How Lenin led to Stalin

[abbielives!]

HOW LENIN LED TO STALIN

From Workers Solidarity No33, 1991

FOR THE LENINIST far left the collapse of the USSR has thrown up more questions then it answered. If the Soviet Union really was a 'workers state' why were the workers unwilling to defend it? Why did they in fact welcome the changes?

What happened to Trotskys "political revolution or bloody counter revolution"? Those Leninist organisations which no longer see the Soviet Union as a workers state do not escape the contradictions either. If Stalin was the source of the problem why do so many Russian workers blame Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders too.

The mythology of "Lenin, creator and sustainer of the Russian revolution" is now dying. With it will go all the Leninist groups for as the Soviet archives are increasingly opened it will become increasingly difficult to defend Lenin's legacy. The Left in the west has dodged and falsified the Lenin debate for 60 years now. Now however there is a proliferation of articles and meetings by the various Trotskyist groups trying to convince workers that Lenin did not lead to Stalin. Unfortunately much of this debate is still based on the slander and falsifications of history that has been symptomatic of Bolshevism since 1918. The key questions of what comprises Stalinism and when did "Stalinism" first come into practice are dodged in favour of rhetoric and historical falsehood.

Stalinism is defined by many features and indeed some of these are more difficult then others to lay at the feet of Lenin. The guiding points of Stalin's foreign policy for instance was the idea of peaceful co-existence with the West while building socialism in the USSR ("socialism in one country"). Lenin is often presented as the opposite extreme, being willing to risk all in the cause of international revolution. This story like many others however is not all it seems. Other points that many would consider characteristic of Stalinism include, the creation of a one party state, no control by the working class of the economy, the dictatorial rule of individuals over the mass of society, the brutal crushing of all workers' action and the use of slander and historical distortion against other left groups.


SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY

The treaty of Brest-Livtosk of 1918, which pulled Russia out of World War I, also surrendered a very large amount of the Ukraine to the Austro-Hungarians. Obviously, there was no potential of continuing a conventional war (especially as the Bolsheviks had used the slogan "peace, bread, land" to win mass support). Yet, the presence of the Makhnovist movement in the Ukraine, clearly demonstrated a vast revolutionary potential among the Ukrainian peasants and workers. No attempt was made to supply or sustain those forces which did seek to fight a revolutionary war against the Austro-Hungarians. They were sacrificed in order to gain a respite to build "socialism" in Russia.

The second point worth considering about Lenin's internationalism is his insistence from 1918 onwards, that the task was to build "state capitalism, as "If we introduced state capitalism in approximately 6 months' time we would achieve a great success..".[1] He was also to say "Socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people". [2] This calls into question Lenin's concept of socialism.


ONE PARTY STATE

Another key feature many would associate with Stalinism was the creation of a one party state, and the silencing of all opposition currents within the party. Many Trotskyists will still try to tell you that the Bolsheviks encouraged workers to take up and debate the points of the day, both inside and outside the party. The reality is very different for the Bolsheviks rapidly clamped down on the revolutionary forces outside the party, and then on those inside that failed to toe the line .

In April 1918 the Bolshevik secret police (The Cheka) raided 26 Anarchist centres in Moscow. 40 Anarchists were killed or injured and over 500 imprisoned [3]. In May the leading Anarchist publications were closed down [4]. Both of these events occurred before the excuse of the outbreak of the Civil War could be used as a 'justification'. These raids occurred because the Bolsheviks were beginning to lose the arguments about the running of Russian industry.

In 1918 also a faction of the Bolshevik party critical of the party's introduction of 'Talyorism' (the use of piece work and time & motion studies to measure the output of each worker, essentially the science of sweat extraction) around the journal Kommunist were forced out of Leningrad when the majority of the Leningrad party conference supported Lenin's demand "that the adherents of Kommunist cease their separate organisational existence". [5]

The paper was last published in May, silenced"Not by discussion, persuasion or compromise, but by a high pressure campaign in the Party organisations, backed by a barrage of violent invective in the party press...". [6] So much for encouraging debate!!

A further example of the Bolsheviks 'encouraging debate' was seen in their treatment of the Makhnovist in the Ukranine. This partisan army which fought against both the Ukrainian nationalists and the White generals at one time liberated over 7 million people. It was led by the anarchist Nestor Mhakno and anarchism played the major part in the ideology of the movement. The liberated zone was ran by a democratic soviet of workers and peasants and many collectives were set up.


ECHOS OF SPAIN

The Makhnovists entered into treaties with the Bolsheviks three times in order to maintain a stronger united front against the Whites and nationalists. Despite this they were betrayed by the Bolsheviks three times, and the third time they were destroyed after the Bolsheviks arrested and executed all the delegates sent to a joint military council. This was under the instructions of Trotsky! Daniel Guerin's description of Trotskys dealings with the Makhnovists is instructive "He refused to give arms to Makhno's partisans, failing in his duty of assisting them, and subsequently accused them of betrayal and of allowing themselves to be beaten by white troops. The same procedure was followed 18 years later by the Spanish Stalinists against the anarchist brigades" [7]

The final lid was put on political life outside or inside the party in 1921. The 1921 party congress banned all factions in the communist party itself. Trotsky made a speech denouncing one such faction, the Workers Opposition as having "placed the workers right to elect representatives above the party. As if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers democracy". [8]

Shortly afterwards the Kronstadt rising was used as an excuse to exile, imprison and execute the last of the anarchists. Long before Lenins death the political legacy now blamed on Stalin had been completed. Dissent had been silenced inside and outside the party. The one party state existed as of 1921. Stalin may have been the first to execute party members on a large scale but with the execution of those revolutionaries outside the party and the silencing of dissidents within it from 1918 the logic for these purges was clearly in place.


THE WORKING CLASS UNDER LENIN

Another key area is the position of the working class in the Stalinist society. No Trotskyist would disagree that under Stalin workers had no say in the running of their workplaces and suffered atrocious conditions under threat of the state's iron fist. Yet again these conditions came in under Lenin and not Stalin. Immediately after the revolution the Russian workers had attempted to federate the factory committees in order to maximise the distribution of resources. This was blocked, with Bolshevik 'guidance', by the trade unions.

By early 1918 the basis of the limited workers control offered by the Bolsheviks (in reality little more then accounting) became clear when all decisions had to be approved by a higher body of which no more than 50% could be workers. Daniel Guerin describes the Bolshevik control of the elections in the factories "elections to factory committees continued to take place , but a member of the Communist cell read out a list of candidates drawn up in advance and voting was by show of hands in the presence of armed 'Communist' guards. Anyone who declared his opposition to the proposed candidates became subject to wage cuts, etc." [9]

On March 26th 1918 workers control was abolished on the railways in a decree full of ominous phrases stressing "iron labour discipline" and individual management. At least, say the Trotskyists, the railways ran on time. In April Lenin published an article in Isvestiya which included the introduction of a card system for measuring each workers productivity. He said "..we must organise in Russia the study and teaching of the Talyor system". "Unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of the labour process...the revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process" [10] Lenin declared in 1918. This came before the civil war broke out and makes nonsense of the claims that the Bolsheviks were trying to maximise workers control until the civil war prevented them from doing so.

With the outbreak of the Civil War things became much worse. In late May it was decreed that no more than 1/3 of the management personnel of industrial enterprises should be elected.11 A few "highlights" of the following years are worth pointing out. At the ninth party congress in April of 1920 Trotsky made his infamous comments on the militarization of labour "the working class...must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded just like soldiers. Deserters from labour ought to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps". [12] The congress itself declared "no trade union group should directly intervene in industrial management". [13]


ONE MAN MANAGEMENT

At the trade union congress that April, Lenin was to boast how in 1918 he had "pointed out the necessity of recognising the dictatorial authority of single individuals for the purpose of carrying out the soviet idea". [14] Trotsky declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole country, compulsory for every worker is the basis of socialism"[15] and that the militarisation of labour was no emergency measure[16]. In War Communism and Terrorism published by Trotsky that year he said "The unions should discipline the workers and teach them to place the interests of production above their own needs and demands". It is impossible to distinguish between these policies and the labour policies of Stalin.


WORKERS REVOLTS

Perhaps the most telling condemnation of the Stalinist regimes came from their crushing of workers' revolts, both the well known ones of East Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and scores of smaller, less known risings. The first such major revolt was to happen at the height of Lenin due to large scale intimidan 1921 at Kronstadt, a naval base and town near Petrograd. The revolt essentially occurred when Kronstadt attempted to democratically elect a Soviet and issued a set of proclamations calling for a return to democratic soviets and freedom of press and speech for left socialist parties".[17]

This won the support of not only the mass of workers and sailors at the base but of the rank and file of the Bolshevik party there as well. Leninfs response was brutal. The base was stormed and many of the rebels who failed to escape were executed. Kronstadt had been the driving force for the revolution in 1917 and in 1921 the revolution died with it.

There are other commonly accepted characteristics of Stalinism. One more that is worth looking at is the way Stalinist organsiations have used slander as a weapon against other left groups. Another is the way that Stalin re-wrote history. Yet again this is something which was a deep strain within Leninism. Mhakno for example went from being hailed by the Bolshevik newspapers as the "Nemesis of the whites" [18] to being described as a Kulak and a bandit .


SLANDERS

Modern day Trotskyists are happy to repeat this sort of slander along with describing Mhakno as an anti-Semite. Yet the Jewish historian M. Tchernikover says "It is undeniable that, of all the armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard to the civilian population in general and the Jewish population in particular."[19]

The leadership of the Makhnovists contained Jews and for those who wished to organise in this manner there were specific Jewish detachments. The part the Makhnovists played in defeating the whites has been written out of history by every Trotskyist historian, some other historians however consider they played a far more decisive role then the Red Army in defeating Wrangel [20].

Kronstadt provides another example of how Lenin and Trotsky used slander against their political opponents. Both attempted to paint the revolt as being organised and lead by the whites. Pravda on March 3rd, 1921 described it as "A new White plot....expected and undoubtedly prepared by the French counter-revolution". Lenin in his report to the 10th Party Congress on March 8th said "White generals, you all know it, played a great part in this. This is fully proved". [21].

Yet even Isaac Deutscher, Trotskys biographer said in the Prophet armed "The Bolsheviks denounced the men of Kronstadt as counter-revolutionary mutineers, led by a White general. The denunciation appears to have been groundless"[22].


RE-WRITING HISTORY

Some modern day Trotskyists repeat such slander others like Brian Pearce (historian of the Socialist Labour League on in Britain) try to deny it ever occurred "No pretence was made that the Kronstadt mutineers were White Guards"[23]In actual fact the only czarist general in the fort had been put there as commander by Trotsky some months earlier! Lets leave the last words on this to the workers of Kronstadt "Comrades, don't allow yourself to be misled. In Kronstadt, power is in the hands of the sailors, the red soldiers and of the revolutionary workers" [24]

There is irony in the fact that these tactics of slander and re-writing history as perfected by the Bolsheviks under Lenin were later to be used with such effect against the Trotskyists. Trotsky and his followers were to be denounced as "Fascists" and agents of international imperialism. They were to be written and air-brushed out of the history of the revolution. Yet to-day his followers, the last surviving Leninists use the same tactics against their political opponents.

The intention of this article is to provoke a much needed debate on the Irish left about the nature of Leninism and where the Russian revolution went bad. The collapse of the hastern European contextmakes it all the more urgent that this debate goes beyond trotting out the same old lies. If Leninism lies at the heart of Stalinism then those organisations that follow Lenin's teaching stand to make the same mistakes again. Anybody in a Leninist organisation who does not take this debate seriously is every bit as blind and misled as all those communist party members who thought the Soviet Union was a socialist country until the day it collapsed.


ON QUOTES AND MISQUOTES

The problem when writing an article covering this period of history is where you select your quotations from. Both Lenin and Trotsky changed their positions many times in this period. Many Leninists for example try to show Lenin's opposition to Stalinism by quoting from State and Revolution (1917). This is little more then deception as Lenin made no attempt to put the program outlined in this pamphlet into practise. In any case it still contains his curious conception of Workers control.
I have only used quotes from the October revolution to 1921 and in every case these quotes are either statements of policy, or what should be policy at the time. As socialists are aware governments in opposition may well say "Health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped". It is however in power that you see their real programe exposed.

[Comrade Marcel]

ultra-Trotskyite, anti-Leninist and pro-Social-Democratic. Very weak interpretation, not to mention anti-Soviet and chauvinistic.

[Coggeh]

How many times have we seen these threads , look why not make a sticky " ***** about lenin"


The revolt essentially occurred when Kronstadt attempted to democratically elect a Soviet and issued a set of proclamations calling for a return to democratic soviets and freedom of press and speech for left socialist parties

I used admittedly be apart of the Kronstadt bandwagon but study it further and accept the material conditions and you'll see basically you would have done the same thing .


Trotsky declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole country, compulsory for every worker is the basis of socialism

Each according to his ability, to each according to his need.


The second point worth considering about Lenin's internationalism is his insistence from 1918 onwards, that the task was to build "state capitalism, as "If we introduced state capitalism in approximately 6 months' time we would achieve a great success..".[1] He was also to say "Socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people". [2] This calls into question Lenin's concept of socialism.

"can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible... For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia, are insufficient. For this the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary."

Lenin knew better than most the understanding and need for international socialism and that socialism in one country alone could not work for anyone who studied Marx
this would become apparent very quickly.

Bukharin supported the idea of socialism in one country also.Bukharin argued that Russia's pre-existing economic base was sufficient for the task at hand. Acting on these ideas, the Communist International became less revolutionary and more willing to compromise with "reactionary" forces


This is little more then deception as Lenin made no attempt to put the program outlined in this pamphlet into practice.
And on info do you base this on ?
During the civil war Lenin put into practice "war communism" and then after put the nep into practice. The nep was put in because he had to satisfy the reactionary peasants alongside which the anarchists stood . He had to make concessions to the kulak classes because the peasantry "are not civilised yet for socialism"

[Redmau5]

ultra-Trotskyite, anti-Leninist

Contradiction in terms.

[A.J.]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:12 pm

ultra-Trotskyite, anti-Leninist

Contradiction in terms.
oh really.......

“The wretched squabbling systematically provoked by Lenin, that old hand at the game, that professional exploiter of all that is backward in the Russian labour movement, seems like a senseless obsession.... The entire edifice of Leninism Is built on lies and falsification and bears within itself the poisonous elements of its own decay.“ - Trotsky letter to Chkeidze, 1913

[syndicat]

someone: "Trotsky declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole country, compulsory for every worker is the basis of socialism:"

coggy:


Each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

What Trotsky meant by "compulsory labor" is conscription of people, forcing them to do appointed work at the point of a gun. Denying workers their right to self-organization. A good example is in 1920 when Trotsky was put in charge of transport and broke the railway workers union by removing the elected officers and appointing Bolsheviks from the intelligentsia class as the new leaders. Workers could be shot for withdrawal of labor. According to Trotsky, workers had no right to strike because "the proletariat owned the means of production."

Requiring people to work in order to earn their consumption entitlement, if they are able-bodied, is something I would agree with in a socialized economy based on self-management. But under generalized self-management, the mass of the people directly control the economy, it's not controlled by an elite of professionals and managers, as it was in Russia in the 1920s. But requiring able-bodied people to work to earn their consumption entitlement is not the same thing as setting up an armed force, appointed from above by party leaders, to force them to work at the point of a gun, not giving them the freedom to change jobs, and appointing bosses to rule over them. That is slavery.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by syndicat+May 27, 2007 09:57 pm--> (syndicat @ May 27, 2007 09:57 pm)someone: "Trotsky declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole country, compulsory for every worker is the basis of socialism:"

coggy:


Each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

What Trotsky meant by "compulsory labor" is conscription of people, forcing them to do appointed work at the point of a gun. Denying workers their right to self-organization. A good example is in 1920 when Trotsky was put in charge of transport and broke the railway workers union by removing the elected officers and appointing Bolsheviks from the intelligentsia class as the new leaders. Workers could be shot for withdrawal of labor.

[/b]
You go on whine this in almost all threads.

But the point you miss out is in 1920 war communism was practiced in the middle of the civil war. Trotsky's main aim at that was build up the railways as soon as possible to make the war against the white armies who owned much of Russia outside Petrograd-Moscow at that time.


Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 09:57 pm
According to Trotsky, workers had no right to strike because "the proletariat owned the means of production."


Yes,Trotsky suggested to extend what he did with the Railways to all industries . That place is one of the situations where Trotsky did a mistake and that was argument by Trotsky and Bukharin's factions not the opinion of all the Bolsheviks.Lenin's position was against this Source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm)

Lenin
Requiring people to work in order to earn their consumption entitlement, if they are able-bodied, is something I would agree with in a socialized economy based on self-management. But under generalized self-management, the mass of the people directly control the economy, it's not controlled by an elite of professionals and managers, as it was in Russia in the 1920s. But requiring able-bodied people to work to earn their consumption entitlement is not the same thing as setting up an armed force, appointed from above by party leaders, to force them to work at the point of a gun, not giving them the freedom to change jobs, and appointing bosses to rule over them. That is slavery.

What Makhno did was no less than that. And CNT-FAI actually submitted itself to Spanish Capitalists. So What Bolsheviks did was very much justifiable given their commitment to the International Workers revolution.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 27, 2007 05:46 am
ultra-Trotskyite, anti-Leninist and pro-Social-Democratic. A weak-interpritaion
If hes ultra-trotskyite, then why blame Trotsky fro the murder of the Macknoviks

Also how can one be anti-Leninist and pro Trotsky?? NAd pro-trotsky pto social-dem.

the only weak-interpritation is yours of that thread that is spot on

[Redmau5]

The entire edifice of Leninism Is built on lies and falsification and bears within itself the poisonous elements of its own decay.“ - Trotsky letter to Chkeidze, 1913

Notice anything about the date? It's well known that Trotsky disagreed with Lenin for a long period of time, so your argument is essentially void. While he disagreed with Lenin is early years, you neglected to mention the fact that Trotsky played perhaps the most crucial part in organising and executing the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Comrade Marcel]

An ultra-Trotskyite is one who thinks that Trotsky was right when Lenin was wrong on certain questions. Obviously Trotskyism is anti-Leninist at it's core, but I would give that Trotskyists are usually Leninist in some form, in that they are revolutionaries and follow a somewhat Leninist line. But not the ultra-Trotskyites. You can usually spot their anti-Leninism in these types of articles, and the social-democracy of most Trots becomes apparent because they denounce just about every revolution and revolutionary movement in existence or that has existed, and any of their major organizations are always fronts for social-democracy.

Read more here:

http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/...Trotsky1975.htm (http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/Compass2-Trotsky1975.htm)
http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/...otsky2-1975.htm (http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/Compass3-Trotsky2-1975.htm)

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 07:27 pm
While he disagreed with Lenin is early years, you neglected to mention the fact that Trotsky played perhaps the most crucial part in organising and executing the Bolshevik Revolution.
And what part do you claim that to be?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Comrade Marcel+May 27, 2007 08:23 pm--> (Comrade Marcel @ May 27, 2007 08:23 pm)
[email protected] 27, 2007 07:27 pm
While he disagreed with Lenin is early years, you neglected to mention the fact that Trotsky played perhaps the most crucial part in organising and executing the Bolshevik Revolution.
And what part do you claim that to be? [/b]
Read Ten Days That Shook The World.

As for that Trotsky quote, he later said he was wrong and Lenin was right, so who cares?

If you want to play "who said bad stuff about Lenin or who did Lenin say bad stuff about" check out Lenin's testament.

[Comrade Marcel]

I read Reed's book years ago.

Trotsky was around in the last few months leading up the revolution. Stalin was building up the party and the organization that led up to the revolution for years, while Trotsky was sipping coffee in NYC and writing articles for the Mensheviks.

As for Lenin's "testament", see:

http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/TESTAMENT.HTM

[Led Zeppelin]

I read that article a year ago, it's crap.

Besides, I don't really care about the whole "Lenin said bad stuff about ... so ... must be a reactionary!!", you brought that up.

As for Trotsky and Stalin and who did more for the Bolshevik party, well, if Stalin didn't exist, the revolution probably would've went as it did, without any problems, because Stalin was basically a nobody. If Trotsky didn't exist, there had to be someone to take his place, because his role in the revolution was crucial and had to be played by someone.

That's the difference.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 08:38 pm
I read that article a year ago, it's crap.


I really doubt you read it, because if you did you would have more to say than it's just "crap".

The article clearly shows how the so-called "testament" has been misused to try to paint Trotsky a hero and slander Stalin, when even if Lenin wrote this, this was not his intentions. Also, Lenin was not in his full capacity when he wrote it.

Given that, whether or not he actually wrote the whole thing is in question, as he didn't sign any of it.


Besides, I don't really care about the whole "Lenin said bad stuff about ... so ... must be a reactionary!!", you brought that up.

It's not the very fact that he disagreed with Lenin, it's about Trotsky attacking the entire Bolshevik line all the way up to 1917. He was nothing but an anti-Revolutionary social-democrat. Even after he joined the Bolsheviks he continued to attack Lenin, which has been outlined in other articles about Trotsky as well.


As for Trotsky and Stalin and who did more for the Bolshevik party, well, if Stalin didn't exist, the revolution probably would've went as it did, without any problems, because Stalin was basically a nobody.

This is a myth, Stalin played many roles in organizing for the party.

As far back as 1904, Lenin said of Stalin:
"We have amongst us a wonderful Georgian who set down and wrote for Prosvezhchenia a long article in which he gathered all the Austrian material" (Lenin, Col. Works, Russian Edition, Vol. XVI, p. 328)

He was referring to Stalin's work on the National Question which basically became USSR policy on the issue.

Here are a few quotes that explain. I can give you links to more on Trotsky and Stalin if you like.

"It is of great interest to note that at the time Lenin was waging a bitter struggle against Liquidationism in the Social-Democratic Party, and particularly against Trotsky – one of the main propagandists of the Liquidationists. In one of his articles Lenin drew attention to another of Stalin's articles exposing the Liquidators."

"While Trotsky made theatrical speeches in Petersburg, the Bolsheviks organised the uprising in Moscow and the Caucasus, the two most important revolutionary events of the 1905 Revolution. The Mensheviks, including Trotsky, condemned the Moscow uprising and bitterly attacked the Bolsheviks at the time"

"... But the real revolutionaries were the Bolsheviks who organised the military uprising in Moscow. They were attacked from all sides, and not least by Trotsky. Lenin called Trotsky "vain and empty" (Lenin, Col. Works, Vol. VII, p. 194)."

"Now let us look at some facts. Trotsky himself joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917. What happened to the Party up to that date, to the Party that led successfully the October Revolution? During the first imperialist war, between July 1915 and December 1916, the Party organised 480 strikes in Petrograd alone, with 500,000 participants. On February 14, 1917, the Bolsheviks organised the stay-in strike at the Putilov Works, with 30,000 participants. During January and February 1917 the Bolsheviks led 575,000 strikers. In Petrograd, early in 1917, there were no less than fifteen sub-district committees of the Party.

"Who led all this work and built the committees and cells? People like Stalin, Sverdlov, Kalinin, Molotov and others, whilst Trotsky was a regular visitor to New York cafes and a constant contributor to Menshevik papers.

"Trotsky, who joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917, hesitated a long time before doing so. Only after Lenin's taunts in July that year to him and his colleagues did Trotsky join the Bolsheviks.

"Deutscher's picture that Trotsky solely led the insurrection can now be considered ludicrous. In a highly organised and centralised Party like the Bolsheviks, Trotsky, whatever he did during October, could only carry out the wishes and orders from the Central Committee of the Party."

http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/stalincr.htm


If Trotsky didn't exist, there had to be someone to take his place, because his role in the revolution was crucial and had to be played by someone.

That's a very funny little piece of ego worship for Trotsky you have there, do you care to explain exactly what "crucial" role he played? Trots like to say this but they can never seem to put their fingers on it. He did play a role, but not an irreplaceable one.

Stalin explained in Trotskyism or Leninism?
Reed (Ten Days that Shook the World -CM) was remote from our Party and, of course, could not know the history of our secret meeting on October 10, and, consequently, he was taken in by the gossip spread by people like Sukhanov. This story was later passed round and repeated in a number of pamphlets written by Trotskyites, including one of the latest pamphlets on October written by Syrkin. These rumours have been strongly supported in Trotsky's latest literary pronouncements.

....Let us now pass to the legend about Trotsky's special role in the October uprising. The Trotskyites are vigorously spreading rumours that Trotsky inspired and was the sole leader of the October uprising. These rumours are being spread with exceptional zeal by the so-called editor of Trotsky's works, Lentsner. Trotsky himself, by consistently avoiding mention of the Party, the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Party, by saying nothing about the leading role of these organisation, in the uprising and vigorously pushing himself forward as the central figure in the October uprising, voluntarily or involuntarily helps to spread the rumours about the special role he is supposed to have played in the uprising. I am far from denying Trotsky's undoubtedly important role in the uprising. I must say, however, that Trotsky did not play any special role in the October uprising, nor could he do so; being chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he merely carried out the will of the appropriate Party bodies, which directed every step that Trotsky took. To philistines like Sukhanov, all this may seem strange, but the facts, the true facts, wholly and fully confirm what I say. -- http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/.../1924/11_19.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/11_19.htm)


That's the difference.

You're right about that. On the one hand you have Stalin, a dedicated party cadre who worked to build the party, organizing strikes, being the editor of the bolshevik paper, being on the central committee, taking on more than one task of major roles and responsibilities at the time, when no one else would do it. On the other hand, you have a social-democrat who parachuted into the revolution at the right time.

[The Grey Blur]

For fuck's sake just grow up with this "who quoted Lenin the most" type of bullshit argument.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 28, 2007 09:25 pm
For fuck's sake just grow up with this "who quoted Lenin the most" type of bullshit argument.
What are you talking about?

The debate has nothing to do with quoting Lenin, and everything to do with the question of the Bolshevik party line and who was attacking it and who was building the party.

[Rawthentic]

Fuck Trotsky and Stalin.

They were both bureaucrats.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 28, 2007 10:48 pm
Fuck Trotsky and Stalin.

They were both bureaucrats.
The difference is, that Trotsky never spoke out against bureacracy until it was a obstacle to his factionalism.

Stalin On Bureaucracy (http://www.allianceml.com/STALIN-TXT/Stalin-bureaucracy.htm)

[Comrade Marcel]

MIM also brings up good points about the myth of "Stalin the no-body" and the senseless cult-worshipping of Trotsky by the Trotskyites.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics...mfile=trot1.txt (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trot1.txt)

[Led Zeppelin]

So long as we're linking to works, here's another good one:

The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm)

[Rawthentic]

Stalin was the incarnation of the bureaucratic counter-revolution. He could have talked about bureaucracy, but he was part of it. Just like paying lip-service to Marxism.

Trotsky escaped the role that was given to Stalin.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 28, 2007 10:48 pm
Fuck Trotsky and Stalin.

They were both bureaucrats.
Yes, anyone elected into a position of power is a bureaucrat... :rolleyes:

Have you ever wondered why Stalin never bothered with the "Left" Communists when he was running about murdering the Trotskyists? That's because you don't exist :)

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Permanent Revolution+May 28, 2007 11:59 pm--> (Permanent Revolution @ May 28, 2007 11:59 pm)
Voz de la Gente [email protected] 28, 2007 10:48 pm
Fuck Trotsky and Stalin.

They were both bureaucrats.
Yes, anyone elected into a position of power is a bureaucrat... :rolleyes:

Have you ever wondered why Stalin never bothered with the "Left" Communists when he was running about murdering the Trotskyists? That's because you don't exist :) [/b]
First, that is not true.

THe left communist tendency was the largest at Germany and at Italy at that time.

Second, Trotsky was probably worse that Stalin. Atleast Stalin didn't advocate militarization of labor, something so remniscent of fascists.

Trotsky was probably the worst of the Bolsheviks. The dichonomy between Stalin and Trotsky is a false one, for the USSR would have been probably worse under Trotsky.

Trotskyists suffer from a fetichization of theory, for they don't take into account the actions of "trotskyists" themselves, and instead fetishize only the "theoretical" part. No wonder why so many trots suffer from parliamentarism today.

[Rawthentic]

I'm not a left-communist.

And thats not a valid excuse. George Bush was "elected" but that doesn't mean he represents the people.

And Lenin was more a left-communist than people think.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 11:17 pm
So long as we're linking to works, here's another good one:

The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm)
So is that all you have to say about it? Your only response to me is to go read Trotsky?

I have news for you; been there done that. Scary thing is I almost became a Trot. One of the first organizations I came across was the Spartacists. So I've read all the Trot stuff, read Trotsky, etc and doing so actually educated me that Stalin was right. But to come to that conclusion I had to read Stalin also.

[Rawthentic]

Sorry bud, Stalin was not "right" whatever that means.

From 'socialism in one country' to allying with imperialist bourgeoisie, he was the incarnation of the counter-revolution vs the October proletarian revolution and all that Lenin had worked and advocated for.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 28, 2007 08:32 pm
Trotsky was around in the last few months leading up the revolution. Stalin was building up the party and the organization that led up to the revolution for years, while Trotsky was sipping coffee in NYC and writing articles for the Mensheviks.
Give me a break. Trotsky was considered popular by the workers at Kronstadt and in the Vyborg District; he was the literal hero of the most advanced workers. He lead the operation of seizing the political power for the proletariat, and even went on to organize the Red Army, which was the first military force to successfully defeat the forces of imperialism and counterrevolution in human history. I don't think you could exclude Trotsky from the Russian Revolution, his role was far too important.

As for Trotsky being involved with the Mensheviks, I still don't think you could discredit him. Lenin, for example, was the author of these lines at the time of the outbreak of the First World War:


“Is a sense of national pride alien to us Great Russian class conscious proletarians? Certainly not! We love our language and our country, and we are doing our very utmost to raise her toiling masses (i.e., nine-tenths of her population) to the level of a democratic and socialist consciousness. To us it is most painful to see and feel the outrages, the oppression and humiliation our fair country suffers at the hands of the Tsar’s butchers, the nobles and the capitalists. We take pride in the resistance to these outrages put up from our midst, from the Great Russians; in that midst having produced Radishchev, the Decembrists and the revolutionary commoners of the seventies; and the Great Russian working class having created, in 1905, a mighty revolutionary party of the masses; and the Great Russian peasantry having begun to turn towards democracy and set about overthrowing the clergy and the landed proprietors...

“...We are full of national pride because the Great Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, because it, too, has proved capable of providing mankind with great models of the struggle for freedom and socialism, and not only with great pogroms, rows of gallows, dungeons, great famines and great servility to the priests, tsars, landowners and capitalists.”

Trotsky was opposed to this nationalist sentiment that Lenin attributed to his writings; it showed the insecurity of Lenin to sections of his party, and the working class itself. In 1915, for example, Trotsky had written that this was politically dangerous, and found that this was a concession to Great Russian Chauvinism. His opposition to the Bolsheviks was based on his conclusions that the program was of the utmost importance; while the Bolsheviks conceded to bourgeois and petit-bourgeois prejudices, which Lenin opposed his entire life but was forced to recognize, Trotsky would go elsewhere in stressing the importance of working within the international framework. That is, in essence, the crust of his opposition to the Bolsheviks. It was after the April Theses, where Lenin presented what was, for the lack of a better word, a break from his original line of the national and democratic framework of the impending revolution, that Trotsky changed his position.

[Rawthentic]

Well, Trotsky was also very sectarian and Trotskyism has several parallels with Stalinism, the main being that state ownership implies socialism, regardless of whether the proletariat is in power or not. This is the fundamental problem with the "degenerated worker's state" theory.

I mean, whether it was 'degenerated' or not, Trotsky regarded Stalinist Russia as a form of worker's state, and that is simply not true. He ignored the mode of production as well as the class relationships, opting for the idea that because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and the means of production had shifted from private to state power, that there was socialism.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 12:34 am
Trotsky was probably the worst of the Bolsheviks. The dichonomy between Stalin and Trotsky is a false one, for the USSR would have been probably worse under Trotsky.

Trotskyists suffer from a fetichization of theory, for they don't take into account the actions of "trotskyists" themselves, and instead fetishize only the "theoretical" part. No wonder why so many trots suffer from parliamentarism today.
I would recommend that you read the Platform of the Joint Opposition.

Platform of the Joint Opposition (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/index.htm)

I think that, if you evaluate this writing more fluently and extensively, you would discover that Trotsky was proposing policies that were detrimental to Stalin and the bureaucratic stratum; they insisted on the unrelentless material and tactical assistance to the international revolution, the reconstruction of a material and economic infastructure, a break from 'individual' farming and the introduction of collective agriculture, purging the party of petit-bourgeois elements, and the reinstitution of the democratic soviets. It was through this political opposition to the bureaucracy that he found the icepick of his own assasin thrusted into his head.

Trotsky did some regretable things; but I don't see an alternative to many of his actions. It is not realized by many anarchists, but backward social and economic relations during a time of internal and external strife that threatens your very existence would call for a tremendous force to counterbalance such negative influences, and that it is not the random conspiracy of evil leaders that the workers were 'militarized'.

I don't understand why 'parliamentarianism' is such a sin? I would regard reformism as a bourgeois ploy that takes it's form through democratic republics, but I don't get your unfair finding on 'Trotskyists'?

[Rawthentic]

RedDali, Trotsky was a bureaucrat.

Replacing Stalinist managers with Trotskyist ones wouldn't have changed anything. Not to say that you don't understand this, but sometimes people forget that by the time the showdown between Stalin and Trotsky was done, the counter-revolution had begun its consolidation, as well as the loss of power of the proletariat.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 29, 2007 03:04 am
RedDali, Trotsky was a bureaucrat.

Replacing Stalinist managers with Trotskyist ones wouldn't have changed anything. Not to say that you don't understand this, but sometimes people forget that by the time the showdown between Stalin and Trotsky was done, the counter-revolution had begun its consolidation, as well as the loss of power of the proletariat.
Oh, give me a break. He was killed by the bureaucracy, and I don't think you have been able to explain why his own caste would want him dead?

I don't think that Trotsky ever advocated 'replacing' managers? If you choose to read the section entitled 'The Soviets' of the Platform of the Joint Opposition, you would discover that he urged for the reintroduction of worker's control, which for some unexplainable reason to you, would have him later killed by his own bureaucratic strata? It seems that you are ignoring all objective facts that persisted at that time; there was rivaling class forces, with a sort of gross misbalance based on the material conditions, that would correlate the sharp tensions arising in the conflict between the Opposition and the bureaucracy. It is, in the final analysis of this situation, the expression of a certain relationship, forged in the course of political struggles between the rivaling forces, between the main classes in society. In the outcome of those struggles the character of the political leadership of the contending classes, and the program upon which they base their struggle, are of immense significance. I don't think we could reduct the historical importance of the Opposition and Trotsky to the fact that they were 'bureaucrats', they had a program, they had a strategy, they had practiced certain programs in the past that was beneficial to working people, they had confronted the bureaucracy even under the threat of being swallowed whole by purges and mass arrests, and you can't simplify this conflict to 'opportunism' and 'bureaucratism', considering that they were all murdered, along with one million other Marxists, in the preceding decade.

[Rawthentic]

Oh, give me a break. He was killed by the bureaucracy, and I don't think you have been able to explain why his own caste would want him dead?
Because he went against the counter-revolution?


It seems that you are ignoring all objective facts that persisted at that time; there was rivaling class forces, with a sort of gross misbalance based on the material conditions, that would correlate the sharp tensions arising in the conflict between the Opposition and the bureaucracy. It is, in the final analysis of this situation, the expression of a certain relationship, forged in the course of political struggles between the rivaling forces, between the main classes in society.
I don't.


I don't think we could reduct the historical importance of the Opposition and Trotsky to the fact that they were 'bureaucrats', they had a program, they had a strategy, they had practiced certain programs in the past that was beneficial to working people, they had confronted the bureaucracy even under the threat of being swallowed whole by purges and mass arrests, and you can't simplify this conflict to 'opportunism' and 'bureaucratism', considering that they were all murdered, along with one million other Marxists, in the preceding decade.
No, no, I really agree. Their program would have been far better off than Stalin, but I believe that it was at a point where proletarian power had been lost. I don't know if you can call it worker's control if called Stalinist Russia a worker's state, albeit 'degenerated.' He came up with the false idea, as I have stated above, that state ownership implied socialism even if the working class was not in power, and ignored the mode of production and class relations.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 03:21 am
Oh, give me a break. He was killed by the bureaucracy, and I don't think you have been able to explain why his own caste would want him dead?
In this same forum, there's another thread on the possible murder of STALIN himself.

