Lenin and Trotsky's undemocratic errors

[Red_Jacobin]

What undemocratic decisions did these two revolutionaries make? Democracy and equality take precedence for me. How could we achieve our goals without repeating the same mistakes?

[Faust Arp]

While both Lenin and Trotsky were responsible for some undemocratic moves, I don't think that we can quite talk about their undemocratic errors. They did fully realize that most of their policies usually criticized as undemocratic or wandering away from "genuine workers' control" were exactly that, but considered them necessary in order for the Bolshevik regime to survive (and they were right), and a lot of the unfortunate situations that they found themselves in were idiosyncratic to the time and place (for example, by the time the soviets were abolished they could have hardly - if at all - been called workers' councils). If they had made greater effort to preserve "authentic working-class rule" in a country where the working class was lying dead in military mass graves below the Urals Stalinism would have probably never happened, but we'd have had a White counter-revolution which could have had easily exceeded even Stalinism in its brutality.

So I don't think that there is a danger of modern Leninists repeating Lenin's and Trotsky's "undemocratic errors" unless their revolution ends up being led by severe dogmatists with no awareness of historical context.

[Guardia Rossa]

What Faust Arp said. Reality usually takes precedence over ideas.

[tuwix]

What undemocratic decisions did these two revolutionaries make? Democracy and equality take precedence for me. How could we achieve our goals without repeating the same mistakes?


Introduction of censorship, suppressing a Makhno uprising, suppressing a Kronstadt uprising, no respect for workers' council

Avoiding such errors mean to determine when revolution on territory ends. Continuous revolution in such territory as Russia over decades is just fiction. After civil war in Russia there was end of revolution and all suppression over democracy should end.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Avoiding such errors mean to determine when revolution on territory ends. Continuous revolution in such territory as Russia over decades is just fiction. After civil war in Russia there was end of revolution and all suppression over democracy should end.

The basic problem here is that the revolution cannot be completed until the majority of the global economic order has been brought under a unified worker's control, as successful "revolution" at home leaves a number of powerful foreign nations with an interest in reversing any gains made by the revolutionaries. This is the basic contradiction that the USSR faced after global revolution didn't occur in the 20s.

[Red_Jacobin]

Wasn't the repression of the Makhnovists and Kronstadt necessary?

[The Idler]

Didn't the opponents of Bolshevism say the repression of the Bolsheviks was "necessary"? What is "necessary", how do you define it? What is the purpose?

[CyM]

Kronstadt was absolutely necessary once it got to that point. Zinoviev could have possibly split the garrison, which was being led by a white, if he had addressed them and made a more serious effort at a political solution.

But once negotiation was lost, crushing it was the only option. Nothing democratic about the demand for a return to the market in grain in the middle of famine and civil war. Nor the demand for Soviets without the party of the majority choice of the electorate of those Soviets: the Bolsheviks.

[CyM]

So I don't think that there is a danger of modern Leninists repeating Lenin's and Trotsky's "undemocratic errors" unless their revolution ends up being led by severe dogmatists with no awareness of historical context.
I think you need some historical context yourself. There was no choice in the matter of whether to fight or not, unless you would have had Lenin and Trotsky act like the KPD in Germany and betray the revolution when the Fascists were taking power because "their turn had not come yet".

Dogmatism is sticking to the schemas you learned, even though fascism is about to destroy the workers, and the workers are armed and prepared to take power even if dogmatists say it's "too early".

In real life "an ounce of practice is worth a ton of.theory", and we have no choice but to.fight and try to win. Not shrink away without a fight when life and death are on the line.

[The Idler]

Everything Lenin and Trotsky did was "absolutely necessary" with "no choice" just like the argument of autocrats everywhere. Have you ever heard those carrying out a battle or war say it was "unnecessary"? "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." From ousting Saddam from Iraq, Gaddafi from Libya or ousting/keeping Assad in Syria, the argument is always that it is "necessary". The Russian Revolution is not a model to follow today despite what the dogmatists insist. The workers in Kronstadt being bayoneted were just being saved by putting theory into practice to save them from fascism, or as George W. Bush said; you are either with us (Lenin and supporters) or against us (white army/fascist/KPD betrayer/shrinking away from the fight).

[CyM]

Well, no, they made plenty of mistakes. But overthrowing the old order before the old order got to carry out the fascist coup it was planning is not one of them.

Neither was the decision to retake the naval port of Kronstadt before the ice melted and allied navies had direct access to Petrograd, once it was clear that there was no avoiding it anymore.

Sure, you could say every murderer claims self-defense. But that doesn't mean every time you hear someone claim self-defense, that you could automatically assume them to be a murderer. That would be lazy logic, and just plain wrong.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes you just have no choice but to shoot your way out of a corner.

[The Idler]

Well, no, they made plenty of mistakes. But overthrowing the old order before the old order got to carry out the fascist coup it was planning is not one of them.

Neither was the decision to retake the naval port of Kronstadt before the ice melted and allied navies had direct access to Petrograd, once it was clear that there was no avoiding it anymore.

Sure, you could say every murderer claims self-defense. But that doesn't mean every time you hear someone claim self-defense, that you could automatically assume them to be a murderer. That would be lazy logic, and just plain wrong.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes you just have no choice but to shoot your way out of a corner.But you wouldn't judge the murderer on their testimony alone and dismiss all other witnesses as some people seem to do.

[CyM]

But you wouldn't judge the murderer on their testimony alone and dismiss all other witnesses as some people seem to do.

Yes, but you'd hear the most important part of the testimony out, particularly if it based itself on long quotes from the accused's enemies backing his account

If you haven't read "history of the Russian revolution", you have not given the accused any chance to defend the need to take power in October.

If you haven't read the "military writings", you haven't given the accused the chance to defend their actions during the civil war.

Both are books by Trotsky, the man who played a central role on October, and the man who built a red army from scratch to repel the invasion of 32 foreign armies as well as the various fascist white armies they were there to install.

The civil war was brutal, the revolution lost most of the land and was pushed back to essentially Petrograd and Moscow and had to build an army and repel them from there.

If there was not a huge, overwhelming, popular outpouring, it would have been impossible to return from such a position. The victory itself is a proof of the strength of the revolution. You don't have to take my word for it. But you should at least learn about how it went about before dismissing it. And if I were you, I would start with the testimony of the accused. You can double check his claims after if you'd like. But before cross examining the witness and treating him as hostile, allow the witness to make his statement.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Didn't the opponents of Bolshevism say the repression of the Bolsheviks was "necessary"? What is "necessary", how do you define it? What is the purpose?

Yes, what was the purpose? The purpose of the repression of Bolsheviks was to preserve private property and sacred democracy. Well we spit on private property and on democracy.

The purpose of the repression of non-Bolsheviks was to smash private property and the bourgeois state. That we support (those of us who don't hold to Kautskyite illusions about a peaceful parliamentary transition).

[The Idler]

Yes, but you'd hear the most important part of the testimony out, particularly if it based itself on long quotes from the accused's enemies backing his account

If you haven't read "history of the Russian revolution", you have not given the accused any chance to defend the need to take power in October.

If you haven't read the "military writings", you haven't given the accused the chance to defend their actions during the civil war.

Both are books by Trotsky, the man who played a central role on October, and the man who built a red army from scratch to repel the invasion of 32 foreign armies as well as the various fascist white armies they were there to install.

The civil war was brutal, the revolution lost most of the land and was pushed back to essentially Petrograd and Moscow and had to build an army and repel them from there.

If there was not a huge, overwhelming, popular outpouring, it would have been impossible to return from such a position. The victory itself is a proof of the strength of the revolution. You don't have to take my word for it. But you should at least learn about how it went about before dismissing it. And if I were you, I would start with the testimony of the accused. You can double check his claims after if you'd like. But before cross examining the witness and treating him as hostile, allow the witness to make his statement.
Sure I would hear the testimony of the accused, but the Bolshevik's account was not the only primary account from socialists, let alone the only primary account from participants. Would you hear them out? Or would you treat them (including socialists) as hostile (or white army/fascist/KPD betrayer/shrinking away from the fight)?

As for Trotsky's personal resumé, I not sure that is relevant, we are not hiring a great man of history to bring us socialism and he could not even keep Stalin in check. Does that show "the strength of the revolution"? Or does Stalin's victory over Trotsky prove the "strength" of the revolution or something at least?


Yes, what was the purpose? The purpose of the repression of Bolsheviks was to preserve private property and sacred democracy. Well we spit on private property and on democracy.

The purpose of the repression of non-Bolsheviks was to smash private property and the bourgeois state. That we support (those of us who don't hold to Kautskyite illusions about a peaceful parliamentary transition).
Well the Bolsheviks (or Trotsky himself) won the Russian Civil War. Was private property smashed? Was the bourgeois state smashed? I think you are being too generous with what the stated purpose of the Red Terror and what it actually did. The Russian Revolution remains a model not to follow despite what dogmatists are intent on re-enacting from the safety of their keyboards.

[CyM]

Your accused is Trotsky, not "other socialists". If your replacement for his testimony is the testimony of his enemies, you're running a kangaroo court and your conclusions are unsound ;)

Look, whatever you may think of the Bolsheviks, the October revolution changed human history forever. Pay it its due respects and research it seriously. The main actors of the historical drama must be heard to get a proper understanding of what happened. Read history of the Russian revolution.

As for the degeneration, you should at least read "the revolution betrayed" before dismissing Trotsky's arguments without even hearing them.

For the Red Terror, which again was carried out by Trotsky, the military writings are a good defense of the fight against fascism during the civil war. "Their morals and ours" is a good defense of the general philosophy of defending the working class even when violence is required to do it. But that's more a moral philosophical work than history.

The advantage of the military writings is it's a collection of articles and speeches he wrote on the armoured train during the civil war, not someone looking back. So you get raw Trotsky as a military leader defending actions he's taking on the fly.

Few people know of course that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries wanted to continue the war with Germany and ignore the demand for peace or the need to recoup from devastation. Few realize that this party lost a vote at the congress of Soviets on this question then assassinated the german ambassador and attempted to carry out a coup.

This was the reason their leaders were banned. They did all this in the middle of a congress of soviets. Their criticisms of Bolshevik disrespect for democracy are utter hypocritical garbage.

Read up on Russia if you want to arrive at the real truth.

[Fourth Internationalist]

The Russian Revolution remains a model not to follow despite what dogmatists are intent on re-enacting from the safety of their keyboards.

