Discussing History

[Leo]

Discussing history for trying to reveal the truth is a quite helpful thing, and we have all read from historical theoreticians and the practices and we all reached different conclusions, and it is really good to share those conclusions and discuss about the theories and their relation to the current situation and the future but under one condition: we must actually have fun doing that. If we start calling each other names over our opinions on dead bodies, no matter who those dead bodies are, then we can only fuck up. There dozens of different organizations that try to unite the workers. Historical fact: if dozens of organizations try to unite the workers, the workers won't unite. Lets just stop fighting over the past and look up to the future alright?

[Mesijs]

That's a very positive and utopian view, but leftist people just have total different views with respect to each other. I'm sorry, but I can't unite with someone who praises Stalin, nor can I unite with someone who wants something different than me. The problem with leftists is that there are so many divisions, that there isn't a real common ideology.

[Red Polak]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 09:28 PM
I'm sorry, but I can't unite with someone who praises Stalin, nor can I unite with someone who wants something different than me. The problem with leftists is that there are so many divisions, that there isn't a real common ideology.
I agree.

Also, the past is very important; if people learnt from it they might not make the same mistakes as earlier generations. Ignoring it could be very foolish indeed, like saying "well that Hitler chap, sure he killed a few but let's give national socialism another chance".

[Leo]

That's a very positive and utopian view, but leftist people just have total different views with respect to each other.

I would try to hesitate before calling something 'utopian', because actually what is 'utopian' is the thing we can't imagine. We are capable of turning anything we imagine into reality, therefore our imagination is truly our current limit, and development happens as we imagine new things.


I'm sorry, but I can't unite with someone who praises Stalin, nor can I unite with someone who wants something different than me. The problem with leftists is that there are so many divisions, that there isn't a real common ideology.

I don't like Stalin either but he is not important and people who think different than us are not important, even ideology is not important. What matters is what workers think, what workers do, the reality, the practice. Intellectuals are not an executive or a revolutionary force. Our sole duty is uniting the working class and raising their consciousness.

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 7 2006, 08:40 PM

That's a very positive and utopian view, but leftist people just have total different views with respect to each other.

I would try to hesitate before calling something 'utopian', because actually what is 'utopian' is the thing we can't imagine. We are capable of turning anything we imagine into reality, therefore our imagination is truly our current limit, and development happens as we imagine new things.


I'm sorry, but I can't unite with someone who praises Stalin, nor can I unite with someone who wants something different than me. The problem with leftists is that there are so many divisions, that there isn't a real common ideology.

I don't like Stalin either but he is not important and people who think different than us are not important, even ideology is not important. What matters is what workers think, what workers do, the reality, the practice. Intellectuals are not an executive or a revolutionary force. Our sole duty is uniting the working class and raising their consciousness.
Sure, but uniting them on what basis? With what reality? With what future? With what lessons of history? You can't simply say: worker's, unite! You can unite them in different ways, with different visions for the future, and that's the core problem of the leftist movement: the vision for the future. And one's vision of the future is also seen in one's vision of the history.

[piet11111]

thats the scary part of revolution if you ask me.
what happens when we ran out of capitalists and find ourselves amongst leninists anarchists marxists and stalinists trotsky-ists etc.

i think some factions will decide to let their guns do the talking instead of working together.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 08:57 PM
i think some factions will decide to let their guns do the talking instead of working together.
That's what happened in many previous revolutions. Leninists, Trotskyists and/or Stalinists slaughtered the other factions. There are cases of anarchist and social democratic revolutions where it didn't go quite as far, though.

[Leo]

Sure, but uniting them on what basis? With what reality? With what future? With what lessons of history? You can't simply say: worker's, unite! You can unite them in different ways, with different visions for the future, and that's the core problem of the leftist movement: the vision for the future. And one's vision of the future is also seen in one's vision of the history.

What matters is the vision of the future of the united workers. They are the only revolutionary force in the world. They will build the future, the reality collectively. Our task is to unite them, not to lead them, not to tell them what to do. Of course there will be debates between intellectuals, and some groups will tell the workers they should be lead, and we will oppose this by all means, and we will be right, and the workers will side with the right.


thats the scary part of revolution if you ask me.
what happens when we ran out of capitalists and find ourselves amongst leninists anarchists marxists and stalinists trotsky-ists etc.

i think some factions will decide to let their guns do the talking instead of working together.

Once we unite the workers, they will show who's the boss to the factions who are stupid enough to let their guns do the talking instead of working together.


That's what happened in many previous revolutions. Leninists, Trotskyists and/or Stalinists slaughtered the other factions. There are cases of anarchist and social democratic revolutions where it didn't go quite as far, though.

The only other way of making a revolution is to do the same thing to them, which is bound to fail as they had failed.

Factions that want to lead are real, and they are supported by some amounts of workers. If we unite with them and other factions as well on the basis of an organization that's main principle is to keep the movement and workers united, then we will be able to convince the workers that they don't need any leadership, and they will be convinced with this, because first of all it is true and it is also one of the cores of the movement.

[Comrade Marcel]

I just came across this quote from Lenin, for those of who say Stalin was wrong (even though he brought more Socialism and brought the world closer to communism with the USSR more than anyone except for Mao and the PRC):

"We know that the transition from capitalism to socialism is a very difficult task. But we are ready to endure thousands of difficulties and to make a thousand attempts, and after the thousandth attempt we will commence the one thousand and first." -- Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 23 Page 56.

[Leo]

I was hoping a Stalinist or a Maoist or someone like that to reply to this topic. I fail to see how this quote proves that Stalin was right. I also came across something, a dialogue between Dimitroff and Stalin from an article of Zizek; I leave the commentary to readers:

“In the diaries of Georgi Dimitroff, which were recently published in German,28 we get a unique glimpse into how Stalin was fully aware what brought him to power, giving an unexpected twist to his well-known slogan that "people (cadres) are our greatest wealth." When, at a diner in November 1937, Dimitroff praises the "great luck" of the international workers, that they had such a genius as their leader, Stalin, Stalin answers: "... I do not agree with him. He even expressed himself in a non-Marxist way. /.../ Decisive are the middle cadres."(7.11.37) He puts it in an even clearer way a paragraph earlier: "Why did we win over Trotsky and others? It is well known that, after Lenin, Trotsky was the most popular in our land. /.../ But we had the support of the middle cadres, and they explained our grasp of the situation to the masses ... Trotsky did not pay any attention to these cadres." Here Stalin spells out the secret of his rise to power: as a rather anonymous General Secretary, he nominated tens of thousands of cadres who owed their rise to him... This is why Stalin did not yet want Lenin dead in the early 1922, rejecting his demand to be given poison to end his life after the debilitating stroke: if Lenin were to die already in early 1922, the question of succession would not yet be resolved in Stalin's favor, since Stalin as the general secretary did not yet penetrate enough the Party apparatus with his appointees - he needed another year or two, so that, when Lenin effectively dies, he could count on the support of thousands of mid-level cadres nominated by him to win over the big old names of the Bolshevik "aristocracy."

My point is, if discussing historical figures divides the movement, screw the historical figures. Workers will lead the movement and decide and build the future but they must be united, and it is the future that matters, not the past. If you agree with this, no matter which historical figure you love or hate, we should be on the same side. The only thing I can not forgive is dividing the movement, which means dividing the workers as well, it destroys the revolution itself.

[chimx]

As long as we are citing lenin:

"The only larger douchebag than myself is Stalin." -- Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 19 Page 143.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 8 2006, 03:33 PM
I was hoping a Stalinist or a Maoist or someone like that to reply to this topic. I fail to see how this quote proves that Stalin was right. I also came across something, a dialogue between Dimitroff and Stalin from an article of Zizek; I leave the commentary to readers:

