Whe nwas communism betrayed and by whom?

[OnFire]

Hey comrades, what is your take on when exactly and by whom communism was betrayed? Some say by Lenin, some say by Stalin, some say by Krushev and/or Trotsky, and a lot of people say by Gorbachev. Why do they say that and what is your opinion?

[motion denied]

The whole premise of the question is flawed. There can be no answer.

[OnFire]

Sorry for the typo in the title...

I just find it hard with all the different leftist parties all hating each other and blaming each other for betraying communism instead fo working together and I want to understand why the LEFT is so fractured and maybe find the right party for me. I want to hear what the arguments are and why they think what they think.

[BIXX]

Sorry for the typo in the title...

I just find it hard with all the different leftist parties all hating each other and blaming each other for betraying communism instead fo working together and I want to understand why the LEFT is so fractured and maybe find the right party for me. I want to hear what the arguments are and why they think what they think.

Well some would argue the lack of leftist unity isn't a bad thing.

[The Idler]

Since the emancipation of the working class will be the act of the working class themselves, then no-one can 'betray' the working-class but themselves.

[BIXX]

Since the emancipation of the working class will be the act of the working class themselves, then no-one can 'betray' the working-class but themselves.

Except for all the leftists who claim to be class allies but then make immediate concessions to capital.

[LeninistIthink]

In terms of a marxist view it isn't by 1 person as Pavel Nedved said, the premise of the question is flawed but if we assign who represented the bad group most , and limit it to leaders of the USSR, then I would say Stalin as he began the rule of bureaucracy which eventually rebalanced itself on the capitalists and destroyed the planned economy and remnants of working class power and this ended in Gorbachev. I suppose it's a choice between the cause of the disease and the symptoms of the disease. Whilst this view is not shared by many on this forum, it is mine . I could go into more detail but I wouldn't aside from pointing out that I don't think Stalin was 100% to blame as this is historical simplicity but if you view him as someone who REPRESENTS the bureaucrats, as Lenin would be said to represent the proletariat then yes that is my view. I would expect the most common answer to be Gorbachev and I see why.

[LeninistIthink]

Wait. In the time it took for me to post my reply (the first reply had just been posted then), the thread is already kinda off topic . Wonderful :laugh:

[PhoenixAsh]

Except for all the leftists who claim to be class allies but then make immediate concessions to capital.

Still the working class though.Class allies directly implies that they are not working class and the working class attaching themselves to them means that they are externally organised from outside the class.

This is not betrayal. This is non working class doing what non working class does.

[StromboliFucker666]

According to a friend of mine nikita khrushchev contributed to the liberalization of the USSR during his "de-stalinazation" thing.


I disagree with him. Not on Nikita being a liberal, but on the premise that the USSR was ever really socialist. It was close to socialism (worker's control of the means of production) in some ways however it boiled down to bureaucratic collectivism towards the end of Lenin's life and even more so when stalin took over. I think Lenin unintentionally did his part of this while Stalin knew exactly what he was doing. I believe that socialism in one country is impossible for that reason alone. Instead of giving worker's complete control of the production, the state ended up controlling it. There were numerous attempts at giving the workers more control however they never really amounted to anything so it degenerated into bureaucratic collectivism instead of socialism. I argue this was due to imperialist nations causing the USSR so much trouble. To avoid this problem, we need an international social revolution.


My conclusion is that Stalin betrayed socialism and that the USSR was doomed from almost the start. If the revolution would have spread fast enough, then it may not have ended like that.

[RedWorker]

Those who argue that it was Kruschev who betrayed communism are Stalinist "anti-revisionists" who argue that a small set of policy changes by Kruschev resulted in the restoration of capitalism. To argue that a policy change - yet alone such small ones - leads to a qualitative change in the mode of production directly goes against basic Marxist theory.

Those who argue that Trotsky betrayed communism are obviously the Stalinists, but how could he have betrayed communism? He never seized power.

Now, as for Lenin and Stalin.

More importantly: the "big man theory of history" is in direct opposition to the Marxist, materialist theory of history. Big men are only representatives of history. The individual himself does little. He is only the personification of events.

The reason I talk about "Stalinism" is because there was a counter-revolution, and Stalin was the ultimate expression of the counter-revolution in an individual, and the one who finished out the details of the ideological, political, and social expression of the counter-revolution.

Lenin himself may have been involved in the start of the counter-revolution, in the authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks. But for me, this is irrelevant for deciding whether it should be named "Stalinism", because Stalin still was the personification of the counter-revolution.

Furthermore, such arguments usually aim to prove that the counter-revolution and authoritarianism was in-built in Lenin's ideas, but there is no evidence of this. Lenin was just a Marxist; "Leninism" does not really exist as an independent political view as some argue. At best he had a couple of ideas like the vanguard party and democratic centralism, and that's it. More importantly, I would argue that debates about whether Lenin was inherently authoritarian are a waste of time, because there is no clear evidence for taking any position in these debates and most of it is speculation. Taking one position or the other is more religious than thoughtful.

There are, of course, these who argue that this was inherent to Marx's ideas, and Lenin's ideas only were the extension of this. This, I believe, is completely false.

Stalin was the most clearly visible figure of the counter-revolution. He solidified "socialism in one country" and other anti-Marxist theories, he was behind the murder of many communists in Russia and globally in order to seize power, and his foreign policy promoted counter-revolution, supported the political stability of capitalism and proved disastrous for the working class globally. In Spain in 1936, the Stalinists were behind the crushing of the working class communist revolution led by anarchists and Marxists, tirelessly ceased for the full regression into capitalism and Stalin's agents murdered Andreu Nin, the most important revolutionary Marxist leader, and then repressed the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) to the point of its near disappearance.

[John Nada]

Why focus just on the USSR? Ebert, Scheidemann, Bernstein and Kautsky fucked up a potential socialist revolution in Germany. If not for the SPD's betrayal, it all could've been blamed on "socialism in two countries".:lol:

Something that never was(communism) cannot be betrayed. All the individuals the op mentions were but individuals, in one no longer existing state. There were external factors(oppressive reactionary governments, supposedly "revolutionary" governments using potential revolutionaries abroad as pawns, token reforms that placated the masses, a weaker proletariat, a stronger bourgeoisie, shitty reformist leaders, ect.) outside of the USSR. It's entirely possible to lose a battle without being "betrayed". If anything, it's the working class that betrays itself daily by still putting up with capitalism.

[G4b3n]

As others have pretty much said, individuals do not and cannot change the nature of mass movements and the development of productive forces. So anytime you read a theory on why 20th century workers' movements failed, it ought to be longer than because *insert one name here*.

[The Idler]

Except for all the leftists who claim to be class allies but then make immediate concessions to capital.
How does that betray communism?

[Comrade Jacob]

The Soviet Revisionists post-Stalin struck a massive blow to the working people.