What is the purpose of insulting others who disagree with your own beliefs as "dogmatists" and making fun of the fact that they are typing on their keyboards just like you are?

[reviscom1]

I think we are getting away from the Idler's core point, which is that every brutal tyrant convinces themselves that their brutality is necessary, that they are somehow special and party to inside knowledge about the human condition and their brutality is therefore different to all the others.

But really, if you are going round arbitrarily killing people, how are you qualitatively different from the oppressor you replaced? And if you have the power to arbitrarily kill people you are, sooner or later, going to abuse it. To confuse your personal desires with political necessity. Not to mention the potential for abuse amongst those actually carry out the repression.

I think we are also getting away from the core objection to what happened at Krodnstadt:

1) The Sailors were strong supporters of the Bolsheviks throughout 1917 and strong supporters of, and participants in, the October revolution.
2) They mutinied because they thought the Bolsheviks had become too nasty.
3) The Bolsheviks, with no regard for the above 2 facts, responded by massacring them.

This made the Bolsheviks seem ungrateful, disloyal, callous and dismissive of people who only wanted them to be less ruthless. It made them seem like nasty fascists.

Another event I find it hard to ignore with regard to the early Bolsheviks is the execution of the Romanovs - strategically unnecessary, and carried out in a stunningly brutal, arbitrary and unfeeling manner.

[The Idler]

What is the purpose of insulting others who disagree with your own beliefs as "dogmatists" and making fun of the fact that they are typing on their keyboards just like you are?
I don't think I am (Cym described opponents as dogmatists) but those defending 'crushing' Kronstadt and dismissing critics as 'Kautskyite illusions about a peaceful parliamentary transition' saying 'we spit on private property and on democracy.' are surely not daunted or deterred by the prospects of workers insulting them (via my keyboard) but eager for violent armed revolution?

[motion denied]

I'm not into roleplaying a merciless chekist on the internet, nor do I glorify violence etc. but hey no tears for romanovs

If we are going as far as to point "undemocratic" actions taken up by Lenin and Trotsky I think we should start by pointing out the overthrow of the Provisional Government. That was hardly democratic, as it should, because we don't talk about "equality and democracy" in abstract. Though there is much more in the critique of equality and democracy, let's not be an ass and continue properly.

I'd point right away the ban on factions, one of the nails in the coffin of proletarian democracy. Also, some points put forward by the workers' opposition such as the one-man management in factories. All the workerist and on the aforementioned platform ought to be discarded though.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I don't think I am (Cym described opponents as dogmatists) but those defending 'crushing' Kronstadt and dismissing critics as 'Kautskyite illusions about a peaceful parliamentary transition' saying 'we spit on private property and on democracy.' are surely not daunted or deterred by the prospects of workers insulting them (via my keyboard) but eager for violent armed revolution?

You were. The other posters here are not daunted or deterred by your insults, that much is true! But I am simply pointing out the double-standards that you hold when debating them here, insisting that your beliefs are non-dogmatic and that others are dogmatist for not accepting those anti-Bolshevik talking points as if it were the Gospel.

[CyM]

I think we are getting away from the Idler's core point, which is that every brutal tyrant convinces themselves that their brutality is necessary, that they are somehow special and party to inside knowledge about the human condition and their brutality is therefore different to all the others.

But really, if you are going round arbitrarily killing people, how are you qualitatively different from the oppressor you replaced? And if you have the power to arbitrarily kill people you are, sooner or later, going to abuse it. To confuse your personal desires with political necessity. Not to mention the potential for abuse amongst those actually carry out the repression.

I think we are also getting away from the core objection to what happened at Krodnstadt:

1) The Sailors were strong supporters of the Bolsheviks throughout 1917 and strong supporters of, and participants in, the October revolution.
2) They mutinied because they thought the Bolsheviks had become too nasty.
3) The Bolsheviks, with no regard for the above 2 facts, responded by massacring them.

This made the Bolsheviks seem ungrateful, disloyal, callous and dismissive of people who only wanted them to be less ruthless. It made them seem like nasty fascists.

Another event I find it hard to ignore with regard to the early Bolsheviks is the execution of the Romanovs - strategically unnecessary, and carried out in a stunningly brutal, arbitrary and unfeeling manner.
This is nonsense.

The sailors at Kronstadt that supported the Bolsheviks were long gone in the war and the civil war. Many were freshly brought in from the peasantry. Let's not confuse the issue by connecting this with other revolts in that military base from an earlier time.

They mutinied for many reasons, but you should read their platform of demands, the most prominent amongst which were a return to the market mechanism in grain (in the middle of a famine), and soviets without Bolsheviks (who just happened to be the democratically elected majority). The glorification of this revolt without any analysis of its demands is quite hypocritical.

As for the Bolsheviks "massacring them", the Bolsheviks called on this Naval fort to negotiate. When that didn't work, they called on them to lay down arms. And when that did not happen, battle was inevitable.

To call a military battle between two armies a massacre is simply to make the word lose meaning. War is war and this was a military target. If you capture a fort from the enemy, you can't then complain and call them violent for recapturing it when you refuse to negotiate.

Finally, the Romanovs had to be extinguished to deal a death blow to the morale of the fascist white army. It is quite unfortunate, but no one should be shedding tears over royalty. The same goes for France and the guillotine.

[CyM]

http://www.marxist.com/kronstadt-trotsky-was-right.htm

[Alet]

Well the Bolsheviks (or Trotsky himself) won the Russian Civil War. Was private property smashed? Was the bourgeois state smashed? I think you are being too generous with what the stated purpose of the Red Terror and what it actually did. The Russian Revolution remains a model not to follow despite what dogmatists are intent on re-enacting from the safety of their keyboards.

The Russian Revolution is not a "model", and no honest communist would insist on that. Why? Because revolutions are not meant to be models, they are meant to be oppositions to, Aufhebungen of the current state of affairs. Hence, unlike worthless models, they have a specific historical context. Models are meaningless ideas history does not care about. Why would anybody who knows the historical conditions of early 20th century Russia - and Marxists do know them - claim that the Russian Revolution was a "model" you could "apply to" the here and now? This is not the point at all. The point is to understand the revolution scientifically, i.e. from a materialist perspective considering the - more or less - unique conditions in Russia. And approaching this topic scientifically means that we don't give a shit about your humane scruples regarding the horror of revolutionary terror. We dogmatists - we are indeed dogmatists, else we would not be revolutionaries. For Christ's sake, that we don't care about your moral standards by which you qualify us as dogmatists is not even an argument. We dogmatists are not even trying to "re-enact" the Russian Revolution "from the safety of our keyboards" (what were you thinking when you made that assertion? As if you were any better than us, as if you didn't make your arguments "from the safety of your keyboard"), we are only arguing for the necessity of the Red Terror. So, do us a favor and focus on that, how does that grab you?
That private property and the bourgeois state did not cease to exist does not disprove the necessity, it is owed to the nature of Russia before the industrialization. The Russian Revolution was a dual revolution, it had to have bourgeois elements. This should not even be surprising, communists have never despised bourgeois revolutions because they are a prerequisite for socialism. But it was important that the Bolsheviks were in power because only communists can complete consciously what a bourgeois dictatorship can only complete unconsciously and - in all likelihood - much bloodier.

[Blake's Baby]

This is nonsense.

The sailors at Kronstadt that supported the Bolsheviks were long gone in the war and the civil war. Many were freshly brought in from the peasantry. Let's not confuse the issue by connecting this with other revolts in that military base from an earlier time...

That's not true, though, is it? The majority of those involved with the Kronstadt Soviet were long-standing members of the ships' crews in posts like electrical engineers and telegraph operators, not newly-drafted peasants.


... They mutinied for many reasons, but you should read their platform of demands, the most prominent amongst which were a return to the market mechanism in grain (in the middle of a famine), and soviets without Bolsheviks (who just happened to be the democratically elected majority). The glorification of this revolt without any analysis of its demands is quite hypocritical...

Also not true, the demand was for fresh elections. The majority of the Bolsheviks in Kronstadt supported the Kronstadt Commune also.


... As for the Bolsheviks "massacring them", the Bolsheviks called on this Naval fort to negotiate. When that didn't work, they called on them to lay down arms. And when that did not happen, battle was inevitable.

To call a military battle between two armies a massacre is simply to make the word lose meaning. War is war and this was a military target. If you capture a fort from the enemy, you can't then complain and call them violent for recapturing it when you refuse to negotiate...

To call the Kronstadt Commune an 'army' is to make the word lose its meaning. What happened at Kronstadt was a massacre.

[Emmett Till]

Didn't the opponents of Bolshevism say the repression of the Bolsheviks was "necessary"? What is "necessary", how do you define it? What is the purpose?

This kind of indifferentism is pure middle class liberalism, of the sort described by Phil Ochs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLqKXrlD1TU

How about fascists? Is their repression necessary? They certainly believed the repression of the Bolsheviks was "necessary."

It all boils down to the old coal miner's song, "which side are you on"?

Repression of counterrevolutionary elements posing a clear and present danger to the working people, like the Kronstadt mutineers opening the doors for the Whites and the British navy, or Makhno's pogrom-minded "anarchist" bands with rivers of Jewish blood on their hands, is necessary for the working people.

[Blake's Baby]

No, I'm not letting that stand. You're either massively ignorant, or you're a liar.

Evidence for the anti-Semitic actions of the Maknovists?

Evidence that the Kronstadt Commune was 'opening the doors' for either the Whites or the British Navy?

[Emmett Till]

Sure I would hear the testimony of the accused, but the Bolshevik's account was not the only primary account from socialists, let alone the only primary account from participants. Would you hear them out? Or would you treat them (including socialists) as hostile (or white army/fascist/KPD betrayer/shrinking away from the fight)?


You might start by reading the account of what happened at Kronstadt by pro-anarchist historian Paul Avrich, who tried to come up with every possible defense of the actions of the mutineers, but, being an honest historian, ended up having to concede that, yes, the leaders of the mutineers were indeed hand in gloves with the Whites.

http://vrableonline.eu/70/kronstadt-1921-paul-avrich-id22016.pdf

Or better yet, look at what recent Russian historians, now that the archives are open, have found out, all of which has confirmed everything Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt and more, dotting every i and crossing every t. A very good review of their books, unfortunately not translated from the Russian, in an article in the Spartacist magazine a while back. (page 6).

