Soviet philosophy

[JimFar]

Probably the most important debate that drew the attention of Soviet philosophers during the early years of the USSR was the debate between the "mechanists" and the "dialecticians" or Deborinists. This debate at first began as a discussion within the philosophy of science but over time came to encompass most aspects of philosophy. Furthermore, despite the fact it was formally settled in 1929, the issues underlying the debate never went away, and recurred in different forms over time. Indeed, since the issues at hand were among the most important ones concerning Marxist philosophy, they in fact have never really went away.

By the early 1920s Soviet philosophers were debating what conception of materialism provided the best philosophical basis for Marxism. One school held that a mechanistic conception of materialism was acceptable. Most of the advocates of this view either came straight out of the natural sciences, or they were philosophers who had been closely associated with natural science in some way. Among the leading advocates of this school were A.K. Timartizev, Timianski, L. I. Akselrod (http://sovlit.org/lia/index.html), and Stepanov.

These people were staunch empiricists. They did not deny the validity of dialectics but maintained that dialectics must limit itself to what was observable and verifiable by the methods of natural science. Dialectics must follow science, and not pretend to be able to lead it. Materialism for these people meat a strict and thorough reliance upon the methods and findings of the natural sciences. These philosophers embraced the label of "mechanists" as a designation for their school of thought, and they insisted that a mechanistic outlook was valid not only for the natural sciences but also for the philosophy of history and of society as well. For
these people, a Marxist philosophy therefore had to root itself in the natural sciences and to follow the findings of natural science. In their view, it was illegitimate to posit a Marxist philosophy that would attempt to dictate to the sciences.

Closely allied to the mechanists, though not entirely agreeing with them was the prominent Bolshevik, N.I. Bukharin. Thus Bukharin in his Historical Materialism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1921/histmat/index.htm) embraced a positivist interpretation of Marx's materialist conception of history, emphasizing that the goal was to develop causal explanations of history, which would take the place of teleological explanations. Furthermore, Bukharin argued that "It is quite possible to transcribe the 'mystical' (as Marx put it) language of Hegelian dialectics into the language of modern mechanics." Bukharin thus maintained that Marx's materialist conception of history should over time lead to the development of a positive science of society that would be mechanistic in character and in which the concept of equilibrium would play a central role.

The mechanists maintained that the dialectical conception of nature, properly understood, was the mechanist conception. Indeed, Stepanov once wrote an article bearing the title "The Dialectical Understanding of Nature is the Mechanistic Understanding" in case anyone should be confused about his position.

As the mechanists saw it, Soviet philosophy was torn by a debate between those who maintained that dialectical method was one to be used insomuch as it was fruitful for revealing new facts about nature and society, versus those who looked to the dialectical philosophy of Hegel to provide themselves with ready-made solutions to problems. The mechanists charged their opponents (i.e. the dialecticians) with offering a priori solutions to problems in the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of history.

Opposing the mechanists were the so-called dialecticians or Deborinists. These people had a much higher regard for Hegel than did the mechanists. Furthermore, they maintained that the mechanists misunderstood how Marx & Engels had reconstructed Hegelian dialectics on a materialist basis. The dialecticians were vigorous defenders of what Marxists call the "dialectics of nature." They maintain that the laws of dialectics as described by Engels in such works as Anti-Duhring and The Dialectics of Nature are actually found in nature. Dialectics reflects the natural world. The dialecticians argued that the mechanists were positing a narrow, rigid, and lifeless conception of nature. Whereas, the mechanists tended to be either natural scientists or philosophers close to the natural sciences, the dialecticians tended to be professional philosophers with a strong background in Hegelian philosophy. The leading dialectician was the philosopher the Soviet philosopher, Abram Deborin (http://www.sovlit.org/amd/index.html), who had been a protoge of Plekhanov (the "father of
Russian Marxism"). Like, his mentor, Deborin had been prior to the October Revolution a Menshevik.

Also, while most of the mechanists were natural scientists or engineers rather than professional philosophers, L.I. Akselrod was trained as a professional philosopher and furthermore, she, like her oponent, Deborin, had been a protege of Plekhanov.

Deborin and his followers hit hard against the mechanists, arguing that their conception of science could not adequately make sense out of the new developments in physics like relativity and quantum mechanics, nor was mechanism, in their opinion adequate for making sense out of the then latest developments in biology. The dialecticians attacked the positivism of the mechanist school which they saw as naive and mistaken. They as I already pointed out venerated Hegel, in contrast to the disdain that most of the mechanists had for him. They held that Marxism could not be adequately understood except in reference to Hegel and Hegelianism. While the mechanists on the other hand held that Marx had superseded Hegel and Hegelianism. For them the Deborinists constituted a regression back to an idealist metaphysics that Marx had transcended.

Besides disagreeing about Hegel, the two schools had quite different opinions concerning the meaning and importance of Spinoza's philosophy. The mechanists tended to dismiss Spinoza as an idealist metaphysician. While Deborin followed his mentor Plekhanov in holding Spinoza to have been a materialist and a dialectician. For Deborin as for Plekhanov, dialectical materialism is a kind of Spinozism.

The debate between the mechanists and the dialecticians heated up in the late 1920s, finally coming to a head in 1929 at a meeting of the Second All-Union Conference of Marxist-Leninist Scientific Institutions where all the leading figures from both sides of the debate appeared. Deborin gave the leading report, and a resolution was passed which condemned mechanism. The mechanists were condemned as underming dialectical materialism, and charged with trying to substitute a vulgar evolutionism for materialist dialectics, and positivism for materialism.

However, the victory of the Deborinists was short-lived, since the following year controversy broke out over the issue of "idealism" and of "menshevising idealism." Essentially what happened was that Stalin had concluded that while the Deborinists had made valid criticisms of mechanism, they had gone too far in pushing the stick towards a Hegelian idealism. The application of the term "menshevizing idealism" was a reference to Deborin's past support for the Mensheviks over the Bolsheviks. Thus, he was being accused of not just being an idealist but of being a "menshevizing idealist" which was presumably a lot worse. Stalin moved to settle the debate between the mechanists and the Dialecticians by fiat. The critique of Deborin was pressed forward by two young philosophers, Mitin
and Yudin who linked the alleged failings of Deborin to those of his mentor Plekhanov. Deborin was accused of divorcing theory from practice. His philosophy was said to be of little use for advancing forward Stalin's Five Year Plan with its break with NEP. Mitin in particular argued that both the Deborinists and the mechanists had failed to grasp the dialectics underlying the transition from NEP to socialism. Thus both schools were charged with promoting a divorce between theory and practice. The new view promoted by Mitin (with Stalin's backing) attempted to split the difference between the two schools. Dialectical materialism affirmed an ontological materialism as advocated by the mechanists. But the validity of the dialectics of nature (which the Deborinists had placed great emphasis on) was also affirmed as well. At a Party conference this critique of the two schools was officially adopted and Deborin made a show of support for Mitin.

Deborin and just a handful of other Soviet philosophers had the fortune of surviving the great purges of the 1930s. Akselrod, of the mechanist school, also survived while numerous other people from the two schools disappeared into the gulags and were never heard from again.

This new view provided the basis for Stalin's codification of dialectical materialism as presented in his History of the CPSU (Bolsheviks): Short Course which became official dogma for all Communists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Jim, but what a monumental waste of time and effort -- not your summary (!!) but the acres of rubbish these Stalinists/quasi-Stalinists inflicted on history.

Well, history got its revenge....

Thanks to their screw-ups, the influence of dialectical Marxism on workers is now (mercifully) at an all time low (post 1890, that is).

Tested in practice; shown to fail.

[JimFar]

I think it's fair to say that the worst thing to have happened to Marxist philosophy in the Soviet Union was its becoming an official state ideology. As soon as that happened, philosophical debates were closely monitored by the state, which always had to be on the outlook for the ideological implications that an even abstruse debate might have. Soviet philosophy showed some vitality in the 1920s when the Party and the state were relatively neutral between competing schools like the mechanists and the Deborinists but once Stalin stepped in to settle that and other debates by fiat, freewheeling debates within Soviet philosophy came to an end. Mitin's take on diamat became a part of the official ideology of the Party and state and so no dissent could be permitted. That's why so many Soviet philosophers died in the great purges. Later on during the "thaw" under Khrushchev, controls were loosened up a bit and more debate was permitted. Under the thaw, for instance, the works of Deborin, which had been withdrawn from circulation after 1931 were republished in the Soviet Union. A new generation of Soviet philosophers emerged some of whom like Ilyenkov were creative thinkers. Later on, of course, there was a clampdown, and people like Ilyenkov got into hot water, since their writings were seen by the authorities, no doubt correctly, as thinly veiled critiques of Soviet society. Ilyenkov, in fact, ended up committing suicide in 1979. On the other hand, Soviet philosophy during the Breshnev era did become more open to ideas and methods from the West. I have noted in other posts, the interest that many Soviet philosophers took in analytical philosophy for instance. Apparently, this sort of thing was permitted, as long as philosophers could show that it could be used to reaffirm the verities of dialectical materialism. Nevertheless, Soviet philosophy, as taught in most schools and colleges differed little from what was taught in Stalin's time, except for the fact that Stalin was no longer cited as an authority. This situation continued into Gorbachev's time.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 02:23 PM
I think it's fair to say that the worst thing to have happened to Marxist philosophy in the Soviet Union was its becoming an official state ideology. As soon as that happened, philosophical debates were closely monitored by the state, which always had to be on the outlook for the ideological implications that an even abstruse debate might have.
The implications of this are still felt now. It as if this "official" status is all that was ever required by the West to demonise any subsequent discussion. Just as the Soviets forcibly restrict debate so as to keep the party line up, the West restricted it (largely through social means) to keep any serious interpretation to be made.

