Marxism-Leninism, why Stalin ?

[TrotskyMyHero]

Marxism-Leninism is the theory and practice of the Communists, who uphold the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin in the struggle for proletarian revolution, the construction of socialism, and the triumph of communism on a world scale.
Source : Marxist-Leninists group

My question is simple, why Stalin ? Most of his ideas are against marxism. For example, he is antisemitic (Trotsky), supports the idea of a state, is an autocrat... And you call him marxist ?
( I feel it is gonna be a polemic thread)

[Wht.Rex]

My question is simple, why Stalin ? Most of his ideas are against marxism. For example, he is antisemitic (Trotsky), supports the idea of a state, is an autocrat... And you call him marxist ?

Are you crazy? Where did you hear such nonsense? During his leadership as gen. secretary, he had plenty of jews working in his office. Also, remember that Stalin was also one of those nation leaders that proposed creating state for Jewish people and Jewish community in Southern Russia.
Trotsky (Bronstein) WAS zionist, not just jew. He even had apartment in Wall Street and was one who actually made red terror among neighboring countries in Europe.

Also, funny thing is, lot of nazis and fascists actually are trying to imply that Stalin was jew.

[DOOM]

Are you crazy? Where did you hear such nonsense? During his leadership as gen. secretary, he had plenty of jews working in his office. Also, remember that Stalin was also one of those nation leaders that proposed creating state for Jewish people and Jewish community in Southern Russia.
Trotsky (Bronstein) WAS zionist, not just jew. He even had apartment in Wall Street and was one who actually made red terror among neighboring countries in Europe.

Also, funny thing is, lot of nazis and fascists actually are trying to imply that Stalin was jew.

What do you mean by zionist and how does it qualify someone for the ownership of an apartment in the Wall Street?

[Sinister Intents]

I have no problem calling Stalin a Marxist and I think you're baiting and trying to start a tendency war. Also present evidence of his antisemitism

[motion denied]

What do you mean by zionist and how does it qualify someone for the ownership of an apartment in the Wall Street?

Jewish Wall Street conspiracy, duh.

[Tim Cornelis]

Oh god. This tankie is shading into anti-semitic territory. Maybe next time he'll reveal himself to be a National-Bolshevik. Anyway, once again, ignore Wht.Rex completely.

Marxism-Leninism, or even Leninism, was an invention of Stalin and so Marxism-Leninism is synonymous with Stalinism. Of course, I personally believe that Stalinism is contradictory to communism, and is a bourgeois-socialist ideology, and not communist. Stalinists believe Marxism-Leninism to be consistent with communism, obviously. His opposition to Trotsky wasn't motivated by anti-semitism. Marxist-Leninists/Stalinists believe that the USSR was democratic, and not autocratic. In this sense, they put their faith in Stalinist propaganda.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

He even... was one who actually made red terror among neighboring countries in Europe.

Oh no, anything but that.

"Marxism-Leninism" is simply how people we Trotskyists call "Stalinists" describe themselves. Of course we don't think they are in the tradition of Marx or Lenin, but yeah, names aren't decided by our wishes. So generally you will see Trotskyists using the term "Marxist-Leninist" rarely if ever (although Seymour and other ICL theoreticians do so from time to time), just as Stalinists are not likely to call themselves Bolsheviks-Leninists.

[G4b3n]

There is no doubt he was a Marxist. As for his application of Marxist theory, that can certainly be called into question. However, I believe he held the conviction that all Marxists do, that the state will wither away.

As for Stalin being anti-Semitic, that is just false. There were Jews at the highest ranks of the party (as Nazis were quick to point out). Not to mention that the Red Army liberated the majority of Eastern European Jews suffering under Nazi tyranny. Russia was also the first nation to release evidence of the mass murder of European Jewry as early as 1944, while many in the west regarded it as nothing more than communist propaganda.

[TrotskyMyHero]

I think you're baiting and trying to start a tendency war.

No, I am just asking why Stalin is considered as Marxist-Leninist.


Also present evidence of his antisemitism

During the negociations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (aka non-agression treaty), he promised to get rid of the "jewish domination". In 1939, he dismissed Foreign Minister Maxim Limitnov (jew) and appointed Vyacheslav Molotov, with the order to "purge the ministry of Jews". In 1949, the microbiologist Nikolay Gamaleya, a member of the Academy of Sciences, wrote a personal letter to Stalin : "Judging by absolutely indisputable and obvious indications, the reappearance of antisemitism is not coming from below, not from the masses. . . but is directed from above, by someone's invisible hand. Antisemitism is coming from some high-placed persons who have taken up posts in the leading party organs".