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/spartacist-us/1999-2011/0059_Spring_2006_Spartacist.pdf

Facts are stubborn things. The myths about Kronstadt peddled by anarchists have about as much historical validity as the (basically not that different) claims by Stalinists that Trotsky was a German agent.

[Emmett Till]

As to Kronstadt, see above.


...
Another event I find it hard to ignore with regard to the early Bolsheviks is the execution of the Romanovs - strategically unnecessary, and carried out in a stunningly brutal, arbitrary and unfeeling manner...

Nothing could be further from the truth. A live Romanov heir (or at least a plausible child pretender authenticated by one of the Romanov servants, like during the 17th century "Time of Troubles") was the banner the Whites needed for a monarchist restoration. Them not having one is one of the reasons why the Reds won and the Whites lost.

The plan had been to put them on trial, but the front was crumbling, evacuation was impractical, and the local Bolsheviks, not Moscow as it happens, decided that they had to be killed right away, as quickly as possible, to save the Revolution. Interestingly, the local leader who made the decision, Miasnikov, later became an early dissident, foolishly advocating freedom of expression for everybody "from monarchists to anarchists" as early as 1921.

Romanticism about Nicholas and Alexandra is insane. Nicholas sponsored to the so-called "Black Hundreds," the Russian equivalent of Nazism, and Alexandra was if anything worse.

Marie Antoinette never actually did say "let them eat cake." Alexandra really did write in one of her letters to her hubby that "the Russian people love the whip."

Killing Romanovs is in fact a large part of Russian national tradition, but previously always by other Romanovs. Peter the not-so-great personally tortured his son to death. The last one to do this kind of thing was Catherine, who murdered her husband to get the throne. After that, they restricted themselves to killing other people, often in large numbers.

[motion denied]

It's been forever since I read Avrich's account of Kronstadt, but if I remember correctly he does say that Petrichenko, one of the leaders of the Rebellion who later on would flee to White Finland, was an ardent Ukrainian nationalist and was known as "Petliura" after Simon Petliura. He also finds reasonable that the Bolsheviks would think the Commune was influenced by the Whites, although this influence had been dismissed by the sailors themselves. On the other hand, the disastrous actions by the Bolsheviks also appears fairly clearly in the persons of Kaliniin and Kuzmin.

As far as i recall, Kronstadt's Izvestia issues are enough to prove that they weren't counter-revolutionaries at all.

[Emmett Till]

No, I'm not letting that stand. You're either massively ignorant, or you're a liar.

Evidence for the anti-Semitic actions of the Maknovists?

Evidence that the Kronstadt Commune was 'opening the doors' for either the Whites or the British Navy?

Evidence for the anti-Semitics actions of the Makhnovites? Here's an article posted right here on Revleft about five years ago with all the gory details, some of it quite stomach turning.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/makhno-file-t158083/index.html?t=158083&highlight=Makhno

As for the Kronstadters actions opening the doors for the Whites and the British Navy, read the article I posted the link for. If the Bolsheviks had not struck before the ice melted, absolute disaster would have ensued. It is all too possible that the Revolution would have collapsed and the Whites would be back in power. And after they got through shooting all the Communists and Jews, most of the Kronstadt mutineers would probably have gotten shot too.

[reviscom1]

As to Kronstadt, see above.



Nothing could be further from the truth. A live Romanov heir (or at least a plausible child pretender authenticated by one of the Romanov servants, like during the 17th century "Time of Troubles") was the banner the Whites needed for a monarchist restoration. Them not having one is one of the reasons why the Reds won and the Whites lost.

..................
Romanticism about Nicholas and Alexandra is insane. Nicholas sponsored to the so-called "Black Hundreds," the Russian equivalent of Nazism, and Alexandra was if anything worse.

Marie Antoinette never actually did say "let them eat cake." Alexandra really did write in one of her letters to her hubby that "the Russian people love the whip."




I disagree.

The Romanovs were thoroughly discredited and had been spontaneously deposed by the populace a year earlier. Their presence with the White armies would have been at best irrelevant and possibly a hindrance to them. Also, they could as easily have been evacuated from Ekaterinburg.

I do not romanticize N & A, but it is equally ridiculous to demonise them. They were just a pair of silly, unimaginative, ineffectual non-entities and largely harmless once out of power.

Going back to one of my earlier points, if you think it OK to slaughter children in cold blood in front of their parents, I don't see what gives you the right to sit in judgement on Alexandra for writing something in a letter. The Tsarist whip was, in any case, considerably less biting than that of the Bolsheviks. When Lenin was arrested by the Ohkrana he was able to negotiate the terms and location of his exile and bring his Mother with him!

Nor did the authorities liquidate the Ulyanovs en masse when they hanged Lenin's brother.

[Red_Jacobin]

Thank's everyone for the answers, I appreciate it, I've a lot of learning to do.

[Red_Jacobin]

I'm simply asking questions, I don't have a formed opinion yet, as I'm rather new to marxism in general. So to accuse me of 'middle class liberalism' for trying to learn is a bit harsh don't you think?

[Fourth Internationalist]

Nor did the authorities liquidate the Ulyanovs en masse when they hanged Lenin's brother.

And look at what happened because they did not do that! More reason the Bolsheviks made the right decision.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I feel that an important democratic error was the creation in 1920 of the Uchaspred, the Account and Assignment Section, that was established to appoint and transfer party members to organisational posts on local and regional levels and also the Orgraspred in 1922 which operated to levy control over local party structures. Stalin was appointed control of the Uchaspred and Kaganovich, his close ally, the Orgraspred and the positions were eventually merged in 1924. It essentially gave the two men the opportunity to promote and demote anyone they wanted or assign any party member control over any section of the party across Russia without any oversight as well as giving them control over party conferences, delegates to those conferences and the chairs and organisers of local and regional committees and transfer difficult political opponents to posts far removed from the centres of power in Moscow.

It might have seemed necessary at the time to oil the machine needed to establish a coherent workers state but ultimately it gave one man a chance to manoeuvre his political enemies out of positions of organisational power and make his allies dependent upon him alone.

[Blake's Baby]

I'd say that the fundamental 'undemocratic error' was the creation of SovNarKom itself, wasn't it?

[Emmett Till]

I disagree.

The Romanovs were thoroughly discredited and had been spontaneously deposed by the populace a year earlier. Their presence with the White armies would have been at best irrelevant and possibly a hindrance to them. Also, they could as easily have been evacuated from Ekaterinburg.

I do not romanticize N & A, but it is equally ridiculous to demonise them. They were just a pair of silly, unimaginative, ineffectual non-entities and largely harmless once out of power.

Going back to one of my earlier points, if you think it OK to slaughter children in cold blood in front of their parents, I don't see what gives you the right to sit in judgement on Alexandra for writing something in a letter. The Tsarist whip was, in any case, considerably less biting than that of the Bolsheviks. When Lenin was arrested by the Ohkrana he was able to negotiate the terms and location of his exile and bring his Mother with him!

Nor did the authorities liquidate the Ulyanovs en masse when they hanged Lenin's brother.

This shows an utter absence of any understanding of Russian history. Up until Bloody Sunday, most Russian peasants and workers worshipped the ground the Romanovs walked on. Afterwards, only a minority did.

But there were still millions and millions of Russians who still believed that the Romanovs were god's chosen to rule Russia, and had been so since the 1600's. With no Romanovs to worship, many of them stayed on the sidelines in the Russian Civil War. They would have flocked to any plausible Romanov's banner, guns in hand.

Yes, they should not have shot the extremely dangerous children in front of their parents. But they had to die, or the Whites would have gotten hold of them and disaster could have ensued for millions of Russian workers and peasants.

As for the Tsarist whip, that included the post-1905 and WWI pogroms against Jews that were models and training grounds for the Holocaust. Steady escalation over time, thousands killed, raped and murdered after 1905, tens of thousands during WWI, hundreds of thousands during the Civil War, and of course millions with Hitler. With the Romanov banner in White hands in the Civil War, they could have won, and the Holocaust would have happened in the 1920s. All enthusiastically blessed by Nicholas and Alexandra.

Lastly, no, they could not have been evacuated from Ekaterinburg. The front was collapsing, the necessary railroad lines were literally seized the next day if I remember right. Far from all of the Bolsheviks managed to evacuate themselves.

[Emmett Till]

I feel that an important democratic error was the creation in 1920 of the Uchaspred, the Account and Assignment Section, that was established to appoint and transfer party members to organisational posts on local and regional levels and also the Orgraspred in 1922 which operated to levy control over local party structures. Stalin was appointed control of the Uchaspred and Kaganovich, his close ally, the Orgraspred and the positions were eventually merged in 1924. It essentially gave the two men the opportunity to promote and demote anyone they wanted or assign any party member control over any section of the party across Russia without any oversight as well as giving them control over party conferences, delegates to those conferences and the chairs and organisers of local and regional committees and transfer difficult political opponents to posts far removed from the centres of power in Moscow.

It might have seemed necessary at the time to oil the machine needed to establish a coherent workers state but ultimately it gave one man a chance to manoeuvre his political enemies out of positions of organisational power and make his allies dependent upon him alone.

The blunder was to appoint Stalin to the job and let him use Kaganovich as his deputy. Lenin planned to fire him, but he died too soon and Trotsky dropped the ball.

As Lenin put it, "this cook only knows how to make peppery dishes."

There were several other possible appointees who were under consideration who ended up in the Left Opposition. Given that Russia was in the middle of famine at the time, even one of Lenin's own relatives died of starvation, having somebody competent in charge of emergency transfers was a good idea. By 1923, with the famine crisis over and NEP starting to work, the posts were no longer necessary.

[Rafiq]

Earlier I attacked reviscom for his pathetic justification for his superstitoins, and this cretin responded by saying it makes no practical difference as to whether he believes in a god. Well, I thorouhgly explained why this was untrue - so can I be surprised when I see, out of his superstitious, cretinous sensitivities, he 'condemns' the execution of the romanovs, for what right hath man to decide who lives and dies (outside of the legitimate, cosmically, divinely ordained state of course).



The Tsarist whip was, in any case, considerably less biting than that of the Bolsheviks. When Lenin was arrested by the Ohkrana he was able to negotiate the terms and location of his exile and bring his Mother with him!