I read that lengthy Trot book on the Soviet Union and Stalinism (Russia: From Revolution to Counter Revolution by Ted Grant): Trotsky was liquidated for the same reason that Stalin himself eventually was.

[And not just Beria, who did the actual poisoning - everyone else there definitely wanted Stalin dead because of the big purge he was coughing up since 1952, so they didn't render immediate medical assistance.]

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by RedDali+May 29, 2007 02:17 am--> (RedDali @ May 29, 2007 02:17 am)
Comrade [email protected] 28, 2007 08:32 pm
Trotsky was around in the last few months leading up the revolution. Stalin was building up the party and the organization that led up to the revolution for years, while Trotsky was sipping coffee in NYC and writing articles for the Mensheviks.
Give me a break. Trotsky was considered popular by the workers at Kronstadt and in the Vyborg District; he was the literal hero of the most advanced workers. [/b]
I never tried to argue Trotsky wasn't "popular". But being popular is meaningless in my opinion, compared to being an obscure party organizer who works hard and gets things done. MIM talks about the Trotskyite tendency to play up Trotsky's popularity.

Lots of bourgeois politicians are very popular. Look at Jack Layton in Kanada for example.


He lead the operation of seizing the political power for the proletariat, and even went on to organize the Red Army, which was the first military force to successfully defeat the forces of imperialism and counterrevolution in human history. I don't think you could exclude Trotsky from the Russian Revolution, his role was far too important.

Again, I dispute this. It is a fact that during the October revolution he was simply taking orders from the Central Committee, Stalin was a member of the Central Committee. I also debate his role in "leading" the read army and his competency. In any case, he was still under the command of the CC at that time as well.

Read more about it here: http://www.allianceml.com/PAPER/2004/REDARMY.html


As for Trotsky being involved with the Mensheviks, I still don't think you could discredit him. Lenin, for example, was the author of these lines at the time of the outbreak of the First World War:

There is nothing wrong with appreciating one's culture and language. This is a far cry from some sort of reactionary national-chauvinism.


Trotsky was opposed to this nationalist sentiment that Lenin attributed to his writings;

But evidently he wasn't opposed to social-democracy and hence wasn't a revolutionary or anti-capitalist.


it showed the insecurity of Lenin to sections of his party, and the working class itself. In 1915, for example, Trotsky had written that this was politically dangerous, and found that this was a concession to Great Russian Chauvinism.

This is not as dangerous as the tactics for revolution Trotsky wrote for the 3rd world: completely writing them off.


His opposition to the Bolsheviks was based on his conclusions that the program was of the utmost importance; while the Bolsheviks conceded to bourgeois and petit-bourgeois prejudices, which Lenin opposed his entire life but was forced to recognize, Trotsky would go elsewhere in stressing the importance of working within the international framework. That is, in essence, the crust of his opposition to the Bolsheviks. It was after the April Theses, where Lenin presented what was, for the lack of a better word, a break from his original line of the national and democratic framework of the impending revolution, that Trotsky changed his position.

There was a lot more behind it than simply that:

http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/...Trotsky1975.htm (http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/Compass2-Trotsky1975.htm)

http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/...otsky2-1975.htm (http://www.allianceml.com/CommunistLeague/Compass3-Trotsky2-1975.htm)

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 29, 2007 02:24 am
Well, Trotsky was also very sectarian and Trotskyism has several parallels with Stalinism, the main being that state ownership implies socialism, regardless of whether the proletariat is in power or not. This is the fundamental problem with the "degenerated worker's state" theory.

I mean, whether it was 'degenerated' or not, Trotsky regarded Stalinist Russia as a form of worker's state, and that is simply not true. He ignored the mode of production as well as the class relationships, opting for the idea that because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and the means of production had shifted from private to state power, that there was socialism.

Well, Trotsky was also very sectarian and Trotskyism has several parallels with Stalinism, the main being that state ownership implies socialism, regardless of whether the proletariat is in power or not. This is the fundamental problem with the "degenerated worker's state" theory.

Trotsky, as well as Lenin or any other Bolshevik, never equated state ownership to socialism. I think I have discredited this accusation within the other topic on state-capitalism. They never had a 'theory' on it also.


I mean, whether it was 'degenerated' or not, Trotsky regarded Stalinist Russia as a form of worker's state, and that is simply not true. He ignored the mode of production as well as the class relationships, opting for the idea that because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and the means of production had shifted from private to state power, that there was socialism.

It was founded, by the sentiments of the workers and peasantry, preceding the October Revolution, in which the Soviets assumed control over the state power. This was what ultimately restrained for so long the complete liquidation of the conquests of that revolution. The bureaucracy derived its legitimacy as "the party", as the institution that supposedly carried out and safeguarded the revolution. If there was no fundamental difference between the Soviet bureaucracy and the typical ruling class, then why the 70 or so year delay in liquidating state property and all of the other laws restraining private property and profit in the USSR? It seems that you have no scientific explanation over the course of these events; you consider 'capitalist' as a sort of insulting diatribe to throw at any exploiter, instead of examing complex relations that persist.

[Rawthentic]

Oh please. The soviets had lost all real power after only a few years after the October Revolution, starting with the introduction of one man management and the NEP, which created a larger bureaucratic caste as well as old sections of the Tsarist state, in which many ex-Tsarists resumed their lost positions as bureaucrats and functionaries. Stalin and the CPSU gave lip service to their power; nothing more.

You talk about state property, as if this denied capitalism. Does it not cross your mind that if private ownership shifts to state ownership, capitalist class relations and the mode of production remain the same?


It seems that you have no scientific explanation over the course of these events; you consider 'capitalist' as a sort of insulting diatribe to throw at any exploiter, instead of examing complex relations that persist.
Of course I do; long and arduous study. I have clearly explained why Stalinist Russia was state capitalist. Wage slavery had surplus labor extracted for the expansion of capital, owned of course by the state-bourgeoisie. There were no socialist relationships. Marx and Engels taught that economic relationships were the determinants of others in broader society. Capitalist relations in the workplace persisted.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Oh please. The soviets had lost all real power after only a few years after the October Revolution, starting with the introduction of one man management and the NEP, which created a larger bureaucratic caste as well as old sections of the Tsarist state, in which many ex-Tsarists resumed their lost positions as bureaucrats and functionaries. Stalin and the CPSU gave lip service to their power; nothing more.

Something that I have not denied.


You talk about state property, as if this denied capitalism. Does it not cross your mind that if private ownership shifts to state ownership, capitalist class relations and the mode of production remain the same?

I am not refering to 'state property', but rather, the existence of state property in the context of the Soviet Union. They did not 'remain the same'; they experienced the creation of a worker's state by revolutionary workers and peasants. Once again, I urge for you to refer to my posts on the thread about state-capitalism.


But evidently he wasn't opposed to social-democracy and hence wasn't a revolutionary or anti-capitalist

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ His continued sectarianism and factionalism are damning enough.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:48 am
^^^ His continued sectarianism and factionalism are damning enough.
So opposing a parasitic Bureaucracy,Stressing for the need of anticapitalist and worker's revolution is sectarian.

Then Sectarianism is actually good.


But evidently he wasn't opposed to social-democracy and hence wasn't a revolutionary or anti-capitalist.


Well if Trotsky isn't a revbolutionary how could ever Stalin be ? Especially given his actions ?
Molotov-Ribentrop pact (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg)
Yalta Confrence (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Yalta_Conference.jpg)

[Herman]

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.

[Vargha Poralli]

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is.

Trotsky broke with Mensheviks as early as 1904 because of the disagrrement with their policy of Allying with the Liberals and their opposition to reconcilation with the Bolsheviks. So from 1905 to 1917 he was reconcilator. Not allied with both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

Stalin followed Mensheviks policies. He supported Kerensky government. I find it really easy to find whose actions was more menshevik.


Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable?

Historical facts say that his intentions are Honorable.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 09:59 am

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.
You know what is much worser than being a one-time Menshevik? Being the gravedigger of the not only the Russian Revolution, but the international worker's revolution also.

[Herman]

Prove that your head is in your ass.

Great, i'm not bothering to read the rest of your post and i'm not posting anymore on this thread if i'm going to see this kind of comment.


You know what is much worser than being a one-time Menshevik? Being the gravedigger of the not only the Russian Revolution, but the international worker's revolution also.

Harharhar... you know what? I agree with you, except that I only made one comment about the Russian Revolution, unlike you.

Insults, sarcasm, irony and the like are not appreciated. Sorry if I was insulting you with my post. I'm leaving this thread to your 'gravedigging'. I dislike hostile responses.

[Enragé]

material circumstances led to lenin's ideas not having the material foundation for a proper implementation, which lead to a (even) more authoritarian derivative of leninism which in turn paved the way, under those material circumstances, for stalin to take power.

It's pretty much impossible to know if stalin would've taken power if the revolution had succeeded in germany, if the civil war wasnt that destructive etc etc, i for one think there's a good chance the russian revolution would've worked out well (with some hiccups here and there).


Trotsky was considered popular by the workers at Kronstadt and in the Vyborg District; he was the literal hero of the most advanced workers. He lead the operation of seizing the political power for the proletariat, and even went on to organize the Red Army, which was the first military force to successfully defeat the forces of imperialism and counterrevolution in human history. I don't think you could exclude Trotsky from the Russian Revolution, his role was far too important.


he also smashed the kronstadt uprising, an uprising fuelled by democratic, by socialist/communist demands, demands for proper soviet democracy.
regardless of the material circumstances, the demands posed by the kronstadt rebels were just, and show how much the revolution had deteriorated at that point. Surely, the kronstadt rebels did not pose a threat to the revolution, they only posed a threat to bolshevik (undemocratic) leadership of that revolution.

As such, the bolsheviks should've (tried to) negotiate(d) with the kronstadt rebels at the very least, and met their demands if in any way possible (since those demands comprised the essence of the revolution: soviet democracy, freedom of speech etc)

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Comrade Marcel+May 29, 2007 02:00 am--> (Comrade Marcel @ May 29, 2007 02:00 am)
[email protected] 28, 2007 11:17 pm
So long as we're linking to works, here's another good one:

The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm)
So is that all you have to say about it? Your only response to me is to go read Trotsky?

I have news for you; been there done that. Scary thing is I almost became a Trot. One of the first organizations I came across was the Spartacists. So I've read all the Trot stuff, read Trotsky, etc and doing so actually educated me that Stalin was right. But to come to that conclusion I had to read Stalin also. [/b]
Stop being a hypocrite, all you did was link to some bullshit quotes from Stalin and that shitty article, which yes, I have actually read.

So I did the same as you. With me you get what you give.

Anyway, I was looking for an article by Trotsky which proves all that crap wrong, but that can't be found online, so I had to link to that instead. It does the same job, only it's a lot longer.

And if you have read it, you obviously did not understand it, or you wouldn't have been pro-Stalin.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 29, 2007 03:04 am
RedDali, Trotsky was a bureaucrat.

Replacing Stalinist managers with Trotskyist ones wouldn't have changed anything. Not to say that you don't understand this, but sometimes people forget that by the time the showdown between Stalin and Trotsky was done, the counter-revolution had begun its consolidation, as well as the loss of power of the proletariat.
You really have no clue what you're talking about do you?

Trotsky and the Left didn't propose to merely change the bureaucrats, who weren't really Stalinists btw, because the bureaucrats used Stalin for their goals, not the other way around.

It was the party that mattered the most, since it held political power and made policy. So in case of the party, what did Trotsky support? Different points of view and factions, which Stalin banned. Democracy in the party was the basis of the proletarian side which was present in the state-machinery and the party-structure, without that democracy it was bound to degenerate into a dictatorship, which it eventually did.

So no, the "proletarian side" of the party did not just die out with the death of Lenin and the taking of power from the Soviets, because the policy remained the same for quite a few years afterwards. Taking away power from the Soviets was a step that was meant to be temporary, at all times, Trotsky never said otherwise, if it hadn't been done the USSR would've collapsed.

So you either had to take that temporary step and risk failure, or just fail, you would've done the latter of course because you're an ultra-leftist and only care about the "perfect theory" as opposed to how it actually works in practice.

[Vargha Poralli]

material circumstances led to lenin's ideas not having the material foundation for a proper implementation, which lead to a (even) more authoritarian derivative of leninism which in turn paved the way, under those material circumstances, for stalin to take power.


I think it is not simple as it is. It took 10 full years for Stalin to destroy all the opposition and that too after making alliances with his own enemies and playing each other off.


Originally posted by NKOS+--> (NKOS)he also smashed the kronstadt uprising, an uprising fuelled by democratic, by socialist/communist demands, demands for proper soviet democracy.
regardless of the material circumstances, the demands posed by the kronstadt rebels were just, and show how much the revolution had deteriorated at that point. Surely, the kronstadt rebels did not pose a threat to the revolution, they only posed a threat to bolshevik (undemocratic) leadership of that revolution.[/b]

But those rebellions(not Kronstadt was the only one there were many eg Tambov) all stopped magically once War Communism was replaced with NEP. Again NEP would prove that Lenin and Trotsky were state Capitalists.

Nobody knows the real conditions of Kronstadt. The fortress was so near to Finland where the White army under Wrangel was in Vicinity. I don't fault the actions of Red Army. The position of Soviet Ruusia was very much vulnerable.

Lenin was indeed very much devated by those Events. It was only after Kronstadt did the Party decided to withdraw War Communism and implement the NEP.


Originally posted by [email protected]
As such, the bolsheviks should've (tried to) negotiate(d) with the kronstadt rebels at the very least, and met their demands if in any way possible (since those demands comprised the essence of the revolution: soviet democracy, freedom of speech etc)

They tried. But were turned down by the Rebels.

******************


RedHerman
Great, i'm not bothering to read the rest of your post and i'm not posting anymore on this thread if i'm going to see this kind of comment.


Ok I take back that flame part could you respond to my points now ?

[Enragé]

I think it is not simple as it is. It took 10 full years for Stalin to destroy all the opposition and that too after making alliances with his own enemies and playing each other off.

well thats not incompatible with what i said. Just add "and then it took him 10 years to consolidate his power". Yes i simplified, but thats what it pretty much came down to.


But those rebellions(not Kronstadt was the only one there were many eg Tambov) all stopped magically once War Communism was replaced with NEP. Again NEP would prove that Lenin and Trotsky were state Capitalists.

And after the worst bullshit was over, e.g most of the civil war.
That coincided with the NEP, but that doesnt mean the NEP was the cause of the end of the strings of rebellions, bolshevik power was just felt less harshly.

However this can be said for the NEP, it took the edge off of things for the peasants, the vast majority. I think in comparison with war communism the NEP was progress, though they basicly swapped political freedom (soviet democracy) with a capitalist version of economic freedom, a step in the wrong direction, but preferable to war communism (total subjugation to the undemocratic centralised leadership of the bolshevik party).


Nobody knows the real conditions of Kronstadt. The fortress was so near to Finland where the White army under Wrangel was in Vicinity. I don't fault the actions of Red Army. The position of Soviet Ruusia was very much vulnerable.


irrelevant, the demands of the kronstadt soviet were just. Regardless if in fact they were "white agents", any threat they posed would instantly vanish would their just, socialist demands have been met.
Which in my mind would've been perfectly possible since the civil war was winding down.
Instead of the NEP, they should've met the Kronstadt demands.


They tried. But were turned down by the Rebels.

An understandable, but extremely flawed course of action. Pretty much the same as i would describe the actions of the bolsheviks against the rebels.

[Vargha Poralli]

And after the worst bullshit was over, e.g most of the civil war.
That coincided with the NEP, but that doesnt mean the NEP was the cause of the end of the strings of rebellions, bolshevik power was just felt less harshly.

My point was those were primarily Peasant Rebellions which is expression of Frustration of War Communism. Tambov rebellion was not taken up by Anarchist unlike Kronstadt was because it was open in it class nature unlike Kronstadt.



However this can be said for the NEP, it took the edge off of things for the peasants, the vast majority. I think in comparison with war communism the NEP was progress, though they basicly swapped political freedom (soviet democracy) with a capitalist version of economic freedom, a step in the wrong direction, but preferable to war communism (total subjugation to the undemocratic centralised leadership of the bolshevik party).


The point of NEP was bringing up Life back to a Place which was devastated by almost 8 yeras of war and Revoltions. Also to calm down the peasants who were very much Hostile to Bolsheviks at that time.


rrelevant, the demands of the kronstadt soviet were just. Regardless if in fact they were "white agents", any threat they posed would instantly vanish would their just, socialist demands have been met.
Which in my mind would've been perfectly possible since the civil war was winding down.
Instead of the NEP, they should've met the Kronstadt demands.

But the threat of White armies is real. And the slogan that was raised in the fortress was "Soviets without Bolsheviks". A demand that could have never pleased Bolsheviks.


An understandable, but extremely flawed course of action. Pretty much the same as i would describe the actions of the bolsheviks against the rebels.

I agree with you here.

[Enragé]

My point was those were primarily Peasant Rebellions which is expression of Frustration of War Communism. Tambov rebellion was not taken up by Anarchist unlike Kronstadt was because it was open in it class nature unlike Kronstadt.

anarchists do not recognize that the peasants are "small-capitalists", i.e cannot be progressive.
In fact, i think it was Bakunin who put more hope in the peasants.

I too, believe the class nature of peasants (at least those kind which was the vast majority in russia, i.e landless peasants), cannot be said to be so that communism is in any way against their class interests, their class interest is the same as that of the worker.

To say therefore that the NEP was something to placate the peasants as opposed to the implementation of actual communism (i.e land held collectively, democratically) is nonsense, especially since the traditional way of "owning" land by groups of peasants was very similar to that.

The only actual reason for the NEP therefore cannot be any different than enabling the bolsheviks to retain political power, placating the vast majority with the capitalist derivative of "economic freedom" as opposed to social, economic, and political freedom that is true soviet democracy.


But the threat of White armies is real. And the slogan that was raised in the fortress was "Soviets without Bolsheviks". A demand that could have never pleased Bolsheviks.


Which was never part of their actual demands. Slogans do not equal demands.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 06:40 am

Molotov-Ribentrop pact (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg)
Yalta Confrence (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Yalta_Conference.jpg)
What is that supposed to prove?

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 09:59 am

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.
Good way of putting it.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:08 am

Stalin followed Mensheviks policies. He supported Kerensky government. I find it really easy to find whose actions was more menshevik.


Bald faced lie. The Bolshevik policy was to support the Provisional government, Stalin was simply following the will of the party.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by RedDali+May 29, 2007 10:52 am--> (RedDali @ May 29, 2007 10:52 am)
[email protected] 29, 2007 09:59 am

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.
You know what is much worser than being a one-time Menshevik? Being the gravedigger of the not only the Russian Revolution, but the international worker's revolution also. [/b]
Trotskyism has done more to stifle revolution in the world than fascism.

[Enragé]

how so?

[Rawthentic]

So you either had to take that temporary step and risk failure, or just fail, you would've done the latter of course because you're an ultra-leftist and only care about the "perfect theory" as opposed to how it actually works in practice.

Actually I'm not an ultea-leftist, but I will criticize communist leaders if they call Stalinist Russia a "worker's state" under any circumstances.

Thats actually the basis of my critique of Trotskysim, besides the sectarianism and factionalism.

In this respect Trotskyism is like Stalinism, that they regarded Stalinist Russia as "socialist" because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and property had shifted into state hands.

[Rawthentic]

They did not 'remain the same'; they experienced the creation of a worker's state by revolutionary workers and peasants. Once again, I urge for you to refer to my posts on the thread about state-capitalism.

I'm sorry Dali, it seems like we misunderstood eachother. I agree that October 1917 created the world's first (and maybe only?) worker's state, and the workers indeed socialized the means of production. What I am talking about in this era is the loss of proletarian power, politically and economically.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 29, 2007 09:52 pm

So you either had to take that temporary step and risk failure, or just fail, you would've done the latter of course because you're an ultra-leftist and only care about the "perfect theory" as opposed to how it actually works in practice.

Actually I'm not an ultea-leftist, but I will criticize communist leaders if they call Stalinist Russia a "worker's state" under any circumstances.

Thats actually the basis of my critique of Trotskysim, besides the sectarianism and factionalism.

In this respect Trotskyism is like Stalinism, that they regarded Stalinist Russia as "socialist" because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and property had shifted into state hands.
No, we don't call it a workers state, that's ridiculous. We call it a degenerated workers state.

Look, after the revolution the property relations in the Soviet Union changed, right? A political transition of power from one group to another without the property relations changing does not mean that it suddenly became "capitalist", that's idealist and an un-Marxist way of analyzing the situation and that is precisely why Trotsky called it a degenerated workers state, because the property relations established after the revolution were still kept in place.

And they had to be kept in place by the ruling clique, because their power was based on the fiction of them representing the proletarian class.

It was essential for Trotsky and every communist to fight alongside the working-class of the USSR to fight to maintain these property relations, and extend their control to a political revolution. It would've been ultra-leftist and also pretty illogical to call for an all-out revolution, that is, a political and economic one, because in terms of economy it was already a workers-state!

Remember, the NEP was soon gotten rid of, actually, Stalin went back to war communism, a system wherein distribution was taken over as a job by the state, which caused a great slump in the economy. They of course had to abandon this because it was impractical.

Law can never be higher than its material conditions, and the material conditions for socialism have never existed in any nation, and will not exist for a time after a revolution.

[Rawthentic]

Look, after the revolution the property relations in the Soviet Union changed, right? A political transition of power from one group to another without the property relations changing does not mean that it suddenly became "capitalist", that's idealist and an un-Marxist way of analyzing the situation and that is precisely why Trotsky called it a degenerated workers state, because the property relations established after the revolution were still kept in place.
Thats not correct. When the working class loses its control, as it did in the USSR and wage slavery predominates, extraction of surplus value for capital expansion, and the defining law of capitalism (capitalist law of value), you have capitalism.

What I am saying is that the workers did not control the means of production or any significant political power. The problem with the "degenerated worker's state" theory is that it implies that there was socialism, even though the working class was not in power, at all. The mode of production was capitalist.


Remember, the NEP was soon gotten rid of, actually, Stalin went back to war communism, a system wherein distribution was taken over as a job by the state, which caused a great slump in the economy. They of course had to abandon this because it was impractical.
The conssequences of the NEP were never taken back.


Law can never be higher than its material conditions, and the material conditions for socialism have never existed in any nation, and will not exist for a time after a revolution.
And Lenin never saw anything wrong with a form of state-capitalism post-revolution, as long as the working class administered the process. Thats the point: proletarian power.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente Trabajadora+May 29, 2007 10:17 pm--> (Voz de la Gente Trabajadora @ May 29, 2007 10:17 pm) Thats not correct. When the working class loses its control, as it did in the USSR and wage slavery predominates, extraction of surplus value for capital expansion, and the defining law of capitalism (capitalist law of value), you have capitalism. [/b]
Wage-slavery will always predominate in any socialist society, because it's socialist, extraction of surplus value for capital expansion will also always predominate, but no, the capitalist law of value, which does not exist so I have no idea what you are talking about, did not exist in the USSR.

You probably meant the profit motive as the regulator in the economy as the capitalist law of value? Yeah, that didn't exist in the USSR in any meaningful form until after capitalist restoration.


What I am saying is that the workers did not control the means of production or any significant political power. The problem with the "degenerated worker's state" theory is that it implies that there was socialism, even though the working class was not in power, at all. The mode of production was capitalist.


Of course the working class was not in power, that is clear, the proletarian side of the party and state-machinery were gotten rid off by Stalin, but that doesn't mean the economic superstructure changed with it, in fact it was impossible to change with it because their power rested on the fact of it staying the same!

The mode of production was not capitalist, why can't you just grasp that fact? While the whole world was suffering from depression (every capitalist nation without exception!) the USSR was growing with a rate of 20/30% a year, how the hell can you say it was capitalist?

You can't prove it, the worker does not get the full value of his labor in socialism, the means of distribution remain the same as under bourgeois society, so you have no argument.


Lenin
Marx not only most scrupulously takes account of the inevitable inequality of men, but he also takes into account the fact that the mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed". Continuing, Marx says:

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.

However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

Notice how Lenin says that bourgeois law is only abolished to the proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, in respect to the means of production and their advancement. So the further the USSR advanced in terms of means of production, the more bourgeois law had to fade away, but in the USSR the opposite was happening for the very reason of the political regime being reactionary.

BUT, the bourgeois laws that were abolished to the proportion of the economic revolution already attained in 1917 were still in place and weren't overturned until 1990!

They had to be kept in place, and Trotsky was right to call it progressive.


And Lenin never saw anything wrong with a form of state-capitalism post-revolution, as long as the working class administered the process. Thats the point: proletarian power.

Lenin argued that state-capitalism could come very much in handy, of course he was just talking about social-systems and comparing, he never really got around to implementing it because it wasn't feasible for the USSR at that time, he probably wouldn't have implemented it either because it was proven not to work very effectively in terms of industrialization. It can only work when a higher level of technology and production is reached, and I believe the USSR never reached that stage in its entire history.

[Rawthentic]

Wage-slavery will always predominate in any socialist society, because it's socialist, extraction of surplus value for capital expansion will also always predominate, but no, the capitalist law of value, which does not exist so I have no idea what you are talking about, did not exist in the USSR.
So, the workers exploit themselves while they maintain economic and political power?

Raya Dunaveskaya's , "Nature of the Russian Economy." (http://marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1946/statecap.htm)

“The law of capitalism” is not the average rate of profit, but the decline in the rate of profit. The average rate of profit is only the manner in which the surplus value extracted from the workers is divided among the capitalists. [5] It is impossible to jump from that fact to the conclusion that “therefore” Russia is not a capitalist country. It is for this reason that the Stalinist apologists, with great deliberation, perverted “the law of capitalism” from the decline in the rate of profit to the achievement of an average rate of profit. With this revision of Marxism as their theoretic foundation, they proceeded to cite “proof” of Russia’s being a non-capitalist land: Capital does not migrate where it is most profitable, but where the state directs it. Thus, they conclude Russia was able to build up heavy industry, though the greatest profits were obtained from light industry. In other words, what the United States has achieved through the migration of capital to the most profitable enterprises Russia has achieved through planning.

Profit, moreover, does not at all have the same meaning in Russia as it does in classical capitalism. The light industries show greater profit not because of the greater productivity of labor, but because of the state-imposed turn-over tax which gives an entirely fictitious “profit” to that industry. In reality, it is merely the medium through which the state, not the industry, siphons off anything “extra” it gave the worker by means of wages. It could not do the same things through the channel of heavy industry because the workers do not eat its products. That is why this “profit” attracts neither capital nor the individual agents of capital. That is the nub of the question.

Precisely because the words, profit and loss, have assumed a different meaning, the individual agents of capital do not go to the most “profitable” enterprises, even as capital itself does not. For the very same reason that the opposite was characteristic of classic capitalism: The individual agent’s share of surplus value is greater in heavy industry. The salary of the director of a billion dollar trust depends, not on whether the trust shows a profit or not, but basically upon the magnitude of the capital that he manages.

State capitalism brings about a change in the mode of appropriation, as has occurred so often in the life span of capitalism, through its competitive, monopoly and state-monopoly stages. The individual agent of capital has at no time realized directly the surplus value extracted in his particular factory. He has participated in the distribution of national surplus value, to the extent that his individual capital was able to exert pressure on this aggregate capital. This pressure in Russia is exerted, not through competition but state planning. But this struggle or agreement among capitalists, or agents of the state, if you will, is of no concern to the proletariat whose sweat and blood has been congealed into this national surplus value. [6] What is of concern to him is his relationship to the one who performs the “function” of boss.


I like your argument but hmm...

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Comrade Marcel+May 29, 2007 08:58 pm--> (Comrade Marcel @ May 29, 2007 08:58 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:52 am

[email protected] 29, 2007 09:59 am

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.
You know what is much worser than being a one-time Menshevik? Being the gravedigger of the not only the Russian Revolution, but the international worker's revolution also.
Trotskyism has done more to stifle revolution in the world than fascism. [/b]
Elaborate how many workers and communists have died as a result of Trotskyism.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Comrade Marcel+May 30, 2007 02:21 am--> (Comrade Marcel @ May 30, 2007 02:21 am)
[email protected] 29, 2007 06:40 am

Molotov-Ribentrop pact (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg)
Yalta Confrence (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Yalta_Conference.jpg)
What is that supposed to prove? [/b]
That Stalin sold out to both Imperialism and Fascism.


Bald faced lie. The Bolshevik policy was to support the Provisional government, Stalin was simply following the will of the party.

The line which Lenin opposed.

And certainly the Stage theory was Menshevist theory which Stalin promoted after Lenin's death.

[Rawthentic]

And certainly the Stage theory was Menshevist theory which Stalin promoted after Lenin's death.

You mean the economic determinist theory that all nations had to pass through the same historical cycles to achieve socialism? Or the wedge between Trotsky and Lenin where Lenin advocated the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry whereas Trotsky rejected this for choosing to "wait"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Huh? Good ole' Trot didn't choose to wait. He had his permanent "let's skip capitalism" revolution.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 30, 2007 09:24 am

And certainly the Stage theory was Menshevist theory which Stalin promoted after Lenin's death.

You mean the economic determinist theory that all nations had to pass through the same historical cycles to achieve socialism? Or the wedge between Trotsky and Lenin where Lenin advocated the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry whereas Trotsky rejected this for choosing to "wait"?
No I meant the theory of Mensheviks at the time 1903 where they said that Russia cannot move to Socialism with out reaching capitalism first so Workers rights must be sub-ordinated to Capitalists.

Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/index.htm) - here Lenin writes against the theory of Mensheviks on one Hand and Trotsky on the other.

Stalin later used this theory to justify his Socialism in one country.In 1927 when chinses workers rose up against Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Sheik Stalin opposed Chinese communists actions on this arguments.
On the question of Chinese revolution (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/05/09.htm)


That being the case, what would it mean to call for the immediate formation of Soviets of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies in present-day South China, in the area, say, of the Wuhan government, where the revolutionary Kuomintang is now in power, and the movement is developing under the slogan ‘All power to the revolutionary Kuomintang’ ? To call now for the formation of Soviets of workers’ and peasants’ deputies in this area would mean calling for an uprising against the power of the revolutionary Kuomintang. Would that be expedient? Obviously not. Obviously, whoever at the present time calls for the immediate formation of Soviets of workers’ deputies in this area is trying to skip over the Kuomintang phase of the Chinese revolution, is running the risk of putting the revolution in China in a most difficult position.


Lenin where Lenin advocated the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry whereas Trotsky rejected this for choosing to "wait"?

I don't understand what you are talking about ?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente Trabajadora+May 30, 2007 01:56 am--> (Voz de la Gente Trabajadora @ May 30, 2007 01:56 am)
Wage-slavery will always predominate in any socialist society, because it's socialist, extraction of surplus value for capital expansion will also always predominate, but no, the capitalist law of value, which does not exist so I have no idea what you are talking about, did not exist in the USSR.
So, the workers exploit themselves while they maintain economic and political power? [/b]
No, the surplus value doesn't all go into the hands of the bureaucracy, most of it is used in social-welfare programs like universal healthcare, and to expand the means of production and other things like infrastructure:


Lenin
the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle's idea that under socialism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or "full product of his labor". Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the "wear and tear" of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people's homes, and so on.

Instead of Lassalle's hazy, obscure, general phrase ("the full product of his labor to the worker"), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs.


Of course, notice that the longer the bureaucracy stayed in power the more money was used in other things like military production and other stupid "plans", but also don't forget that the economic revolution that was reached after the revolution wasn't abolished until capitalism was re-established in 1990.

If it was state-capitalism which went to "free market capitalism", why the economic destruction and chaos? I mean, it was already a system with anarchy in production, right? Since you claim it was state-capitalist, so why the sudden economic collapse in something that should've been nothing but a paper-signing, making the "state companies" become "private companies"?

Because it wasn't just that of course. The markets were openend, the state companies were sold off to the highest bidder, instead of just "signing them over" to the current bosses, and the exploitation rate was increased to a level unheard of before because now the new bosses could do whatever the hell they wanted.

That is what capitalism is, and that is what made the difference between the economy in a degenerated workers state, which was once a workers state in terms of economic and political relations, and a state that is state-capitalist.

Keep in mind that the state-capitalism in Germany transitioned to "normal capitalism" without any economic breakdown afterwards, on the contrary, the economy expanded more afterwards! The same in Italy and other nations with state-capitalism in their economies.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 30, 2007 03:54 am

And certainly the Stage theory was Menshevist theory which Stalin promoted after Lenin's death.

You mean the economic determinist theory that all nations had to pass through the same historical cycles to achieve socialism? Or the wedge between Trotsky and Lenin where Lenin advocated the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry whereas Trotsky rejected this for choosing to "wait"?
The Menshevik theory is that of stages, that the workers should subordinate themselves to the bourgeois rather than form an independent political current in under-developed nations. Stalin/Bukharian later implemented it in China as well with horrifying results for the working-class.

[Rawthentic]

Surplus value necessitates capital expansion which then necessitates wage slavery which then means exploitation. Thats the crux of the matter, as well as the fact that the working class did not control the means of production. The mode of production was capitalist as I have here shown.


No, the surplus value doesn't all go into the hands of the bureaucracy, most of it is used in social-welfare programs like universal healthcare, and to expand the means of production and other things like infrastructure:
The benevolency of the bourgeoisie does not prove socialism.


Keep in mind that the state-capitalism in Germany transitioned to "normal capitalism" without any economic breakdown afterwards, on the contrary, the economy expanded more afterwards! The same in Italy and other nations with state-capitalism in their economies.

[Rawthentic]

Capital expansion, which the Stalinists so glorify that Stalin did, presupposes surplus value, and is as is common Marxism, necessitates exploitation. Thats the crux of the matter, as well as the fact that the working class did not control the means of production. The mode of production was capitalist as I have here shown.


No, the surplus value doesn't all go into the hands of the bureaucracy, most of it is used in social-welfare programs like universal healthcare, and to expand the means of production and other things like infrastructure:
The benevolency of the bourgeoisie does not prove socialism.


Keep in mind that the state-capitalism in Germany transitioned to "normal capitalism" without any economic breakdown afterwards, on the contrary, the economy expanded more afterwards! The same in Italy and other nations with state-capitalism in their economies.
There are different forms of state capitalism. Lenin elaborated on this.

Did you read the quote from Raya Dunaveskaya? She shows how the dominant capitalist law predominated in Stalinist Russia.

[Spike]

Perhaps the most telling condemnation of the Stalinist regimes came from their crushing of workers' revolts, both the well known ones of East Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968
Absurd. All of these revolts took place after Stalin's death. It is a mistake to call them workers' revolts since the "Prague Spring" was purely a petit-bourgeois development. Interestingly, the 1956 counterrevolution took place in Hungary when power was seized by the revisionist right-wing demagogue Nagy.

Both of these events occurred before the excuse of the outbreak of the Civil War could be used as a 'justification'.
This is false. The civil war had its roots in the revolt of the Don Cossacks in December 1917. Foreign invasion began when the Japanese seized Vladivostok in that same month.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 29, 2007 09:52 pm

In this respect Trotskyism is like Stalinism, that they regarded Stalinist Russia as "socialist" because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and property had shifted into state hands.

Voz de la Gente Trabajadora wrote:
In this respect Trotskyism is like Stalinism, that they regarded Stalinist Russia as "socialist" because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and property had shifted into state hands.

This is blatant idiocy and a vicious, hateful attack on the revolutionary opposition within the Soviet Union; the opposition that opposed a tumorous growth on the worker's state, the result of prolonged isolation - the bureaucratic caste that was swallowing the revolution whole. Trotsky, along with any Bolshevik that opposed Stalin during his rising period of bureaucratic maneuvering and political fabrication, never held that the productive forces had developed to a point of making socialism possible. I would recommend that you read The Revolution Betrayed.

