RGacky3
13th March 2008, 22:22
I know this has been talked about ad-nauseam, but I bring it up not because I want to argue specifically about what happened after the October revolution, and it was or was'nt genuinly Socialist and so on. What I want to talk about is the nature of the explinations.
Heres one example:
Things that happen in countries are not because of one or a couple of people but rather the consequence of social struggles and contridictions and the consequence of the background of the situation. i.e. you can't blame stalin or lenin, but rather what happend was neccessary based on the situation.
Thats the argument I probably have the biggest problem with, that argument perhaps could apply to broad general societal changes made over generations, but its very hard to pin it to specific desicions made by a small group of people over a short period of time. Its like saying the gassing of the kurds by Saddam Hussien cannot be blaimed on him and his cronies, rather it must be blaimed on historical antagonisms. Class struggle may have started the revolution but it can't be blaimed for political prisoners, destruction of free speach and the centralizing of authority.
Heres another somewhat related argument:
People don't hold power, classes do. In the USSR the working class held power, the Vanguard was the working class and thus worked in the interest of the working class.
That is also a completely theoretical argument that completely distorts the idea of class. It completely ignores the fact that Class is not a Static thing, rather its your relationship to the means of production, it also ignores the fact that class is not some faternity with loyalties, but rather just a description of a persons relationship to the means of production, forget that most of the bolshevik leadership was not from working class backgrounds, even if they were, when were in power their relationship to the rest of the workers and to the means of production were different, class is'nt static, also it forgets the fact that desicions, especially desicions on who's going to prison and for what, were not made democratically by a vote by the working class, but rather were made by the State, specifically laws and edicts passed down by the leadership and carried out by the police against people, those desicions are not made by a class.
Heres one more argumetn I'll talk about maybe more will come up later.
Russia was a backward unindustrialized country, and because of those material conditions what happend was neccessary to industrialize it.
Socialism is set of principles about society, you can apply it to any type of society, the idea that working people should control what they produce is not dependant on industrialization, also what does dictatorship and repression have anything to do with industrialization? What does the fact that the vast majority of Russia were peasentry have to do with Stalin and Lenins autrocities?
Theoretical arguments don't work when your talking about specific concrete events, you have to look at the situation concretly and honestly without clouding the issue with theoretical nonsense. The fact of the matter is, Lenin with the Bolsheviks first, and later Stalin, centralized power in themeslves and their party, which it self was very centralized and did whatever it took and more too keep that power, now their motivation was probably positive, but the outcome was the death of the revolution in its infancy.
Heres one example:
Things that happen in countries are not because of one or a couple of people but rather the consequence of social struggles and contridictions and the consequence of the background of the situation. i.e. you can't blame stalin or lenin, but rather what happend was neccessary based on the situation.
Thats the argument I probably have the biggest problem with, that argument perhaps could apply to broad general societal changes made over generations, but its very hard to pin it to specific desicions made by a small group of people over a short period of time. Its like saying the gassing of the kurds by Saddam Hussien cannot be blaimed on him and his cronies, rather it must be blaimed on historical antagonisms. Class struggle may have started the revolution but it can't be blaimed for political prisoners, destruction of free speach and the centralizing of authority.
Heres another somewhat related argument:
People don't hold power, classes do. In the USSR the working class held power, the Vanguard was the working class and thus worked in the interest of the working class.
That is also a completely theoretical argument that completely distorts the idea of class. It completely ignores the fact that Class is not a Static thing, rather its your relationship to the means of production, it also ignores the fact that class is not some faternity with loyalties, but rather just a description of a persons relationship to the means of production, forget that most of the bolshevik leadership was not from working class backgrounds, even if they were, when were in power their relationship to the rest of the workers and to the means of production were different, class is'nt static, also it forgets the fact that desicions, especially desicions on who's going to prison and for what, were not made democratically by a vote by the working class, but rather were made by the State, specifically laws and edicts passed down by the leadership and carried out by the police against people, those desicions are not made by a class.
Heres one more argumetn I'll talk about maybe more will come up later.
Russia was a backward unindustrialized country, and because of those material conditions what happend was neccessary to industrialize it.
Socialism is set of principles about society, you can apply it to any type of society, the idea that working people should control what they produce is not dependant on industrialization, also what does dictatorship and repression have anything to do with industrialization? What does the fact that the vast majority of Russia were peasentry have to do with Stalin and Lenins autrocities?
Theoretical arguments don't work when your talking about specific concrete events, you have to look at the situation concretly and honestly without clouding the issue with theoretical nonsense. The fact of the matter is, Lenin with the Bolsheviks first, and later Stalin, centralized power in themeslves and their party, which it self was very centralized and did whatever it took and more too keep that power, now their motivation was probably positive, but the outcome was the death of the revolution in its infancy.