This effect can be felt beyond the "spectre" of DM, but the entire Marxist ideology. Objective views are now possible to achieve, but the negative effect of the "Red Scare" tactics are still a problem for any conception of Marxism, pro or anti DM.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim, once again thanks for those comments, and yes, once again, I say: what a monumental waste of time, for whatever the 'reforms', philosophers in the old USSR were still trying to do a priori superscience (just as they have done and still do in the 'west', and even in the analytic tradition, and just as ruling-class hacks have always done), as if there were an a priori and/or 'essential' structure to reality that they alone could discover by the operation of thought (or, to be more accurate, word-juggling) alone.

Hegemonic..., I think you are right in some respects, but we do not need to examine the history of Stalinism to see that the sort of activity in which traditional philosophers have always indulged (and, as part of which, DM-theorists were always less than third-rate practitioners) was thinly veiled ruling-class ideology, and in many cases (as in the old USSR, or, in medieval Europe, say) was not even thinly veiled.

[Axel1917]

I have not really studied this area yet, but I do know that the Stalinsts had made a caricature of dialectical materialism, which they called "Diamat." They turned it into some kind of sophistry, and I think that they even made new "laws of dialectics" to justify certain things that had happened in the party.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Nice one Axel, and they did this just like your Guru's Woods and Grant.

Plus ca change....

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 02:23 PM
Later on during the "thaw" under Khrushchev, controls were loosened up a bit and more debate was permitted.
An interesting note about the "thaw":


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stalinist/message/8049

The fact that the "thaw" began under Stalin, and not under Khrushchev,
is now being written about in Russia. But there was a big difference.

("Thaw" -- _Ottepel'_ -- is the title of a novel by Il'ia Erenburg, in
which E. welcomes Khrushchev's 'openness' and, especially, the
concentration on production of consumer goods.)

Stalin's "thaw" was an opening for the Left as well. Stalin was very
interested in pushing the USSR towards communism, as the next stage of
development.

Khrushchev's "thaw" was an opening only for the Right -- the
anti-communists, Khrushchevites, and liars. Nothing "left" was permitted
in the press or in culture during Khrushchev's "thaw."

I have a feeling that Stalin's support for debate in the sciences is not
well known, so I wanted to note it here.

Sincerely,

Grover Furr

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marcel, this 'report' looks fishy; a 'thaw' initiated by one of the biggest anti-working class mass murderers in history -- get real.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26 2006, 10:13 AM
Marcel, this 'report' looks fishy; a 'thaw' initiated by one of the biggest anti-working class mass murderers in history -- get real.
Sorry, but Stalin had it right. Anti working class? Under Stalin the most powerful workers state ever thrived. The people thrived. Mass murder? Of nazis and fascists maybe! I thought you would have provided better discourse...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

You are obviously living on another planet.

Not only did Stalin destroy the Bolshevik Party (murdering practically all his fellow revolutionaries from 1917, based on trumped-up charges), he colluded with Hitler, invaded Finland, carved up Poland, presided over the deaths of hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of workers (at home and elsewhere), trampled on worker/soviet democracy.

Not only was that travesty (i.e., the USSR, post 1928/9) not a workers' state, it was the main source of anti-revolutionary reaction, from which the international workers' movement has yet to recover.

Hence, he is one of the principle reasons why most working people the world over are at best anti-communist, and thus anti-Marxist.

In short, he was a disaster to our movement of incalculable proportions.

He rates with Hitler (almost) in the enormity of his crimes.

If you cannot see this, I wonder you can see anything at all.

"I thought you would have provided better discourse...."

Yes, see above.

[Comrade Marcel]

I'm not even going to bother replying to this no-name brand anti-Stalin trash.

All I'll say is that you are doing a great job for the bourgeois "scholars". No need for the state to launch anti-communist propaganda when "the left" has "comrades" of the likes of you.

[AK47]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 23 2006, 09:23 AM
Thanks for that Jim, but what a monumental waste of time and effort -- not your summary (!!) but the acres of rubbish these Stalinists/quasi-Stalinists inflicted on history.

Well, history got its revenge....

Thanks to their screw-ups, the influence of dialectical Marxism on workers is now (mercifully) at an all time low (post 1890, that is).

Tested in practice; shown to fail.
To be quite honest, and you might think me crazy for thinking this, but you will not be the first. The soviet union sytrayed from Marxist docterine drasticly when they tried to jump from the strictly Feudal state of Czarist Russia past merchantielism- Capitalism- and Socialism- to an attempt at a Communist government. This was not part of marxist theory, and according to marxist theory this would fail. Unless the working class gets the experience of the capitalist state it can not obtain the expertise it would need to take over the means of production. The Soviet union was not the great Socialist Revolutoin it was touted as, but rather the great socialist premature ejaculation. Thanks to their screwups and capitalist spinn, the worcking class are dosile sheeple and lemmings running as fast as their legs will take them to that proverbial cliff, at least the American people. That is okay It is also part of Marxist theory that the Revolution will not start in the USA. It will be and continues to be the third world and people indevelopung nations that are begining to fight back. Keeping water public, land redistribution, and many other commons oriented issues are being championed bysocialist and communist orginisations around the world. Just when you think it is all over......

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AK, thanks for those thoughts, and I think that essentially you are right, at least in theory.

However, if you look at the sorts of things Marx was studying in the latter part of his life (outlined in J White's 'Karl Marx and the Intellectual Origins of Dialectical Materialism') you will see that he was changing his views, and began to look to Russia as a place where a socialist revolution could occur, but it would only work if Western European revolutions were successful, so that they could provide the productive capacity to support it.

As to your other comments, I do not think we can say where the world revolutiion will start, and thank goodness for that. If we knew, they would know, and could prevent it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marcel:

"I'm not even going to bother replying to this no-name brand anti-Stalin trash."

Well, as 'trashy' as it is, or maybe otherwise, it palls into sub-atomic insignificance next to the monumental crimes you Stalin-worshippers breezily forgive this mass murderer --, or worse, brush under a very large carpet.

And the same can be said of this:

"All I'll say is that you are doing a great job for the bourgeois "scholars". No need for the state to launch anti-communist propaganda when "the left" has "comrades" of the likes of you."

Since I have not murdered the flower of the Bolshevik Party, destroyed a workers' state, ruined the Chinese and Spanish revolutions, signed a pact with Hitler, invaded Finland (killing thousands of workers), pogrommed the Russian working class, destroyed democracy in the USSR, and prolonged tyranny in E Europe, I reckon the very worst I can do is next to zero in comparison.

Fortunately for humanity, history has already passed its judgement on you tank worshippers. Workers have booted your lot out wherever they can. I doubt they will listen to you lot ever again.

You have just not woken up to that fact yet.

Slumber on, 'comrade' -- the longer the better; don't let me wake you up.

The more unconscious you remain, the less damage you and your ilk can continue to inflict on the working class.

[Comrade Marcel]

Workers have booted your lot out wherever they can. I doubt they will listen to you lot ever again.

That's interesting, since it is our comrades leading all the revolutions!

It's only in the west where privileged petty-bourgeois arm-chairs such as yourself think what you spewed about Stalin to be true. And none of them do much except peel their asses off the computer once and awhile for an anti-war march.

All the real fighters know the contrary to be correct about Stalin and Mao.

I will let history do the rest of the talking in the future.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Can we keep it calm please people <_<, things seem unnecessarily heated at the moment.

Comrade Marcel, this board as you know is anti-authoritarian to some extent, the purpose here was crticising diamat, which I think no-one has tried to defend in this thread. Lets not get personal now, as some of your comments are claiming the views of some 80% or so of this board to be nonsense.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 09:36 PM
Can we keep it calm please people <_<, things seem unnecessarily heated at the moment.

Comrade Marcel, this board as you know is anti-authoritarian to some extent, the purpose here was crticising diamat, which I think no-one has tried to defend in this thread. Lets not get personal now, as some of your comments are claiming the views of some 80% or so of this board to be nonsense.
%80 of people in the west support capitalism, so what? Majority is not always right, and I defend Dialectical Materialism.

RL and RS2000 are certainly not unintelligent, but their anti-dialectics is just as bogus as they claim DM to be.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26 2006, 05:35 PM
You are obviously living on another planet.

Not only did Stalin destroy the Bolshevik Party (murdering practically all his fellow revolutionaries from 1917, based on trumped-up charges), he colluded with Hitler, invaded Finland, carved up Poland, presided over the deaths of hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of workers (at home and elsewhere), trampled on worker/soviet democracy.