Marxism-Leninism, or even Leninism, was an invention of Stalin and so Marxism-Leninism is synonymous with Stalinism.


"Marxism-Leninism" is simply how people we Trotskyists call "Stalinists" describe themselves. Of course we don't think they are in the tradition of Marx or Lenin, but yeah, names aren't decided by our wishes.

The answers I was looking for, thanks.

[Zanters]

Also, funny thing is, lot of nazis and fascists actually are trying to imply that Stalin was jew.
Actually, a lot of fascists actually like the guy.

[Atsumari]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2kcYLrCG1Kk/UvPzGmdW0zI/AAAAAAAAAOM/BCbN5oWavjA/s1600/001a.png

[TrotskyMyHero]

Also, funny thing is, lot of nazis and fascists actually are trying to imply that Stalin was jew.

Quoting nazi theories. You've got to be truly desperate.

[Destroyer of Illusions]

My question is simple, why Stalin ? Most of his ideas are against marxism. For example, he is antisemitic (Trotsky)...

Well,your hero Trotsky was anti-Geargian because he was against Stalin (according your logic),And you call him marxist after this? Do you think that to be anti-Geargian is better that to be antisemitic?



supports the idea of a state....

What sort of idea ? Find Stalin's collected works and point please what do you mean.


an autocrat

Ever read Engels's "On authority"? I'm sure,no.

[FieldHound]

Pretty sure that Marxism-Leninism is just the name Stalin used for...well...Stalinism. It's well known that Stalin appropriated Lenin, made mocked up photos of them together, supressed his letters that denounced Stalin etc.

I don't really know of anybody that is pro-Marx, pro-Lenin and anti-Stalin that consider themselves Marxist-Leninist as the term is usually reserved for Stalin/post-Stalin "anti-revisionist" regimes. Most pro-Marx, pro-Lenin but anti-Stalin socialists usually call themselves Marxist or just communist, rather than Marxist-Leninist which has mostly become associated with Stalinist regimes, but I might be wrong.

[Tim Cornelis]

Ever read Engels's "On authority"? I'm sure,no.

What?! How is Engel's "On Authority" a justification for autocracy!

[Comrade Hadrian]

During the negociations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (aka non-agression treaty), he promised to get rid of the "jewish domination". In 1939, he dismissed Foreign Minister Maxim Limitnov (jew) and appointed Vyacheslav Molotov, with the order to "purge the ministry of Jews".

Do you have a source for this?


In 1949, the microbiologist Nikolay Gamaleya, a member of the Academy of Sciences, wrote a personal letter to Stalin : "Judging by absolutely indisputable and obvious indications, the reappearance of antisemitism is not coming from below, not from the masses. . . but is directed from above, by someone's invisible hand. Antisemitism is coming from some high-placed persons who have taken up posts in the leading party organs".

And this means what, exactly?

As for right-wing tendencies, Trotsky seems to have thought Stalin wasn't white enough to lead the USSR. Trotsky thought Stalin was crafty, shrewd, barbaric Asiastic mongoloid, like all the rest of the barbarian statesmen of Asia. We know this because Trotsky said so:



THE late Leonid Krassin, old revolutionist, eminent engineer, brilliant Soviet diplomat and, above all, intelligent human being, was the first, if I am not mistaken, to call Stalin an “Asiatic”. In saying that, he had in mind no problematical racial attributes, but rather that blending of grit, shrewdness, craftiness and cruelty which has been considered characteristic of the statesmen of Asia. Bukharin subsequently simplified the appellation, calling Stalin “Genghis Khan,” manifestly in order to draw attention to his cruelty, which has developed into brutality. Stalin himself, in conversation with a Japanese journalist, once called himself an “Asiatic,” not in the old but rather in the new sense of the word: with that personal allusion he wished to hint at the existence of common interests between the U.S.S.R. and Japan as against the imperialistic West. Contemplating the term “Asiatic” from a scientific point of view, we must admit that in this instance it is but partially correct. Geographically, the Caucasus, especially Transcaucasia, is undoubtedly a continuation of Asia. The Georgians, however, in contradistinction from the Mongolian Azerbaijanians, belong to the so-called Mediterranean, European race. Thus Stalin was not exact when he called himself an Asiatic. But geography, ethnography and anthropology are not all that matters; history looms larger.