Nor did the authorities liquidate the Ulyanovs en masse when they hanged Lenin's brother

What a despicable, disgusting reactionary you are. The most profound stupidity that underlies this argument staggers beyond belief, it staggers the most basic, most crass inability to actually understand how relations of power work in relation to 'degrees' of cruelty or 'excess'.

Are you literally stupid? Do you think that the comparatively less 'harsh' nature of Tsarist punishments was owed to some kind of greater benevolence on part of the Tsarist regime? No, let's actually do something for once in the miserable time you have spent here - let's actually think this through. What are some possible reasons as to why political criminals are treated worse not only by the Bolsheviks, but by revolutionaries in general?

What are some possible reasons as to why hegemonic relations of power in societies constituted by 'legitimate' states are more 'lenient' with punishments than in revolutionary situations where power over the state is always and forever precarious?

In fact, the stupidity of your argument staggers beyond belief for the simple reason that you fail to understand that hegemonic powers, 'legitimate' states act more 'leniently' because they are FORCED to - in a society constituted by a social antagonism, it is necessary to prevent disarray, and general chaos - it is necessary to prevent unnecessary excesses and cruelties so that you do not harbor the hatred and discontent of the masses at large.

And finally to be short and sweet, 'legitimate' and 'legal' powers will not respond with such same exact degrees of outward excess for the simple reason that the violence of any stable, self-perpetuating (in the long term) class society must be a tacit, implicit violence - not the kind of fucking violence that you evoke in a situation of emergency when your power is so threatened. The fact of the matter is that the Tsarist regime (if it wanted to, even) WAS IN NO POSITION to exert the same kind of violence that the Bolsheviks did. The very moral logic is in nature disgusting, as though there is some kind of equivalence in the killing of reactionaries and the killing of Communists, judged and ordained by the almighty.

In times of revolution, the violence that sustains any state is made outwardly apparent, it is made raw, visible, and - dare I say - honest. The Bolshevik 'whip' was more biting than the Tsar's? It was as biting as it had to be to repel the armies of darkness, filth and reaction, what is that to us? And whom were the Bolsheviks whipping, compared to those of the Tsar? Not the Russian people, but their enemies. That is the fucking difference. It is unthinkable that a Bolshevik would smugly say "The Russian people love the whip". UNTHINKABLE. That is because despite every practical consideration, they were still thoroughly democratic ideologues, they were still thoroughly OF "the people". This very ideological difference means something.

And the only evidence we really need, to show how fucking full of shit you are is the fact that what remained of the Tsarist state apparatus WAS embodied by the white armies, who were infinitely more vile, cruel, barbarous and rabidly violent than the Bolsheviks - and it is not Soviet propaganda that we derive this information, but firsthand testimonies from American generals who noted this as one of the prime reasons as to explain mass desertion of white armies to join the Reds.

You know what's fucking disgusting though, really? The Bolsheviks wanted to, and there is every reason to show that they tried to, abolish the death penalty. The Bolsheviks, who thought every single person could be rehabilitated after the revolution through re-education.

Finally, some details of the romanov execution: Upon firing at the royal family, every single shooter immediately pointed their guns at the tsar and shot him at once, signifying that IT DID take a toll on them to kill the kids. The executioners would go on to be very depressed, filled with regret, and so on. Nobody celebrates the killing of children. No one. But that does not make a difference as far as its necessity was concerned.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Rafiq, your incessant insults against other users are getting rather boring to read, especially when they're recycled over and over again within a huge post full of bold text and whatever else you usually do. It's rather... odd, to say the least.

[Emmett Till]

Rafiq, your incessant insults against other users are getting rather boring to read, especially when they're recycled over and over again within a huge post full of bold text and whatever else you usually do. It's rather... odd, to say the least.

Well, yeah, but this posting was short by his standards, the insults were more well deserved than on certain occasions, and at least he avoided all caps.

In fact, far as I can tell, though rhetorical excesses were engaged in, everything he said was correct. So if you want to call him out on his posting style, a different occasion would be better.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Well, yeah, but this posting was short by his standards, the insults were more well deserved than on certain occasions, and at least he avoided all caps.

In fact, far as I can tell, though rhetorical excesses were engaged in, everything he said was correct. So if you want to call him out on his posting style, a different occasion would be better.

While one could argue the few points of his that actually related to the subject of the thread were correct, the constant personal insults against others is unnecessary. I think it's incredibly childish to call others "cretins" or "stupid" for having an incorrect position. It lowers the quality of discussion.

I think this occasion was the best time to do so because I had already posted about another user earlier in this thread using annoying insults, so I might as well be fair and post again when someone I would largely agree with on the issue does it.

[reviscom1]

@Rafiq

You did not thoroughly explain anything in relation to the religious question. You put forward your opinion. I don't agree with it.

My point about the whip was not to say that the Tsarist system was better than the Bolshevik one, more that it is invalid to justify killing the Romanovs by quoting the Tsarina saying the people enjoyed the whip, when the whip she was referring to was less severe than the Bolshevik's own.

It is not reactionary to oppose the killing of children, thank you very much.

[Guardia Rossa]

It is not reactionary to oppose the killing of children, thank you very much.

You are correct. But they were ROMANOV children. Monarchism IS reactionary. And as long as a Romanov is alive, Russian Monarchism was alive. That was why they killed all Romanovs. Simple.

Or just arrest the kids and execute when they are 18, as if that was going to make things any better. It's still murder :mellow:.

It is not reactionary to oppose violence when it is needed, it is cheap talk.

[Emmett Till]

@Rafiq

You did not thoroughly explain anything in relation to the religious question. You put forward your opinion. I don't agree with it.

My point about the whip was not to say that the Tsarist system was better than the Bolshevik one, more that it is invalid to justify killing the Romanovs by quoting the Tsarina saying the people enjoyed the whip, when the whip she was referring to was less severe than the Bolshevik's own.

It is not reactionary to oppose the killing of children, thank you very much.

The Bolshevik whip more severe than the Tsarist? You are, at best, grossly ignorant.

Rape, murder and torture were favorite methods of the Tsarist Okhrana in dealing with Jews and revolutionaries.

Frankly, though his usual rhetorical excesses clouded the issue, Rafiq make an excellent point in drawing attention to the connection between your defense of the vile Romanovs and your defense of religion. The holy Romanovs, god's chosen to master the Russian land, are the perfect example of why revolutionaries must fight the insidious plague of religion.

[CyM]

Rafiq's post is damn spot on. But unfortunately, no matter how much I agree with it, I will have to hand out an infraction as a result of the insults. It can be very tough to deal with these arguments that have been very much spread by the bourgeois in their attempts to bury the Russian revolution under a mountain of lies. But we have to do it without losing our cool. I'm sympathetic, but we need to keep an atmosphere conducive to learning.

[reviscom1]

Well, yeah, but this posting was short by his standards, the insults were more well deserved than on certain occasions, and at least he avoided all caps.

In fact, far as I can tell, though rhetorical excesses were engaged in, everything he said was correct. So if you want to call him out on his posting style, a different occasion would be better

That makes no sense.

Either you object to his posting style or not.

If you only object to his posting style when he is disagreeing with you then your objection is not to style but to substance.

[reviscom1]

The Bolshevik whip more severe than the Tsarist? You are, at best, grossly ignorant.

Rape, murder and torture were favorite methods of the Tsarist Okhrana in dealing with Jews and revolutionaries.

Frankly, though his usual rhetorical excesses clouded the issue, Rafiq make an excellent point in drawing attention to the connection between your defense of the vile Romanovs and your defense of religion. The holy Romanovs, god's chosen to master the Russian land, are the perfect example of why revolutionaries must fight the insidious plague of religion.

There are benevolent and malevolent aspects to religion, just as there are to Socialism. And I was defending a belief in God, not religion.

You really are wasting your time and energy worrying about religion. You're supposed to be a Socialist Revolutionary, not a bourgeois revolutionary. Capitalism should be your target.

I was not defending the Romanovs. I was saying that killing them was the wrong thing to do. You think that Stalin's excesses made Communism a tough sell? So did shooting a defenceless family in a cellar.

[Rafiq]

You really are wasting your time and energy worrying about religion. You're supposed to be a Socialist Revolutionary, not a bourgeois revolutionary. Capitalism should be your target.

Nice try, but we went over that in a previous thread. The bourgeois revolutionaries dealt with institutional religious structures in relation to the state. The Communists repel and eradicate all superstitions, whether they are in churches or confined to peoples heads. Communism is atheism in practice.

In addition, bourgeois revolutions, like that of France, are ambiguous. They are not simply bourgeois revolutions, they are modern capitalist revolutions - which means that embedded within them is the antagonism between labor and capital. That means that the Jacobins were just as much (potentially) Communists as they were bourgeois ideologues - the antagonism and distinction did not emerge until the Conspiracy of the Equals which would be the champion of the new ouvier working class (which claimed to inherit the legacy of the Jacobins, for the record) against the triumphant French bourgeoisie, but not AS reactionaries seeking to be 'soft' on religion, but on the contrary - seeking to finish the French revolution. And that is Communism, the conclusion of this unresolved great revolution once and for all.


I was not defending the Romanovs. I was saying that killing them was the wrong thing to do. You think that Stalin's excesses made Communism a tough sell? So did shooting a defenceless family in a cellar.

And our apologist for disgusting superstitions cannot wrap his head around the fact that what is morally atrocious in the face of divine judgement has nothing to do with whether it was the necessary course of action. You are not a Communist - what is necessary to sustain the rule of a proletarian dictatorship, is frankly not compatible with your supersittious, reactionary moral coordinates. We shoot, hang and burn priests. As Communists we did this, not as Jacobins - but as Communists. Let that sink in.

What we prefer in some vacuum has nothing to do with what was tactically necessary. If we had the choice, the Romanov children would be placed in an orphanage just like any other orphaned child from the civil war (and I can bet, 100% you would find this sickening too). We couldn't do this, because the civil war was not resolved and the threat of a return of the romanovs remained.

And frankly we are all so fucking sick of the blatantly moronic notions that our 'excesses' made communism tough to sell to the broad masses at large. Perhaps for pseudo-intellectuals who cannot get over their disgusting bourgeois moral sensitivities, it is a tough sell. We don't need them, however. I am sure the working people of the United States, and western Europe at best sighed at the deaths of the accursed Romanovs. No one gave the deaths, or worse, of millions of children, a second thought in other contexts. No tears for filthy monarchs, no sympathy for despots, monarchs, with their disgusting, filthy and degenerate rituals. We commend, applaud and celebrate the killing of the Tsar and his swine of a wife. We salivate at the beheading of kings.