Not only was that travesty (i.e., the USSR, post 1928/9) not a workers&#39; state, it was the main source of anti-revolutionary reaction, from which the international workers&#39; movement has yet to recover.

Hence, he is one of the principle reasons why most working people the world over are at best anti-communist, and thus anti-Marxist.

In short, he was a disaster to our movement of incalculable proportions.

He rates with Hitler (almost) in the enormity of his crimes.

If you cannot see this, I wonder you can see anything at all.

"I thought you would have provided better discourse...."

Yes, see above.
This girl has just said everything that needs to be said about Joseph Stalin

Applause

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 26 2006, 10:12 PM
%80 of people in the west support capitalism, so what? Majority is not always right, and I defend Dialectical Materialism.


Yes, but either way it is best achieved in a polite and coherent manner. I think educating workers will better introduce they to progressive ideas than insulting them for not holding them, maybe I am wrong though?


RL and RS2000 are certainly not unintelligent, but their anti-dialectics is just as bogus as they claim DM to be.
Getting personal does not help. There have been lots of aggressive debates about this over the last few months, I for one am glad that it has calmed down of late.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


AK, thanks for those thoughts, and I think that essentially you are right, at least in theory.

However, if you look at the sorts of things Marx was studying in the latter part of his life (outlined in J White&#39;s &#39;Karl Marx and the Intellectual Origins of Dialectical Materialism&#39;) you will see that he was changing his views, and began to look to Russia as a place where a socialist revolution could occur, but it would only work if Western European revolutions were successful, so that they could provide the productive capacity to support it.

Quite so, Marx in the last years of his life began to take quite seriously the possibility, and even the probability, that a socialist revolution might first occur in Russia. He began to take a great interest in Russian affairs, even teaching himself Russian, to better follow events in Russia. And you&#39;re also right that he thought Russia could move directly to socialism, provided that a Russian revolution was accompanied by workers&#39; revolutions in western Europe. This view, put him to some extent at odds with his Russian disciple, Plekhanov, who was insistent that Russia could never become socialist until it went through a more or less lengthy period of capitalism. In fact to that extent, Marx&#39;s views were actually closer to those of the Narodniki, with whom Plekhanov was engaged in heated polemics over this issue. Marx in fact admired some of the Narodnik writers especially Cherneshevskii, the author of the novel What is to be done, which helped to shape the perspectives of several generations of Russian revolutionaries, including the young Lenin. Comparing the views of Marx and Plekhanov, it would seem that Plekhanov with his strict stagism was more of an "orthodox" Marxist than Marx, himself. But as Marx once said (not referring to Plekhanov), "Je nes suis pas un marxist."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marcel:

"That&#39;s interesting, since it is our comrades leading all the revolutions&#33;"

In that case, these &#39;revolutions&#39; are doomed.

Oh dear, have I hit a nerve:

"It&#39;s only in the west where privileged petty-bourgeois arm-chairs such as yourself think what you spewed about Stalin to be true. And none of them do much except peel their asses off the computer once and awhile for an anti-war march."

Head in the sand, is it?

"I will let history do the rest of the talking in the future."

It has already spoken mate: workers hate Stalin and Mao, because they were mass murderers.

"RL and RS2000 are certainly not unintelligent, but their anti-dialectics is just as bogus as they claim DM to be."

I note you cannot mount an effective argument to defend that mystical doctrine you lot have swallowed.

Which helps explain why you think a murderer like Stalin was so wonderful: appearances contradict reality here too, eh?

[Comrade Marcel]

RL, the worker&#39;s in the west "hate" Stalin and Mao because they have been a victim of anti-communist propaganda perpetuated by the state.

Ask the workers in China and Russia if Stalin and Mao were "mass murders", then stop and ask yourself if this anti-Stalin shit of your is just not another version of the "socialist white man&#39;s burden".

[Comrade Marcel]

And if these revolutions are doomed it&#39;s because of the mostly white working class and traitor fake communists like you who seem to support imperialism over "Stalinism".

But, whatever. The anti-Stalinists in the USSR conspired with fascism, and Trotsky accepted aid from Japanese imperialism. :)

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 27 2006, 12:26 PM
mostly white working class
What bearing does skin colopur have on any of this, care to elabourate? <_< Whats wrong with being working class? Is it that they might object to a "bourgeois" led revolution that is supposed to benifit them, in favour of a proletarian led revolution that will benifit them?


and traitor fake communists like you
Why is there something wrong with not supporting Leninist tactics? I don&#39;t support Leninism or imperialism, I opt for a third and largely untested method; a non-vanguard orientated revolution conducted by a largely conscious working class.

Please explain why this is not a valid position, not criticise the individual for holding it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marcel earlier:

"I will let history do the rest of the talking in the future."

Marcel now:

"RL, the worker&#39;s in the west "hate" Stalin and Mao because they have been a victim of anti-communist propaganda perpetuated by the state."

From this we can conclude either (1) Marcel thinks he speaks for history; or (2) we cannot believe a thing he says.

I plumb for the latter.

As to the substance of what he says, I suspect he has been fooled by anti-working-class propaganda belched out by Stalinist hacks (you know, the sort who brought us the Gulags -- friendly chaps with a penchant for mass murder).

Whatever, East or West, billions of workers either hate communism, or know nothing of it (owing to its abject failure over the last 70 years).

[And I suppose it&#39;s bourgeois propaganda that Stalin had almost the entire Bolshevik leadership of 1917 executed on Mickey Mouse charges, is it?]

Those in the East, of course, faced Stalinist reality daily, and still ended up hating Stalin and Mao.

I rather agree with them.

"But, whatever. The anti-Stalinists in the USSR conspired with fascism, and Trotsky accepted aid from Japanese imperialism."

Trotsky could have been a baby slayer, or otherwise, that would not detract one ounce from the monumental crimes of Stalin and Mao; and whatver he did or did not do palls into insignificance next to the systematic destruction inflicted on workers and their movement courtesy of the monster you idolise. And whether Trotsky conspired with fascists or not, Stalin actually cuddled up to them. Some workers&#39; &#39;hero&#39;, this&#33;

"Ask the workers in China and Russia if Stalin and Mao were "mass murders", then stop and ask yourself if this anti-Stalin shit of your is just not another version of the "socialist white man&#39;s burden"."

No need to ask them, the workers of Russia booted your lot out, and those in China are aching to do the same to Mao&#39;s epigones and the capitalist hell they are building. Communist parties in Europe are in terminal decline (and those in the rest of the world are not looking too clever, or have become reactionary nationalist rumps -- or, like yours, are on the verge of extinction).

"Socialist white man&#39;s burden".

Eh?

Screw that (whatever it means)&#33;

You are suffering from a serious reality shortfall, comrade.

That&#39;s cool. Stay like that please; the more of your lot that day-dream like this the more it should help guarantee the terminal decline of communism goes into its second glorious century.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

Rosa Lichtenstein - it is you who is living on a different planet to us all.

"Whatever, East or West, billions of workers either hate communism, or know nothing of it (owing to its abject failure over the last 70 years).
Those in the East, of course, faced Stalinist reality daily, and still ended up hating Stalin and Mao."

Hence why the majority of people in Russia, having discovered the joys of capitalism and &#39;democracy&#39; now favour namely Stalin as leader of their country and many even say they would vote for him as President, why dozens of towns and cities in Russia still have - and are still building new -statues of Stalin and Lenin in their squares?&#33; And why communist parties are becoming stronger in Eastern Europe, why a vast number of seats in the Duma belong to the communist party?

Perhaps all this is owing to its "abject failure"? The failure which guranteed all people jobs, housing, healthcare, education and security? You talk rubbish and evidently know nothing about Russia or Eastern Europe.

"No need to ask them, the workers of Russia booted your lot out, and those in China are aching to do the same "

The &#39;workers&#39; of Russia had no say in the collapse of the USSR, it happened overnight, especially so that people could not resist. The leaders betrayed their people, helped considerably by outside forces striving for the USSR&#39;s destruction ever since its creation.

And what does this peaceful demise say about these evil mass murdering communists, so desperate to hold on to power? There were what, 14 deaths in all the countries that gained &#39;independence&#39;? If people in America or France tries to "kick their government out" can you imagine what would happen?

Its no wonder that workers in China are pissed off. Their government is not communist. They might as well kiss America&#39;s ass.

And there have been several cases of socialist leaders coming to power lately, namely in Venezuela and Bolivia, as well as left wing parties winning local government and parliamentary elections.

Stop criticising others and give us an exampe of what you term as a true revolution of the proletariat that has succeeded.

[leftist manson]

[CODE]Stop criticising others and give us an exampe of what you term as a true revolution of the proletariat that has succeeded


One of the most realistic remarks i have ever read on revleft. ;)
Great job comrade.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrade Y:

"Rosa Lichtenstein - it is you who is living on a different planet to us all."

So, you are all from planet &#39;Failure&#39; are you? Me, I hail from planet revolutionary Marxist. You should visit sometime....

"Hence why the majority of people in Russia, having discovered the joys of capitalism and &#39;democracy&#39; now favour namely Stalin as leader of their country and many even say they would vote for him as President..."

So you say.