A few spatters of the human flood that has poured for centuries from Asia into Europe have clung to the valleys and mountains of the Caucasus. Disconnected tribes and groups seemed to have frozen there in the process of their development, transforming the Caucasus into a gigantic ethnographic museum. In the course of many centuries the fate of these people remained closely bound up with that of Persia and Turkey, being thus retained in the sphere of the old Asiatic culture, which has contrived to remain static despite continual jolts from war and mutiny.

Anywhere else, on a site more traversed, that small, Georgian branch of humanity—about two and a half millions at the present time—undoubtedly would have dissolved in the crucible of history and left no trace. Protected by the Caucasian mountain range, the Georgians preserved in a comparatively pure form their ethnic physiognomy and their language, for which philology to this day seems to have difficulty in finding a proper place. Written language appeared in Georgia simultaneously with the penetration of Christianity, as early as the fourth century, six hundred years earlier than in Kievian Russia. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries are considered the epoch in which Georgia’s military power, and its art and literature flourished. Then followed centuries of stagnation and decay. The frequent bloody raids into the Caucasus of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane left their traces upon the national epos of Georgia. If one can believe the unfortunate Bukharin, they left their traces likewise on the character of Stalin.

More racist ranting on how non-white Stalin was on the eve of WW2:


The national character of the Georgians is usually represented as trusting, impressionable, quick-tempered, while at the same time devoid of energy and initiative. Above all, Reclus noted their gaiety, sociability and forthrightness. Stalin’s character has few of these attributes, which, indeed, are the most immediately noticeable in personal intercourse with Georgians. Georgian émigrés in Paris assured Souvarine, the author of Stalin’s French biography, that Joseph Djugashvili’s mother was not a Georgian but an Osetin and that there is an admixture of Mongolian blood in his veins. But a certain Iremashvili, whom we shall have occasion to meet again in the future, asserts that Stalin’s mother was a pure-blooded Georgian, whereas his father was an Osetin, “a coarse, uncouth person, like all the Osetins, who live in the high Caucasian mountains”. It is difficult, if not impossible, to verify these assertions. However, they are scarcely necessary for the purpose of explaining Stalin’s moral stature. In the countries of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Balkans, in Italy, in Spain, in addition to the so-called Southern type, which is characterized by a combination of lazy shiftlessness and explosive irascibility, one meets cold natures, in whom phlegm is combined with stubbornness and slyness. The first type prevails; the second augments it as an exception. It would seem as if each national group is doled out its due share of basic character elements, yet these are less happily distributed under the southern than under the northern sun. But we must not venture too far afield into the unprofitable region of national metaphysics.

[Illegalitarian]

Marxist-Leninism is kind of like a more refined and applicable Juche, just a state ideology used to justify the supremacy of the "communist" state in Russia.

It didn't have anything to do with Leninism and certainly had nothing to do with Marxism. One could say the same for Trotskyism and be equally correct, but Trotsky wasn't quite the sycophant uncle joe was.

[Destroyer of Illusions]

What?! How is Engel's "On Authority" a justification for autocracy!

Don't make big eyes,it is said quite clearly:

"But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one".

And btw one more thing is said :

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

[motion denied]

Don't make big eyes,it is said quite clearly:

"But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one".


What a stretch. Really, almost dishonesty.

[prap]

I would rather call the ideology Stalin practiced "red fascism" rather than any form of Marxism. Stalin was a power-hungry sociopath, and i bet that he didn't give a flying fuck about creating a communist society once he was put to power after Lenin. Just my thoughts.

[Destroyer of Illusions]

What a stretch. Really, almost dishonesty.

Who is dishonest? Engels?

[Redistribute the Rep]

This thread attracts all the trolls for some reason

[Destroyer of Illusions]

I would rather call the ideology Stalin practiced "red fascism" rather than any form of Marxism.

As it is well known,"fascism in power is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. ".So can you tell something about the " red finance capital" in the Soviet Union,I've never heard about it and it would be very interesting for me.However, if your antistalinist views do not need any facts,ie it is a kind of religion,excuse me kindly for hurting your religious beliefs.

[motion denied]

Who is dishonest? Engels?

Your interpretation of Engels.

[Destroyer of Illusions]

Your interpretation of Engels.

Where do you see my interpretation? I have only quoted Engels without comment.