The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch03.htm#ch03-5)


Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 3, 5. The “Complete Triumph of Socialism” and the “Reinforcement of the Dictatorship”:

Socialism is a structure of planned to the end of the best satisfaction of human needs; otherwise it does not deserve the name of socialism. If cows are socialized, but there are too few of them, or they have too meagre udders, then conflicts arise out of the inadequate supply of milk – conflicts between city and country, between collectives and individual peasants, between different state of the proletariat, between the whole toiling mass and bureaucracy. It was in fact the socialization of the cows which led to their mass extermination by the peasants. Social conflicts created by want can in their turn lead to a resurrection of “all the old crap.” Such was, in essence, our answer.

Trotsky considered the bureaucracy to be a political degeneration, and it was, considering that it was the negative development of the worker's state. That said, I never denied that the bureaucracy strove to become bourgeoisie. But its way was obviously barred by the lasting conquests of the October Revolution, for that is the reason that higher wages, healthcare, education, welfare persisted. It was also the reason that the directors were highly limited in their utilization of the labor-power of many workers; their functions were highly different in comparison to a capitalist in the United States or Europe.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by RedDali+May 30, 2007 02:14 am--> (RedDali @ May 30, 2007 02:14 am)
Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 29, 2007 08:58 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:52 am

[email protected] 29, 2007 09:59 am

What is 'social-democracy' in the historical context of the Mensheviks? Trotsky left the Mensheviks. Is he historically condemned since he was merely involved with them?

'Merely involved with them' until 1917, that is. Let me put an example: The year is 2054. You belong to 'The Communist Party of Utopialand'. Another party called 'The Worker's Party of Utopialand' has a popular member who criticizes your party for 14 years or so. Suddenly, in 2058 the conditions are perfect for a socialist revolution. Your party is about to take power in the name of the.. er... 'Utopialand Soviets', but right before that, the said member from the 'Worker's Party of Utopialand' leaves that party and joins yours.

Do you trust him? Do you believe his intentions are honorable? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.
You know what is much worser than being a one-time Menshevik? Being the gravedigger of the not only the Russian Revolution, but the international worker's revolution also.
Trotskyism has done more to stifle revolution in the world than fascism.
Elaborate how many workers and communists have died as a result of Trotskyism. [/b]
We do not know how many died because of the pollution Trotskyism has provided to the movement in the imperialist countries. Surely, many have and are still dieing because the so-called communists in the imperialist countries have failed to organize under the correct methods and ideological line.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 03:45 am
That Stalin sold out to both Imperialism and Fascism.

What Stalin did was save millions of lives in the real world. While Trotsky, acting like a privledeged brat really, was lounging in Turkey and in Mexico making love to Freda Kahlo, calling for the overthrow of the Soviet Union, saying Stalin is the main danger (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trotskystalin.txt). He called for independence of the Ukraine alongside Hitler (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trotskyukraine.txt). People with real jobs dedicated to the people had to make arrangements for the survival of socialism and the lives of millions.

The USSR during Stalin saved millions of lives and the world from fascist rule by buying enough time to build a defence.

This later lead to the complete destruction of the nazi regime, again thanks to the USSR under uncle Joe.

Afterwards, instead of leading to more war, to cause more suffering to the people, Stalin stood firm in the face of the representatives of the two biggest imperialist powers and brought socialism to half of Europe.

Trotsky, on the other hand, didn't build any significant movement anywhere, all those years in exile he decided to live like a petty-bourgeois instead. He even admitted aid to Japanese imperialism! (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trotskyjapan.txt)

[Rawthentic]

This is blatant idiocy and a vicious, hateful attack on the revolutionary opposition
No its not. I was simply pointing out the parallels, not undermining the influence that Trotsky's opposition had.

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 01, 2007 09:10 pm

The USSR during Stalin saved millions of lives and the world from fascist rule by buying enough time to build a defence.

This later lead to the complete destruction of the nazi regime, again thanks to the USSR under uncle Joe.

Afterwards, instead of leading to more war, to cause more suffering to the people, Stalin stood firm in the face of the representatives of the two biggest imperialist powers and brought socialism to half of Europe.

Trotsky, on the other hand, didn't build any significant movement anywhere, all those years in exile he decided to live like a petty-bourgeois instead. He even admitted aid to Japanese imperialism! (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trotskyjapan.txt)

Stalin didn't mind sitting down with Hitler to discuss treaties now did he ?

Socialism for one point can't be imposed , the workers must rise themselves , if Stalin had any interest in bring socialism (real socialism not a decayed bureaucratic dictatorship) he would have helped out the militias in Spain instead of trying to look good in the face of imperialism by pushing for a popular army with the hierarchy intact which is only counter-revolutionary in the face of achieving socialism .

Lenin was quick to see the danger of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Revolution in conditions of general backwardness. In State and Revolution, he worked out the basic conditions - not for socialism or communism - but for the first period after the Revolution, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism. These were:

1) Free and democratic elections and the right of recall for all officials.
2) No official to receive a wage higher than a skilled worker.
3) No standing army but the armed people.
4) Gradually, all the tasks of running the state to be carried out in turn by the workers: when everybody is a "bureaucrat" in turn, nobody is a bureaucrat.

Now point out where Stalin followed in the footsteps of Lenin ?

And what lifestyle did Stalin lead ... a workers ? ...

Trotsky even predicted the collapse of the USSR because of the way Stalin has used and abused the revolution for his personnel gain .

[Rawthentic]

While if I confined myself to the Trotsky vs. Stalin war, I would certainly be a Trotskyist, but Trotsky was a bureaucrat just as well as Stalin, let us not forget that.

I agree with Coggy on the basic elements of socialism from Lenin.

[The Author]

Originally posted by Coggy+ June 2, 2007, 06:38 pm--> (Coggy @ June 2, 2007, 06:38 pm)And what lifestyle did Stalin lead ... a workers ? ... [/b]


Ian [email protected] "Stalin, Man of History"

Page 234

Stalin was, in fact, not a vain, self-obsessed man who had to be surrounded by fawning and flattery. He detested this mass adulation of his person, and throughout his life he went to great lengths to avoid demonstrations in his honor. Indeed, he was to be seen in public only at party congresses and at ceremonial occasions on Red Square, when he was a remote figure standing on Lenin's mausoleum. He had the same lack of personal vanity as Peter the Great and Lenin, but like them he had the same supremely arrogant conviction, transcending mere vanity, that he was the man of destiny, who held the key to the future and knew what was right for the people and for Russia and, as [Milovan] Djilas observed, "that he was carrying out the will of history."

An immeasurable gulf seemed to separate the man of 1929, aged fifty, from the small boy at the theological school in Gori and the pock-marked youth who attended the seminary in Tiflis and

Page 235

was destined for the priesthood. At every stage of his career he had grown in stature, showing the confidence and ability to meet greater challenges. He possessed a natural authority, an inner strength and courage. He was not overwhelmed by the responsibilities that now lay upon him as sole ruler over a nation of 200 million people, and at a time when its survival was threatened. He did not play safe, evading dangers which might lead to destruction; on the contrary, although cautious by nature, he pursued his objectives with an implacable single-mindedness, undeterred by risks. Indeed, he was about to plunge the nation into a new revolution, which, as he saw clearly, might end in catastrophe.

As a person, however, Stalin had not changed greatly. He had power and position, but showed no interest in possessions and luxuries. His tastes were simple and he lived austerely. In summer he wore a plain military tunic of linen and in winter a similar tunic of wool, and an overcoat that was some fifteen years old. He also had a short fur coat with squirrel on the inside and reindeer skin on the outside, which he started wearing soon after the Revolution and continued to wear with an old fur hat until his death. The presents, many of them valuable and even priceless works of craftsmanship, sent to him from all parts of the country and, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, from all over the world, embarrassed him. He felt that it would be wrong to make any personal use of such gifts. And, as his daughter noted: "He could not imagine why people would want to send him all these things." It was an insight into the paradoxical humility of this extraordinary man.

[Rawthentic]

That doesnt change his class nature CEA.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 01:48 am
That doesnt change his class nature CEA.
I'll reply to the other stuff later, but please tell us what his class nature was?

If you knew anything about him, you would know his background was more proletarian than Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao or just about any of the other greats in the history of socialism.

Someones class backgorund doesn't necessarily make them good or bad anyways.

[Rawthentic]

Stalin was proletarian? Oh, tell me, to what capitalist did he sell his labor power to?

He came from a peasant family, don't kid yourself. Mao was never a prole either.

Stalin was a bourgeois, the ruler of a huge capitalist-imperialist nation.



Someones class backgorund doesn't necessarily make them good or bad anyways
Yeah, who cares if they're capitalists, as long as they are "good." :wacko:

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 10:38 pm

Trotsky even predicted the collapse of the USSR because of the way Stalin has used and abused the revolution for his personnel gain .

Stalin didn't mind sitting down with Hitler to discuss treaties now did he ?

oye yes because fighting the nazis alone is good fun and all. Look at what it did to them when they DID actually have to fight the nazis. Their so called "allies" said "lets wait this shit out! Hey maybe we can let the nazis destroy the commies !!", 20 million Soviet citizens perished, and the Soviet people stood up with such a strong resistance that the US and Britan were forced to open a new front because the communists were winning and the US and Britan wanted credit essentially. The fact still remains though that no matter what, it was the Soviet Partisans and Soldiers who dealt 80% of the Nazi casualties. The remaining 20% was split between Canada, Britan, the French Partisans, the Albanian Partisans, the Belgian partisans, the German resistance, and the US. When asked why he signed this treaty, Molotov essentially said it was about survival and that was the reason why they signed treaties with ANY bourgeios states AT ALL! When then someone followed up on that response and said "yes but they're fascist" Molotov said "For the bourgieous, fascism is a matter of taste" And that's the truth because fascism is just capitalism in decay its a bourgeois dictatorship, just rather than having some sort of democratic veil, it is out and open about it.


Socialism for one point can't be imposed , the workers must rise themselves , if Stalin had any interest in bring socialism (real socialism not a decayed bureaucratic dictatorship) he would have helped out the militias in Spain

um yeah ever heard of the fucking International Brigades organized and funded by the USSR and the CPSU(B)?? They were the real trained military force in the civil war. They were decisive. They also provided Airforce to counter Mussolini and Hitler's airforces.


instead of trying to look good in the face of imperialism by pushing for a popular army with the hierarchy intact which is only counter-revolutionary in the face of achieving socialism .


oh okay I see so basically organizing millions of people world wide to fight fascism in a regular organized fashion was counter revolutionary or whatever :rolleyes: I see. What the FUCK LENGTHS WON'T YOU GO TO SLING SHIT AT STALIN?





Lenin was quick to see the danger of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Revolution in conditions of general backwardness. In State and Revolution, he worked out the basic conditions - not for socialism or communism - but for the first period after the Revolution, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism. These were:

1) Free and democratic elections and the right of recall for all officials.
2) No official to receive a wage higher than a skilled worker.
3) No standing army but the armed people.
4) Gradually, all the tasks of running the state to be carried out in turn by the workers: when everybody is a "bureaucrat" in turn, nobody is a bureaucrat.

Now point out where Stalin followed in the footsteps of Lenin ?

And what lifestyle did Stalin lead ... a workers ? ...


yeah and largely there was that in the USSR. Except Lenin never said that there should be no red army. Wasn't it he who placed fucking trotsky in charge of it?????

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 05:45 am
Stalin was proletarian? Oh, tell me, to what capitalist did he sell his labor power to?

He came from a peasant family, don't kid yourself. Mao was never a prole either.

Stalin was a bourgeois, the ruler of a huge capitalist-imperialist nation.



Someones class backgorund doesn't necessarily make them good or bad anyways
Yeah, who cares if they're capitalists, as long as they are "good." :wacko:
um yeah and poor peasantry are important to the revolution. How actually most likely didn't own the land his family worked on. He was a tenant farmer. And Mao was proletariat. He came from a middle peasant family and got an education but was so poor at times that when he had his shoes stolen one night while sleeping, he had to walk on the city streets barefoot until he bumped into a friend who lent him money for shoes. He also held a position at some private library that was "considered so low that people avoided me" according to him in Red Star Over China. And the USSR wasn't Capitalist-Imperialist under Stalin.

[Rawthentic]

yeah and largely there was that in the USSR. Except Lenin never said that there should be no red army. Wasn't it he who placed fucking trotsky in charge of it?????
Are you shitting me? Free and democratic elections were a farce because the soviets were mere talking shops and one-man management was not decided upon the workers, but imposed from the Party. Party officials were being paid highly more than your ordinary workers, even some ministers made 40 times that of an average worker! Yeah, and you must be joking about number 4...

[Rawthentic]

And the USSR wasn't Capitalist-Imperialist under Stalin.
If you say so!


um yeah and poor peasantry are important to the revolution. How actually most likely didn't own the land his family worked on. He was a tenant farmer. And Mao was proletariat. He came from a middle peasant family and got an education but was so poor at times that when he had his shoes stolen one night while sleeping, he had to walk on the city streets barefoot until he bumped into a friend who lent him money for shoes.
I never said the poor peasantry wasnt important, I was saying Stalin wasnt a proletarian. And you never proved that Mao was proletarian, just that, according to you, he was poor as fuck.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 09:01 pm
how so?
well I disagree with Marcel's comment strongly, but there is some truth in that trotsky spent the 14 years before the bolshevik uprising critiscizing and undermining all work the bolsheviks did, and then after 1924-7, he spent the rest of his life attempting to undermine the Soviet Union and shatter the international communist movement, starting his own international, and turning it into the sectarian infighting still present today.

[Rawthentic]

I might add that Stalinist Parties are completely sectarian as well.

On the Trotsky issue, I will have to agree that he spent his time criticizing the rising, ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and called for worker's power. I mean, have you ever read Trotsky?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 05:56 am

And the USSR wasn't Capitalist-Imperialist under Stalin.
If you say so!


um yeah and poor peasantry are important to the revolution. How actually most likely didn't own the land his family worked on. He was a tenant farmer. And Mao was proletariat. He came from a middle peasant family and got an education but was so poor at times that when he had his shoes stolen one night while sleeping, he had to walk on the city streets barefoot until he bumped into a friend who lent him money for shoes.
I never said the poor peasantry wasnt important, I was saying Stalin wasnt a proletarian. And you never proved that Mao was proletarian, just that, according to you, he was poor as fuck.
yeah he worked in the library. He was exploited. He may have come from a petty bourgeios family but he definately became a proletariat. And besides it was you who just through it out there that the USSR was capitalist-imperialist under Stalin, which I've refuted by asking you to check out the Set the Record Straight! speech but you don't bother because that would challenge your perspective.

[Rawthentic]

That shit by the RCP you posted in the thread on my sig?

ComradeRed completely refuted that shit! Take a look at the thread and his last post. Its no small reason as to why that Tankie CEA never responded.

But seriously take a look. I mean, CEA tried to prove his point with a speech by Stalin!

Its like trying to prove that the US if free and democratic with a Bush speech!

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 05:59 am
I might add that Stalinist Parties are completely sectarian as well.

On the Trotsky issue, I will have to agree that he spent his time criticizing the rising, ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and called for worker's power. I mean, have you ever read Trotsky?
yeah and the US constitution calls for we the people or some shit right? Trotsky's writing were full of shit. He spent the thirties whining and and pouting and then harming the communist movement about how the CPSU(B) and the masses chose Stalin through DC because they prefered building socialism then staying in State Capitalism.

And yeah I did read trotsky. I used to be a trot remember?


Free and democratic elections were a farce because the soviets were mere talking shops and one-man management was not decided upon the workers, but imposed from the Party. Party officials were being paid highly more than your ordinary workers, even some ministers made 40 times that of an average worker! Yeah, and you must be joking about number 4..

yeah Lenin said that One Man management would be a necessary contradiction but that it should be democratic and it was. And the Soviet constitution made the salary thing illegal. Stalin spent his leadership fighting bureacracy. When he tried to pass a more democratic constitution in the 30s, it was rejected because it would dislodge the forming bureacracy.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

no he didn't he just said that because it was made by the RCP it was propaganda, and then proceeded to link to some piece by a left communist party about loss of soviet power :rolleyes: :lol: so yeah that's not refutation. And I think CEA didn't respond because it was so pointless. It was obvious that there was workers control of the means of production. He had thoroughly proved that.

Oh and "stalinist" parties aren't sectarian. It was Trotsky who broke with Democratic Centralism and Lenin's act on party factions. It was trotsky who spent the thirties trying to destroy the Soviet Union. Not vica-versa. Its like saying black people are racist because they don't like White people for fucking enslaving them.

[Rawthentic]

He spent the thirties whining and and pouting and then harming the communist movement about how the CPSU(B) and the masses chose Stalin through DC because they prefered building socialism then staying in State Capitalism.
You mean how Stalin was an opportunistic cockroach who stole his way to power by murdering all opposition?

And you know jack shit about Marxism, because it is physically impossible to build socialism in one country.


yeah Lenin said that One Man management would be a necessary contradiction but that it should be democratic and it was. And the Soviet constitution made the salary thing illegal. Stalin spent his leadership fighting bureacracy. When he tried to pass a more democratic constitution in the 30s, it was rejected because it would dislodge the forming bureacracy.
It was not democratic, don't kid yourself, the workers never chose it. And the Consitution never made anything illegal, except socialism:

"Each plant has a leader – the plant manager – endowed with the full power of decision, hence fully responsible for everything." (E.L. Granovski and B.L. Markus (eds.) The Economics of Socialist Industry, Moscow 1940, p.579) That's "workers' control" for you!

In 1937 managerial personnel numbered 1,751,000 (USSR, The Land of Socialism, Moscow 1936, p.148). At least nine tenths were in the party (and this is low balling the estimate), or more precisely 1,575,900 were in the party.

There is no exact figure available for 1937, but the figures for 1934 and 1939 were 2,807,000 and 2,477,000. So taking the average of these two (which is 2,642,000 members), there are 1,066,100 non-factory manager party members.

Mind you this is only the factory managers, I'm not even including those on the board of syndicates or directors of large enterprises or any other traditionally bourgeois position.

Just looking over a few statistics here on the composition of the party: in 1923, a mere 29% of the factory directors were in the party. Whereas in 1925 (you know, after that small victory for Stalin), 73.7% of the members of the members of the managing boards of trusts, 81.5% of those on the boards of syndicates, and 95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members(!). (See A.S. Bubnov and others, The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Russian), Moscow-Leningrad 1931, page 626)

[Rawthentic]

Thanks Henry for not responding, I know you were on this whole time.

Can you admit that you are just wrong here?

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by Fight-For-Revolutionary-War!+June 03, 2007 06:05 am--> (Fight-For-Revolutionary-War! @ June 03, 2007 06:05 am)
Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 05:59 am
I might add that Stalinist Parties are completely sectarian as well.

On the Trotsky issue, I will have to agree that he spent his time criticizing the rising, ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and called for worker's power. I mean, have you ever read Trotsky?
yeah and the US constitution calls for we the people or some shit right? Trotsky's writing were full of shit. He spent the thirties whining and and pouting and then harming the communist movement about how the CPSU(B) and the masses chose Stalin through DC because they prefered building socialism then staying in State Capitalism.

And yeah I did read trotsky. I used to be a trot remember?


Free and democratic elections were a farce because the soviets were mere talking shops and one-man management was not decided upon the workers, but imposed from the Party. Party officials were being paid highly more than your ordinary workers, even some ministers made 40 times that of an average worker! Yeah, and you must be joking about number 4..

yeah Lenin said that One Man management would be a necessary contradiction but that it should be democratic and it was. And the Soviet constitution made the salary thing illegal. Stalin spent his leadership fighting bureacracy. When he tried to pass a more democratic constitution in the 30s, it was rejected because it would dislodge the forming bureacracy. [/b]
Ya blocked by the same people Stalin flooded the party with .

Of course Trotsky criticized the Soviet Union it was no longer on the road to socialism (let alone communism) in fact it was only on its way to returning to capitalism , even Trotsky predicted this and look what we have now ....

In Trotskys book the revolution betrayed he never attacked communism he pointed out all the pluses of a nationalized economy but then showed how Stalin was perversing communism to a bureaucracy .

Stalin spent his time in power 1) making sure he spent the maxinum time in power 2) eliminating opposition 3) and destroying piece by piece the dream of socialism

It was Stalin who set communism back 100years , instead of the workers dream being spread you had a type of red terror being used by the bourgeois media and it was Stalin only fueling the flames .

[Rawthentic]

I really like Trotsky's analysis and would be very happy were it not for his "degenerated worker's theory."

But anyway, I don't want to detract from this because I want Henry to respond to the post where I have the stats and figures.

[syndicat]

me: "What Trotsky meant by "compulsory labor" is conscription of people, forcing them to do appointed work at the point of a gun. Denying workers their right to self-organization. A good example is in 1920 when Trotsky was put in charge of transport and broke the railway workers union by removing the elected officers and appointing Bolsheviks from the intelligentsia class as the new leaders. Workers could be shot for withdrawal of labor. "

g.ram:


You go on whine this in almost all threads.

But the point you miss out is in 1920 war communism was practiced in the middle of the civil war. Trotsky's main aim at that was build up the railways as soon as possible to make the war against the white armies who owned much of Russia outside Petrograd-Moscow at that time.

Why were the railways in a state of collapse? The Bolshevik program of centralized control of food supply and use of violence to force peasants to hand over food led to peasant resistance and corruption and was a failure. Because of this large numbers of urban residents were "commuting" out to the countryside, where they often had relatives, to barter on their own for food. This totally over-loaded the railway system.

Nor is it clear that worker management of the railways would not have worked as a solution. Another part of the problem was that the locomotives had been imported from the west and spare parts were cut off. But militarization of labor, that only generates disontent and opposition among railway workers, doesn't solve this.


QUOTE (syndicat @ May 27, 2007 09:57 pm)
According to Trotsky, workers had no right to strike because "the proletariat owned the means of production."

Yes,Trotsky suggested to extend what he did with the Railways to all industries . That place is one of the situations where Trotsky did a mistake and that was argument by Trotsky and Bukharin's factions not the opinion of all the Bolsheviks.Lenin's position was against this.

Actually Lenin initially supported Trotsky and only came around to oppose him on this when it became clear there was a massive reaction against Trotsky among the working class members of the Bolshevik party in late 1920. Your quote is from the debate at the 10th party congress in March 1921, after Lenin had changed his position.



QUOTE (syndicat @ May 27, 2007 09:57 pm)
Requiring people to work in order to earn their consumption entitlement, if they are able-bodied, is something I would agree with in a socialized economy based on self-management. But under generalized self-management, the mass of the people directly control the economy, it's not controlled by an elite of professionals and managers, as it was in Russia in the 1920s. But requiring able-bodied people to work to earn their consumption entitlement is not the same thing as setting up an armed force, appointed from above by party leaders, to force them to work at the point of a gun, not giving them the freedom to change jobs, and appointing bosses to rule over them. That is slavery.

What Makhno did was no less than that.

If you're saying Makhno set up a system to force people to continue working
at the point of a gun, you're wrong about that. Makhno was an elected leader, elected by a grassroots people's congress. The Makhnovist movement encouraged the workers to take over self-management of industry, as for example on the railways. They certainly did not force people to not change jobs.



And CNT-FAI actually submitted itself to Spanish Capitalists.

No they didn't. They expropriated the Spanish capitalists. If you're referring to their joining the government in Nov 1936, that did not lead to power for the Spanish capitalists but for the incipient bureaucratic class regime the Communists were building.


So What Bolsheviks did was very much justifiable given their commitment to the International Workers revolution.

Given that it led to the emergence of a new bureaucratic class dominating and exploiting the working class, it was in fact directly contrary to the liberation of the working class.

[Rawthentic]

The only thing I have to say about the Makhnovists is that decentralized peasant communes were idealistic and Utopian when you are a country struggling to leave the Middle Ages and have a White Army desperately trying to destroy you.

There is no doubt that political centralization was required here, although some errors were committed on behalf of the Bolsheviks.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 06:16 am




You mean how Stalin was an opportunistic cockroach who stole his way to power by murdering all opposition?

um no. Ever heard of Democratic Centralism?


And you know jack shit about Marxism, because it is physically impossible to build socialism in one country.

yes it is. Nice to see you support the idea of countries staying in state capitalism until the west catches up.


It was not democratic, don't kid yourself, the workers never chose it. And the Consitution never made anything illegal, except socialism:

1936 Constitution of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons01.html) ...on property


ARTICLE 4. The socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the means and instruments of production firmly established as a result of the abolition of the capitalist system of economy, the abrogation of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, constitute' the economic foundation of the U.S.S.R.

ARTICLE 5. Socialist property in the U.S.S.R. exists either in the form of state property (the possession of the whole people), or in the form of cooperative and collective-farm property (property of a collective farm or property of a cooperative association).

ARTICLE 6. The land, its natural deposits, waters, forests, mills, factories, mines, rail, water and air transport, banks, post, telegraph and telephones, large state-organized agricultural enterprises (state farms, machine and tractor stations and the like) as well as municipal enterprises and the bulk of the dwelling houses in the cities and industrial localities, are state property, that is, belong to the whole people.

ARTICLE 7. Public enterprises in collective farms and cooperative organizations, with their livestock and implements, the products of the collective farms and cooperative organizations, as well as their common buildings, constitute the common socialist property of the collective farms and cooperative organizations. In addition to its basic income from the public collective-farm enterprise, every household in a collective farm has for its personal use a small plot of land attached to the dwelling and, as its personal property, a subsidiary establishment on the plot, a dwelling house, livestock, poultry and minor agricultural implements in accordance with the statutes of the agricultural artel.

ARTICLE 8. The land occupied by collective farms is secured to them for their use free of charge and for an unlimited time, that is, in perpetuity.

ARTICLE 9. Alongside the socialist system of economy, which is the predominant form of economy in the U.S.S.R., the law permits the small private economy of individual peasants and handicraftsman based on their personal labor and precluding the exploitation of the labor of others.

1936 Constituion of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics ...on citizen's rights and democracy


ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.

The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.
ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

ARTICLE 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.

ARTICLE 122. Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
freedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.


"Each plant has a leader – the plant manager – endowed with the full power of decision, hence fully responsible for everything." (E.L. Granovski and B.L. Markus (eds.) The Economics of Socialist Industry, Moscow 1940, p.579) That's "workers' control" for you!

Yeah and they were elected and recallable. They were just the mutant spawn of Soviet Material conditions: the need for massive industrialization as quickly as possible. This meant a balance between worker's control and fastest production possible. This came in the form of elected managers, BUT it also came in the form of 14,000,000 small peasant holdings being turned into 200,000 collectivized, collectively owned and run comunal large farms. In the Chinese Experience, we would see this taken even farther. The sky was the limit in revolutionary China and by the 60s, factory committees took charge everywhere as the cultural revolution pushed forward.


In 1937 managerial personnel numbered 1,751,000 (USSR, The Land of Socialism, Moscow 1936, p.148). At least nine tenths were in the party (and this is low balling the estimate), or more precisely 1,575,900 were in the party.

There is no exact figure available for 1937, but the figures for 1934 and 1939 were 2,807,000 and 2,477,000. So taking the average of these two (which is 2,642,000 members), there are 1,066,100 non-factory manager party members.

Mind you this is only the factory managers, I'm not even including those on the board of syndicates or directors of large enterprises or any other traditionally bourgeois position.

Just looking over a few statistics here on the composition of the party: in 1923, a mere 29% of the factory directors were in the party. Whereas in 1925 (you know, after that small victory for Stalin), 73.7% of the members of the members of the managing boards of trusts, 81.5% of those on the boards of syndicates, and 95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members(!). (See A.S. Bubnov and others, The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Russian), Moscow-Leningrad 1931, page 626)

great! You can plagirize from ComradeRed. I don't care. All this means is that you think that workers elected by their co-workers to the manager position for their leadership makes them bourgeois. These people were still proletariat. And if they were appointed by the party they would ALL be party members. The fact that 200,000 WEREN'T just proves that class struggle continues under socialism, that some workers were fighting against socialism and needed to be struggled with, but the fact that it jumped so highly in 2 years shows the enthusiasm for building socialism in the Soviet Union over continuing with Trotskyite-Bukharinite State Capitalist policies that were spawning a new landlord class in the countryside.

[Rawthentic]

Ha, managers all of a sudden become proletarian under socialism!? Get real.


. Nice to see you support the idea of countries staying in state capitalism until the west catches up.
Its nice to see that you don't understand Marxism.


great! You can plagirize from ComradeRed. I don't care. All this means is that you think that workers elected by their co-workers to the manager position for their leadership makes them bourgeois. These people were still proletariat. And if they were appointed by the party they would ALL be party members
You are so ridiculous! They were not elected! Provide some sources then. Tell me, are we all free and democratic because we elect our exploiters in the US? Tell me oh might critic, who did these "managers" sell their labor power to? Nobody.

I can't believe you would use the USSR's Constitution as an argument, thats something that a US patriot would use to "prove" we were democratic.

Ridiculous.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

because the US is bourgeois-democratic rather than straight up bourgeois fascist at the moment. The proof that they were elected was what Lenin advocated and has been quoted as saying in numerous times. In socialism labor power is not sold. The proletariat seeks to exsist as the class that is exploited. They take their class, and they place themselves as the operators of state machinery. the Factory managers were just part of the proletarian state. Workers in the Soviet Union were not exploited under Lenin and Stalin because they owned everything, no profit was MADE off of them, it went to industrialization and electrification of the the country, it went to schools and healthcare, unlike here where it goes into some executives pockey

[Rawthentic]

You contradict yourself! Just stop now before you look even more stupid.

Stalinists biggest claim is that massive capital expansion was achieved and industrialization. What they fail to understand, and is basic ABC Marxism, is that capital presupposes surplus value which of course presupposes the exploitation of wage labor.

Just because the state-bourgeoisie was "benevolent", it does not prove socialism at all.

[syndicat]

"Each plant has a leader – the plant manager – endowed with the full power of decision, hence fully responsible for everything." (E.L. Granovski and B.L. Markus (eds.) The Economics of Socialist Industry, Moscow 1940, p.579) That's "workers' control" for you!

Yeah and they were elected and recallable.

Plant managers were not elected in the USSR. They were appointed from above. Gosplan couldn't ensure their orders would be carried out unless they could appoint bosses to control production.

Even in 1918 Lenin was totally opposed to the workers electing the planning councils. He insisted that no more than one-third of the people on regional planning councils be elected by the workers. And it became less than that in later years.

And in China workers didn't elect the plant committees either. The committees were controlled by the cadres of the party.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Coggy+June 02, 2007 10:38 pm--> (Coggy @ June 02, 2007 10:38 pm) Stalin didn't mind sitting down with Hitler to discuss treaties now did he ?

[/b]
This is the most stupid shit I have ever heard on here, and there has been some real stupid shit. Stalin never sat with Hitler. Even a grade 10 student studying WW II history could tell you this.

What did happen was a non-aggression pact between the USSR and nazi Germany. In fact, I don't think Trotsky even denounced this at the time (correct me if I'm wrong) but rather his disciples are the ones who like to call this a "crime" (alongside bourgeois "scholars") and/or "betrayal".

MIM explains the folly of calling the pact a crime, in their review of Black Book of Communism:
MIM
Courtois attempts to blame Stalin for contaminating himself by signing a pact with Hitler in 1939.(pp. 5, 22) He says it was a crime. No where does he mention all the pacts that the capitalist countries signed with Hitler before Stalin did. It is typical in that most of the book's distortions are by omission of comparative context.

The Polish signed in 1934 and the French and British of course had their Munich appeasement in 1938. In 1938, Stalin offered to attack Hitler over Czechoslavakia if either England or France sided with him and if the Polish granted passage through their territory. Instead, what happened is Poland took a slice of Czechoslavakia--the Teschen district--in a deal with the Nazis.(3) The fact that Stalin was the last to sign a pact with Hitler is not mentioned by Courtois, because by his own logic, the capitalist countries would be guilty of greater crimes than the socialist countries.

Supposedly these are the scholars, but it is MIM explaining the comparative context once again. Our readers should ask whose standards of scholarship are fairer, MIM Notes's or the bourgeois scholars'. These bourgeois scholars do not even mention the capitalist countries' agreements with Hitler while citing Stalin for "crimes" for signing agreements. This same Courtois does not mention anywhere why Hitler's crimes stopped at the supposed 25 million mark--Soviet troops who defeated him--and these are supposedly historians. They are simply revisionist historians taking advantage of the youth for whom World War II is very distant.

Nor does Courtois or Werth mention the numerous and successful pro-Nazi rebellions throughout Europe when they talk about there being no reason to repress anyone in the Soviet Union and when they talk about how bad conditions in the USSR were that they drove people into the arms of the Nazis. If so, conditions were even worse in the capitalist countries, because Nazi fifth columns overthrew those European governments outright and paralyzed the anti- fascist fighting ability of all continental Europe except for the Soviet Union and mostly communist guerrillas in other countries.http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bookstore/commie.html

[Comrade Marcel]

Stalin didn't mind sitting down with Hitler to discuss treaties now did he ?

Also, we really don't know if Trotsky would have sat and made deals with Hitler or not; had he been in the position to do so, or in the case of Stalin the position of necessity to make a pact.

What Trotsky and Trotskyites have always been good at doing is finger pointing and criticizing after the fact. They are not the ones that had to be in responsible positions of power, and responsible for millions of lives.

So saying "Ha, ha! Look, Stalin is evil and this is proof!" Is childish and ridiculous. Anything you suggest about what could have, should have, would have, etc. if Trotsky had been there in charge instead is just idealist abstract analysis.


Socialism for one point can't be imposed

It certainly can be imposed, even Trotsky supported this. If you are talking about liberating Europe from imperialism, it doesn't matter if they (the majority) want socialism or not, it's better than fascism and capitalism. Perhaps you are the real traitor since you seem to be suggesting these countries would have been better off in the hands of Hitler and Mussolini or Churchill and Roosevelt instead of becoming the socialist bloc. Even Trotsky would most likely shun your view (wasn't he the one always talking about exporting revolution anyways??)

Also, socialism can very well be imposed. It's called Dictatorship of the Proletarian and Trotsky supported this. Maybe you should brush up on your readings.


the workers must rise themselves

Impossible, since all the workers movements, and even the national state military, had already been obliterated by the Axis fascists.


if Stalin had any interest in bring socialism (real socialism not a decayed bureaucratic dictatorship)

Any form of authority has bureaucracy; and I can't see how Trotskyites can talk about "real socialism" while finger pointing when Trotsky nor the Trot movements have never brought any kind of anything at all.


he would have helped out the militias in Spain instead of trying to look good in the face of imperialism by pushing for a popular army with the hierarchy intact which is only counter-revolutionary in the face of achieving socialism .

I guess POUM working in unorganized, ultra-leftist tendencies and without the support of the masses was better than the highly organized structures of the Red Brigades! :o

I challenge you to show how anyone else was "achieving socialism" in Spain while smack in the middle of fighting fascism.


Lenin was quick to see the danger of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Revolution in conditions of general backwardness. In State and Revolution, he worked out the basic conditions - not for socialism or communism - but for the first period after the Revolution, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism. These were:

1) Free and democratic elections and the right of recall for all officials.

Lenin changed this view during the civil war.


2) No official to receive a wage higher than a skilled worker.

I'll point out that Stalin died with 10 rubbles in his account but then you'll just say he was comped everywhere he went....


3) No standing army but the armed people.

This doesn't always work, and Lenin changed his mind on this as well.


4) Gradually, all the tasks of running the state to be carried out in turn by the workers: when everybody is a "bureaucrat" in turn, nobody is a bureaucrat.

This is the folly of many on the left these days. They fail to see what bureaucracy really is. It's not making sure only one person doesn't have all the power; though that's part of it. It's insuring that the structure of authority doesn't inhibit the livelihoods of the people. It's making sure things get done without people in positions of responsibility holding things up. I challenge that when everyone is a bureaucrat, nothing will get done, and I have seen this in practice in organizations. Trying running shit on consensus for example; or making a rule that every action must be discussed. It makes appointing positions to people pointless.


Now point out where Stalin followed in the footsteps of Lenin ?

Ideologically, economically, and in terms of party structure.


And what lifestyle did Stalin lead ... a workers ? ...

This is a ridiculous comparison, since the USSR wasn't capitalist. Try comparing Stalin's lifestyle to that of the leaders of other countries. Very very humble.


