soviet idea" and even claimed that at that stage "there were no disputes in connection with the question" of one-man management. [quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 65] While the first claim is true (Lenin argued for one-man management appointed from above before the start of the Civil War in May 1918) the latter one is not true (excluding anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, there were also the dissent Left-Communists in the Bolshevik party itself). In 1921, Lenin was again arguing that it "is absolutely essential that all authority in the factories should be concentrated in the hands of management . . . under these circumstances any direct intervention by the trade unions in the management of enterprises must be regarded as positively harmful and impermissible." [The Role of the Trade Unions under the N.E.P.]

These facts, combined with the struggle of the Bolsheviks against workers' self-management after the October Revolution shows that Zinoviev is simply lying, telling the I.W.W. what it wants to hear.

Hand in hand with the Unions works the Department of Labor of the Soviet Government, whose chief is the People's Commissar of Labor, elected by the Soviet Congress with the approval of the unions.
In charge of the economic life of the country is the elected Supreme Council of People's Economy, divided into departments, such as, Metal Department, Chemical Department, etc., each one headed by experts and workers, appointed, with the approval of the Union by the Supreme Council of People's Economy.

The Supreme Council of People's Economy was "dominated by representatives of the upper echelons of the trade unions, party nominees, and technical and adminstrative experts, with a slight representation from (and no accountability to) the factory committees . . . Policy was to be set by a seventy-to-eighty member Plenum, and daily business conducted by a Bureau of fifteen." [C. Sirianni, Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy, p. 119]

In other words, the economic life of Russia was, in theory, conducted by the orders of fifteen people just as its political life was conducted by the orders of the handful of People's Commissars. Hardly an example of economic democracy!

In each factory production is carried on by a committee consisting of three members: a representative of the Shop Committee of the Unions, a representative of the Central Executive of the Unions, and a representative of the Supreme Council of People's Economy.
In other words, workers do not run industry and neither do the unions, if we mean by unions their members rather than their bureaucracy. Clearly, only one member of this committee is directly accountable to the workers in the workplace and so they cannot be said to be controlling production. Even this form of very limited workers' control was eliminated by the Bolsheviks. In 1919, 10.8% of enterprises were under one-man management, by December 1920, 2,183 out of 2,483 factories were no longer under collective management.

Also, although Lenin described the NEP (New Economic Policy) of 1921 as a 'defeat', at no stage did he describe the suppression of soviet democracy and workers' control in such language. In other words, Bolshevik politics did play a role, a key role, in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and to deny it is to deny reality. In the words of Maurice Brinton:

"[I]n relation to industrial policy there is a clear-cut and incontrovertible link between what happened under Lenin and Trotsky and the later practice of Stalinism. We know that many on the revolutionary left will find this statement hard to swallow. We are convinced however that any honest reading of the facts cannot but lead to this conclusion. The more one unearths about this period [1917-21], the more difficult it becomes to define -- or even see -- the 'gulf' allegedly separating what happened in Lenin's time from what happened later. Real knowledge of the facts also makes it impossible to accept . . . that the whole course of events was 'historically inevitable' and 'objectively determined.' Bolshevik ideology and practice were themselves important and sometimes decisive factors in the equation, at every critical stage of this critical period." [Op. Cit., p. 84]

Democratic Centralization
The Unions are thus a branch of the government - and this government is the MOST HIGHLY CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT THAT EXISTS.

It is also the most democratic government in history. For all the organs of government are in constant touch with the working masses, and constantly sensitive to their will. Moreover, the local Soviets all over Russia have complete autonomy to manage their own local affairs, provided they carry out the national policies laid down by the Soviet Congress. Also, the Soviet Government represents ONLY THE WORKERS, and cannot help but act in the workers' interests.

Again, this is another blatant lie from Zinoviev. While there is no denying that the Bolshevik government was the "most highly centralised government that exists," it can easily be shown that it was not the "most democratic government in history." Indeed, we have indicated as much above, when we indicated Bolshevik disbandment of soviets and repression of all forms of opposition. This is not surprising, given that centralisation was designed to ensure minority rule.

Let us re-quote Zinoviev again:

"soviet rule in Russia could not have been maintained for three years -- not even three weeks -- without the iron dictatorship of the Communist Party. Any class conscious worker must understand that the dictatorship of the working class can by achieved only by the dictatorship of its vanguard, i.e., by the Communist Party . . . All questions of economic reconstruction, military organisation, education, food supply -- all these questions, on which the fate if the proletarian revolution depends absolutely, are decided in Russia before all other matters and mostly in the framework of the party organisations . . . Control by the party over soviet organs, over the trade unions, is the single durable guarantee that any measures taken will serve not special interests, but the interests of the entire proletariat." [quoted by Oskar Anweiler, The Soviets, pp. 239-40]

In other words, the party governs society, controls the soviets and unions and exercises its dictatorship over the workers. Indeed, the party does not have any special interests!