But as Communists we recognize the innocence of children. This innocence does not absolve tactical necessities, however. End of story.

[Alet]

You really are wasting your time and energy worrying about religion. You're supposed to be a Socialist Revolutionary, not a bourgeois revolutionary. Capitalism should be your target.

Except that opposing religion is not wasting time and energy, it is the duty of communists. Your "target capitalism rather than religion" dilemma is a false one, a fallacy. Despite all practical relevance and all materialism, communism has a deep ideological dimension you cannot ignore. A revolution is not simply replacing the current material order with a new one - every revolution of the material basis is inevitably also a cultural and a social revolution. To be more precise: ideology is in fact practice and, in a way, material. You fail to understand that by opposing religion we never stop opposing capitalism for the banal reason that religion is a part of the present order. It's not like the faith in God is some transhistorical force isolated from social orders - there is a certain reason why people believe in God today, their faith is constituted by their relation to capitalism.

This is why your faith in God is relevant, this is why it does have certain implications which are incompatible with communism - because ideology is practice. It is not surprising that you compare the brutality of the Tsarist regime to the brutality of Bolshevist repression, or that you deprive Emmett Till of his "right" to judge Alexandra's statement on Russia's love of the whip, or, more generally, that you make your arguments based on morality. I don't even mean to insult you, but your pseudo-liberal insistence on equal treatment is owed to the fact that you are not a communist. But the accusation of double standards is hypocritical - history is not driven by morals, it is driven by (class) interests. When people apply different moral standards to the same situation it's not because of arbitrariness but because they are, in fact, different situations. Hence: Fuck the Romanov's "natural rights", fuck democracy, fuck the extent of the brutality of the Red Terror - the purpose of this topic is to approach the Russian Revolution scientifically. We are not going to shed crocodile tears here.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Oh dear, the boldness is spreading!

[Red_Jacobin]

I'm coming to the conclusion that most of what could have been called "undemocratic errors" are more a necessity of the revolution. I guess I didn't see things quite the way they have been laid out here. Thanks all for posting.

[Alet]

Oh dear, the boldness is spreading!

Not trying to mimic Rafiq, I'm used to it because I've always found it useful.

[Hit The North]

You were. The other posters here are not daunted or deterred by your insults, that much is true! But I am simply pointing out the double-standards that you hold when debating them here, insisting that your beliefs are non-dogmatic and that others are dogmatist for not accepting those anti-Bolshevik talking points as if it were the Gospel.

This is particularly rich when you consider that The Idler's tendency has not changed its opinion on anything for about a hundred years.

[Emmett Till]

That makes no sense.

Either you object to his posting style or not.

If you only object to his posting style when he is disagreeing with you then your objection is not to style but to substance.

I think style is always far less important than substance, which is why, though I have objected to his posting style from time to time, never as vehemently as many others, including on at least one occasion when it was directed against me.

Here, as others have pointed out, on substance he was spot on, so for you to complain about his posting style is evading the issue.

Though in fairness, I'll grant that you have at least had the dignity of letting others carry the ball on that.

[Emmett Till]

This is particularly rich when you consider that The Idler's tendency has not changed its opinion on anything for about a hundred years.

How did The Idler get in there, I idly ask?

Little though I care for the posts of either of these posters, one should not blame one for the other--unless they are actually in the same "tendency." Are they?

[The Idler]

This is particularly rich when you consider that The Idler's tendency has not changed its opinion on anything for about a hundred years.
You really shouldn't bother making glib assertions about impossibilism when you know nothing about it and never bother to learn anything about it. The Socialist Standard were one of the first socialist publications in Britain to print something from the Bolsheviks (see here https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1915/no-127-march-1915/russian-challenge). Subsequently things changed. In the 1930s there was fundamental reassessment of the causes of economic crisis explained in an official pamphlet. There has also been reassessments of other things, off the top of my head, the merits of a open ballot compared to a secret ballot. This does not even include reassessments by other groups in the 'impossibilist' tendency. This may not be the regularly vacillating 'principles' from groups where the only dogma was following Tony Cliff's contortions but I prefer principles to following 'party lines' of individual gurus be they Lenin, Trotsky, Cliff or Callinicos.

[Hit The North]

You really shouldn't bother making glib assertions about impossibilism when you know nothing about it and never bother to learn anything about it.

It's no bother. More a pleasure :)


The Socialist Standard were one of the first socialist publications in Britain to print something from the Bolsheviks (see here https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1915/no-127-march-1915/russian-challenge).So the Standard published a Bolshevik statement from 1915. Is this supposed to make a point of some kind?


Subsequently things changed.Sure did. The Bolsheviks led a workers' revolution and the SPGB turned against them!


In the 1930s there was fundamental reassessment of the causes of economic crisis explained in an official pamphlet. There has also been reassessments of other things, off the top of my head, the merits of a open ballot compared to a secret ballot. The glacial grind of these "changes" just illustrates the zombie-like nature of SPGB politics and its ageless inaction. And let me guess, the party decided to abandon open ballots in favour of secret ballots, somewhat belatedly tail-ending the Tories' trade union legislation by a couple of decades? Although I understand this has been overturned now. But it's hardly a vital debate at the heart of the class struggle.


This may not be the regularly vacillating 'principles' from groups where the only dogma was following Tony Cliff's contortions but I prefer principles to following 'party lines' of individual gurus be they Lenin, Trotsky, Cliff or Callinicos.Ah, yes, the cherished principles of non-intervention in the class struggle and an insistence on maintaining the bourgeois distinction between political struggle and industrial struggle. Frankly, you can keep those so-called principles.

But, actually, holding too many principles is the mark of the dogmatist. Tony Cliff was fond of repeating that socialists should have only a few core principles; that the rest was strategy and tactics. This is where your tradition truly differs from the tradition of Leninism. Leninism appreciates the link between strategy and tactics, and the importance of mobility of tactics when it comes to intervening as a party in the day to day struggles of the class. A party, such as the SPGB, which has only a strategy and no tactics, is one that is doomed to abstract propaganda. As the history of your party attests.

[The Idler]

So the Standard published a Bolshevik statement from 1915. Is this supposed to make a point of some kind?
Sectarians such as yourself will not understand.

Sure did. The Bolsheviks led a workers' revolution and the SPGB turned against them!
Having only ever stood on its own socialist platform, the SPGB didn't turn against anyone, a "workers revolution" led by a group distinct from those workers, in a country with a tiny working-class means very little.

The glacial grind of these "changes" just illustrates the zombie-like nature of SPGB politics and its ageless inaction. And let me guess, the party decided to abandon open ballots in favour of secret ballots, somewhat belatedly tail-ending the Tories' trade union legislation by a couple of decades? Although I understand this has been overturned now. But it's hardly a vital debate at the heart of the class struggle.
If you think SPGB politics is zombie-like you should attend a conference or meeting for once and compare it to the conferences or meetings in the Leninist-Cliff tradition. You would be surprised to learn branches actually propose motions which get debated and members vehemently disagree.
The SPGB have also reassessed fairly vital questions of democracy and trade unions this way. So did Cliff but his conclusion seemed to be about as sophisticated as favouring less democracy and more trade unions.

Ah, yes, the cherished principles of non-intervention in the class struggle and an insistence on maintaining the bourgeois distinction between political struggle and industrial struggle. Frankly, you can keep those so-called principles.
Funny, I cannot find "non-intervention in the class struggle" anywhere in the SPGB principles. I look forward to the day you can explain how I can not intervene in the class struggle because being a member of the working class is exploitative on a daily basis. The SPGB don't maintain a bourgeois distinction, they just don't go into trade unions claiming anything more than you can settle for better conditions or wages within the profit system through industrial action. No "abstract propaganda" (as if calling for abolition of the wages system is "abstract propaganda"), Nothing like "strike to bring down the government", "general strike now", "24 hour strike" etc. not that strikes might not take place in a course of a socialist revolution.

But, actually, holding too many principles is the mark of the dogmatist. Tony Cliff was fond of repeating that socialists should have only a few core principles; that the rest was strategy and tactics. This is where your tradition truly differs from the tradition of Leninism. Leninism appreciates the link between strategy and tactics, and the importance of mobility of tactics when it comes to intervening as a party in the day to day struggles of the class. A party, such as the SPGB, which has only a strategy and no tactics, is one that is doomed to abstract propaganda. As the history of your party attests.
Nope, the SPGB have specific principles published for all to see, there are only eight. Contrast that with the SWP's opaque 'Where we stand' and the way the constitution was leaked because the SWP try to keep theirs top secret to the general public.

In the age of the internet, Leninist secrecy and sectarianism is doomed to fail as incidents such as the leaked constitution and the 2013 split attest. We've seen just how bloody the Leninist interventions in the day to day struggle can be - and the Cliff tradition is no different. John Molyneux publishing in The Future Socialist Society (1998) "if absolutely necessary they will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads".

SPGB contest elections on a socialist platform and do not vacillate in the Socialist Standard as publication over hundred years (all of which publicly available in the online archive) attests. It is a sound tactic for while nowhere has socialism been established, none of the double dealing and nowhere near the level of splits common to the Leninist tradition have taken place.

[Hit The North]

Sectarians such as yourself will not understand.


So, no point was intended then :rolleyes:.



Having only ever stood on its own socialist platform, the SPGB didn't turn against anyone, a "workers revolution" led by a group distinct from those workers, in a country with a tiny working-class means very little.

You are right. The Russian revolution, as a world-historic event, pales into insignificance compared to the SPGB's one hundred year history of being the international movement's most boring sect.


If you think SPGB politics is zombie-like you should attend a conference or meeting for once and compare it to the conferences or meetings in the Leninist-Cliff tradition. I would but I don't live in London.


Funny, I cannot find "non-intervention in the class struggle" anywhere in the SPGB principles.

You have to look in the SPGB's DNA to find it. It is in its utter lack of practice.


I look forward to the day you can explain how I can not intervene in the class struggle because being a member of the working class is exploitative on a daily basis.

I'm struggling to make sense of this statement. Being exploited ain't the same as intervening in the class struggle! If that's what you mean. But if you're claiming I've argued that being an exploited member of the class means you cannot intervene in struggle, then you are spouting lies or bullshit.

