Worker's control in the USSR

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Jello+March 18, 2007 08:31 pm--> (Jello @ March 18, 2007 08:31 pm)
[email protected] 18, 2007 04:52 pm
Any revolution that achieves any reasonable degree of success will intrinsically be Marxist-Leninist, because Marxism-Leninism offers the only working way of organizing the masses for revolution.
Yes, because we saw how that worked in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, etc. :rolleyes: [/b]
Yep. The masses were empowered more than they ever had been at any point in human history until they were unfortunately defeated by imperialism.

Worker's democracy, the doubling of life expectancy, the empowerment of women and youth, the defeat of Nazism, improved working conditions, the liberation of oppressed nations...these all seem like things that should be fought for to me.

[Ander]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 06:07 pm
When you have a working non-leninist example that lasts longer you can make such stupid statements.
Excuse me?

Besides set up a corrupt beauracratic elite, what exactly did these revolutions do to assist worker's struggle?

Yes, education and healthcare was free in the Soviet Union, we all know that. That propaganda-laced school system did well for the inhabitants of the USSR.

Why do you defend something that failed? Don't call me stupid because you're living in the past, holding onto something that very vaguely touches the definition of socialism.


Yep. The masses were empowered more than they ever had been at any point in human history until they were unfortunately defeated by imperialism.

Worker's democracy, the doubling of life expectancy, the empowerment of women and youth, the defeat of Nazism, improved working conditions, the liberation of oppressed nations...these all seem like things that should be fought for to me.

Granted, some of your points are very strong and these are some positive aspects of these revolutions. However, you cannot deny that the systems imposed in China and the Soviet Union were a far cry from socialism and violent in their methods.


Worker's democracy?

When did the workers ever control the means of production in these countries?


the liberation of oppressed nations

Yes, the Warsaw Pact nations were liberated...and then quickly occupied again, this time by a new military force. Any attempts to step out of line of the strict Soviet system was harshly crushed and policy was dictated by the Party.

[bezdomni]

Granted, some of your points are very strong and these are some positive aspects of these revolutions. However, you cannot deny that the systems imposed in China and the Soviet Union were a far cry from socialism and violent in their methods.

The Bolshevik Revolution was a socialist revolution that established socialism in the Soviet Union. The Chinese Revolution did the same in China.

What happened is these revolutions were internally stifled by not handling contradictions properly (ie, Stalin's purges showed his inability to deal with contradictions in the Party or Deng Xiaopeng restoring capitalism in China) and they were externally defeated by imperialism (ie, the Cold War).


When did the workers ever control the means of production in these countries?

It is hard to set any exact dates...because it is not like the worker's are in power, then Stalin becomes General Secretary and POOF - No more worker's power! That would be immaterialist. However, I do maintain that the workers were in power in both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China for some time. The length of this time is still an interesting and worthwhile question, but is not relevent to this discussion.


Yes, the Warsaw Pact nations were liberated...and then quickly occupied again, this time by a new military force. Any attempts to step out of line of the strict Soviet system was harshly crushed and policy was dictated by the Party.

I was referring more to say...the oppression of Jews in Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, or many of the other oppressed nations that were liberated by socialist revolution.

(Note, my definition for a nation is "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.")

[Ander]

The Bolshevik Revolution was a socialist revolution that established socialism in the Soviet Union. The Chinese Revolution did the same in China.

What happened is these revolutions were internally stifled by not handling contradictions properly (ie, Stalin's purges showed his inability to deal with contradictions in the Party or Deng Xiaopeng restoring capitalism in China) and they were externally defeated by imperialism (ie, the Cold War).

Socialism was not established in either of these two countries. What really happened was that power shifted hands from land-holding aristocrats to the high up members of the Communist parties.


It is hard to set any exact dates...because it is not like the worker's are in power, then Stalin becomes General Secretary and POOF - No more worker's power! That would be immaterialist. However, I do maintain that the workers were in power in both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China for some time. The length of this time is still an interesting and worthwhile question, but is not relevent to this discussion.

...What are you even saying?

That was one of the worst arguments I've ever seen. You make a claim to counter my own yet you say that the details behind it are not relevant? So basically you're saying that you know that the workers had power, but you cannot tell me when or how and even if you could, it's not relevant?

That's like going to court and saying that the evidence has nothing to do and that the accused is just guilty.


I was referring more to say...the oppression of Jews in Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, or many of the other oppressed nations that were liberated by socialist revolution.

(Note, my definition for a nation is "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.")

I think you should know what you're talking about before you start spewing out complete bullshit. Oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union was quite common, especially during (but not limited to) the rule of Stalin.

Have you ever heard of the The Doctor's Plot? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot) Or maybe the Night of the Murdered Poets? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Murdered_Poets)

Would you like some more?

[Iron Balls]

The Bolshevik Revolution was a socialist revolution that established socialism in the Soviet Union.

Wow. I think you've perhaps answered one of the most ambitious questions ever posed about the Russian Revolution. In that case, perhaps you can explain what was socialist about the Soviet Union, and when it ceased to be socialist.


What happened is these revolutions were internally stifled by not handling contradictions properly (ie, Stalin's purges showed his inability to deal with contradictions in the Party

The Great Terror came in 1937...how exactly was 1917 stifled by purges some twenty years later?


It is hard to set any exact dates...because it is not like the worker's are in power, then Stalin becomes General Secretary and POOF - No more worker's power! That would be immaterialist. However, I do maintain that the workers were in power in both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China for some time. The length of this time is still an interesting and worthwhile question, but is not relevent to this discussion.

The question of workers' power is at the very heart of the matter. And the answer to Jello's question is simple. You cannot prove there was workers' power in the Soviet Union, simply because there wasn't workers' power.

As a side note, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was, in my opinion, a great victory for worldwide socialism and the left in general.

[bezdomni]

Socialism was not established in either of these two countries. What really happened was that power shifted hands from land-holding aristocrats to the high up members of the Communist parties.

No...what really happened was property left the hands of the landowners and industrialists and was put into the hands of the workers and peasants.


...What are you even saying?

That it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to say "socialism left the USSR on March 17, 1937 at 4:21pm" or anything to that measure.

My argument was that the Stalinist bureaucracy eventually overpowered the workers, and at this point, the Soviet Union became state capitalist.

However, what I said was that this question of "when, if ever, was the Soviet Union no longer socialist?", although an interesting and worthwhile question, is irrelevent to our discussion of Leninism. If you want to argue about Stalin, then go to one of the Stalin threads.


I think you should know what you're talking about before you start spewing out complete bullshit. Oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union was quite common, especially during (but not limited to) the rule of Stalin.

Have you ever heard of the The Doctor's Plot? Or maybe the Night of the Murdered Poets?

Would you like some more?

And it was one of the members of this "privileged elite" who brought these events to light.


The Great Terror came in 1937...how exactly was 1917 stifled by purges some twenty years later?

Um...it wasn't...


The question of workers' power is at the very heart of the matter. And the answer to Jello's question is simple. You cannot prove there was workers' power in the Soviet Union, simply because there wasn't workers' power.

No, it is not a simple answer. Analyzing property relations in the Soviet Union is complicated. To blame all of the mistakes in the Soviet Union on Stalin is not only immaterialist, but a gross oversimplification of history.

There was worker's power in the Soviet Union. I am sorry to inform you, but bourgeois propaganda isn't telling you the truth.


As a side note, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was, in my opinion, a great victory for worldwide socialism and the left in general.

How was the complete consolidation of U.S. Imperiaism in the world economy and the near death of revolutionary politics a great victory for socialism?

The collapse of the Soviet Union, even though it was revisionist, was still one of the worst things to happen to socialism and especially the inhabitants of the Soviet Republics.

[Iron Balls]

We've put the argument to you, and you've once again refused to answer. Prove to me that the workers had power in the Soviet Union. So far all you've told me is that:


There was worker's power in the Soviet Union

and


I do maintain that the workers were in power in both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China

None of these answer the actual question. My suspicion is that you don't know...which is fine. But arguments should only be waged if you can provide evidence, or if they are convincing. Yours is neither of these - and you seem reluctant to address it. I'll return to the other things you said after you provide some factual answer.

[Rawthentic]

Iron Balls, I suggest you do some reading on the Russian Revolution and how there was worker's power in Russia, at least in the initial years.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Iron [email protected] 19, 2007 01:19 am
We've put the argument to you, and you've once again refused to answer. Prove to me that the workers had power in the Soviet Union. So far all you've told me is that:


There was worker's power in the Soviet Union

and


I do maintain that the workers were in power in both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China

None of these answer the actual question. My suspicion is that you don't know...which is fine. But arguments should only be waged if you can provide evidence, or if they are convincing. Yours is neither of these - and you seem reluctant to address it. I'll return to the other things you said after you provide some factual answer.
Read.

http://marxists.org/history/ussr/government/index.htm

[Iron Balls]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 01:55 am
Iron Balls, I suggest you do some reading on the Russian Revolution and how there was worker's power in Russia, at least in the initial years.
I know all there is to know about "workers control" in Russia. But again, question not answered at all. Im asking for SovietPants (and now you) to prove to me that workers control existed. 1-line sentences, and links to websites for me to read - especially ones which actually undercut the argument - make your viewpoint utterly unconvincing.

[The Grey Blur]

Workers occupied the factories, train stations, telegraph stations, ships and other work places during the Russian Revolution and collectively they organised in the Soviets which are the model of worker's democracy.

I hope that answers your query. Here is a useful link if you want to learn more about basic Socialist theory - http://www.marxist.net/


Socialism was not established in either of these two countries. What really happened was that power shifted hands from land-holding aristocrats to the high up members of the Communist parties.
You are spitting on the memory of millions of workers and soldiers who gave their lives to carry out the Socialist revolution in these countries. The masses supported the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks carried out the revolution and the two together created Socialism. The property relations changed from private to collective ownership, all forms of social discrimination were abolished, healthcare and education were offered to all. This is Socialism, or at least the transition towards it. Unfortunately the revolution degenerated due to the material conditions (world war, Russia's semi-feudal nature, the civil war) and from this came the victory of the bureaucracy and the choking of proleterian democracy.

I would recommend you read this: In Defence Of October (http://www.marxist.com/History/copenhagen.html)

Rgacky - "Leninism" is simply Marxism with the analysis of Imperialism added to it. That said, most or all Socialist groups would support the heroic efforts of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in bringing about the world's first Socialist revolution.

I like what RB is saying in this thread, about how the vanguard can be regulated post-revolution. Are there any writings on this?

[RedLenin]

prove to me that workers control existed
I can do that, but I am afraid I will need to link you to a website. The link I will give you is a first-hand personal account of John Reed in regard to the Russian state in 1918. He describes, in depth, the structure of the state and the democratic institutions and processes involved.
Structure of The Soviet State (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1918/state.htm)

[Iron Balls]

Workers occupied the factories, train stations, telegraph stations, ships and other work places during the Russian Revolution and collectively they organised in the Soviets which are the model of worker's democracy.


The link I will give you is a first-hand personal account of John Reed in regard to the Russian state in 1918. He describes, in depth, the structure of the state and the democratic institutions and processes involved.

Workers control in Russia was aborted. When Jello first posed the question, and when I followed suit, it was directed towards Sovietpants who was defending the Soviet Union on the grounds that it had practiced workers' power at some stage. Sovietpants was incapable of actually answering the question (indeed I dont believe he/she knew anything about workers power). Since others have joined in this argument the focus has shifted somewhat. Suffice it to say, you cannot defend the Soviet Union which collapsed in 1989 on the grounds that it practiced some erratic form of "workers control" in 1918/1919.

Workers power in post-revolutionary Russia (if we can even call it that) did not last more than a year. Workers power was effectively crushed. Long before Stalin, the Bolsheviks and Russia in general proved incapable and unwilling to implement 1) democracy and 2) workers power.

1) Democracy. The Revolution was not supported by the "masses" as Permanent Revolution argues. The Revolution occurred in one place - Petrograd. Power was seized in one place - Petrograd. This was at a time when the Russian working class comprised of perhaps 3 or 4% (and thats a generous estimate). The Peasants were not overwhelmingly supportive of Soviet power. Any support from the peasantry was linked to ending Russia's involvement in the First World War rather than revolutionising rural productive relations. Indeed, within a few years the Soviet government found itself at war with the peasantry during forced grain procurements and famine in 1920/1921. The Constituent Assembly elections shortly after the revolution (essentially elections to an assembly based on geographical constituencies) indicates, actually, how unpopular the Bolsheviks were. It was an overwhelming defeat for the Bolsheviks, and a massive victory for peasant-backed Soviet Revolutionaries. How did the leadership respond? Lenin used sailors to forcibly dissolve the Assembly.
The provincial soviets did have some initial degree of autonomy (related to below) but again, the regime's efforts to centralise power brought the soviets under their sway. After the revolution, one provincial soviet claimed independence from Russia but the Bolsheviks quickly moved to stop this.

Yea thats democracy.

2) Workers power - as stated this was effectively crushed. I dont really need to do any more than copy a few articles here to demonstrate what the leadership thought of workers power...

A Plea to Establish an Economic Dictatorship
Izvestiya, March, 1919

The initial efforts in the struggle against the decline in productivity did not go beyond the resirt to persuasion, comradely discipline, and the establishment of definite production norms. But who drafted these norms? The proletarians themselves. On this score we must admit the bitter truth: the proletariat did well in looking after its own interests, and in a great majority of cases it established norms which were ludicrously low. When this is taken into account, it becomes clear that our proletarians were not merely eager to look after their own interests but they also inflicted cruel punishment upon themselves, for there is not the slightest doubt that even under the present conditions of famine, and of fuel and raw material shortages, much more could have been produced than has actually been the case... The proletariat revealed extreme shortsightedness soon after it took over management of the most important industries of the country. The proletariat is utterly incapable of understanding the interests of the state, or even the interests of its own class, or of a single factory...Following the coup d'etat [Oct. 1917], the proletariat became the master of several branches of industry and of the transportation system. But on the whole it proved insufficiently capable, energetic, or disciplined to check the further disruption of industry or transportation...The political dictatorship of the proletariat requires economic dictatorship as well. Discipline must be introduced in every enterprise, and a dictator responsible to the management of that enterprise must be appointed.


Lenin's Negative assessment of the Russian Proletarian masses
Excerpt from Lenin's speech at the Second All Russian Congress of Trade Unions, Jan. 20 1919

The Worker has never been separated from the old bourgeois society by a Chinese wall. He has retained much of the traditional psychology of capitalist society. The workers are now building the new society without having transformed themselves into new human beings by cleansing themselves of the filth of the old world. They continue to stand up to their knees in that filth. We can only hope that they will cleanse themselves of this filth...

Moves Towards Labour Compulsion - The Establishment of Workers' Disciplinary Courts.
Decree of the Sovnarkom, November 14, 1919

In view of the extremely difficult military, food, and fuel situation in the Soviet Republic and in order to improve labour discipline and productivity to the greatest possible degree...the Soviet of People's Commissars hereby decrees the introduction of the following statute:
1. The present statute shall be applied to the entire territory...
2. Disciplinary courts are established for the purpose of raising and strengthening production discipline, dealing with all infringements of wage agreements in enterprises and institutions, and with failures to adhere to trade union decisions concerning labour and trade-union discipline.
...