“In the diaries of Georgi Dimitroff, which were recently published in German,28 we get a unique glimpse into how Stalin was fully aware what brought him to power, giving an unexpected twist to his well-known slogan that "people (cadres) are our greatest wealth." When, at a diner in November 1937, Dimitroff praises the "great luck" of the international workers, that they had such a genius as their leader, Stalin, Stalin answers: "... I do not agree with him. He even expressed himself in a non-Marxist way. /.../ Decisive are the middle cadres."(7.11.37) He puts it in an even clearer way a paragraph earlier: "Why did we win over Trotsky and others? It is well known that, after Lenin, Trotsky was the most popular in our land. /.../ But we had the support of the middle cadres, and they explained our grasp of the situation to the masses ... Trotsky did not pay any attention to these cadres." Here Stalin spells out the secret of his rise to power: as a rather anonymous General Secretary, he nominated tens of thousands of cadres who owed their rise to him... This is why Stalin did not yet want Lenin dead in the early 1922, rejecting his demand to be given poison to end his life after the debilitating stroke: if Lenin were to die already in early 1922, the question of succession would not yet be resolved in Stalin's favor, since Stalin as the general secretary did not yet penetrate enough the Party apparatus with his appointees - he needed another year or two, so that, when Lenin effectively dies, he could count on the support of thousands of mid-level cadres nominated by him to win over the big old names of the Bolshevik "aristocracy."

My point is, if discussing historical figures divides the movement, screw the historical figures. Workers will lead the movement and decide and build the future but they must be united, and it is the future that matters, not the past. If you agree with this, no matter which historical figure you love or hate, we should be on the same side. The only thing I can not forgive is dividing the movement, which means dividing the workers as well, it destroys the revolution itself.
Wow, Leo. Is that supposed to be written by a historian? Because the writer certainly assumes a bunch of things without any evidence. For example:

"Here Stalin spells out the secret of his rise to power: as a rather anonymous General Secretary, he nominated tens of thousands of cadres who owed their rise to him... "

Where's the proof of this? That's not how I interpreted Stalin's quote (which BTW, your anonymous historian decided to chop the quotes up very nicely, so that we only read the parts of the conversation that make his point sound like it could be valid). I interpreted Stalin as saying he paid attention to the party ranks (in other words did the work correctly). If your historian is trying to show some "ulterior motive" then he/she should offer more evidence.

"This is why Stalin did not yet want Lenin dead in the early 1922, rejecting his demand to be given poison to end his life after the debilitating stroke .."

More bullshit, again let's see some evidence. Did Stalin tell someone this?

And just for reference, which publication are you quoting this garbage from?

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 05:15 PM
As long as we are citing lenin:

"The only larger douchebag than myself is Stalin." -- Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 19 Page 143.
I have the collected works, and I actually checked this and that's not what it says. I did find this though:

"Chimx is a bloody counter-revolutionary fuck-bucket." -- Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 19 Page 143.

[Leo]

And just for reference, which publication are you quoting this garbage from?

Slavoj Zizek, Repeating Lenin, it's a deep work, here's the link:

http://lacan.com/replenin.htm

This is the diaries of Dimitroff: Georgi Dimitroff, Tagebuecher 1933-1943, Berlin: Aufbau Verlag 2000, I don't think it is free via web, I couldn't find it anywhere online.


I interpreted Stalin as saying he paid attention to the party ranks

That's enough of an "ulterior motive", the whole point even Lenin defended was to pay attention to the workers, not party ranks.

I've got nothing personal here but;
By calling everything you don't like garbage, you miss out very important works.
By calling everyone who don't agree with counter-revolutionary, you become counter-revolutionary.

If you are a revolutionary, you must not only accept the existance and importance of other workers movements, but you must unite with them, all of them, including the Anarchists, Council Communists, Trotskysts etc. Basically all that you don't like within the workers movement. Only then can the workers of the world have a chance to be united. If you believe that you hold the truth, which I'm sure you do, then you have nothing to worry about because workers will decide what is right and true.

If you oppose such union, then you are sacrificing the only chance workers have to unite and overthrow the capitalist system only because of your personal stand and interpretation of history. This would be the real counter-revolutionary action.

[chimx]

good comeback.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 10:49 PM
good comeback.
I tried. :P