But the point is that the SPGB does little to intervene as a party, apart from writing about stuff. Obviously, doing nothing is an advantage in creating a long legacy of passivity - if you never do anything, you never make mistakes. Except that not doing anything is a mistake when it comes to building a mass party of socialist workers which, again, the history of your tradition attests to. And the proof isn't in that you've failed while others have succeeded, (we've all failed!) but in that you have consistently failed over a far longer period.


The SPGB don't maintain a bourgeois distinction, they just don't go into trade unions claiming anything more than you can settle for better conditions or wages within the profit system through industrial action. No "abstract propaganda" (as if calling for abolition of the wages system is "abstract propaganda"), Nothing like "strike to bring down the government", "general strike now", "24 hour strike" etc. not that strikes might not take place in a course of a socialist revolution.

Mate, if you wade into an industrial dispute, under the banner of "Abolition of the Wage System" there is no finer example of abstract propaganda. Anyway, your anti-strike politics is well-known to this board so you don't have to trouble yourself reiterating how much you think workers striking against capitalists is a pointless exercise compared to say, holding a fraternal debate with the Green Party at some end-of-the-pier meeting hall in Wisden.


Nope, the SPGB have specific principles published for all to see, there are only eight. Contrast that with the SWP's opaque 'Where we stand' and the way the constitution was leaked because the SWP try to keep theirs top secret to the general public.

I think you're mistaking me with someone who's main priority is defending a party I left a good few years ago. I'm not interested in that or another iteration of Trotskyist party building.


SPGB contest elections on a socialist platform and do not vacillate in the Socialist Standard as publication over hundred years (all of which publicly available in the online archive) attests. It is a sound tactic for while nowhere has socialism been established, none of the double dealing and nowhere near the level of splits common to the Leninist tradition have taken place.


Yes, you are like an order of nuns. Married to the spirit, but never sampling from the flesh. It is easy to maintain fidelity that way.

...

[Fourth Internationalist]

Sectarians such as yourself will not understand.

It is almost always the most vocal "anti-sectarians" who are, in fact, the most sectarian.

[The Idler]

You are right. The Russian revolution, as a world-historic event, pales into insignificance compared to the SPGB's one hundred year history of being the international movement's most boring sect.
I never said it is insignificant, the various SPGB pamphlets on the matter put lie to this, and overthrowing Tsarist feudalism to introduce capitalism is undoubtedly an improvement. However, trying to label the SPGB a 'sect' is inaccurate, the SPGB don't hold secret meetings and they judge other groups on what they say and do, not solely on whether they are companion parties of the SPGB or not. This contrasts favourably with the Trots in Britain who often would rather drop out than join another group with largely the same politics, for example, the CWI and IMT.


I would but I don't live in London.
SPGB meetings take place all over the country, it is not difficult to come to one outside London.



You have to look in the SPGB's DNA to find it. It is in its utter lack of practice.



I'm struggling to make sense of this statement. Being exploited ain't the same as intervening in the class struggle! If that's what you mean. But if you're claiming I've argued that being an exploited member of the class means you cannot intervene in struggle, then you are spouting lies or bullshit.

But the point is that the SPGB does little to intervene as a party, apart from writing about stuff. Obviously, doing nothing is an advantage in creating a long legacy of passivity - if you never do anything, you never make mistakes. Except that not doing anything is a mistake when it comes to building a mass party of socialist workers which, again, the history of your tradition attests to. And the proof isn't in that you've failed while others have succeeded, (we've all failed!) but in that you have consistently failed over a far longer period.
"Passivity", "inactivity", "non-intervention", and more scathingly, "doing nothing", "not doing anything" are all typical accusations made of the SPGB from the SWP. However it is the first time I have heard 'lack of practice' is in 'its DNA'.
Yes the SPGB do write, speak and organise "as a party", but they also contest elections but contest them on a socialist platform, something no other groups seem to do.
This is "intervening" in the class struggle and it is all any other parties do in a practical sense.
You were right when you said there is no bourgeois distinction between this and the class struggle although you seem to be backtracking on this now.

Mate, if you wade into an industrial dispute, under the banner of "Abolition of the Wage System" there is no finer example of abstract propaganda. Anyway, your anti-strike politics is well-known to this board so you don't have to trouble yourself reiterating how much you think workers striking against capitalists is a pointless exercise compared to say, holding a fraternal debate with the Green Party at some end-of-the-pier meeting hall in Wisden.
There is no anti-strike politics, the SPGB have supported every strike for better wages and conditions, contrast this with the Leninist tradition who have taken guns and bayonets to striking workers so "anti-strike politics" is a bit rich. In Britain, did the SWP have an independent trade union for those working on the production of Socialist Worker? Nope. Remember John Molyneux publishing in The Future Socialist Society (1998) "if absolutely necessary they will have to perform with workers' guns at their heads". Where's your condemnation for this?
There is nothing abstract or propagandistic about socialists calling for socialism, but socialists calling on PCS to "bring down the government with a general strike" is abstract and socialists calling on trade unionists to "fund or support the Labour party" is propagandistic.


I think you're mistaking me with someone who's main priority is defending a party I left a good few years ago. I'm not interested in that or another iteration of Trotskyist party building.

Unfortunately I'm not sure you are any better now you are a one-man sectarian sneering on the internet.


Yes, you are like an order of nuns. Married to the spirit, but never sampling from the flesh. It is easy to maintain fidelity that way.

...
SPGB members are in the class struggle just like anyone else, the difference with you is the SPGB are organising politically to bring about a socialist society whereas in this topic you are being destructive towards the socialist movement in Britain.

[Hit The North]

The Idler, it is obvious that your debating tactic is to say, "Look, the SPGB do this wonderful thing, but the Trots do this horrid thing."

But even if we accept that the Trot organisations are a pile of steaming turds spewed from the arses of rank opportunists, this would not change the overwhelming verdict that the SPGB has been a monumental failure at everything except maintaining its organisation in a state of near invisibility for more than a century.

Now, if I am wrong about the intrinsic passivity and disconnect of your tendency's political theory and this is the result of the SPGB's tireless agitation, then this is a tragedy for the SPGB. Worse, if you are correct that the strategy the SPGB has been employing for the past century is the only viable strategy for promoting socialism, then we is all in the shit, brother.

...

[reviscom1]

Except that opposing religion is not wasting time and energy, it is the duty of communists. Your "target capitalism rather than religion" dilemma is a false one, a fallacy. Despite all practical relevance and all materialism, communism has a deep ideological dimension you cannot ignore. A revolution is not simply replacing the current material order with a new one - every revolution of the material basis is inevitably also a cultural and a social revolution. To be more precise: ideology is in fact practice and, in a way, material. You fail to understand that by opposing religion we never stop opposing capitalism for the banal reason that religion is a part of the present order. It's not like the faith in God is some transhistorical force isolated from social orders - there is a certain reason why people believe in God today, their faith is constituted by their relation to capitalism.

This is why your faith in God is relevant, this is why it does have certain implications which are incompatible with communism - because ideology is practice. It is not surprising that you compare the brutality of the Tsarist regime to the brutality of Bolshevist repression, or that you deprive Emmett Till of his "right" to judge Alexandra's statement on Russia's love of the whip, or, more generally, that you make your arguments based on morality. I don't even mean to insult you, but your pseudo-liberal insistence on equal treatment is owed to the fact that you are not a communist. But the accusation of double standards is hypocritical - history is not driven by morals, it is driven by (class) interests. When people apply different moral standards to the same situation it's not because of arbitrariness but because they are, in fact, different situations. Hence: Fuck the Romanov's "natural rights", fuck democracy, fuck the extent of the brutality of the Red Terror - the purpose of this topic is to approach the Russian Revolution scientifically. We are not going to shed crocodile tears here.

I disagree that religion is part of the present order. It was part of the ancienne regime but it has little or nothing to do with Capitalism. In actual fact most of the rabid neo-liberals I know or have encountered on message boards are also rabidly atheist, and in fact that makes logical sense. Both neo-liberalism and atheism are strictly materialistic. Both of them are completely cynical, and amoral, which Rafiq informs us was also Robespierre's objection to atheism.

As for your points on morality yes, of course we have to have morality otherwise what's the point of anything? Without it we are animals. Again, I go back to how can we pass moral judgement on the "sickening" Romanovs or indeed anyone else if we refuse to be held morally accountable ourselves?

Crying "bourgeois morality!" is not a get out of jail free card which magically neutralises all moral accusations against us. Of course, there are some bourgeois codes which are simply intended to prop up the bourgeois order. I would strongly suggest, however, that "don't murder haemophiliac children" is not one of them.

[Alet]

I disagree that religion is part of the present order. It was part of the ancienne regime but it has little or nothing to do with Capitalism.

Organized religion might have nothing to do with capitalism, at least if we understand capitalism in the way bourgeois ideologues do - as an abstract, dead economic system, abstract and dead in the sense that humans and their relations to (re)production are done away with. But this is not congruent with reality. That is what Marxists always insisted on: A mode of production is not simply an economic system regulating the allocation of resources - there is much more behind it, it constitutes our life, and not just our physical existence, every single aspect of our life (may it be culture, ideology, or whatever) is contingent upon capitalism. It's not that you need, say, Christianity to have machines running and money circulating in the way that it is a mechanical part of an economic system. But one has to conceive economy as how it relates to the social, and this is where humans come into play: They do not only need to eat, sleep, have hobbies etc., they have to conform to the mode of production, they must ideologically submit to it in order to reproduce it. This is why religion is the opium of the masses - you end up having morals which are incompatible with revolutionary practice like: "How dare you kill the Romanovs?" or: "We should not artificially mess with nature." Humans cannot be done away with, and this is an important point. They do not "use" economic systems, production is what makes a human.

If one wants to be a communist, he has to ask: Where does ideology come from? Where does religion (presently) come from? When I said that religion is a part of capitalism, I did not mean that it is part of neo-liberal thought or the primary repressive ideology as it was in feudalism. I do know that organized religion is weak today compared to other repressive institutions. Nonetheless, it is still a part of capitalist society as it did not cease to exist. It is necessary to understand how it relates to capitalism and there is certainly a relation. Else one has to assume that Christianity is a transhistoric force established by something else, something "greater" than humans ("God"). This is a ludicrously superstitious notion. It was humanity and humanity alone that created religion, and humans are not able to do something independently from their material basis.


