Were they working class?

[drain.you]

How many of the following were from working class backgrounds?

Guevara
Marx
Lennin
Trotsky
Castro
Engels
Allende
Stalin

[Jimmie Higgins]

Guevara - middle class, parents were professionals of some kind, I think.
Marx - kind of a moocher... a brillient moocher though
Lennin - upper class? Wasn't his dad some kind of small-time official in government?
Trotsky - wasn't he from some kind of wealthy farming family?
Castro - no idea.
Engels - he was a cappie! Didn't he own some factories or something? He was an enableer of Marx's mooching.
Allende - no idea! Actually I'm kinda curious about this one.
Stalin - working class? Didn't he study to be a priest?

Of course we could go to an on;ine encyclopedia and get a better idea in less than 5 minutes, but really it dosn't matter so much. Engels was rich but his politics and ideas and contributions to working class struggle are more important than his background. If his writings were secretly in the service of the upper classes, then that is a different matter, but from the bits I've read, I don't see how that could be the case.

Conversly if a prominent fascist came from a working-class background, that background is not benificial to workers since his politics would be detrimental and disasterous for most workers.

[RedStarOverChina]

Lenin was a lawyer. I dont know about trotsky but castro was rich. Stalin came from the working class tho he went to an Orthodoxical priest school---He's mother worked her ass off so he could stay in there.

[KC]

Castro came from a rich farming family. After the Cuban revolution and the agrarian reform his family's land was split up.

[Led Zeppelin]

Stalin - working class? Didn't he study to be a priest?

What does that have to do with being working class?

Go read Marx or something.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Well, firstly we have to ask if it's possible for one to become proletarianized -- to give up everything that goes along with being bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie. I think it is.

Guevara - Born to a petit-bourgeos family, went on to graduate from medical school. Could easily have used his knowledge and education to become a prominent doctor, but instead gave his all, including eventually his life, for the liberation of humanity.

Marx - Wasn't born into a wealthy family, and studied at fine schools. He could have applied his knowledge elsewhere and lived comfortably, but instead became a tireless fighter for the working class. Several of his children died of starvation and sickness and at one point he was so poor he had to pawn his clothes.

Lenin - born to a Russian civil service official who fought for bourgeois democracy and free universal education. Brother killed for participating in a plot to overthrow the Czar. Studied and in 1891 earned a license to practice law. Became involved in the study of Marxism and propagandizing instead of taking up a career in law.

Trotsky - born to a wealthy farmer. In his last year of school he became involved in politics and eventually Marxism. He helped organize South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolaev in early 1897 instead of pursuing a mathematics degree. In 1898 arrested and jailed for two years. Active member of the party from his release.

Castro - His father was a poor Spanish immigrant to Cuba who came up little by little and eventually owned a fairly large farm. He eventually became a lawyer and could have made alot of money, but instead worked almost entirely defending himself or other comrades, or defending those who couldn't afford it. He also brought a few cases against the government. Rarely had much money and didn't ask his father for any, at one point all the furniture in his house was going to be taken, but his comrades paid for them without his knowledge (his wife asked them).

Engels - Father was a capitalist, Engels worked as an office clerk for one of his factories in England. In the same year he started writting for the Franco-German Annals which was edited by Marx. He was committed to the cause of the proletariat ever since, participating in the Revolution of 1848, and continuing to work for his father in order to supply Marx with an income. After Marx's death he was a tireless editor of his works.

Allende - attended medical school and graduated in 33. In 34 he co-founded the Chilean Socialist Party. Served in government in 34, and ran for president many times afterwards, finally being elected in 1970.

Stalin - was born to a shoemaker and a serf. He joined the movement while attendingt the Tiflis Theological Seminary and stuck with it from there onward. (Note: he studied in the seminary because it was the only available school in Georgia)

[Guest1]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 17 2005, 09:31 PM

Stalin - working class? Didn't he study to be a priest?

What does that have to do with being working class?

Go read Marx or something.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying he was working class because he studied to be a priest. I think he was making a guess that he was from a working class background, and just asked if he was going to be a priest. That's all.