[And even if you were right, the majority of human beings on the planet are not so stupid as to want that mass murderer back, or have anything to do with Communism. And, I think I know why.]

"Perhaps all this is owing to its "abject failure"? The failure which guranteed all people jobs, housing, healthcare, education and security?"

You could say the same for Hitler (&#39;At least the trains ran on time...&#39;), but that would be equally objectionable.

"You talk rubbish and evidently know nothing about Russia or Eastern Europe."

Looks like you don&#39;t either.

[And as far as rubbish is concerned I clearly need some pointers, so please keep posting your superior brand here. I promise to try to emulate you.]

More fantasy:

"The &#39;workers&#39; of Russia had no say in the collapse of the USSR..."

In fact, it was so popular that they did not lift a finger to defend &#39;their state&#39;.

"Its no wonder that workers in China are pissed off. Their government is not communist."

And workers in the USSR were pissed off because theirs was.

And now even more substitutionism (you seem to have a very shallow learning curve my logically-challenged friend):

"And there have been several cases of socialist leaders coming to power lately, namely in Venezuela and Bolivia..."

Yet more illusions in petty-bourgeois leaders....

It would be quite touching if it weren&#39;t so pathetic.

"Stop criticising others and give us an exampe of what you term as a true revolution of the proletariat that has succeeded. "

None as yet, but we can put that down to the crazy theory you lot have swallowed.

And...oh dear...I think I will still keep on criticising.

Naughty me; I never seem to learn....

Find out why at:

http://www.anti-dialectics.org

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leftist M:

"One of the most realistic remarks i have ever read on revleft.
Great job comrade."

You should get out more.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"So, you are all from planet &#39;Failure&#39; are you? Me, I hail from planet revolutionary Marxist. You should visit sometime...."

Failure of what exactly? Can u specify what you mean, give some examples?


"So you say."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101faco...talin-test.html (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101facomment85101/sarah-e-mendelson-theodore-p-gerber/failing-the-stalin-test.html)

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/04/wishedstalin.shtml

These are my sources, dispute them if you feel you can.


"You could say the same for Hitler (&#39;At least the trains ran on time...&#39;), but that would be equally objectionable"

You lack basic knowledge and understanding of the meaning of "communism" and "fascism". Go and look the meanings up carefully, then come back and argue your case that two nations and governments on completely different sides of the political spectrum in fact held the same ideologies and aims.


"In fact, it was so popular that they did not lift a finger to defend &#39;their state&#39;."

Once again you prove your total ignorance and unwilingness to let history speak for itself. And you say it is I who know nothing about Russia&#33; Have a look at this short paragraph from Wikipedia concerning the last days of the USSR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_const..._crisis_of_1993 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_constitutional_crisis_of_1993)

From it you will gather that the Russian workers did try to save their country from complete destruction and collapse, and it was only through the use of military force and mind manipulation that Yeltsin, a corrupt, alcoholic, traitor who is a disgrace to his people, managed to cling to power.


"And workers in the USSR were pissed off because theirs was."

In any case they were less pissed off then than they are now under the "joys" of rampant capitalism, and would be less pissed off if people like you stopped insulting that period of their history, which they consider the greatest part, and the leader of that time, whom many admire.


"Yet more illusions in petty-bourgeois leaders....

It would be quite touching if it weren&#39;t so pathetic."

I find you pathetic. Get to grips with the fact that the world is not going to come together on one bright sunny day, hold hands and sing "Row row row the boat" and live happily ever after. Stop going on about how you feel betrayed, how marxism and dialectical materialism has failed and come up with a better alternative.


"Naughty me; I never seem to learn...."

No, you don&#39;t do you...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrade Y:

"Failure of what exactly?"

How about... oh, say, your failure to open your eyes.

"These are my sources....."

So you say.

"You lack basic knowledge and understanding of the meaning of "communism" and "fascism"...."

Well, even if you were right, I could just blame ignorance; all you have to fall back on is stupidity.

So you out-rank me yet again.

"Once again you prove your total ignorance and unwilingness to let history speak for itself."

I reckon that if you think history can speak, it&#39;s no wonder you worship the terror state, formerly known as the USSR.

More excuses:

"From it you will gather that the Russian workers did try to save their country from complete destruction and collapse, and it was only through the use of military force and mind manipulation that Yeltsin, a corrupt, alcoholic, traitor who is a disgrace to his people, managed to cling to power."

Oh, I see: the 150 million workers of the former USSR were all scared to death of a few tanks, and were fooled by a drunk.

Is this what passes for in depth analysis among communists these days?

Lenin will be turning in his grave -- well he would be had Stalin not embalmed him (as a religious icon).

"I find you pathetic..."

Stop stealing my abusive words.

Has dialectics rotted your brain so much you cannot think of anything else to throw at me but my own weak terms of abuse?

Looks like it.

""Naughty me; I never seem to learn...."

No, you don&#39;t do you..."

Well, I was hoping you&#39;d teach me, but fifth-rate revolutionary that you aspire to be, you failed even there.

Can&#39;t you do anything right (or even left)?

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"How about... oh, say, your failure to open your eyes."

I asked for concrete examples, not vague statements.


"So you say."

And that&#39;s supposed to mean what exaclty?&#33; :blink:


"Well, even if you were right, I could just blame ignorance; all you have to fall back on is stupidity."

At least you admit your ignorance and lack of knowledge, even if you cannot come up with a proper argument other thatn calling me stupid and a worshipper of a "terror state"

"Oh, I see: the 150 million workers of the former USSR were all scared to death of a few tanks, and were fooled by a drunk.

Is this what passes for in depth analysis among communists these days?"

Well this is exactly what you claim happened when the USSR "brutally crushed rebellions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia"....which killed all of...72 people? (According to Wikipedia) Oh dear, tens of millions of Hungarians and Czechs got scared of a few tanks...

And the Russian workers were not "fooled" by a drunk. That&#39;s why they resisted his rise to power...learn to read properly. They were not fooled by anyone, the USSR collapsed after massive pressure from outside forces (and inside ones which were corrupt), which were determined that it should never become an example to other countries attempting to create a communist society.

"Has dialectics rotted your brain..."

If dialectics has rotted my brain, God knows what has rotted yours...


"Well, I was hoping you&#39;d teach me, but fifth-rate revolutionary that you aspire to be, you failed even there"

You called yourself a "Marxist revolutionary" in a previous post. What do you aspire to be? All your arguments so far have been crude and immature, have been personal insults or bourgeoise propaganda. I hardly see the point in debating with you, if your arguments continue to be this weak.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrade Y:

"I asked for concrete examples, not vague statements."

If you cannot open your eyes, no wonder they seem vague, to you.

""So you say."

And that&#39;s supposed to mean what exaclty?&#33;"

Which word is puzzling you? "So"? Or is it "you"?

"At least you admit your ignorance and lack of knowledge, even if you cannot come up with a proper argument other thatn calling me stupid and a worshipper of a "terror state" "

Well, I can understand in your logically-challenged state of mind how you would fail to grasp the use of the hypothetical sentence-form in English (i.e., "if"), but that probably also helps account for your worship of terror.

And it gets worse:

"Well this is exactly what you claim happened when the USSR "brutally crushed rebellions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia"....which killed all of...72 people? (According to Wikipedia) Oh dear, tens of millions of Hungarians and Czechs got scared of a few tanks..."

So, the proles in the Eastern block were all scared, eh?

But still, no attempt to defend their state; hardly raised a finger.

All 200 million of them. Widening the circle to include another 50 odd million just undermines your argument.

"That&#39;s why they resisted his rise to power."

So one drunk could not be stopped by all those struggling workers, eh?

"learn to read properly."

When you learn to think properly.

And now we blame external causes (something Lenin said Dialectical Logic &#39;insisted&#39; could not cause change):

"They were not fooled by anyone, the USSR collapsed after massive pressure from outside forces..."

Contrast this with what Lenin said:

"Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. requires that an object should be taken in development, in &#39;self-movement&#39; (as Hegel sometimes puts it)…." [Lenin (1921)&#39;, Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation And The Mistakes Of Comrades Trotsky And Bukharin&#39;, p.90. Bold emphasis added.]

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their &#39;self-movement&#39;, in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the &#39;struggle&#39; of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).

"In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of &#39;self-movement&#39;.

"The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the &#39;self-movement&#39; of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the &#39;leaps,&#39; to the &#39;break in continuity,&#39; to the &#39;transformation into the opposite,&#39; to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new.

"The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961) Collected Works. Vol. 38, pp.357-58. Bold emphasis added.]

Oops&#33;

Pick a fight with comrade Lenin, not me.

More copying:

"If dialectics has rotted my brain, God knows what has rotted yours..."

No originality you DM-clones, have you? Not [i]even when it comes to abuse.

But, I grant you, you are good at executing millions of workers and comrades.

"All your arguments so far have been crude and immature, have been personal insults or bourgeoise propaganda. I hardly see the point in debating with you, if your arguments continue to be this weak."

Good, I accept your surrender.

Next numpty, please....

