Communism, is it inevitable?

[Revolutionary_Vol.II]

Marx in his earlier writings, believed there was a set course of social history, Capitalism overthrew Fuedalism which in turn had overthrown The bargaining system. He believed socialism at least was next in line. Everything can be broken down to class, it is the most important and defining characteristic of any person and when a large enough working class is created Marx proposes that they shall rise up against the upper class and create a fairer system. This is known as the "rise of the proletariat."

We have obviously already seen socialism in the USSR which ultimately failed, but also set back any hope of a revolution elsewhere hundreds of years. Seizing power in a pre-industrialized society where the working class barely exist and the burgeois society has not yet been created meant ultimately that communism COULD NOT work there. Barely a year later however we had the spartacists in Germany. We have had the miner strikes in Britain and look how close France came to slipping under communism in the 50's. Britain, Germany, France and the US, these were the countries Marx believed had to fall before communism could see it's world revolution. So i ask this, do you think that had a strong leader taken advantage of the aforementioned scenarios that we would already be communist and do you believe it is eventually inevitable?

[tunes]

I have always been cautious of using words like "inevitable". Of course, Marx has used history and the progression of societies to arrive at his fundamental predictions, which he and many others hold as very accurate. I guess what I mean is always be very critical of ideas that claim to be "eternal truths", "dogmas", "inevitabilities", etc. If you are trying to explain communism to others, it is best to explain how their current situation relates to the world, and to history, rather than what they will "inevitably" end up in. Relating people's situation to the ideas of communism has always had a better result than simply telling them "it's going to happen anyway"(for me, atleast).

[al-Ibadani]

First of all the Russian revolution failed precisely because it ended up being a Russian revolution. The Bosheviks themselves beleived that their revolution would the be the first phase in a world revoution. The backwardness of Russia had nothing to do with it. The revolution can only be international, that's what differentiates it from bourgeois revolutions. What Russian became was the result of the failure of the series of revolutions of the 1918-1923 period. If the revolution had happened in Germany and hadn't spread, we would have ended up with a "failure" there as well.

Now on to the subject. Communism is not inevitable. THe working class may not succeed in overthrowing the system. If we don't succeed then the prospects for humanity's very survival are bleak.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think upheavals fightback against the results of capitalism and even capitalism itself are inevitable because capitalism is often simply at odds with the self-preservation needs of workers, but not how thoes struggles turn out is not set in stone and depend on lots of different factors.

[wet blanket]

:lol: Of course it's not inevitable.

[Another]

Many times has it been written that Capitalist society "inevitably" creates the class that will ultimately be its downfall.

That class being of course, the Proletariat.

That being said the class in itself cannot simply stand on the sidelines and let history take its course. It is clear that action must be taken and crucial movements are necessary to the eventual overthrow of Capitalism.

To this point, I see valid points with all posts.
I believe the failure of the Russian revolution was both due to economic backwardness as well as erroneous "socialism in one country" policies.

Another interesting argument is that the civil war itself "strangled the revolution in its cradle." By the end of the war an estimated 8 million lives were lost on all sides. At least another million skilled and educated fled the onslaught and Soviet society never did really recover from its initial period of "war Communism."

To answer your initial question though:

No, I do not believe a strong leader is what said scenarios required.
A successful movement should be popular, in all sense of the word.
To deify a leader is a dangerous move to make in a revolution that aims to set all equal in a stateless, classless society.

Be wary, comrade.


I do feel the overthrow of Capitlism is "inevitable" in loose sense. All around me I can see Capitalism creating an aparatus by which it will be beaten.

The key is communication, cooperation and the knowledge and faith that you are never alone.

[NovelGentry]

Unless the world is destroyed beforehand, yes, it is inevitable.

[Guest1]

No. We are not complete determinists.

History is not an independent actor. Just as we are not independent actors.

The material conditions only signify a trend, it does not mean that that trend has solidified into the inevitable yet. Part of Marxist philosophy is seeing how possibility becomes probability, which becomes inevitability, but you can't just jump and say it is inevitable at this point.

Simply probable.

[workersunity]

i say it is inevitable the same way marx used it

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 01:04 AM
i say it is inevitable the same way marx used it
that really pisses me off, if your going to base your philosophy on Marx it would be best to read Marx himself.

"Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical."

Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otyecestvenniye Zapisky, November 1877.

I could give you a few pages of quotes that &%$ up your world view.

Note: this quote was taken from after his supposed development scientific historical laws.

[black magick hustla]

Its pretty dangerous to affirm that it is inevitable.

This kind of thinking breeds the kind of reactionary "communists" that wait for "material conditions". This is how stalinist scum in Spain for example, appeared.

Also, Marx wasn't able to predict the exaggerated alienation workers experience today. Even in mixed not-so developed economies, like mexico, during their "free" time workers are being tamed by alienation through things like television and gossip magazines.

[redstar2000]

It was Marx's observation that certain mechanisms of capitalism would inevitably lead to its self-destruction and replacement by communism.

One can, of course, challenge his observations and there have been many such challenges...they began even in Marx's own lifetime.

IF his observations were fundamentally accurate, THEN it logically follows that communism is inevitable.

Allowances must be made, of course, for phenomena that were unknown in Marx's time. No one knew, then, of the population of small asteroids in the inner solar system...or the fact that one of them could "do a number" on the existence of life on the earth's surface.

Global thermo-nuclear war or some form of global ecological collapse were also things that Marx "didn't consider". Events of these kinds, should they take place, would obviously reduce the human survivors (if any) to savagery. But if Marx was right, the savages would eventually become barbarians; who in turn would become hydraulic despots; who in turn would become feudal lords; who in turn would become capitalists; and humans would finally achieve communism...even if they were 50 centuries "late" in doing so.