Don't read into things so much :lol:

[workersunity]

Engels worked in the factory but wasnt the manager

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You're right, he was an "office clerk." I associated the terms closely, but it could lead to incorrect implications. Corrected.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 12:48 AM
Engels worked in the factory but wasnt the manager
Right. Lenin's biography of Engels (just to name one that the Leninists won't argue against) points out the fact that he worked as a clerk in one of the factories his father owned, specifically because he did not want to be a manager. Later in his life, he ended up inheriting his father's shares in the factory, and he even tried his hand, for a short time, of being a manager. But he quickly gave it up, liquidating his shares and devoting his time to writing.

Miles

[Jimmie Higgins]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana+Oct 18 2005, 03:48 AM--> (Che y Marijuana @ Oct 18 2005, 03:48 AM)
Marxism-[email protected] 17 2005, 09:31 PM

Stalin - working class? Didn't he study to be a priest?

What does that have to do with being working class?

Go read Marx or something.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying he was working class because he studied to be a priest. I think he was making a guess that he was from a working class background, and just asked if he was going to be a priest. That's all.

Don't read into things so much :lol: [/b]
Thanks. Yeah, I wasn't saying there was a connection there, just wasn't sure if it was true that he studied to be a priest.

[Led Zeppelin]

Ok, never mind then.

He was studying to be a priest but he was kicked out for having Marxist thoughts.

[workersunity]

who cares, it was stalin

[codyvo]

Isn't it strange that, Stalin, the one with the most genuine working class background was the biggest sell out. And although I don't agree that their needs to be an elite vanguard of the revolution, this would be good evidence to help prove that point.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Stalin was more of a peasant than a proletarian.

[Led Zeppelin]

who cares, it was stalin

The person who started this thread cared.


Stalin was more of a peasant than a proletarian.

No he wasn't, he (or his family) wasn't a peasant, how can he be peasant at all?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Do you know what a serf is?

[Led Zeppelin]

Yes, what is your point?

His father was a shoe-maker.

[KC]

His father was actually petty-bourgeois. He owned his own shoe-making business. However, his father came from the life of serfdom. This doesn't make stalin a serf.

[codyvo]

Why is their always an argument about whether or not someone is a proletariat or peasant, they are both oppressed and are not the oppressors, their specific label is meaningless.

[rebelworker]

I think the lesson that can be taken from all of this and that is so obviously missed by many well meaning middle class lenninists is that all these people(with the exception of stalin) were raised to be managers in society, with all the class biases about the inability of the "masses" to make decissions for themselves.

This prejudice is the foundation of the vaguardist theory of dictatorship of the party.
Coming from a working class background you learn of this quickly, it startels me how often university(lunckbox)revolutionaries are suprised by the political comprehension of "the common worker" when they begin to come into contact with the for often the first time as the self described leaders of the proletariate.

You all need to understand that we can think for ourselves and alot of the reasons for bieng politically unprepared as a class to manage society is because we will never be given the chance and we know it so most of us dont bother to think to much about "the big issues".

We understand class and state exploitation, something we are intimately connected to from a young age. Whebn given the chance and the opportunity to figure out the big issues collectively we will get it, just give us a chance and dont set up yet anither state and beurocratic party structure to keep us in line while our issues are being atteneded to for us....

As far as Stalin and his class upbringing, never being given access to the corridors of power working class people have a tendancy to get a bit wrapped up in feeling power for the first time, being able to excorcise your own will has an addictive effect, a good reason NOT to set up a centralised state structure.

Let everyone learn and do there part, collectively we will prevail, and to all who wish to get in our way, like our capitalist exploiters, you will be dealt with accordingly when the day comes..

Long live Communism(thats workers controll foir those of you who in excitement about making change forget that) and Freedom from exploitation.

www.nefac.net

[YKTMX]

Can a Stalinist (sorry, 'Marxist-Leninist') post the quote were the little boy is talking to his father about Stalin dying and the little boy says "his father was shoe-maker, just like mine".

Haha, that one always gets me going.

[YKTMX]

OK, serious point here.

I think there is essentially two types of middle class socialist, or socialist intellectual.