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"Well, I can understand in your logically-challenged state of mind how you would fail to grasp the use of the hypothetical sentence-form in English (i.e., "if"), but that probably also helps account for your worship of terror"

:blink: I don&#39;t even understand what you&#39;re on about&#33; You seem to be obsessed with me "worshipping terror". At no point in any of my posts did I say anything that indicates this.


"And that&#39;s supposed to mean what exaclty?&#33;"

Which word is puzzling you? "So"? Or is it "you"?"

You simply can&#39;t face the fact that however much you bash the USSR, the people who used to live there, as well as their children and grandchildren still think highly of it. All you can post is bad insults, as above, or quotes that have little or no relevance to the subject, as we will see below.


"So, the proles in the Eastern block were all scared, eh?
But still, no attempt to defend their state; hardly raised a finger.
All 200 million of them. Widening the circle to include another 50 odd million just undermines your argument"

You misunderstood my point, probably intentionaly. You said

"Oh, I see: the 150 million workers of the former USSR were all scared to death of a few tanks"

I said that rebellions were "violently put down" in Hungary etc by "a few tanks", so why could the same not happen in Moscow? What did you expect? 200 million workers to arm themselves with shovels and rakes, appear at the gates of moscow and charge the tanks?

My mother and her ancestors lived in the USSR, she would know better than you the situation in Russia. When this was going on people were dumbstruck, they could not believe that the government could betray them. Everyting happened so quickly. They did not believe that all they had fought for for generations would be taken away from them.

Maybe here in the West we have constant strikes and protests about tuition and top up fees, job cuts, unemployment, pension cuts and the shutting down of schools, but in the USSR workers took this for granted. It never came to their heads that they would have to "defend" the rights that belonged to them from birth for decades.

All this happened over night. If you knew anything about the history of that period, you would know that one day the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine met up and signed the declaration of the break up of the Soviet Union. Yesterday it was there, the next it was not. Just like that. What talk of "defending their nation" could there be?

"So one drunk could not be stopped by all those struggling workers, eh?"

It was more than one drunk. It was one drunk with his gang of corrupt cronies holding positions of power (and taking illegal measure such as disolving parliament), as well as the military (and Western support) at their disposal.


"Contrast this with what Lenin said: etc etc"

As said above, you are good at extracting quotes of little or no relevance to the debate and turning them on their heads, yet have no understanding of the real situation. You avoid the arguments put across, instead preferring to use ivory tower terminology, claiming that Lenin thought the collapse of the USSR as inevitable. Don&#39;t bring your statements from the &#39;learning&#39; forum into this. Dialectical materialism has no direct relevance to this debate.

[LoneRed]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 26 2006, 10:12 PM
RL and RS2000 are certainly not unintelligent, but their anti-dialectics is just as bogus as they claim DM to be.
I agree whole-heartedly

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

As with Marcel earlier, we cannot, it seems, believe a word you say:

"I hardly see the point in debating with you, if your arguments continue to be this weak."

So my arguments cannot be &#39;weak&#39;, then -- if you are still trying to put together something vaguely like an argument yourself.

" I don&#39;t even understand what you&#39;re on about&#33;"

That has been clear for some time.

Your logically-reduced state of mind (having been induced by all that &#39;dialectical logic&#39; you lot go in for) means you cannot understand hypothetical arguments, formalised 2000 years ago by the Stoics.

An &#39;if&#39; is used in English when someone is only assuming something for the purposes of the argument, not that they are asserting its truth.

So, if you read the offending sentence again, where I use that &#39;if&#39;, with this in mind, you mioght just get my point.

More than that I cannot help you. [Is English your second language?]

"You seem to be obsessed with me "worshipping terror"."

Stop doing it then.

"You simply can&#39;t face the fact that however much you bash the USSR, the people who used to live there, as well as their children and grandchildren still think highly of it."

And you can find Nazis who think highly of their terror state too.

And now we have a recipe for no revolution at all, ever, by workers (if so much as one tank appears anywhere, or someone at the top gets drunk):

"What did you expect? 200 million workers to arm themselves with shovels and rakes, appear at the gates of moscow and charge the tanks?"

Still, they did not fight for their &#39;workers&#39; state&#39;. It fizzled rather pathetically.

We can do this all day long, if you like.

"When this was going on people were dumbstruck..."

I see; you (or your relatives) asked all 200 million of them, did you?

"you are good at extracting quotes of little or no relevance to the debate..."

On the contrary, Lenin made it quite clear:

"The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their &#39;self-movement&#39;, in their spontaneous development..."

"The second alone furnishes the key to the &#39;self-movement&#39; of everything existing..."

So, either you are committed to the view that the USSR did not exist, or that it is not in this world.

Which?

You DM-fans cannot, it seems, make your minds up.

Or, you do not &#39;understand dialectics....&#39;

But it does confirm what us Trots have been saying for over 60 years: you cannot build socialism in one country.

When &#39;history speaks&#39; you Stalin-worshippers do not seem to be listening.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lone:

"I agree whole-heartedly."

But, I fear you (collectively, or severally) cannot carry an argument to that effect.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"So my arguments cannot be &#39;weak&#39;, then.."

Your arguments cannot be weak or strong, because they have no relevance to the debate. You argue like a child, occasionaly throwing in an insult or a quote of no relevance. I&#39;m finding this hilarious&#33; :D



Nope, my first. Now you&#39;re trying to beat my argument by patronising posts which (once again) try to avoid the debate in hand. But then I would expect that from a trot.

"And you can find Nazis who think highly of their terror state too."

I&#39;m sure you can, but I am not talking about the Nazis. :blink: Once again you divert from the subject in hand, throwing around the word "fascism" or "nazis" without knowing the meaning.

"And now we have a recipe for no revolution at all, ever, by workers (if so much as one tank appears anywhere, or someone at the top gets drunk):"

You once again ignore my point. You ask why the Russian workers did not stop the tanks. Well why did they not stop them in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Tiananmen square and other cases? Have you ever tried stopping a tank? Maybe you should try, and then come back and argue (or rather dont&#39;).


"I see; you (or your relatives) asked all 200 million of them, did you?"

That was the general feeling in Russia: disbelief. But [i]obviously you would know better wouldn&#39;t you, having gone and asked....none?


"So, either you are committed to the view that the USSR did not exist, or that it is not in this world.
Which?
You DM-fans cannot, it seems, make your minds up."

What has this quote got to do with it? You know you are talking crap because the USSR did exist and was of this world, so why are you bringing in quotes of no relevance?


"But it does confirm what us Trots have been saying for over 60 years: you cannot build socialism in one country."

Hence why it was built in not only one county, but dozens around the world. And the past 60 years have also confirmed that you trots cannot point to one - one single measley little revolution that you have supported and say, with pride, that it succeeded and achieved something.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeY:

"Your arguments cannot be weak or strong, because they have no relevance to the debate..."

If your eyes are still working, check it out: this is a thread on the Philosophy section.

So my arguments are relevant. That means they cannot be weak (or that you do not think they are weak), since you are still arguing with me.

"You argue like a child..."

It&#39;s called &#39;taking the piss&#39;; I always do this to numpties.

Please promise me you won&#39;t change.

Winding you up is a doddle.

"but I am not talking about the Nazis..."

And yet you are talking about another terror state, about which you can find a few benighted souls who will say something positive -- but, just as this implies nothing in the Nazi case, it implies nothing here. Hence my analogy.

"Have you ever tried stopping a tank?"

No, but I am not 200 million workers.

And still the truth evades you: that the workers of E Europe and the USSR lifted not a finger to defend their &#39;state&#39;. The same seems to be the case in China.

That&#39;s 1.7 billion+ workers and peasants too scared to defend the state you Stalinists claim they control.

"That was the general feeling in Russia..."

So now you are reduced to making vague claims about &#39;feelings&#39;.

I note you (accidentally, I am sure) left out any mention of the exact % of Russians you surveyed to discover their &#39;feelings&#39;.

Perhaps you can now let us know....

"What has this quote got to do with it? You know you are talking crap because the USSR did exist and was of this world, so why are you bringing in quotes of no relevance?"

Well, once again, you should pick a fight with Lenin, for he it was who said these things, and they clearly claim that change is entirely internally-driven (for everything in existence -- no exceptions).

It is all the same to me if you disagree with him, or if you admit that his views commit you to believing the USSR did not exist (etc.).

Either way, dialectical materialism takes yet another body-blow.

And, on a philosophy thread, they are relevant.

"Hence why it was built in not only one county..."

But it wasn&#39;t.

You can&#39;t create a workers&#39; state with tanks (as in E Europe after 1945), or with guerilla armies (in China, or Cuba).

Workers&#39; states require workers&#39; revolutions.

So simple an idea, it takes tons of dialectics to miss it.

And as history has unfolded, the &#39;socialism&#39; Stalin tired to set up in Russia is no more.

So you (Stalinists) cannot even set up socialism in what used to be a workers&#39; state.

Chalk up another &#39;success&#39; to dialectical materialism....

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"So my arguments are relevant. That means they cannot be weak (or that you do not think they are weak), since you are still arguing with me."

They are in the philosophy section, but they have little relevance to the debate we are having.

"And yet you are talking about another terror state, about which you can find a few benighted souls who will say something positive -- but, just as this implies nothing in the Nazi case, it implies nothing here. Hence my analogy."