[Invader Zim]

For those who contend that Stalin was not anti-Semitic, guess again. In the post-war period, Stalin became increasingly anti-Semitic and began persecuting those described as 'rootless cosmopolitans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan)' which was code for jews.

[Comrade Hadrian]

The Bolshevik line was always that Jews aren't a nation. This is line Lenin laid down shortly after the split with the Mensheviks:


But the Bund’s third argument, which invokes the idea of a Jewish nation, is undoubtedly of the nature of a principle. Unfortunately, however, this Zionist idea is absolutely false and essentially reactionary. “The Jews have ceased to be a nation, for a nation without a territory is unthinkable," says one of the most prominent of Marxist theoreticians, Karl Kautsky (see No. 42 of Iskra and the separate reprint from it The Kishinev Massacre and the Jewish Question, p. 3). And quite recently, examining the problem of nationalities in Austria, the same writer endeavoured to give a scientific definition of the concept nationality and established two principal criteria of a nationality: language and territory (Neue Zeit,[7] 1903, No. 2). A French Jew, the radical Alfred Naquet, says practically the same thing, word for word, in his controversy with the anti-Semites and the Zionists.[8] “If it pleased Bernard Lazare," he writes of the well-known Zionist, “to consider himself a citizen of a separate nation, that is his affair; but I declare that, although I was born a Jew... I do not recognise Jewish nationality.... I belong to no other nation but the French.... Are the Jews a nation? Although they were one in the remote past, my reply is a categorical negative. The concept nation implies certain conditions which do not exist in this case. A nation must have a territory on which to develop, and, in our time at least, until a world confederation has extended this basis, a nation must have a common language. And the Jews no longer have either a territory or a common language.... Like myself, Bernard Lazare probably did not know a word of Hebrew, and would have found it no easy matter, if Zionism had achieved its purpose, to make himself under stood to his co-racials [congénères] from other parts of the world”

The "rootless cosmopolitan" idea seems to harken back to the Bolshevik line that Jews aren't a nation, but belong to the nations they are a part of (as in the example of the French Jew Lenin gives). The "rootless cosmopolitan" would be the Jew who doesn't identify with such a nation, and hence, is in a half-way position between Zionism and nothing at all.

[DOOM]

For those who contend that Stalin was not anti-Semitic, guess again. In the post-war period, Stalin became increasingly anti-Semitic and began persecuting those described as 'rootless cosmopolitans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan)' which was code for jews.

inb4 some tankies say this term is not attached to jews in any form and that the persecuted people just happen to be jews.


The majority of the participants of the terrorist group… were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch-office of American intelligence — the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization called "Joint." The filthy face of this Zionist spy organization, covering up their vicious actions under the mask of charity, is now completely revealed

[Lord Testicles]

Well,your hero Trotsky was anti-Geargian because he was against Stalin (according your logic),And you call him marxist after this? Do you think that to be anti-Geargian is better that to be antisemitic?



What frame of mind do you have to possess to come here and expect people to take you seriously when you can't even spell Georgian?

[Destroyer of Illusions]

which was code for jews.

Any proofs that it was really code for jews or your assertion is a kind of religious belief,too,wich is good for you without any proof?

[prap]

As it is well known,"fascism in power is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. ".So can you tell something about the " red finance capital" in the Soviet Union,I've never heard about it and it would be very interesting for me.However, if your antistalinist views do not need any facts,ie it is a kind of religion,excuse me kindly for hurting your religious beliefs.

He comitted massmurders, dug massgraves, put loads of people into gulags, killed those who got more and more power and those who disagreed with him. A healthy human doesn't think that's right.

[Tim Cornelis]

Where do you see my interpretation? I have only quoted Engels without comment.

You quoted that in service of justifying autocracy. Ludicrous.


As it is well known,"fascism in power is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. ".So can you tell something about the " red finance capital" in the Soviet Union,I've never heard about it and it would be very interesting for me.However, if your antistalinist views do not need any facts,ie it is a kind of religion,excuse me kindly for hurting your religious beliefs.

Not really. Comintern =/= gospel.

[Destroyer of Illusions]

You quoted that in service of justifying autocracy.

Not of justifying but of explanation,not autocracy but the Soviet state in specific circumstances.

Following questions were asked:

- what is "the antimarxist idea of a state" of Stalin?

- any serious proofs of Stalin's antisemitism?

- any proofs of the existance of finance capital in the Soviet Union that established so called "red fascism"?