As for being sensitive to the working masses wills, Lenin and Trotsky argued repeatedly that party dictatorship was essential to stop this happening! Trotsky, for example, argued this against the Workers' Opposition at the Tenth Party Congress in early 1921: "They have made a fetish of democratic principles! They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" He stressed that the "Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship . . . regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class . . . The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy." [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 78]

Moreover, he argued against soviets being "sensitive" to the wishes of their electors in 1938 in a polemic against the Kronstadt rebellion. Trotsky stated that the "Kronstadt slogan" was "soviets without Communists." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 90] This, of course, is factually incorrect. The Kronstadt slogan was "all power to the soviets but not to the parties" (or "free soviets"). From this incorrect assertion, Trotsky argued as follows:

"to free the soviets from the leadership [!] of the Bolsheviks would have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves. The experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social Democrats, proved this. Social Revolutionary-anarchist soviets could only serve as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship. They could play no other role, regardless of the 'ideas' of their participants. The Kronstadt uprising thus had a counterrevolutionary character." [Op. Cit., p. 90]

Interesting logic. Let us assume that the result of free elections would have been the end of Bolshevik "leadership" (i.e. dictatorship), as seems likely. What Trotsky is arguing is that to allow workers to vote for their representatives would "only serve as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship"! This argument was made (in 1938) as a general point and is not phrased in terms of the problems facing the Russian Revolution in 1921. In other words Trotsky is clearly arguing for the dictatorship of the party and contrasting it to soviet democracy. So much for "All Power to the Soviets" or "workers' power"!

Perhaps we can better understand the Bolshevik vision by quoting Victor Serge. Serge, an anarchist turned Bolshevik, argued in 1919 that the party "is in a sense the nervous system of the [working] class" and its "consciousness." And the working class? It is "carrying out all the menial tasks required by the revolution" while "sympathising instinctively with the party." [Revolution in Danger, p.67 and p. 6] The party thinks, the workers obey. As in any class system.

Clearly, Zinoviev is reporting neither the facts of Bolshevik Russia nor the opinion of the Bolshevik leaders.

Many members of the I.W.W. are opposed to centralization, because they do not think it can be democratic. But where there are great masses of people, it is impossible to register the will of individuals; only the will of majorities can be registered, and in Soviet Russia the government is administered only for the common good of the working class.
In other words, the government expresses the "will of the majority" but it is, in fact, impossible for the "great masses of people" to actually govern themselves directly. The logic of Zinoviev's argument is flawed:

"if you consider these worthy electors as unable to look after their own interests themselves, how is it that they will know how to choose for themselves the shepherds who must guide them? And how will they be able to solve this problem of social alchemy, of producing a genius from the votes of a mass of fools? And what will happen to the minorities which are still the most intelligent, most active and radical part of a society?" [Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 53]

Yet, the practice of Bolshevism shows that Zinoviev is simply wrong. Soviet Russia was administered by a hand-full of People's Commissars. The soviets became marginalised (a fact which did not bother Lenin, Trotsky or Zinoviev). Clearly, centralisation cannot be democratic, as the experience of Bolshevism shows.

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the SOCIAL property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of all in common, and a centralized authority is necessary to accomplish this change.
Zinoviev is clearly playing with words here. A centralised authority is made up of "individuals or groups of individuals." Turning social property over to a few individuals at the top of a highly centralised organisation does not ensure that it is held in common, rather it ensures that the vast majority are dispossessed of real control over that property. The bureaucrats would be in control of it, not the whole of society.

So his argument is based on a fallacy, namely the assumption that the centre will not start to view the whole economy as its property (and being centralised, such a body would be difficult to effectively control). Indeed, Stalin's power was derived from the state bureaucracy which ran the economy in its own interests. Not that it suddenly arose with Stalin. It was a feature of the Soviet system from the start. Samuel Farber, for example, notes that, "in practice, [the] hypercentralisation [pursued by the Bolsheviks from early 1918 onwards] turned into infighting and scrambles for control among competing bureaucracies" and he points to the "not untypical example of a small condensed milk plant with few than 15 workers that became the object of a drawn-out competition among six organisations including the Supreme Council of National Economy, the Council of People's Commissars of the Northern Region, the Vologda Council of People's Commissars, and the Petrograd Food Commissariat." [Op. Cit., p. 73] In other words, centralised bodies are not immune to viewing resources as their own property (and compared to an individual workplace, the state's power to enforce its viewpoint against the rest of society is considerably stronger).

A centralised body effectively excludes the mass participation of the mass of workers -- power rests in the hands of a few people which, by its nature, generates bureaucratic rule. This can be seen from the example of Lenin's Russia. The central bodies the Bolsheviks created had little knowledge of the local situation and often gave orders that contradicted each other or had little bearing to reality, so encouraging factories to ignore the centre. [Carmen Sirianni, Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy, pp. 72-3 and pp. 118-20]

The simple fact is, a socialist society must be created from below, by the working class itself. If the workers do not know how to create the necessary conditions for a socialist organisation of labour, no one else can do it for them or compel them to do it. If the state is used to combat "localism" and such things then it obviously cannot be in the hands of the workers' themselves. Socialism can only be created by workers' own actions and organisations otherwise it will not be set up at all -- something else will be, namely state capitalism.

The industries, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the workers in each industry, but of ALL IN COMMON, and must be administered for the benefit of all. Moreover, modern industry is so complicated and interdependent, that in order to operate most economically and with the greatest production, it must be subject to one general scheme, and one central management.
In other words, an exact reproduction of the capitalist workplace. And all workers know how alienating, wasteful and inefficient the typical capitalist workplace is. Why reproduce it on an even greater scale? Moreover, one central management and one general scheme cannot hope to understand, nevermind meet, the needs of a complicated and dymanic society. As Bakunin argued:

"What man, what group of individuals, no matter how great their genius, would dare to think themselves able to embrace and understand the plethora of interests, attitudes and activities so various in every country, every province, locality and profession." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 240]

Yes, there is a need for co-operation and co-ordination, the question is how this is achieved. Is it from the bottom-up or from the top-down? Is it by federalism or by centralisation?

The Revolution must be defended against the formidable assaults of the combined forces of capitalism. Vast armies must be raised, drilled, equipped and directed. This means centralization. Soviet Russia has for two years almost alone fought off the massed attacks of the capitalist world. How could the Red Army, more than two million strong, have been formed without central directing authority?
We have indicated above the nature of the Red Army.The question of co-ordination of joint activity is an important one. Anarchists argue that to co-ordinate struggle you do not need a "central directing authority," rather you need a federal body based on delegates with clear and accountable mandates. In the words of Bakunin:

"the federative alliance of all working men's associations . . . constitute the Commune . . . all provinces, communes and associations . . . by first reorganising on revolutionary lines . . . [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces . . . [and] organise a revolutionary force capable defeating reaction . . . [and for] self-defence . . . [The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation. . . " [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170-2]

Such a federal body would be the means to discuss and implement common activities. Rather than centralising power at the top, the decisions would flow from the bottom-up. Co-ordination would be achieved without centralised power. The Red Army achieved "central directing authority" by eliminating workers' democracy and freedom in favour of appointed officiers and a typical military structure. It was effective in defeating the Whites but also for repressing working class revolts against the Bolsheviks and ensuring their dictatorship over the proletariat.

Moreover, it had an effect on the rise of Stalinism. Without democratic organisation, the Red Army could never be a means for creating a socialist society, only a means of reproducing autocratic organisation. The influence of the autocratic organisation created by Trotsky had a massive impact on the development of the Soviet State. According to Trotsky himself:

"The demobilisation of the Red Army of five million played no small role in the formation of the bureaucracy. The victorious commanders assumed leading posts in the local Soviets, in economy, in education, and they persistently introduced everywhere that regime which had ensured success in the civil war. Thus on all sides the masses were pushed away gradually from actual participation in the leadership of the country." [The Revolution Betrayed]

Obviously Trotsky had forgotten who created the regime in the Red Army in the first place! He also seems to have forgotten that after militarising the Red Army, he turned his power to militarising workers (starting with the railway workers).

The capitalist class has a strongly centralized organization, which permits its full strength to be hurried against the scattered and divided sections of the working class. The class war is war. To overthrow capitalism, the workers must be a military force, with its General Staff - but this general Staff elected and controlled by the workers.
As noted above, the Bolshevik government was far from elected and controlled by the workers. And, of course, the capitalist class has a strongly centralised organisation. It needs it to enforce its rule. Minority classes need a "strongly centralised organisation" because it is the only way by which they can enforce their rule. Majority classes do not. They need effect organisation in which power is decentralised so they can actually manage their own affairs. These organisations do need to co-ordinate their activity, but this can be done by federalism from the bottom-up.

In summary, structure and function are not separable. The capitalist class has centralised organisation because it is a minority and needs it for its rule. The working class, being the majority, cannot use structures designed for minorities without giving a minority power over itself.

In time of strike every worker knows that there must be a Strike Committee - a centralized organ to conduct the strike, whose orders must be obeyed - although this Committee is elected and controlled by the rank and file. SOVIET RUSSIA IS ON STRIKE AGAINST THE WHOLE CAPITALIST WORLD. THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IS A GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST THE WHOLE CAPITALIST SYSTEM. THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT IS THE STRIKE COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
In strikes, the decisions which are to be obeyed are those of the strikers. They should make the decisions and the strike committees should carry them out.The actual decisions of the Strike Committee are accountable to the assemblied strikers who have the real power. Thus power is decentralised in the hands of the strikers and not in the hands of the committee.

Zinoviev confuses a bureaucratic trade union with a self-managed revolutionary union or strike assembly. In the former, the role of the member is to vote for an official (bureaucrat) who then can issue commands to strike, to return to work and so on. They are elected, but they, not the worker, has the power. In the later, the members/strikers have the power to decide what the organisation does. The committees exist to carry out these wishes. Clearly, the Bolshevik "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the same as a bureaucratic trade union, with the committees issuing orders and the members expected simply to obey. As such, it is to be avoided at all cost in favour of a revolution inspired by the self-management practiced by a revolutionary union like the I.W.W, run by and for its members.