Lenin endorses militarisation of labour
Excerpt from Lenin's speech at the Ninth Party Congress, March 1929, 1920

The old source of discipline - capitalism - is undermined; the old source of unification
has disappeared. We must create a different kind of discipline, a different source of discipline and
unity. Compulsion provokes indignation we are not afraid of using compulsion...

Movements towards Militarised labour compulsion - Trotsky's Exposition of the Principles of Compulsory Labour
Excerpts from Trotsky's Terrorism i Kommunizm

There can be no other way to Socialism except by the authoritative regulation of the economic forces and resources of the country and the centralized distribution of the labour force in accordance with the general state plan. The Workers' state considers itself empowered to send every worker to the place where his work is needed; and not one serious-minded Socialist will ever deny the right of the workers' state to lay its hand upon the worker who refuses to discharge his work orders.

Trotsky's Theses on the Role of the Trade Unions
Excerpts from the platform of Trotsky and Bukharin submitted to the Tenth Party Congress

The gradual concentration of production management in the hands of the trade unions, as is required
by our [party] program, means the transformation, according to the plan, of the trade unions
into agencies of the workers' state i.e. the gradual transfusion of the trade unions with
the soviet apparatus...

(what this effectively meant was that the unions lost independence. They were subordinated to
the Bolsheviks and their opposition members purged)

What I've tried to show with these documents (and these are a select few from a voluminous amount) is that "workers control" was quickly aborted and replaced firstly with labour compulsion and then labour militarization. It was not workers power. When labour compulsion and militarization failed, the leadership retreated and brought back capitalism to the countryside under the New Economic Policy (NEP).


[b]all forms of social discrimination were abolished, healthcare and education were offered to all.

This is totally incorrect. If you take a look discrimination, whether it be gender, racial, sexual etc. all continued. Healthcare was not improved - in fact, the death toll was intolerably high in the decade prior to Stalin's usurpation of power. And education, where it existed was guaranteed to the families of the nomenklatura. I suggest you look at some Russian cultural studies rather than Soviet propaganda.

[black magick hustla]

Good post comrade.

Workers' power was effectively eliminated in 1919, with war communism. The soviet experiment degenerated into a grand version of a nanny-state.

[The Grey Blur]

Yea thats democracy.
No revolution ever has 100% support. The working-class is the only revolutionary class and that is why the revolution came from the cities. The Bolsheviks recognised all that you say and that's why Lenin's main goal was education of the peasantry to bring them over to the side of Socialism. That said, there were many red villages which steadfastly supported the Bolsheviks.

It is interesting how some Anarchists (I assume you are one) argue for immediate revolution then when it takes place use such actions as the dissolution of bourgeois parliaments to indict the revolution.

The Bolsheviks were always pragmatic, that is what is recognised in your quotes (wihch are selectively ripped from context of course). Without the drastic measures carried out by the Party the revolution would not have lasted a week, never mind years.


Originally posted by Lenin1920
In Russia today, the connection between leaders, party, class and masses, as well as the attitude of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its party to the trade unions, are concretely as follows: the dictatorship is exercised by the proletariat organised in the Soviets; the proletariat is guided by the Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which, according to the figures of the latest Party Congress (April 1920), has a membership of 611,000. The membership varied greatly both before and after the October Revolution, and used to be much smaller, even in 1918 and 1919. [22] We are apprehensive of an excessive growth of the Party, because careerists and charlatans, who deserve only to be shot, inevitably do all they can to insinuate themselves into the ranks of the ruling party. The last time we opened wide the doors of the Party—to workers and peasants only -- was when (in the winter of 1919) Yudenich was within a few versts of Petrograd, and Denikin was in Orel (about 350 versts from Moscow), i.e., when the Soviet Republic was in mortal danger, and when adventurers, careerists, charlatans and unreliable persons generally could not possibly count on making a profitable career (and had more reason to expect the gallows and torture) by joining the Communists. [23] The Party, which holds annual congresses (the most recent on the basis of one delegate per 1,000 members), is directed by a Central Committee of nineteen elected at the Congress, while the current work in Moscow has to be carried on by still smaller bodies, known as the Organising Bureau and the Political Bureau, which are elected at plenary meetings of the Central Committee, five members of the Central Committee to each bureau. This, it would appear, is a full-fledged "oligarchy". No important political or organisational question is decided by any state institution in our republic without the guidance of the Party’s Central Committee.

In its work, the Party relies directly on the trade unions, which, according to the data of the last congress (April 1920), now have a membership of over four million and are formally non-Party. Actually, all the directing bodies of the vast majority of the unions, and primarily, of course, of the all-Russia general trade union centre or bureau (the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions), are made up of Communists and carry out all the directives of the Party. Thus, on the whole, we have a formally non-communist, flexible and relatively wide and very powerful proletarian apparatus, by means of which the Party is closely linked up with the class and the masses, and by means of which, under the leadership of the Party, the class dictatorship is exercised. Without close contacts with the trade unions, and without their energetic support and devoted efforts, not only in economic, but also in military affairs, it would of course have been impossible for us to govern the country and to maintain the dictatorship for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years. In practice, these very close contacts naturally call for highly complex and diversified work in the form of propaganda, agitation, timely and frequent conferences, not only with the leading trade union workers, but with influential trade union workers generally; they call for a determined struggle against the Mensheviks, who still have a certain though very small following to whom they teach all kinds of counter-revolutionary machinations, ranging from an ideological defence of (bourgeois) democracy and the preaching that the trade unions should be "independent" (independent of proletarian state power!) to sabotage of proletarian discipline, etc., etc.

We consider that contacts with the "masses" through the trade unions are not enough. In the course of our revolution, practical activities have given rise to such institutions as non-Party workers’ and peasants’ conferences, and we strive by every means to support, develop and extend this institution in order to be able to observe the temper of the masses, come closer to them, meet their requirements, promote the best among them to state posts, etc. Under a recent decree on the transformation of the People’s Commissariat of State Control into the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, non-Party conferences of this kind have been empowered to select members of the State Control to carry out various kinds of investigations, etc.

Then, of course, all the work of the Party is carried on through the Soviets, which embrace the working masses irrespective of occupation. The district congresses of Soviets are democratic institutions, the like of which even the best of the democratic republics of the bourgeois world have never known; through these congresses (whose proceedings the Party endeavours to follow with the closest attention), as well as by continually appointing class-conscious workers to various posts in the rural districts, the proletariat exercises its role of leader of the peasantry, gives effect to the dictatorship of the urban proletariat wages a systematic struggle against the rich, bourgeois, exploiting and profiteering peasantry, etc.

Such is the general mechanism of the proletarian state power viewed "from above", from the standpoint of the practical implementation of the dictatorship. We hope that the reader will understand why the Russian Bolshevik who has known this mechanism for twenty-five years and has seen it develop out of small, illegal and underground circles, cannot help regarding all this talk about "from above" or "from below", about the dictatorship of leaders or the dictatorship of the masses, etc., as ridiculous and childish nonsense, something like discussing whether a man’s left leg or right arm is of greater use to him.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/work...0/lwc/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm)


This is totally incorrect. If you take a look discrimination, whether it be gender, racial, sexual etc. all continued. Healthcare was not improved - in fact, the death toll was intolerably high in the decade prior to Stalin's usurpation of power. And education, where it existed was guaranteed to the families of the nomenklatura. I suggest you look at some Russian cultural studies rather than Soviet propaganda.
I've read countless articles and accounts of bourgeois, stalinist, oppositionists and eyewitnesses and they all point to what I say as being true. Unlike yourself I form my opinions after having viewed the evidence.

[Ander]

Workers occupied the factories, train stations, telegraph stations, ships and other work places during the Russian Revolution and collectively they organised in the Soviets which are the model of worker's democracy.

I hope that answers your query. Here is a useful link if you want to learn more about basic Socialist theory - http://www.marxist.net/

Listen kid, don't be condescending, it's not going to help you win this argument. As most people who don't suck up Soviet propaganda by the pound will see, you are incorrect. Maybe you should be the one who studies up on socialist theory?

It is clear that workers occupied tons of buildings in post-revolution Russia; in a revolt which involves the people to such a high degree how could they not? The point is that they did not hold onto it for very long, therefore the Soviet Union is a shitty example of socialism and a stain on the left.


You are spitting on the memory of millions of workers and soldiers who gave their lives to carry out the Socialist revolution in these countries.

LOL! Don't be dramatic. If anyone is spitting on the workers, it's you and the rest who support the Soviets who snatched the power from them.


The masses supported the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks carried out the revolution and the two together created Socialism.

Yes, the masses supported the Bolsheviks. And then look what they did to repay them! Certainly not create socialism.


The property relations changed from private to collective ownership, all forms of social discrimination were abolished, healthcare and education were offered to all.

Iron Balls dealt with this very nicely. No point in reiterating.


Rgacky - "Leninism" is simply Marxism with the analysis of Imperialism added to it. That said, most or all Socialist groups would support the heroic efforts of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in bringing about the world's first Socialist revolution.

You are forgetting "democratic centralism."

And don't bullshit and confuse the guy with your pro-Bolshevik propaganda. Let him make his own decisions, don't pressure him into doing what "most socialists" would do.

[black magick hustla]

The problem is not arguing that bolshevism was a necessary step for a backward, feudalistic, russia, the problem is arguing that the bolshevik conception of socialism WAS socialism. It is awful that some people think that bolshevism is still a relevant approach to an industralized country, and that state monopoly capitalism dressed in red is socialism.

The Leninist desperate attempt to justify the postrevolutionary condition of russia as a socialist society manifests itself with Trotsky's permanent revolution nonsense. Trotsky had to find a way to use theoretical fluff in order to fit Russia into "socialism".

[Iron Balls]

No revolution ever has 100% support. The working-class is the only revolutionary class and that is why the revolution came from the cities.

Exactly, you're 100% right. By your own admission then, your argument that "the masses supported the Bolsheviks" is false.


It is interesting how some Anarchists (I assume you are one) argue for immediate revolution then when it takes place use such actions as the dissolution of bourgeois parliaments to indict the revolution.

I'm not an anarchist at all. My point merely was that the constituent assembly elections were perhaps the most democratic in Russia's history. And then Lenin tore the assembly apart when he was dissatisfied with the results.


The Bolsheviks were always pragmatic, that is what is recognised in your quotes (wihch are selectively ripped from context of course). Without the drastic measures carried out by the Party the revolution would not have lasted a week, never mind years.

The excerpts I had to type out myself because I couldnt find any online versions. In which case I brought to attention the most significant parts (also look at the type of sources they are as well as what they say). I highly doubt you've read them, but if you can find the entire extracts online - or in fact want to type them out in full yourself, I'd be more than happy with that. You'll see the sources are completely within context. And this debate was not about the pragmatism of forced labour - it was about whether it existed or not, and whether the Soviet Union could be regarded as being a workers' state. Lets stay on topic please.

Im glad you've quoted that gigantic piece. It illustrates exactly my points through Lenin's usual rhetoric! I think you need to learn the art of reading between the lines my friend. Go and read some extracts by former members of trade unions...I recommend "Letters From Russian Prisons" - you might find it quite enlightening, and an alternative source to soviet official publications and pronouncements.


I've read countless articles and accounts of bourgeois, stalinist, oppositionists and eyewitnesses and they all point to what I say as being true. Unlike yourself I form my opinions after having viewed the evidence.

What articles? Soviet articles? Thats funny because I've spent a great deal of time studying the Soviet Union and I can't think of any. Tell me, did the sun fail to rise on 1 October 1917.

Incidently I dont know how you've been able to come to that rather crude conclusion. You don't know me and you dont know my methodology. Lets be serious here.

[The Grey Blur]

As most people who don't suck up Soviet propaganda by the pound will see, you are incorrect
Prove it. Myself and RedLenin have provided our sources while your band have produced nothing but hot air.


Maybe you should be the one who studies up on socialist theory
I am studying socialist theory, I would assume we all are.


The point is that they did not hold onto it for very long, therefore the Soviet Union is a shitty example of socialism and a stain on the left.
The workers controlled their factories democratically until circumstances disallowed it. Temporary measures were neccessary to defeat the counter-revolution such as the reinstitution of management but this was removed when unnecessary. It was only with the bureaucratic counter-revolution that workplace democracy was removed in full.

http://www.marxists.org/history/archive/br...s-work/ch02.htm (http://www.marxists.org/history/archive/brailsford/1927/soviets-work/ch02.htm)


LOL! Don't be dramatic.
I'm not being "dramatic", I'm being serious - millions and millions of workers and soldiers gave their lives for the Socialist cause in Russia, fighting both capitalist and bureaucratic counter-revolution. I find it disgusting that so-called Socialiss can insult this sacrifice by shrugging their shoulders and saying "nothing changed".


Yes, the masses supported the Bolsheviks. And then look what they did to repay them! Certainly not create socialism.
Socialism existed in Russia from 1917 - Soviet socialism was constitued of workers democracy, state planning and the attempted elimination of social inequality. This was stopped and reversed by the bureaucratic counter-revolution, which was a result of poor decision-making, the USSR's isolation due to the failure of the German revolution and the historical backwardness of Russia.


Iron Balls dealt with this very nicely
No he didn't! He didn't provide a single source or shred of evidence that my statement - "the property relations changed from private to collective ownership, all forms of social discrimination were abolished, healthcare and education were offered to all" - was false.

If the USSR was capitalist all along what explains the huge jump in mortality after 1989? The resurgence of hate groups and homophobia? The fact that 89% of the population even preferred the (flawed) state planning of Stalinism?


You are forgetting "democratic centralism."
I suppose so. Freedom of discussion, unity of action.


And don't bullshit and confuse the guy with your pro-Bolshevik propaganda. Let him make his own decisions, don't pressure him into doing what "most socialists" would do.
My arguments are not propaganda, no matter how much you wish they were. My ideology is revolutionary Socialism, and I base it around fact and the exposure of the truth. And of course I agree that RGacky should make his own mind up on Lenin and his actions, that is all that I have encouraged him to do. Take your time next time and read my post in full, as well as the links I provide.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/ussr/index.htm
http://www.marxist.com/History/copenhagen.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/...0days/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/index.htm)

[Ander]

Ok now I'm seriously chuckling to myself.


The workers controlled their factories democratically until circumstances disallowed it. Temporary measures were neccessary to defeat the counter-revolution such as the reinstitution of management but this was removed when unnecessary. It was only with the bureaucratic counter-revolution that workplace democracy was removed in full.

So why are you arguing with me?


I'm not being "dramatic", I'm being serious - millions and millions of workers and soldiers gave their lives for the Socialist cause in Russia, fighting both capitalist and bureaucratic counter-revolution. I find it disgusting that so-called Socialiss can insult this sacrifice by shrugging their shoulders and saying "nothing changed".