First, there is Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, Engels etc. Even if these people are from "petit bourgeois backgrounds", they can still think and act as proletarian revolutionaries - and they did. They are "set apart" from the rest in that they don't try to substitute their "skills" for the backwardness of the masses. They immerse themselves in the actual day to day struggle of the working masses - they are not seperate from it, they are of it. They recognise that self-emancipation isn't an "optional extra", something you can bypass at the time and then make up for later when it suits you.

These people find themselves at the high end of the party bureaucracy both because of their intellectual capacities and their objective class positions. Parties need bureaucracies. If you don't have full-timers, newspaper editors, regional organisers you won't go anywhere. Intellectuals and the middle class are in a priveleged position to assume these roles within the movement - a worker struggling to support their family can hardly co-ordinate an attack on the bourgeois state on his lunch break.

Lenin, Marx, Trostky etc wrote endlessly about "Blanquist" tendencies in the movement - and speaking of this, we move the "second type" of petit-bourgeois socialist.

In this category, I will include Che, Castro and most Stalinist East European leaders (Stalin himself is slightly diffirent in that although he wasn't from a petit-bourgeois background, he of course accepted many of the stalwarts of petit-bourgeois thought - the "family", anti-semitism, crude nationalism, Great Imperial Russia etc).

This type of socialist sees it as their "job" to "do the work" of the indolent masses. Note Che's stuff about "making the apple fall from the tree". They see the masses as, essentially, too stupid or attached to the system to make the revolutions. Note how influential the guerilla movements in Cuba and China were on American and European students - who, at that time, were mostly middle class in background. They don't see their success as depedent on working class organisation. You will note the influence of this type of thought when we get newbies coming on excoriating us for not "running to the jungle like Che".

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I wish I had more time to refute your Trotskyite sectarian trash about Che and the Cuban revolution, but I don't.

Let me just point out that anyone who's ever bothered to read Che would know that he constantly spoke of relying on the masses, that only they could be the motor force behind revolution and that without them a vanguard was nothing. He spoke of the need of complete contact between the vanguard and the masses, the need to continue to grow the party so that one day everyone would be a part of the vanguard, the need of workers controll over the economy, etc.

Basically you're just being dishonest, and your anger over the fact that Che is a hero of millions and millions of people while Trotsky is little more than an academic side-note is obvious.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 03:51 PM
Why is their always an argument about whether or not someone is a proletariat or peasant, they are both oppressed and are not the oppressors, their specific label is meaningless.
It's this line of argument that got us the USSR. There are peasants and peasants -- landless peasants, who are more like agricultural proletarians, and landed peasants, who are petty bourgeois. The latter are independent producers and, in terms of their social relations, are exploiters themselves. The class line matters.

Miles

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 12:45 PM
I think there is essentially two types of middle class socialist, or socialist intellectual.
These two terms are synonymous only to the "middle class socialist". For the communist, there is the proletarian intellectual -- the worker who learns theory and is able to apply it to the class struggle -- that stands head and shoulders above all other "intellectuals". That worker, the truly class-conscious worker, is worth a thousand of your "middle class socialists".

Miles

[Martin Blank]

More really needs to be said about this twaddle


Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX+Oct 26 2005, 12:45 PM--> (YouKnowTheyMurderedX @ Oct 26 2005, 12:45 PM)First, there is Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, Engels etc. Even if these people are from "petit bourgeois backgrounds", they can still think and act as proletarian revolutionaries - and they did.[/b]

In terms of Lenin and Trotsky, this is idealist rubbish -- a conscious rejection of materialist conceptions. Unlike Marx and Engels, who actually turned away from their class origins (Marx doing what we would call "stringer" work for newspapers, and Engels becoming a clerk), both Lenin and Trotsky relied on them to carry out their work. And that fact colored their doctrines until their deaths. Admittedly, Lenin was better about the abstract understanding of class issues than Trotsky, who saw the petty bourgeoisie as a "yeast" for growing the so-called "proletarian party".

But both of them, and, for that matter, the bulk of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, either never fully understood the relationship between the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie or didn't really care. The fact that they would support the wholesale rehabilitation of the petty-bourgeois bureaucracy from tsarist times and place it in control of the Soviet republic, while sending the cream of the Russian proletariat to their deaths in the Civil War, which led to the transfer of power from the factory committees to "one-man management" and the establishment of counterrevolutionary dual power beginning in 1921 (and ending with their victory a decade later), is a wholesale condemnation of the concept you are upholding.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 12:45 PM
They recognise that self-emancipation isn't an "optional extra", something you can bypass at the time and then make up for later when it suits you.