Probably the coming proletarian revolutions in America and other countries will develop new forms of organization. The Bolsheviki do not pretend that they have said the final word in the Social Revolution. But the experience of two years of Workers government in Russia is naturally of the greatest importance, and should be closely studied by the workers of other countries.
No truer words were said in this letter! Only by so doing can Bolshevik rehetoric be compared to Bolshevik reality. As I have proven, Zinoviev's account of the Bolshevik revolution has little bearing to reality.

<snip>

The Communist International holds out to the I.W.W. the hand of brotherhood.
As can be seen, this hand of brotherhood was based on systematic lying. Given that the Bolshevik government had been repressing Russian anarchists and syndicalists (as well as other socialists like the Left-Mensheviks and Left-Social Revolutionaries) as well as strikers and working class protestors, it is clear that this brotherhood was of the Big Brother kind rather than a meeting of equals.

Zinoviev's letter should be studied to see the divergence between Bolshevik myth and Bolshevik reality. Once this is done, it clearly shows that Bolshevism is a deeply flawed ideology which cannot lead to working class freedom.

[Five Year Plan]

It isn't the political disagreement but what that political disagreement has entailed in the past in terms of repression and executions. Vehement disagreement is not problematic at all. It was however excruciatingly problematic to the Bolsheviks to the point of work camps, torture and execution. To such a point that even prior to 1922 Bolshevik opposition within the Bolshevik party had to be afraid of speaking their minds.

So politics is distinct from violence? Spoken like somebody who would talk about an "invisible" working class, and the positive role that a reformist social-democratic party is playing. In reality, the use of repression, the use of force, including violent force, is a thoroughly political question. Only somebody whose politics are thoroughly immersed in liberal assumptions would this come as a revelation.


O I have mastered the basic points of the revolution enough to understand that no matter what argument is brought up and not matter how many quotes you use to substantiate the claims by how many Bolsheviks those quotes will either be argued to be taken out of context, the specific Bolshevik was problematic, the views hadn't matured yet, or were the result of the material conditions...or just about any other excuse which doesn't actually mean the need to critically confront and assess the Bolshevik ideology and politics themselves which is always and ultimately above any form of reproach.Funny that you talk about having mastered the "basic points of revolution." I mentioned how you hadn't mastered the basic points of the history of the Russian Revolution, yet insist on denouncing the role of Bolshevism in supposedly playing in an instrumental role in that revolution floundering. As for out of context quotes? The only ones I've seen in this thread (apart from this posted by DaveB, whom I don't take seriously and just ignore) are two quotes you pasted a few pages ago, one of them from Lenin and one from Trotsky.


And yet for all your rhetorics it is ironic that since Bolsheviks historically have the attitude to denounce the most people and tendencies, in their official literature, they seem awfully whiny about discrimination when being denounced. Is there an actual tendency the Bolsheviks haven't send to the work camps or to the cellars of the Ch k in droves?I have no problem with forcibly silencing of certain views or people given a specific context justifies it. I am not opposed to it in principle. What I find objectionable is when people espouse and uphold a quasi-liberal fetishising of democracy and openness of debate, but then in their own behavior, violate their own principles ... in situations where far less is at stake. I dread to consider how unprincipled their behavior would be in situations where something truly essential were on the line, like lives or a revolution. If Bolsheviks were ranting and raving about how great and inviolable democratic forms were, then proceeded to violate them, I would have a serious problem. But they never unconditionally upheld democratic forms because they always insisted on taking a class analysis of how those forms were deployed in specific historical junctures.


But of course we can't denounce you for that. Since you were all acting in the best interest of the proletariat....when of course you weren't shooting, torturing, or coercing them or their families. :rolleyes:You seem to be confused. While I uphold Bolshevism as a practice, I personally have never killed or tortured anybody. With that out of the way, you think the anarchists were upholding the best interests of the working class as a whole. I think the Bolsheviks, on balance, tended to do so. This is a political disagreement. Instead of debating it out, you want administrators and moderators on this forum to use their authority to impose their view.

[synthesis]

And if I started listing the highly questionable bans that I've noticed from just the past few months of searching the forum, you'd shrug your shoulders and say, "yeah, members of every tendency can list a few unfair bans." And my point is that in proportion to their numbers on the forum, those attempting to adhere to Bolshevism (in a non-opportunist form) are disproportionately singled out. When you throw the self-requested deactivations into the mix, it's even more staggering, really.

That wasn't what I was getting at. The point isn't that the forum's biases are fictional but that they go in cycles; every tendency has experienced this at some point or another, and this is actually the first time I've heard Trots complain about it. (cf. anarchists via RAAN in 2010; Maoists around TVM in 2011; left-communists via the forum games bans in 2012; and Marxist-Leninists in the last ten to twelve years or so.) And I'm not trying to "pull rank" or seniority or whatever but I would really ask you to take my word on this and that I am arguing in good faith here.