I never said "nothing changed." I acknowledged some progressive elements of the revolution, my major claim was that workers` power was snatched away by the Communist party bureaucracy.


Socialism existed in Russia from 1917 - Soviet socialism was constitued of workers democracy, state planning and the attempted elimination of social inequality. This was stopped and reversed by the bureaucratic counter-revolution, which was a result of poor decision-making, the USSR's isolation due to the failure of the German revolution and the historical backwardness of Russia.

Again, why are you arguing with me?

This is hilarious! I don't understand why you're arguing with me because what you're saying is basically what I was telling you. You are claiming that workers' control existed for a very short time "until circumstances disallowed it." My claim was that workers` control in the Soviet Union did not exist and that socialism was not established.

If a few months of workers` control out of more than eight decades of Soviet rule is some kind of socialist progress then maybe you should study harder.

This was quite a pointless argument on your behalf, I suggest you learn a bit more before jumping into debates with the big boys. ;)

[Rawthentic]

If a few months of workers` control out of more than eight decades of Soviet rule is some kind of socialist progress then maybe you should study harder.

This was quite a pointless argument on your behalf, I suggest you learn a bit more before jumping into debates with the big boys.
Once again, typical of like-minded people like you Jello to ignore material conditions in Russia. I don't give a fuck if they help worker power for 5 minutes, what it proved was that workers have the ability to control their lives and destiny. Had the proletarians retained their organs of self-rule and had the Bolshevik Party no strayed off a revolutionary line, you wouldn't be making such statements. I believe that it is you the one that has to study what really went on in Russia.

The Paris Commune did not even rule 2 months, yet it is hailed as a great victory for the working class. Are you going to shun that away as well?

These are all attempts that the workers have made to better their lives, and you completely ignore their accomplishments for an immaterialist analysis.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 11:54 pm



Excuse me?

Besides set up a corrupt beauracratic elite, what exactly did these revolutions do to assist worker's struggle?

I am sorry but this is a stupid comment. The Bolshevik Revolution established the world's first socialist state. the means of production were publically owned. This meant that production was owned by society as a whole to benefit society as a whole.


Yes, education and healthcare was free in the Soviet Union, we all know that. That propaganda-laced school system did well for the inhabitants of the USSR.

there will always be propaganda in the schools in class society. Its just a question of whose propaganda. The people's or the bourgious? What's really sick is that you throw away the boshevik revolution as nothing, essentially supporting the provisional capitalist government and the tsarist government because the education was "laced with propaganda".


Why do you defend something that failed? Don't call me stupid because you're living in the past, holding onto something that very vaguely touches the definition of socialism.

Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism are the foremost struggles today in the communist movement. Yes, ground has been lost, but try telling that it "failed" to the naxalite revolutionaries of India and Maoist revolutionaries in Nepal who everyday seem to make the dream of a red corridor more of a reality. Tell that to the PCP of Peru. Tell that to the CCP of the Philipines. Tell that to the maoists in turkey and pakistan preparing for people's war.


Granted, some of your points are very strong and these are some positive aspects of these revolutions. However, you cannot deny that the systems imposed in China and the Soviet Union were a far cry from socialism and violent in their methods.

Umm yeah I can deny that the systems in the PRC from 1949-76 and the USSR from 1917-1956 were "fary cries from socialism". Because they were revolutions achieving socialism.


When did the workers ever control the means of production in these countries?

when didn't they?


Yes, the Warsaw Pact nations were liberated...and then quickly occupied again, this time by a new military force. Any attempts to step out of line of the strict Soviet system was harshly crushed and policy was dictated by the Party.

they weren't occupied, the were liberated. the only people "crushed" were bourgious elements who attempted to open free markets and restore capitalism, exploitation, and institutionalized class society and homelessness among other things.


Socialism existed in Russia from 1917

shame on you permanent revolution for recognizing this. Most trotskyists babble about how socialism is classless. Glad to see you recognize class struggle continues under socialism

[Rawthentic]

when didn't they?
In Russia, from about 1921 and on, as the petty-bourgeoisie was swept in to power and democratic rights were destroyed, of course culminated with the rise of Stalin and his purge of dissenters.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

bullshit. Nothing changed in 1921 other than that a petty bougieous uprising was suppressed by the workers.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 02:47 am
bullshit. Nothing changed in 1921 other than that a petty bougieous uprising was suppressed by the workers.
Who were the petty-bourgeois involved?

Also you are mistaken, after '21 NEP was introduced.

[Rawthentic]

Also you are mistaken, after '21 NEP was introduced.
That's right, the NEP introduced a new layer of petty-bourgeois functionaries and managers, replacing the proletarians in power.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 03:45 am
That's right, the NEP introduced a new layer of petty-bourgeois functionaries and managers, replacing the proletarians in power.
If the workers were in power prior to '21 then why did they surrender their positions to the petite bourgeoisie?

[Rawthentic]

I don't believe that they "surrendered" it; the Bolshevik Party started placing managers and functionaries as a part of a new bureaucracy, which took the self-rule of the proletarians away.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 03:05 am
I don't believe that they "surrendered" it; the Bolshevik Party started placing managers and functionaries as a part of a new bureaucracy, which took the self-rule of the proletarians away.
But then you have to ask yourself as to whether the Bolshevik party itself was acting in the interests of the proletariat. Which of course raises questions as to the class composition of the Bolsheviks that they would surrender this position of strength.

I'm not suggesting anything, just posing questions.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, a problem with the Bolsheviks was their class composition; they weren't consisted of solely proletarians, which I believe today is an essential thing.

[The Grey Blur]

Why is it more essential today? Capitalism is still capitalism, communism is still communism and everyone dedicated to revolution is welcome to join the struggle.

Are you suggesting there were bourgeois or petit-bourgeouis inside the Bolshevik party? That's patently ridiculous - it lead the first successful working-class revolution!


That's right, the NEP introduced a new layer of petty-bourgeois functionaries and managers, replacing the proletarians in power.
I agree but this was clearly only a temporary measure - the economy of the USSR was almost non-existent after the travails of the civil and world war, as well as the withdrawl of foreign capital and other factors such as the working-class being reduced to a tiny proportion of it's pre-war numbers. A temporary allowance of small private trading such as the NEP was neccessary for the fledgling worker's state to survive, as the peasants were becoming more and more hostile to War Communism. As Kronstadt and Tambov illustrate.

The NEP was intended to restore the economy of the USSR to pre-war levels before ensuring the return of workers control.

Clearly debate is welcome here but let's not be idealist - the NEP was neccessary.

[Rawthentic]

Why is it more essential today? Capitalism is still capitalism, communism is still communism and everyone dedicated to revolution is welcome to join the struggle.
If there are bourgeois or petty-bourgeois people that want to join in the struggle, then they can always join the proletariat and become one of us, that is, if they are truly dedicated. In my opinion, people with class priviliges should have no right at all in a working class party. Just because they are not working class.


the NEP was neccessary

It very well might have been, but it doesnt change the fact that the working class started to lose power due to these sorts of policies combined with material conditions.


Are you suggesting there were bourgeois or petit-bourgeouis inside the Bolshevik party
Call them whatever you want, it doesn't make them proletarian. I can give the benefit of the doubt to the Bolshevik Party due to material conditions in Russia and the relatively small size of the working class, but in an advanced nation like the US, a workingmen's party has no excuse to accept those from the exploiting classes.


I agree but this was clearly only a temporary measure -
The thing is, the proletariat did not regain power.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Marmot+March 21, 2007 02:53 am--> (Marmot @ March 21, 2007 02:53 am)
[email protected] 21, 2007 02:47 am
bullshit. Nothing changed in 1921 other than that a petty bougieous uprising was suppressed by the workers.
Who were the petty-bourgeois involved?

Also you are mistaken, after '21 NEP was introduced. [/b]
that was temporary. Lenin said this and also claimed that it was a "step backwards". It would quickly be replaced for the 5 year plan which collectivized agriculture and ended any capitalist traits of the NEP. Trotsky wrote about Kronsdadt here (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/kronstadt/trotsky_hue_cry.html). The truth is that this event represented the first counter-revolutionary action in the Soviet Union. It was an attempt to undermine what the masses had fought for, and just like rich kulaks who resisted the collective ownership of land among the masses, it was a bougeious action.


Yeah, a problem with the Bolsheviks was their class composition; they weren't consisted of solely proletarians, which I believe today is an essential thing.

why? What about some levels of the peasantry? What about the students? What about revolutionary intellectuals lik Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Proudhon, and a variety of other revolutionaries did not come from proletarian backgrounds, yet Marx and Engels for example, developed the marxism and the ideas of class struggle and class consciousness to a stage never before seen.

It is the masses of revolutionary people who make history under the banner and leadership of the proletariat but the movement is not limited to JUST the proletariat. Lenin pointed out that some people in other classes may be more oppressed then some proletarians, however, it is the proletarian who are thouroughly revolutionary and who hold such strong productive forces and that is why they should be leaders.

Mao developed this extensivly because of the situation in China where the URBAN proletariat DID NOT make up the majority of the masses of people. He said that new democratic revolution against fuedalism, semi-fuedalism, fascism, imperialism, and beaurcracy would solve the contradictions between the masses and the bourgious. He then furthered that by saying that socialist revolution, or basically, the socialist system and communist system would eliminate class contradictions among the people.

I think this is fundamentally right.


It very well might have been, but it doesnt change the fact that the working class started to lose power due to these sorts of policies combined with material conditions.

I disagree. The working class lost power BECAUSE the NEP, the fact that it was necessary aside, gave the bourgious extensive room to manuveur. When the Marxist-Leninists in the party realized this and attempted to fight it, the fight was much, much more difficult than expected, coupled with the fact that they weren't sure exactly how to fight it. Does that make sense?

[The Grey Blur]

Yeah but I would attribute that to the growth of the bureaucracy which did not desire worker control, a bureaucracy which would have developed regardless of the implementation of the NEP. Isolated, the Russian Revolution was doomed. Lenin's death also contributed to this degeneration of course.


If there are bourgeois or petty-bourgeois people that want to join in the struggle
Why would a capitalist want to join the anti-capitalist struggle?


then they can always join the proletariat and become one of us, that is, if they are truly dedicated
People can't just voluntarily "join" the proleteriat, they become proles through the economic machinations of capitalism or through their resistance to capitalism. There are non-proleterians such as doctors and others in my Socalist party and they are just as dedicated as those working-class members, some having made career sacrifices for their political beliefs. I also know many dedicated younger comrades who come from well off families, even one who now works full time for the party making less than the minimum wage.


In my opinion, people with class priviliges should have no right at all in a working class party.
What is a "class privelige"?

The working-class will always be the majority in any Communist organisation and if they aren't then that organisation should seriously reconsider their tactics and ideology.

Regardless, you misconstrued my point - what I meant was that we should not reject people just because they were born into a well-off family, something which they had no say in. With that kind of mentality the Cuban revolution would never have taken place; Che turned away by the Granma bunch 'cause his dad owned a plantation :lol:

[OneBrickOneVoice]

If there are bourgeois or petty-bourgeois people that want to join in the struggle, then they can always join the proletariat and become one of us, that is, if they are truly dedicated

but there are people who are revolutionary but are trained for and enjoy non-proletarian proffessions. What matters is your class consciousness. There was a reason why Lenin called this economist, and that is because different strata can be important to a revolution. Anti-aristocratic bougious for example, could split the bougiousie. That was one example he gave. I don't see why you would be against the proletarian leading and the other masses following.

[Rawthentic]

What about the students? What about revolutionary intellectuals
These groups do not constitute a social class.


It is the masses of revolutionary people who make history under the banner and leadership of the proletariat but the movement is not limited to JUST the proletariat.
Agreed here.


Why would a capitalist want to join the anti-capitalist struggle?

I don't know, how about you tell me? You said :


Capitalism is still capitalism, communism is still communism and everyone dedicated to revolution is welcome to join the struggle.
Emphasis is mine.


There are non-proleterians such as doctors and others in my Socalist party and they are just as dedicated as those working-class members, some having made career sacrifices for their political beliefs. I also know many dedicated younger comrades who come from well off families, even one who now works full time for the party making less than the minimum wage.
It looks like we misunderstood each other. I agree with what you say here, but as allowing petty-bourgeois people (cops, government officials, business owners of smaller type, and other lackeys), I say no. The people you listed, such as a doctor, are non-proletarians, but are also not bourgeois or petty-bourgeois, so I see where you are coming from.


What is a "class privelige"
Being petty-bourgeois or bourgeois maybe?


With that kind of mentality the Cuban revolution would never have taken place; Che turned away by the Granma bunch 'cause his dad owned a plantation

Wrong. People make history, not figure heads, and lets remember that in Cuba's "socialist" revolution, the main leaders came from quite well off backgrounds. Don't you wonder why the Cuban people regarded Fidel as a near god or saint? They were used to being commanded from above, it was ingrained into their mentality. I would have, and still would like to, see a campesino or ordinary worker as president of Cuba.


What matters is your class consciousness
Working class consciousness is derived from being working class.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 05:54 am
Wrong. People make history, not figure heads, and lets remember that in Cuba's "socialist" revolution, the main leaders came from quite well off backgrounds. Don't you wonder why the Cuban people regarded Fidel as a near god or saint? They were used to being commanded from above, it was ingrained into their mentality. I would have, and still would like to, see a campesino or ordinary worker as president of Cuba.
Get a grip.

The main leaders were living in the jungles for years. Their background means nothing when they had given their blood for the revolution. Furthermore, you conveniently ignore the fact that the Cuban revolution was made possible by the working classes: without the support of the people, the revolutionary effort would've been defeated within weeks.

Lastly, you have a very condescending attitude toward the Cuban people. "Ingrained into their mentality"? That's patently ridiculous and you know it. By the way, the Cuban people DON'T regard Castro as a "near god or saint", and to assert as much is beyond laughable.

[manic expression]

The fact is that the USSR was a worker state. The degree of workers' control varied at different points, but the Soviet Union remained a worker state until its collapse (a degenerate one, however). The question is whether it was "socialist".

The Soviet Union saw a great amount of workers' control before the Russian Civil War and even the early stages of that conflict (as evidenced by John Reed's testimonies, among other writings). At that point, it is clear that the Soviet Union was socialist. However, it became apparent that there was a need for more centralized control during the Russian Civil War, which was manifest in war communism. The failure of the revolutions in Germany and other countries compounded these challenges, and the direction toward more centralized control remained. At the same time, the NEP was instituted because Soviet production was at frightfully low levels. Later on, the NEP gave way to further centralized control, culminating in Stalin's ascension (and the elimination of any opposition).

In the end, the Soviet Union was socialist, but it suffered from less and less worker control, making it a degenerated worker state.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 05:54 am



These groups do not constitute a social class.

I know but often times they are petty-bourgeios


Agreed here.

but your line is not advocating proletarian leadership of other classes in revolution, it is advocating proletarian-only revolution


I don't know, how about you tell me? You said :

Emphasis is mine.