And no answers.Gentlemen simly wholeheartedly believe in lables and in their right of sticking this lables everywhere they whant.

[Tim Cornelis]

It is useless to entertain your delusions that somehow autocracy is compatible with socialism and communism, somehow compatible with Marxism, somehow compatible with the revolutionary dictatorship. This is so elementary, that I anticipate I will run in circles.

(Edit: I misread)

[Destroyer of Illusions]

You'll always run in circles because you are not able to say anything in proof of your assertions.Your "autocracy" is a pointless label you stick on the revolutionary dictatorship,unproven as all others.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Oh no all of my illusions!

[Comrade Hadrian]

You'll always run in circles because you are not able to say anything in proof of your assertions.Your "autocracy" is a pointless label you stick on the revolutionary dictatorship,unproven as all others.

I think the term Lenin used was "phrasemonger."

[Destroyer of Illusions]

I think the term Lenin used was "phrasemonger."

Another label.

[RedBlackStar]

Stalin can't have been that evil... I mean he was only like 5 ft 2...

But yeah. The fact that a centralised and authoritarian government to act as the dictatorship of the proletariat remained in spite of the revolution's failure made it inevitable that someone like Stalin would take over. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a pretty lousy idea full stop IMHO.

Remember kids, stay in school, don't do drugs and don't become rutheless psuedo-Communist dictators.

[Comrade #138672]

"Stalin was not anti-Semitic, because some of his best friends were Jews."

:rolleyes:

[RedWorker]

But yeah. The fact that a centralised and authoritarian government to act as the dictatorship of the proletariat remained in spite of the revolution's failure made it inevitable that someone like Stalin would take over.

Remember kids, stay in school, don't do drugs and don't become rutheless psuedo-Communist dictators.

Exactly how was it a dictatorship of the proletariat? If Pinochet had called his regime a 'dictatorship of the proletariat', then it means Marxism is authoritarian?


The dictatorship of the proletariat is a pretty lousy idea full stop IMHO.

So which is better?

1) Take over the state and declare that the state is dead. (then what?)
2) Kill all policemen while shooting on state buildings with tanks. Declare the state is over.
3) Expect everyone to just agree to communist society, which is to be implemented through debate.
4) Do little social experiments in various areas and let them 'build up'.

(Note: None of these ideas will work.)

We Marxists temporarily support the state in the same way that we 'support' oxygen by needing to breath it.

[Sinister Intents]

You'll always run in circles because you are not able to say anything in proof of your assertions.Your "autocracy" is a pointless label you stick on the revolutionary dictatorship,unproven as all others.

Would you like to read a few paragraphs from say... Any other individual like Stirner, Bakunin, or Kropotkin?

Maybe from them you'll get an understanding if anti-state ideology.

Autocracy, dictatorship, totality, the state, the conquered, the conqueror, and so on all have rather specific definitions, in which autocrat fits both Lenin and Stalin.

Care to ask any questions?

[RedBlackStar]

Exactly how was it a dictatorship of the proletariat? If Pinochet had called his regime a 'dictatorship of the proletariat', then it means Marxism is authoritarian?

It might not be what Marx envisioned, but it is the unfortunate result of the attempt to create the dictatorship of the proletariat, unless you're suggesting that's not what Lenin wanted? The dictatorship of the proletariat would, more often than not I'd say, result in authoritarianism. Marxism obviously has a libertarian goal to an admirable extent, but it permits authoritarianism as a method to get there. Unfortunately power corrupts so I highly doubt that the final stage of Marxism could be achieved. Or maybe I'm just too negative about how weak humans are?



1) Take over the state and declare that the state is dead. (then what?)
2) Kill all policemen while shooting on state buildings with tanks. Declare the state is over.
3) Expect everyone to just agree to communist society, which is to be implemented through debate.
4) Do little social experiments in various areas and let them 'build up'.

(Note: None of these ideas will work.)

I'd suggest the first one, and you're correct, it wouldn't work in the context of how society is now; but I don't think society as it is now would be fit for revolution. That's why social change must precede revolution. To allow the new world to grow in the shell of the old one, before smashing its way out (if you value metaphors).

[RedWorker]

It might not be what Marx envisioned, but it is the unfortunate result of the attempt to create the dictatorship of the proletariat, unless you're suggesting that's not what Lenin wanted? The dictatorship of the proletariat would, more often than not I'd say, result in authoritarianism. Marxism obviously has a libertarian goal to an admirable extent, but it permits authoritarianism as a method to get there. Unfortunately power corrupts so I highly doubt that the final stage of Marxism could be achieved. Or maybe I'm just too negative about how weak humans are?