Trotsky even predicted the collapse of the USSR

See a list of We told you so (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/wetoldyouso/index.html) quotes from MIM that show where Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao got it right, and the Trots were wrong.


because of the way Stalin has used and abused the revolution for his personnel gain .

Please explain what "personal gain" Stalin got from being gensec? Headaches? Insomnia? Attempts on his life? Stress?

More like Stalin put aside his personal life for the revolution and the people.

[Comrade Marcel]

---

[Rawthentic]

This is a ridiculous comparison, since the USSR wasn't capitalist. Try comparing Stalin's lifestyle to that of the leaders of other countries. Very very humble.
He was a bourgeois, allow me to refer you to the thread on my sig on state capitalism. ComradeRed proves it.


Any form of authority has bureaucracy
Liar. Authority in the way Engels meant it was that of the will of the majority over the minority. Its called democracy.


Lenin changed this view during the civil war.
This is where you provide evidence.


I'll point out that Stalin died with 10 rubbles in his account but then you'll just say he was comped everywhere he went....
Lets just forget all about the great feasts and banquets he and the Party had while workers being slave labored and peasants were starving.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Trotsky considered it a betrayal in full form; his writings in 1939 and 1940 would certainly suggest that he was critical towards the Comintern's policy towards Germany.

It should be noted that Stalin, unlike the capitalist countries that were generally hostile towards him, was much more receptive towards Hitler than expected. The Wehrmacht was granted permission to train soldiers and test weapons in Ukraine and along the Volga within a few months following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. When Sergei Eisenstein filmed Alexander Nevsky in 1939, Stalin personally ordered the film to be promptly pulled from distribution, in fear that it would ruin relations with Germany. The purge of remaining revolutionary elements, including millions of officers and the brilliant Marshal Tukhachevsky, was shortly before the invasion in 1941, which left the armed forces in shambles. The GRU also confirmed, days before the invasion, that Germany was preparing to attack, and Stalin dismissed it immediately, probably due to his confidence that he had in Germany at the time, allowing many graduation parties to continue while the most costly and gruesome of wars was about to be unleashed on Russia.

But anyway, I know this is going to be dismissed with MIMite garbage, so I see no use debating with Stalinists.

[Rawthentic]

Nice one Dali, I agree.

We present factual info and stats even and they still come back with their tripe. I mean, one tankie tried to refute me with a speech by Stalin, another from a Maoist economist, and then this "MIMite garbage."

Robots I tell you.

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 03, 2007 09:02 pm


Also, we really don't know if Trotsky would have sat and made deals with Hitler or not; had he been in the position to do so, or in the case of Stalin the position of necessity to make a pact.

What Trotsky and Trotskyites have always been good at doing is finger pointing and criticizing after the fact. They are not the ones that had to be in responsible positions of power, and responsible for millions of lives.

So saying "Ha, ha! Look, Stalin is evil and this is proof!" Is childish and ridiculous. Anything you suggest about what could have, should have, would have, etc. if Trotsky had been there in charge instead is just idealist abstract analysis.

It certainly can be imposed, even Trotsky supported this. If you are talking about liberating Europe from imperialism, it doesn't matter if they (the majority) want socialism or not, it's better than fascism and capitalism. Perhaps you are the real traitor since you seem to be suggesting these countries would have been better off in the hands of Hitler and Mussolini or Churchill and Roosevelt instead of becoming the socialist bloc. Even Trotsky would most likely shun your view (wasn't he the one always talking about exporting revolution anyways??)

Also, socialism can very well be imposed. It's called Dictatorship of the Proletarian and Trotsky supported this. Maybe you should brush up on your readings.

Impossible, since all the workers movements, and even the national state military, had already been obliterated by the Axis fascists.

Any form of authority has bureaucracy; and I can't see how Trotskyites can talk about "real socialism" while finger pointing when Trotsky nor the Trot movements have never brought any kind of anything at all.

I guess POUM working in unorganized, ultra-leftist tendencies and without the support of the masses was better than the highly organized structures of the Red Brigades! :o

I challenge you to show how anyone else was "achieving socialism" in Spain while smack in the middle of fighting fascism.

Lenin changed this view during the civil war.

I'll point out that Stalin died with 10 rubbles in his account but then you'll just say he was comped everywhere he went....

This doesn't always work, and Lenin changed his mind on this as well.

This is the folly of many on the left these days. They fail to see what bureaucracy really is. It's not making sure only one person doesn't have all the power; though that's part of it. It's insuring that the structure of authority doesn't inhibit the livelihoods of the people. It's making sure things get done without people in positions of responsibility holding things up. I challenge that when everyone is a bureaucrat, nothing will get done, and I have seen this in practice in organizations. Trying running shit on consensus for example; or making a rule that every action must be discussed. It makes appointing positions to people pointless.


Ideologically, economically, and in terms of party structure.

See a list of We told you so (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/wetoldyouso/index.html) quotes from MIM that show where Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao got it right, and the Trots were wrong.


Please explain what "personal gain" Stalin got from being gensec? Headaches? Insomnia? Attempts on his life? Stress?

More like Stalin put aside his personal life for the revolution and the people.
Well i hardly see how arming the police , creating hierarchy in the army , attacking real revolutionaries because they won't buy into the mouse trap that the Stalinists left And yes the highly organised Hierarchy (which is another stepping stone downfall of real socialism in spain)of the red brigades

He did this because he wanted to look good in the face of imperialism he didnt want to be seen to support un-organised militias and he wanted to water down the ideals of the revolution and he succeeded on all fronts and Fascism was victorious . Hats off to Joe

Secondly you outline above that Stalin followed Lenin


Ideologically, economically, and in terms of party structure.

Lenin was head of a revolutionary proletariat dictatorship and Stalin imposed his own totalitarian one. Lenin wanted to keep state influence low and called for the “withering away” of the worker's state as soon as possible after the revolution. But Stalin enlarged the power of the state until it was dominating every aspect of Soviet life.

Point when where and how Stalin achieved socialism or even set Russia on the road to socialism ?

Lenin:“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary has immeasurable power concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient control” (24 December 1922)

“Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely acceptable in relations between communists, becomes completely unacceptable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore I propose to the comrades that a way be found to remove Stalin from that post and replace him with someone else who differs from Stalin in all respects, someone more patient, more loyal, more polite, more considerate.” (postscript of 4 January 1923)

I agree the majority don't have to support it , Bolsheviks were not a majority in Russia . Maybe we have a different mindset on imposing socialism , and freeing the working class , i don't see how taking over a country ... setting up a puppet goverment which dances to the strings of Moscow and acts not in the interest of the workers but in the interests of Stalins Bureaucratic Regime is in any way shape or form spreading socialism .

The way to spread the revolution is by giving the workers in other countries the means to rise up themselves , the means to break free of the chains and supporting in their struggle against the bourgeois counter-revolution .A tactic you clearly don't understand .

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 09:53 pm
Nice one Dali, I agree.

We present factual info and stats even and they still come back with their tripe. I mean, one tankie tried to refute me with a speech by Stalin, another from a Maoist economist, and then this "MIMite garbage."

Robots I tell you.
According to MIM, you don't have to have facts when arguing (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/sources.html)


Silly MIMites:
This question of "what are your sources" almost always identifies someone in the following categories:
*intellectually lazy
*weak reference skills
*from a background where knowledge comes from a single "trusted" source, which in effect is a worship of authority

In other words, you are retarded and uncapable of understanding if you don't accept what they are saying as biblical truth. Voz de la Gente Trabajadora, Syndicat, Coggy, and even me; we are all apart of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to poison the worker's revolution with our petit-bourgeois ideals of not following Uncle Joe and his followers!

Coggy, I saw that you posted a quote from the testimony that Lenin supposibly wrote? Well, guess what, Trotsky even wrote that such a letter from Lenin didn't even exist, and that he and a bunch of Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorists fabricated the letter so they could pursue the notorious capitalist road by ousting the great comrade Stalin!

[Intelligitimate]

The purge of remaining revolutionary elements, including millions of officers and the brilliant Marshal Tukhachevsky, was shortly before the invasion in 1941, which left the armed forces in shambles.

I have dealt with this before. Trotsky himself stated he never took the communist convictions of the ex-Tsarist officer seriously. The exact quote is ""I must here state what were my relations with Tukhachevsky .... I never considered the Communist convictions of this officer of the Old Guard to be serious." (source: Trotsky Sees Army Opposed to Stalin: NYT, March 7th, 1938.)

Not only that, but we also have the testimony of Rémy Roure. A prisoner of war with Tukhachevsky before 1917 in Bavaria, he recalls this account in his 1928 book Pierre Fervacque:

“You are an anti-semite, then, I said to him. Why? -- The Jews brought us Christianity. That's reason enough to hate them. But then they are a low race. I don't even speak of the dangers they create in my country. You cannot understand that, you French, for you equality is a dogma. The Jew is a dog, son of a dog, which spreads his fleas in every land. It is he who has done the most to inoculate us with the plague of civilization, and who would like to give us his morality also, the morality of money, of capital. -- You are now a socialist, then? -- A socialist? Not at all! What a need you have for classifying! Besides the great socialists are Jews and socialist doctrine is a branch of universal Christianity. ... No, I detest socialists, Jews and Christians.”

And no, it most certainly did not leave the Red Army in shambles. It eliminated the Fifth Column in Russia. To quote Hitler through Goebbles:

"The Führer [Hitler] recalled the case of Tukhachevsky and expressed the opinion that we were entirely wrong then in believing that Stalin would ruin the Red Army by the way he handled it. The opposite was true: Stalin got rid of all opposition in the Red Army and thereby brought an end to defeatism."

And in any case, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting that Tukhachevsky was indeed guilty.

New Light On Old Stories About Marshal Tukhachevskii : Some Documents Reconsidered (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/tukh.html).

And Tukhachevsky was not 'brilliant'. He hadn't even participated in any major military actions since the civil war, and was clearly outshined by men like Zhukov.

[Intelligitimate]

Lenin:“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary has immeasurable power concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient control” (24 December 1922)

A better translation is:

"Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution."

Before the post-script, this is the only thing that can be taken negatively about Stalin. Lenin, however, says Buhkarin is not fully Marxist, brings up Trotsky's non-Bolshevik past, and reminds everyone of how Kamenov and Zinoviev opposed the October Revolution. Stalin comes off smelling like roses.

And then, after Stalin was rude to his wife over the phone for violating doctor's orders, he adds this postscript:

“Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely acceptable in relations between communists, becomes completely unacceptable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore I propose to the comrades that a way be found to remove Stalin from that post and replace him with someone else who differs from Stalin in all respects, someone more patient, more loyal, more polite, more considerate.” (postscript of 4 January 1923)

When this was read in the Central Committee, Stalin immediately offered his resignation as GenSec at the first plenum of the 13th party congress. Everyone, including Trotsky, refused his resignation.

[Intelligitimate]

This stuff about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is sheer nonsense.. Before this pact was signed, the Bolsheviks were trying desperately to form alliances with the Western powers to oppose Hitler. None of them would go for it, hoping Hitler would invade the USSR and destroy Bolshevism. The whole purpose was to forestall the inevitable war so the Russians could better prepare. Stalin even personally had Ribbentrop remove a phrase about the formation of friendly German-Soviet relations, as was reported by Ribbentrop's chief assisant Gauss.

[The Author]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] June 3, 2007, 05:53 pm

Lets just forget all about the great feasts and banquets he and the Party had while workers being slave labored and peasants were starving.

Nice. I can see my quoted passage from Grey didn't get through to you. Deep down, you're on an obsessed crusade to throw mud on history, never mind what the facts say. At first you claim, "That doesn't change his class nature." Now you come up with the opposite, this wonderful gem of "knowledge." It's become painfully clear that you don't give a fuck what others say, you'll only stick to your sectarian faith (and you have the nerve to call others "robots." What a hypocrite!). For that reason, I don't see why other comrades should take the time to respond to your remarks if this is the strategy you use in argumentation.

EDIT: By the way, if this is your reasoning for "state capitalism," it's total 100% B.S.

[Rawthentic]

Its not my reason for state-capitalism you moron.

You got refuted in the state capitalism thread, get over it. I know it hurts.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Voz de la Gente Trabajadora 'throwing mud' on history? I think Stalin already did that by removing former Bolsheviks from many portraits and photographs depicting the revolutionary events of October.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, and what I said amounts to little of what Stalin did.

Oh, and Dali, don't forget that he banned John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World because it talked too good of Trotsky and not of Stalin!

Talk about being humble. <_<

[Intelligitimate]

Nice. I can see my quoted passage from Grey didn&#39;t get through to you. Deep down, you&#39;re on an obsessed crusade to throw mud on history, never mind what the facts say. At first you claim, "That doesn&#39;t change his class nature." Now you come up with the opposite, this wonderful gem of "knowledge." It&#39;s become painfully clear that you don&#39;t give a fuck what others say, you&#39;ll only stick to your sectarian faith (and you have the nerve to call others "robots." What a hypocrite&#33;). For that reason, I don&#39;t see why other comrades should take the time to respond to your remarks if this is the strategy you use in argumentation.

Most of the rabidly anti-Stalin people here don&#39;t know shit about history, so you can&#39;t really expect them to do much more than spout idiotic slogans taught to them from grade school. Witness the "Once Again: Stalin&#39;s Crimes" thread, where the anti-Stalin people made themselves look like complete and utter fools. This is mostly rehashing the same shit.

Ian Grey&#39;s book is good, if dated. I definitely recommend it as a scholarly work that doesn&#39;t try to portray Stalin in a completely negative light (which is a rarity).

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 11:00 am
Most of the rabidly anti-Stalin people here don&#39;t know shit about history, so you can&#39;t really expect them to do much more than spout idiotic slogans taught to them from grade school. Witness the "Once Again: Stalin&#39;s Crimes" thread, where the anti-Stalin people made themselves look like complete and utter fools. This is mostly rehashing the same shit.

Ian Grey&#39;s book is good, if dated. I definitely recommend it as a scholarly work that doesn&#39;t try to portray Stalin in a completely negative light (which is a rarity).
Don&#39;t forget this is a revolutionary left forum and supporting the stagnation of socialism , the cult of personality and the half assed attempt at freeing the workers (if it can be called an attempt at all ) by Stalin just doesn&#39;t fit the criteria .

And the title of this thread is just so typically stupid , its an absolute disgrace to associate Stalin with Lenin . Stalin censored all lenins works and made him into something hes not , Lenin set out to free the workers of Russia and not enslave them to a dictatorship of one man .Stalin spread that Lenin was perfect and his works need not be studied , which is just stupid . Lenin&#39;s writings were carefully censored under the Soviet regime after his death. In the early 1930s, it became accepted dogma under Stalin to assume that neither Lenin nor the Central Committee could ever be wrong. Therefore, it was necessary to remove evidence of situations where they had actually disagreed, since in those situations it was impossible for both to have been right at the same time. Trotsky was a particularly vocal critic of these practices, which he saw as a form of deification of a mere human being who could, and did, make mistakes.

[The Author]

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+ June 4, 2007, 07:00 am--> (Intelligitimate &#064; June 4, 2007, 07:00 am) Most of the rabidly anti-Stalin people here don&#39;t know shit about history, so you can&#39;t really expect them to do much more than spout idiotic slogans taught to them from grade school. Witness the "Once Again: Stalin&#39;s Crimes" thread, where the anti-Stalin people made themselves look like complete and utter fools. This is mostly rehashing the same shit.[/b]

Totally agree with you 100% there. It&#39;s also funny how they start teaching you about "Marxism" when they don&#39;t have a clue about the ideology and they liberally use the science when it suits their "theories."


Ian Grey&#39;s book is good, if dated. I definitely recommend it as a scholarly work that doesn&#39;t try to portray Stalin in a completely negative light (which is a rarity).

The first time I encountered this work was at my local public library. I started to read it, thinking it was the typical anti-communist polemic like something Adam Ulam or Robert Conquest or Simon Sebag Montefiore would write. But it was so good I couldn&#39;t put the book down. Then I found out later that it was used as a source in "Another View of Stalin" by Ludo Martens. In my opinion, "Man of History" is probably the best bourgeois biography on Stalin out there, especially considering how Adam Ulam blasted Grey in a book review of "Man of History." I bought a used copy of this from Barnes and Noble for reference purposes. Great read, and I agree, I would definitely recommend this to those who are interested.


[email protected] June 4, 2007, 8:58 a.m.
Don&#39;t forget this is a revolutionary left forum and supporting the stagnation of socialism , the cult of personality and the half assed attempt at freeing the workers (if it can be called an attempt at all ) by Stalin just doesn&#39;t fit the criteria .

The "Stalinists" don&#39;t support the stagnation of socialism or personality cults either. Problem is, most "leftists" on this board never take the time to seriously research what the ideology of the "Stalinists" is and the facts; Internet polemics and sectarian tripe is the best they can read, throwing infantile insults is another.

"Half assed attempt" is strictly your opinion.


Stalin censored all lenins works and made him into something hes not , Lenin set out to free the workers of Russia and not enslave them to a dictatorship of one man .Stalin spread that Lenin was perfect and his works need not be studied , which is just stupid . Lenin&#39;s writings were carefully censored under the Soviet regime after his death.

No, his works were not censored. Unless you&#39;re referring to the "Testament," but I disproved this myth in another thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=49516&hl=&showpost=1292320855&#entry1292320855).


Therefore, it was necessary to remove evidence of situations where they had actually disagreed, since in those situations it was impossible for both to have been right at the same time. Trotsky was a particularly vocal critic of these practices, which he saw as a form of deification of a mere human being who could, and did, make mistakes.

So was Stalin (http://www.geocities.com/redcomrades/pers-cult.html).

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 28, 2007 11:03 pm
MIM also brings up good points about the myth of "Stalin the no-body" and the senseless cult-worshipping of Trotsky by the Trotskyites.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics...mfile=trot1.txt (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/text.php?mimfile=trot1.txt)
The MIM has to be perhaps the least credible and most anti-revolutionary "left" organization in the world. They think that the US people are just one reactionary bloc, with no classes, branding them "AmeriKKKans", and their perspective for the US is essentially genocide of 300 million people. Not to mention that they think that the US workers share in the profits of the bourgeoisie (if that is true, why in the hell are our wages, after adjusting for inflation, falling, or stagnating at the very best, while capitalist profits continue to soar?). Far worse than the RAAN even in my book. The ultra-lefts and the Stalinists aid in bourgeois propaganda by baselessly putting forth the notion that Stalinism is a continuation of Leninism.

This work is short and demolishes the Stalinist lies. It should be required reading for anyone thinking of becoming a Stalinist. There would probably be a lot less of them that way:

http://www.marxist.com/lenin-trotsky-stali...ohnstone-41.htm (http://www.marxist.com/lenin-trotsky-stalinism-johnstone-41.htm)

I do not deny the immense progress made under Stalinist regimes (Those that wish for their complete collapse and destruction are agents of the bourgeoisie), but the bureaucracies of these regimes were/are completely against workers&#39; democracy, falsified history, and the bureaucrats later on will/have sold out to capitalism, as we have seen in the recent case of the now 100% capitalist China&#39;s CCP legalizing private property. Only workers&#39; deomcracy can prevent the planned economy from seizing up and keep thing pushing forward.

[Intelligitimate]

Don&#39;t forget this is a revolutionary left forum

This forum is actually quite reactionary, as evidenced by comments like:


and supporting the stagnation of socialism

What in practice pseudo-Leftists like yourself support is no socialism at all. You want a socialism the bourgeoisie can love.


the cult of personality

Which is most faithfully displayed on this forum by Trotskyists, with anarchist and ultra-Leftist worship of various reactionary trash coming in close second.


the half assed attempt at freeing the workers

Which is more than you&#39;ll ever do.


Stalin censored all lenins works and made him into something hes not

Worthless anti-communist lies pulled straight from your ass, without even the pretense of evidence. Such is the nature of teenage reactionary Leftist garbage found on this forum.


Stalin spread that Lenin was perfect and his works need not be studied , which is just stupid .

Indeed, your baseless lies that you pulled straight from your ass are quite stupid.


Lenin&#39;s writings were carefully censored under the Soviet regime after his death. In the early 1930s, it became accepted dogma under Stalin to assume that neither Lenin nor the Central Committee could ever be wrong.

More bullshit.


Therefore, it was necessary to remove evidence of situations where they had actually disagreed, since in those situations it was impossible for both to have been right at the same time.

More bullshit.


Trotsky was a particularly vocal critic of these practices, which he saw as a form of deification of a mere human being who could, and did, make mistakes.

Trotsky was a lying piece of Menshevik garbage.

[Rawthentic]

You want a socialism the bourgeoisie can love.
No, I want real socialism, not the one with a bourgeoisie.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

yo voz, I see your post and I&#39;m gonna make a response but I don&#39;t have time to make a good one so I&#39;ll post it later

[Rawthentic]

Lets just say that I&#39;ve pawned you everytime, but go for it.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 12:51 am
Lets just say that I&#39;ve pawned you everytime, but go for it.
eh?

[Rawthentic]

Nevermind, Henry, if you insist on defending Stalin, go for it.

I have patience.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 06:49 pm
You contradict yourself&#33; Just stop now before you look even more stupid.

Stalinists biggest claim is that massive capital expansion was achieved and industrialization. What they fail to understand, and is basic ABC Marxism, is that capital presupposes surplus value which of course presupposes the exploitation of wage labor.

Just because the state-bourgeoisie was "benevolent", it does not prove socialism at all.
no we claim that massive industrialization was made, not that there was capital investment or whatever. Basically you like to use fancy words, but when you don&#39;t know what they mean, its tough comrade. To claim that industrializing a nation is the equivalent of exploitation of wage labor is batshit insane. That would mean a socialist state could only exsist in a state which is industrialized which is nonsense.

Syndicat, I&#39;ll respond to your post later, I just need to find some sources, but Lenin never changed about Democratic Centralism and neither did Stalin, and factory committees ran factories in China especially during the cultural revolution when the bureacratic mold of the Soviet Union was challenged.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 12:58 am
Nevermind, Henry, if you insist on defending Stalin, go for it.

I have patience.
yeah i uphold the leader of the first nation in history to abolish all private property, to socialize all property, to collectivize agriculture, and the nation which would be at the forefront of the crushing of fascism, and the spread of national liberation and socialism among other things.

[Rawthentic]

no we claim that massive industrialization was made, not that there was capital investment or whatever
Are you on crack&#33; How the fuck else did they industrialize so immensely?
Seriously Henry, you need some better comebacks. What I said about capital investment was true.


That would mean a socialist state could only exsist in a state which is industrialized which is nonsense.

:wacko:

[Rawthentic]

yeah i uphold the leader of the first nation in history to abolish all private property, to socialize all property, to collectivize agriculture, and the nation which would be at the forefront of the crushing of fascism, and the spread of national liberation and socialism among other things.
Private property became state property, after it was lost from the hands of the revolutionary proletariat. Spreading national liberation by allying with Hitler?

Or how about murdering revolutionary communists?

blah blah blah, you&#39;re brainwashed

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 01:01 am

no we claim that massive industrialization was made, not that there was capital investment or whatever
Are you on crack&#33; How the fuck else did they industrialize so immensely?
Seriously Henry, you need some better comebacks. What I said about capital investment was true.


That would mean a socialist state could only exsist in a state which is industrialized which is nonsense.

:wacko:
read capital. capital investment wasn&#39;t to profit more, and "profit", returned to the system. It funded the healthcare programs, the communal kitchens, universal education and other programs the Soviet Union put forward which were key to the proletarian state.

[Rawthentic]

Oh wow, now you&#39;re going to tell me to read Capital? Please. I&#39;ve already said the a benevolent bourgeoisie does not prove socialism. There&#39;s some Capital for you smartass.

ComradeRed:


(CriticizeEverythingAlways)
How were workers exploited and paid for less than the labors they performed?
Well, first we both agree that there was the expansion of capital. This phenomena was occurring in the USSR.

The expansion of capital pre-supposes the concept of surplus value. Marx actually makes a number of points about this:
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 3 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 4 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 5 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 9 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 10 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 13 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 14 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 16 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 18 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 23 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 24 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 25 by Karl Marx (1867)
Das Kapital, vol. II, Chapter 7 by Karl Marx (1885).

(CriticizeEverythingAlways)

How was the bureaucracy "bourgeois"?
The bourgeoisie: (1) contribute nothing to the (direct) production of commodities, (2) coordinate the production of commodities, (3) live off the labor of the workers, (4) coordinate the expansion of capital, (5) coordinate the distribution of commodities.

It seems pretty obvious that the bureaucracy fulfills all of these criterion.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 01:03 am


yeah i uphold the leader of the first nation in history to abolish all private property, to socialize all property, to collectivize agriculture, and the nation which would be at the forefront of the crushing of fascism, and the spread of national liberation and socialism among other things.
Private property became state property, after it was lost from the hands of the revolutionary proletariat. Spreading national liberation by allying with Hitler?

Or how about murdering revolutionary communists?

blah blah blah, you&#39;re brainwashed
no see that&#39;s you whose brainwashed. Stalin didn&#39;t kill revolutionary communists. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was based on Democratic Centralism, certain mensheviks and reformists and state capitalists like Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin betrayed the state and the parties political system as it was fledging for survival. They aided the enemy and tried to halt the building of socialism in the Soviet Union by saying no we can&#39;t do it. The peasants are backward. Or we need to wait for the west, and etc... just like the dictatorship of the bourgeois is ruthless when threatened so is the dictatorship of the masses. The state is mothafucka like that. Property wasn&#39;t lost from the hands of the proletariat, if it was, then why was land collectivized, and it was the proletariat (the 25,000) who led this charge into socialism? And Stalin Never "allied" with Hitler. I suggest you read this for some perspective, Comrade Robot.


To the Bourgeoisie, Fascism—and Slavery—Are "A Matter of Taste"

How often do you hear it discussed that, for several years in the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union was attempting to build united fronts with Britain and France around things like what Germany was doing in Czechoslovakia, and that the Soviets were repeatedly rebuffed, essentially (even while there were some half-assed agreements to oppose Nazi aggression, they were basically not acted on by the imperialists who entered into these agreements)? Now, from our standpoint, and with our historical analysis of World War 2, and what led up to it, we have some serious criticisms of the policy of the Soviet Union in seeking these alliances with imperialist states. But the important point here—in analyzing questions like what "appeasement" was really all about, and what necessity the Soviet Union was facing in the build-up to World War 2—is that, in their attempts to build a united front against Nazi Germany and its initial military moves, the Soviets were essentially, and repeatedly, rebuffed by the imperialists. And it was in response to that, that the Soviets then turned around and signed an agreement with Nazi Germany (the "Hitler-Stalin Pact"), in order to gain some time, and yes some territory, to prepare for the very real possibility—which became a reality within two years—of a massive attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union.

To go just a little bit afield here (I believe I have recounted this story before but it bears repeating here), Molotov, who was one of the top officials in the Soviet party and government at the time, was actually the one who signed the agreement with Nazi Germany in 1939—with Ribbentrop signing for Germany, if I remember correctly. When Molotov was asked at the time, "How can you sign an agreement with Nazi Germany?" Molotov replied, somewhat flippantly: "Well, we have agreements with all kinds of bourgeois states." And this brought the reply: "Yes, but these are fascists." To which Molotov is reported to have answered: "To the bourgeoisie, fascism is a matter of taste."

Now, again, that was too flippant and facile an answer, but I do have to say that there is some essential truth to this. When you look at the history of the U.S. bourgeoisie, for example, things like slavery are "a matter of taste." It was nearly a hundred years after the War of Independence from England before slavery was ended. During that whole period, slavery was an integral part of the U.S. economy and social system, and slave owners were an integral and powerful part of the governing system in the country as a whole. Slave owners, and defenders and champions of the interests of slave owners, such as Thomas Jefferson, are still upheld and celebrated as founders of the country and architects of liberty, serving as models for all mankind. So it reflects an important aspect of reality to say that slavery, like fascism, is—for the bourgeoisie—a "matter of taste."

To return to the dynamics at the time of World War 2 (and in the period immediately preceding and leading into that war), this was a situation where the Soviet Union was faced with the growing danger of attack by Nazi Germany and was repeatedly rebuffed in its efforts to build meaningful and effective united fronts to put a stop to what Germany was doing in that period. Again, we can have and do have substantive and important criticisms of all that. But first of all, it is necessary to assess this, and to make criticism that should be made, on the basis of understanding the actual dynamics and the actual necessity faced by the Soviet Union and its leadership. And, second of all, the criticism that we do need to make should be done from the point of view of trying to determine what should have been done in the face of those dynamics and that necessity. As communists, we have to evaluate all this, and sum up what was done, and what should have been done, from the point of view of how to advance through all the difficulty and complexity that will have to be confronted in moving to abolish and surpass the era of the bourgeoisie and imperialism and advance to the radically new era of communism. But all this talk about "appeasement," as it is commonly put forward, is just more distortion and "mis-direction"—just as the imperialists, and their media and mouthpieces, cover up which country it was that actually did the main fighting against Nazi Germany in World War 2, while the U.S. basically sat back for several years—yes, they sent some "lend-lease" equipment to the Soviet Union, but essentially they sat back and let the Soviet Union and its people do the bulk of the fighting and dying, even as the Soviet Union kept saying to them: "Open a second front in Europe, will you please&#33;" But the U.S. imperialists&#39; response was, in essence: "Nope, not in our interests. Keep it up boys&#33; You&#39;re doing a good job fighting and dying there."

This history is hidden from people, so when World War 2 analogies are invoked and in particular when "appeasement" is invoked, it&#39;s all through a distorted prism and with a tremendous amount of misinformation, and dis-information, being deliberately purveyed, on top of the widespread state of ignorance that is fostered in the U.S., particularly about world affairs and world history. This relates to Lenin&#39;s statement that it takes ten pages of truth to answer one sentence of opportunism.

Now, there are real problems with post-modernism and deconstructionism, and related philosophical relativism, as we know—very serious problems. But you do have to, in a sense, deconstruct some of this stuff, this distortion of history, and we have to do this in a systematically and consistently scientific way, from the standpoint and with the method of dialectical materialism, in order to get the underlying assumptions that are built into and largely hidden in this. I know this has been the experience with the Setting the Record Straight project1 (and other efforts of ours): Every time you venture out in the world to talk and struggle with people about the way the world is, why and how it got to be that way, and, by contrast, the way it could be and the way it needs to be—you run into a whole set of assumptions, spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious, that you have to get to before you can enable people to begin seeing the world the way it actually is, and could be.

So, in order to speak to people about all this, in a way that leads to a real understanding of things, and is convincing and compelling, we have to get into some of the underlying assumptions and sort out what is true from what is not true, in regard to major historical events as well as present-day reality. Not that every time we sit down for a cup of coffee with someone, we have to get into the whole history of World War 2. [ laughs] But in the course of the work we do, we have to struggle with people over an understanding of important parts of reality and history that are still casting long shadows and are still being invoked in a distorted way (even while it&#39;s true that the imperialists, and those who follow in their wake and adopt their outlook, actually do, to a significant degree, perceive reality the way they&#39;re portraying it, at the same time as they employ a lot of instrumentalism and demagoguery in their distortion of reality).

The Above is an Exerpt from the "Bringing Forward Another Way" talk by Bob Avakian. The full talk is linked here. (http://revcom.us/avakian/anotherway/)

[OneBrickOneVoice]

great, I can name the chapters of Kapital too. Its fun&#33; But seriously, that&#39;s a load of trash. You haven&#39;t explained how they were exploited. Let me guess "exploitation by the public"?? :lol: you win. the masses exploited themselves.

[Rawthentic]

Don&#39;t try and refute me with talks from St.Avakian, thats a fucking joke, next time you&#39;re going to try and sell me something from MIM.


no see that&#39;s you whose brainwashed. Stalin didn&#39;t kill revolutionary communists. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was based on Democratic Centralism, certain mensheviks and reformists and state capitalists like Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin betrayed the state and the parties political system as it was fledging for survival. They aided the enemy and tried to halt the building of socialism in the Soviet Union by saying no we can&#39;t do it. The peasants are backward. Or we need to wait for the west, and etc... just like the dictatorship of the bourgeois is ruthless when threatened so is the dictatorship of the masses. The state is mothafucka like that. Property wasn&#39;t lost from the hands of the proletariat, if it was, then why was land collectivized, and it was the proletariat (the 25,000) who led this charge into socialism? And Stalin Never "allied" with Hitler. I suggest you read this for some perspective, Comrade Robot.
Don&#39;t tell me what the DoP is based on motherfucker. Who were the reformists and state capitalists? :lol: Yeah, Trotsky aided the enemy of the USSR state, the proletariat, by at least advocating worker power.

The rest is just a stupid rant. You think you&#39;re gonna teach me about the state and the DoP? And don&#39;t call me a robot when you "follow" the leader of your proven petty-bourgeois sect.

[Intelligitimate]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 12:34 am

You want a socialism the bourgeoisie can love.
No, I want real socialism, not the one with a bourgeoisie.
There was no bourgeoisie in the USSR. What you want is something from your imagination. You hate actually existing socialism, just like the bourgeoisie do, and the facists, and the liberals, etc. You&#39;re a reactionary teenage pseudo-Leftist.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, if you say so, if that makes you feel better.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 01:18 am
Don&#39;t try and refute me with talks from St.Avakian, thats a fucking joke, next time you&#39;re going to try and sell me something from MIM.


no see that&#39;s you whose brainwashed. Stalin didn&#39;t kill revolutionary communists. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was based on Democratic Centralism, certain mensheviks and reformists and state capitalists like Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin betrayed the state and the parties political system as it was fledging for survival. They aided the enemy and tried to halt the building of socialism in the Soviet Union by saying no we can&#39;t do it. The peasants are backward. Or we need to wait for the west, and etc... just like the dictatorship of the bourgeois is ruthless when threatened so is the dictatorship of the masses. The state is mothafucka like that. Property wasn&#39;t lost from the hands of the proletariat, if it was, then why was land collectivized, and it was the proletariat (the 25,000) who led this charge into socialism? And Stalin Never "allied" with Hitler. I suggest you read this for some perspective, Comrade Robot.
Don&#39;t tell me what the DoP is based on motherfucker. Who were the reformists and state capitalists? :lol: Yeah, Trotsky aided the enemy of the USSR state, the proletariat, by at least advocating worker power.

The rest is just a stupid rant. You think you&#39;re gonna teach me about the state and the DoP? And don&#39;t call me a robot when you "follow" the leader of your proven petty-bourgeois sect.
why the fuck do I bother. I ask you to read (and critiscize) a piece because it explains how in a bourgeois world, the proletariat state has to make deals with the bourgeois state or die. And it did. While fascism is a particularly brutal bourgeois state, its just a matter of taste for the ruling class, and that piece explained it. So instead of locking yourself to your economism and anti-marxism, why not try to learn from other marxists that&#39;s why you&#39;re the marxist. And the RCP and Avakian aren&#39;t "petty bourgeois" or whatever. We&#39;ve been over this. You have you economist line debunked nearly 100 years ago by Lenin, and I have my communist line which is the line that will be necessary to win a revolution.

[Rawthentic]

So instead of locking yourself to your economism and anti-marxism, why not try to learn from other marxists that&#39;s why you&#39;re the marxist. And the RCP and Avakian aren&#39;t "petty bourgeois" or whatever. We&#39;ve been over this. You have you economist line debunked nearly 100 years ago by Lenin, and I have my communist line which is the line that will be necessary to win a revolution.
I&#39;m done here because you know very fucking well that I refuted that economist claim, and that the "class line" and "fight for the middle" reveal the RCP&#39;s true class nature.

Would you like me to pop up that thread again so I can again refute you sorry ass?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 01:47 am

So instead of locking yourself to your economism and anti-marxism, why not try to learn from other marxists that&#39;s why you&#39;re the marxist. And the RCP and Avakian aren&#39;t "petty bourgeois" or whatever. We&#39;ve been over this. You have you economist line debunked nearly 100 years ago by Lenin, and I have my communist line which is the line that will be necessary to win a revolution.
I&#39;m done here because you know very fucking well that I refuted that economist claim, and that the "class line" and "fight for the middle" reveal the RCP&#39;s true class nature.