Not only that, in yet another instance of what I have been describing, I would probably be banned for "apologizing" for whatever those people were supposedly banned for.

Okay, this is where your argument starts to become problematic. I suspect that what you are referring to is the banning of users Fred and Dabrowski, who were banned for what the forum has always considered pedophilia apologism and for which people from all tendencies have been banned, and in regards to which I believe Vincent West requested his own account be deactivated. (Correct me if I'm wrong, VW.)

The only connection to Bolshevism here is the historical connection of Sparts to age-of-consent laws. If you're defending them I'd have to say fuck off and I hope you get banned too. If not, again, please correct me.


Now would you like a link to the post where Vincent systematically explained how vanguardism is not unique to "substitutionism"?

That's not what I interpreted your point as:


As Vincent West explained systematically, petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists can use many different pretexts to try to substitute their grand all-knowing vision for the agency of the working class. Vanguardism should not be singled out as unique in this regard.

The way you phrased this made it seem as though what you thought he had "systematically explained" was that petit-bourgeois pseudo-socialists can pervert ideologies other than Bolshevism for their own anti-proletarian ends. So this completely comes across to me as shifting the goalposts, but if that's what you intended to say then I don't really care enough to continue arguing about this.

Finally, for all the rage the two of you can muster against "social democrats" on this forum - which is of course a problem up to and including the highest ranks of the BA, and has been for a very long time - I would say that there is a growing segment of the forum who believe that people who defend the Western bourgeoisie and people who defend the Soviet bourgeoisie are equally reprehensible. It is part of the concept that the USSR, at least after 1924, was never qualitatively different from the other imperialist countries. Now I realize these developments may be intimidating to Trotskyists and their political teratology but don't mistake that for an increasing tolerance of social democracy as a whole on this forum relative to five or ten years ago.

[PhoenixAsh]

So politics is distinct from violence?

Did I say this? No. This is something which you seem to be filling in yourself. Strange how many things you read that haven't actually been written.


Spoken like somebody who would talk about an "invisible" working class, and the positive role that a reformist social-democratic party is playing.

Have I said that role was positive? Or did I actually say that in lieu of an active revolutionary alternative the Sp was currently the best option available to the working class. A statement of fact. An observation if you want.


In reality, the use of repression, the use of force, including violent force, is a thoroughly political question.

So then it can not come as a surprise to you that most of your political opponent who realize this all to well will call you out and denounce you. Nice logical circle reasoning you are doing here.


Only somebody whose politics are thoroughly immersed in liberal assumptions would this comes as a revelation.

I imagine this would and since I am not so intimately familiar with liberal notions as you seem to be I will take your word for it.

That said it might behoove you to hear that I have on more than one occasion stated that the ideological differences between Anarchism and the Bolsheviks are so fundamental I would expect both sides to not peacefully coexist at all.



Funny that you talk about having mastered the "basic points of revolution." I mentioned how you hadn't mastered the basic points of the history of the Russian Revolution, yet insist on denouncing the role of Bolshevism in supposedly playing in an instrumental role in that revolution floundering.

I needed to translate that sentence several times. And you are contradicting yourself here.

But I assume...that you meant to say that either since I insist on the Bolsheviks were instrumental in the revolution failing I am denouncing them and therefore I haven't mastered the basic point of the history of the revolution. Or you meant to say that the Bolsheviks were floundering and therefore I haven't mastered the history of the russian revolution because I insist on denouncing them.


As for out of context quotes? The only ones I've seen in this thread (apart from this posted by DaveB, whom I don't take seriously and just ignore) are two quotes you pasted a few pages ago, one of them from Lenin and one from Trotsky.

O yes. Because this thread in the entire scope of Revleft is unique and we have never held this debate before. Nor did I btw say the quotes were or would be mine :rolleyes:


I have no problem with forcibly silencing of certain views or people given a specific context justifies it. I am not opposed to it in principle. What I find objectionable is when people espouse and uphold a quasi-liberal fetishising of democracy and openness of debate, but then in their own behavior, violate their own principles ... in situations where far less is at stake.

Really? Because I have sooooo violated your right to have an open debate here. :rolleyes:


I dread to consider how unprincipled their behavior would be in situations where something truly essential were on the line, like lives or a revolution.

Well...we all know what line the Bolsheviks would take. So we do not need to dread to consider. We know.

The problem is not democracy you fool. Either you have serious problems understanding or reading or you are just playing cute here.



If Bolsheviks were ranting and raving about how great and inviolable democratic forms were, then proceeded to violate them, I would have a serious problem. But they never unconditionally upheld democratic forms because they always insisted on taking a class analysis of how those forms were deployed in specific historical junctures.

Democracy not being the problem....then what is? O my we do really have to spell it out don't we?

The problem is the fact that at each and every turn they divorced the working class of emancipation and empowerment. At each and every turn they substituted actual workers control over the means of production for the control over workers by the party by subjugating them unconditionally to the party line and party management while not changing their relationship to the means of production.