Barring global catastrophe, communism is inevitable within the next few centuries at most.

People draw different kinds of conclusions from Marx's determinism. Some "don't like it" at all -- it sounds "too theological" to them. This is rather odd in that they don't seem to have a similar problem with the "laws of physics" or the "laws of chemistry" -- concepts that are far more deterministic than Marx's rather "loose" interpretation of the "general trends" of human society.

Others conclude that "inevitability" means that "I don't have to do anything" to bring about a communist revolution...it will "happen anyway".

Well, that happens to be a true statement. Only if you want to spend at least the latter part of your life in a communist society are you "required" to do anything to help it come into existence.

One of Marx's observations was, after all, that capitalism creates a class of people who want to abolish capitalism in their own material interests. So people who want communism constantly come into existence...in small numbers during periods of reaction (like the present) and in very large numbers when capitalism runs into serious problems (like the 1930s).

And it was also Marx's observation that the time would come when capitalism ran into difficulties that it could not resolve...a time in which the overwhelming majority of people would want communism and would act to achieve it.

That's what "inevitability" really means in this context.

And Marx was either right or wrong.

History will answer that question. My "gut feeling" is that if capitalism is still thriving by 2400CE, then Marx was probably wrong.

But I think his observations of the mechanisms of capitalism are holding up rather well...in fact, better than at any previous time.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by Monty Cantsin+Oct 29 2005, 02:20 AM--> (Monty Cantsin @ Oct 29 2005, 02:20 AM)
[email protected] 29 2005, 01:04 AM
i say it is inevitable the same way marx used it
that really pisses me off, if your going to base your philosophy on Marx it would be best to read Marx himself.

"Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical."

Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otyecestvenniye Zapisky, November 1877.

I could give you a few pages of quotes that &%$ up your world view.

Note: this quote was taken from after his supposed development scientific historical laws. [/b]
Is this kind of uncomradely interaction necessary? We can disagree without stooping to insults, really.

[Guest1]

The problem is, redstar, that we don't exactly have the luxury of going through this process as long as we need to.

If we take out global warming, nuclear war, resource limits, etc, eventually we could say it's pretty much inevitable that we capitalist society will be overthrown and replaced by a rational, planned economy.

But it's becoming clear that now more than ever, society could either turn to barbarism, and subsequently explode (considering that barbarism today would have nuclear weapons on its hands), or turn to socialism. This is why we cannot speak of any sort of inevitability at this point. The only thing we can say is the current system is unsustainable, and must at one point collapse.

[drain.you]

Do we not need a planned economy to control global warming, nuclear war and resource limits? I mean, if we allow global warming, nuclear war and colonialism for resources continue then we are going to destroy the world. Communism isn't just best for the people, its best for the world.
And I agree that communism is inevitable and believe Marx was entirely right. sure he couldn't have considered some things but he explained how history had occurred. And with all honesty, could any of you imagine capitalism existing forever? I cant.

The class conflict, the exploitation, war and such -

One day it will be too much
And
One day we will have revolution.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
The problem is, redstar, that we don't exactly have the luxury of going through this process as long as we need to.

As long as the human species does not go extinct, we have as much time as we need.

Humans will be able to live on the surface of this planet for about 300 million years or so (afterwards the sun will be too hot and the earth's surface temperature will rise above the boiling point of water).

The "species life expectancy" of mammals is currently estimated to be around 8 million years...and the human species is thought to be only around 200,000 years old.

Of course it can be and sometimes is argued that capitalism will "kill us all"...either through "ecological catastrophe" or global nuclear war and a resultant "nuclear winter".

While such an outcome of human events is possible, I am not fond of that line of thinking myself. It seems to imply that we must "do something about capitalism really fast" or else we are all doomed.

As I've recently had occasion to learn from personal experience, people do not act very rational when they feel "threatened by doom".

Consider the primitivists...who wish to "save the global ecology" by restoring feudalism (or worse).

To me, the transition from capitalism to communism must take place in accordance with the desires of a rational proletariat -- one that clearly understands what communism is and is not.

Minds clouded by fear are not very good at that.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[red_che]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Nov 6 2005, 05:43 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Nov 6 2005, 05:43 PM)
Che y Marijuana
The problem is, redstar, that we don't exactly have the luxury of going through this process as long as we need to.

As long as the human species does not go extinct, we have as much time as we need.

Humans will be able to live on the surface of this planet for about 300 million years or so (afterwards the sun will be too hot and the earth's surface temperature will rise above the boiling point of water).

The "species life expectancy" of mammals is currently estimated to be around 8 million years...and the human species is thought to be only around 200,000 years old.

Of course it can be and sometimes is argued that capitalism will "kill us all"...either through "ecological catastrophe" or global nuclear war and a resultant "nuclear winter".

While such an outcome of human events is possible, I am not fond of that line of thinking myself. It seems to imply that we must "do something about capitalism really fast" or else we are all doomed.

As I've recently had occasion to learn from personal experience, people do not act very rational when they feel "threatened by doom".

Consider the primitivists...who wish to "save the global ecology" by restoring feudalism (or worse).

To me, the transition from capitalism to communism must take place in accordance with the desires of a rational proletariat -- one that clearly understands what communism is and is not.

Minds clouded by fear are not very good at that.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
For the first time, I am in agreement with redstar, maybe only on this issue, or maybe at some other issues, but glad as it is, I agree to him fully that communism is inevitable based on the arguments he posed, at least in this thread.

The inevitability of communism comes from capitalism's own womb (its parasitic, self-destructive characteristic of capitalist accumulation.)