A little Noam Chomsky

[commiecrusader]

Here's the link to an article by Noam himself:

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/86-so...-socialism.html (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/86-soviet-socialism.html)

What do y'all think of his argument? I happen to agree with him.

[The Red Scare]

zzzzzz.....another anti-Communist diatribe by Noam. I may respond in greater detail later, but Comsky's rambings bore me.

[commiecrusader]

No no no, in this he argues that the USSR and socialism are different things, and that if the socialist movement is to succeed, we have to distance ourselves from the USSR image of socialism/communism. I would have to agree with that myself.

[Bannockburn]

This is true. The Soviet Union was as close to Socialism as the United States is to free market capitalism Both is a hoax, both is a joke. The Soviet Union, as Chomsky points out was nothing but national socialism dressed up in communist clothing. Likewise, the United States is a fascist economy dressed up in free market clothing. Nothing is really new here.

Certainly however, what is used is the propaganda that they were socialist, and what is produced from this pseudo economy. As a result, you can easily scare people to think that the Soviet Union was socialist, and as a result get people to think that socialism is bad, and not in the interest of the people. This is basically 99% of Western ignorance towards socialism/communism. When they like socialism, they think gulags, secret police, and the Soviet Union. This is all they need to know to not want it.

So, Chomsky which I agree with, is that we need to revise, and separate the correlation between the two. I agree.

[The Red Scare]

Okay...
The "socialism" you Chomsky-ites talk about is absurd. It is completely hypothetical, non-falsifiable, and utopian. Of course there were distortions of worker democracy in Soviet Russian, even in its first years, and of course the growing bureaucracy became a huge problem. But without a highly-centralized government, how else would the revolution have survived? Without insistance on lock-step party unity, and without a centralized military power, Soviet Russia would not have survived a week. It successfully beat back the invasion of over a dozen imperialist powers in its first years, and could not have done so without the brilliant leadership of Lenin and the Communist Party.

And why does Chomsky never utter a word about the positive aspects of Soviet society? Before the Revolution, Russia was a completely backwards, feudal dictatorship. The Revolution brought land reform, human services, and education to tens of millions of people. It dramatically uplifted the status of women in society, giving them equal political rights and a plethora of other freedoms, such as reproductive rights and voting rights. It gave working people a much larger say in the workplace, allowing them to form unions and other civic groups. It guaranteed everyone a job, access to decent healthcare, education, and housing.

And I think its important to understand that the USSR, throughout its entire existence, was not even given the chance to develop socialism in the way it wanted to...From the very start it had to beat back foreign aggression, fight against bureaucritization, work around economic embargoes, survive the arms race, etc. etc. etc... It never saw a single day of peaceful, normal development. Despite these obstacles, it continued to provide for its people and played a crucial role in aiding liberation movements throughout the world in Cuba, Vietnam, South Africa, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

[commiecrusader]

centralized military power
Why must the military always be centralized? Why can the people not be taught to defend themselves, guerilla style, from invasion? If the whole population was to participate, invaders would stand no chance.


It successfully beat back the invasion of over a dozen imperialist powers in its first years
And never advanced or developed towards a more socialist ideal after this point.


And why does Chomsky never utter a word about the positive aspects of Soviet society
Because he is discussing if the USSR constituted socialism/communism, not whether it was a good thing or not.


And I think its important to understand that the USSR, throughout its entire existence, was not even given the chance to develop socialism in the way it wanted to
And this is never going to be any different for any socialist society until the whole world sees red. And the whole world is not going to see red if all the red societies are authoritarian and brutal dictatorships, where the benefits of a capitalist society are confined to the new bourgeoisie, the party members. We cannot use this as an excuse and expect people to believe a new revolution would avoid the mistakes made by the USSR.

[redstar2000]

I am "uncomfortable" with Chomsky as an "ally" in my "anti-Leninist crusade".

For one thing, he is not a historical materialist. He portrays the Russian Leninists as "villains" who "took advantage of popular ferment" to grab power for themselves. As if they were no more than crude adventurers...political "pirates".

He ignores the fact that the Bolsheviks spent a couple of decades struggling for their vision of socialism in the face of the harshest repression.

They sincerely believed that they were "doing the right thing". Yes, even Stalin.

It was not "personal ambition" that thwarted their efforts, it was objective material conditions.

With the advantage of historical perspective, we now know that the Leninists were completely wrong about "what is to be done".

But in their own time, their ideas seemed perfectly reasonable...and even seemed to be "working".

I did not, for example, begin to seriously question the whole Leninist paradigm until 1970...and even then only because I observed its disastrous practices first-hand.

One of the things I did back then was get all of Lenin's Collected Works written after 1917 and read every page. I was shocked to see how the "libertarian Lenin" of State and Revolution evolved into an apologist for despotism.

And it was clear that the changes in his outlook derived directly from objective material conditions. His "New Economic Policy" was, indeed, a frank admission that the "Great October Revolution" was a bourgeois revolution.

Leninism in the "west" is now an anachronism, of course. Despotism has "lost its appeal" for the "western" working classes and whatever characteristics a new revolutionary movement will have when it emerges, we can be sure that "vanguardism" will be regarded with repugnance.

But I can't help but feel some repugnance myself for Chomsky's posture of "moral superiority". As a highly-paid "academic star" -- that is, one who has drunk deeply from the wells of capitalist respectability -- who is he to criticize the dedication and sacrifice of eight decades of revolutionaries?

The Leninists were wrong...but very few (if any) became professors at elite ruling-class universities.

I think that "says something".

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