You seem to be confused. While I uphold Bolshevism as a practice, I personally have never killed or tortured anybody. With that out of the way, you think the anarchists were upholding the best interests of the working class as a whole. I think the Bolsheviks, on balance, tended to do so. This is a political disagreement. Instead of debating it out, you want administrators and moderators on this forum to use their authority to impose their view.

Again.... Can you point me to where I actually asked the BA to impose their view? Or are you just talking horse shit again in order to cover up your own inadequacies and feelings of personal rejection? By now you simply are making a miserable fool of yourself.

What you are mistaken is my own, and those of several others, personal views that Bolsheviks are completely counter revolutionary with the views and rules of this site. I have no interest of changing the views of this site which I have agreed to uphold. Will there ever be a vote on the issue of whether Bolshevisk should be allowed here I would have no doubt you know what I would vote. But given the current on this site I doubt there will ever be such a vote nor do I feel the necessity to call for such a vote when, much like Anarchists preach and therefore practice, open debate (you know...like the one we are actually having but which you seem to be denying we are actually having) is an option.

[Five Year Plan]

Did I say this? No. This is something which you seem to be filling in yourself. Strange how many things you read that haven't actually been written.

What you said was your problem wasn't with "the political disagreement but what that political disagreement has entailed in the past in terms of repression and executions." And I understood it perfectly fine, not filling anything in. Your comment can be read in one of two ways: that you don't have a problem with political disagreements, but rather with "repression and executions" (viewed as distinct from political disagreements and political responses to those disagreements); or that you are pacifist who has a problem with any political disagreement that rises to the level of requiring a violent resolution.

Neither one of these places you outside the orbit of liberal platitude.


Have I said that role was positive? Or did I actually say that in lieu of an active revolutionary alternative the Sp was currently the best option available to the working class. A statement of fact. An observation if you want.We call this argument "lesser of two evils." Like your argument about violence, it is thoroughly liberal in failing to acknowledge that the defense of the working class occurs through opposing all bourgeois electoral formations, including bourgeois workers' parties. As VW pointed out, the "best option available" to workers is fighting all such bourgeois electoral formations, not pretending that it has to choose the lesser evil among them.


So then it can not come as a surprise to you that most of your political opponent who realize this all to well will call you out and denounce you. Nice logical circle reasoning you are doing here.My reasoning would be circular if I said, "Politics entails forcible silencing and sometimes violence. I just can't believe you are imposing your politics through forcibly silencing people!" However, as is typical with you, you wrongly accuse people of failing to understand your statements, while wildly misreading what your interlocutors are saying. I said I have problems with people who hypocritically violate principles they claim to uphold and implicitly use as bludgeons to attack people. I have problems with it because I think revolutionaries should be clear about their revolutionary principles, and not lie or try to deceive people about them by claiming to support them when in fact acting contrary to them at every opportunity. Such deception, whether it is unintentional or not, is a classic example of substitutionism, where workers are denied knowledge of the real principles that animate a person's or a group's behavior. How that relates to this thread is that you have consistently condemned the Bolsheviks for the most banal of liberal reasons, with talk about elections and percentages of support, and how violent and forcible they were with opponents...while you, of course, are perfectly okay with forcibly silencing people on the forum on the basis of their being "counter-revolutionary" (read: Bolshevik).


That said it might behoove you to hear that I have on more than one occasion stated that the ideological differences between Anarchism and the Bolsheviks are so fundamental I would expect both sides to not peacefully coexist at all.Of course you have stated this before. My point is that you want to assume that your answer to this question is correct, and that administrators and moderators should act on the basis of your assumption.


But I assume...that you meant to say that either since I insist on the Bolsheviks were instrumental in the revolution failing I am denouncing them and therefore I haven't mastered the basic point of the history of the revolution. Or you meant to say that the Bolsheviks were floundering and therefore I haven't mastered the history of the russian revolution because I insist on denouncing them.Maybe you should brush up on your English. I will repeat: I haven't killed or tortured anybody, so when talking to me, stop referring to "you" when assigning responsibility for killings that took place many decades before I was even born. It just makes you sound like an ultra-moralizing twit.

I also said that your comments in this thread and in a previous one about whether Trotsky was a revisionist reveals that you have a poor understanding of the basic points of historical fact regarding the Russian Revolution. Yet you insist on making sweeping historical judgments about why the Revolution turned out the way it did.

I have witnessed your behavior on this forum enough to know that you don't have a carefully developed and well thought out set of political beliefs. You have a few out-of-context quotes said by Bolsheviks you have cherry picked to reinforce liberal notions that you carried with you when you got just angry enough that you decided to ditch the label (though certainly not the politics) of liberalism. It is not surprising at all that your last post was a long excerpt from blackened.net, which is a site notorious for having pages and pages of out-of-context quotes purportedly showing how wicked and anti-democratic the Bolsheviks were.