"Terror state" for the minority, great state for the majority, as my source below will shiw. But this is not the point. Well done, this is exactly what the western bourgeoise want to say. They have taken all the crimes and bad characteristics of fascism and turned them on their heads. They have intertwined them so much that it is now possible to stick the word "fascism" or "nazi" onto any country or government which bears even a faint resemblance to the outside appearance of fascism.

In fact you and your kind refuse to look at the deeper aims and ideals of the two very diferent political ideologies, instead preferring to fling labels and accusations, eventualy mixing these two beliefs from different sides of the spectrum into one. This is ridiiculous and the analogy bears no significance.


"No, but I am not 200 million workers.
And still the truth evades you: that the workers of E Europe and the USSR lifted not a finger to defend their &#39;state&#39;. The same seems to be the case in China.
That&#39;s 1.7 billion+ workers and peasants too scared to defend the state you Stalinists claim they control."

Once again, you bring China into the picture for some reason. China is blatant, in-your-face capitalist. The USSR wasn&#39;t. Get to grips with that.

And you trots expect the entire world population of over 6 billion to rise up spntaneously and unite against their opressors. Has this happened? Ever? Errr no. So why do you expect 200 million Russians to do this?

"So now you are reduced to making vague claims about &#39;feelings&#39;.
I note you (accidentally, I am sure) left out any mention of the exact % of Russians you surveyed to discover their &#39;feelings&#39;."

Yes, I did leave out the source accidentaly, thank for reminding me :).

POLL FINDS RUSSIANS LONGING FOR SOVIET POWER. Sixty-six percent of Russians regret the Soviet Union&#39;s collapse, according to a new poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTaIOM). The survey, covered by Interfax, found that seventy-four percent of those respondents linked their stance to regret over the collapse of a powerful state, while 23 percent regretted losing "the gains of socialism." Only 15 percent said there was nothing in the Soviet Union&#39;s history to be proud of, while 76 percent said that the Soviet collapse "destroyed everything people trusted and were proud of."

The title is exaggerated, but you get the general feeling...don&#39;t you?...You trots seem incapable of grasping feelings and sanely and objectively evaluating the real life situation in a country, instead preferring to isolate yourselves in some sort of &#39;political laboratory&#39; where you bury yourselves in dusty books.

This is why you keep stabbing real liberation movements in the back, under the pretext that they are letdowns bevause they have missed out some sort of formula or equasion of a philosopher who has been dead for a hundred years.


"But it wasn&#39;t.
You can&#39;t create a workers&#39; state with tanks (as in E Europe after 1945), or with guerilla armies (in China, or Cuba).
Workers&#39; states require workers&#39; revolutions."

Exactly&#33; Which is why you cannot see one worker in the photograph of a protest in Petrograd, 1917. :blink:

"So simple an idea, it takes tons of dialectics to miss it."

So simple an idea, that you trots can&#39;t, and never will, come up with anything better&#33;

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeY:

"They are in the philosophy section, but they have little relevance to the debate we are having."

So you say.

""Terror state" for the minority, great state for the majority..."

Nice re-write of history -- do you write for Blair and Bush, by any chance?

"Well done, this is exactly what the western bourgeoise want to say..."

In order to put western workers off communism (agreed), but you communists have given them all they needed by destroying the revolution of 1917. The non-existent deity&#39;s gift to our ruling-class you Stalin-groupies.

"Well done..."

"In fact you and your kind refuse to look at the deeper aims and ideals of the two very different political ideologies, instead preferring to fling labels and accusations..."

No, I merely appeal to the fat that both you and the Nazis justify mass murder, and then claim a few idiots can be found to praise it.

You need to stop copying the fascists, then.

"Once again, you bring China into the picture for some reason."

Chinese workers did not defend their system, just as Russian workers did not defend theirs; same reason: both were not workers&#39; states.

I am glad you have (inadvertently) admitted it.

More invention:

"And you trots expect the entire world population of over 6 billion to rise up spontaneously and unite against their oppressors."

Find me one place in anything a Trotskyist has ever written that even vaguely implies this.


""POLL FINDS RUSSIANS LONGING FOR SOVIET POWER. Sixty-six percent of Russians regret the Soviet Union&#39;s collapse, according to a new poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTaIOM). The survey, covered by Interfax, found that seventy-four percent of those respondents linked their stance to regret over the collapse of a powerful state, while 23 percent regretted losing "the gains of socialism." Only 15 percent said there was nothing in the Soviet Union&#39;s history to be proud of, while 76 percent said that the Soviet collapse "destroyed everything people trusted and were proud of." "

And as you should know, you can get whatever response you like if you ask biased questions.

"but you get the general feeling...don&#39;t you?"

No.

And your evidence for this piece of invention is what:

"You trots seem incapable of grasping feelings and sanely and objectively evaluating the real life situation in a country, instead preferring to isolate yourselves in some sort of &#39;political laboratory&#39; where you bury yourselves in dusty books."

Have you now surveyed all Trotskyists?

Busy little boy, aren&#39;t you?

"This is why you keep stabbing real liberation movements in the back, under the pretext that they are letdowns because they have missed out some sort of formula or equation of a philosopher who has been dead for a hundred years."

If this is the best you can do to justify substitutionism, i think us trots can sit back and watch you commies screw up some more.

Er:

Exactly&#33; Which is why you cannot see one worker in the photograph of a protest in Petrograd, 1917.”

And that proves the revolution in 1917 wasn&#39;t a workers&#39; revolution?

So, you are not a Marxist, then?

“So simple an idea, that you trots can&#39;t, and never will, come up with anything better&#33;”

Nor would we want to, since we accept the idea that only workers can create a workers’ state, which you do not, apparently.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"Nice re-write of history -- do you write for Blair and Bush, by any chance?"

I am not re-writing anything - it is you who is working for Blair and Bush by renouncing all liberation movements except those that fit your perfect little criteria (which has a fat chance or becoming reality, as you advocate "world revolution" rather than "trying to improve people&#39;s lives in one country).

"by destroying the revolution of 1917..."

And how exactly did we &#39;destroy it&#39; may I ask? As far as I know, it was Trotsky and his cronies Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev etc who tried constantly to destroy it. Thank God Stalin destroyed them first though. It was Trotsky and his cronies who advocated the disbanding of the Red Army during the Brest-Litovsk treaty (which he also opposed). Luckily nobody listened, otherwise we would be speaking German.

"...I merely appeal to the fat that both you and the Nazis justify mass murder, and then claim a few idiots can be found to praise it.
You need to stop copying the fascists, then."

And again you have shown igorance and stupidity. If this is the only comparison you can come up with, then we should be pretty worried, as a huge amount of government worldwide are, according to you, fascist. If "justifying mass murder" is the only characteristic, then Bush and Blair, as well as a huge amount of South American and Middle Eastern government, are also fascist.

Well at least something positive comes out of your trot logic. It follows on logically that if fascism is capitalism in decay, as Lenin put it, then any minute now we should be facing a world revolution.

"Chinese workers did not defend their system, just as Russian workers did not defend theirs; same reason: both were not workers&#39; states."

And tens of millions of exploited African, South American and Asian workers do nothing to start a revolution and throw off the yoke of the capitalists, so they must love the system (rampant capitalism) that they live under, is that what you&#39;re trying to say? So why don&#39;t we all just give up and stop trying? I bet you would love that.

"I am glad you have (inadvertently) admitted it."

"Find me one place in anything a Trotskyist has ever written that even vaguely implies this."

See above

"And your evidence for this piece of invention is what?"

Oh, have no worries, my evidence for this is as strong as your evidence that the USSR was a "terror state" and that Stalin "executed tens of millions of innocent workers". :)

"i think us trots can sit back and watch..."

You do that anyway, occasionaly getting off your asses to throw insults at people who struggle for a better life because they are, according to you, not struggling in a way that would suit them best.

"And that proves the revolution in 1917 wasn&#39;t a workers&#39; revolution?"

I was being sarcastic. Who else, if not workers, do you think is in the photo?

"So, you are not a Marxist, then?"

Yes, I am, you just need to learn to understand sarcasm.


"Nor would we want to, since we accept the idea that only workers can create a workers’ state, which you do not, apparently. "

Don&#39;t you mean "Nor are we capabe of"? And if its such a simple idea, can you point me to a revolution within the last 100 years that was, in your opinion, a worker&#39;s revolution that created a worker&#39;s state? I think not.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeY:

"And how exactly did we &#39;destroy it&#39; may I ask?"

By murdering all the leading Bolsheviks, reversing most of the gains made in 1917, bureuacratising and then killing off the soviets, controlling the unions, rigging the &#39;elections&#39;, murdering and imprisoning millions, screwing up the Chinese, Spanish and a half-dozen other revolutions, pitting communists against socalists in Germany (thus allowing Hitler to gain power), forming alliances with Hitler, invading Poland and Finland, cuddling up to the US and UK in WW2 after Hitler invaded the USSR....

Need I go on?

I am sorry, let me know when this makes sense:

"And again you have shown igorance and stupidity. If this is the only comparison you can come up with, then we should be pretty worried, as a huge amount of government worldwide are, according to you, fascist. If "justifying mass murder" is the only characteristic, then Bush and Blair, as well as a huge amount of South American and Middle Eastern government, are also fascist.

