Questions about Marxist-Leninism [Archive]

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Loganauer

20th December 2015, 00:21

Communist Mutant From Outer Space

21st December 2015, 16:54

I've had anti-capitalist tendencies since high school, but wasn't educated enough to prescribe to any specific ideology. I discovered anarchism about 2 years ago and became extremely enthusiastic about it, not wanting to identify with the "bad" anti-capitalists, but recently I started reading some articles posted on marxist memes with some good criticism of anarchism and now I find myself wanting to learn a lot more, and possibly change my tendency, but without anywhere to turn to for answers.
So here goes

From a Marxist perspective, what happened to the Soviet Union? Why are modern day Russians extremely sexist, racist, and generally ultraconservative? What should've been done to prevent the Soviet Union from collapsing?

What is revisionism? Why is it bad? What was Trotsky's viewpoint and why is that bad?

Why is hostility and condescension so common among the left and how does any tendency hope to succeed with such massive division among the left?

Are marxist-leninists completely opposed to any new ideas on how to proceed from here and believe that the works of Marx and Lenin lay out the blueprints for the future and any deviation is revisionism and leads to failure?

Does automation of labour have any major implications for how socialism will proceed in the future? Is it an ally or an enemy?

Is all criticism of Stalin just capitalist propaganda or were there legitimate, significant mistakes that he made according to modern marxist-leninists?

Anti-capitalist tendencies are certainly a good start. "Marxist memes" are likely not the place to look for critiques of anarchism, however (they're likely very biased or even factually incorrect). The best thing you could do for yourself in terms of discovering your ideological flavour is to read Marxist and/or Anarchist works and see what suits your fancy in terms of theory, tactics and practice. There's not much more I can recommend, but its important to note that many consider "Marxism-Leninism" just another name for Stalinism, as most MLs are supportive, critically supportive or ambivalent towards Uncle Joe; it was him who coined the term of course, and anyone who wishes to follow Marx's doctrine and Lenin's should just be called a Leninist as Lenin was a Marxist (it goes without saying, so to speak).

The collapse of the Soviet Union is highly debated, but it wasn't really down to economics; it collapsed politically under Gorbachev, and it really depends on your analysis of the USSR pre-Stalin, during Stalin and post-Stalin that will determine your outlook; Trotskyists consider the USSR to have been broken by Stalin via the transformation of it into a "deformed workers' state" (one where the power of the working class has been lost and given to a clique of elite bureaucrats), whereas Anarchists of all flavours point to collapse of workers control even under Lenin (so they see its collapse into a "state capitalist" state as inevitable, unlike Trotskyists). Its important to note that Russia's conservatism today isn't really all that new, with them legalising homosexuality a long time even after the USA and UK, though the rise of conservatism in politics has likely been an influence.

Revisionism is simply revising Marxist doctrine, though to be frank anyone can be called a revisionist; most strains of Marxism would be "revisionist" to Orthodox Marxists, and to Hoxhaists, for example, Maoism is a revisionist form of Marxism-Leninism (Stalinism). It isn't inherently bad, it just depends on what theoretical line you follow; its more of a petty insult these days. Trotsky's viewpoint was that the USSR under Stalin was "state capitalist" (i.e. the capitalist economics existed but under state apparatus) and that in order for the revolution to be successful it would have to take place all over the world (Permanent Revolution); this isn't all of his views of course, just a basic laymans ideas. They aren't necessarily bad, it just depends on your view).

I'm not sure how automation of Labour would be an enemy. I support it, as the only reason so many menial tasks aren't currently automated is because paying workers a wage is cheaper than getting machinery to do it and because it helps stimulate a market economy as more people getting paid equals more people consuming corporate goods. I don't think it would happen quickly though, it'd be a continuous goal.

Criticisms of Stalin are often inflated by capitalist propaganda, but he was not saint; look up a thread entitled "Stalin's "Crimes"?" to see a discussion on the matter. The "60,000,000" figure is inflated and ridiculous but the death toll is certainly high, though how much blame you put on Stalin is ambiguous (based on the evidence though it would appear he made bad situations really bad).