But that is precisely the point. For them, it was an "optional extra", because it was not their class that needed to exercise "self-emancipation", but the proletariat.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 12:45 PM
These people find themselves at the high end of the party bureaucracy both because of their intellectual capacities and their objective class positions. Parties need bureaucracies. If you don't have full-timers, newspaper editors, regional organisers you won't go anywhere. Intellectuals and the middle class are in a priveleged position to assume these roles within the movement - a worker struggling to support their family can hardly co-ordinate an attack on the bourgeois state on his lunch break.

"Parties need bureaucracies"?! Are you fucking kidding me?! That statement alone speak volumes about the kind of "socialism" you and your preferred organization wish to build -- the kind of "socialism" that was built ... under Stalin. He and his faction used that same argument to justify everything from the smychka to wage differentiation to internal passports. Watch your step, that slope is awfully damn slippery.


[email protected] 26 2005, 12:45 PM
They see the masses as, essentially, too stupid or attached to the system to make the revolutions.

Hence, "parties need bureaucracies", right? The petty bourgeoisie commands the party "because of their intellectual capacities and their objective class positions" (i.e., "they see the masses as, essentially, too stupid or attached to the system to make the revolutions"), right? Two sides of the same coin.

Go back to the 20th century. Your services are no longer required.

Miles

[workersunity]

you would think it would be quite obvious about the failures of the bolshevik party and why socialism wasnt implemented, but you still have those people who say the need for a petty-bourgeois intellectual bureaucracy, to save the "workers from themselves"

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:02 PM
you would think it would be quite obvious about the failures of the bolshevik party and why socialism wasnt implemented, but you still have those people who say the need for a petty-bourgeois intellectual bureaucracy, to save the "workers from themselves"
I put it down to being an act of (possibly unconscious or subconscious) self-preservation for these petty bourgeois. As frustrating as it is, it is also so pitiful.

Miles

[YKTMX]

Unlike Marx and Engels, who actually turned away from their class origins

Hardly. When Marx inherited money from a dead relative he moved to the plush section of London almost immediately.


That statement alone speak volumes about the kind of "socialism" you and your preferred organization wish to build -- the kind of "socialism" that was built ... under Stalin.

Excuse me, but fuck you. The people from the tradition I come from have a history of NO COMPROMISE with Stalinists - probably why he murdered so many of them. Perhaps you would have explained to the Trotskyists murdered in Vorkuta that Stalin was actually building a "socialism" they would approve of. Ridiculous.



He and his faction used that same argument to justify everything from the smychka to wage differentiation to internal passports. Watch your step, that slope is awfully damn slippery.


Yeah, and so what? Stalin also used the cause of international socialism to "justify" his actions, did you fall for that one as well? If you want to take your lead from Uncle Joe, that's fine - you're welcome to.


Hence, "parties need bureaucracies", right?

The party needs bureaucracies because it needs full time organisers - "professional revolutionaries". This is because we live in a capitalist system with division of labour. That is, it's a matter of historical neccessity, which we'll never win without accepting. Now, of course, the other option is to have a party without organisers that will either never grow beyond very limited borders, or have some kind of decontextualised Anarchistic collective, were everyone "does what they like".

The difference is that the Bolsheviks were an actual of the movement. Trotsky, I'm sure it pains you to know, was elected the head of the Petrograd Soviet. They used their positions within the movement to influence it in a Marxist direction. Only when they had the support of the majority of the class (and indeed the Russia people generally) did they take power.

On the other hand, what workers' bodies were Che Guevara or Castro ever elected to? Did they ever try?

[rebelworker]

First off, anarchists dont al just "do what they want". There are many middle class collectives who operate in this method, something I still prefer to "the party" but there are also thoes of us who have learned some important historical lessons and are serriously looking at the problem of building a sucessful workers revolution without creating an opressive state apparatus made up of petty burgoise intellectual "professional revolutionaries".