The fact is that what Marx or Lenin personally wanted is utterly irrelevant. What is relevant is the Marxist system, which results in the conclusion that the dictatorship of the proletariat (note that this name could have been anything else - such as 'proletarian democracy') will take place when certain conditions are met. If you take a shit and name it a 'dictatorship of the proletariat', it's not a dictatorship of the proletariat, it's human feces. As well, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not triggered by what any individual revolutionary thinks or wants (big man theory, idealist conception of history, see "The German Ideology"). Marxism also does not "permit" anything, as Marxism is not a religious doctrine, but rather a method of analysis.

That said, Marxism is heavily against authoritarianism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat is completely unconnected to authoritarianism. Marx and Engels emphasized many times that under this form of organization, all office would have to be elected by the whole population concerned. But the (unfortunate) name of this form of state, the historical experiences and their aesthetics sway you to have these notions.

That said, taking an extremist and dogmatic version of the Russian experience for granted, without considering facts, is poor analysis. The stereotypical "it's so evil" from liberals, "it's so evil" from anarchists, and the "it's the best thing ever" from certain types of the 'left-wing' are all equally dumb and dogmatic. The Bolsheviks' revolution, in a place where conditions were extremely poor for a revolution succeeding, established mass democracy, in which many political parties (and anarchists too) participated. That the revolution ultimately failed is a fact, but to blame this on one person or one ideology is ridiculous and phrasemongering in order to avoid actual analysis.

Additionally, there is no 'final stage of Marxism'. There is a final stage of communist society. Marxism is not saying "here's a guide and a rulebook, follow all this then we'll experience this and then that". Among other things, it's a philosophical school, contains a method of analysis, and so on. There is a upper stage of communist society, which Marxism claims can be derived from the conditions now in existence coupled with the appliance of certain laws, coincidentally discovered by Marx.


I'd suggest the first one, and you're correct, it wouldn't work in the context of how society is now; but I don't think society as it is now would be fit for revolution. That's why social change must precede revolution. To allow the new world to grow in the shell of the old one, before smashing its way out (if you value metaphors).

Base and superstructure. First the communist society comes, then the social changes.

[RedBlackStar]

Base and superstructure. First the communist society comes, then the social changes.

Reverse the order, smash the state rather than replace it and you've got yourself a deal comrade:grin:

[RedWorker]

Reverse the order, smash the state rather than replace it and you've got yourself a deal comrade:grin:

No, no. This is some idealism right here. The idea that there can be structural social changes [of the kind that would occur when there is a change in the mode of production and in a similar way] within the capitalist mode of production are possible is ridiculous. This is further evidenced by the fact that each time communist ideas invade capitalist space, they take a capitalist form and capitalist rhetoric. Read German Ideology (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/).

[Teacher]

During the negociations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (aka non-agression treaty), he promised to get rid of the "jewish domination".

This is not true. What is your source for this?


In 1939, he dismissed Foreign Minister Maxim Limitnov (jew) and appointed Vyacheslav Molotov, with the order to "purge the ministry of Jews".

It is true that Limitnov was replaced but there is zero evidence that it had anything to do with him being a Jew.


In 1949, the microbiologist Nikolay Gamaleya, a member of the Academy of Sciences, wrote a personal letter to Stalin : "Judging by absolutely indisputable and obvious indications, the reappearance of antisemitism is not coming from below, not from the masses. . . but is directed from above, by someone's invisible hand. Antisemitism is coming from some high-placed persons who have taken up posts in the leading party organs".

There was a spike in anti-Semitism in postwar Russia. Anti-Semitism has deep roots in Imperial Russia, and many Soviet areas were occupied by Germans recently and subjected to relentless anti-Semitic propaganda. There is zero evidence that Stalin had anything to do with this (in fact there are numerous instances of Stalin denouncing anti-Semitism).




The answers I was looking for, thanks.[/QUOTE]

[Tsiolkovsky on the Moon]

Quite a few people confuse the dictatorship of the proletariat with an actual autocratic dictator. The dictatorship of the proletariat means the overthrow of the dictatorship (rule) of capital. It is a dictatorship of a class which in this case is the proletariat. Marxism is essentially democratic, not authoritarian.