I don't know either, then why are you so scared? Communist Revolution CAN NOT happen WITHOUT Proletarian leadership.


It looks like we misunderstood each other. I agree with what you say here, but as allowing petty-bourgeois people (cops, government officials, business owners of smaller type, and other lackeys), I say no. The people you listed, such as a doctor, are non-proletarians, but are also not bourgeois or petty-bourgeois, so I see where you are coming from.

cops and government officials are bourgeois or agents of the bourgeios. Small business owners vary. My dad for example at one point owned his shop but didn't employ anyone other than himself and his girlfriend. Other small business owners employ 50 to 100 people in which case they are definatly petty bourgieois.

Everyone fits in to some class, which is why there are different strata of each class I think.


Wrong. People make history, not figure heads, and lets remember that in Cuba's "socialist" revolution, the main leaders came from quite well off backgrounds

So did Marx, Engels, Kroptkin, Proudhon, and many other revolutionaries, does that mean we automatically discredit them because they are not workers? Other revolutionaries that you don't agree with came from very poor backgrounds like Stalin and Mao.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 25, 2007 06:57 am
The fact is that the USSR was a worker state. The degree of workers' control varied at different points, but the Soviet Union remained a worker state until its collapse (a degenerate one, however). The question is whether it was "socialist".

The Soviet Union saw a great amount of workers' control before the Russian Civil War and even the early stages of that conflict (as evidenced by John Reed's testimonies, among other writings). At that point, it is clear that the Soviet Union was socialist. However, it became apparent that there was a need for more centralized control during the Russian Civil War, which was manifest in war communism. The failure of the revolutions in Germany and other countries compounded these challenges, and the direction toward more centralized control remained. At the same time, the NEP was instituted because Soviet production was at frightfully low levels. Later on, the NEP gave way to further centralized control, culminating in Stalin's ascension (and the elimination of any opposition).

In the end, the Soviet Union was socialist, but it suffered from less and less worker control, making it a degenerated worker state.
I agree with you however I think that by the late 50s and early 60s, it had strayed from this path. The nomenklatura were in power, the leaders of the Soviet Union split the socialist movement down the middle, no more progress was made in the form of socialization of the means of production or "withering away of the state" like the Cultural Revolution had started to do in China.

The Soviet Union from 1960 on turned the battle from international socialism vs bougieios capitalism into Eastern ideology vs. Western ideology.

I think that is a ideological reason for its collapse. No longer was the goal international class struggle, but rather the khruschevite "peaceful coexsistance" theory which layed the foundation for pigs like Yeltsin and Gorbachev to do their work

[Vargha Poralli]

I agree with you however I think that by the late 50s and early 60s, it had strayed from this path. The nomenklatura were in power, the leaders of the Soviet Union split the socialist movement down the middle, no more progress was made in the form of socialization of the means of production

The seed for that was actually laid out by Stalin.


Cultural Revolution had started to do in China.

Which itself was an utter failure.


The Soviet Union from 1960 on turned the battle from international socialism vs bougieios capitalism into Eastern ideology vs. Western ideology.

No not exactly correct. The Blame could be laid out equally on WW2.


I think that is a ideological reason for its collapse. No longer was the goal international class struggle, but rather the khruschevite "peaceful coexsistance" theory which layed the foundation for pigs like Yeltsin and Gorbachev to do their work

That had happened some 20 years before Khrushchev. Stalin and his apparatchiks became prisoners of the conditions they themselves created. That is the reason for its collapse.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 03:36 pm


I agree with you however I think that by the late 50s and early 60s, it had strayed from this path. The nomenklatura were in power, the leaders of the Soviet Union split the socialist movement down the middle, no more progress was made in the form of socialization of the means of production

The seed for that was actually laid out by Stalin.


Cultural Revolution had started to do in China.

Which itself was an utter failure.


The Soviet Union from 1960 on turned the battle from international socialism vs bougieios capitalism into Eastern ideology vs. Western ideology.

No not exactly correct. The Blame could be laid out equally on WW2.


I think that is a ideological reason for its collapse. No longer was the goal international class struggle, but rather the khruschevite "peaceful coexsistance" theory which layed the foundation for pigs like Yeltsin and Gorbachev to do their work

That had happened some 20 years before Khrushchev. Stalin and his apparatchiks became prisoners of the conditions they themselves created. That is the reason for its collapse.
um no in WWII there was no east vs. west tension. Plus the big mistake you make is that under Stalin the Soviet Union was moving forward. Womans rights had soared, land was socialized, bourgious kulaks were broken down, Aid to the North Korean, Chinese, and East European struggle for socialism was given, and in general, the Soviet Union was moving forward towards communism. Once Khruschev came to power, no progress was made, instead the movement was split in order to ensure the march back to capitalism.

[Vargha Poralli]

Plus the big mistake you make is that under Stalin the Soviet Union was moving forward. Womans rights had soared, land was socialized, bourgious kulaks were broken down, Aid to the North Korean, Chinese, and East European struggle for socialism was given, and in general, the Soviet Union was moving forward towards communism

That didn't need Stalin. It would have happened under anybody.


Once Khruschev came to power, no progress was made, instead the movement was split in order to ensure the march back to capitalism.

That would have happened regardless who came to power after Stalin. Khrushev had nothing to do with it. Even if Stalin lived and ruled for another 20-30 years the restoration of Capitalism would have happened regardless.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 25, 2007 06:57 am
The fact is that the USSR was a worker state. The degree of workers' control varied at different points, but the Soviet Union remained a worker state until its collapse (a degenerate one, however). The question is whether it was "socialist".

The Soviet Union saw a great amount of workers' control before the Russian Civil War and even the early stages of that conflict (as evidenced by John Reed's testimonies, among other writings). At that point, it is clear that the Soviet Union was socialist. However, it became apparent that there was a need for more centralized control during the Russian Civil War, which was manifest in war communism. The failure of the revolutions in Germany and other countries compounded these challenges, and the direction toward more centralized control remained. At the same time, the NEP was instituted because Soviet production was at frightfully low levels. Later on, the NEP gave way to further centralized control, culminating in Stalin's ascension (and the elimination of any opposition).

In the end, the Soviet Union was socialist, but it suffered from less and less worker control, making it a degenerated worker state.
Lenin, along with other Bolsheviks, never considered the USSR to be in the phase of socialism. Along the time that Molotov and Stalin were declaring that they had reached this stage of historic development, the Soviet Union was on the historic basis of rather destitution, aggravated by the destructions of the imperialist and civil wars, the "struggle for individual existence" not only did not disappear the day after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and not only did not abate in the succeeding years, but, on the contrary, assumed at times an unheard-of ferocity. Need we recall that certain regions of the country have twice gone to the point of cannibalism?

I think that, rather than socialism, we saw that the Soviet state was on the scale of stagnation and decline, with it slowly being swallowed by the petit-bourgeois and peasantry elements, who came to dominate the state power with the legalization of small market activity. It appeared that, on the local scale, these class forces tended to take hold of public positions. I think that the failure to respond to the Workers' Opposition, Workers' Group, and even the Kronstadt Rebel's demands, were the direct result of a tight hold that these elements had over the the former revolutionary party, and the Soviet Republic within itself. As for workers' control, it was a disastrous experiment. With a lack of economic administration, and organized planning, we saw that nothing but industrial chaos arised out of this. Certain engineers, machinists, and middlemen that were necessary in the production process fleed the Soviet Union with the fear that they would feel the wrath of the working class. Therefore, we saw that factories could function, and thus a complete economic breakdown occured.

It was absolutely necessary to stabilize the Soviet economy, and what was needed, however unsocialistic of a measure it was, was the establishment of administrational control by these functionaries. However, I do not think that what the Workers' Opposition was suggesting was completely unrealistic, and it was certainly viable, however there would of been many opponents to her plans of reestablishing workers' control of the means of production and exchange.


Alexandre Kollontai:
(1) To form a body from the workers - producers themselves - for administering the people's economy.

(2) For this purpose, (i.e. for the transformation of the unions from the role of passive assistance to the economic bodies, to that of active participation and manifestation of their creative initiative) the Workers' Opposition proposes a series of preliminary measures aimed at an orderly and gradual cessation of this aim.

(3) Transferring of the administrative functions of industry into the hands of the union does not take place until the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the trade unions has found the said unions to be able and sufficiently prepared for the task.

(4) All appointments to the administrative economic positions shall be made with consent of the union. All candidates nominated by the union to be non-removable. All responsible officials appointed by the unions are responsible to it and may be recalled by it.

(5) In order to carry out all these proposals, it is necessary to strengthen the rank and file nucleus in the unions, and to prepare factory and shop committees for running the industries.

(6) By means of concentrating in one body the entire administration of the public economy (without the existing dualism of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the All-Russian Executive Committee of the trade unions) there must be created a singleness of will which will make it easy to carry out the plan and put 'to life the Communist system of production. Is this syndicalism? Is not this, on the contrary, the same as what is stated in our Party programme, and are not the elements of principles signed by the rest of the comrades deviating from it?

[Rawthentic]

Lastly, you have a very condescending attitude toward the Cuban people. "Ingrained into their mentality"? That's patently ridiculous and you know it. By the way, the Cuban people DON'T regard Castro as a "near god or saint", and to assert as much is beyond laughable.
Did you read my goddam post? They regarded him as that. I've read enough books on Fidel and pro-Fidel documentaries to know this. And it's not condescending to the Cuban people because before, they were used to state paternalism, the government denying them everything, so then here comes this savior, Fidel. It's not too hard to understand is it?


I don't know either, then why are you so scared? Communist Revolution CAN NOT happen WITHOUT Proletarian leadership.
Who the fuck was denying this?


does that mean we automatically discredit them because they are not workers? Other revolutionaries that you don't agree with came from very poor backgrounds like Stalin and Mao.
Read the goddam post before saying shit. I've said that in a proletarian organization, if at the most, the main leaders must be proletarians, not petty-bourgeois or other strata. Its called working class self-emancipation, if you didn't know. And don't call Stalin a revolutionary.

[Lamanov]

- Factory Commitees in the Russian Revolution (http://www.prole.info/articles/factorycommitteesinrussia.html)
- Bolsheviks and Workers' Control (http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group)
- What was the USSR? (http://www.geocities.com/aufheben2/auf_6_ussr1.html)

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 10:45 pm
Did you read my goddam post? They regarded him as that. I've read enough books on Fidel and pro-Fidel documentaries to know this. And it's not condescending to the Cuban people because before, they were used to state paternalism, the government denying them everything, so then here comes this savior, Fidel. It's not too hard to understand is it?
I did read your post, and I stand by my statements.

Cubans do not regard Castro as a "near god" or anything of the sort. They may respect him and admire him, but that is a wholly different thing. Try to find a SINGLE statue of Castro in Cuba, and you will be sorely disappointed to find that there is no statue to this "near god or saint".

And yes, your post was condescending, trying to paint the Cuban people as a bunch of superstitious peons waiting for Saint Fidel to save them, which is complete BS.

[Rawthentic]

And yes, your post was condescending, trying to paint the Cuban people as a bunch of superstitious peons waiting for Saint Fidel to save them, which is complete BS.

I didn't paint them like that, there's no need for it. And why are you taking it so seriously? The Cuban people praised Fidel because he reflected their needs, but as a result they sometimes did regard him as high as a god.

[Rawthentic]

DJ-TC, very informative articles, thanks. Does anyone have anything to say on these articles, particularly the first one?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 04:44 pm






That didn't need Stalin. It would have happened under anybody.

No it wouldn't have. Under Trotsky it would have halted everything and wait for revolutions in the west to catch up. Under Bakurin, the NEP would be continued, perhaps even opened into full fledged capitalism.

Right after Stalin, all that had been worked towards wass reversed, the movement was split, and the long march back to capitalism began.


That would have happened regardless who came to power after Stalin. Khrushev had nothing to do with it. Even if Stalin lived and ruled for another 20-30 years the restoration of Capitalism would have happened regardless.

that's just your opinion.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 10:45 pm



Did you read my goddam post? They regarded him as that. I've read enough books on Fidel and pro-Fidel documentaries to know this. And it's not condescending to the Cuban people because before, they were used to state paternalism, the government denying them everything, so then here comes this savior, Fidel. It's not too hard to understand is it?


for all the critiscism there are of Fidel, you cannot even begin to argue that the Cuban people view Castro as a god. That is upsurd.


Who the fuck was denying this?

YOU AND YOUR LINE ARE. Last discussion on the this topic I had with CdL, he justified the FPM's proletarian only line by claiming that he was scared of a bourgious communist revolution.

It is the people's revolution. People of various strata other than proletarian will join in because capitalism is a fucking sewer, and Communism represents a future opposite to the sewer that is capitalism.


Read the goddam post before saying shit.

I did. How else could I have responded to your post if I didn't read it? I am talking in reference to your party line in general.


I've said that in a proletarian organization, if at the most, the main leaders must be proletarians, not petty-bourgeois or other strata. Its called working class self-emancipation, if you didn't know.

yeah and? parties that don't hold your line DO have mainly proletarian leaders and DO specifically hold in their line that the proletariat must self-emancipate itself.


And don't call Stalin a revolutionary.

Stalin was a revolutionary.

Not only did was he a major figure in the political centre that ran the revolution, he had spent months upon months, and years of work organizing soviets and spreading marxism. He was a leading figure in the collectivization of land putting it in the people's hand as well as the suppression of bourgiousie counter-revolution. Not to mention that he was a leader in the making of the world's first socialist state into a world power and example for oppressed masses everywhere to follow.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 12:52 am
DJ-TC, very informative articles, thanks. Does anyone have anything to say on these articles, particularly the first one?
umm libertarian communist jib-jab?


Lenin, along with other Bolsheviks, never considered the USSR

of course. Makes perfect sense. I've been saying this all along. The reason that the bolsheviks named their country the UNION OF THE SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS was part of some big vodka scam that Lenin and Molotov were running.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 12:41 am

And yes, your post was condescending, trying to paint the Cuban people as a bunch of superstitious peons waiting for Saint Fidel to save them, which is complete BS.

I didn't paint them like that, there's no need for it. And why are you taking it so seriously? The Cuban people praised Fidel because he reflected their needs, but as a result they sometimes did regard him as high as a god.
If you can't realize how undeniably incorrect that statement is, there is very little anyone can do for you. Castro is not viewed as a god, a saint or anything of the sort.

Please provide some evidence to support what you're saying.

[Vargha Poralli]

No it wouldn't have. Under Trotsky it would have halted everything and wait for revolutions in the west to catch up. Under Bakurin, the NEP would be continued, perhaps even opened into full fledged capitalism.

Yes USSR is still a beacon for Socialism. <_< . Get real.Focus on issues and politics insted of focusing on people. You are doing the same mistake which is done by hastalavictoria.


I didn&#39;t paint them like that, there&#39;s no need for it. And why are you taking it so seriously? The Cuban people praised Fidel because he reflected their needs, but as a result they sometimes did regard him as high as a god

Fidel is not a representative for Cubans. It is because of Cubans that capitalism is not yet restored as it happened in China in 80&#39;s and Eastern Europes in late 80&#39;s and early 90&#39;s.