Division of labour is a capitalist system of structuring society, you cannot beat alienation by alienated means...

again noone actually responded to my post, you all made some interesting points and buried it in some dogmatic line dragging.

Again for workers controll not a socialist state.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX+Oct 26 2005, 02:24 PM--> (YouKnowTheyMurderedX @ Oct 26 2005, 02:24 PM)Hardly. When Marx inherited money from a dead relative he moved to the plush section of London almost immediately.[/b]

If you had the chance to move out of a poor neighborhood, would you?


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
Excuse me, but fuck you. The people from the tradition I come from have a history of NO COMPROMISE with Stalinists - probably why he murdered so many of them. Perhaps you would have explained to the Trotskyists murdered in Vorkuta that Stalin was actually building a "socialism" they would approve of. Ridiculous.

You dishonor the memory of those who died in Vorkuta with your politics. You can genuflect all you want, but it does not alter the fact that you are advocating your own version of bureaucratic (petty-bourgeois) socialism by one iota. And what I would explain to those Vorkuta Trotskyists is that the Old Man had his own problems that led him away from communism.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
Yeah, and so what? Stalin also used the cause of international socialism to "justify" his actions, did you fall for that one as well? If you want to take your lead from Uncle Joe, that's fine - you're welcome to.

"Yeah, and so what?" :rolleyes:

The difference between Stalin using "parties need bureaucracies" and Stalin using "the cause of international socialism" to justify his betrayals is that he believed (and implemented) the former while simply using the latter as a smokescreen ... kinda like you're doing.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
The party needs bureaucracies because it needs full time organisers - "professional revolutionaries". This is because we live in a capitalist system with division of labour. That is, it's a matter of historical neccessity, which we'll never win without accepting.

In other words, use bourgeois methods ("division of labor") to overcome bourgeois society. Yeah. Right. You cannot fight exploitation using the methods of the exploiters.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
Now, of course, the other option is to have a party without organisers that will either never grow beyond very limited borders, or have some kind of decontextualised Anarchistic collective, were everyone "does what they like".

This "either-or" is vulgar nonsense.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
The difference is that the Bolsheviks were an actual of the movement. Trotsky, I'm sure it pains you to know, was elected the head of the Petrograd Soviet. They used their positions within the movement to influence it in a Marxist direction. Only when they had the support of the majority of the class (and indeed the Russia people generally) did they take power.

... And then, they sent that majority of the class off to die in the Civil War while handing state control back to the petty bourgeois bureaucracy.

And, no, it does not pain me to know that Trotsky was elected to lead the Piter Soviet. At the time, I probably would have voted for him myself. Hell, I probably would have been a member of the Bolsheviks in 1917. But, if that was the case, I would have joined with Gavril Myasnikov in 1920 to fight the petty-bourgeois power grab allowed by the post-October Bolsheviks.


[email protected] 26 2005, 02:24 PM
On the other hand, what workers' bodies were Che Guevara or Castro ever elected to? Did they ever try?

I don't know. Since I am not here to defend either Che or Castro, you'll have to ask someone else that question.

Miles

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 08:53 PM
again noone actually responded to my post, you all made some interesting points and buried it in some dogmatic line dragging.
Comrade, all I could have said was "quoted for truth" -- and some people here have issues with replying like that.

Miles

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

On the other hand, what workers' bodies were Che Guevara or Castro ever elected to? Did they ever try?

What's with your fetish with bourgeois democratic processes?

Anyway when Che was a part of the government the state was still in a state of transition and being consolidated, thus he (and Fidel at the time) reached their positions through mechanisms of the various organizations (first the Jul 26th Movement, then the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations, then the United Party of Socialist Revolution, and finally the Cuban Communist Party). Both Che and Fidel enjoyed widespread popular support, and there was no need for anyone to pull a lever for that to be known.

Soon after Poder Popular was established. Fidel has been elected president of the republic by the National Assembly in every election since.

Your posts show your Trotskyite sectarianism clearly, but just incase someone that will actually take the time to study something before they comment on it is viewing this thread, I offer these links: The Truth About Cuba (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/ry/rys5a.html) & Let's Talk About Cuban Democracy (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/ry/rys5b.html)