Well at least something positive comes out of your trot logic. It follows on logically that if fascism is capitalism in decay, as Lenin put it, then any minute now we should be facing a world revolution."

And what has this to do with anything:

"And tens of millions of exploited African, South American and Asian workers do nothing to start a revolution and throw off the yoke of the capitalists, so they must love the system (rampant capitalism) that they live under, is that what you&#39;re trying to say? So why don&#39;t we all just give up and stop trying? I bet you would love that."

And is this an appeal to &#39;God&#39;?

"See above"

"Oh, have no worries, my evidence for this is as strong as your evidence that the USSR was a "terror state" and that Stalin "executed tens of millions of innocent workers"."

So you say.

"You do that anyway, occasionaly getting off your asses to throw insults at people who struggle for a better life because they are, according to you, not struggling in a way that would suit them best."

Well, even if this were true (which it isn&#39;t), we haven&#39;t yet managed to murder millions, and besmirch the name of Marx by destroying the 1917 revolution, or any of the other crimes I outlined above.

"Who else, if not workers, do you think is in the photo?"

And how does that prove that Russian tanks can create a workers&#39; state in E Europe?

"Yes, I am, you just need to learn to understand sarcasm."

So you are a sarcastic non-Marxist?

"Don&#39;t you mean "Nor are we capabe of"? And if its such a simple idea, can you point me to a revolution within the last 100 years that was, in your opinion, a worker&#39;s revolution that created a worker&#39;s state? I think not."

Don&#39;t you mean:

"Nor are we communists capabe of"?

"And if its such a simple idea, can you point me to a revolution within the last 100 years that was, in your opinion, a worker&#39;s revolution that created a worker&#39;s state? I think not."

And that is why I blame you dialectical marxists for screwing the workers&#39; movement up.

Had any luck firing-up a few brain cells and figuring out yet whether you agree with Lenin or not, or whether you think the USSR did not exist?

"Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in &#39;self-movement&#39; (as Hegel sometimes puts it)…." [Lenin (1921)&#39;, Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation And The Mistakes Of Comrades Trotsky And Bukharin&#39;, p.90. Bold emphasis added.]

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their &#39;self-movement&#39;, in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the &#39;struggle&#39; of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).

"In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of &#39;self-movement&#39;.

"The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the &#39;self-movement&#39; of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the &#39;leaps,&#39; to the &#39;break in continuity,&#39; to the &#39;transformation into the opposite,&#39; to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new.

"The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961) Collected Works. Vol. 38, pp.357-58. Bold emphasis added.]

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

I will first answer the shorter of your posts, saving the "best till last".


"I am sorry, let me know when this makes sense:"
"And what has this to do with anything:"

It has everything to do with your argument about the collapse of the USSR and your accusations of it being a "terror state".

Let me phrase it simpler -

You said that "150 million Russian workers (you later brought in 1.7 billion+ chinese workers into the equation) got scared to death of a few tanks and some drunk" which is why, in your opinion, they did not arm themselves with shovels, turn up in Moscow and charge the tanks, thus saving their state.

I said - Hundreds of millions of South American, Asian and African workers do nothing to liberate themselves or start a revolution - does this mean they love the system they live under? No. So yes, rebellions can, surprisingly enough, be put down by "a drunk and a few tanks" as you put it.

Also the only comparison you could come up with between the USSR and the Third Reich was that both in your opinion "justified the murder of millions".

Where you actually got these "millions" from in the USSR&#39;s case nobody knows, but this is not the point. If "large amounts of people being murdered at home or abroad" is your criteria for labelling a country a "fascist state", then a worryingly large portion of world governments are, or have been fascist in the last hundred years, according to your logic.


"So you say"
"I am sorry, let me know when this makes sense"
"And what has this to do with anything"

You really seem to like spouting these crappy demagogic sentences don&#39;t you?

"So you are a sarcastic non-Marxist?"
:blink: Yes...

"And that is why I blame you dialectical marxists for screwing the workers&#39; movement up."

Why don&#39;t you stop blaming and start doing something productive?

"Had any luck firing-up a few brain cells and figuring out yet whether you agree with Lenin or not, or whether you think the USSR did not exist?"

:blink: Yes, you have convinced me to believe that the USSR did not actually exist and we are actually alter egoes of ourselves, living in a time warped black hole in a galaxy far far away... Stop taking quotes and putting them out of context.

Now for the last bit, man am I looking forward to this...

"By murdering all the leading Bolsheviks"

Please give some examples and some evidence that they were true "leading bolsheviks" and not trotskyist traitors working against the revolution.


"reversing most of the gains made in 1917"

Examples? You say "most of", good we have made progress and admitted there were some gains...


"bureuacratising and then killing off the soviets"

....


"controlling the unions"

Where did this come from? They were not "controlled"&#33;


"rigging the &#39;elections&#39;"

As it turns out, election rigging was not something solely confined to the USSR. When Blair gets into power on the minority of the vote here in the UK, and pushes laws and bills through parliament that rely on the votes of opposition parties (even more in the minority) to hold them up, I do not call this democracy either.


"murdering and imprisoning millions"

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...pic=48757&st=25 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48757&st=25)

We could argue about that forever.


"screwing up the Chinese, Spanish and a half-dozen other revolutions"

Was it up to him to not "screw them up" as you say? You clearly did a better job. But as far as I know, the USSR sent many weapons and supplies to the Spanish republicans. The USSR also supported communist forces in China, would you prefer if they supported the Nationalists? Please give some more examples of these "half a dozen others".


"pitting communists against socalists in Germany (thus allowing Hitler to gain power)"

So Stalin was some kind of god who could pit entire political parties in other countries against each other? And how exactly could the SDP and KDP have stopped the Nazi coming to power?&#33; In the 1932 presidential elections, Hindenburg, Hitler&#39;s opponent, was suported both by the Republican parties and by the Communist candidate. Only in 1933 when Hitler was made Chancellor (through an un-democratic process which could not be stoppedand passed The Reichstag Fire Act and The Enabling Act (banning the KDP completely) did the Nazis have the opportunity to gain full power.


"forming alliances with Hitler, invading Poland and Finland"

Do you understand anything about that historical situation?&#33; Forming alliances with Hitler?&#33; It was the Munich Agreement of 1938 which was the first case of a govenmenrt "forming alliances with Hitler" as you call it&#33; There was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, which is a very different thing to an alliance, as Germany and Italy had. Get your facts and definitions right.

As for the Invasion of Finland, St Petersburg (then Leningrad) was only 32km away from Finnish military - within range long-range artilley fire. Having offered the Finns (who even then showed signs of friendliness towards the Nazis) a deal in which the border would be movved away in exchange for more land elsewhere, the Finns answered with a ridicuous offer that f they moved their troops back 25km, the Soviets would do the same. They knew this was impossible, as this would mean Soviet troops being placed in the suburbs of Leningrad itself, which would pose a threat to the city&#39;s population.



"cuddling up to the US and UK in WW2 after Hitler invaded the USSR...."

Bullshit. Give some evidence of this "cuddling up" for a change. Let me tell you some facts about your beloved Trotsky and his "cuddling up" to various opposing factions.

Leiba Davidovich Bronshtein escaped to Paris where he became close to millionaire zionists. H emarried a second time, to the daughter of the millionaire Zhitovskiy, who with his company of bankers including Varburg and Shiff financed the destruction of the revolution in Russia.

To raise his popularity, they organised trips and lectures abroad for Trotsky, to attract socialists, mensheviks, and "social revolutionaries".

All of Trotsky&#39;s speeches and writings before his return to Russia were contradictory to to Lenin&#39;s in theoretical and practical questions relating to the revolutionary movement.

This is what Trotsky wrote about Lenin in 1913: "All Leninism at the moment is built on lies and falsification and carries in itself the poisonous apple of self destruction". "Lenin is a proffesional exploitator of everything backward in the Russian worker&#39;s movement".

In 1916 during the war, Trotsky&#39;s speeches, as a defeatist, were criminal which is why he is expelled from France, which ws Russia&#39;s ally. Trotsky&#39;s "owners" used this opportunity to show their "chosen one" to their American colleagues. Trotsky was liked there too, and he opens his own paper, "The New World". On whose money? On the money of his compatriots - bankers.

In New York, he met another anti-leninist - Bukharin. On the way back to Russia after the February revolution, he was arrested in Canade. But "somebody" took the necessary measures and and he was freed on personal request of Kerensky.

The widely known british agent Bruce Lockhart, captured and exiled from Russia for the organisation of anit-soviet coups, in his book "English Agent" writes: "...The English Special Service intended to use to their advantage the disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky".

Lokhart established a constant link with Trotsky, he met with him often in his own cabinet (he was the national commissar of foreign affairs) and received from him "first-hand information about the situation in government and its decisions on all matters". Lockhart openly writes in his book that "dreamt of organising a grand putsch with Trotsky".

In March 1918 French and British agents planned an allied landing in Murmansk. The plan was to concentrate a large force of White Army troops there and move the 50 000-strong Czechoslovakian corps to the location.