You also have a shockingly weak command of revolutionary history, evidenced by repeated factual inaccuracies and wildly off-base statements about the ideas that motivated key people involved. When shown decisively how off-the-mark you are, you have a tendency to either retreat into the bizarre claim that you were trolling, or into the claim that what specific people thought was irrelevant, since they were just liars intent on acquiring power, whose professed ideas were not accurate reflections of their real motivations (ironic, coming from you).

Look, I have no problem with people who aren't experts on these things. Nobody was born a revolutionary, or a scholar of revolutionary traditions. It's just mystifying that you have managed, through the shady network of personal patronage that encompasses the positions of responsibility on this forum, acquired a position of authority. What is truly shocking about this isn't so much your ignorance about many things, but the fact that your level of discourse consistently evinces an approach to discussion that precludes you from ever lifting yourself out of this ignorance.

[PhoenixAsh]

What you said was your problem wasn't with "the political disagreement but what that political disagreement has entailed in the past in terms of repression and executions." And I understood it perfectly fine, not filling anything in. Your comment can be read in one of two ways: that you don't have a problem with political disagreements, but rather with "repression and executions" (viewed as distinct from political disagreements and political responses to those disagreements); or that you are pacifist who has a problem with any political disagreement that rises to the level of requiring a violent resolution.

Neither one of these places you outside the orbit of liberal platitude.


Actually it is a third option which you failed to reconsider. Given your past ideologies behavior a political disagreement will only be settled by violence which makes your particular sect unfahig. I consider Bolsheviks as enemies of the working class.



We call this argument "lesser of two evils." Like your argument about violence, it is thoroughly liberal in failing to acknowledge that the defense of the working class occurs through opposing all bourgeois electoral formations, including bourgeois workers' parties. As VW pointed out, the "best option available" to workers is fighting all such bourgeois electoral formations, not pretending that it has to choose the lesser evil among them.

Sigh. Since it is not an argument we don't call this an argument. It is an observation. There is no revolutionaryleft and it is thoroughly hilarious that Bolsheviks are arguing for the organic evolution of class consciousness. As VW conveniently left out of his "pointing out" which was merely obnoxious self serving I had, in the thread he revered to, already expressly stated that the SP is not a revolutionary movement and that the revolutionary movement is for all intents and purposes non existent in Holland...so either they must organically come to class conscious. Something Bolsheviks as per ideology reject as possible, or they need guidance which has been absent for over three decades. So that guidance needs to be rebuild...which takes time. In the mean time the SP is the only short term alternative.

This is not lesser of two evils. This is simply an observable fact.

Now. I will ask you again the question which you "we don't give a fuck about non class conscious workers"- Bolsheviks suggest the Proletariat do in the meantime when the left is recovering from the disastrous legacy the Bolsheviks left the revolutionary movement. In the short term. And how do YOU propose the unconscious working class suddenly gains consciousness?



My reasoning would be circular if I said, "Politics entails forcible silencing and sometimes violence. I just can't believe you are imposing your politics through forcibly silencing people!" However, as is typical with you, you wrongly accuse people of failing to understand your statements, while wildly misreading what your interlocutors are saying.

No I am not. You are arguing that it is unjust and hypocritical of me to denounce the Bolsheviks because they denounce tendencies. Yet it is not the denouncement of tendencies which I denounce but the fact that Bolsheviks use sliding slopes of arguments in doing so.

What you also said is that I fetishized democracy while being undemocratic towards Bolsheviks (which clearly was factual fallacy on both counts) but for which you posed the proof that I was somehow doing so by using my position to leverage this undemocratic nature.


I said I have problems with people who hypocritically violate principles they claim to uphold and implicitly use as bludgeons to attack people. I have problems with it because I think revolutionaries should be clear about their revolutionary principles, and not lie or try to deceive people about them by claiming to support them when in fact acting contrary to them at every opportunity.

Wauw. This ironically is exactly the problem I have with Bolsheviks. So we couldn't agree more.



Such deception, whether it is unintentional or not, is a classic example of substitutionism, where workers are denied knowledge of the real principles that animate a person's or a group's behavior.

Again we agree. Noting however Trotsky completely negated his own statements later in his career.



How that relates to this thread is that you have consistently condemned the Bolsheviks for the most banal of liberal reasons, with talk about elections and percentages of support, and how violent and forcible they were with opponents...while you, of course, are perfectly okay with forcibly silencing people on the forum on the basis of their being "counter-revolutionary" (read: Bolshevik).

Agian....could you point me in the direction where I am actually doing that...silencing Bolsheviks? Again I must point out the obvious lies you fabricate to construct a non existing argument. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

But then again. I only talk about percentages in reply to somebody who claimed that Bolshevik has massive and overwhelming support. It was in fact the Bolsheviks who participated in the bourgeois constituent Assembly in the first place about which I argued that it should have been abolished from the start like Anarchists argued at the beginning of the thread and that Bolshevists were unprincipled to participate in the first place and their subsequent disbandment was merely because they hadn't actually won. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Your entire argument is a complete set of lies. And it is fucking hillarious.
You sir, are a fucking liar.