Would you like me to pop up that thread again so I can again refute you sorry ass?
DUDE&#33;&#33; I totally owned you in that shit. You never could deny that you wanted to lose the revolution and you never could deny that you were an economist. I was like, "i&#39;ll airdrop some copies of What is To Be Done? on your party headquarters" and you&#39;re like "nah nah chill wit that, I already read it" but that&#39;s all it got to :D

[Intelligitimate]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 05, 2007 01:43 am
Yeah, if you say so, if that makes you feel better.
When you line up with the bourgeoisie, the fascists, and the liberals, you&#39;d think you might get the impression you&#39;re on the wrong side, no?

The fact is, the bourgeoisie and other anti-communists are much, much more class consciousness than you are. Any idiot paying attention to current events can see that even those that stray from Washington&#39;s neo-liberal agenda are demonized by the Western media. Why do you think the mass media hates Chavez so much, yet says so little about &#39;Leftists&#39; like Lula?

And this extends into the past as well. Reactionary Leftists like Trotsky and Orwell regularly had access to the bourgeois media to spew their hatred of the USSR, and are both rather foundly spoken of by anti-communist &#39;scholars&#39; even to this day. The bourgeoisie know a lot better than you do when their class interests are threatened, and there is no scarier demon to them than Stalin. The demonization of Stalin is just one in a long line of demonizations of anyone who ever defied capitalism.

[Rawthentic]

Here it is where Miles refutes that shit, so boom motherfucker:


(Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)

"Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected—unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding—it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding—of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance."


This passage is important, both for what it says and, for our purposes, what it doesn&#39;t say. Let&#39;s start with the first sentence: "Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other." This is quite true and, for the League, has been an important part of our understanding from the beginning. Remember, the League was formed in the wake of what I would call the second Bush coup in 2004 -- a coup that (again, in my opinion) sealed the doomed fate of American bourgeois democracy. We formulated a Platform of Action that was oriented toward revolutionary-democratic action in the political arena and began our organizing to that end. We even went so far as to participate in the work of the World Can&#39;t Wait campaign because of our understanding of this position.

Moreover, we approached this from the perspective outlined in the second sentence: "The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events, to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population." We in the League seek to learn what moves and motivates each class to take the actions they do -- what moves them forward or backward (or laterally), causes them to unify or divide, and makes them act in the manner they do. But we do so with the understanding that this is something that workers must learn in order for our class to undertake its responsibilities. We observe and learn about all other classes -- their history and development, their transformations and amalgamations -- in order for our class to be able to fulfill its mission. Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don&#39;t need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

This is why we agree with Lenin&#39;s criticism in his third sentence: "Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life." Yes, it is necessary to not limit our understanding to the internal machinations of our own class. This is why we participate in antiwar demonstrations, democratic-rights protests and similar actions. This is why we have members that keep tabs on liberal-democratic and radical-democratic movements and organizations, attend their meetings and events, engage with their members, etc. This is why we make a point to interact with elements from other classes -- which, incidentally, includes interacting with left organizations like yours on occasion. But we do all this from the material and political standpoint of the proletariat -- our class.

This is also why we agree with the last sentence in this passage from Lenin: "For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance." The class struggle is a political struggle. It is in the political arena that all classes vie for power and control in society, and it is therefore necessary that communists actively engage this political struggle on political terms. We have our Platform of Action, our Basic Principles and our understanding of where we are going.


Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)
Comrade, you are doing what is called "reifying the proletariat." It is a form of economism. Communists are not fighting "for the workers" or for a "worker&#39;s republic." Communists are fighting for the emancipation of all humanity, the ending of all forms of oppression and exploitation, and the proletariat is the first (and the only) class in history which can be the emancipator of humanity. The proletariat is only special in the context that it can end all forms of oppression and inequality.


This is classical petty-bourgeois socialism. Class? What class?&#33; This is about the classless "humanity" and "ending all forms of exploitation", because, after all, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are exploited and oppressed too. Those poor, oppressed bourgeois&#33; Someone has to save them&#33;

Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP&#39;s line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto:

[The Author]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] June 4, 2007, 9:52 p.m.
I&#39;m done here because you know very fucking well that I refuted that economist claim, and that the "class line" and "fight for the middle" reveal the RCP&#39;s true class nature.

Would you like me to pop up that thread again so I can again refute you sorry ass?

Wow. That&#39;s real civilized and a convincing argument...

Don&#39;t flatter yourself. You and the other "state-capitalist" advocates haven&#39;t refuted shit. It was like I said at the very beginning of this circle debate: all you got is polemics. Nothing about wage-slavery, how millions died, how there was a total lack of workers&#39; control. Complete ignorance of the international situation, complete ignorance of the material conditions in the USSR, complete ignorance of the cultural level of the proletariat and peasantry, complete ignorance of Marx and Engels.

You certainly like to throw yourself around on the boards as if this is a life or death issue.

If you want to go down this sectarian path, then truthfully, you&#39;re just a Reaganite in communist clothing.

[Hiero]

The Trotskyist logic of Voz de la Gente Trabajadora is a paradox. Stalin lead a bourgeois state because industrialisation is dependent on expliotation. However if Trotsky was in power, his industrailisation would have been different because of "workers power". More grass roots committees would have change the economic base from expliotation to socialism.

It is just empty idealism. This sort of empty idealism is promoted in the bourgeois western democracies, that voting in a different leader will result in different economic situation. If Trotsky was in power he would have faced the same problems that Stalin faced, he would have to act in a similar matter, that being the nation had to work it&#39;s arse off to 1) Meet the demands of the proleteriat 2) Create a world power that could stand up to the imperialists.

The other option is defeat. Whinge and complain socialism is impossible, and then open up to a bourgeois society and allow the imperialists in through the front the door.

Voz de la Gente Trabajadora fails to change anyones opinion. How can we believe that the all mighty Trotsky had the power to change material conditions? All he could do was mask the Russian revolution in more bureaucratic crap and call it workers power.

Basically the argument falls in to two camps. "Stalinist" who uphold a legacy of socialist victory over the bourgeois and fascist. Which ultimatly raised the living standards of millions of proleteriat who were aided by the USSR, materialy and politically. And "Trotskyists" who uphold the legacy of a man who whinged and complained in Mexico that he could have done something better. Which thankfully no serious revolutionary ever believed.

[Rawthentic]

The Trotskyist logic of Voz de la Gente Trabajadora is a paradox. Stalin lead a bourgeois state because industrialisation is dependent on expliotation. However if Trotsky was in power, his industrailisation would have been different because of "workers power". More grass roots committees would have change the economic base from expliotation to socialism.
Moronic. I&#39;m not a Trot, I never said that Trotsky would change it, just that he advocated worker&#39;s power.


It is just empty idealism. This sort of empty idealism is promoted in the bourgeois western democracies, that voting in a different leader will result in different economic situation. If Trotsky was in power he would have faced the same problems that Stalin faced, he would have to act in a similar matter, that being the nation had to work it&#39;s arse off to 1) Meet the demands of the proleteriat 2) Create a world power that could stand up to the imperialists.
Dealt with above.


If you want to go down this sectarian path, then truthfully, you&#39;re just a Reaganite in communist clothing.
Oh yes, of course. If you say that I am, then voila&#33;

If Stalinist Russia was socialist, then it is if you say so, then it is&#33;

[The Author]

Originally posted by Hiero+--> (Hiero)It is just empty idealism.[/b]

The sad fact is that people are too stuck on idealism around here. They have no idea how hard the socialist transformation will be, the contradictions still existing during this transition phase, the problems the proletarian dictatorship will have to face both in their country(ies) and with imperialist powers if they still exist. They think the whole affair will be a simple walk in a park.


Voz
Moronic. I&#39;m not a Trot, I never said that Trotsky would change it, just that he advocated worker&#39;s power.

He advocated "workers power" in words. In deeds, when it came to actually helping out in the Party to fight bureaucratic problems, Trotsky often feigned illness and skipped out on his duties, often acting the opposite of what he said. He votes for Stalin to remain as General Secretary, then writes a polemic years after the fact saying the man was responsible for the bureaucratic degeneration; he officially stated the Testament wasn&#39;t suppressed, and yet years after the fact he writes another polemic saying it was. He even advocates (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/07/ukraine.htm) supposed "self-determination" for the Ukrainian SSR to break from the USSR, playing into the hands of Ukrainian nationalism, later Nazism, later U.S. imperialism advocating the same thing (and you wonder where the term "social-fascism" came from). He says one thing, does another. What logical person would support such a "revolutionary" who flip-flops?


If Stalinist Russia was socialist, then it is if you say so, then it is&#33;

I don&#39;t say so. It&#39;s painfully obvious when you look at the statistics of the standard of living and you look at the millions of people in extreme poverty today in the former USSR who preferred the previous proletarian dictatorship over this "democracy" they have now. Sorry if you&#39;re too much of a dumbass to see that, to see working toiling people in misery, busting their ass and coming to the realization that the country and world they loved and worked for all their lives has been (temporarily) destroyed.

[Rawthentic]

Sorry if you&#39;re too much of a dumbass to see that, to see working toiling people in misery, busting their ass and coming to the realization that the country and world they loved and worked for all their lives has been (temporarily) destroyed.
Stats do not prove socialism. I have never denied that living standards were not risen. And I am fully aware of the amazing tasks that the DoP faces, but I will not use that as an excuse for proving "socialism" under Stalin. We have the same point of view, except you regard USSR under Stalin as a worker&#39;s state.

And also, I never said that Trotsky would change material conditions or would make the Soviet Union better. I am about as much a Trot as you are, so forgive me for putting myself in that position.

[black magick hustla]

First, stalinist Russia is not as bad as some people think it was, it was much better than tzarist russia, atleast for urban workers, and in some aspects, pertaining the urban working class, it was better than the west, even when the west many years already industralized.

Second, soviet bureacrats weren&#39;t "rich", and even my right wing history teacher recognized this. The stalinist bureacracy was very careful when dealing with grotesque inequalities.

Still, I would argue that the famines in ukraine where product of shitty planning rather than "natural disasters" as some people here say.

I don&#39;t think stalinist soviet union was socialist, atleast in the way marx envisioned it.

Comrade Marcel seems to think that soviet style socialism was superior simply because of its centralized structure, it can resist many skirmishes. That doesn&#39;t matters though, the bourgeosie is also able to build highly centralized structures that are very resistant to crisis and skirmishes.

. We, as socialists, understand that building a socialist future, where there is direct worker&#39;s control, is going to be extremely hard. The bourgeosie had it much easier because the bourgeosie was a minority, the proletariat is a majority, and as such, is way more difficult to empower it.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, I&#39;m down with what Marmot said. I dont mean to portray it as horrible as imperialist-capitalism because there were social programs the greatly benefited the proles.

[The Author]

Stats do not prove socialism.

Stats do not prove socialism, but they prove wage-slavery? Who are you trying to kid with this bullshit?


And I am fully aware of the amazing tasks that the DoP faces

No, I don&#39;t think you are. You&#39;re just saying you know, but when you get deep down to it, I think you really believe this will be a walk in the park.


but I will not use that as an excuse for proving "socialism" under Stalin.

Millions of former Soviet citizens would disagree with you there, kid. Like I said, you&#39;re just a Reaganite in communist clothing.


We have the same point of view, except you regard USSR under Stalin as a worker&#39;s state.

No, we don&#39;t have the same point of view. You want "autonomism" and anarchy and ignore facts. I want a dictatorship of the proletariat. We&#39;ve had it in some part of the world throughout the twentieth century.

[Rawthentic]

No, we don&#39;t have the same point of view. You want "autonomism" and anarchy and ignore facts. I want a dictatorship of the proletariat. We&#39;ve had it in some part of the world throughout the twentieth century.
I want direct worker&#39;s control, nothing less. Thats not autonomism, its socialism fuck face.


No, I don&#39;t think you are. You&#39;re just saying you know, but when you get deep down to it, I think you really believe this will be a walk in the park.
Nah.


Millions of former Soviet citizens would disagree with you there, kid. Like I said, you&#39;re just a Reaganite in communist clothing.
Nope&#33;

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+--> (Intelligitimate)When you line up with the bourgeoisie, the fascists, and the liberals, you&#39;d think you might get the impression you&#39;re on the wrong side, no?[/b] You mean like how Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler? Or is that Stalin allowed to side with the Nazis?

As for asserting that supporters of the "state capitalist" theory are "siding with the bourgeoisie, fascists, et al.", it seems to show a rather ignorant misunderstanding of the theory itself...or else to what happened in the USSR.

Let&#39;s suppose the USSR were socialist. Now societies can magically change the mode of production regardless of the material conditions of the society. This is an idealistic approach to things, which contradicts your later appeal to materialism.

You haven&#39;t provided any evidence of the USSR being "socialist" either, except for poor attempts at name calling. And that&#39;s really convincing :rolleyes:


Originally posted by CriticizeEverythingAlways+--> (CriticizeEverythingAlways)You and the other "state-capitalist" advocates haven&#39;t refuted shit. It was like I said at the very beginning of this circle debate: all you got is polemics. Nothing about wage-slavery, how millions died, how there was a total lack of workers&#39; control. Complete ignorance of the international situation, complete ignorance of the material conditions in the USSR, complete ignorance of the cultural level of the proletariat and peasantry, complete ignorance of Marx and Engels.[/b] I see you haven&#39;t understand basic logic: If the USSR is so obviously socialist, prove it; it would immediately disprove the state capitalism theory.

You haven&#39;t even bothered to try and instead resorted to "Ah, you don&#39;t understand Marx and Engels&#33;" (Which was the exact opposite case, as illustrated in the previous state capitalism threads.) It seems to indicate that you can&#39;t demonstrate that the USSR was socialist.

Not without ignoring Marx and Engels&#39; opinion that socialism springs from the late capitalist mode of production...so you&#39;ve effectively contradicted yourself if you&#39;re right.

"Complete ignorance of the material conditions in the USSR"? You mean like how Russia in 1917 was composed of 80 to 85% of peasants? That&#39;s supposed to be a "capitalist" country? :lol:


Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 05:57 am

Originally posted by [email protected] June 4, 2007, 07:00 am
Most of the rabidly anti-Stalin people here don&#39;t know shit about history, so you can&#39;t really expect them to do much more than spout idiotic slogans taught to them from grade school. Witness the "Once Again: Stalin&#39;s Crimes" thread, where the anti-Stalin people made themselves look like complete and utter fools. This is mostly rehashing the same shit.

Totally agree with you 100% there. It&#39;s also funny how they start teaching you about "Marxism" when they don&#39;t have a clue about the ideology and they liberally use the science when it suits their "theories."
Only "real" Marxists blindly believe that the USSR was unquestionably a workers state, regardless of what objective reality states...it&#39;s clearly the materialist, scientific approach :lol:

Obviously such impeccable reasoning needs no refutation; the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is clearly something that only vulgar idealistic unscientific philistines don&#39;t appreciate.



Originally posted by [email protected] June 4, 2007, 8:58 a.m.
Don&#39;t forget this is a revolutionary left forum and supporting the stagnation of socialism , the cult of personality and the half assed attempt at freeing the workers (if it can be called an attempt at all ) by Stalin just doesn&#39;t fit the criteria .

The "Stalinists" don&#39;t support the stagnation of socialism or personality cults either. Problem is, most "leftists" on this board never take the time to seriously research what the ideology of the "Stalinists" is and the facts; Internet polemics and sectarian tripe is the best they can read, throwing infantile insults is another.

"Half assed attempt" is strictly your opinion. Stalinism: the tragically misunderstood ideology :lol:


[email protected]
The sad fact is that people are too stuck on idealism around here. They have no idea how hard the socialist transformation will be, the contradictions still existing during this transition phase, the problems the proletarian dictatorship will have to face both in their country(ies) and with imperialist powers if they still exist. They think the whole affair will be a simple walk in a park. Yes, real materialists assert that regardless of the material conditions a society has, it is always possible to become socialist :lol:

Talk about contradictions.



I don&#39;t say so. It&#39;s painfully obvious when you look at the statistics of the standard of living and you look at the millions of people in extreme poverty today in the former USSR who preferred the previous proletarian dictatorship over this "democracy" they have now. Sorry if you&#39;re too much of a dumbass to see that, to see working toiling people in misery, busting their ass and coming to the realization that the country and world they loved and worked for all their lives has been (temporarily) destroyed. The improvement of the standards of living does not equate to the mode of production being socialist.

You seem to ignore this point rather blissfully.

You want an example where this thesis of yours isn&#39;t true? The standards of living in Germany in 1935 were significantly better than the standards of living in 1920 Germany...therefore by your reckoning Nazism is socialism.

The average American slave was living significantly better off in 1850 than in 1650...so therefore slavery is socialism.

The average worker is living significantly better off now than a century ago...therefore capitalism is socialism.

Sorry, but there&#39;s more to socialism than the single criterion of "Standards of Living Improve".

That&#39;s a characteristic to all modes of production...so by your reasoning, all modes of production are socialist&#33;


Marmot
First, stalinist Russia is not as bad as some people think it was, it was much better than tzarist russia, atleast for urban workers, and in some aspects, pertaining the urban working class, it was better than the west, even when the west many years already industralized. I don&#39;t think anyone here is contesting that fact; things were significantly better for the average Russian in Stalinist Russia compared to how things were in Tsarist Russia.

That doesn&#39;t really justify a system though, nor does it tell us that the system is socialist...otherwise the bourgeois apologists would be correct in their justification of capitalism.


Second, soviet bureacrats weren&#39;t "rich", and even my right wing history teacher recognized this. The stalinist bureacracy was very careful when dealing with grotesque inequalities. Being "rich" is irrelevant to what class someone is in...the relations to the means of production and labor, on the other hand, determines what class one is in.

Considering that the bureaucrats: (1) contribute nothing to the (direct) production of commodities, (2) coordinate the production of commodities, (3) live off the labor of the workers, (4) coordinate the expansion of capital, (5) coordinate the distribution of commodities; well, that kind of technically makes them bourgeois.

[The Author]

Originally posted by Voz

No, we don&#39;t have the same point of view. You want "autonomism" and anarchy and ignore facts. I want a dictatorship of the proletariat. We&#39;ve had it in some part of the world throughout the twentieth century.
I want direct worker&#39;s control, nothing less. Thats not autonomism, its socialism fuck face.


No, I don&#39;t think you are. You&#39;re just saying you know, but when you get deep down to it, I think you really believe this will be a walk in the park.
Nah.


Millions of former Soviet citizens would disagree with you there, kid. Like I said, you&#39;re just a Reaganite in communist clothing.
Nope&#33;

Ah, so that&#39;s all you got to say, then&#33; Ran out of witticisms and now one-liners is the best you can do.

Proof you&#39;ve been talking much about nothing all along.

[Rawthentic]

Ah, so that&#39;s all you got to say, then&#33; Ran out of witticisms and now one-liners is the best you can do.

Proof you&#39;ve been talking much about nothing all along.
Because all you&#39;re saying is crap. I&#39;ve already said my stance on the DoP, I don&#39;t care whether you like it or not.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 03, 2007 09:24 pm
He was a bourgeois, allow me to refer you to the thread on my sig on state capitalism. ComradeRed proves it.

No, it doesn&#39;t "prove" anything other than you ride ComradeRed&#39;s dick.

How can you be a bourgeois when you don&#39;t get any surplus (profit)?



Liar. Authority in the way Engels meant it was that of the will of the majority over the minority. Its called democracy.

That doesn&#39;t elminate bereaucracy. I think maybe you need to make a study of what that is. And there was the rule of the majority. The dictatorship of the proletarian is just that.


This is where you provide evidence.

No, I don&#39;t think I need to. Don&#39;t you know history? During the civil war the Soviets were abolished because there was no time to allow counter-revolutionary activities. Later, democratic processes were brought back to the people.

If you are talking about bourgeois democratic elections, were bourgeois parties are allowed to participate, then neither Lenin or Trotsky or any other Marxist in their right mind would think this is a good idea.



Lets just forget all about the great feasts and banquets he and the Party had while workers being slave labored and peasants were starving.

This is where you provide evidence.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 04, 2007 08:27 pm
How can you be a bourgeois when you don&#39;t get any surplus (profit)?
Oh? The bureaucrats lived by selling their own labor power for the production of commodities or services? Really?

I should like to see you pull this one off...

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by ComradeRed+June 05, 2007 04:38 am--> (ComradeRed @ June 05, 2007 04:38 am)
Comrade [email protected] 04, 2007 08:27 pm
How can you be a bourgeois when you don&#39;t get any surplus (profit)?
Oh? The bureaucrats lived by selling their own labor power for the production of commodities or services? Really?

I should like to see you pull this one off... [/b]
How can they? There is no such thing under socialism.

I&#39;ll ask you to show how can you be a bourgeois if you don&#39;t own then means of production and/or don&#39;t make surplus value.

If you can&#39;t answer just STFU.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 04, 2007 09:00 pm
How can they? There is no such thing under socialism.That&#39;s rather circular reasoning.

"It couldn&#39;t be capitalism because we notionally assume that it&#39;s socialist to begin with&#33; Therefore the production of commodities couldn&#39;t have possibly occurred, which means that it&#39;s a socialist society" :lol:

It has not been demonstrated one bit that the USSR was socialist. It has, however, been asserted without any proof a number of times.

I&#39;m not religious, I don&#39;t take things on faith. I take things based on empirical evidence, which the defenders of the faith shirk in delivering.


I&#39;ll ask you to show how can you be a bourgeois if you don&#39;t own then means of production and/or don&#39;t make surplus value. Yes, the bourgeoisie do not control the production or distribution of goods whatsoever, that&#39;s just common knowledge.

Someone should inform the CEOs that they are now part of the proletariat, as they have the exact same relation to the means of production and to labor that we are curious about :lol:

As for making surplus value, if you don&#39;t produce your own wage, then how do you earn it? From living on the air? And I&#39;d prefer an answer that didn&#39;t rely on circular reasoning for this one.

This is a nice way to shift the burden of proof though; rather than prove that the USSR was socialist, or the bureaucrats were proletarian, simply assert that we have to prove the opposite. That&#39;s perfect reasoning (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html).

Would you care to actually demonstrate that the bureaucrats were proletarian and how the USSR was socialist, or would you prefer in continuing your line of brilliant arguments like "STFU"?

[Intelligitimate]

You mean like how Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler? Or is that Stalin allowed to side with the Nazis?

Already been dealt with.


As for asserting that supporters of the "state capitalist" theory are "siding with the bourgeoisie, fascists, et al.", it seems to show a rather ignorant misunderstanding of the theory itself...or else to what happened in the USSR.

I&#39;m rather familiar with the theory in its various Cliffite/Titoite/Maoist/Ultra-Leftist forms, and even a few bourgeois proponents. If I had to guess, I&#39;d say you were affiliated with some sort of Cliffite version of the idea, and Cliff&#39;s siding with the bourgeoisie goes much further than I even meant with my comment. Cliff is a perfect example of a degenerate Trot (ex-Trot, anyway) that hated the USSR so much he preferred US imperialism, remaining completely silent on the Korean war. And of course, his book is a gross distortion of the nature of the USSR (check his “slave labor” section, which is an absolute joke), and his theoretical ideas are anti-Marxist nonsense. To Cliff, the Soviet bureaucracy are even more capitalist than Western capitalists, precisely because they spend so little on luxury goods&#33;

Cliff is a moron who thinks socialism means every worker gets back the exact monetary value of their work, and it is &#39;capitalist&#39; to actually use some of it to do things like invest in sewage systems.


Let&#39;s suppose the USSR were socialist. Now societies can magically change the mode of production regardless of the material conditions of the society. This is an idealistic approach to things, which contradicts your later appeal to materialism.

They didn&#39;t “magically” change anything. A whole lot of things were changed.


You haven&#39;t provided any evidence of the USSR being "socialist" either, except for poor attempts at name calling. And that&#39;s really convincing

Why should I bother, when your definition of socialism is just a vague image in your head, that you yourself have little understanding of?

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+June 05, 2007 03:08 am--> (Intelligitimate &#064; June 05, 2007 03:08 am)
You mean like how Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler? Or is that Stalin allowed to side with the Nazis?

Already been dealt with.[/b]
It was only really covered in here (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66896&view=findpost&p=1292325625) (and tangentially by a post by Comrade Marcel).

The rambling defense appears to be a large collection of weak arguments that are not inter-connected in any logical, coherent fashion:
Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;+--> (Light Up The Sky&#33;)oye yes because fighting the nazis alone is good fun and all.[/b] So this justifies Stalin siding with the Nazis? This doesn&#39;t justify anything.

"Light Up The Sky&#33;" continues to tell us:

Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;
When asked why he signed this treaty, Molotov essentially said it was about survival and that was the reason why they signed treaties with ANY bourgeios states AT ALL&#33; I don&#39;t think anyone is contesting that the material circumstances that the USSR was dealing with made it appear as if this would be a good idea (acting for one&#39;s own survival is usually a "good action").

What&#39;s being contested is whether Stalin sided with the Nazis or not. There is no denial of it, indeed it&#39;s being justified by such arguments as "It&#39;s for survival"&#33;

It has been "covered" in the sense that people have defended and justified Stalin siding with the Nazis.

It doesn&#39;t change the fact, then, that such a point presented like:

Intelligitimate (previously)@
When you line up with the bourgeoisie, the fascists, and the liberals, you&#39;d think you might get the impression you&#39;re on the wrong side, no? Is a completely hypocritical and contradictory point raised by the Stalinists.


Intelligitimate (presently)
I&#39;m rather familiar with the theory in its various Cliffite/Titoite/Maoist/Ultra-Leftist forms, and even a few bourgeois proponents. If I had to guess, I&#39;d say you were affiliated with some sort of Cliffite version of the idea, and Cliff&#39;s siding with the bourgeoisie goes much further than I even meant with my comment. Cliff is a perfect example of a degenerate Trot (ex-Trot, anyway) that hated the USSR so much he preferred US imperialism, remaining completely silent on the Korean war. Not being a "Cliffite", I don&#39;t really care about what Cliff did or thought.

As for what "version" of the theory of "state capitalism" that I "follow", it&#39;s based primarily on the statistics, economic history accounts, etc. that I&#39;ve read.


And of course, his book is a gross distortion of the nature of the USSR (check his “slave labor” section, which is an absolute joke), and his theoretical ideas are anti-Marxist nonsense. Your total lack of evidence is convincing.


Cliff is a moron who thinks socialism means every worker gets back the exact monetary value of their work, and it is &#39;capitalist&#39; to actually use some of it to do things like invest in sewage systems. It&#39;s pretty basic Marxist economics that the self-expansion of capital (or more generally, investment in anything) presupposes the existence of surplus value and thereby exploitation of the laborers (see, e.g., Das Kapital vol. I chapter 9).

This is supposed to continue under socialism? The working classes are still supposed to be exploited?


They didn&#39;t “magically” change anything. A whole lot of things were changed. This is a straw man of my point, and you know it.

The material circumstances necessary for a socialist revolution are suddenly irrelevant. It&#39;s an idealistic explanation of the phenomena which had happened, and you don&#39;t really deny this.

It&#39;s irrelevant how many "things were changed"...if you believe that material conditions can be ignored, and you can get a socialist mode of production following a feudal one by "shear will power" that&#39;s idealism&#33;

Of course, if you&#39;re an idealist, you probably don&#39;t see much of a problem with this...speaking as a materialist, however, this is pretty damning.


Why should I bother, when your definition of socialism is just a vague image in your head, that you yourself have little understanding of? Oh right, I suppose you defining what socialism is that&#39;s just "out of the question"? :lol:

You are the one who is asserting the USSR is socialist, in whatever sense of the word you are using it, perhaps it would be best if you defined it...and then demonstrated how the USSR was socialist.

Think of it as an application of that math degree of yours.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

yo voz I&#39;ve already refuted that post which you worship


Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don&#39;t need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

Which means ou don&#39;t understand that there is a major contradiction between mental and manual labor which needs to be broken down through both sides working together collectively, and you don&#39;t understand that the capitalist system works to keep people uneducated as it can get away with. It also means that you don&#39;t understand the role of the proletariat in revolution. Leadership. But that&#39;s it. Leadership of a united front. Socialist liberation benefits all different strata, but I&#39;m not going to explain this when Lenin already did.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Stalin didn&#39;t "line up with the nazis" you fucking idiot. To even think such a thing is a disgrace to the 29 million Soviets who gave their lives battling them. The Soviet Union signed a treaty in order to stop itself from being slaughtered. It MADE DAMN SURE it wasn&#39;t an alliance by taking out the part which ensured good relations with the two countries. The pact was responsible for at the very least, the liberation of half of Poland from the nazism it would&#39;ve gone under had the pact not happened, so by not understanding it in this fashion, not under standing Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, you are supporting nazism&#33; You complicit with the idea that yes, Poland would&#39;ve been better ALL under nazism.

[Rawthentic]

yo voz I&#39;ve already refuted that post which you worship
Where? You didnt.


Which means ou don&#39;t understand that there is a major contradiction between mental and manual labor which needs to be broken down through both sides working together collectively, and you don&#39;t understand that the capitalist system works to keep people uneducated as it can get away with. It also means that you don&#39;t understand the role of the proletariat in revolution. Leadership. But that&#39;s it. Leadership of a united front. Socialist liberation benefits all different strata, but I&#39;m not going to explain this when Lenin already did.
Oh yeah, lets work together with Avakian and the petty-bourgeoisie&#33; We workers are all too stupid. The RCP&#39;s fight for the middle shows how it focuses more on the petty-bourgeois as if the proletariat was already under its wing. Thats why you are a petty-bourgeios socialist, because you talk about "humanity needing revolution" instead of the working class. You see the proles as objects to liberate humanity while Marx and Engels refuted that and understood that it was about proletarian self-emancipation and proletarian revolution.

Dont give me the crap about leadership, its all been refuted, and you&#39;ve never even scratched the CL&#39;s line.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

wtf are you babbling about??? Humanity does need revolution and communism, and the working class needs to lead us there. By advocating economism like you&#39;re trying to do you aid the bourgeois. You want us to lose the revolution by shooting at non-proletariats who pick up the red flag and the gun and start shooting at the ruling capitalist state and its protectors, rather than welcoming them as the more the merrier. This is why economism is bankrupt. You haven&#39;t been able to scratch the RCP line other than with stupid slanders saying "bob avakian is petty bouregoeis" which is false and by saying "your party is petty bourgeois because you want to win the revolution"

[Rawthentic]

Ha, ok, lets see here.

I&#39;ve already refuted the economism shit over and over again, because we see the class struggle as a political one. So done with that.


You want us to lose the revolution by shooting at non-proletariats who pick up the red flag and the gun and start shooting at the ruling capitalist state and its protectors, rather than welcoming them as the more the merrier
I want the proletariat to take control of its own life and emancipate itself; its does not need"saviors" or "messiahs" to do so. The only difference with me is that I know that if the proletariat is not the vanguard leadership, unlike Avakian (who has never sold his labour-power or lived a proletarian reality) we can led into socialism and back. Thats why we need to depend on ourselves.

I said "your" party is petty-bourgeios because of its "class line", a near reactionary idea, and the fight for the middle, which, while masking itself in the need for greater forces, abandons the working class for middle class kids.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;@June 05, 2007 02:05 pm
Stalin didn&#39;t "line up with the nazis" you fucking idiot. To even think such a thing is a disgrace to the 29 million Soviets who gave their lives battling them.
You seem to contradict yourself later on in your post.


The Soviet Union signed a treaty in order to stop itself from being slaughtered. Yes, I acknowledged that. No one is contesting this.

The entire point which you choose to miss is that this justification is justifying working with Nazis.

You seem to completely ignore this glaringly obvious fact. You justify Stalin working with Hitler, but you then assert:

It MADE DAMN SURE it wasn&#39;t an alliance by taking out the part which ensured good relations with the two countries. Yes, they just agreed to go to war and annex through military force half of Poland, with Nazi Germany :lol:


The pact was responsible for at the very least, the liberation of half of Poland from the nazism it would&#39;ve gone under had the pact not happened, so by not understanding it in this fashion, not under standing Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, you are supporting nazism&#33; You complicit with the idea that yes, Poland would&#39;ve been better ALL under nazism. Dialectics is irrelevant here, don&#39;t change the subject.

Further, now you are changing your position to assert that the USSR and Nazi Germany were in league with each other and "that&#39;s a good thing"&#33;

That&#39;s logically inconsistent with your numerous theses that the USSR and Nazi Germany: (1) were not in league with each other, (2) were in league with each other only for the survival of the USSR, (3) were in league with each other which resulted in "half of Poland being liberated".


yo voz I&#39;ve already refuted that post which you worship A link to your "refutation"?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

i&#39;m not changing the subject. What it all comes down to is you prefering to see all of poland under nazism, rather than half of it. And I&#39;m not contradicting myself nor am I saying it was a good thing, I was saying it was the only hope that the Soviet Union wouldn&#39;t be devastated by a lone war against the powerful axis, and it was the only hope for the liberation of Poland. My refutation is on the thread where Hasta took that post from.


I&#39;ve already refuted the economism shit over and over again, because we see the class struggle as a political one. So done with that.

um that&#39;s not refuting economism and you haven&#39;t "done it over and over". What you advocate is economism straight out of what Lenin described and refuted in WITBD?


I said "your" party is petty-bourgeios because of its "class line", a near reactionary idea, and the fight for the middle, which, while masking itself in the need for greater forces, abandons the working class for middle class kids.

um no it isn&#39;t. Class line is descisive. The fight for the middle is to be done BY the proletariat. the reason is that its going to be alot easier for the proletariat to win its revolution if it has the various strata of the middle class holding the red flag and fighting for socialism, then it is if the bourgeois have these people fighting against he working class as you&#39;d like to see it. That&#39;s the difference between you and me. I want to win the revolution cop-lover-boy, you, on the otherhand, want to lose it and critiscize past revolutions and the struggles and achievements of the worlds socialist state from collectivly owned and ran agriculture, to public and universal housing, healthcare, and education, to communal kitchens and the fight for the equality of womyn and the end of the oppression of oppressed nationalities, to the general process and struggle to build a socialist state. A state where efficiency was balanced with mass control to yield a form of democratic centralism in the workplace. Now there are critiscisms I agree in how this was done and maybe what it became, and Maoist China corrected this through the cultural revolution, so what we need to do is ;learn from the positives of the socialist experience and the mistakes made in the experience so we can better it for the future revolution, but of course, you would rather spit on the workers. You would rather sit behind your monitor and critiscize all the successes made, including collectivization for the first time in humanity, and you call it capitalist, bourgeois, imperialist, fascist, blah blah blah. To that I say bravo for not being marxist at all. For not understanding materialism an inch.


I want the proletariat to take control of its own life and emancipate itself; its does not need"saviors" or "messiahs" to do so. The only difference with me is that I know that if the proletariat is not the vanguard leadership, unlike Avakian (who has never sold his labour-power or lived a proletarian reality) we can led into socialism and back. Thats why we need to depend on ourselves.

it needs leadership. This is materially proven. Every lasting revolution needs it. When there is none, or the leadership is poor, we see the working class rebels but is suppressed. When Krushchev and then later Gorbachev betrayed socialism for state capitalism and then for latent free market capitalism, the working class disagreed but there was no leadership to halt this. When the workers got fed up with capitalist reform and took to the streets in Tianamen in 1989 and Moscow in 1993, they were slaughtered because there was no vanguard, and no leadership to plan the uprising, to direct it, and to inspire it to greater heights. That&#39;s why there has been no left communist or anarchist revolution, while these groups may have had success at rebellion because they reject leadership they fail at bringing a new society. And the proletariat is emancipating itself. That&#39;s why its the leadership of the revolution, that&#39;s why its called the "dictatoship of the proletariat". Why the fuck are you quoting Debs? Because Debs was a leader, and leaders are inspirational. Really the solution to what he puts forward is to rely on dependable leaders, to rally behind those who have spent their lives fighting for socialism and building and organizing for socialism along with studying it. That&#39;s exactly the type of person Debs was, and its exactly the type of person Avakian is today. Oh and btw cop-lover-boy, Avakian is proletariat he broke with his class background something like 40 years ago in order to get by in college and after.

[Intelligitimate]

I don&#39;t think anyone is contesting that the material circumstances that the USSR was dealing with made it appear as if this would be a good idea (acting for one&#39;s own survival is usually a "good action").

What&#39;s being contested is whether Stalin sided with the Nazis or not. There is no denial of it, indeed it&#39;s being justified by such arguments as "It&#39;s for survival"&#33;

It has been "covered" in the sense that people have defended and justified Stalin siding with the Nazis.