I'm quite a novice to all of this still, so don't take my word as law. Someone will likely come along and say something ten times better and ten times shorter or correct me on any things I said that were wrong.

Aslan

21st December 2015, 17:27

Marxist-Leninism is basically Stalinism just with another name. The ideology was followed by the Soviet Union. Stalin himself was a definitely not a nice guy. Ignoring Robert Conquests' enormously inflated estimates. Stalin was still a paranoid, power-hungry, and blood thirsty man. He did kill at least 2-3 million and purged hundreds of competent Soviet officials from their positions. This resulted in the state of the USSR being pretty much transformed during Stalin's days. He did make Russia into a superpower, but at the cost of the liberation that socialist wanted to achieve in the first place.

Stalin though, was a product of the system built by Lenin. It would be the natural conclusion that the vanguard party would get a power-hungry man like Stalin.

Also, the USSR was never known for its progressive views towards gays and even Jews. And this is also quite prevalent in my Albania as well. Homophobia was rampant in both States. It was just that both governments swept it under the rug and shot anyone who protested. I can say firsthand that Albania was always homophobic (I will use Albania because Enver Hoxha was basically anti-revisionist Stalinism). Homophobia that showed its ugly head once again after the fall of communism in 1991.

Ismail

21st December 2015, 21:32

Hi, I'm a "Stalinist."

From a Marxist perspective, what happened to the Soviet Union?Following Stalin's death capitalism was restored in the country, though its revisionist rulers continued calling it "socialist" for their own demagogic purposes and the superficial forms of socialist property relations were retained (state ownership, planned production, etc., even though they lost their socialist content.)

Why are modern day Russians extremely sexist, racist, and generally ultraconservative?Because Russia in 1917 was "extremely sexist, racist, and generally ultraconservative," it was ruled by a Tsar who was considered God's representative on Earth. It was a predominantly peasant society in which the Church and superstition exerted a far greater influence than in Western Europe or the USA. In the late 80s and early 90s similar mysticism began to revive, and both Yeltsin and Putin have relied on reactionary culture to keep themselves in power: rehabilitating Nicholas II, cementing ties between the state and Orthodox Church, etc.

What is revisionism? Why is it bad?Revisionism means to revise Marxism in such a way as to deprive it of its revolutionary and scientific content. The most famous revisionist was Eduard Bernstein who was the father of reformism, but other examples were Kautsky (with his theory of "ultra-imperialism" and defense of reformism after WWI), Browder (who also argued in favor of reformism and who tried to liquidate the CPUSA by arguing that "new conditions" made an American proletarian vanguard party unnecessary), Tito, Mao, Khrushchev, etc.

Since revisionists still pretend to be Marxists, they invariably cite the fact that Marxism is a science to justify their own revisionism, railing against "dogmatism" (whether real or imagined) and claiming that changed or different conditions in their country or in the world necessitate the unfounded, idealistic, and reactionary alterations they are making to Marxism. They essentially reduce Marxism to the subjective whims of individuals in different countries, who are freely able to distort it all they want, proclaiming "national roads to socialism." In the DPRK for example it is claimed that the army, not the working-class, is the most revolutionary section of society and thus deserving of the vanguard role. Likewise Castro claimed in the early 90s that it was not right for Marxists in other countries to criticize what was going on in China, since apparently only the Chinese knew what was necessary for the cause of socialism in their "own" country.

As Stalin pointed out (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n1/china.htm) in 1949 to a delegation of the Communist Party of China: "You speak of Sinified socialism. There is nothing of the sort in nature. There is no Russian, English, French, German, Italian socialism, as much as there is no Chinese socialism. There is only one Marxist-Leninist socialism. It is another thing, that in the building of socialism it is necessary to take into consideration the specific features of a particular country. Socialism is a science, necessarily having, like all science, certain general laws, and one just needs to ignore them and the building of socialism is destined to failure."

What was Trotsky's viewpoint and why is that bad?Trotsky claimed that the USSR was a "degenerated workers' state," neither capitalist nor socialist. He argued that the "Stalinist bureaucracy" was compelled to defend the workers' state because its own privileges rested on it, yet at the same time this bureaucracy was said to exert a parasitic influence, fearing revolutions abroad as fatal to itself and repressing genuine revolutionaries and workers' movements in its own country.

He also held that it was impossible to build socialism in one country.

It's "bad" because Trotsky was a demagogue. Many of the attacks he lobbed against Stalin were initially used by him against Lenin before 1917. He posing as an opponent of bureaucracy and as a supporter of "democracy" he tried to paint himself in the best possible colors. Lenin pointed out in April 1917 that Trotsky posed as a leftist but in fact helped the right. This remained true of his entire political career. He had no problem shifting arguments as well, such as exaggerating the danger of the kulaks in the mid-20s and then, when the Party under Stalin actually did liquidate the kulaks as a class, declaring that the Soviet economy was "in danger" and calling for a "controlled" restoration of the kulaks in the early 30s.

For more I recommend the following work which I scanned: https://archive.org/details/SovietPolicyAndItsCritics

Why is hostility and condescension so common among the left and how does any tendency hope to succeed with such massive division among the left?Because workers will be able to distinguish between those groups and parties which defend their interests and those that do not. The Bolsheviks didn't form some sort of social-democratic "left unity" entity as a means of carrying out the October Revolution, but instead exposed all the pseudo-socialist maneuvers of their rivals, and in this way won the confidence of the workers through calling for all power to the soviets and explaining how this power was to be exercised at a time when other parties were either calling for the perpetuation of bourgeois rule (the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries) or were calling for distrust of the state in general (the anarchists.)

Are marxist-leninists completely opposed to any new ideas on how to proceed from here and believe that the works of Marx and Lenin lay out the blueprints for the future and any deviation is revisionism and leads to failure?No. Lenin was fond of quoting Engels: "Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action." Stalin held to the same view. In fact some revisionists even posed as "defenders" of Marxism against the supposedly "anarchist" or "Blanquist" Lenin, most notably Kautsky who had built up a reputation as the "Pope of Marxism" before WWI.

Does automation of labour have any major implications for how socialism will proceed in the future? Is it an ally or an enemy?Considering that communism is based on the utmost development of the productive forces to a level practically inconceivable to us today, automation is certainly a great gain. The problem is that automation under capitalism is tied into the capitalist quest for profit, and is thus associated with putting workers out of work and forcing wages down. That's why some of the earliest protests against capitalism by workers involved smashing machinery rather than organizing themselves independently as a class and seizing control of the means of production.

Is all criticism of Stalin just capitalist propaganda or were there legitimate, significant mistakes that he made according to modern marxist-leninists?Stalin didn't commit any fundamental mistakes in either theoretical or practical matters. The policies he carried out for the socialist construction of the country, for the defeat of renegade elements, his foreign policy, his views on the national question, on imperialism, etc., etc., remain valid. The most you can say is that certain attitudes he had (such as on homosexuality) were obviously the product of the epoch he lived in, just as Lenin, Engels and Marx likewise had certain cultural attitudes that we wouldn't endorse today. But these have no impact on their theoretical works.

Fourth Internationalist

21st December 2015, 23:20

Trotsky's viewpoint was that the USSR under Stalin was "state capitalist" (i.e. the capitalist economics existed but under state apparatus) and that in order for the revolution to be successful it would have to take place all over the world (Permanent Revolution); this isn't all of his views of course, just a basic laymans ideas. They aren't necessarily bad, it just depends on your view).

Trotsky viewed the Soviet state as a degenerated workers state which needed to be military defended from capitalist intervention and counterrevolution. He also believed that the proletariat needed to retake political power in the USSR through a political revolution. Trotsky argued against the idea that the Stalinists had become a new capitalist class and against various state-capitalist theories because he still believed the USSR was a workers state despite it being bureaucratically degenerated.