Of course you have stated this before. My point is that you want to assume that your answer to this question is correct, and that administrators and moderators should act on the basis of your assumption.

Maybe you should brush on your English. I will repeat: I haven't killed or tortured anybody, so stop referring to "you" when assigning responsibility for actions that took place many decades before I was even born.

You advocate the policy, the ideology and the method. I haven't heard you denounce it.



I also said that your comments in this thread and in a previous one about whether Trotsky was a revisionist reveals that you have a poor understanding of the basic points of historical fact regarding the Russian Revolution. Yet you insist on making sweeping historical judgments about why the Revolution turned out the way it did.

Yes, I know you did. But, and this is a funny little detail that may surprise you, you are not the arbiter of what constitutes historical fact.


I have witnessed your behavior on this forum enough to know that you don't have a carefully developed and well thought out set of political beliefs. You have a few out-of-context quotes said by Bolsheviks you have cherry picked to reinforce liberal notions that you carried with you when you got just angry enough that you decided to ditch the label (though certainly not the politics) of liberalism. It is not surprising at all that your last post was a long excerpt from blackened.net, which is a site notorious for having pages and pages of out-of-context quotes purportedly showing how wicked and anti-democratic the Bolsheviks were.

And it is not surprising that a Bolshevik will use all tired and old tactics to shake off any responsibility for counter revolution. But yeah...just like I said...Bolshevisks will always claim something is quoted out of context. I should have added that the only defence is to counter attack the credibility of the source and accuse them of liberal or petit bourgeois ideas.
How refreshing.


You also have a shockingly weak command of revolutionary history, evidenced by repeated factual inaccuracies and wildly off-base statements about the ideas that motivated key people involved. When shown decisively how off-the-mark you are, you have a tendency to either retreat into the bizarre claim that you were trolling, or into the claim that what specific people thought was irrelevant, since they were just liars intend on acquiring power.


I have never been shown decisively actually. You can't. Historical facts belie your fabricated reality just as much as you fabricate your narrative here. It is already clear to everybody by now that you are in fact an untrustworthy liar.

First you claimed that I was actively trying to pass measures against Bolsheviks. Then you claimed I was silencing open debate. Then you claimed I was focusing on numbers. Then you claimed I fetishized democracy.

All of those are clearly and obvious lies. So you can't claim any moral high ground. You are just trying to save your own hide and detract from the topic of the thread: the failure of the Bolsheviks and their ideology.


Look, I have no problem with people who aren't experts on these things. Nobody was born a revolutionary, or a scholar of revolutionary traditions. It's just mystifying that have managed, through the shady network of personal patronage that encompasses the positions of responsibility on this forum, acquired a position of authority. What is truly shocking about this isn't so much your ignorance about many things, but the fact that your level of discourse consistently evinces an approach to discussion that precludes you from ever lifting yourself out of this ignorance.

Dude, your an obvious two faced liar....claiming any moral or knowledgeable highroad here is not going to fly. That window of opportunity has long passed.

And you have behaved exactly how I predicted you would behave. Trying to cast of the quotes as out of context. Of course Anarchists are always going to, as they always have, going to argue against Bolsheviks. Your tired attempt at refutation through discrediting is as predictable as it is ancient.

[PhoenixAsh]

My arguments dear Aufheben are however the arguments Anarchists have been wielding against the Bolsheviks since the 20's. You can read them in just about any Anarchist text on the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. I advice you to rummage through the Anarchist library on the matter.

So when you accuse me of lacking analysis you are accusing a whole range of Anarchist writers of that. Which is incidentally completely in line with Bolshevik practice. Just don't think anybody is going to take your arguments serious.

:rolleyes::laugh:

[PhoenixAsh]

totally hilarious. I am still laughing at you for saying my argument that the Bolsheviks were unprincipled in participating in elections of bourgeois institutes instead of abolishing them right away in favor of workers coalitions and only doing so after they didn't manage to gain a majority vote is somehow liberal.


you should be a comedian. :laugh:

[synthesis]

I'm enjoying this insistence that criticizing the Bolsheviks for taking power away from the working class is somehow intrinsically related to the demographic of this board that skews toward social democracy or liberalism. See, Vincent West, that's our parallel in another form: you refuse to recognize any qualitative distinction between social democracy/liberalism and pretty much every expression of anarchism or spontaneism in the 20th and 21st centuries.

How is that different from the arguments that you and aufheben are complaining about, the ones that say that Trotskyism is a counter-revolutionary ideology, that you're just social democrats waving a red flag? Now that I think about it, it makes a lot more sense if I look at your complaints as preemptive attacks intended to ward off such criticism.

[Dictator]

When they decided that there goal was to manage capital in a new way rather than to destroy it.

To be fair to the Bolsheviks, they did have Hitler to contend with, so Stalin had to force industrialisation onto the population - then WW2, then rebuilding etc.. so workers' paradise never had a proper chance to get going.

seemed to get stuck in that phase