There is no need to justify anything. The Bolsheviks tried to gain support from the other Western powers against Hitler. When they failed, they signed a non-aggression pact to bide time before the inevitable war. This is the standard interpretation of events by nearly everyone.

There was no “siding with the Nazis,” that is just your idiocy.


Is a completely hypocritical and contradictory point raised by the Stalinists.

Actually, it&#39;s just another red-herring from a brain dead anti-communist.


Not being a "Cliffite", I don&#39;t really care about what Cliff did or thought.

He&#39;s one of the main proponents of the idea.


As for what "version" of the theory of "state capitalism" that I "follow", it&#39;s based primarily on the statistics, economic history accounts, etc. that I&#39;ve read.

More like “based on the my own moronic understanding of economics and some shit I read somewhere on the internet.”


Your total lack of evidence is convincing.

I thought you didn&#39;t care what Cliff did or thought? Now you do? Dumb fuck.


It&#39;s pretty basic Marxist economics that the self-expansion of capital (or more generally, investment in anything) presupposes the existence of surplus value and thereby exploitation of the laborers (see, e.g., Das Kapital vol. I chapter 9).

So it appears you do accept Cliffite garbage. You&#39;re probably just too stupid to realize you get it second hand.

It is not exploitation to build sewage systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, etc. It is the height of idiocy to think socialism is about giving workers back exactly what they put in. This line of reasoning leads to market socialist nonsense, which leads right back to capitalism.


The material circumstances necessary for a socialist revolution are suddenly irrelevant. It&#39;s an idealistic explanation of the phenomena which had happened, and you don&#39;t really deny this.

What fucking “material circumstances”? A socialist revolution happened, you dumb reactionary fuck. The material conditions all over the planet have been ready for capitalism for a long time.


Oh right, I suppose you defining what socialism is that&#39;s just "out of the question"?

Yeah, I take that back. It appears your vision of socialism is some market-socialist idiocy where capitalism will quickly be restored.

[ComradeRed]

Intelligitimate, your rambling post that attempts (and fails miserably) at flaming me is not worthy of a response. Perhaps if you could (as unlikely as it is) instead think up of some arguments, I might reply.


Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;@June 05, 2007 03:18 pm
i&#39;m not changing the subject.
That&#39;s why you&#39;re bringing up dialectics, right? :rolleyes:


What it all comes down to is you prefering to see all of poland under nazism, rather than half of it. And this is a red herring.

You have a problem on your hands: the USSR agreed to help Nazi Germany militarily with Poland.

There&#39;s no way to argue this didn&#39;t happen since it&#39;s pretty well documented.

You are justifying Stalin working with Hitler. The justifications themselves are irrelevant and you seem to completely ignore this fact.


And I&#39;m not contradicting myself nor am I saying it was a good thing, I was saying it was the only hope that the Soviet Union wouldn&#39;t be devastated by a lone war against the powerful axis, and it was the only hope for the liberation of Poland. You don&#39;t know your history very well, do you remember the alliance the USSR signed with Czechoslovakia in agreement with France?

It wouldn&#39;t have been a "lone war" as you try to explain it as...perhaps you will read a book and learn something.

And what did the USSR do? It teamed up with Hitler.

Still you are the one who asserts this is a "socialist" country&#33;


My refutation is on the thread where Hasta took that post from. Thanks for the link <_<


You would rather sit behind your monitor and critiscize all the successes made, including collectivization for the first time in humanity, and you call it capitalist, bourgeois, imperialist, fascist, blah blah blah. To that I say bravo for not being marxist at all. For not understanding materialism an inch. You do see the terrible irony here that you&#39;re sitting behind your monitor all day justifying "collectivization", and your fetish with idealism and dialectics makes the "not understanding materialism an inch" comment rather comical as well.

"Being a Marxist" is, contrary to your opinion, not dependent on blind faith in everything Marx and Engels wrote, what your local party leader says, etc. If anything, that&#39;s being a Christian&#33;


it needs leadership. This is materially proven. Every lasting revolution needs it. Every revolution that resulted in class society needs leadership. That indeed has been materially proven.

It&#39;s simply a conjecture that it&#39;s "needed" for the abolition of wage slavery that is not "materially proven".


And the proletariat is emancipating itself. That&#39;s why its the leadership of the revolution, that&#39;s why its called the "dictatoship of the proletariat". :lol: Right, and tinker bell will live so long as we clap our hands.


Avakian is proletariat he broke with his class background something like 40 years ago in order to get by in college and after. Avakian lives in a wealthy part of Paris off the money of his party members, like a cult leader. He&#39;s bourgeois as can be.

Claiming to "break" from one&#39;s class is idealistic nonsense. One&#39;s class is determined independent of one&#39;s will.

[ComradeRed]

I assume this is your "refutation", since there has been no post made by you that I haven&#39;t covered in the other thread ("The So-Called Socialist countries" thread, and you didn&#39;t even post in the "State capitalism" thread in the Theory forum).

Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;@June 03, 2007 10:24 am

"Each plant has a leader – the plant manager – endowed with the full power of decision, hence fully responsible for everything." (E.L. Granovski and B.L. Markus (eds.) The Economics of Socialist Industry, Moscow 1940, p.579) That&#39;s "workers&#39; control" for you&#33;

Yeah and they were elected and recallable.
Oh? And do you have any proof of this?

Because every first hand document I&#39;ve read says that they were chosen from "higher up".

They were just the mutant spawn of Soviet Material conditions: the need for massive industrialization as quickly as possible. This should have happened before a socialist revolution happens.

Marx and Engels stress that a workers&#39; revolution could only occur in a technologically advanced capitalist country.

It logically follows from the fact that the mode of production of 1917 Russia was feudal, and the rate of industrialization in the USSR post-1917, that the USSR was capitalist.

This meant a balance between worker&#39;s control and fastest production possible. This came in the form of elected managers, BUT it also came in the form of 14,000,000 small peasant holdings being turned into 200,000 collectivized, collectively owned and run comunal large farms. Read: the workers had no control except for name&#39;s sake.


All this means is that you think that workers elected by their co-workers to the manager position for their leadership makes them bourgeois. These people were still proletariat. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Managers who contribute nothing to the (direct) production of commodities, coordinate the production of commodities, live off the labor of the workers, coordinate the expansion of capital, coordinate the distribution of commodities are somehow "proletarian"?&#33; :lol:

You either seem to be ignoring what was happening in the USSR or you have no clue what a proletarian is.

Guess what&#33; By your reasoning, Bill Gates is a proletariat&#33;


And if they were appointed by the party they would ALL be party members. Well over 90% were.


The fact that 200,000 WEREN&#39;T just proves that class struggle continues under socialism, that some workers were fighting against socialism and needed to be struggled with, but the fact that it jumped so highly in 2 years shows the enthusiasm for building socialism in the Soviet Union over continuing with Trotskyite-Bukharinite State Capitalist policies that were spawning a new landlord class in the countryside. This also makes no sense, the dictatorship of the proletariat now has embodied within it class struggle?

Because the managers were consolidating power, this somehow shows "the enthusiasm for building socialism in the Soviet Union"? :lol:

This is little more than baseless assertions from an apologist, with no empiricism at all.

The fact that the workers steadily became the minority in the communist party of the USSR is more than enough of an indication that the USSR was not by any stretch of the imagination a "workers&#39; state"...or would you like to suggest that it was so much of a workers&#39; state that the workers didn&#39;t need to be in control anymore? :lol:

[Spike]

You have a problem on your hands: the USSR agreed to help Nazi Germany militarily with Poland.

And what did the USSR do? It teamed up with Hitler.

That is not true. With the Polish forces demonstrating their inability to resist the Germans, the USSR entered territory stolen by Poland in 1919-1921 from Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania by the invalidated Treaty of Riga. The provinces of Poland annexed by the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs contained a majority of their titular nationality. The Soviet operations of these captive provinces was entirely virtuous in that the Ukrainians and Belorussians did not want to be dominated by a small minority of Polish landlords and Jewish merchants and because they were conducted in the context of Poland getting pounded by Germany.

There were no coordinated military operations between the USSR and Germany in Poland. In fact, The Red Army was involved in skirmishes with the Germans in Poland that resulted in some casualties. The non-aggression pact with Germany was shear brilliance in foreign policy.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 05:22 pm

You have a problem on your hands: the USSR agreed to help Nazi Germany militarily with Poland.

And what did the USSR do? It teamed up with Hitler.

That is not true. With the Polish forces demonstrating their inability to resist the Germans, the USSR entered territory stolen by Poland in 1919-1921 from Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania by the invalidated Treaty of Riga. The provinces of Poland annexed by the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs contained a majority of their titular nationality.
I don&#39;t see how this is relevant.


The Soviet operations of these captive provinces was entirely virtuous in that the Ukrainians and Belorussians did not want to by a small minority of Polish landlords and Jewish merchants and because they were conducted in the context of Poland getting pounded by Germany. This doesn&#39;t make grammatical sense "...the Ukrainians and Belorussians did not want to by a small minority of Polish landlords..." so I am a little confused what you are trying to say here.

As for the Soviet Operations being "entirely virtuous", as I stated dozens of times now, is completely irrelevant to the fact that the Soviets helped the Nazis.


There were no coordinated military operations between the USSR and Germany in Poland. No one asserted that there were coordinated military operations, except for the capturing of the Polish territory by both Soviet and Nazi military.


In fact, The Red Army was involved in skirmishes with the Germans in Poland that resulted in some casualties. This is probably true, but I would be comforted with a source or citation.


The non-aggression pact with Germany was shear brilliance in foreign policy. It doesn&#39;t matter how "brilliant" it is, the Soviets still helped the Nazis. The reasoning is irrelevant, it happened.

[Rawthentic]

So Henry, refute this post, this is what I was talking about moron:



Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 04, 2007 05:59 pm
Here it is where Miles refutes that shit, so boom motherfucker:


(Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)

"Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected—unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding—it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding—of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance."


This passage is important, both for what it says and, for our purposes, what it doesn&#39;t say. Let&#39;s start with the first sentence: "Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other." This is quite true and, for the League, has been an important part of our understanding from the beginning. Remember, the League was formed in the wake of what I would call the second Bush coup in 2004 -- a coup that (again, in my opinion) sealed the doomed fate of American bourgeois democracy. We formulated a Platform of Action that was oriented toward revolutionary-democratic action in the political arena and began our organizing to that end. We even went so far as to participate in the work of the World Can&#39;t Wait campaign because of our understanding of this position.

Moreover, we approached this from the perspective outlined in the second sentence: "The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events, to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population." We in the League seek to learn what moves and motivates each class to take the actions they do -- what moves them forward or backward (or laterally), causes them to unify or divide, and makes them act in the manner they do. But we do so with the understanding that this is something that workers must learn in order for our class to undertake its responsibilities. We observe and learn about all other classes -- their history and development, their transformations and amalgamations -- in order for our class to be able to fulfill its mission. Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don&#39;t need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

This is why we agree with Lenin&#39;s criticism in his third sentence: "Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life." Yes, it is necessary to not limit our understanding to the internal machinations of our own class. This is why we participate in antiwar demonstrations, democratic-rights protests and similar actions. This is why we have members that keep tabs on liberal-democratic and radical-democratic movements and organizations, attend their meetings and events, engage with their members, etc. This is why we make a point to interact with elements from other classes -- which, incidentally, includes interacting with left organizations like yours on occasion. But we do all this from the material and political standpoint of the proletariat -- our class.

This is also why we agree with the last sentence in this passage from Lenin: "For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance." The class struggle is a political struggle. It is in the political arena that all classes vie for power and control in society, and it is therefore necessary that communists actively engage this political struggle on political terms. We have our Platform of Action, our Basic Principles and our understanding of where we are going.


Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)
Comrade, you are doing what is called "reifying the proletariat." It is a form of economism. Communists are not fighting "for the workers" or for a "worker&#39;s republic." Communists are fighting for the emancipation of all humanity, the ending of all forms of oppression and exploitation, and the proletariat is the first (and the only) class in history which can be the emancipator of humanity. The proletariat is only special in the context that it can end all forms of oppression and inequality.


This is classical petty-bourgeois socialism. Class? What class?&#33; This is about the classless "humanity" and "ending all forms of exploitation", because, after all, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are exploited and oppressed too. Those poor, oppressed bourgeois&#33; Someone has to save them&#33;

Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP&#39;s line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto:


And from our Basic Principles, which refute your fucking stupidity:

In order for the proletariat to establish its own workers’ republic, which is the first step on the road to the abolition of classes, it must raise itself to the level of a ruling class. The first great conflict in which the proletariat must engage in order to achieve the establishment of a workers’ republic is the battle for democracy. This is because it is on the political plane that all classes are bound together and placed in a common arena. Direct economic struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie often are confined to one workplace, one region or one industry. Thus, they are prone to isolation and marginalization.
On the other hand, the political struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie take on a generalized, societal character. A political victory by the proletariat in one region or country generally has an effect on the position of the proletarians in other areas. Communists seek the broadest possible union of the proletariat on a political level for the purposes of uniting the localized and isolated struggles of the working class — including economic struggles — into a common battle for revolutionary democracy, designed to aid the proletariat and its task of elevating itself to a ruling class. This is why every class struggle is, in the final analysis, a political struggle.

6. Because the class struggle is a political struggle, the proletariat must be organized as a distinct and independent political body. Concretely, this means that proletarians need to unite into a single political organization that is able to challenge the bourgeoisie on its own field and win — a political party of the working class. Communists do not form a proletarian political party that stands in opposition to other genuine parties of the working class.
Communists do not have any interests or principles that politically separate it from the proletariat as a whole. The principles of communism distinguish their adherents from other proletarians in only two ways: first, in all struggles of the proletariat, communists point out and bring to the front the interests of the entire class, regardless of this or that difference; and, second, in the various stages of the class struggle, communists always represent the interests of the movement as a whole, not just the views of this or that leadership. Thus, the communists are on the one hand the most advanced and resolute component of the proletariat of every country, and on the other hand are the most theoretically developed and are able to articulate and understand the various developments, conditions and results of the class struggle.


Class line is descisive.
Ok, lets see:
If class line was decisive, you for one would not mind if the RCP was all made up of capitalists, as long as they held a "proletarian line". Correct? If you say no, then it shows how the "class line" is a reactionary position.

If you say yes, then you are consciously saying that the capitalists are consciously plotting their own overthrow because they somehow hold a "proletarian line" as if consciousness determines being. <_<


For not understanding materialism an inch.
Whats that? Do I hear....hypocrisy? Does it hurt that your sect gets refuted all the time? :(



That&#39;s exactly the type of person Debs was, and its exactly the type of person Avakian is today. Oh and btw cop-lover-boy, Avakian is proletariat he broke with his class background something like 40 years ago in order to get by in college and after.
Debs was a proletarian, hence why he advocated, as Marx and Engels did, proletarian self-emancipation. Avakian, as CR said, is simply eating waffles in Paris. He is not proletarian, his life has never depended on the selling of wage-labour. And these personal attacks against me show how bankrupt you and your sect are.

[Spike]

to the fact that the Soviets helped the Nazis.
That is not a fact but is a lie propagated by western imperialist and Polish nationalist historiography. The Soviet Union did not send troops to the west of Poland in order to help the Germans in getting Poland to submit. The Soviet Union simply sent troops in the context of Poland&#39;s imminent defeat. By contrast, the fascist regimes in Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia were directly involved with Germany in Operation Barbarossa.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by Permanent Revolution+May 28, 2007 11:59 pm--> (Permanent Revolution @ May 28, 2007 11:59 pm)
Voz de la Gente [email protected] 28, 2007 10:48 pm
Fuck Trotsky and Stalin.

They were both bureaucrats.
Yes, anyone elected into a position of power is a bureaucrat... :rolleyes:

Have you ever wondered why Stalin never bothered with the "Left" Communists when he was running about murdering the Trotskyists? That&#39;s because you don&#39;t exist :) [/b]
What of the Workers&#39; Opposition? They were to the Left of Trotsky and had syndicalist leanings similar to left communists.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Spike+June 06, 2007 10:30 am--> (Spike &#064; June 06, 2007 10:30 am)
to the fact that the Soviets helped the Nazis.
That is not a fact but is a lie propagated by western imperialist and Polish nationalist historiography. The Soviet Union did not send troops to the west of Poland in order to help the Germans in getting Poland to submit. The Soviet Union simply sent troops in the context of Poland&#39;s imminent defeat.[/b]
Just ignore the fact that it was agreed upon in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; or is the treaty itself "bourgeois propaganda generated by Polish nationalist historians"? :lol:

Or did you not read the following article:
Molotov&#045;Ribbentrop Pact
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement. Translation of the Pact. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html).

[Leo]

Have you ever wondered why Stalin never bothered with the "Left" Communists when he was running about murdering the Trotskyists?

He did, actually. There were left communist groups even during the thirties active among Siberian exiles. Stalin&#39;s intelligence agencies even abducted and executed Myasnikov from Paris after WW2. Myasnikov was one of the major figures of the Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party, and practically it was more active than the left opposition in trying to fight against Stalinism, they were even involved with strikes of 1923 against the new bureaucracy, and left opposition was just formed in 1923, although of course the left opposition were bigger, Worker&#39;s Group gained more radical figures of the Trotskyist opposition (such as Ante Ciliga for example), while most of the rest of the Trotskyist movement in Russia denounced their positions and became supporters of Stalin, only to be killed during the great purges in mid thirties.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

I assume this is your "refutation", since there has been no post made by you that I haven&#39;t covered in the other thread ("The So-Called Socialist countries" thread, and you didn&#39;t even post in the "State capitalism" thread in the Theory forum).

refutation to what exactly?


Oh? And do you have any proof of this?

everything Lenin said, everything Stalin said and fought for in this regard. The arguement that was made is that elections were coopted by the bolshevik party, but the bolshevik party was the vanguard of the revolution.

From Stalin and the Struggle of Democratic Reform (http://frontierweekly.googlepages.com/stalin-38-49.pdf)


32. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s the Bolshevik Party recruited aggressively among the working class. By the end of the 1920s most Party members were workers and a high per centage of workers were in the Party. This massive recruitment and huge attempts at political education took place at the same time as the tremendous upheavals of the first Five-Year Plan, crash industrialization, and largely forced collectivization of individual farms into collective (kolkhoz) or soviet farms (sovkhoz). The Bolshevik leadership was both sincere in its attempt to "proletarianize" their Party, and successful in the result. (Rigby, 167-8; 184; 199)

because the bolshevik party was the vanguard and was based in the proletariat, it was a guiding tool of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat thus managers were part of the Proletarian state. Now a bureacracy took root in this dictatorship of the proletariat which is why Stalin led the fight against it in the 1936 constitution in order to keep the Socialist State pure. Now I&#39;m not saying that having managers is a particularly good thing, but I think it was a necessary part of the building process, and I think that when the People&#39;s Republic of China took socialism even farther with the cultural revolution and people&#39;s communes, that&#39;s why we saw factory committees taking over th workplaces, and student-teacher committees taking over the schools.


This should have happened before a socialist revolution happens.

Marx and Engels stress that a workers&#39; revolution could only occur in a technologically advanced capitalist country.

Well I think that&#39;s where the Theory of New Democratic Revolution came from, but Marx and Engels said that communism is more possible out of capitalism because capitalism creates more proletarians, yet its still not impossible.

That would be revolutionary defeatism.


It logically follows from the fact that the mode of production of 1917 Russia was feudal, and the rate of industrialization in the USSR post-1917, that the USSR was capitalist.

it was mixed. There were capitalist production in the urban areas and suburban, there were semi-fuedal and fuedal relations in the countryside although mainly semi-fuedal. The Capitalism did develop during the New Economic Period. This was a necessary short step backwards to overcome this contradiction. And that&#39;s stupid. Worker&#39;s weren&#39;t being exploited, production was socialized, "profits" went to socialist programs, the state was a proletarian dictatorship which is why it collectivized agriculture rather than not doing that and letting Bukharinism bud.


Managers who contribute nothing to the (direct) production of commodities, coordinate the production of commodities, live off the labor of the workers, coordinate the expansion of capital, coordinate the distribution of commodities are somehow "proletarian"?&#33; :lol:


the proletariat don&#39;t exsist in socialism, they aren&#39;t being exploited by private capitalists, thus managers were just functionaries of the proletarian state.


Well over 90% were.

why take a risk with 200 fucking 000 factories? Its not like it was one or 2 factories, it was 200,000 that is what we call a big fucking number.


This also makes no sense, the dictatorship of the proletariat now has embodied within it class struggle?

that&#39;s not what I&#39;m saying.


Because the managers were consolidating power, this somehow shows "the enthusiasm for building socialism in the Soviet Union"? :lol:

Um no. That was shown by the fact that it was agents of the proletariat vanguard rather than the bourgeois who were consistantly chosen to managerial positions and that agriculture was collectivized and communalized so fucking fast


Or did you not read the following article:

yeah um all that article says is that both parties have to agree on national independence and that half of poland would be liberated from nazism and the other half would be under nazi tyranny. Rather than all of Poland being under Nazi tyranny as you prefer and as you advocate.


So Henry, refute this post, this is what I was talking about moron:

I have already. Both the part about workers and learning and how that has nothing to do with the disagreement. We only disagree on the idea that we&#39;re fine allowing petty bourgeois people into our party because they can be united with, they can fight for socialism and communism and they can uphold the line of proletarian socialism just like Engels who was petty bourgeois did. And the part on humanity needs revolution and how capitalism sucks for the working class especially, but for everyone. From enviromental destruction to homophobia and racism to just the massive inequality in wealth that humanity has and the redistribution it needs. No matter what shit you talk about the draft programme, it makes it very clear that the proletariat are the class who are going to make revolution.

I&#39;ll respond to other shit later. Because I&#39;m sleepy.


Avakian lives in a wealthy part of Paris off the money of his party members, like a cult leader. He&#39;s bourgeois as can be.

prove it.

Avakian&#39;s location is not public. the RCP follows Lenin&#39;s principles of vangaurd organization. when he did live in France he didn&#39;t live in a wealthy part. By breaking with his class background I mean he&#39;s held lots of proletarian jobs in the service industry and now primarily as a writer to survive.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Leo
while most of the rest of the Trotskyist movement in Russia denounced their positions and became supporters of Stalin, only to be killed during the great purges in mid thirties.

I think you are wrong. Zinonev and Kamenev for about most of the time allied with Stalin against Trotsky.After Trotsky was sidelined in 1925 it was not until 1926 the "united opposition" was formed. After Trotsky&#39;s exile in 1928 both Zinonev and Kamenev immediately capitulated to Stalin along with the rest of their followers just to be executed 10 years Later.

[Leo]

I think you are wrong. Zinonev and Kamenev for about most of the time allied with Stalin against Trotsky.After Trotsky was sidelined in 1925 it was not until 1926 the "united opposition" was formed. After Trotsky&#39;s exile in 1928 both Zinonev and Kamenev immediately capitulated to Stalin along with the rest of their followers just to be executed 10 years Later.

I wasn&#39;t really talking about Zinoviev and Kamanev. I was talking about Karl Radek, Christian Rakovsky, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, Andrei Bubnov, Nikolai Muralov, Nikolai Krestinsky, Polikarp Mdivani even some left communists who joined the left opposition, such as Georgy Pyatakov from Ukraine and some people from the Group of Democratic Centralism. All those were people who had been in the left opposition from the beginning.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 07, 2007 02:06 pm

I think you are wrong. Zinonev and Kamenev for about most of the time allied with Stalin against Trotsky.After Trotsky was sidelined in 1925 it was not until 1926 the "united opposition" was formed. After Trotsky&#39;s exile in 1928 both Zinonev and Kamenev immediately capitulated to Stalin along with the rest of their followers just to be executed 10 years Later.

I wasn&#39;t really talking about Zinoviev and Kamanev. I was talking about Karl Radek, Christian Rakovsky, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, Andrei Bubnov, Nikolai Muralov, Nikolai Krestinsky, Polikarp Mdivani even some left communists who joined the left opposition, such as Georgy Pyatakov from Ukraine and some people from the Group of Democratic Centralism. All those were people who had been in the left opposition from the beginning.
Fine then.


None of them except Trotsky was committed in their opposition IMO. Which strengthened Stalin&#39;s position. When he made th decisive strike none of them had any strength to Stand up against it.

[Leo]

None of them except Trotsky was committed in their opposition IMO. Which strengthened Stalin&#39;s position. When he made th decisive strike none of them had any strength to Stand up against it.

Well, some of them were quite committed, maybe not as much as Trotsky.

The problem was that Trotsky was too hesitant to, or not capable of actually fight against Stalin. The left opposition was an official opposition within the party and they were checkmated very easily by the tactics of Stalinist bureaucracy. Trotsky did have the power to do what Stalin did to him and his supporters: at the 12th congress of the Russian party, he could have destroyed Stalin politically as he had the support of Lenin behind him. He could have very easily arrested his opponents, in fact he was urged by some of the old Bolsheviks to send a detachment of soldiers into the Kremlin. But Trotsky declined to use either his power of his eloquence. He made no answer to the vilifications against him in the press. He made no public appearances, no speeches, no motion whatever against the fire-hose stream of slander that was poured against him. In the 13th congress, he could have made Lenin’s testament public; he didn&#39;t.

The first problem was in relation to the Trotsky&#39;s character. Adolf Joffe, a close supporter of Trotsky had written "I have never doubted the correctness of the course you have pointed out, and you know that for over twenty years, ever since the “permanent revolution”, I have marched with you. But I have thought you lacked the inflexibility and intransigeance of Lenin, his resolution to remain, if need be, alone in the course which he has recognized as sure in view of a future majority…Politically you have always been right, commencing with 1905, and I have often told you that with my own ears I heard Lenin acknowledge that in 1905 it was not he but you who were right….But you have often renounced your truth for the sake of an agreement, a compromise, whose value you overestimate" in his suicide note.

Yet the more important issue was probably the mistaken analysis of Trotskyists, the schema about "left, center and right" in the party, the failure to acknowledge problems, Trotsky&#39;s attitude towards discussions, the failure to recognize that there was an actual counter revolution going. Lenin had seen the danger much earlier, in 1922 and had said "Never before in history has there been a situation in which the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political power and had state capitalism existing along side it. The whole question turns on our understanding that this is the capitalism that we can and must permit, that we can and must confine within certain bounds; for this capitalism is essential for the broad masses of the peasantry and for private capital, which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the peasantry. We must organise things in such a way as to make possible the customary operation of capitalist economy and capitalist exchange, because this is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible. All the rest is not an absolutely vital matter to this camp. They can resign themselves to all that. You Communists, you workers, you, the politically enlightened section of the proletariat, which under took to administer the state, must be able to arrange it so that the state, which you have taken into your hands, shall function the way you want it to. Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in this past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction." After 1923, it got clearer and clearer that this was the direction, the direction of the profiteer, the bureaucrat, the counter-revolution. However Trotsky insisted on remaining faithful to the party discipline, and even after his son was murdered by Stalinist agents, he was still calling for the support of this bureaucratic-bourgeois state.

[Vargha Poralli]

Well I think Trotsky himself didn&#39;t analyse the situation and seriously miscalculated Stalin. He considered Zinonev and Bhukharin as more problems because of their conservative outlook. Add to the fact that he was opposed to Bolsheviks for long time and criticised Lenin in many occasions.And also added that he was Jew and the rumours about the October revolution being the Jewish conspiracy. I read somewhere that Jew card was used against him by Stalin at some point .He would have feared that any actions against Stalin by him could have been disastrous given the conservative position of Russian workers and Peasants at that time.

[Leo]

Well I think Trotsky himself didn&#39;t analyse the situation and seriously miscalculated Stalin. He considered Zinonev and Bhukharin as more problems because of their conservative outlook.

I would agree with that.


Add to the fact that he was opposed to Bolsheviks for long time and criticised Lenin in many occasions.

Well, that was certainly used against him and he certainly wanted to cover it up, but I think the problem with that was that he was saying that he had been wrong in every disagreement. First of all it was wrong, on some issues he was right and Lenin was wrong. Secondly he himself did not believe this. Lastly disagreements and criticisms are not something to be ashamed of; they are an important part of discussion and discussion is something which has been in the core of the proletarian movement and which was a very important thing Stalinism was destroying.


And also added that he was Jew and the rumours about the October revolution being the Jewish conspiracy. I read somewhere that Jew card was used against him by Stalin at some point .He would have feared that any actions against Stalin by him could have been disastrous given the conservative position of Russian workers and Peasants at that time.

All of those were used against Trotsky, but not when he had the chance to destroy Stalin. He did, after all, enjoy massive support in the Bolshevik Party, in the Red Army and among workers between 1923-1925. His international fame was only second to Lenin and because of his role in the Civil War and his incredibly high charisma, I don&#39;t think he really was afraid of Stalin. What he was afraid of, in his own words, was what the people would think about him, whether they would think if he was trying to get on to Lenin&#39;s chair and so forth.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Light Up The Sky&#33;@June 06, 2007 09:25 pm

I assume this is your "refutation", since there has been no post made by you that I haven&#39;t covered in the other thread ("The So-Called Socialist countries" thread, and you didn&#39;t even post in the "State capitalism" thread in the Theory forum).

refutation to what exactly?
I would assume it would be something that I wrote about state capitalism, since you replied to Voz that you "refuted" some post of mine.



Oh? And do you have any proof of this?everything Lenin said, everything Stalin said and fought for in this regard. The arguement that was made is that elections were coopted by the bolshevik party, but the bolshevik party was the vanguard of the revolution. So your empirical evidence is the propaganda from Lenin and Stalin, and baseless assertions.


From Stalin and the Struggle of Democratic Reform (http://frontierweekly.googlepages.com/stalin-38-49.pdf) This doesn&#39;t really present any empirical data other than "Stalin said X, so it must have been so."

Hell, there isn&#39;t even any citations&#33; And this is supposed to be evidence?&#33;


because the bolshevik party was the vanguard and was based in the proletariat, it was a guiding tool of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat thus managers were part of the Proletarian state. This is rather circular reasoning, you&#39;re assuming what I asked you to demonstrate. That&#39;s invalid in proving things.

Proof that X=Y:
Assume X=Y. QED.

I asked you to prove it, not assume or assert it without any statistics.


Now a bureacracy took root in this dictatorship of the proletariat which is why Stalin led the fight against it in the 1936 constitution in order to keep the Socialist State pure. Now I&#39;m not saying that having managers is a particularly good thing, but I think it was a necessary part of the building process, and I think that when the People&#39;s Republic of China took socialism even farther with the cultural revolution and people&#39;s communes, that&#39;s why we saw factory committees taking over th workplaces, and student-teacher committees taking over the schools. I don&#39;t think anyone is arguing whether what happened in the USSR was "good" or "bad"...as a matter of fact NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT.

What happened in the USSR was "necessary" and "determined" by the material circumstances that the USSR had at that particular time.

I&#39;m not saying that the USSR "wasn&#39;t revolutionary"...state capitalism was a very revolutionary response to a post-feudal mode of production.


Well I think that&#39;s where the Theory of New Democratic Revolution came from, but Marx and Engels said that communism is more possible out of capitalism because capitalism creates more proletarians, yet its still not impossible. Mao&#39;s "Theory of New Democratic Revolution" is pure idealism.

It is totally decoupled from material reality and asserts that from a feudal mode of production can come socialism.

In case you have forgotten, socialism comes from a proletarian revolution which cannot happen from the feudal mode of production.

Indeed looking at the statistics of the social composition of 1917 Russia, 80 to 85% of the population was peasantry&#33; And you wish to assert that there was a "workers&#39; revolution" there?&#33; :lol:


That would be revolutionary defeatism. Why ever so?


it was mixed. There were capitalist production in the urban areas and suburban, there were semi-fuedal and fuedal relations in the countryside although mainly semi-fuedal. The places where it was "most industrialized" was in the Western rim, where foreign investment existed.

The Tsar tried to encourage domestic production by increasing tariffs...even when the tariffs became ridiculously high. This didn&#39;t really work too well, and ended up de-industrializing Russia even more.

The case could be made that Russia was barely past the "late feudal" stage, but it would be naive to assert that the mode of production in Russia was anything resembling a capitalist mode of production.


The Capitalism did develop during the New Economic Period. This was a necessary short step backwards to overcome this contradiction. And that&#39;s stupid. Worker&#39;s weren&#39;t being exploited, production was socialized, "profits" went to socialist programs, the state was a proletarian dictatorship which is why it collectivized agriculture rather than not doing that and letting Bukharinism bud. So you now assert that in under several years, the USSR industrialized faster and further than Germany, the UK, and the U&#036;?&#33;

Provide statistics to back this up.


the proletariat don&#39;t exsist in socialism, they aren&#39;t being exploited by private capitalists, thus managers were just functionaries of the proletarian state. Circular reasoning, you have yet to prove that this is socialism...as I&#39;ve pointed out a number of times.

Further, you have yet to demonstrate how class lines magically disappear under socialism. These people have, demonstratively, different relations to the means of production and labor that makes them, by definition, different classes.


why take a risk with 200 fucking 000 factories? Its not like it was one or 2 factories, it was 200,000 that is what we call a big fucking number. You&#39;re acting as if these people just suddenly changed boat one day.

That&#39;s not what happened. These people have different relations to the means of production and labor, they are in a different class, and they ("by mere coincidence" :rolleyes: ) form the majority of the communist party.

It has been shown that they have total control of the factories, and they have "something to lose" by taking total control? :lol:


Um no. That was shown by the fact that it was agents of the proletariat vanguard rather than the bourgeois who were consistantly chosen to managerial positions and that agriculture was collectivized and communalized so fucking fast Circular reasoning, again.


yeah um all that article says is that both parties have to agree on national independence and that half of poland would be liberated from nazism and the other half would be under nazi tyranny. Rather than all of Poland being under Nazi tyranny as you prefer and as you advocate. That&#39;s a straw man, but you&#39;ve demonstrated yourself incapable of understanding this.

You&#39;re justifying Stalin working with the Nazis, right or wrong you&#39;re still justifying it.

And it is by far more direct than the theory of state capitalism ever could.

We only disagree on the idea that we&#39;re fine allowing petty bourgeois people into our party because they can be united with, they can fight for socialism and communism and they can uphold the line of proletarian socialism just like Engels who was petty bourgeois did. The petit bourgeois are conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary. If by some chance they join the ranks of the proletarian, it&#39;s only to turn back the wheel of time.

Sound familiar? It&#39;s Marx and Engels from the Manifesto, which you so conveniently ignore <_<



Avakian lives in a wealthy part of Paris off the money of his party members, like a cult leader. He&#39;s bourgeois as can be.

prove it. If I were to use your techniques of proving things, I&#39;d just reiterate what I previously said and add "QED" to it.

You assert that he worked? Yeah, that&#39;s probably true, he probably did work in the 1960s and &#39;70s.

Now, he lives off of the contributions of the RCP members, and the sales of his books.


Avakian&#39;s location is not public. The RCP lost him, didn&#39;t they? :lol:


the RCP follows Lenin&#39;s principles of vangaurd organization. You mean, Lenin equated the "vanguard organization" with "a cohesive group of people (generally, but not exclusively a relatively small and recently founded movement) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream"?

The second quote is the definition of a cult and it appears to describe the RCP quite well.


when he did live in France he didn&#39;t live in a wealthy part. :lol: No, "of course not"&#33;

Bob the coal miner lived under bridges, and worked 27 hours a day despite that being physically impossible, right? :lol:


By breaking with his class background I mean he&#39;s held lots of proletarian jobs in the service industry and now primarily as a writer to survive. Oh yes, writers are proletarian :lol:

He&#39;s a petit bourgeois pseudo intellectual.

[Leo]

Just one quick point:


Originally posted by ComradeRed
Indeed looking at the statistics of the social composition of 1917 Russia, 80 to 85% of the population was peasantry&#33; And you wish to assert that there was a "workers&#39; revolution" there?&#33;

First of all, can you provide the sources for this?