In actual fact most of the rabid neo-liberals I know or have encountered on message boards are also rabidly atheist, and in fact that makes logical sense. Both neo-liberalism and atheism are strictly materialistic.

I will not go into detail because, as far as I remember, Rafiq has already elaborated on the religious characteristics of non-communists. But "neo-liberalism" and "materialistic" - do you really think that statements like "free markets will regulate it" can be qualified as anything else than superstitious? No way, not even by vulgar materialist standards.


As for your points on morality yes, of course we have to have morality otherwise what's the point of anything? Without it we are animals. Again, I go back to how can we pass moral judgement on the "sickening" Romanovs or indeed anyone else if we refuse to be held morally accountable ourselves?

Crying "bourgeois morality!" is not a get out of jail free card which magically neutralises all moral accusations against us. Of course, there are some bourgeois codes which are simply intended to prop up the bourgeois order. I would strongly suggest, however, that "don't murder haemophiliac children" is not one of them.

Why would we want to neutralize moral accusations? They can be totally arbitrary, from "killing people is bad" to "private property is good". Communists, revolutionaries in general, simply don't fucking care about these as far as necessity is concerned. Why? Because necessity does not care either. Morality itself is grounded in the material basis, not the other way around. There is really no choice, in order to realize communism a lot of terrible things will have to be done. Morality does not exceed material, really existing barriers. We don't get to wish our ideal revolution and our ideal society. Communists know that. This does not mean that they do not have morals, it simply means that they are able to approach a topic scientifically, that is materialistically. You on the other hand are hindered by your ideology. This is my point. We won't be able to discuss the killing of the Romanov's until you understand your morality to be inferior in the face of materialism and necessity.

[Rafiq]

Both neo-liberalism and atheism are strictly materialistic. Both of them are completely cynical, and amoral, which Rafiq informs us was also Robespierre's objection to atheism.

Is that what Rafiq informs us? Is that what Rafiq insinuated, that atheism is actually cynical and amoral? THAT IS NOT what I claimed. On the contrary, I claimed that atheism AS CONCEIVED in the context of (certain stages of) the French revolution, was associated with cynicism and a lack of faith in the revolution - the bourgeois revolution, which required a sense of garuntee in the form of a deity.

I DID NOT say actual atheism is "amoral and cynical". On the contrary, I assreted and insinuated that Robespierre was not an atheist - becasue he was not a Communist, and that the bourgeois atheism that which he opposed was not any kind of real atheism, but nothing more than faithlessness in the revolution. What you fail to understand is that the word "atheism" in this context, is interchangable with Communism - EVEN BOURGOEIS ATHEISTS beleive in a god and have such superstitions, that was my point - the difference was that the god of the cynical bourgeois atheists, was not congruent with the god of the French revolution, the supreme being, that which justified faith in hte goodness of 'the people'.

My whole point was that it in fact was NOT a dichotomy between the "theist" Robespierre and the "atheists". Neither were atheists in the true sense of the word, but the difference was that Robespierre had faith in the revolution. And finally, the successors of Robespierre's legacy - the conspiracy of the equals - were rabidly anti-clerical and militantly atheists, led by one of the first, if not the first modern Communists: Gracchus Babeuf. Were these "atheists" cynical and amoral? No, they weren't, becuase they were actual atheists, they were godless in practice.

And Communism is nothing more than atheism in practice.

Of course, to speak of amorality, look at the plain intellectual DISHONESTY you present here. The context was that you said "I'm with Robespierre on this one" when you tried to justify your superstitious beliefs. I attacked you BECAUSE I said, you're wrong, your 'belief in a god' has nothing to do with Robespierre's which was wrought from an entirely different context and which meant an entirely different thing. So as dishonest as you are, like any other 'believer' in the god of capital, you twist my words and deliberately lie.

It's not that you have any authority over bourgeois atheists. You don't - you're both just as bad, in fact, at times we ought to agree with the bourgeois atheists who demand unequivocal 'formal' atheism in schools and the destruction of church power, legitimacy, etc. - that is because we are not reactionaries. We oppose the bourgeois atheists, but we oppose even more the actual, self-proclaimed superstitious individuals. The former do not admit they are superstitious. The latter degrade our standards so much that they attempt to say there is nothing wrong with being superstitious. At least the former acknowledge and respect a standard of not trying to APPEAR superstitious.


As for your points on morality yes, of course we have to have morality otherwise what's the point of anything? Without it we are animals.

Thus the Hobbsean, Catholic morality of the reactionary is actually exposed. What you say is literally DISGUSTING. We are not animals with or without morality, you amply silly person. We don't need any pre-conceived, formal framework of morals to have a 'point' to exist, the difference is that what we commonly associate with 'morals' is alien and is an abstraction of real conditions of human life. In truth, communism does not distinguish its morality from its non-morality - there is no distinction, there is no 'morality' of Communism that is separate from what would otherwise be conceived as the 'amorality' of Communism - because what really is a fucking moral? What IS morality itself?

For reviscom, it is a divenly ordained ossified formal set of rules. For Communists, for Marxists who approach things without an iota of superstition, i.e. scientifically, it has its basis in real social relations of life - IN THAT SENSE, it is up to COMMUNISTS to determine the morality of Communism, as self-conscious social beings.

This guy literally thinks humans were animals before they 'discovered' morality. In fact, morality as we know it is nothing more than an attempt to consciously articulate a sense of conscious-action that is either conceived as desirable or undesirable in the framework of our society - but of course it is infinitely more complex than this, in ideological terms, because of how it functions in the intricacies of contradicting itself, sustaining itself through this contradiction, and so on - that is why - no pious priest without the pedophile priest. Any idiot knows this. In that sense, Communism is the abolition of morality. Communist morality is implicit in one's own identification with Communism, there is no need to distinguish it. Words like "prerogative", "interest', "desire" and "morality" need not conflict with each other.


Crying "bourgeois morality!" is not a get out of jail free card which magically neutralises all moral accusations against us.

No, we physically neutralize he who 'accuses us', which is nothing other than the peripheral counter-revolutionary and reactionary. The revolution absolves the morality of the old order, simply by destroying its basis of power.

We don't have to fucking talk to, or compromise with the enemy. Crying "racism" doesn't magically neutralize the moral accusations Fascists level against us about how we promote the 'destruction of the white race'. We don't expect that, which is why we seek to beat the fuck out of Fascists and not talk to them.

[Бай Ганьо]

And finally, the successors of Robespierre's legacy - the conspiracy of the equals - were rabidly anti-clerical and militantly atheists, led by one of the first, if not the first modern Communists: Gracchus Babeuf. Were these "atheists" cynical and amoral? No, they weren't, becuase they were actual atheists, they were godless in practice

Only Maréchal and Babeuf were atheists (the former much more militant than the latter). Buonarroti and almost all ex-Jacobins were deists.

[Rafiq]

Yes but I designate the conspiracy as a whole as the successor to Robespierre's legacy.

[Invader Zim]

So what is the true sense of the word atheist? You may have already said, but if you could say again in clear, elegant and sparse terms that would be useful.

[Rafiq]

So what is the true sense of the word atheist? You may have already said, but if you could say again in clear, elegant and sparse terms that would be useful.

To be an atheist - to be without a god - is to be without a 'big other' to fall back on for a sense of guarantee. It is the 'holy community' whose god died on the cross, whose spirit lives on only in each and every one of them at the expense of all social hierarchies, relations of power, etc.

In other words, atheism is synonymous with Communism, and vice versa. To be and act without a god, is Communism because one acts without any faith in an external force that is beyond themselves.

'God' stands for the superstition that which one derives a sense of guarantee that processes they themselves are involved in (social processes) will just 'work out' without need of being conscious of them, and that furthermore such processes are ontologically justified and therefore sacred. In previous epochs, you had deities that were responsible for natural processes that were sacred - one could imagine agricultural practices were deemed sacred, unchangeable, etc.

The point isn't that such processes will not work out, but that insofar as they function, they function without direct consciousness, knowledge of them in their entirety - in other words, there is faith in an external guarantee they will. Our present epoch has repelled god from the domain of the natural (constant technological revolution, etc.), but he remains insofar as superstition forms the basis of our social relations.

[reviscom1]

@ Rafiq

Welcome back, man.

Suffering from a pretty righteous bout of flu at the moment, will respond to you when feeling more with it.

[reviscom1]

@Rafiq:

Is that what Rafiq informs us? Is that what Rafiq insinuated, that atheism is actually cynical and amoral? THAT IS NOT what I claimed.

I quite clearly didn't say that is what you claimed. I said you claimed that was Robespierre's objection to atheism (I am well aware you do not have any objections to atheism yourself). And while I don't agree that was actually Robespierre's objection to atheism, it does quite neatly sum up my own.

My whole point was that it in fact was NOT a dichotomy between the "theist" Robespierre and the "atheists". Neither were atheists in the true sense of the word, but the difference was that Robespierre had faith in the revolution. And finally, the successors of Robespierre's legacy - the conspiracy of the equals - were rabidly anti-clerical and militantly atheists, led by one of the first, if not the first modern Communists: Gracchus Babeuf. Were these "atheists" cynical and amoral? No, they weren't, becuase they were actual atheists, they were godless in practice.

Robespierre was rabidly anti-clerical. That is not the same as atheist. I disagree that Babeuf was the inheritor of Robespierrism. Robespierre would have had him carted off to the guillotine for "endangering the people's liberty with his destabilising, counter-revolutionary radicalism" or some such contorted guff.

Of course, to speak of amorality, look at the plain intellectual DISHONESTY you present here. The context was that you said "I'm with Robespierre on this one" when you tried to justify your superstitious beliefs. I attacked you BECAUSE I said, you're wrong, your 'belief in a god' has nothing to do with Robespierre's which was wrought from an entirely different context and which meant an entirely different thing. So as dishonest as you are, like any other 'believer' in the god of capital, you twist my words and deliberately lie.

It's not that you have any authority over bourgeois atheists. You don't - you're both just as bad, in fact, at times we ought to agree with the bourgeois atheists who demand unequivocal 'formal' atheism in schools and the destruction of church power, legitimacy, etc. - that is because we are not reactionaries. We oppose the bourgeois atheists, but we oppose even more the actual, self-proclaimed superstitious individuals. The former do not admit they are superstitious. The latter degrade our standards so much that they attempt to say there is nothing wrong with being superstitious. At least the former acknowledge and respect a standard of not trying to APPEAR superstitious.