To complete the plan, Lockhart turned to Trotsky, and as Lockhart says "Trotsky agreed to send the corps to Murmansk and Arhangelsk". "Trotsky showed his willingness to work with the allies...he always gave us what we wanted, made the cooperation easier"..

These are just some of the facts from Bronshtein&#39;s early "career".

There is also his refusal to obey Lenin&#39;s orders and sign a treaty with the Germans which resulted in a massive German offenisve (due to Bronshtein&#39;s advocation of the demobilisation of the army) and then the humiliating Brest-Litovsk Treaty

His hand in the attempted coup of August 28 1918 (luckily stopped by Dherzhinsky). After the failure of this coup Lockhart himslef wrote "Trotsky was as incapable of taking on Lenin, as a flea is incapable of taking on an elephant".

His failures in the Civil War, which had to be corrected by Stalin, Frunze, Voroshilov, Budeniy and Egorov, and whose victories were often attributed to Bronshtein by his "friends" in the foreign media.

His aggression towards the Russian Orthodox Church

Amongst other things. So don&#39;t tell me about "cuddling up" to anyone - yur idol Bronshtein and his zionist cronies would know better about these things.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeY:

"I said - Hundreds of millions of South American, Asian and African workers do nothing to liberate themselves or start a revolution - does this mean they love the system they live under?"

And what has this to do with the point at issue?

"Where you actually got these "millions" from in the USSR&#39;s case nobody knows..."

The Nazis had a phrase for this ort of denial too: &#39;nacht ud nebel&#39;: those forgotten millions are all the same to you worhippers of terror.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Natzweiler/H...ightAndFog.html (http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Natzweiler/History/NightAndFog.html)

"You really seem to like spouting these crappy demagogic sentences don&#39;t you?"

As I said earlier, I like winding numpties like you up.

I also expressed the hope you would not change -- and thanks to you, you haven&#39;t.

Keep it up...

"Why don&#39;t you stop blaming and start doing something productive?"

I like to see you waste your time trying desperately to answer me.

"Yes, you have convinced me to believe that the USSR did not actually exist and we are actually alter egoes of ourselves, living in a time warped black hole in a galaxy far far away... Stop taking quotes and putting them out of context."

So, Lenin was wrong then?

The fact that you have come to see this, is progress indeed.

"Please give some examples and some evidence that they were true "leading bolsheviks" and not trotskyist traitors working against the revolution."

Classic propaganda -- just as I expected.

"You say "most of", good we have made progress and admitted there were some gains..."

I left that in as a hook to distract you; I can live with &#39;all&#39;.

"They were not "controlled"&#33;"

So the workers did not control the unions, as I suspected.

"We could argue about that forever."

Probably not; I suspect that if your lot ever exercise power again (perish the thought&#33;), you will be one of the first into the next nacht und nebel exercise (for associating with "Trotskyist traitors", here)....

"Please give some more examples of these "half a dozen others"."

Ok; half a dozen = 6.

Glad I could help.

"So Stalin was some kind of god..."

So you lot seem to believe.

"There was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, which is a very different thing to an alliance, as Germany and Italy had..."

An alliance, as I said -- to carve up Poland etc.

"As for the Invasion of Finland, St Petersburg (then Leningrad) was only 32km away from Finnish military - within range long-range artilley fire. Having offered the Finns (who even then showed signs of friendliness towards the Nazis).."

So having screwed up by allying with Hitler, Stalin found he had gotten into bed with a tiger, and the Finns copped it. Result, tens of thousands of workers dead. Very socialist....

"Bullshit."

Never mind, let&#39;s hear it anyway.

And, you can read this stuff on right-wing, Nazi web sites, and in the books of crazed conspiracy theorists:

"Leiba Davidovich Bronshtein escaped to Paris where he became close to millionaire zionists. H emarried a second time, to the daughter of the millionaire Zhitovskiy, who with his company of bankers including Varburg and Shiff financed the destruction of the revolution in Russia."

As I said, you should write for Bush.

The rest of the bile you have spewed out, I have read far too many times before to bother reading it again. Any more I will just skip.

You Stalinists, for all your commitment to the idea that everything is changing, never seem to do so.

Same old b*llocks.

[Comrade Yastrebkov]

"And what has this to do with the point at issue?"

It has as much to do with the point as your constant quoting of Lenin, taken out of context. If you can&#39;t read (or refuse to read) properly, there&#39;s no point talking to you.

"The Nazis had a phrase for this sort of denial too: &#39;nacht ud nebel&#39;: those forgotten millions are all the same to you worhippers of terror."

America and Britain have a name for this too. I believe it is called "liberating the Iraqi people" (Operation Iraqi Freedom).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1724837,00.html

Somewhat larger scale than the specific example you brought up though.


"As I said earlier, I like winding numpties like you up."

You are failing miserably even at that, your ad hominem arguments make me laugh. You are simply showing everyone exactly what an ignorant, demagogic and superficial zionist you are.


"I like to see you waste your time trying desperately to answer me."

Answering you is truly a waste of time&#33; I would have given up long ago had your lack of historical knowledge not astounded me so much.


"So, Lenin was wrong then?
The fact that you have come to see this, is progress indeed."

This isn&#39;t a court. Stop trying to win over my factual arguments by bringing up technicalities.


"Classic propaganda -- just as I expected."

Then prove it otherwise, with an argument other than "So you say" "Or Stalin ate babies".


"So the workers did not control the unions, as I suspected."

Tell me honestly, are you under the age of 10, or is your full-time job in a mental asylum? Maybe if you understood the term "ad hominum" you could tackle your problem? Here&#39;s a link:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=def...d+hominum&meta= (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define%3Aad+hominum&meta=)


"Probably not; I suspect that if your lot ever exercise power again (perish the thought&#33;), you will be one of the first into the next nacht und nebel exercise (for associating with "Trotskyist traitors", here)...."

Ah&#33; The rapier wit cuts me like a knife&#33; Once again avoiding the argument...

"Ok; half a dozen = 6.
Glad I could help."

And again, "Oh dear. No historical knowledge" she thinks "lets come up with a poor joke instead". Do you actually know anything about the accusations you make, or did you simply type in "Stalin is Bad" on google?


"So Stalin was some kind of god..."
So you lot seem to believe."


"controlling the unions"
"pitting communists against socalists in Germany"
"screwing up the Chinese, Spanish and a half-dozen other revolutions"

Well, he was pretty "omnipotent" and "omnipresent" according to what you would have us believe.


"An alliance, as I said..."

Look, little girl, look up the definitions of "pact" and "alliance", then come back and try to argue your case. Here&#39;s some useful links again:

Pact: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define%3Apact&meta=

Alliance: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=def...Aalliance&meta= (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define%3Aalliance&meta=)


"And, you can read this stuff on right-wing, Nazi web sites, and in the books of crazed conspiracy theorists"

1. Do you now deny that your leader&#39;s real name was Leiba Davidovich Bronstein?

2. Do you have proof that he did not work and cooperate directly with agents from the British Intelligence? Because I have proof that he did, and the source is widely known.

3. Do you deny that his second marriage was to the daughter of a millionaire banker Abram Zhivotovsky? With links to the Warburg brothers?

=These are all facts. That you can find even by searching on google or on wikipedia, unless you consider these to be conspiracy websites?

As a matter of interest, off the subject, what is your opinion regarding the conflict in Palestine?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeY:

More empty promises (you said the same days ago):

"It has as much to do with the point as your constant quoting of Lenin, taken out of context. If you can&#39;t read (or refuse to read) properly, there&#39;s no point talking to you."

There never has been; wise up.

Are you tipsy:

"America and Britain have a name for this too. I believe it is called "liberating the Iraqi people..."

That is the only way I can account for that irrelevant comment.

"You are failing miserably even at that, your ad hominem arguments make me laugh."

So you say.

"You are simply showing everyone exactly what an ignorant, demagogic and superficial zionist you are."

I am in fact an anti-zionist.

Don&#39;t you look foolish?

"Answering you is truly a waste of time&#33;"

Rather like your existence, I&#39;d say.

"This isn&#39;t a court. Stop trying to win over my factual arguments by bringing up technicalities"

No, but it does mean you and Lenin see things differently.

"Stalin ate babies".

Oh my non-existent deity, did he? How many?

"Tell me honestly, are you under the age of 10, or is your full-time job in a mental asylum? "

Yes, but I am still 5 years older than you, and my job in the asylum has helped me to recognise delusional people like you pretty quickly. My advise: get help fast.

"Once again avoiding the argument..."

Yes, I learnt that trick from you Stalinists.

"Stalin is Bad"

I agree.

"Look, little girl, look up the definitions of "pact" and "alliance", then come back and try to argue your case. Here&#39;s some useful links again.."

Thanks for the links, sonny, I&#39;ll be sure not to check them.

"your leader..."

Haven&#39;t got one, never had, and anyone who attempted to become one would be my implaccable enemy.

You see, I do not belong to a personality cult like you Stalinists.

"As a matter of interest, off the subject, what is your opinion regarding the conflict in Palestine?"

100% support for Palestinian liberation, and ending the Zionist state.

As if you care what I think.