[Rawthentic]

It is the people&#39;s revolution. People of various strata other than proletarian will join in because capitalism is a fucking sewer, and Communism represents a future opposite to the sewer that is capitalism.

I don&#39;t give a damn about the other "strata", or whatever bullshit St. Avakian shoves down your throat. Communism is exclusively a proletarian ideology, if people from other classes want to join the movement, they must shed their class prejudices and become proletarians themselves.


yeah and? parties that don&#39;t hold your line DO have mainly proletarian leaders and DO specifically hold in their line that the proletariat must self-emancipate itself.
Like the RCP? How ridiculous, knowing that the main leader is not even proletarian.


Stalin was a revolutionary.

Blah, blah, blah. All lies. He was the symbol of counterrevolution, he symbolized the complete break with working-class power, which had happened way before that, but I&#39;m speaking symbolically. And he murdered workers and peasants who stood in the way of his path.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 12:30 am



I don&#39;t give a damn about the other "strata", or whatever bullshit St. Avakian shoves down your throat. Communism is exclusively a proletarian ideology, if people from other classes want to join the movement, they must shed their class prejudices and become proletarians themselves.

Now you have just resorted back to rhetoric and name calling. You have avoided the arguement that I have put forward and gone in a full circle. I could now ask again what about students, proffesors, doctors, etc...

Mao in particular, and Lenin, (maybe marx too, although I&#39;m not quite sure), did alot of work on this subject. Lenin and Mao were leaders of their respective revolutions and had to deal with the contradictions they faced. Mao in particular realized that the contradictions among the masses will be solved by communist revolution and during the socialist stage, but that the masses under the leadership of the proletariat will be making the revolution. What your line ignores is the conditions in underdeveloped countries where the industrial proletariat is NOT the majority.

Instead of just ignorantly critiscizing Bob Avakian, why don&#39;t you try listening to his talks? Or reading some of his essays, articles, or works? Bob Avakian makes extremly intelligent critiscisms of capitalism and puts forwards an alternative which is revolutionary communism. Even Left Communists I&#39;ve heard have said they agree with Avakian until he starts talking about the vangaurd.


Like the RCP? How ridiculous, knowing that the main leader is not even proletarian.

Bob Avakian came from an immigrant family. His mom had no job, and for most of his childhood, neither did his dad because of injury. According to what I&#39;ve heard he worked a variety of "small" jobs during and after college while organizing workers and students, until he fled because he was charged with 3 times life sentence or something like that for an anti-capitalist action he did.

Other leaders like Carl Dix for example, grew up in very poor urban neighborhoods. Carl Dix was a Vietnam war resistor.

This is very DUMB critiscism because the leaders of the RCP have spent their lives devoted to proletarian struggle and organizing workers, students, and revolutionaries.


Blah, blah, blah. All lies. He was the symbol of counterrevolution, he symbolized the complete break with working-class power, which had happened way before that, but I&#39;m speaking symbolically. And he murdered workers and peasants who stood in the way of his path.

like I constantly say to g.ram when he gives me these unprincipled opinions; that&#39;s just your opinion.[It is far removed from fact]

[RNK]

Communism is exclusively a proletarian ideology, if people from other classes want to join the movement, they must shed their class prejudices and become proletarians themselves.

Not necessarily. Marx made it perfectly clear (as has history) that non-proletarians, namely, middle-class and petit-bourgeoisie, may join the proletarian revolution if they believe it will be beneficial for them.

As for Bob Avakian... he&#39;s a smart fellow. I&#39;ve read some of his works. Well, one. But it was nice. I don&#39;t trust the guy, though. Too much of a cult of "appreciation" around him.

Marx wasn&#39;t a proletarian.

[Rawthentic]

Now you have just resorted back to rhetoric and name calling. You have avoided the arguement that I have put forward and gone in a full circle. I could now ask again what about students, proffesors, doctors, etc...
Let me remind you once again that these groups do not constitute a class. If they are from the intelligentsia, I might give them the benefit of the doubt, but be extremely watchful that they don&#39;t bring their class background garbage into a working class organization.

It seems like we are not understanding each other too well. In underdeveloped nations, the proletariat will indeed have to be the leading force in revolution, above the peasantry and other non-revolutionary classes. I&#39;m talking about industrialized nations, where the proletariat is the vast majority, and there is no need to worry about such insignificant majorities like the petty-bourgeoisie. I agree with your line on the underdeveloped nations.


Bob Avakian came from an immigrant family. His mom had no job, and for most of his childhood, neither did his dad because of injury. According to what I&#39;ve heard he worked a variety of "small" jobs during and after college while organizing workers and students, until he fled because he was charged with 3 times life sentence or something like that for an anti-capitalist action he did.
His dad was a lawyer, thats petty-bourgeois, straight up. My point is, he is the main dude in the RCP and he is not proletarian. I know who Carl Dix is and see where he came from.



This is very DUMB critiscism because the leaders of the RCP have spent their lives devoted to proletarian struggle and organizing workers, students, and revolutionaries.
I wouldn&#39;t be that naive. The "fight for the middle" is not exactly proletarian organizing. Neither is supporting the colonial bourgeoisie in an attempt to fight imperialism.


Not necessarily. Marx made it perfectly clear (as has history) that non-proletarians, namely, middle-class and petit-bourgeoisie, may join the proletarian revolution if they believe it will be beneficial for them.

Yeah, and as a result join into the ranks of the proletariat.


Marx wasn&#39;t a proletarian.
Why does it matter so much if Marx wasn&#39;t proletarian? The theory of communism is a working class ideology, hands down, no argument. Workers today will not care if Marx was proletarian or not, they will use his theories of class struggle to emancipate themselves, free from any other classes claiming to "fight for the masses", which is quite typical of petty-bourgeois socialism.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by LeftyHenry+--> (LeftyHenry)that&#39;s just your opinion.[/b]


Originally posted by LeftHenry+--> (LeftHenry)Like I constantly say to g.ram when he gives me these unprincipled opinions;[/b]

Well my opinions are not unprincipled in general. They are unprincipled in your point of view. You cant refute my reasons with valid arguments so you have found a method of dodging it successfully.



Originally posted by RNK

Not necessarily. Marx made it perfectly clear (as has history) that non-proletarians, namely, middle-class and petit-bourgeoisie, may join the proletarian revolution if they believe it will be beneficial for them.

I would like to read directly from Marx. My guess is that you have misunderstood something from communist manifesto.


Originally posted by hastalavictoria
It seems like we are not understanding each other too well. In underdeveloped nations, the proletariat will indeed have to be the leading force in revolution, above the peasantry and other non-revolutionary classes. I&#39;m talking about industrialized nations, where the proletariat is the vast majority, and there is no need to worry about such insignificant majorities like the petty-bourgeoisie. I agree with your line on the underdeveloped nations.

First off you have to avoid this developed/undeveloped stupidity. If workers of a developed western world can be revolutionary without allying with peasants(if you mean by petty bourgeoisie) why haven&#39;t they done so ?


Originally posted by hastalavictoria
His dad was a lawyer, thats petty-bourgeois, straight up. My point is, he is the main dude in the RCP and he is not proletarian. I know who Carl Dix is and see where he came from.

Your first point is really ridicoulus. I would not have pointed out this thing if yopu have used soem other valid criticisms. A person&#39;s birth,childhood does not matter before what is their convictions are.Actions matter most than where a person has been born.



[email protected]

Neither is supporting the colonial bourgeoisie in an attempt to fight imperialism.

If you are mentioning about Nepali Maoists or Naxalites then you are clearly stupid and totally wrong.


hastalavictoria
Why does it matter so much if Marx wasn&#39;t proletarian? The theory of communism is a working class ideology, hands down, no argument. Workers today will not care if Marx was proletarian or not, they will use his theories of class struggle to emancipate themselves, free from any other classes claiming to "fight for the masses", which is quite typical of petty-bourgeois socialism.

Class is not static. Again look at actions and convictions before dismissing somebody.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 02:07 am



Let me remind you once again that these groups do not constitute a class.

Yes they come from a variety of classes. Let me remind you that often petty bourgious student were key to the Vietnam anti-war movement. petty bourgiousie intellectuals, as well as petty bourgiousie intellectuals who became proletarianized (Marx, famous pants story lol) have contributed quite a bit ideologically.


If they are from the intelligentsia, I might give them the benefit of the doubt,

I don&#39;t think the CL does.


but be extremely watchful that they don&#39;t bring their class background garbage into a working class organization.

If they were proud of being petty bourgeois or whatever then why would they join a COMMUNIST party? I highly doubt it.


It seems like we are not understanding each other too well. In underdeveloped nations, the proletariat will indeed have to be the leading force in revolution, above the peasantry and other non-revolutionary classes.

Right well in countries where there is a very small industrial proletariat its important that a communist party reach out to the masses as a whole. In particular, the rural proletariat.


I&#39;m talking about industrialized nations, where the proletariat is the vast majority, and there is no need to worry about such insignificant majorities like the petty-bourgeoisie. I agree with your line on the underdeveloped nations.

Like I said, the Vietnam anti-war movement had large petty bourgiousie elements in it. Some times even the most radical groups were highly petty bourgeoisie. I don&#39;t think that we should "worry" about the petty bourigeoisie, but shouldn&#39;t necessarily reject revolutionary pett bourgeois elements like for example, certain strata of the students.


His dad was a lawyer, thats petty-bourgeois, straight up. My point is, he is the main dude in the RCP and he is not proletarian. I know who Carl Dix is and see where he came from.

so fucking what? He&#39;s been proletariat since college working small jobs and organizing workers and students.


I wouldn&#39;t be that naive. The "fight for the middle" is not exactly proletarian organizing. Neither is supporting the colonial bourgeoisie in an attempt to fight imperialism.

where and how does the RCP do that???


Yeah, and as a result join into the ranks of the proletariat.

umm wtf? that goes against everything you&#39;ve been arguing with me


Why does it matter so much if Marx wasn&#39;t proletarian? The theory of communism is a working class ideology, hands down, no argument. Workers today will not care if Marx was proletarian or not, they will use his theories of class struggle to emancipate themselves, free from any other classes claiming to "fight for the masses", which is quite typical of petty-bourgeois socialism.

seems like the Communist League would ban Marx from joining...

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Well my opinions are not unprincipled in general.

No but when you just revert to "stalin is a bad guy" type critiscism is what I am refering to. Otherwise you hold pretty principled views regarding the role of the vanguard for example and that the state can&#39;t just disapear in 24 hours after the revolution.


You cant refute my reasons with valid arguments so you have found a method of dodging it successfully.

I can and I have before. I cite claims when people ask for it, but I&#39;ve dealt with the statement that hastalavictoria was putting forward so many times before

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Not necessarily. Marx made it perfectly clear (as has history) that non-proletarians, namely, middle-class and petit-bourgeoisie, may join the proletarian revolution if they believe it will be beneficial for them.

BULLSHIT&#33;

From an earlier post:


Marx and Engels always fought to make sure workers&#39; parties were really that. They demanded that the U.S. section of the International be made up of a majority of workers for example.. then there&#39;s their Circular Letter to Bebel, et. al. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm) which read in part: "It is an inevitable manifestation, and one rooted in the process of development, that people from what have hitherto been the ruling class also join the militant proletariat and supply it with educative elements. We have already said so clearly in the Manifesto. But in this context there are two observations to be made:

"Firstly, if these people [petty-bourgeois and bourgeois people wanting to join the workers&#39; movement] are to be of use to the proletarian movement, they must introduce genuinely educative elements...

"Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook. These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In a country as petty-bourgeois as Germany, there is certainly some justification for such ideas. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. If the gentlemen constitute themselves a Social-Democratic petty-bourgeois party, they are fully within their rights: in that case we could negotiate with them and, according to circumstances, form an alliance with them, etc. But within a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come [and this was written in 1879&#33;&#33; - CDL]. How the Party can suffer the authors of this article to remain any longer in their midst seems to us incomprehensible. But should the Party leadership actually pass, to a greater or lesser extent, into the hands of such men, then the Party will be emasculated no less, and that will put paid to its proletarian grit.

"For almost 40 years we have emphasised that the class struggle is the immediate motive force of history and, in particular, that the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is the great lever of modern social revolution; hence we cannot possibly co-operate with men who seek to eliminate that class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. Hence we cannot co-operate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes."

And that&#39;s the communist outlook, then and today. Members with petty-bourgeois and bourgeois backgrounds, may be (due to the privilege and education they have) able to offer ideas that we workers can use.. they may be "educative elements." But even in 1879 when this letter was writen, the period when that would happen with any kind of regularity was coming to a close. This was a time when bourgeois revolutions and class relations were still cementing themselves. But now, as the system of capitalism decays, they are entrenched; and there is even less a chance of this happening (though it can pick up in periods of intense class struggle).

So, what this means is that we workers can look to people like Lenin and Mao (who never became proletarianized, though Lenin at least attempted to become proletarianized, or a de-classed "full time revolutionary") for educational value. If they made theoretical contributions which were positive, we can (and should) use them. We should also discard those parts of their theories which are incorrect (and this is what we in the FPM-MGL do).

.. and:


Marx wasn&#39;t a proletarian.

Bullshit again&#33;

From the same earlier post:


Everytime I bring this up with a member of a "workers&#39; party" run by the petty-bourgeois, I get the same old argument. "BUT MARX WAS PRIVILEGED&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;"

Again, I recommend that you read some of Marx&#39;s writings, as well as a good biography.

From the moment Marx became a communist, he fought to leave his class privilege behind and become proletarianized. Marx worked as a journalist for a good time, and in between jobs, had to live off of gifts from Engels. At one point, he was so low on money he had to pawn his clothes. Of his seven children, only three survived. Nothing bourgeoisie about that.

Engels, who is always labeled bourgeoisie, worked at his father&#39;s mill, for as long as he could take it. Eventually, his father died and left him the mill, which he sold shortly thereafter.

Besides this, Marx and Engels always fought to make sure workers&#39; parties were really that. They demanded that the U.S. section of the International be made up of a majority of workers for example..

[OneBrickOneVoice]

But within a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come

Here he is talking about petty bourgeois/ bourgeois elements that maintain the petty-bourgeois/bourgeois outlook


Firstly, if these people [petty-bourgeois and bourgeois people wanting to join the workers&#39; movement] are to be of use to the proletarian movement, they must introduce genuinely educative elements...


Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook.

these statements show that they are NOT against petty-bourgeois elements that have proletarian outlook


Mao (who never became proletarianized..")

Mao was from a poor peasant family.

[Rawthentic]

CdL, good job on nailing it down.

Throughout their political lives, Marx and Engels drew a clear class line in its dealings with the petty bourgeoisie. Beginning in the Communist Manifesto, they regarded this class as a reactionary force in the class struggle, which attempts to ally itself with the proletariat insofar as its desires to restore older social relations seem to correspond in the immediate sense to the socially progressive struggles of working people. Both Marx and Engels derided those elements of the petty bourgeoisie that were unwilling to decisively and irreversibly break from their class and join the proletariat but wanted to be “leaders” of the socialist movement. Thus, even though Marx and Engels themselves both came from non-proletarian backgrounds, both of them actively sought to break from those previous relations (Marx was more successful at this than Engels) and become intellectual servants of the proletariat, which is the only role they saw for such elements in a proletarian movement. In their view, those elements of the petty bourgeoisie that would attempt to attach themselves to the proletariat in times of revolution were seeking to do so only to preserve their privileges, and proletarians should in no way trust or compromise with them.

Near the end of their lives, Marx and Engels once again addressed the role of the petty bourgeoisie within the proletarian movement. In the 1870s, following the defeat of the Paris Commune and the reorganization of the socialist movement into mass political parties, they felt the need to begin counseling their comrades on the importance of proletarian leadership. “If people of this kind from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first condition is that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should whole-heartedly adopt the proletarian point of view.... In such a petty-bourgeois country as Germany these ideas certainly have their own justification. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party.... In a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. If reasons exist for tolerating them there for the moment, it is also a duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time.” Returning to the question of the dynamics between proletarians and petty bourgeoisie in a time of revolutionary struggle, Engels rather clearly stated what the experiences of the democratic revolutions of the 1850s and the Commune had taught: “This proposition [that the petty bourgeoisie is “one reactionary mass” — is true only in certain exceptional instances, for example in the case of a revolution by the proletariat,... or in a country in which not only has the bourgeoisie constructed state and society after its own image but the democratic petty bourgeoisie ... has already carried that reconstruction to its logical
conclusion.”

-This here, along with CdL&#39;s great post, trump any and all arguments about being "soft" on petty-bourgeois elements, or about giving a fuck about other "strata" when we proletarians are the vast majority in the world. In underdeveloped nations, the proletariat must be the leadership, this is an exception.

[black magick hustla]

Engels wasn&#39;t "proletarianized", that is bullshit apologism.

Engels inheited his father&#39;s stock from one of the most important multinational companies at that time. He later sold it, and with it he "retired", but that doesn&#39;t makes him proletarianized. If I owned a huge company and then sell it away, and with that money gotten from explotation I would live without working, I wouldnt be proletarian at all.

A proletarian is a wage-slave, not some comfortable upper middle class retired man.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Engels, who is always labeled bourgeoisie, worked at his father&#39;s mill, for as long as he could take it. Eventually, his father died and left him the mill, which he sold shortly thereafter.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

If they were proud of being petty bourgeois or whatever then why would they join a COMMUNIST party? I highly doubt it.

:lol: So, you take everyone at their word then? After you hang around the rotten U.S. "left" for a while, you&#39;ll notice that there are far more petty bourgeois characters than workers.


Here he is talking about petty bourgeois/ bourgeois elements that maintain the petty-bourgeois/bourgeois outlook


these statements show that they are NOT against petty-bourgeois elements that have proletarian outlook

Are you kidding me?? Two questions: Did you read the whole post, and do you understand that being determines consciousness?

In the letter, the petty bourgeoisie is clearly talked about; not members of that class that don&#39;t have a proletarian outlook.. the entire class.

They say.. "they should adopt a proletarian outlook.. but.. These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas."

Anyway, as I&#39;ve asked before, if being determines conciousness, how the fuck can a member of the petty bourgeoisie take on a "proletarian outlook"?? Can anyone just magically take on the outlook of any class at will? Do they just have to "try really hard" or read alot of books?&#33;?

Marx and Engels had no problem with those people thrown down into the proletariat from the higher classes through class struggle, because they became proletarians, and could now take on the proletarian outlook. They had a huge problem with members of the petty bourgeoisie pretending to be on the side of workers and trying to join their parties (and usually control them, thus replicating class divisions within the parties themselves&#33;).

Seriously, please read my post again.


Mao was from a poor peasant family.

Peasant yes, poor no (how do you think he went to school, not only in Shaoshan; but later in Changsha??).. but anyway, I know Mao&#39;s background.. and, like I said, "Mao ... never became proletarianized.." Peasants aren&#39;t proles.

[Rawthentic]

Thanks CdL for clarifying the importance of the proletarian outlook.

I might also add that allowing members from the petty-bourgeoisie can, and usually does as we see in the American left, replicate class distinctions, where a few "leaders" are the major theoreticians, and the proles are left to do the "dirty work". This what we stress in the CL, that a proletarian only party enforces proletarian self-emancipation and organization.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 28, 2007 12:02 pm

Engels, who is always labeled bourgeoisie, worked at his father&#39;s mill, for as long as he could take it. Eventually, his father died and left him the mill, which he sold shortly thereafter.
...and that addressed nothing from my post.

I never denied he worked for his father at all.

If I was a worker and then suddenly I would heir millions of dollars in stocks and I would just sell them away, I could pretty much live comfortably forever without working.

that wouldnt make me a proletarian at all.

[chimx]

He was the manager of a massive textile mill in his dad&#39;s multinational corporation (which also had factories in Germany and England). Only in the Free People&#39;s Movement is becoming a boss considered proletarianization. :-D

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

I might also add that allowing members from the petty-bourgeoisie can, and usually does as we see in the American left, replicate class distinctions, where a few "leaders" are the major theoreticians, and the proles are left to do the "dirty work". This what we stress in the CL, that a proletarian only party enforces proletarian self-emancipation and organization.

What of people born into petty-bourgeousie familes who have no problem with doing dirty work?

[manic expression]

To the people here who are arguing for puritanical exclusion of non-proletarians, I would like to remind you that Lenin WAS a lawyer. It is both detrimental and unnecessary to deny non-proletarians a part in a struggle that they can and should contribute to. Marx explicitly stated that many non-proletarians would join the revolutionary effort.

This ridiculous and inexplicable dogmatism is truly misled.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Did you read the letter I just posted from Marx at all?

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 29, 2007 04:33 pm
Did you read the letter I just posted from Marx at all?
Yes, but Marx was writing specifically about people who saw the workers as "uneducated" and the like. If a member of the petty-bourgeoisie sees the workers as fully capable and "worthy", you cannot apply Marx&#39;s concern. Marx is taking into account the views that people have, which is something that I feel you are failing to do.

[manic expression]

Moreover, much of the rhetoric here is not only targeting non-proletarians, but people who have non-proletarian backgrounds. Rejecting individuals based on the family they grew up in is obscene and reminiscient of a caste mentality.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by manic expression+March 29, 2007 05:21 pm--> (manic expression @ March 29, 2007 05:21 pm)
Compañ[email protected] 29, 2007 04:33 pm
Did you read the letter I just posted from Marx at all?
Yes, but Marx was writing specifically about people who saw the workers as "uneducated" and the like. If a member of the petty-bourgeoisie sees the workers as fully capable and "worthy", you cannot apply Marx&#39;s concern. Marx is taking into account the views that people have, which is something that I feel you are failing to do. [/b]
exactly, that is why he specifically says that petty bourgiousie who have a proletarian outlook should be accepted.

[Rawthentic]

What of people born into petty-bourgeousie familes who have no problem with doing dirty work?

Then bring them in. The main problem as I stated above is that with the inclusion of petty-bourgeois into proletarian parties, class priviliges and relations are restored inside the party.

Take for example, the RCP, where Bob Avakian is a party intellectual, divorced from class relations.

That is the main problem with allowing people from other classes.


exactly, that is why he specifically says that petty bourgiousie who have a proletarian outlook should be accepted.
What a reactionary and anti-Marxist viewpoint. have you heard "being determines conscience"? In order to have a proletarian outlook, you must be proletarian.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:42 pm



Take for example, the RCP, where Bob Avakian is a party intellectual, divorced from class relations.

have you even bothered to listen or read any Avakian before making comments on him? Like I said, Avakian worked proletarian jobs throughout his teens (he said in his biography he had some traffic patrol job or something) and then some small jobs throughout college where he worked closely with the BPP. He then went on to organize students, youth, workers, and revolutionaries in the Revolutionary Union and Attica Brigade and then later the Revolutionary Communist party and RCYB. In short he has been struggling against oppression and capitalism for decades. What have you been doing in the past decades? How is that "divorced from class relations" <_<


What a reactionary and anti-Marxist viewpoint

you are the only reactionary here. You have spent the last few thread arguing against rebellion and direct actions and for ultra-leftism and thus essentially reformism.

my point is not "anti-marxist" why? Because marx and engels, especially engels had their proletarian outlooks before they were proletarian or without ever being proletarian (I don&#39;t care enough to argue about that).


. have you heard "being determines conscience"? In order to have a proletarian outlook, you must be proletarian.

of course, and that is true the vast majority of the time, however, there are people who are not proletarian but realize that capitalism is a sewer and is horrid and must be replaced with a system that meets the people&#39;s needs. They are part of the people that can be united under the proletariat.

to assume that if you allow non-working class communists who do advocate a classless, stateless society, into the party, that class relations will form is very incorrect its not even funny. They advocate a classless state, why the fuck would they think they are superior to other classes? I don&#39;t get your thought process.

Point is, the rural and urban proletariat must be and will always be the leaders of the revolution and they will be no matter what in communist movement but there are others who can be united, who are just as useful to the party in organizing and aiding the party.

[Rawthentic]

What have you been doing in the past decades? How is that "divorced from class relations"
Don&#39;t get personal because you can&#39;t find anything better to say. I&#39;ve only lived one decade and seven years, but what the fuck is that to you?

Divorced from class relations means that you are neither proletarian, nor petty-bourgeois or bourgeois, you do not handle any means of production. And Avakian doesn&#39;t even have a job I bet, except as leader of the RCP, but that sure as hell does not make him working-class.


you are the only reactionary here. You have spent the last few thread arguing against rebellion and direct actions and for ultra-leftism and thus essentially reformism.
HAAA&#33; I&#39;m a reactionary because I opposed the breaking of some windows&#33;&#33; And this also means I&#39;m an ultra-leftist&#33;&#33; Wow, how patently pathetic. Have you heard me preach electoral organizing? I thought so, dumb shit.


of course, and that is true the vast majority of the time, however, there are people who are not proletarian but realize that capitalism is a sewer and is horrid and must be replaced with a system that meets the people&#39;s needs. They are part of the people that can be united under the proletariat.

I may not be against allowing these people in working people&#39;s organizations, but the workers must always be in the leadership, and these other persons much be watched so that they don&#39;t try and bring any garbage into it.

In the League, we hold that allowing such people would take away our element of self-organization and the concept of proletarian self-emancipation. As the petty-bourgeois are managers, directors, and "middle-men" for the capitalists, their class nature impels them to replicate such divisions in a proletarian party. Read the above paragraph to see what I see as what must be done to these people.

And if they want a leadership position, then they must break with their class background completely, that is, if they are truly dedicated.


They advocate a classless state
You&#39;re confused bud. That&#39;s quite the oxymoron.


And here&#39;s the League&#39;s basic position on this thing, a fundamental Marxist concept:


Petty Bourgeois and Proletarian
Throughout their political lives, Marx and Engels drew a clear class line in its dealings with the petty bourgeoisie. Beginning in the Communist Manifesto, they regarded this class as a reactionary force in the class struggle, which attempts to ally itself with the proletariat insofar as its desires to restore older social relations seem to correspond in the immediate sense to the socially progressive struggles of working people. Both Marx and Engels derided those elements of the petty bourgeoisie that were unwilling to decisively and irreversibly break from their class and join the proletariat but wanted to be “leaders” of the socialist movement. Thus, even though Marx and Engels themselves both came from non-proletarian backgrounds, both of them actively sought to break from those previous relations (Marx was more successful at this than Engels) and become intellectual servants of the proletariat, which is the only role they saw for such elements in a proletarian movement. In their view, those elements of the petty bourgeoisie that would attempt to attach themselves to the proletariat in times of revolution were seeking to do so only to preserve their privileges, and proletarians should in no way trust or compromise with them.

This understanding of the role of the petty bourgeoisie also extended to the period of transition from capitalist to communist society. For Marx and Engels, it was not only the bourgeoisie that was deserving of expropriation but also the petty bourgeoisie. In his 1850 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, Marx spoke extensively about the dynamic between the proletarian and petty bourgeois movements and warned about the unity of proletarian and petty-bourgeois forces: “While the democratic petty bourgeois are everywhere oppressed, they preach to the proletariat general unity and reconciliation;... that is, they seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization in which general social-democratic phrases prevail while ... the specific demands of the proletariat may not be presented. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the complete disadvantage of the proletariat.” This theme was repeated in similar analyses of the events in France that took place at the same time (contained in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte), and continued to be a theme for both throughout the development of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International) and after.

Near the end of their lives, Marx and Engels once again addressed the role of the petty bourgeoisie within the proletarian movement. In the 1870s, following the defeat of the Paris Commune and the reorganization of the socialist movement into mass political parties, they felt the need to begin counseling their comrades on the importance of proletarian leadership. “If people of this kind from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first condition is that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should whole-heartedly adopt the proletarian point of view.... In such a petty-bourgeois country as Germany these ideas certainly have their own justification. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party.... In a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. If reasons exist for tolerating them there for the moment, it is also a duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time.” Returning to the question of the dynamics between proletarians and petty bourgeoisie in a time of revolutionary struggle, Engels rather clearly stated what the experiences of the democratic revolutions of the 1850s and the Commune had taught: “This proposition [that the petty bourgeoisie is “one reactionary mass” — HJM] is true only in certain exceptional instances, for example in the case of a revolution by the proletariat,... or in a country in which not only has the bourgeoisie constructed state and society after its own image but the democratic petty bourgeoisie ... has already carried that reconstruction to its logical conclusion.” (Emphasis in both mine.)

The lesson here is clear: compromise with the petty bourgeoisie is effectively a betrayal of the interests of the proletariat, especially “in the case of a revolution by the proletariat” or when the petty bourgeoisie has carried the construction of the bourgeois state “to its logical conclusion,” i.e., to the stage of a democratic republic, as well as when it comes to membership in or leadership of the proletarian party. It is here, in these areas, where the Bolshevik leaders consistently failed to apply Marxian communist theory. Using the relative social backwardness of Russia as a shield from criticism, the Bolsheviks sought to compromise with the petty bourgeoisie. While it is true that some of the Bolsheviks, like Lenin, made formal appeals for non-proletarian elements to break with their previous class relations, at the same time they minimized the role that class background (or social being, as Marx sometimes called it) played in the development of consciousness, and held views that “it is immaterial whether a [petty bourgeois] student or a worker is capable of becoming a professional revolutionary.” This equivocation and revision of the Marxian communist view of class would ultimately have disastrous consequences when applied to the practical situation in revolutionary Russia.

Civil War and Class Compromise
With the outbreak of Civil War, and the turning of the Bolshevik-led Soviet government to dealing with the advances of the White Guards, those theoretical compromises began to find practical application. Specifically, we begin to see these compromises in the Soviet government’s reconstitution of the coercive apparatus of the state. During the period of the “commune state,” when workers were attempting to run the state and economy, numerous acts of sabotage were committed by the dispossessed petty bourgeoisie. These acts ranged from simply refusing to follow the decisions of the elected shop committee where they were employed to destruction of vital machinery and passing on information to the Whites. At this point, the Bolsheviks had to figure out how to deal with the problem. They had two choices: 1) begin to train Bolshevik (and non-party advanced) workers to take on the functions of the petty-bourgeoisie; or, 2) make compromises with sections of the old political (state) and economic apparatus. They chose the latter, citing preciousness of time and the need for immediate solutions. In other words, their impatience led them to commit opportunist errors and create unprincipled blocs with a reactionary class. This was the beginning of the period commonly known as “War Communism.”

The enrollment of “specialists” in the military and state apparatus opened the door for the reconstitution of large sections of the old bourgeois state in new forms. After the October Revolution, the victorious proletariat, in the form of the Soviet government, had smashed the old state into pieces. Within six weeks of the victory of the Revolution, the Russian Army had been demobilized (and its officer corps abolished), the police forces had been disarmed and disbanded, and the Okhrana, the Russian secret police force, had been scattered to the four winds. In addition, large sections of the tsarist state bureaucracy had been thrown out of power and forced to find new work. But, with the turn toward petty bourgeois “specialists,” many of these elements returned to their former positions, including the influx of many former tsarist officers into the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and former Okhrana agents into the new Emergency Committee for State Security, the Cheka. However, because these elements were subordinated to the soviets, and had no basis for maintaining an independent class existence, their effect on the fledgling workers’ republic was still reversible and historically fleeting.

This precarious balance of class forces began to shift at the end of 1919. Less than a year after the Bolsheviks were helping to found the Third (Communist) International, and workers’ uprisings were breaking out across Europe and North America, they were also brokering a decisive compromise with the petty bourgeoisie. The Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party [Bolshevik], and the Third All-Russian Trade Union Congress, approved the restoration of one-person management of economic enterprises. This decision, more than any other taken by the Bolsheviks in the post-October period, shaped the course of future development of the Soviet republic. Experiments in direct workers’ control of production were abandoned in favor of a return of petty-bourgeois managers and bourgeois production techniques (e.g., Taylorism). Again, this compromise with the petty bourgeoisie was justified to the proletariat in the name of the “class struggle” and “defending the proletarian dictatorship” from the White Guards and imperialists. Workers’ control of production in the early development of the workers’ republic was passed off as “the idea about which the old internationalists, who were thoroughly petty-bourgeois, made so much ado,” and was then tied to the question of disciplining the peasantry. However, by the summer of 1920, when these measures were beginning to be implemented, the immediate threat of counterrevolution had disappeared; the only “victory” of the Whites in that time period was the repulse of the Red Army from the gates of Warsaw, Poland, and most of the imperialist states had settled into a tense but stable equilibrium with the Soviet republic.

Marx and Engels throughout their political activity maintained that the economic relations of a society are the ultimate determinant of all other relationships. That is, while political, cultural or social forms may initially vary from the economic relations of a society, they must all become uniform, and it is the economic relations that ultimately decide the others. This is especially true in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, because the proletarian revolution is a conscious political act and the reorganization of the economy from private to social ownership requires an especially conscious (class-conscious) leadership and direction to succeed. When the Bolsheviks restored individual management of economic enterprises in 1920, they transferred the conscious element of economic control (administration and management) from the proletariat to the petty bourgeoisie — that is, from one class to another. Thus, for the first time since the victory of the October Revolution in 1917, a class other than the proletariat now possessed a fundamentally significant measure of both economic and political control.

[sexyguy]

To all the middle class revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries,

All ‘revolutionary workers’ will tell you to take absolutely no notice of the cranky ’workerist’ fetishism above. Ask the authors of this ignorant self-righteous crap, how many workers took part in the Nuremberg rallies and ask what progressive role the ’workers’ were playing there?

We (revolutionaries) are talking about “class power” we are not concerned with what anyone&#39;s parents did or what job anyone has.

1) develop Marxist revolutionary theory.
2) open polemical struggle for deepening revolutionary theory in the working class.
3) build proletarian dictatorship (power) everywhere, anytime the chance arises.
4) build workers states for the suppression of the capitalism and its supporters.
5) revolutionary struggle for socialist world and liberation from all oppression and alienation, impossible without 1 to 4 above.

EVERYONE ON THE PLANET WITHOUT EXCEPTION IS POSITIVELY INVITED TO GIVE AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE TO THIS STRUGGLE AS THEY ARE ABLE&#33;&#33;&#33;

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It&#39;s great to see how many people here have completely bagged materialism outright. You cannot "take on a proletarian outlook" without being a proletarian. To think otherwise is outright idealism, or worse.

As for the petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie that want to join communist parties without giving up their class privilege.. good luck overthrowing yourself.. although it will of course never go that far with people from your class at the helm of such "Workers&#39; Parties."

Finally, if you&#39;re a young person (still in school, haven&#39;t started work yet), your class, and outlook, is determined by the family you grow up in. If your parents are workers, then so are you. If you&#39;re parents are you bourgeois, than so are you. "Youth" is not a class, it&#39;s an age group.

[sexyguy]

So what? Are the youth, workers and middle-class (professionals etc), (conscious)
revolutionaries or not? That’s what matters, not all this naval gazing and splitting hairs. Individuals and groups constantly shift up and down the class scale at any given time, acording to the demands of capital .

Edit: added (conscious)

[Rawthentic]

Uglyguy, I think that you are very confused bud. I&#39;m not going to bother answering your unintelligible shit.

[sexyguy]

Why is that not suppressing? Because perplexed, enraged, sulky, anti-communism can’t answer anything.

[Rawthentic]

Why is that not suppressing? Because perplexed, enraged, sulky, anti-communism can’t answer anything.
Wow. Ok bud, whatever you say. :D

See where your attitude gets you.

[sexyguy]

Wow. Ok bud, whatever you say.

See where your attitude gets you. Go on then, tell us where that attitude will get us. My bet is you haven&#39;t go the foggiest anti-communist idea that hasn’t been spewed up already.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Don&#39;t get personal because you can&#39;t find anything better to say. I&#39;ve only lived one decade and seven years, but what the fuck is that to you?

exactly. Avakian was fighting for the working class and the emancipation of humanity from before you were even born so I&#39;d shut up about Avakian being "petty bourgiousie" and all the other sectarian bull you&#39;re spewing.


Divorced from class relations means that you are neither proletarian, nor petty-bourgeois or bourgeois, you do not handle any means of production. And Avakian doesn&#39;t even have a job I bet, except as leader of the RCP, but that sure as hell does not make him working-class.

he was proletarian and weither or not he has a job now I don&#39;t know, but he has spent his life fighting and organizing on the side of the proletariat, that is in no way "divorced from class relations"


HAAA&#33; I&#39;m a reactionary because I opposed the breaking of some windows&#33;&#33;

not just that, you&#39;re opposed to direct actions and actions against the system because it "does nothing for the workers"


I may not be against allowing these people in working people&#39;s organizations

but your party is.


but the workers must always be in the leadership, and these other persons much be watched so that they don&#39;t try and bring any garbage into it.

umm thats exactly what ive been arguing. Except I don&#39;t think a communist will ever bring petty bourgiousie characteristics into a communist party if he or she is really a communist. that would make no sense.



You&#39;re confused bud. That&#39;s quite the oxymoron.

Sorry, my bad. For some reason I didn&#39;t finish my thought which was classless stateless society

anyhow, most trotskyists hold that that is possible and that the socialist state is classless. But that&#39;s another disscussion.


And here&#39;s the League&#39;s basic position on this thing, a fundamental Marxist concept:

thanks, I&#39;ll read it when I get more time.


Uglyguy, I think that you are very confused bud. I&#39;m not going to bother answering your unintelligible shit.

stop being an ass and answer his stuff. Don&#39;t tell him he is confused without proving your claim.


It&#39;s great to see how many people here have completely bagged materialism outright. You cannot "take on a proletarian outlook" without being a proletarian. To think otherwise is outright idealism, or worse.

That&#39;s just semantical materialism. To have a communist outlook or have an anti-capitalist outlook or revolutionary outlook you have to be against capitalism because you realize it is a sick system. You are right though which is why proletarians must be leaders.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

The dictatorship of the proletariat alone can emancipate humanity from the oppression of capital, from the lies, falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy — democracy for the rich — and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the blessings of democracy really accessible to the workers and poor peasants, whereas now (even in the most democratic — bourgeois — republic) the blessings of democracy are, in fact, inaccessible to the vast majority of working people. Lenin.


great sig quote sexyguy. And also quite relevent. Communism and Socialism are not just about worker self-empancipation but the emancipation of humanity as a whole which is why forces which are not just workers have taken up the ideology and joined the revolution under the proletarian banner since the first communist revolutions.

[Rawthentic]

he was proletarian and weither or not he has a job now I don&#39;t know, but he has spent his life fighting and organizing on the side of the proletariat, that is in no way "divorced from class relations"
Ah, Christ. This simply means that he is not proletarian because he does not sell his labor power to survive. Get it?


not just that, you&#39;re opposed to direct actions and actions against the system because it "does nothing for the workers"
Wrong. If you&#39;d understand what I actually said, you&#39;d see that I am not against such spontaneous actions per se, but these are not tailed by an organized working-class, which is fundamental for the fall of capitalism.


but your party is.

Exactly, and I have explained why before. We are all workers in the CL, and we talk and organize workers as one of them, not as intellectuals or careerists. By allowing petty-bourgeois into the League, we inhibit proletarian self-emancipation and organization. I stated in another thread that we fulfill the Marxist concept of vanguard, and that is the advanced section of the working-class. This is what differentiates us from other so-called "socialist" or "communist" organizations, and that is that we hold a materialist class analysis, and we don not compromise our class composition.


That&#39;s just semantical materialism. To have a communist outlook or have an anti-capitalist outlook or revolutionary outlook you have to be against capitalism because you realize it is a sick system. You are right though which is why proletarians must be leaders.
Ok, but you cannot hold a proletarian outlook, because you are not proletarian.


Except I don&#39;t think a communist will ever bring petty bourgiousie characteristics into a communist party if he or she is really a communist. that would make no sense.
You&#39;d be surprised. If you look at the vast majority of so-called "communist" parties, they always have their leadership consisting of small clique, who are the most important. And these people are almost never proletarian. These "leaders" are the intellectuals, while the proletarians in the party are usually doing the "dirty work." If you wonder why people think that the American left is chauvinistic, this is a main reason why. And good thing that around the US and the world, we are building the League as real worker&#39;s party, unreflective of the typical American left.

[manic expression]

For those who are rejecting non-proletarians, would you agree that materially, the interests of the proletarians and the petty-bourgeoisie become closer and closer as class warfare increases?

For instance, it would be in the interests of both the workers and small store owners to burn all Wal-Marts tomorrow. The point is that with time and the logical conclusion of capitalism, the petty-bourgeoisie can become as materially opposed to capitalism as the workers.

[Rawthentic]

I would agree with that analysis. Yet as I have said before, proletarians form the only truly revolutionary class, and must at all times and unconditionally be the leadership.

[sexyguy]

So, if Marx Engles and Lenin applied for membership of your outfit, (big if) you would turn them down? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: You might be advised that it would be the best course of action before they ripped your ‘economism’ it to shreds as they did in reality in their own day.

[Rawthentic]

Ulgyguy, if Lenin or Engels applied for membership in the Communist League, they would most likely be turned down, or given a probationary period to make sure that they don&#39;t bring any of their class garbage or elitism, not to say that they were specifically this. To be in a leadership position, which I am sure they would be because they were both brilliant, they would have to shed their class backgrounds and become proletarians like us.

As for Marx, he was a proletarian for the most important part of his life, and that is as he advanced the theory of class struggle and revolution.

[sexyguy]

Ulgyguy, if Lenin or Engels applied for membership in the Communist League, they would most likely be turned down, or given a probationary period to make sure that they don&#39;t bring any of their class garbage or elitism, not to say that they were specifically this. To be in a leadership position, which I am sure they would be because they were both brilliant, they would have to shed their class backgrounds and become proletarians like us.

As for Marx, he was a proletarian for the most important part of his life, and that is as he advanced the theory of class struggle and revolution.

Please someone HELP&#33; I&#39;ve just pissed myself laughing. Keep this bloke talking, he’s really funny. Are the rest of them the same and can I send a donation to this League thing? Better still, they could sell tickets to their Central Committee meetings, they’d make a fortune showing us how they turn-down applications. Can you imagine the discussion? Oh god, I’m gona wet myself again.

[Rawthentic]

Its obvious that you have nothing better to say; your rant shows it.

And you know you have nothing better to say.

[sexyguy]

Ulgyguy, if Lenin or Engels applied for membership in the Communist League, they would most likely be turned down, or given a probationary period to make sure that they don&#39;t bring any of their class garbage or elitism, not to say that they were specifically this. To be in a leadership position, which I am sure they would be because they were both brilliant, they would have to shed their class backgrounds and become proletarians like us.
As for Marx, he was a proletarian for the most important part of his life, and that is as he advanced the theory of class struggle and revolution.



but the workers must always be in the leadership, and these other persons much be watched so that they don&#39;t try and bring any garbage into it.
So, Dr Marx gets full membership and Engels and Lenin get put on probation. Exactly who would “watch” them to asses how their ‘proletarianisation’ was getting on? What criteria would you use to asses their fitness for membership? Would you check their hand to see if they had done any alienating manual labour?

Now what about Prince Kropotkin, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknect, Fidel Castro?



What if I wanted to join your Pedantic Economist Philistine League. My dad was a grave digger, I am a building worker, but my mother did have middle class aspirations. Would I have to own-up that I had a granny who was a teacher when she was young, but only in a poor village school, honestly.

P.s I like the name &#39;Ulgyguy&#39; it&#39;s estheticly pleasing with its 2 u&#39;s 2g&#39;s and 2y&#39;s. Would you mind if I use it as my name on this site? ULGYGUY, ye looks good don&#39;t you think?

[Rawthentic]

It doesn&#39;t matter how hard you find it to believe, they would be watched. Not Marx though, he was a prole during his important years.

You would be accepted because you are proletarian, and I suggest you stop the shit-talking about the League until you check out the site and see who we are and what we do.

If you care, go to the Practice forum, where I made a thread on the League.

P.S> I say UglyGuy because Lenin was ugly.

[sexyguy]

OK mate.

[manic expression]

While I would agree that the proletarians are obviously the most revolutionary, it is really unjustifiable to treat other classes in such a hostile manner. Both the lumpen-proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie can make great contributions to revolutionary efforts, their material conditions oftentimes lend them to revolutionary ideas. Therefore, there is no reason to reject someone if they are willing to help the cause.

Revolutions are never pure, nor should they be. A shopkeeper who is enfuriated with the bourgeoisie is more than valuable, and it is probable that s/he will begin to see that his/her goals are the same as those of the proletarians.

By the way, this is to say nothing of a few things that I&#39;ve noticed from the Communist League&#39;s forum.

[Rawthentic]

ME, I do agree that there are times when the petty-bourgeois will have material conditions that are opposed to that of the bourgeoisie, but I will again repeat myself, and that is that the proletarians must be at the helm of their parties, allowing other non-proletarian elements as they see fit.

And what is it that you have noticed on our forums? Whatever happens there is not reflective of the League, thats the public forum.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 04:45 pm
ME, I do agree that there are times when the petty-bourgeois will have material conditions that are opposed to that of the bourgeoisie, but I will again repeat myself, and that is that the proletarians must be at the helm of their parties, allowing other non-proletarian elements as they see fit.

And what is it that you have noticed on our forums? Whatever happens there is not reflective of the League, thats the public forum.
then what the fuck are you talking about? You&#39;ve been arguing all thread the exact opposite of what you just said.

[Rawthentic]

No I haven&#39;t, Ive been saying the same thing all along. I know that there are petty-bourgeois who see that they will have something in common with the proles, but the proles must always be in the leadership and allow these non-prole elements as they see fit, which will be tolerant and watchful, making sure that they "proletarianize" themselves.

[bezdomni]

The proletariat class is the only class capable of creating communism, but they are not the only class capable of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism.

Plus, petty-bourgeois revolutionaries and revolutionary sympathizers will be "proletarianized" under socialism.

[Rawthentic]

I completely agree here comrade, but am I right or not to say that the party leadership must be workers to enforce self-organization and emancipation?

At least this is our concept in the League. We are workers organizing ourselves and in our class interests.

[sexyguy]

hastalavictora,

I was going to make some observations about the piece you directed me to and some of the stuff on your League site. Then I read this:


“And what is it that you have noticed on our forums? Whatever happens there is not reflective of the League, thats the public forum.”

What can I say? How am I or any other worker, supposed to know what you are about.
You are no different to the vast majority of daft buggers that make-up the ‘left‘. Flash presentation, concentration on form at the expense of content. You attempt to reorganise reality in some ‘presentable’ (petit-bourgeois fashion) image. To put it in the language of my work mates, who you are looking to recruit, you are what I suspected on first seeing your posts. You are con-men, bullshiters, frauds, tea-shirt salesmen, (they even sell dogs coats with your party log on. I kid you not) But most importantly you are reformist anti-communists against the dictatorship of the proletariat. Your ‘worker’ thing is just a another posture for ’public’ consumption and extracting money from naive middle-class "probationary members." Fuck off.

[Rawthentic]

What can I say? How am I or any other worker, supposed to know what you are about.
You are no different to the vast majority of daft buggers that make-up the ‘left‘. Flash presentation, concentration on form at the expense of content. You attempt to reorganise reality in some ‘presentable’ (petit-bourgeois fashion) image. To put it in the language of my work mates, who you are looking to recruit, you are what I suspected on first seeing your posts. You are con-men, bullshiters, frauds, tea-shirt salesmen, (they even sell dogs coats with your party log on. I kid you not) But most importantly you are reformist anti-communists against the dictatorship of the proletariat. Your ‘worker’ thing is just a another posture for ’public’ consumption and extracting money from naive middle-class "probationary members." Fuck off.

You know what we are about by talking to our members and reading our Basic Principles and other documents. Comrade, you are seriously confused. First of all, we have never asked for money, and we have never "recruited" a petty-bourgeois member.

I suggest you look into the League further to see that we are virulently against reformism, and our theory makes it clear that we are in the work of creating the dictatorship of the proletariat and how we intend to get there.

And once again, I think you are weird and confused.

[Rawthentic]

Maybe we should go back to the topic: It seems we are in agreement that there was workers control up until I would say early mid 1920s with the rise of the bureaucracy and its consolidation as ruling class. This is unfortunately due to material conditions and other internal and external factors, buts it also unfortunate that people claim there was socialism and workers democracy after this time and under Stalin.

[sexyguy]

Apart from a few groups of museum-Stalinists in some countries who simply deny most of the difficult problems of 20th century development, all the rest of the 57 varieties of Trotskyism, Revisionism, and Centrism on the fake-&#39;left&#39; tend to capitulate to all-powerful international anti-communist sentiment about the USSR.

This widespread mentality not only challenges traditional Marxist ideas on how socialism could come about, but on how history itself works. Instead of class-struggle revolutions being civilisation&#39;s driving force, idealist philosophy again rules. The fake-&#39;left&#39; in Britain spends its entire time manoeuvring for electoral &#39;alliance&#39; pecking order position (LSA Trots); trying to recreate &#39;left&#39; Labourism (CPB, SLP, SP,) etc or pretending to guarantee &#39;mistake-free socialism’ by the pedantic peddling of abstract generalised programmes, constitution; or standing orders of some wholly academic immaculate-party conception (CPGB, SLP, open Polemic, etc), or like the Communist League in the USA.


Wholly shunned is any attempt to re-convince the international working-class that a further development of Marxist scientific understanding alone holds the key to civilisation&#39;s future by demonstrating a correct analysis of the current stage of imperialist crisis and polemically defending it against all comers, -- rebuilding a party of revolutionary theory as Leninism did, in other words.

Current world events are either ignored completely, or dealt with by some wooden formula which then not only ignores all polemical critique but even keeps its mind closed when history itself proves things differently. For example, the SWP became the fattest of the fake-&#39;lefts&#39; via decades of the most reactionary anti-Soviet opportunism.

Crucial for these anti-communist &#39;revolutionaries&#39; was the fiction that &#39;socialist&#39; solidarity with the USSR against imperialist provocation, subversion, and sabotage was not an issue because the Soviet Union was only &#39;state capitalist&#39; itself anyway. When the Gorbachev &#39;market forces&#39; counter-revolutionary debacle did finally re-introduce state capitalism (quickly inevitably joined and shafted by robber-baron capitalism), and when the overthrow of proletarian-dictatorship centre planning and discipline via state-capitalist &#39;market forces’ soon devastated the former mighty USSR, thus proving that what went before for 60 years could not have been state capitalism, -- the SWP simply carried on insisting that its &#39;theory&#39; which &#39;justified&#39; its anti-Soviet hatred was &#39;still correct&#39;.

What undermined the Stalinist Revisionist ideology of the USSR was its being proved wrong by events. The entire 57-variety swamp of fake-&#39;leftism&#39; still has not grasped this point and is doomed to destruction along exactly the same sterile path as Third International Revisionism.

[Rawthentic]

And so how is this relevant? Seems like its just another rant of yours.

[sexyguy]

You said:

It seems we are in agreement that there was workers control up until I would say early mid 1920s with the rise of the bureaucracy and its consolidation as ruling class.

But this is not true. A necessary bureaucracy yes. A ruling class no. Is that simple
nough for you?

So how do you respond to this bit of my “rant”?


and when the overthrow of proletarian-dictatorship centre planning and discipline via state-capitalist &#39;market forces’ soon devastated the former mighty USSR, thus proving that what went before for 60 years could not have been state capitalism, -- the SWP simply carried on insisting that its &#39;theory&#39; which &#39;justified&#39; its anti-Soviet hatred was &#39;still correct&#39;.

[Rawthentic]

The bureaucracy indeed did become a ruling class above the proletariat. It controlled the workplace through one-man management and, along with the Party, dictated all policy, internal and external.


and when the overthrow of proletarian-dictatorship centre planning and discipline via state-capitalist &#39;market forces’ soon devastated the former mighty USSR, thus proving that what went before for 60 years could not have been state capitalism, -- the SWP simply carried on insisting that its &#39;theory&#39; which &#39;justified&#39; its anti-Soviet hatred was &#39;still correct&#39;.
Heres how: the proletarian-dictatorship did not end with Gorbachev, it ended far earlier, I&#39;d say around 5-6 years after the October Revolution.


The fake-&#39;left&#39; in Britain spends its entire time manoeuvring for electoral &#39;alliance&#39; pecking order position (LSA Trots); trying to recreate &#39;left&#39; Labourism (CPB, SLP, SP,) etc or pretending to guarantee &#39;mistake-free socialism’ by the pedantic peddling of abstract generalised programmes, constitution; or standing orders of some wholly academic immaculate-party conception (CPGB, SLP, open Polemic, etc), or like the Communist League in the USA.
Dude, whats this? You dont even know what the League is, you come up with the stupidest and weirdest shit ever. Fuck off.

[sexyguy]

“the proletarian-dictatorship did not end with Gorbachev, it ended far earlier, I&#39;d say around 5-6 years after the October Revolution.”
Ok, so tell us some more about this supposed counter-revolution you say took place and respond to this section of my “rant”.


“A recent new feature of the anti-communist fake-&#39;left&#39; has been to replace the old Trot cliché that &#39;Lenin was a great revolutionary socialist but Stalin&#39;s brutal dictatorship imposed a counter-revolution&#39; (which has always caused difficulty since no one could ever agree when, where, and how this counter-revolution took place)- with the more internally coherent line that &#39;Lenin&#39;s revolution was a monstrous antisocialist dictatorship from the start&#39;, etc.”

This is your oppertunity to be specific and clarify one of the most contentios arguments ever among the &#39;lefts&#39;. If you have the answer to this question the workers movement will be eternaly greatfull. Just to clarify matters for everyone, you are going to tell us exactly (within an eighteen month period) around 1921-1922 when, where, how and why this suposed counter-revolution took place.

[sexyguy]

Alternatively, you could always whip up a campaign to have me “banned” because you can’t back-up your assertion:


“It seems we are in agreement that there was workers control up until I would say early mid 1920s with the rise of the bureaucracy and its consolidation as ruling class.”



Note-(See other thread. ‘Politics’ - &#39;Help shut down the war machine&#39; to see how his banning campaign is getting started. )

[Rawthentic]

Ok, so tell us some more about this supposed counter-revolution you say took place and respond to this section of my “rant”.
It was not an "all of a sudden thing", but gradual. Even before the NEP took place, one-man management of industry had been introduced, suffocating worker self-management. Now the NEP introduced functionaries, directors, and bureaucrats necessary to administer the new market forces created by the NEP, and this gradually consolidated itself as the petty-bourgeoisie in position as ruling class. Good enough?

[sexyguy]

It was not an "all of a sudden thing", but gradual. Even before the NEP took place, one-man management of industry had been introduced, suffocating worker self-management. Now the NEP introduced functionaries, directors, and bureaucrats necessary to administer the new market forces created by the NEP, and this gradually consolidated itself as the petty-bourgeoisie in position as ruling class. Good enough?

OK, its an old ready made argument straight off the anti-soviet ‘coat peg,’ but for all its sickening anti-soviet prejudice, it is an answer, that says, the revolution must have been a colossal failure, ‘almost’ from the beginning.

The problem for the anti-communists with this, of course, is the same one that routine anti-Stalinism found difficulty with, namely, that although very patchy and seriously theoretically flawed, the actual 70-year record of the Soviet Union in standing up to or challenging imperialist world domination in so many ways, exposed all instinctive class-based anti-Sovietism for the idealist anti-Marxist reaction that it was and apparently still is.

Despite endless allegations of dubious motives, crass interference, grotesque mistakes, etc, the plain reality is that for 70 years, the backward and war devastated workers state founded by Leninism made colossal disciplined sacrifices to help two-thirds of the world rise up against colonial slavery and start their own independent economic and cultural development, supplying doctors, engineers, educational establishments, agronomists, dams, economic enterprises, backed by scores of special Third World colleges and institutions set up in the USSR itself, setting a completely new agenda for the world to replace the bombs, bullets, and scorched-earth tyranny that the dying colonial empires (Britain, France, USA, Holland, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, etc) had tried hanging onto power with post-1947 in Algeria, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indo-China, Egypt, Kenya, Aden, Indonesia, Mozambique, etc, etc, etc.

In addition, a score or more countries, from China to Cuba, were further generously helped to establish their own planned economies in defiant independence of the non-stop worldwide imperialist attempts at armed subversion and counterrevolution, at economic embargo-strangulation, and at ideological propaganda-destruction.

My question for you is: WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE RECOMENDED INSTEAD OF INTRODUCING THE ‘NEW ECONOMIC POLICY’ (NEP)?

[Rawthentic]

See, thats why people should consider banning you. Every time you disagree, its automatically "anti-communist" and anti-Marxist."

The Soviet Union was an imperialist power, and put down worker&#39;s rebellions, most notably the one in Hungary.

Instead of NEP, in fact years before it, I would have recommended leaving the organs of state power to the working-class, not the Party.

You want to talk about "ideological propaganda-destruction." Stalin was the master at this. The way he banned John Reed&#39;s Ten Days that Shook the World because it said too many good things on Trotsky and too little on Stalin. The way he imprisoned and sent to labor camps those workers who wanted to control their workplaces and have a voice in the way that things were run.

Shut the fuck up.

[sexyguy]

I actually said: “sickening anti-soviet prejudice” Now, reading your carefully reasoned response who could disagree?

[Rawthentic]

I&#39;m not anti-soviet, thats actually Stalin, who took their power for himself. The soviets were the organs of worker power, Stalin was the enemy of it.

And you did say anti-communist:
The problem for the anti-communists with this

[sexyguy]

Well make your mind up, was it Stalin and Co or Lenin and Co who ‘took power from the soviets’, in your opinion?

[Rawthentic]

Both.

[sexyguy]

Strange no one told Gorberchev.

[Rawthentic]

You said between Lenin and Stalin. Either way, the counterrevolution had succeeded before Stalin or Gorbachev.

[sexyguy]

Ok we&#39;re getting there. So exactly when did Lenin pull-off the counter-revolution?

[Rawthentic]

Look, it wasn&#39;t like Lenin said "its over&#33;" and &#39;poof&#39;&#33; The revolution was finished.

It was a gradual process of bureaucratic degeneration, starting with measures like the introduction of one-man management, NEP, etc. People say the that the NEP was reversed, but the bureaucratic caste sure wasn&#39;t.

[sexyguy]

So are you saying here that socialist methods were reintroduced but by a capitalist bureaucracy?

[Rawthentic]

No, capitalist methods were introduced with petty-bourgeois methods.

Introducing bureaucracy over the proletariat is not what I would call "socialist".

[rebelworker]

This debate always goes round in circles, and the question of what constitutes workers control is at the heart of the differences between proletarian and petty burgeoise visions of revolution.

I highly recomend The Bolsheviks and Workers Control (http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html), it really documents the rise of the bolshevik burocracy and dictatorship over the working class.

I have never heard any rebuttle of the analysis in it (and I dont mean an argument I disagreed with, noone who has read this has ever argued against it with me, infact it has changed a few peoples minds about what happened in russia.).

Please do yourselves a favor and read it.

PS HastalaVictoria, your arguments and understanding of real workers control are refreshing&#33;

[Rawthentic]

Thanks rebelworker.

You know how it goes: if you can&#39;t identify what working class control is and isn&#39;t, then how can you claim to fight for it?

And its also good to see people that understand that.