I merely threw Robespierre in there (initially) as a stylistic tic, an homage, a revolutionary in-joke, if you will. I do not need him to justify anything.

There IS nothing wrong with being superstitious! What does it matter? And what does it have to do with Capitalism?

I am unsure what distinction you are drawing between "bourgeois atheists" and "communist atheists". Is it that the bourgeois ones don't believe in Communism? Fine, but what has that got to do with atheism? You do realise that because you personally believe in both Communism and Atheism those are still two separate things?

MORALITY

As to the rest of your post on the nature of morality you just seem to want to define morality as "whatever is convenient", which is certainly very Robespierrian.

To have a society where morality is not a concept would be a dystopia, not a utopia, surely you see that? It would be a bad place to live not a good one, It would be unpleasant rather than pleasant. In fact it couldn't function.

Sure, the moral codes in a Socialist Society should be modified from those of its Capitalist predecessor.

Many of the more hypocritical/self-serving/irrational ones should be stripped away.

But we can't just dispense with them altogether. That would be both ridiculous and dangerous.

No, we physically neutralize he who 'accuses us', which is nothing other than the peripheral counter-revolutionary and reactionary. The revolution absolves the morality of the old order, simply by destroying its basis of power.

We don't have to fucking talk to, or compromise with the enemy

I wasn't referring to our dealings with the enemy but our own internal logic. If we are making moral judgements about Fascists/Romanovs/Capitalists then we have to apply those same high standards to ourselves. To say, for example, "evil cops shot an unarmed man!" (a common theme on this site) is just ridiculous if we then turn round and say it was perfectly OK for the Bolsheviks to throw a family down a disused mineshaft and then throw in a load of grenades.

[Rafiq]

I quite clearly didn't say that is what you claimed. I said you claimed that was Robespierre's objection to atheism (I am well aware you do not have any objections to atheism yourself).

I did not say this, however, because I denied Robespierre actually 'rejected' the atheism that Communists identify, which is my point - Robespierre rejected an atheism which was both inauthentic and thoroughly not atheist in nature.


I disagree that Babeuf was the inheritor of Robespierrism. Robespierre would have had him carted off to the guillotine for "endangering the people's liberty with his destabilising, counter-revolutionary radicalism" or some such contorted guff.

You clearly have no notion of the historical events in question. Mind you, Robespierre curtailed even more 'radical' elements, such as the Herbertists - and in many ways, Robespeirre was for his field quite moderate and modest. Historians have found too that the actual death toll of the French revolution and the terror is highly exaggerated relative to the regular executions which occurred under the monarchy, and the reason behind this exaggeration was the fact that for the first time it was the wealthy whose heads met the chopping bloc. What you fail, abjectly fail to understand is the fact that Robespierre was in no position to execute Babeuf, because the context in which Babeuf emerged was entirely different politically speaking - there was no equivalent to "babeuf". Whether Robespierre would have been a Communist IS IRRELEVANT in the same way that it is irrelevant to talk about whether Lenin would have embraced various progressive cultural movements of post-wary contemporary society - one cannot make assessments about how people would have acted in entirely different circumstances, because this is a matter of their propensity to 'keep up' with processes of historical change.

If Robespierre were, for example, living in 1945, as himself as he was in 1789, he would probably not only not be a Communist, he would probably be quite conservative and romantic. That is because time changes, and those that die are in-themselves ossified in their own time period. But it is not Robespierre PERSONALLY that is controversial in this argument, it is his LEGACY. And as a good Hegelian knows, the only way in which a true authentic historical identity survives, whether it is the legacy of an individual, a nation, whatever you want, is through its negation, destruction and change. So in fact, Babeuf WAS the only successor to Robespierre's legacy, because Babeuf was the only figure in French society, whose prerogatives would have properly put to rest Robespierre's soul, wandering without any ends. Again, it is amply unjustified to infer that Robespierre would have fallen out with Babeuf - and why? Because the political and social context for the conspiracy DID NOT EXIST until AFTER the betrayal of Robespierre, before then, there is no difference between Babeuf and Robespierre where it matters. This is different from 'radicals' like Hebert, who were loud shit-talkers while in practical terms were not serious about the revolution. Just like in the French revolution, it is not only a 'bourgeois' revolution but a MODERN revolution, invested in which, all, the social antagonisms of capitalism - it is just as much a 'proletarian' as well as a 'bourgeois' revolution, because the French revolution did not accentuate the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, it juxtaposed the embryo of both of these classes against the ancien regime.

This antagonism is what remains 'unresolved' of the French revolution, why so many people say it is unfinished, because it was AMBIGUOUS. And Babeuf was the only successor of this revolution, because where the bourgeoisie had to cut things short, before they went' out of control', only the Communists demand the triumphent march of the French revolution to its most high ends.


There IS nothing wrong with being superstitious! What does it matter? And what does it have to do with Capitalism?

Superstition is all that is left of capitalism. Without superstition, not only capitalism, but all class society disappears. Superstition SUSTAINS capitalism, because the 'divine mystery' it makes pretenses to, the DOING while NOT KNOWING what you are doing, or not even wanting to know, this is the point of ideology as it pertains to the social domain. Communism is the consciousness of the social - so there is no room for gods, 'nature', and every other superstition. No one can be a socialist without being an atheist also, because the nature of a belief in a god, cannot be scientifically assessed until it is practically criticized. Until then, one can go about their superstitions all they like, in ignorance, but the person in question cannot make pretenses to being a socialist.


I am unsure what distinction you are drawing between "bourgeois atheists" and "communist atheists". Is it that the bourgeois ones don't believe in Communism? Fine, but what has that got to do with atheism?

In fact I explained this quite thoroughly, so it is you who has to justify why you think this was the point of my argument. The point is simple: Bourgeois atheists still have a sense of guarantee in an unknowable, unmasterable externality, that sustains their life-activity and their conditions of existence. Bourgeois atheists in other words, still cling to divine superstitions about cosmic harmony, about meaning, and so on, they in other words create ontological, metaphysical ORDERS (in nature) where there is orderlessness, that relate to social consciousnesses. Bourgeois atheists profess to not believe in a god, but they still believe in a 'higher power' beyond themselves. Hence atheism and Communism are interchangeable, because Communism entails social self-consciousness and the seizure of one's conditions of life by mastering them. There is no room for a legitimizing externality there.


want to define morality as "whatever is convenient"

This is not how morality is defined, and that is a paradoxical argument, because if morality is 'whatever is convenient', how does one justify their sense of convenience and non-convenience?

Instead I said:

We don't need any pre-conceived, formal framework of morals to have a 'point' to exist, the difference is that what we commonly associate with 'morals' is alien and is an abstraction of real conditions of human life. In truth, communism does not distinguish its morality from its non-morality - there is no distinction, there is no 'morality' of Communism that is separate from what would otherwise be conceived as the 'amorality' of Communism - because what really is a fucking moral? What IS morality itself?

For reviscom, it is a divenly ordained ossified formal set of rules. For Communists, for Marxists who approach things without an iota of superstition, i.e. scientifically, it has its basis in real social relations of life - IN THAT SENSE, it is up to COMMUNISTS to determine the morality of Communism, as self-conscious social beings.

The point is that I challenged the notion that morality must be some formal externality in the first place. This is the highpoint of alienation. The point is not that one arbitrarily defines morality for no reason. The point is that one defines morality as a reflection of their real conditions of life, and their relation to others, not simply "because it is convenient", but because IT IS SYNONYMOUS with one's very mode of life. I challenge the distinction between morality and 'amorality'. For example, someone may say that drinking a cup of water is an amoral action. But in Communism, there are no 'amoral' or 'moral' actions, because morality is no longer alien, morality is inherent and implicit in one's mode of life which is self-consciously controlled. So playing games with 'morals' is silly, because morality is not an a priori system, morality is congruent with one's real conditions of life and the reproduction of them, insofar as the mastery of the latter, choosing one's conditions of life, without any pretense to a big other to legitimize or justify this, but only society and its constituent individuals itself, becomes a reality. One's conditions of life, self-consciously, become sufficient unto themselves - nothing is necessary beyond our actual (social) existence.

Saying otherwise, is a pretense to the notion that we need morality to justify our existence. Do we? Do I need morality to live, for example? Am I on the verge of suicide without a big other, without a god, or without a moral framework? No, because my real conditions of existence as a human being, both my physical constitution and subsequently my social relations (which do not HAVE to be sustained by superstition, but in Communism - the endless pursuit of mastery over nature) exist before any speculation about morality.


To say, for example, "evil cops shot an unarmed man!" (a common theme on this site) is just ridiculous if we then turn round and say it was perfectly OK for the Bolsheviks to throw a family down a disused mineshaft and then throw in a load of grenades.

I went over this in a previous thread. It is not the same, because the social character of a cop shooting an unarmed man, is different than the execution of royalty (or counter-revolutionaries). We are not outraged by the former because it violates some cosmically ordained set of rules about human conduct, but because of our own position in a very real social antagonism, which we don't need any external justification for dealing with. We oppose the existing order. Our opposition can either be reconciled in a scientific manner (Communism) or in a reactionary one (what we are seeing today).

As Marx sais, this begins without any pretense to empirical dogmas, outside of that which remains unaltered through the course of history, etc. etc. etc. We are fully committed to methods of empirical investigation insofar as it relates to empirical controversies. But the scientific understanding of social processes does not. Instead, we begin with that which is uncontroversial empirically - our social field which we are all a part of.

[CyM]

Do you guys feel this discussion needs to be moved out of learning at this point? It's gotten pretty in depth it seems. Also, some of it possibly needs to be split off.

[Art Vandelay]

Do you guys feel this discussion needs to be moved out of learning at this point? It's gotten pretty in depth it seems. Also, some of it possibly needs to be split off.

It's great knowing that our voices are heard on this forum. Thank you for inquiring as to our desires on such an important issue.

[CyM]

It's great knowing that our voices are heard on this forum. Thank you for inquiring as to our desires on such an important issue.

You're welcome. That's what I'm here for.

[Armchair Partisan]

Since you have asked for the opinion of the board members, I propose that we declare opposition to moving or splitting the thread as fascist apologism. This would be the most effective way of solving this question.

[Lord Testicles]

You're welcome. That's what I'm here for.

I have a feeling that 9mm comment was sarcasm.

[Armchair Partisan]

I have a feeling that 9mm comment was sarcasm.

So was CyM's, don't you worry.