Secondly, there was a very radical industrial proletariat in all major cities of the Tsarist Empire, not only Petrograd and Moscow but cities like Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Perm, Baku, Tashkent etc. and even in places like Bashkir and Bukhara... Indeed, workers&#39; councils were formed in many of these cities. So I don&#39;t know if the stats are correct but even if the number is something like 80%, 15% to 17.5% of the remaining were workers and while considering the huge Russian population, numerically they were probably not smaller than the industrial proletariat in at least some western countries. I don&#39;t think "Russia had too many peasants so nope, it wasn&#39;t an actual revolution" is a sufficient argument because: a) it is not true as workers&#39; councils took power in quite many industrialized cities so even if one can argue that there wasn&#39;t a revolution in the Russian countryside, there certainly was a revolution in almost all existing urban areas; b) such an argument would prevent one from actually drawing lessons of the experience in Russia, actually analyzing how the bureaucratic bourgeoisie took power from the working class in industrial centers, how the Bolshevik party degenerated and why there was a counter-revolution in Russia; c) by not analyzing the defeat of the working class in Russia, this argument would prevent one from seeing the differences between 1917 and 1919, 1921 and 1923 or 1925 and 1928-9 and finally; d) it would prevent one from making an effective argument in relation to the development of state-capitalism (not in the Cliffite sense, of course) in the USSR and in the whole world as well.

[Rawthentic]

We only disagree on the idea that we&#39;re fine allowing petty bourgeois people into our party because they can be united with, they can fight for socialism and communism and they can uphold the line of proletarian socialism just like Engels who was petty bourgeois did.
Like I&#39;ve shown you with the quotes, how we&#39;ve talked personally, and on PM&#39;s, and also as CR said, the petty-bourgeios class are reactionary and the only reason they join is to further their reactionary position. I explained that to truly be allies, they must break with their class backgrounds and become proletarians themselves, as Marx and Engels said. The only role they saw for petty-bourgeois was as the intellectual slaves of the proletariat, but they attacked those who presented themselves as "leaders" but refused to break with their class backgrounds. And remember, to hold a "proletarian line", you have to be a proletarian. Simple materialism no? Thats why we focus on &#39;educating&#39; our class brothers and sisters to become conscious leaders themselves, not pour our efforts into one comrade.

From the Communist Manifesto, the Petty-Bourgeois Socialism section:


In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that


Oh and yeah, I thought you were referring to the League being "economist" somehow, which you now know we are not.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Leo Uilleann+June 07, 2007 01:53 pm--> (Leo Uilleann &#064; June 07, 2007 01:53 pm)First of all, can you provide the sources for this?[/b]
Certainly:


Originally posted by Source [email protected]
Agricultural employment continued to dominate, at 75-80% of the active populations in Russia and the Balkans, and 55-70% in Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, and Spain. Industrial employment remained below one-fifth of total employment, and industrial output accounted for less than one quarter of GDP by 1910. An Economic History of Twentieth Century Europe, Chapter 1 Section 6 (http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521672689) by Ivan T. Bernard.


Source 2
The peasantry, which still constituted 80 per cent of Russia&#39;s population at the time of the Revolution, had not experienced a marked improvement in its economic position. The Russian Revolution, Chapter 1: The Setting (http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/RussiaFormerSovietUnion/?view=usa&ci=9780192802040&view=usa) by Sheila Fitzpatrick.

There are also a number of other references that are too lengthy for me to quote:
The Awkward Class: Political Sociology of Peasantry in a Developing Society, Russia 1910-1925 by Teodor Shanin (1972).
The Statistics on the Russian Land Commune, 1905-1917 (http://www.jstor.org/view/00376779/di000478/00p00937/0) by Dorothy Atkinson.
And so on.


Secondly, there was a very radical industrial proletariat in all major cities of the Tsarist Empire, not only Petrograd and Moscow but cities like Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Perm, Baku, Tashkent etc. and even in places like Bashkir and Bukhara... Indeed, workers&#39; councils were formed in many of these cities. So I don&#39;t know if the stats are correct but even if the number is something like 80%, 15% to 17.5% of the remaining were workers and while considering the huge Russian population, numerically they were probably not smaller than the industrial proletariat in at least some western countries. One in five people lived in the urban cities, even supposing all of those living in urban environments were industrial proletariat, they&#39;re still by far a minority.

As for how industrialized Russia was, I&#39;ll pull some more statistics from "An Economic History of Twentieth Century Europe": by 1913, land area in square kilometers per kilometer of railroad had the following distribution
Western Core - 10.14 km
Mediterranean - 25.14 km
Central & Eastern Europe - 20.49 km
Russia - 324.17 km

Russia has 32 times less area per kilometer railroad than the Western core, and 13 times less area per kilometer railroad than the Mediterranean countries&#33;

The length of railroads in kilometers per 100,000 inhabitants had the following density distribution:
Western Core - 90.2 km
Mediterranean - 61.0 km
Central & Eastern Europe - 50.4 km
Russia - 42.3 km

This tends to indicate that Russia really hadn&#39;t industrialized all that much by 1913...much less by 1917&#33;

And you wish to suggest that Russia was industrialized?&#33; Perhaps you could present some statistics to back up your argument?


I don&#39;t think "Russia had too many peasants so nope, it wasn&#39;t an actual revolution" is a sufficient argument because: Well hold on, this is a generalization of my position. Russia did have a revolution, a bourgeois revolution.

No one is saying "It wasn&#39;t revolutionary"; what I&#39;m saying is that it wasn&#39;t a workers&#39; revolution.


a) it is not true as workers&#39; councils took power in quite many industrialized cities so even if one can argue that there wasn&#39;t a revolution in the Russian countryside, there certainly was a revolution in almost all existing urban areas; These "worker councils", how big were they (total)? What was the class composition of them?

The workers&#39; were used, like in all bourgeois revolutions, for the bourgeoisie to secure power.

The bourgeoisie then consolidated power with the liquidation of the proletariat from the communist party. I think I gave some statistics here on the dynamics of the composition of the party, but if not I can present some more next time.


b) such an argument would prevent one from actually drawing lessons of the experience in Russia, actually analyzing how the bureaucratic bourgeoisie took power from the working class in industrial centers, how the Bolshevik party degenerated and why there was a counter-revolution in Russia; And this is the only lesson that can be drawn from this?

Perhaps a better one would be go to capitalism, do not pass go, do not collect &#036;200, and cannot go to socialism from a feudal mode of production.


c) by not analyzing the defeat of the working class in Russia, this argument would prevent one from seeing the differences between 1917 and 1919, 1921 and 1923 or 1925 and 1928-9 and finally; This is a mere assertion, there is no logical reason why you cannot do this.


d) it would prevent one from making an effective argument in relation to the development of state-capitalism (not in the Cliffite sense, of course) in the USSR and in the whole world as well. How so?

[Spike]

Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.
How does this correlate to the issue of Soviet military action in Poland during September 1939? You claimed in a misleading manner that the Soviets helped the Germans against the Polish. But the fact of the matter is that the Soviets proceeded to recover predominantly Ukrainian and Belorussian territory from Poland whose government for all intents and purposes did not exist. The Red Army did not take part in coordinated military maneuvres with Germany against Poland.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 04:49 pm
How does this correlate to the issue of Soviet military action in Poland during September 1939? You claimed in a misleading manner that the Soviets helped the Germans against the Polish. But the fact of the matter is that the Soviets proceeded to recover predominantly Ukrainian and Belorussian territory from Poland whose government for all intents and purposes did not exist. The Red Army did not take part in coordinated military maneuvres with Germany against Poland.
You don&#39;t seem to realize that the invasion of Poland was a collaboration between Nazi Germany and the USSR...or did you miss that part?

With Germany being on the Western border of Poland, and the USSR on the Eastern one, that would make both of them working together at the same border physically impossible...or did you miss that too?

The fact that they collaborated in an invasion, a legitimate act of war, on the same side is evidence enough of Stalin&#39;s willingness to work with Nazis.

The two forces loosely planned maneuvers in the sense that they would not cross the newly drawn border.

Why the Nazi officers and the Soviet officers were even in a parade together once the invasion was complete, and you mean to tell me that they did not collaborate? :lol:

[Spike]

You don&#39;t seem to realize that the invasion of Poland was a collaboration between Nazi Germany and the USSR...or did you miss that part?
Germany invaded on 1 September and the USSR entered modern-day western Ukraine and Belorussia on 17 September. This was hardly a military collaboration. I don&#39;t recall the Red Army and German army being placed under a unified military command. There was no mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Germany by which the Soviets would assist Germany in case it was at war with other countries (France and England).

With Germany being on the Western border of Poland, and the USSR on the Eastern one, that would make both of them working together at the same border physically impossible...or did you miss that too?

The fact that they collaborated in an invasion
This is still incorrect. The invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 September 1939 and the entrance by the Red Army into western Ukraine and Belorussia on 17 September were independent developments. The Soviet perspective was that since a viable Polish state no longer existed, any and all treaties with Poland were void.

on the same side is evidence enough of Stalin&#39;s willingness to work with Nazis.
There was no formal military alliance between the USSR and Germany.

Why the Nazi officers and the Soviet officers were even in a parade together once the invasion was complete, and you mean to tell me that they did not collaborate?
Why did the Red Army and German forces engage in military skirmishes in Lviv, etc?

[syndicat]

it is not true as workers&#39; councils took power in quite many industrialized cities so even if one can argue that there wasn&#39;t a revolution in the Russian countryside, there certainly was a revolution in almost all existing urban areas;

However, in the big cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, the soviets of 1917 (unlike the soviets of 1905) were set up on the initiative of leading party members of the intelligentsia. Three of the initial leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet were members of parliament, including Kerensky, who was a lawyer. The Mensheviks, trudnoviks (like Kerensky) and SRs who formed these soviets set them up so that power was concentrated in the executive. The plenary sessions were treated largely as a rubber stamp. That is precisely why the workers had to organize a separate insitution, the factory committee movement, to have an effective vehicle for dealing with the economic crisis of 1917 and dealings with their bosses. The expropriations of a few hundred enterprises were mainly initiated by the factory committees, not the local soviets (there were exceptions of course).

However, the peasantry was revolutionary. As Sheila Fitzpatrick explains, the peasantry held that private ownership of the land was illegitimate. They believed that only God owned the land, forests, etc., and that only those who use the land should have a use-right to it. This is not a capitalist mentality. Also, the village communities still largely controlled distribution of land to peasant households. Although the reforms after the 1905 revolution tried to encourage the development of a prosperous class of independent peasant proprietors, the proportion of peasants owning enough land to hire others to work for them (kulaks) was only 3% in 1917. By 1922 this had dropped to less than 1% (due to seizures of land of the kulaks during the revolution).

Nonetheless, substituting a bureaucratic state administration for popular self-management was helped by the fact that the peasantry was ill-prepared for self-government or to take an active part in the affairs of the country. Half the Russian peasantry was illiterate. There weren&#39;t large-scale peasant unions.

There was a worker revolution and a peasant revolution (seizure of the land) but there was also a coordinator class revolution. I don&#39;t see the system that emerged as capitalist since it wasn&#39;t based on private accumulation of wealth. Also, under the state planning system that had become entrenched by the &#39;30s, allocation of resources was through the central planning apparatus. Market prices were only set as an after throught. Prices were not generated through market governance.

The coordinator class differs from the capitalist class in that its power is based on a relative monopolization of conceptualization and decision-making tasks in the control of social production, and of the labor process. It&#39;s power isn&#39;t based on private accumulation of wealth. This class also exists within capitalism, but as a subordinate class to the capitalists. In the context of the USSR the dominant class was made up of the planning elite, managers of major industrial operations, generals, party apparatchiks.

In Sheila Fitzpatrick&#39;s discussion of the "proletarianization" campaign of the first five-year plan -- a crash program to send party cadres through universities to train engineers and managers loyal to the regime -- Stalin seemed to view it as an upward mobility benefit, for a select group drawn from the soldiers, workers, and peasants. It was this group who were empowered, and during this period the wage differentials between the layer of professionals and managers and the working class ballooned. Wages for workers actually declined during the first five-year plan. Clearly this is a system for the domination and exploitation of labor. It is a class system. I just wouldn&#39;t call it "capitalist". I think it was different enough to merit a different name.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 05:26 pm

You don&#39;t seem to realize that the invasion of Poland was a collaboration between Nazi Germany and the USSR...or did you miss that part?
Germany invaded on 1 September and the USSR entered modern-day western Ukraine and Belorussia on 17 September. This was hardly a military collaboration. I don&#39;t recall the Red Army and German army being placed under a unified military command. There was no mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Germany by which the Soviets would assist Germany in case it was at war with other countries (France and England).
Yes, when two seperate forces collaborate, that means they do everything together...like a married couple :lol:

Working "under a unified military command" does not equate to a military collaboration, I have no clue where you got that notion from.

But perhaps it would be convenient for you to ignore first hand documents like:
Instructions from Ribbentrop to suggest again to Molotov the need for information on Soviet military intentions in Poland. (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/nsr/nsr-03.html#11)

I&#39;d recommend books like The Russo-German Alliance August 1939-June 1941...but you&#39;d write off whatever is recommended to be bourgeois propaganda <_<



With Germany being on the Western border of Poland, and the USSR on the Eastern one, that would make both of them working together at the same border physically impossible...or did you miss that too?

The fact that they collaborated in an invasion
This is still incorrect. The invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 September 1939 and the entrance by the Red Army into western Ukraine and Belorussia on 17 September were independent developments. Germany invaded from the Western border of Poland, the USSR from the Eastern border...that&#39;s kind of well documented. As a matter of fact, it&#39;s exactly what you parroted.

You assert that they were independent...the USSR "just so happened" to find its treaties with Poland invalid, and "just so happened" to take advantage of the situation demonstrates total ignorance of the accord that Germany and the USSR agreed to.

Even when there was a direct quote from the agreement, perhaps it should be broken down for you.

"In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state..." In case Poland suddenly doesn&#39;t exist one day.

"...the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San." Nazi Germany and the USSR will split up Poland.

And countries don&#39;t "suddenly disappear", as I guess you don&#39;t know, they only disappear through military force. Remember the faux Polish attack on Germany on 31 August 1939?

Remember the two telegrams sent to Molotov demanding that the treaty be fulfilled and the USSR invade Poland? (Telegram 1 (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/ns069.htm), Telegram 2 (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/ns073.htm))

And yet despite all this, you assert that it was mere coincidence that the USSR invaded Poland? :lol:

Some people use drugs to decouple themselves from reality, but I guess ignorance is a cheap substitution.


The Soviet perspective was that since a viable Polish state no longer existed, any and all treaties with Poland were void. There is overwhelming first hand evidence to suggest that your impromptu explanation is incorrect.

Besides your impromptu explanation not being sourced, it still has that minor problem of having first hand documents directly contradict.



on the same side is evidence enough of Stalin&#39;s willingness to work with Nazis.There was no formal military alliance between the USSR and Germany. No, of course not, they just engaged in an agreement relating to wartime planning, commitments, or contingencies...which is the definition of a military alliance.

Like it or not, the fact that the USSR helped Nazi Germany with Poland constitutes a military alliance by definition.

Simply denying there was no formal alliance, but there was an agreement relating to wartime planning, commitments, and contingencies (the Soviet Nazi pact had all three) does not change reality.


Why the Nazi officers and the Soviet officers were even in a parade together once the invasion was complete, and you mean to tell me that they did not collaborate? Why did the Red Army and German forces engage in military skirmishes in Lviv, etc? Yes, minor skirmishes constitutes a war, instead of the problems of two independent armies not coordinating movements in detail :lol:

Do you have a source for your assertion of what happened?

[Leo]

Agricultural employment continued to dominate, at 75-80% of the active populations in Russia and the Balkans

Thank you, so the number is lesser than 80%.


One in five people lived in the urban cities, even supposing all of those living in urban environments were industrial proletariat, they&#39;re still by far a minority.

Yes, that is sort of obvious :rolleyes: Yet, as I said, %20 of Russia is, considering how many people lived in Russia, almost as big as the population of some Western countries.


This tends to indicate that Russia really hadn&#39;t industrialized all that much by 1913

Well, I think we agree that 75-80% were peasants, so okay, it is sort-of natural that there are less railways.

This doesn&#39;t indicate that there weren&#39;t railroads between major cities though, nor does it indicate that major cities were not industrialized&#33;


And you wish to suggest that Russia was industrialized?&#33;

I am saying that all major cities were industrialized, yes.


Perhaps you could present some statistics to back up your argument?

Before that, I will suggest you to read Dostoevsky and Gorky for starters. Afterwards, if you still want me to pull out some statistics, I can dig up my books for statistics about the working class in the Russian Empire.


Well hold on, this is a generalization of my position. Russia did have a revolution, a bourgeois revolution.

No one is saying "It wasn&#39;t revolutionary"; what I&#39;m saying is that it wasn&#39;t a workers&#39; revolution.

In the major cities (and remember, that was where the government was) it was. I will suggest you to read John Reed&#39;s Ten Days That Shook the World for starters.


These "worker councils", how big were they (total)?

Quite big in all major cities.


What was the class composition of them?

I&#39;m gonna go ahead and say that 98% workers, because of the name "workers&#39; councils".


The workers&#39; were used, like in all bourgeois revolutions, for the bourgeoisie to secure power.

This approach, of course, completely ignores the fact that it was the workers&#39; councils that took power, that for at least two years, means of production were in direct control of the workers (under the direction of factory committees), that industrial workers were very class conscious, that they actively tried to struggle against the bourgeoisie trying to take their power and so forth.

Besides the Russian regime was already capitalist, even before the February Revolution, even before 1905, so they did not really need a bourgeois revolution. In fact there weren&#39;t any real bourgeois revolutions in the 20th century; it was "the epoch of imperialism" instead of "the epoch of bourgeois revolutions".


The bourgeoisie then consolidated power with the liquidation of the proletariat from the communist party. I think I gave some statistics here on the dynamics of the composition of the party, but if not I can present some more next time.

You don&#39;t have to - it is well known that in a period of several years the party membership changed from 2/3 workers to 2/3 bureaucrats&#33; Yet that was also when the bourgeoisie was taking power using the party and the "workers&#39; and peasants state", from the proletariat.


And this is the only lesson that can be drawn from this?

There wasn&#39;t any lessons explained there, it was only said that this approach would prevent one from drawing the necessary lessons.


Perhaps a better one would be go to capitalism, do not pass go, do not collect &#036;200, and cannot go to socialism from a feudal mode of production.

Every now and then, I feel the need to draw those very often quoted words from Marx when this "it was too feudal" argument comes up. In 1881, Marx says in First Draft of Letter To Vera Zasulich: "To save the Russian commune, a Russian revolution is needed (...) If revolution comes at the opportune moment, if it concentrates all its forces so as to allow the rural commune full scope, the latter will soon develop as an element of regeneration in Russian society and an element of superiority over the countries enslaved by the capitalist system."
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...3/zasulich1.htm )

In the 1882 Preface to the Russian language version of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels say that: "The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development."
(http://marx.org/archive/marx/works/1848/co...tm#preface-1882 )

Now, all those were written in 1880ies, so add to that the growing industrial proletaiat (which was not small at all, 20% of the Russian population is huge)...

The biggest lesson to be drawn is that counter-revolution is inevitable when a proletarian revolution fails to expand and is stuck in one part of the world.


This is a mere assertion, there is no logical reason why you cannot do this.

There is, because you see all of them as almost the same thing. You miss the counter-revolution, all this bullshit about "socialism in one country" and so forth. To you it is all capitalism and everything happened for the capitalists.


How so?

Because you regard it as an equivalent of the French Revolution&#33; The revolution did not happen because the bourgeoisie was opposed to the Tsar or to Kerensky&#33;

This approach seems very patronizing and un-materialist to me, seeing the workers involved in the October Revolution as mere sheep, under the control of the secret capitalist conspirators of the Bolshevik Party. You completely undermine all the class struggle, workers&#39; control etc. which had been going on in Russia.

[Hiero]

Originally posted by ComradeRed+June 07, 2007 07:09 am--> (ComradeRed @ June 07, 2007 07:09 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 10:30 am

to the fact that the Soviets helped the Nazis.
That is not a fact but is a lie propagated by western imperialist and Polish nationalist historiography. The Soviet Union did not send troops to the west of Poland in order to help the Germans in getting Poland to submit. The Soviet Union simply sent troops in the context of Poland&#39;s imminent defeat.
Just ignore the fact that it was agreed upon in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; or is the treaty itself "bourgeois propaganda generated by Polish nationalist historians"? :lol:

Or did you not read the following article:
Molotov&#045;Ribbentrop Pact
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement. Translation of the Pact. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html). [/b]
What was the alternative?

Well it is quite obvious, don&#39;t sign a "treaty" Poland is invaded by Nazi Germany, and then invades the USSR from a greater advantage point. Nazi Germany has a greater chance of wining WW2.

I am glad the USSR had the right idea and foresight to stall the Nazi advance halfway in Poland. It&#39;s called politics, you should check it out one time.

[The Author]

Then you have to take into account that the U.S.S.R. was fighting the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khalkin_Gol#August:_Zhukov.27s_strike) as well. I mean, after all, the last thing we need is a two-front war. We know how two-front wars turn out just by looking at the performance of the Germans in both World Wars...

This is something that never seems to enter the picture when some of the "communists" around here wave the "bloody shirt" about the Non-Aggression Pact and its supposed "collaborationist" nature.

[syndicat]

Leo:
This approach, of course, completely ignores the fact that it was the workers&#39; councils that took power, that for at least two years, means of production were in direct control of the workers (under the direction of factory committees), that industrial workers were very class conscious, that they actively tried to struggle against the bourgeoisie trying to take their power and so forth.


This isn&#39;t true. Only a few hundred enterprises were expropriated and under
control of the factory committees. Lenin&#39;s "Workers Control" decree did not permit workers to do this but only to check management, demand they "open the books". Workers acted against the policy of the Bolsheviks when they took over. The Bolsheviks opposed direct expropriation by the workers committees. Moreover, the factory committees were not the same thing as the soviets. When you say the "workers councils" took power, are you referring to the soviets or the factory committees? The soviets were not really controlled by the workers, tho they were elected by them, altho the Bolsheviks began stacking them with representatives of other organizations such as trade union bureaucracies, soldier organizations. By June 1918 the directly elected worker reps in St. Petersburg were a minority of the soviet. by the spring of 1918 workers were complaining that the factory committees were out of touch and hadn&#39;t been re-elected since the fall of 1918.

[Leo]

Moreover, the factory committees were not the same thing as the soviets. When you say the "workers councils" took power, are you referring to the soviets or the factory committees?

I refer to the soviets, it literally means workers&#39; soviet literally means workers&#39; council.


The soviets were not really controlled by the workers, tho they were elected by them

At the beginning, they were controlled by the workers; workers didn&#39;t simply elect a "politician", they elected delegates.

Anyway, I would suggest you to read this article for a more detailed analysis of the situation:

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/300/anar...workers-control (http://en.internationalism.org/wr/300/anarchism-and-workers-control)

[Spike]

Yes, when two seperate forces collaborate, that means they do everything together...like a married couple
England and France were allies in World War I. They were allies in World War II. Their relationship was nothing like that of the USSR and Germany in 1939-40.

Working "under a unified military command" does not equate to a military collaboration
It equates to a military alliance. Case in point is United Arab Republic, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in 1967.

I&#39;d recommend books like The Russo-German Alliance August 1939-June 1941...but you&#39;d write off whatever is recommended to be bourgeois propaganda
The title of that monograph discredits itself because no such alliance existed at that time. This is typical western propaganda which tries slanderously to equate the USSR to the Nazis. Fact of the matter is the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 1939 was little different from the 1926 Treaty of Berlin signed between USSR and Weimar Germany.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/f.../berlin_001.htm (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/formulti/berlin_001.htm)
Should one of the Contracting Parties, despite its peaceful attitude, be attacked by one or more third Powers, the other Contracting Party shall observe neutrality for the whole of the duration of the conflict.

Germany invaded from the Western border of Poland, the USSR from the Eastern border...that&#39;s kind of well documented. As a matter of fact, it&#39;s exactly what you parroted.
That is still a distortion of the situation. Germany invaded on 1 September 1939 whereas the Red Army entered Poland&#39;s predominantly Ukrainian and Belorussian eastern provinces on 17 September 1939, encountering virtually no resistence. It is dubious whether the Red Army maneuvres even indirectly helped Germany. Clearly Germany needed no help in getting Poland to submit. The USSR intervened in the context of the imminent collapse of Poland. The Soviet intervention aimed at recovering provinces belonging to today&#39;s Ukraine and Belorussia lost through the humiliating 1921 Treaty of Riga rather than coming to the aid of Germany.

the USSR "just so happened" to find its treaties with Poland invalid, and "just so happened" to take advantage of the situation demonstrates total ignorance of the accord that Germany and the USSR agreed to.
Even still, diplomatic correspondence does not fit the conditions necessary for a military alliance. Just because two countries reach an agreement on borders, customs, etc it does not mean that they enter an alliance.

"...the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San." Nazi Germany and the USSR will split up Poland.
Diplomatic correspondence and discussions on a border adjustment do not equate to an alliance. When the Federal Republic of Germany finally acknowledged the Oder-Neisse border, it did not suddenly become an ally of Poland.

Remember the faux Polish attack on Germany on 31 August 1939?
Germany&#39;s actions against Poland, England, and France were virtuous. Poland maintained an immoral occupation over German provinces Posen, West Preussen, and Upper Silesia through the criminal Treaty of Versailles. Only when Germany attacked the USSR breaking the non-aggression pact did it deserve condemnation.

And yet despite all this, you assert that it was mere coincidence that the USSR invaded Poland?
My point is that the Red Army intervention in the eastern provinces did not effect the outcome of the war. This intervention took place when the Polish state failed to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

No, of course not, they just engaged in an agreement relating to wartime planning, commitments, or contingencies...which is the definition of a military alliance.
The definition of a military alliance includes mutual assistance. Never was the USSR obliged to assist Germany if the latter was at war with other countries.

Like it or not, the fact that the USSR helped Nazi Germany with Poland constitutes a military alliance by definition.
The notion that the Red Army intervention in Poland&#39;s eastern provinces constituted assistance to Germany is disputable. As far as the USSR was concerned it was recovering territory robbed by Poland in 1919-21 from Soviet Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania. The USSR was helping itself rather than helping Germany. Unless the USSR were entitled to recover its territory from Poland, it would be dubious that the USSR would assist Germany. As we saw, the USSR did not participate in Germany&#39;s military actions against France and the Balkans because the USSR would not benefit from them.

Do you have a source for your assertion of what happened?
Not at the moment. I came across a sourced description of these skirmishes on Axis History Forum but I am unable to locate it.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Spike+June 08, 2007 09:05 am--> (Spike &#064; June 08, 2007 09:05 am)
Yes, when two seperate forces collaborate, that means they do everything together...like a married couple
England and France were allies in World War I. They were allies in World War II. Their relationship was nothing like that of the USSR and Germany in 1939-40.[/b]
Yes...the alliance that England and France had is not the only example of an alliance. :rolleyes:



Working "under a unified military command" does not equate to a military collaboration
It equates to a military alliance. Case in point is United Arab Republic, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in 1967. Sometimes, but not always; unless you would like to change the definition of a military alliance.

You so blissfully ignore the fact that these two powers, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, worked together in an invasion of Poland.



I&#39;d recommend books like The Russo-German Alliance August 1939-June 1941...but you&#39;d write off whatever is recommended to be bourgeois propaganda The title of that monograph discredits itself because no such alliance existed at that time. Because you say so, no less.

You have asserted it, but empirical records tend to disagree with you.

Like it or not, the Soviets and Nazis coordinated an attack on Poland in a decentralized manner; by virtue of its being decentralized does not change the fact they worked together.

You have asserted that there is a difference, but have not provided any reasoning why; Ole Holsti, Terrence Hopmann, and John Sullivan in Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances (1973) have gone through this matter (what constitutes an alliance, that is) rather thoroughly...coincidentally they define it as involving three things:
1) a formal treaty – open or secret
2) it must be directly concerned with national security issues
3) the partners must be nation-states
Number (2) deals with two countries agreeing to invade a country, like Nazi Germany and the USSR agreeing to invade Poland; defense of a country; contingencies; etc.

No doubt you will write them off as bourgeois reactionary historians, or something, but you are choosing to redefine the concept of an alliance to suite your needs. That&#39;s called sophistry.


This is typical western propaganda which tries slanderously to equate the USSR to the Nazis. Because that&#39;s what happened.

You have asserted otherwise a number of times, but you provide no proof&#33; You argument is totally decoupled from reality, as "hinted" by your complete disregard for sources.


Fact of the matter is the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 1939 was little different from the 1926 Treaty of Berlin signed between USSR and Weimar Germany.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/f.../berlin_001.htm (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/formulti/berlin_001.htm)
Should one of the Contracting Parties, despite its peaceful attitude, be attacked by one or more third Powers, the other Contracting Party shall observe neutrality for the whole of the duration of the conflict. Except there&#39;s no part about dividing Poland...and there was no military agreement to invade Poland.

Why do you suppose they would just randomly put that in there? "If Poland doesn&#39;t exist one day. the USSR and Germany will divide up Polish territory", what does that indicate?

They just put that in there for fun?

Why is it that you disregard the telegrams sent that instruct Molotov, et al., to invade Poland?

Why is it that you don&#39;t even cite a single source you back up your wacky, contrived theory?

You&#39;re just blowing smoke out of your ass trying to find an explanation that involves the USSR not working with Nazi Germany, and your not doing it well.



Germany invaded from the Western border of Poland, the USSR from the Eastern border...that&#39;s kind of well documented. As a matter of fact, it&#39;s exactly what you parroted.
That is still a distortion of the situation. Germany invaded on 1 September 1939 whereas the Red Army entered Poland&#39;s predominantly Ukrainian and Belorussian eastern provinces on 17 September 1939, encountering virtually no resistence. Are you even reading what I&#39;m writing?

So you think that the Soviets entered on the Western border of Poland and the Germans on the Eastern border?

You go off on this irrelevant rant on how the Soviets entered 16 days later (as if this really makes a difference to where the Soviets and Germans entered from).


It is dubious whether the Red Army maneuvres even indirectly helped Germany. Clearly Germany needed no help in getting Poland to submit. The USSR intervened in the context of the imminent collapse of Poland. The Soviet intervention aimed at recovering provinces belonging to today&#39;s Ukraine and Belorussia lost through the humiliating 1921 Treaty of Riga rather than coming to the aid of Germany. While it is true that the Polish Army sent most (all?) of its infantry to deal with the Nazis, asserting baselessly, without any evidence that "The USSR intervened in the context of the imminent collapse of Poland" is complete bollocks.

The USSR intervened as was with their agreement with Nazi Germany. This is documented in every textbook on the subject of World War 2.

The reason why the Soviets worked with the Nazis may possibly be your explanation...but to assert that the Soviets did not plan to invade Poland because of the treaty signed a few weeks earlier demonstrates encyclopedic ignorance on the subject.

Read Martin Gilbert&#39;s The Second World War; or more easily, just write it off as "bourgeois propaganda" <_<



the USSR "just so happened" to find its treaties with Poland invalid, and "just so happened" to take advantage of the situation demonstrates total ignorance of the accord that Germany and the USSR agreed to.Even still, diplomatic correspondence does not fit the conditions necessary for a military alliance. Just because two countries reach an agreement on borders, customs, etc it does not mean that they enter an alliance. Your ignorance is encyclopedic.

These two nations agreed to go to war with Poland, that&#39;s a military alliance by definition.

You now would like to change the definition of a military alliance, but I&#39;m using the standard definition: "A military alliance is an agreement between two, or more, military factions; related to wartime planning, commitments, or contingencies."

Two countries committed to invading Poland constitutes a military alliance.



"...the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San." Nazi Germany and the USSR will split up Poland.Diplomatic correspondence and discussions on a border adjustment do not equate to an alliance. When the Federal Republic of Germany finally acknowledged the Oder-Neisse border, it did not suddenly become an ally of Poland. "Agreements on how to divide up conquered territory does not make an alliance" :lol:



Remember the faux Polish attack on Germany on 31 August 1939?
Germany&#39;s actions against Poland, England, and France were virtuous. I&#39;m glad you came out of the closet as a Nazi sympathizer.


Poland maintained an immoral occupation over German provinces Posen, West Preussen, and Upper Silesia through the criminal Treaty of Versailles. Adolf Hitler used the same line, coincidence?


Only when Germany attacked the USSR breaking the non-aggression pact did it deserve condemnation. :lol: Yes, only because the Nazis attacked the USSR did it deserve condemnation...not because of the atrocities of the concentration camps, but because it attacked "the motherland".



And yet despite all this, you assert that it was mere coincidence that the USSR invaded Poland?
My point is that the Red Army intervention in the eastern provinces did not effect the outcome of the war. This intervention took place when the Polish state failed to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Have you even read a book on the subject?

There is absolutely no proof of this baseless impromptu explanation of yours at all.

You haven&#39;t even supplied evidence, just apologies and excuses for what the USSR did.

You derive this from "pure reason" alone, completely decoupled from reality. Your unwillingness to cite even a single source is overwhelming evidence for this.



No, of course not, they just engaged in an agreement relating to wartime planning, commitments, or contingencies...which is the definition of a military alliance.
The definition of a military alliance includes mutual assistance. Never was the USSR obliged to assist Germany if the latter was at war with other countries. Ole Holsti, Terrence Hopmann, and John Sullivan in Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances (1973) disagrees with your impromptu definition.



Like it or not, the fact that the USSR helped Nazi Germany with Poland constitutes a military alliance by definition.
The notion that the Red Army intervention in Poland&#39;s eastern provinces constituted assistance to Germany is disputable. So far by you alone; you haven&#39;t cited any reputable third party sources.

As far as the historians are concerned, it&#39;s as disputable as saying "Air is what goes in the lungs".

You don&#39;t seem satisfied with first hand documents and reports, attempting to refute them with a naive literalist approach of interpreting them.


As far as the USSR was concerned it was recovering territory robbed by Poland in 1919-21 from Soviet Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania. The USSR was helping itself rather than helping Germany. Unless the USSR were entitled to recover its territory from Poland, it would be dubious that the USSR would assist Germany. As we saw, the USSR did not participate in Germany&#39;s military actions against France and the Balkans because the USSR would not benefit from them. So now your justifying the USSR working with the Nazis...which they supposedly didn&#39;t do.

As I have said repeatedly the justifications are irrelevant, right or wrong, the fact that the USSR worked with Nazi Germany is enough evidence of Stalin working with the Nazis.


Not at the moment. I came across a sourced description of these skirmishes on Axis History Forum but I am unable to locate it. Considering how "well" sourced your other assertions are, I am going to reject this until it is sourced...along with the other "novel" assertions.

Hiero:

Hiero
What was the alternative?

Well it is quite obvious, don&#39;t sign a "treaty" Poland is invaded by Nazi Germany, and then invades the USSR from a greater advantage point. Nazi Germany has a greater chance of wining WW2.

I am glad the USSR had the right idea and foresight to stall the Nazi advance halfway in Poland. It&#39;s called politics, you should check it out one time. I see you completely miss the point entirely.

You are justifying the Soviets working with the Nazis...whether the justification is right or wrong is irrelevant to the fact the Soviets worked with the Nazis.

That&#39;s my only point on the issue of Stalin at the moment.

The significance of this point is it demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Stalinists (e.g. Intelligitimate) saying "Well, you are working with fascists, bourgeois scum if you believe in State Capitalism...".

It&#39;s called "logic", you should try looking it up some time...

[syndicat]

Germany&#39;s actions against Poland, England, and France were virtuous. Poland maintained an immoral occupation over German provinces Posen, West Preussen, and Upper Silesia through the criminal Treaty of Versailles. Only when Germany attacked the USSR breaking the non-aggression pact did it deserve condemnation.

Posen (Poznan) and West Prussia were not occupied by Poland in 1939.

Also, the German population of the east German provinces of Silesia and Pomerania was a minority. This was an effect of the medieval German conquest of these regions. In the &#39;30s if you were to go about 50 miles east of Berlin, you&#39;d be in territory where the peasants spoke slavic languages. The population of the southern half of East Prussia were Poles who had been converted to Protestantism through being a part of Germany. Thus there was a large slavic population trapped in easern Germany due to German conquest. This was the justification for transferring the southern half of East Prussia plus Gdansk, Pomerania (including Poznan) and Silesia to Poland after World War II.

The Polish region occupied by the USSR through its pact with Germany didn&#39;t include only Buelorussian and Ukrainian areas. Moreover, being threatened or attacked from the east assisted the Germans in their defeat of the Polish army.

