Want to learn

[RedOctober]

I was born in Yugoslavia. It was Socialist country, and although I lived in this country the whole childhood it broke in a deadly civil war. But something of that country still lives in my memories.

I am here to learn, although I know something in practice how some version of this system works, and I am afraid that it can't work in practice. And I am more afraid to accept that this prevailing system in the world now - capitalism is really the least evil possible.

[Q]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

[Blake's Baby]

Welcome to RevLeft RedOctober.

You'll probably find that the majority of people here don't agree that Yugoslavia was 'socialist', as many of us think that socialism is a classless communal society without money or borders.

Some of us think that Yugoslavia - along with the other states that, in the wake of WWII, were allied to the Soviet Union - were state capitalist. We think that capitalism was never done away with, because capitalism is a world system. it will be the working class that overthrows capitalism - no other class can do it - but it has not happened yet.

[Sandy Becker]

Yes, many on Refleft do believe that Yugoslovia was "state capitalist." They would also categorize the former Soviet Union that way, along with all the East Bloc countries, PRC, Cuba etc. However, the whole notion of state capitalism is at best, deeply flawed. From where I stand, Yugoslavia under Tito was a deformed workers' state. That is, it had predominant economic forms of a society moving toward socialism, however with a Stalinist parasitic nationalist bureaucracy in charge politically (Tito's rifts with Stalin notwithstanding).

Welcome to revleft. I'm rather new here myself. I look forward to some fruitful discussions with you!

[Blake's Baby]

Of course, Trotskyists know better than Engels, who successfuly demonstrated more than 130 years ago that combines and trusts are just as capitalist as individual owners of businesses. It matters not one jot if that's a state combine or a private combine.