[Intelligitimate]

"The significance of this point is it demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Stalinists (e.g. Intelligitimate) saying "Well, you are working with fascists, bourgeois scum if you believe in State Capitalism...".

I never said that, which shows just how willing you are to lie.

[Rawthentic]

The more ComradeRed talks about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the stupider he looks.
He has been providing strong arguments.

Have you?.....

[Invader Zim]

Germany&#39;s actions against Poland, England, and France were virtuous. Poland maintained an immoral occupation over German provinces Posen, West Preussen, and Upper Silesia through the criminal Treaty of Versailles. Only when Germany attacked the USSR breaking the non-aggression pact did it deserve condemnation.

Based on this gem I am going to assume you know nothing of history. For example the Second Reich never contained Austria, Bismark made sure of that. Also the Second Reich never controlled the lands that would become Czechoslovakia in 1918. Six months after the Munich agreement Germany had invaded Bohemia and Moravia and only a little time after that Czechoslovakia had lost its autonomy. Hitler had not just broken Versailles but gone well beyond any legitimate grievences that Germany may have had. This was all before the invasion of the Soviet Union.

My advice to you would be to get a clue before making an ass of your self.

[Spike]

Like it or not, the Soviets and Nazis coordinated an attack on Poland in a decentralized manner; by virtue of its being decentralized does not change the fact they worked together.
This is false. The Soviets and Germans did not simultaneously enter Polish territory. If the USSR was truly in an alliance with Germany then it would have sent its military into Poland on 1 September rather than two and a half weeks later. The entry into former Polish territory by the Red Army was purely an independent maneuver by the Soviet Union. You misleadingly claim that the USSR and Germany were allies even though the USSR did not contribute to Germany&#39;s military campaigns against England, France, or the countries of the Balkans. By your logic it can be said that Poland was an ally of Germany because it proceeded to take Czechoslavak territory following the "Münich Agreement".

Except there&#39;s no part about dividing Poland...and there was no military agreement to invade Poland.
Except Poland was not divided because Poland was not a genuine nation state. In the interwar period Poland included eastern provinces inhabited by Ukrainians and Belorussians stolen by the Warsaw regime in 1919-21. Even in the western provinces touching Germany the population was mixed Polish-German.

"The USSR intervened in the context of the imminent collapse of Poland" is complete bollocks.
Read history. By the 17th of September Warsaw had already been laid to siege and one-third of Polish territory was occupied by the Germans. Since the western countries did nothing to help Poland in this period, Poland stood no chance in repulsing the Germans.

These two nations agreed to go to war with Poland, that&#39;s a military alliance by definition.
No, it isn&#39;t. A military alliance requires mutual assistance. The USSR was under no obligiation to aid Germany if it were at war with England or France. If Germany attacked Turkey, the USSR would have been legally able to assist Turkey without violating the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. Anna Louise Strong wrote:

"The nonaggression pact was not an alliance. The USSR did not sign with Hitler the type of mutual assistance pact she had offered to Britain and France. She signed a pact practically similar in form to the various nonaggression pacts she had been signing for fifteen years. It was not even mutually exclusive. It did not preclude the signing of similar pacts with Britain and France. Without violating the pact, the Soviet Union was free to oppose, even by armed force, a German attack on Turkey or Yugoslavia. She had agreed not to take part part in aggression against Germany, but had promised nothing about resisting an aggression the Nazis might start. We shall see that the Soviet Union actually did resist such aggressions without violating the pact.The USSR never became the "arsenal" for Germany in anything like the sense in which America, while still technically neutral, became the arsenal for Great Britain. America has even been the arsenal for Japan in her war against China to a far greater extent than the USSR ever was for Germany that could be classed as a war commodity was oil; the highest foreign guesses assume that the Soviets may possibly have sent as much as a million tons. America&#39;s supply of oil to Japan even under the government licensing system was more than three times as much."

Two countries committed to invading Poland constitutes a military alliance.
Except that is not what happened. Germany invaded Poland. In the context of the absence of sovereignty of Poland, the USSR entered the eastern provinces nearly three weeks later when Warsaw had already been laid to siege.

For example the Second Reich never contained Austria, Bismark made sure of that. Also the Second Reich never controlled the lands that would become Czechoslovakia in 1918.
I said nothing about Austria, Bohemia, or Moravia.This demonstrates that you have no idea what issue is about. I was instead talking about West Preussen, Posen, and parts of Upper Silesia. Parts of Upper Silesia were given to Poland even though a referendum held after the war showed that the population favored Germany.

the alliance that England and France had is not the only example of an alliance.
Mutual assistance is the basic requirement of a military alliance. Dividing, exchanging, and agreeing to territorial adjustments does not constitute an alliance.

You so blissfully ignore the fact that these two powers, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, worked together in an invasion of Poland.
No, they didn&#39;t. Between 1-17 September there was not even a Soviet presence in Poland. The parts of former Polish territory the USSR did enter did not have a German presence. The USSR entered territory stolen by the Polish because the Polish state capable of defending its sovereignty for all intents and purposes ceased to exist.

Why is it that you disregard the telegrams sent that instruct Molotov, et al., to invade Poland?
Because diplomatic correspondence does not equate to a military alliance.


Why is it that you don&#39;t even cite a single source you back up your wacky, contrived theory?
There is nothing at all extraordinary about my views. A military alliance either requires or involves mutual assistance, coordinated military maneuvres, and


You&#39;re just blowing smoke out of your ass trying to find an explanation that involves the USSR not working with Nazi Germany, and your not doing it well.
The USSR was not working with Germany but instead was acting independently.


"The USSR intervened in the context of the imminent collapse of Poland" is complete bollocks.
Not at all. Molotov even said that the Polish state in Warsaw no longer existed which was correct. Remember that Warsaw had been laid to siege by the time the Red Army entered the eastern provinces.

The USSR intervened as was with their agreement with Nazi Germany. This is documented in every textbook on the subject of World War 2.
The USSR intervened because Polish sovereignty no longer existed and to undo the effects of the unfair 1921 Treaty of Riga. The USSR was not concerned about helping Germany but was instead interested in its own national security.

but to assert that the Soviets did not plan to invade Poland because of the treaty signed a few weeks earlier demonstrates encyclopedic ignorance on the subject.
Why would the Soviet Union want to help Germany? They entered the eastern provinces solely out of their own national security concerns.

These two nations agreed to go to war with Poland, that&#39;s a military alliance by definition.
Once again, a military alliance requires mutual assistance. What part of agreements reached between the Soviet Union and Germany require each country to assist one another in case another was attacked?

I&#39;m glad you came out of the closet as a Nazi sympathizer.
It&#39;s unfortunate that a discussion has to degenerate into this kind of deranged ad hominem.

You don&#39;t seem satisfied with first hand documents and reports, attempting to refute them with a naive literalist approach of interpreting them.
You are not citing anything unfamiliar. But those fail to relate to the issue of a military alliance. Having diplomatic correspondence with another country on border adjustments does not constitute a military alliance.

As I have said repeatedly the justifications are irrelevant, right or wrong, the fact that the USSR worked with Nazi Germany is enough evidence of Stalin working with the Nazis.
The USSR did not work together with the German military. Demonstrate a single instance when German and Soviet forces together engaged in military operations against Poland. The two forces even engaged in various military clashes near Lviv, destroying your absurd theory that the two were in a military alliance.

Considering how "well" sourced your other assertions are, I am going to reject this until it is sourced...along with the other "novel" assertions.
I don&#39;t have to back up something with a source unless I am stating little known facts. You hold the opinion that a military alliance is something broad including border adjustments of "conquered territory" whereas I find it to be something narrow i.e mutual assistance. World War I developed largely as a result of secret treaties pleding mutual assistance. Thus, Germany was obliged to assist Austria and Russia was obliged to assist Serbia. But neither the USSR nor Germany were ever obliged to assist one another in case of an attack by another country.

You are justifying the Soviets working with the Nazis...whether the justification is right or wrong is irrelevant to the fact the Soviets worked with the Nazis.
History requires analysis and context. Your assertion "The USSR was in a military alliance with Nazi Germany" is standard distortive agitprop espoused by unscholarly rubbish like "The Black Book of Communism". When history fails to analyze and contextualize, it is indistinguishable from agitprop.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Intelligitimate+June 09, 2007 09:08 am--> (Intelligitimate &#064; June 09, 2007 09:08 am)
"The significance of this point is it demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Stalinists (e.g. Intelligitimate) saying "Well, you are working with fascists, bourgeois scum if you believe in State Capitalism...".

I never said that, which shows just how willing you are to lie.[/b]

Originally posted by [email protected]
When you line up with the bourgeoisie, the fascists, and the liberals, you&#39;d think you might get the impression you&#39;re on the wrong side, no? Perhaps you should try remembering your arguments?


Spike
This is false. The Soviets and Germans did not simultaneously enter Polish territory. Not all coordinated attacks are synchronized.

Some times they are, other times they&#39;re not.


If the USSR was truly in an alliance with Germany then it would have sent its military into Poland on 1 September rather than two and a half weeks later. Why ever so?


The entry into former Polish territory by the Red Army was purely an independent maneuver by the Soviet Union. You have asserted this repeatedly but have provided no evidence for this.

As a matter of fact, the evidence indicates otherwise.

Then again, all those historians are merely bourgeois propagandists conspiring against the USSR, right? :lol:


ou misleadingly claim that the USSR and Germany were allies even though the USSR did not contribute to Germany&#39;s military campaigns against England, France, or the countries of the Balkans. The USSR didn&#39;t have to, since they never agreed to it.

The only thing the USSR agreed to was to help the Nazis with their invasion of Germany.

You wish to redefine exactly what an alliance is, but a joint attack on an enemy through an accord is an alliance by definition.

The reasoning "Well, the allies were an alliance, so all alliances must look like the allies" is like saying "All trout are fish, so therefore all fish are trout".


By your logic it can be said that Poland was an ally of Germany because it proceeded to take Czechoslavak territory following the "Münich Agreement". No, Poland didn&#39;t militarily invade Czechoslavakia.

What happened was that the UK and France agreed to dissolve Czechoslavakia, and it was consequently split between Poland, Germany, and Hungary.

Perhaps you should try reading a history book to make sure you get your facts straight.


Except Poland was not divided because Poland was not a genuine nation state. In the interwar period Poland included eastern provinces inhabited by Ukrainians and Belorussians stolen by the Warsaw regime in 1919-21. Even in the western provinces touching Germany the population was mixed Polish-German. Romania annexed Belorussia too, or did you miss that part too?

It would be geographically impossible for Poland to "steal land" from the Ukraine while being one contiguous country...which according to maps from the 1930s Poland was.


Read history. :lol: Perhaps you should follow your own advice.


By the 17th of September Warsaw had already been laid to siege and one-third of Polish territory was occupied by the Germans. Since the western countries did nothing to help Poland in this period, Poland stood no chance in repulsing the Germans. You really haven&#39;t proven anything with this; you haven&#39;t even provided evidence to counter the first hand evidence of the accord between the USSR and Nazi Germany to invade Poland.

Your impromptu explanation is pulled from your ass and completely decoupled from reality.


No, it isn&#39;t. A military alliance requires mutual assistance. Not by definition.


Anna Louise Strong wrote: Oh, so your only evidence is from a self accredited Soviet propagandist.

Good to know.


Except that is not what happened. Germany invaded Poland. In the context of the absence of sovereignty of Poland, the USSR entered the eastern provinces nearly three weeks later when Warsaw had already been laid to siege. Yes, you&#39;ve pulled this impromptu explanation from you ass before, but you haven&#39;t even provided evidence of this.


I said nothing about Austria, Bohemia, or Moravia.This demonstrates that you have no idea what issue is about. I was instead talking about West Preussen, Posen, and parts of Upper Silesia. Parts of Upper Silesia were given to Poland even though a referendum held after the war showed that the population favored Germany. I&#39;m not sure who you are quoting here since this passage was not from my post at all; I assume it&#39;s syndicat or invader Zim?

And he said "second Reich" genius, not third <_<


Mutual assistance is the basic requirement of a military alliance. Dividing, exchanging, and agreeing to territorial adjustments does not constitute an alliance. Sophistry; what do you think "dividing, exchanging, and agreeing to territorial adjustments" through a coordinated military action involving armies from all parties is?

You make the assertion this now involves a merged leadership and mixing of troops, which is not necessary.


Because diplomatic correspondence does not equate to a military alliance. Instructions to invade a country is not mutual military assistance&#33; :lol:

You&#39;re proving yourself too ignorant to deal with.

You don&#39;t even cite sources, you can&#39;t reason with your own definitions, and you demonstrate a vast ignorance of sequential events in the invasion of Poland.

The only "facts" that you have are pulled from your ass, when asked to present sources you cannot even do that. This tends to indicate that you&#39;re explanations are full of shit.

if you cannot even provide evidence and cite sources to back up your impromptu explanations, don&#39;t bother replying.

[Invader Zim]

Your assertion "The USSR was in a military alliance with Nazi Germany" is standard distortive agitprop espoused by unscholarly rubbish like "The Black Book of Communism".

While I believe there have been inflations to the figures espouced in said work, which have been exposed by later perhaps better studies I don&#39;t think that Conquest can be described as unscholarly, despite been a rather unpleasant neo-con (as pointed out by Richard Evans). More worringly from the position of the Stalinist, many historians with form leftwing credentials have backed the statistics of individuals such as Conquest.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It&#39;s ashame that this thread has gone so far off-topic to discussing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

[FYI, one should really read into the anti-Communist (and I use the BIG "C" here) machinations that justified that pact. Simply put, Stalin wanted to contain Hitler and was the first to propose such (ironically, something like that would be used after WWII against HIM). The Western powers, in their anti-Communist hysteria, appeased Hitler instead, thinking him an anti-Communist pawn. Stalin, seeing through this crap of Western rejection ("What? No chair for me?" says a cartoon), takes steps to have a non-aggression pact with Hitler in an effort to have the West&#39;s efforts backfire on them - and succeeds (so much for that Viktor Suvurov and his conspiracy theory of Stalin&#39;s alleged plans for backstabbing Hitler in 1941).]

Back on topic:


SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY

The treaty of Brest-Livtosk of 1918, which pulled Russia out of World War I, also surrendered a very large amount of the Ukraine to the Austro-Hungarians. Obviously, there was no potential of continuing a conventional war (especially as the Bolsheviks had used the slogan "peace, bread, land" to win mass support).

Um, the Bolsheviks were trapped between a rock and a hard place: continuing the IMPERIALIST war (thus themselves becoming guilty of what they accused the Second International&#39;s social-chauvinist parties of doing), or pulling out and getting condemned by ultra-left groups.

Alas, you could have raised the much more credible issue of Finland. There, I think, did a Bolshevik cop-out to Finnish workers occur (and so close to Petrograd).


The second point worth considering about Lenin&#39;s internationalism is his insistence from 1918 onwards, that the task was to build "state capitalism, as "If we introduced state capitalism in approximately 6 months&#39; time we would achieve a great success..".[1] He was also to say "Socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people". [2] This calls into question Lenin&#39;s concept of socialism.

You like Lenin&#39;s agitational sound-bites too much, yet the bulk of his work on state capitalism differentiates between what I call "primitive stamocap" (the only option for Russia&#39;s development), "revolutionary stamocap" (the proper DOTP, with no poor peasants as a class because of industrial farming), and proper socialism.


In 1918 also a faction of the Bolshevik party critical of the party&#39;s introduction of &#39;Taylorism&#39; (the use of piece work and time & motion studies to measure the output of each worker, essentially the science of sweat extraction) around the journal Kommunist were forced out of Leningrad when the majority of the Leningrad party conference supported Lenin&#39;s demand "that the adherents of Kommunist cease their separate organisational existence". [5]

You and your precious site don&#39;t have the facts straight, unfortunately. First, the concept of scientific management ("Taylorism") was and is a helluva lot more progressive than the immediate post-feudal relations. This "Taylorism" is one of more extreme phenomena within the whole socialisation of production under CAPITALISM (instead of production for one&#39;s own needs), but without it we wouldn&#39;t have the assembly line now, would we?

Second, "Leningrad" wasn&#39;t named such until after Lenin&#39;s death (see above my remarks regarding Finland and its proximity to PETROGRAD).

[syndicat]

You and your precious site don&#39;t have the facts straight, unfortunately. First, the concept of scientific management ("Taylorism") was and is a helluva lot progressive than the immediate post-feudal relations. This "Taylorism" is one of more extreme phenomena within the whole socialisation of production under CAPITALISM (instead of production for one&#39;s own needs).

Taylorism is about analyzing the tasks performed by skilled workers, to separate the tasks that involve discretion and conceptualization, putting that into the hands of a hierarchy of professionals and managers apart from the workers, and re-organizing the rote tasks into separate jobs. This enhances the power of management over labor by destroying craft autonomy, re-organizing work in such a way that management has more control over it, and facilitates a speed up of work. This is part of the path that led to the creation of a bloated professional/managerial class bureaucracy.

What is "progressive" about this? Is increasing the rate of exploitation of workers "progressive" in your view because it ratchets up the level of production? That&#39;s "progressive" for capital but not for the working class. This is an example of the fallacy of the Marxist view that whatever increases productive output is "progressive." It&#39;s actually inefficient because control has its costs in terms of not developing the potential and skill of the workforce.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 01:25 am

You and your precious site don&#39;t have the facts straight, unfortunately. First, the concept of scientific management ("Taylorism") was and is a helluva lot progressive than the immediate post-feudal relations. This "Taylorism" is one of more extreme phenomena within the whole socialisation of production under CAPITALISM (instead of production for one&#39;s own needs).

Taylorism is about analyzing the tasks performed by skilled workers, to separate the tasks that involve discretion and conceptualization, putting that into the hands of a hierarchy of professionals and managers apart from the workers, and re-organizing the rote tasks into separate jobs. This enhances the power of management over labor by destroying craft autonomy, re-organizing work in such a way that management has more control over it, and facilitates a speed up of work. This is part of the path that led to the creation of a bloated professional/managerial class bureaucracy.

What is "progressive" about this? Is increasing the rate of exploitation of workers "progressive" in your view because it ratchets up the level of production? That&#39;s "progressive" for capital but not for the working class. This is an example of the fallacy of the Marxist view that whatever increases productive output is "progressive." It&#39;s actually inefficient because control has its costs in terms of not developing the potential and skill of the workforce.
^^^ Um, did you read the part "progressive than the immediate post-feudal relations"?

I&#39;ll extend your "logic" here by asking whether or not bourgeois or petit-bourgeois capitalism was or is more progressive than feudalism.

Of course, "Taylorism" won&#39;t be necessary under socialism proper (although I&#39;m not so sure under the preceding DOTP, especially with the commanding heights).

[Hiero]

You&#39;re proving yourself too ignorant to deal with.

You don&#39;t even cite sources, you can&#39;t reason with your own definitions, and you demonstrate a vast ignorance of sequential events in the invasion of Poland.

The only "facts" that you have are pulled from your ass, when asked to present sources you cannot even do that. This tends to indicate that you&#39;re explanations are full of shit.

if you cannot even provide evidence and cite sources to back up your impromptu explanations, don&#39;t bother replying.

On the contray, you have yet to show excactly how the USSR helped Germany invade Poland. Your agruement is based on a non-agression treaty and the fact that the USSR invaded Poland a few weeks later. Excactly where was the assistance?

People who claim the USSR helped and allied with the Nazi&#39;s take the actions of the USSR out of historical context. The stage was being set for world war. As I said earlier, the Soviets just wanted to meet the Nazi&#39;sb half way at Poland, rather then in the streets of Moscow. It takes it out of the historical context before the war, where both Nazi Germany and the USSR were very skeptical and criticial of each other. To claim that both governments actually would agree to peacefull co-operation is being ignorant of the larger history, something bourgeois historians and their readers are always guilty of.

[syndicat]

asking whether or not bourgeois or petit-bourgeois capitalism was or is more progressive than feudalism.

Define "progressive".


Of course, "Taylorism" won&#39;t be necessary under socialism proper (although I&#39;m not so sure under the preceding DOTP, especially with the commanding heights).

I don&#39;t know what you mean by "socialism" but Taylorism is flatly inconsistent with workers having power over production and in society since it is a class mechanism for hierarchical managerial control. If Taylorism is imposed, that says that the people who impose it have a class power over workers and thus your "dictatorshipo of the proletariat" would seem to be a dictatorship over the proletariat.

[Spike]

don&#39;t think that Conquest can be described as unscholarly
Robert Conquest co-authored "What to Do When the Russians Come: A Survivor&#39;s Guide". He was a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher. He recieved the "Presidential Medal of Freedom". He is not a historian but is a deranged ideologue.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20051103-5.html (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051103-5.html)

Here he is posing with Bush: http://media.hoover.org/images/digest20061_conquest.jpg

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Hiero+June 10, 2007 01:09 am--> (Hiero &#064; June 10, 2007 01:09 am)On the contray, you have yet to show excactly how the USSR helped Germany invade Poland. Your agruement is based on a non-agression treaty and the fact that the USSR invaded Poland a few weeks later. Excactly where was the assistance?

People who claim the USSR helped and allied with the Nazi&#39;s take the actions of the USSR out of historical context. The stage was being set for world war. As I said earlier, the Soviets just wanted to meet the Nazi&#39;sb half way at Poland, rather then in the streets of Moscow. It takes it out of the historical context before the war, where both Nazi Germany and the USSR were very skeptical and criticial of each other. To claim that both governments actually would agree to peacefull co-operation is being ignorant of the larger history, something bourgeois historians and their readers are always guilty of.[/b]
You don&#39;t seem to understand that Spike is providing no evidence whatsoever to back up his assertions.

As a matter of fact, upon closer inspection he is parroting the excuses that Stalin himself gave&#33;

John M. Thompson in a few paragraphs of A Vision Unfulfilled gives a short list of the various excuses:
Thompson
To be sure, as Stalin intended, his pact with Hitler temporarily kept the Soviet Union out of war and won valuable time for the USSR to continue defense preparations. Stalin also gained additional territory as a buffer between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, although he would soon squander this advantage. But the Soviet dictator paid an enormous price for these benefits. For one thing, he gave Hitler a free hand in Poland and supplied the Nazi war machine with raw materials for the next twenty-two months, under supplemental Nazi-Soviet commercial agreements. [...]

In Stalin&#39;s defense, he hardly expected the war in Western Europe to end so quickly. Moreover, he chose to ally himself with Hitler in part because he did not trust the capitalist democracies to fight. He feared that the West would abandon the Soviet Union to the German advance, and given the democracies&#39; record to that point, Stalin had valid concerns. [...]

The false harmony between Germany and the Soviet Union that followed the signing of the nonaggression pact lasted for some time. Because of the rapidity of the German advance across Poland, Stalin had to accelerate Soviet occupation of eastern Poland. Nevertheless, he insisted publicly that his September 1939 incursion had no connection with Germany&#39;s aggression against Poland. Instead he claimed the Soviet government was responding to the desires of Ukranians and Belarusans living in eastern Poland to be reunited with their Soviet Brethren. --emphasis added.

A Vision Unfulfilled, Chapter 8 Section 2 "Stalin&#39;s Grand Delusion", page 328, by John M. Thompson (1996).

You may very well reject nearly everything I quoted, but it&#39;s kind of hard to reject Stalin&#39;s public statement for invading Poland.

Are we supposed to blindly believe "Comrade" Stalin? :lol:

Such a naive approach to history deserves condemnation.

But have no worries, Spike still refuses to cite a single source to back up his brilliant reasoning.

As for rejecting a historian with the reasoning "He&#39;s a bourgeois historian, therefore he&#39;s wrong" is rather sloppy reasoning and completely invalid grounds for rejecting someone&#39;s work...especially when it&#39;s unsupported, and doubly so when the only proof countering it is propaganda&#33;

You condemn my stance for its lack of empirical data, but - as I&#39;ve iterated a number of times - every source that I would cite would be rejected as "bourgeois propaganda" unless it came from an apologist or Stalin himself.

If you really want, I can compile a list of sources, though it would take a while (probably I could get it done by Wednesday night or Thursday morning).

[Intelligitimate]

Perhaps you should try remembering your arguments?

Perhaps you should learn how to not look so stupid when using bullshit equivocation and semantic games to prove a non-point.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 09:40 pm

don&#39;t think that Conquest can be described as unscholarly
Robert Conquest co-authored "What to Do When the Russians Come: A Survivor&#39;s Guide". He was a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher. He recieved the "Presidential Medal of Freedom". He is not a historian but is a deranged ideologue.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20051103-5.html (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051103-5.html)

Here he is posing with Bush: http://media.hoover.org/images/digest20061_conquest.jpg
I have just finished a degree in History, I know who the guy is.

Your theory that conservatives cannot be historians is fucking stupid though. Michael Burleigh, Klaus Hildebrand, Hugh Thomas, etc, are all raving conservatives; that doesn&#39;t stop them being excellent historians.

I have read a number of Conquest&#39;s works and works by the above, and I can assure you they are not unscholarly, just lead to conclusions I disagree with.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 11:46 pm

By your logic it can be said that Poland was an ally of Germany because it proceeded to take Czechoslavak territory following the "Münich Agreement". No, Poland didn&#39;t militarily invade Czechoslavakia.

What happened was that the UK and France agreed to dissolve Czechoslavakia, and it was consequently split between Poland, Germany, and Hungary.

Perhaps you should try reading a history book to make sure you get your facts straight.
I find it very interesting that you are more than willing to condemn the Soviets taking back parts of Ukraine and Belarus, yet at the same time, you have no problem with being an apologist for the militarist and nationalist vultures of the Polish leadership. Not to mention that you are doing a great job showing your own ignorance of what happened.

What follows below is a translation by me of the section "Polish and Hungarian vultures" from chapter 6, "The Sell-out of Czechoslovakia" from the book "Het Pact" by Lieven Soete. I do not have access to the original sources in French and English, so the cited sources are translated from Dutch from Soete&#39;s translations by me. Therefore, there might be something "lost in translation", but I&#39;m sure that it will nevertheless be very enlightening, and very good for you to "make sure you get your facts straight". So please read the whole thing carefully.

================================================== ====
CHAPTER 6, SECTION: POLISH AND HUNGARIAN VULTURES
================================================== ====

The Polish ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, writes to minister Beck on August 20, 1938:

«During a reception yesterday I spoke with Göring. He said that he wanted to speak to me about the possibilities of a greater Polish-German approachment. The Russian problem would become actual after the Czech question had been arranged. According to him, Poland can have certain interests in Russia, Ukraine, for example.(>>) I told him that the conference of Versailles has prevented Poland from having a common border with Hungary, which runs contrary to Polish-Hungarian interests. Göring answered that he understands the necessity of a common Polish-Hungarian border.(..) I also had short discussion with the Hungarian ambassador. I explained to him my fear that the Polish and Hungarian interests in Czechoslovakia would be neglected during the arrangement of the Sudeten question. The Hungarian ambassador shared my concerns.» (1)

On 20 September, Lipski sends a report to a discussion that he had with Hitler:

«Hitler said that he was thinking about the way the problems in Czechoslovakia that are of interest to Poland and Hungary should be arranged. I have explained to him that it is firstly about the region of Cieszyn: a small area of Cieszyn-Frysztat and its extension along the railway to Bohumin-Oderberg. I then pointed out to him the interest of the Ruthenian question to Hungary. If there could be a common border between Poland and Hungary through Ruthenia, we would have a much stronger barrier against Russia. I have told him how Ruthenia was only appointed to Slovakia as a mandate territory, that the population is of a very small density and highly mixed, and that it is Hungary which has the greatest interests there.(..)
«I have said that we shall not hesitate to use violence if our interests [in Czechoslovakia] are not served.(..)
«The chancellor assured me, entirely in confidence, that the Reich would side with us if a conflict would break out between Poland and Czechoslovakia over our interests in Cieszyn. The chancellor underlined with emphasis that Poland is a factor of the first order that must defend Europe against Russia.(..)
«From the long explanations that the chancellor held, one can conclude: (..) that the idea has grown to solve the jewish question through emigration to the colonies, after an agreement with Poland and Hungary and possibly also Romania. To this, I answered that, if this problem finds a solution, we shall erect a nice monument to him in Warsaw.» (2)

On 21 September, the French general Musse writes in a report about a conversation with the Polish general Stachiewicz, chief of staff.

«Stachiewicz was getting terribly excited: «This situation is absurd, it can lead to an absurde war; assuming that the Soviets will want to move over our territory on Czech request... than we shall be obligated to make war with them, we will absolutely not have any other choice&#33; And then, what kind of situation shall we get then&#33;» The general fruitlessly looked for words to describe the terror of the situation if Poland would end up in the same camp as Germany: «Just thinking about it, it can drive one crazy, completely drive one crazy» he repeated. The honesty of the general was clear. It, by the way, expresses the general feeling of the nation, and eve nmoreso of the army that can only see the Germans as enemies, but who would not for a moment consider allowing Soviet troops to enter their territory.» (3)

That general may have had some sleepless nights from it, but the Polish political leaders and their «allies» in Paris and London have already made the choice.

On 21 September, Poland sends an ultimatum to the Czech government with regards to Cieszyn: there must be a referendum in the area. The Polish-Czech treaty of 1925 regarding national minorities is unilaterally cancelled. Polish troops gather at the Czech border.
On 23 September, the Soviet government informs the Poles that Polish forces entering Czechoslovakia will be seen as aggression, and that the non-aggression pact with Poland will be cancelled. On 25 September, the Polish ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, declares to his American colleague:

«that there will be a religious war between fascism and bolshevism; if the Soviet Union would aid Czechoslovakia, that Poland will then go to war against the USSR on the side of Germany. The Polish government is convinced that the Russian troops will be completely annihilated within three months, and that Russia will remain little more than a rump state.» (4)

The Munich agreement is the starting signal for the Poles. On 30 September, they again present an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia: Cieszyn must be ceded immediately -- by 1 October in the afternoon. On 2 October, Polish troops march into the area: 1,700 km2 and 230,000 inhabitants(including 133,000 Czechs) also witness a change of nationality, but especially of regime. (5)

(1) Documents et Matériaux se rapportant à la veille de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, Tome I, (1937-1938) 1948, pp. 151.
(2) DMDGM, op. cit., T.I, p. 181.
(3) Rapport n° 98/S du 21 septembre 1938, général Musse à E.-M.A., 2e bureau -- cit. by Pierre Le Goyet, Munich, pouvait-on et devait-on faire la guerre en 1938?, Paris, 1988.
(4) Foreign Relations of the United States, 1938, v.I, pp. 650-651 -- cit. by Vilnis Sipols & Mikhaïl Kharlamov, A la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, 1933-1939, Moscou, 1973;
(5)William L. Shirer, Le Troisième Reich, des origines à la chute, Tome 1, Paris, 1960 p. 557.

================================================== ====
END
================================================== ====

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Dick [email protected] 11, 2007 03:16 am
I find it very interesting that you are more than willing to condemn the Soviets taking back parts of Ukraine and Belarus, yet at the same time, you have no problem with being an apologist for the militarist and nationalist vultures of the Polish leadership.
It goes without saying that you totally missed the point.


Not to mention that you are doing a great job showing your own ignorance of what happened. Nothing in your post refutes what I said in the quote.

The Munich agreement did not involve military action against Czechoslovakia...hell, Poland didn&#39;t even sign the damned thing&#33; (Here&#39;s (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/munich1.htm) the thing in English.)

Where was the agreement between Poland and Germany to invade Czechoslovakia? Oh right, there wasn&#39;t any. <_<

And yet you wish to assert that it is a valid parallel to the Soviet-Nazi Pact?&#33;

The only way that it&#39;s similar is that Nazi Germany was involved and the general geographic region where the treaty really makes any difference is Europe.

That makes it a rather poor analogy.

Then again, you&#39;re the "expert" :lol: :rolleyes:

[Wanted Man]

What has happened, ComradeRed? I thought an alliance could be easily defined? The fact of the matter is simple: Germany, Poland and Hungary cooperated to dismantle the Czechoslovak state, just like Germany and Russia cooperated to take Poland. In both cases, this happened with certain strategic goals in mind: Poland and Hungary wanted to have a common border, while removing the Soviet&#39;s border with Czechoslovakia to prevent an intervention that did not involve attacking Poland. In 1939, the USSR wanted to retake lands lost to Poland in the 20s, and avoid an early war with Germany, especially if such a war would be launched from the Polish eastern borderlands.


Originally posted by ComradeRed
Where was the agreement between Poland and Germany to invade Czechoslovakia? Oh right, there wasn&#39;t any.
Not every agreement has to be like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, just like not every alliance has to be like the Anglo-French alliance, as you mockingly said to Spike here (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66896&view=findpost&p=1292328808). There was nevertheless an agreement. The agreement between Germany and Poland is difficult to deny, if you look at the correspondence of Lipski from 1938.

But I&#39;m not sure if there is much of a point in continuing this discussion. You demand sources, then when someone gives them to you, you just say "that&#39;s not a real agreement", an argument that you criticized the Stalinists for when they said "it&#39;s not a real alliance". It&#39;s nice to take so much liberties with facts and definitions.

Then again, you are the "expert". :lol: :rolleyes:

At least, an expert in being an apologist for the Polish nationalists, measuring their actions and those of Soviet Russia with double standards for... well, whatever your reasons are.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Dick [email protected] 11, 2007 04:11 am
What has happened, ComradeRed? I thought an alliance could be easily defined? The fact of the matter is simple: Germany, Poland and Hungary cooperated to dismantle the Czechoslovak state, just like Germany and Russia cooperated to take Poland.And you are pulling this out of your ass, how convenient.

All of the sudden, history changes for you to pretend that there was some alliance between Germany, Poland, and Hungary to invade Czechoslovakia; the evidence supporting this conjecture is at best the secondhand transcript of the ramblings of a drunken Polish ambassador.

There are a number of unanswered problems from the assertion that there wasn&#39;t any military cooperation of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany with the invasion of Poland.

For example, Telegram Number 253 of September 3, all of the sudden the German military invasion stops for no apparent reason at the Polish area belonging to the Russian sphere of influence.

Or how telegram number 317 of September 10, why is it so crucial for Schulenburg to urge Molotov to act quickly if there is no planned cooperation?

Perhaps you could enlighten us about telegram number 260 of September 15 wherein Ribbentrop demands that Molotov honor the agreements they made in Moscow and that the Soviet Government therefore immediately lend a hand militarily?

Or the telegram number 372 of September 17 instructing the German military to withdraw from the Russian sphere of influence so the Russian military operations can proceed as planned?

Pray tell that telegram number 385 of September 18 explaining to Ribbentrop that Stalin demands that the agreements be upheld and honored by the German high command is what simply a coincidence of an independent military expedition from the Soviet Union?

Give me a break, the explanation of the Soviet intervention as a "completely independent" military intervention leaves so many open problems causing many events to be purely random.

The idea of military collaboration must have been at the very least considered since on 27th of August, there were rumors of Soviet troops crossing the Polish border; von Schulenburg was instructed in the course of such rumors being true to instruct the Soviet Government to withdraw its troops as the diplomatic preparations of war had not yet been completed yet (see telegram number 218 of August 27th).

As for the naive question "Why didn&#39;t the USSR intervene exactly on September 3d as instructed?" (because military operations are always synchronized to the very second as history shows time after time :rolleyes: ) the truth of the matter is that the USSR wanted to let Wehermacht crush the Polish army; this is evidenced by Molotov&#39;s reply on September 4th to the instructions.


The agreement between Germany and Poland is difficult to deny, if you look at the correspondence of Lipski from 1938. Oh yes, I missed the part about Germany urging Lipski to send military aid imminently, or the secret protocol to split up Czechoslovakia.

The best evidence you have of this is, as previously stated, the reflections of the German ambassador listening to the drunken ramblings of Lipski which only tangentially refers to the willingness of military aid.

That convinces me :lol:


At least, an expert in being an apologist for the Polish nationalists, measuring their actions and those of Soviet Russia with double standards for... well, whatever your reasons are. What a brilliant insult; not only do you demonstrate your incapacity to understand the simple point that by justifying Stalin working with Hitler, you recognize Stalin worked with Hitler but you straw man this out to become Polish nationalism.

Then again, who would have guessed that a dialectician would have to resort to fallacies to rebut simple logic? :lol: