If we accept that Maoists are socialists...

[Cheung Mo]

How do we reconcile their support for the Mujahideen (an anti-reform, anti-socialist coalition of American arms and money, religious lunacy, and Osama bin Laden) in the Afghan civil war?

[Saorsa]

That they were supporting a group that was struggling against the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It was a shit line, but a justifiable one, and the USSR and the regime it set up in Afghanistan were not socialist.

It was driven as much by realpolitik as anything. China saw the USSR as the biggest threat to it, which was a reasonable position to take. They basically supported everyone the USSR opposed, and opposed most of the people it supported. They came out with some amazingly shit lines as a result of this (such as recognising the Pinochet regime).

Most Maoists don't claim that Mao or revolutionary China were perfect. But if your going to dismiss Maoism, the most powerful and strongest brand of communism in the world today, as non-socialist because of the support Maoists gave to an anti-Soviet struggle, then you'll have to dismiss a great number of Trotskyists and anarchists who welcomed the full scale collapse of the Soviet Union.

You can't dismiss an entire ideology based on one position it's proponents held at one time in the past.

[Zurdito]

[quote]That they were supporting a group that was struggling against the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It was a shit line, but a justifiable one,

how can it be shit and justifiable?


and the USSR and the regime it set up in Afghanistan were not socialist.

no it was not socialist, it was bourgeois third world economic nationalist, and pro-soviet, and it had come to pwoer before Soviet troops entered the country. The reason they entered was the terrorist campaign backed by the US and carried out by political-islamic guerrillas in order to restore an old conservative order more firendly to US and Britis interests, i.e. the old colonial masters.

So just because this government was not socialist is no excuse at allfor supporting the other side in thsi struggle.


Most Maoists don't claim that Mao or revolutionary China were perfect. But if your going to dismiss Maoism, the most powerful and strongest brand of communism in the world today, as non-socialist because of the support Maoists gave to an anti-Soviet struggle,

they weren´t just "anti-soviet", they were socially ultra-reactionary and in the direct pay of imeprialism, the Saudi elite, old Afghan vested intrests, etc. not comparable to the Hungarian uprising or the Prague spring.



then you'll have to dismiss a great number of Trotskyists and anarchists who welcomed the full scale collapse of the Soviet Union.


who?

are you equating supporting any opposition to the SU, such as supporting demcoratic rights for workers or the right to self-determination of oppressed nations*, with supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan?

*which I don´t thinkt he Mujahideen were fighting for, like I say the campaign of terror was unleashed by US imperialism on Afganistan, before the Soviet troops entered, due to the fact that an economic nationalist and pro-soviet came to power after a domestic power struggle.

[Saorsa]

*sighs*

Nowhere did I say I myself support the mujahideen. I don't.

[Zurdito]

*sighs*

Nowhere did I say I myself support the mujahideen. I don't.

*sigh*

I never said you did, I only responded to the things you did say.

[Winter]

How do we reconcile their support for the Mujahideen (an anti-reform, anti-socialist coalition of American arms and money, religious lunacy, and Osama bin Laden) in the Afghan civil war?

Because they fought for national liberation.

I hate situations like these and the groups that are involved. I am currently torn between whether all national liberation can be progressive or if foriegn involvement can be progressive. It seems the U.S. supported the Mujahideen so in one way or another they were pawns for U.S. interests. I think it really depends on the situation, and personally, I do not know enough about this particular situation to judge.

[Hit The North]

How do we reconcile their support for the Mujahideen (an anti-reform, anti-socialist coalition of American arms and money, religious lunacy, and Osama bin Laden) in the Afghan civil war?


Because they fought for national liberation.



Is that why they supported that fascist, Pinochet?

I mean, I did not know that. I'm flabbergasted!

[Winter]

Is that why they supported that fascist, Pinochet?

I mean, I did not know that. I'm flabbergasted!

Who supported Pinochet? The U.S.? :confused:

[Hit The North]

Who supported Pinochet? The U.S.? :confused:

Well, yes they did. But also, according to Comrade Alastair, so did the Chinsese:
It was driven as much by realpolitik as anything. China saw the USSR as the biggest threat to it, which was a reasonable position to take. They basically supported everyone the USSR opposed, and opposed most of the people it supported. They came out with some amazingly shit lines as a result of this (such as recognising the Pinochet regime).

[SocialDemocracy19]

That doesnt really make sense that the chinese would support Pinochet, becasue when i recently saw the dali lama speak there were pro china people protesting and they had pictures mocking the dali lama because of his friendship with augsto pinochet whom the pro chinese people were calling a fascist to link the dali lama to fascist tendency. so i would just like to know what source told you that the chinese supported pinochet?

[Wanted Man]

you'll have to dismiss a great number of Trotskyists and anarchists who welcomed the full scale collapse of the Soviet Union.
Indeed, people who did so should be dismissed, as should Maoists who still feel that way. Other than that, Maoists shouldn't be dismissed, as most of them no longer uncritically follow China's policies, even under Mao himself.

Other than that, Zurdito basically got it right. Comrade Alastair, I respect you and I know that you are above simply using strawmen against people to dismiss them. I would like to read a serious reply.


Is that why they supported that fascist, Pinochet?

I mean, I did not know that. I'm flabbergasted!
If the defenders of Maoist foreign policy take the logic of supporting the Mujahideen to its extreme conclusion, then they should indeed support Pinochet. Because Allende was a 'Soviet social imperialist puppet' (hey, his right-wing opponents said so, why doubt that? :rolleyes: ), Pinochet was 'leading a national liberation struggle'. And as we've seen from their arguments on the Mujahideen, apparently the facts of US backing are 'irrelevant' to their analysis of that 'struggle'.

But I don't think many people will come out and honestly say that they feel that way. There is simply no common ground with people who defend Pinochet or the Mujahideen as national liberationists. At least right-wingers openly admit that it's all anti-Soviet realpolitik. But it's pathetic to dress it up in left-sounding rhetoric.

[Yehuda Stern]

If the defenders of Maoist foreign policy take the logic of supporting the Mujahideen to its extreme conclusion, then they should indeed support Pinochet.

They did - the Maoist regime in China supported Pinochet. (to all Mao purists, this is back in 1973 - when the 'Chairman' was still in charge)

[Gleb]

Their foreign policy had major faults, but can you really give value to their domestic policies and views on concept of revolution and revolutionary society according to their support of Pinochet and the mujahideen? I mean, that's really what makes a Maoist, not the support to realpolitik exercised by Mao and the PRC Government, and thus I fail to see how it has any kind of actual effect on validity of Maoist theories.

[Wanted Man]

I fail to see how realpolitik exercised by the PRC government has any kind of effect on the validity of the Maoist theory.
So it really is a matter of 'realpolitik'? So the Maoists cynically used left-sounding rhetoric to conceal the fact that they were collaborating with US imperialism to combat the USSR and all of its social gains (regardless of whether it was socialist or not)? Well, one can at least appreciate this kind of honesty.

The thing is, these things don't exist within a vacuum. That's a very metaphysical outlook, as it separates things and concepts from their interconnection with each other, turning them into isolated things. In fact, Maoist theory is related to Maoist foreign policy and vice versa. Maoist criticism of Soviet revisionism, state capitalism and social imperialism was used to justify Maoist foreign policy of collaborating with US imperialism. At the same time, Maoists' understanding of their theory was adapted to match and justify practical Maoist foreign policy.

Simply put: Maoist theory helps us understand the decision to support Pinochet, and the support for Pinochet helps us understand Maoist theory.

EDIT: I didn't see that you had expanded your post. My point stands: Maoist contributions on many subjects (which I do recognise) cannot be separated from its faults. Internal politics, foreign politics, economics, philosophy, sociology... they do not exist separate from each other. One can agree with only marxian economics, and therefore be a marxian. But to be a marxist is different.

[Winter]

They did - the Maoist regime in China supported Pinochet. (to all Mao purists, this is back in 1973 - when the 'Chairman' was still in charge)

Mao stepped down in 1959 from being the Chairman of the People's Republic of China. He only remained Chairman of the Communist party and had no say in foriegn policy.

[Saorsa]

Comrade Alastair, I respect you and I know that you are above simply using strawmen against people to dismiss them. I would like to read a serious reply.

One's coming, but at 1.30 in the morning I couldn't really be fucked writing a long reply. :lol:

[manic expression]

Mao stepped down in 1959 from being the Chairman of the People's Republic of China. He only remained Chairman of the Communist party and had no say in foriegn policy.

More paper-thin rationalization. Mao, as Chairman of the Communist Party, had considerable influence in all party, and therefore state matters. The state, after all, was following the party line, and Mao could have made very sure that the party opposed supporting a despicable reactionary like Pinochet. To say that Mao had "no say in foreign policy" is boundlessly naive.

Furthermore, this was during the Cultural Revolution, which Mao launched as a way to have his own influence felt on the state. He succeeded in making Deng step down, I think stopping Chinese support of Pinochet was well within his power. The fact that China did support such a counterrevolutionary at this time only adds to the evidence that Mao had no interest in supporting revolution or the working class.

[Winter]

More paper-thin rationalization. Mao, as Chairman of the Communist Party, had considerable influence in all party, and therefore state matters. The state, after all, was following the party line, and Mao could have made very sure that the party opposed supporting a despicable reactionary like Pinochet. To say that Mao had "no say in foreign policy" is boundlessly naive.

Furthermore, this was during the Cultural Revolution, which Mao launched as a way to have his own influence felt on the state. He succeeded in making Deng step down, I think stopping Chinese support of Pinochet was well within his power. The fact that China did support such a counterrevolutionary at this time only adds to the evidence that Mao had no interest in supporting revolution or the working class.

I've searched all over the internet for any material on this but have come up empty. At this point, all I can say is that if you are correct then so be it. If Mao sold out eventually, what am I going to do? Cry? :crying:

The theories he introduced to Marxism-Leninism are a great contribution, and it is these theories that I admire. Whether or not Mao was perfect or downright a bastard is not my main reason for being a Maoist. Just wanted to clear this up. But, if I find any sources on this, I will be back. :lol:

[RedHal]

that's the thing, does being a "maoist" mean you think mao was an infallible being? No it means you agree with Mao's ideas. Do you think Marx the man lived a perfect life to call yourself a marxist? No it means you agree with his ideas. I agree with a lot of maoist theories, but I don't admire Mao (the man)'s policies later in his life, he shook hands with Nixon, for crying out loud! To call yourself a moaist means you agree with his theories, it doesn't mean you justify everything the old man did.

[Yehuda Stern]

Do you think Marx the man lived a perfect life to call yourself a marxist? No it means you agree with his ideas.

Yeah, but if I found out that at the end Marx supported Bismarck, I would not call myself a Marxist, because it means that in the end Marx become a traitor to the working class. I have no such problem with Mao - you can't betray a class you never represented.


Their foreign policy had major faults, but can you really give value to their domestic policies and views on concept of revolution and revolutionary society according to their support of Pinochet and the mujahideen?

It's just extra ammunition against supporters of the CCP regime. To me, their domestic policies are enough to condemn them as counterrevolutionaries.

[Gleb]

It's just extra ammunition against supporters of the CCP regime. To me, their domestic policies are enough to condemn them as counterrevolutionaries.

Can't say I disagree on that one, but I really don't think this kind of silliness is necessary: In my humble opinion, Maoist ideology has to be criticized for the reactionary and authoritarian nature of the actual core ideals of Maoism, not by irrelevant bullshit like this, when most (rational) Maoists are anyways not giving their support to the CCP regime's realpolitiks as only the most hard-headed fanboys are really hooraying for every single move made by the All-Magnificent Magic Chairman.

[Yehuda Stern]

Perhaps. But theory is proven in practice. I can criticize Maoism all I want, but showing what the regime did in practice is much more powerful.

[Saorsa]

I can criticize Maoism all I want, but showing what the regime did in practice is much more powerful.

I agree totally.

Social and Economic Achievements Under Mao

Revolutionary Worker #1248, 38207, posted at http://rwor.org (http://rwor.org/)

The rulers constantly bombard us with the message that "communism is dead," that it hasn't worked and cannot work, and that revolutions in power lead to tyranny. One aspect of their ideological crusade is to systematically distort the revolutionary experiences of the Soviet Union and China, especially the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. And the lies and slanders they put out often have the veneer of factuality.

The RCP has initiated a project to Set the Record Straight . Its aim is to bring out the truth of these revolutions--their great achievements and victories, along with their mistakes and shortcomings--and to bring forward the works and insights of Bob Avakian in summing up these experiences and pointing to lessons for humanity today. The campaign will involve research, writing, debates, and outreach. It will focus on colleges and universities. We invite all who are interested to take part.

The first effort of this project is a sharp Q&A response to the charges and distortions of the bourgeoisie: Everything You've Been Told About Communism Is Wrong: Frequently Asked Questions About Socialism, Communism, and the Cultural Revolution. An excerpt follows:

Didn't the Maoist revolution in China promise benefits but cause needless violence and create new suffering for people?

China's socialist revolution of 1949-76 resulted in a vast improvement in life for the Chinese people. Between 1949 and 1975, life expectancy in socialist China more than doubled, from about 32 to 65 years. By the early 1970s, infant mortality rates in Shanghai were lower than in New York City!1 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote1) All this reveals a profound reduction in the violence of everyday life. The extent of literacy swelled in the span of one generation--from about 15 percent in 1949 to some 80 to 90 percent in the mid-1970s.2 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote2)

Let's go a bit more deeply into the profound difference socialism made to most people. Before the revolution came to power in 1949, China had been dominated by foreign imperialist powers. By practically all available measures, the economy was near the bottom of the world development scale. It had little industry. Agriculture was brutal serfdom. China had the most ruinous inflation in modern world history. It had a vast criminal underworld of gangsters and secret societies, and almost 90 million opium addicts. For women, it was a living hell: foot binding, arranged marriages, and child brides were widespread social practices. Prostitution was rampant in the cities.

These kinds of social evils and the extreme polarization of wealth that existed before 1949 were eradicated by the revolution: through the establishment of proletarian state power and the creation of a just social and economic order that unleashed the masses of people and served their interests.

Only a revolution could, and did, uproot the feudal economic system in the countryside. The land reform and repudiation of peasant debt carried out under the leadership of the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s represented the most massive expropriation and redistribution of wealth from rich to poor in world history.3 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote3)

The 1950 Marriage Law of revolutionary China established marriage by mutual consent, right to divorce, and outlawed the sale of children and infanticide. A new women's movement, larger and more sweeping in vision than any in history, set out to break down the subordinating division of labor between men and women and to break down the walls of domestic life.4 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote4)

But I've read that the economy was a disaster under Mao.

You've been lied to. In reality, China's industrial economy under Mao grew impressively--at an average rate of 10 percent per year, even during the Cultural Revolution. China, the former "sick man of Asia," transformed itself into a major industrial power in the quarter century between 1949 and 1976--a rate of development comparable only to the greatest surges of growth in history.5 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote5) And it achieved this without relying on exploitation or foreign assistance, and in the face of a hostile international environment.

Agriculture grew by some 3 percent a year, slightly exceeding population growth. By 1970, the problem of adequately feeding China's population had been solved. This was accomplished through integrated economic planning, a system of collective agriculture that promoted grass-roots mobilization, flood control, steady investment in rural infrastructure, and the equitable distribution of food to peasants and rationing of essential foods so that all people were guaranteed their minimal requirements.6 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote6) This was a radical break with China's past in which floods, droughts, and feudal oppression caused routine mass starvation--a condition common today in many Third World countries. And keep in mind that the amount of arable (farmable) land in China is only 70 percent of that in the U.S.-- but had to provide for four times as many people.

China under Mao accomplished what the U.S. has never done. It established a system of universal health care. Health services were provided free or at low cost, and the health system was guided by the principles of cooperation and egalitarianism. Maoist China integrated Western and traditional medicine. Some 1.3 million peasants were trained as health care providers ("barefoot doctors") to meet basic health needs in the countryside.7 (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote7)

To conclude.

Not only is the real record of Maoist China light years apart from what you've been told.

It is also completely different from the polarized and sweatshop-ridden China of today, which has nothing in common with socialism or Mao.

References

1Penny Kane, The Second Billion (New York: Penguin, 1987), chapter 5; Ruth and Victor Sidel, Serve the People: Observations on Medicine in the People's Republic of China (New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1973), pp. 255-66.
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote1ret urn)
2 Ruth Gamberg, Red and Expert (New York: Schocken, 1977), p. 41.
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote2ret urn)
3 William Hinton, "The Importance of Land Reform in the Reconstruction Of China," Monthly Review , July/August 1998, p. 148.
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote3ret urn)
4See C. Broyelle, Women's Liberation in China (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1977) and Elisabeth Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China (New York: Schocken, 1980).
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote4ret urn)
5 See S. Ishikawa, "China's Economic Growth Since 1949," China Quarterly, June 1983, Table 1; Raymond Lotta, "The Theory and Practice of Maoist Planning," in Raymond Lotta, ed., Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism (New York: Banner, 1994); Carl Riskin, "Judging Economic Development: The Case of China," Economic and Political Weekly, 8 October 1977.
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote5ret urn)
6See Harry Harding, China's Second Revolution: Reform After Mao (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1987), p. 30; Robert F. Dernberger, ed., China's Development Experience in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), chapters 3 and 9; Jan Prybyla, The Chinese Economy (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), chapter 3; and Mobo C.F. Gao, Gao Village: Rural Life in Modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999). In speaking of agricultural performance in the Third World, agronomist and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug observed: "China is the one country which has solved its food problems." Cited in Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 24.
[Return to article] (http://revcom.us/a/1248/mao_china_setting_record_straight.htm#footnote6ret urn)
7See Teh-wei Hu, "Health Care Services in China's Economic Development," in Robert F. Dernberger, ed., China's Development Experience.

[Saorsa]

I forgot to reply on the subject of the mujahideen and China's support for them, I apologise.

My position's pretty simple on this. China was threatened in a very real way by the USSR, which was threatening to attack them and had nukes pointed at their cities - they were tense times. With this in mind, it is understandable and justifiable for the Chinese leaders to have made the decision to support forces that opposed the USSR, considering how threatened they felt by them. I think it was a bad line that lead to some awful positions, but I can understand and empathise with their reasons for coming to it.

Personally, I take a neutral position on that particular struggle, supporting neither the fundamentalists nor the Soviet invaders. I think RAWA has a good line on this;

http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html


Before the Moscow-directed coup d’état of April 1978 in Afghanistan, RAWA’s activities were confined to agitation for women’s rights and democracy, but after the coup and particularly after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979, RAWA became directly involved in the war of resistance. In contradistinction to the absolute majority of the vaunted Islamic fundamentalist "freedom fighters" of the anti-Soviet war of resistance, RAWA from the outset advocated democracy and secularism. Despite the horrors and the political oppression, RAWA’s appeal and influence grew in the years of the Soviet occupation and a growing number of RAWA activists were sent to work among refugee women in Pakistan. For the purpose of addressing the immediate needs of refugee women and children, RAWA established schools with hostels for boys and girls, a hospital for refugee Afghan women and children in Quetta, Pakistan with mobile teams. In addition, it conducted nursing courses, literacy courses and vocational training courses for women.
Demonstrations against the Soviet invaders and their stooges and later on against the fundamentalists, and unrelenting exposure of their treason and heinous crimes has been a hallmark of RAWA’s political activities. It was in consequence of its anti-Soviet occupationist struggle and agitation that RAWA was marked for annihilation by the Soviets and their cronies, while the Islamic fundamentalists vented their wrath on our organisation for our pro-democracy, pro-secularist and anti-fundamentalist stance. Our uncompromising attitude against these two enemies of our people has cost us dear, as witnessed by the martyrdom of our founding leader and a large number of our key activists, but we have unswervingly stood, and continue to stand, by our principles despite the deadly blows that we have been dealt.

[KurtFF8]

Yeah, but if I found out that at the end Marx supported Bismarck, I would not call myself a Marxist, because it means that in the end Marx become a traitor to the working class. I have no such problem with Mao - you can't betray a class you never represented.

But if Marx did that, he would have been going against his own writings, theories/etc.

That would invalidate them would it? I hardly see why you would cease to be a Marxist because of it. Doesn't really seem to follow as Marxism isn't the "ideology" of "following the actions and decisions of Karl Marx" but instead following the theories of Karl Marx.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And YS, Maoists are quick to point to the alleged 'crimes' of Trotsky as a way of maligning Trotyskyism.

Odd that they become all defensive when the tables are turned, isn't it?:rolleyes:

[Valeofruin]

Perhaps. But theory is proven in practice. I can criticize Maoism all I want, but showing what the regime did in practice is much more powerful.

And what would Trotsky have had them do?

Like Stalin Mao recognized the dangers of your idealology, and ecouraged his followers to combat Liberalism, and Reactionary elements in his party.

Trotskyism is highly Reactionary in nature and seeks only to Factionalise, and ultimately destroy the proletariat party.

I suspect however that this debate's been visited before, I don't know why I'm even bothering trying to be honest.

[chegitz guevara]

At whom is that directed?

[Valeofruin]

At whom is that directed?

Not you, my bad, proper quote inserted.

[Saorsa]

And YS, Maoists are quick to point to the alleged 'crimes' of Trotsky as a way of maligning Trotyskyism.

Odd that they become all defensive when the tables are turned, isn't it?http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

I've never said anything like that about Trotsky, I'm not a Maoist, and I'm not on the defensive.

[Valeofruin]

"But the theory of worshipping spontaneity is not an exclusively Russian phenomenon. It is extremely widespread-in a somewhat different form, it is true-in all parties of the Second International, without exception. I have in mind the so-called "productive forces" theory as debased by the leaders of the Second International, which justifies everything and conciliates everybody, which records facts and explains them after everyone has become sick and tired of them, and, having recorded them, rests content. Marx said that the materialist theory could not confine itself to explaining the world, that it must also change it. But Kautsky and Co. are not concerned with this; they prefer to rest content with the first part of Marx's formula. " - J. V. Stalin ("The Foundations of Leninism")


"Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or oldsubordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.
To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type. To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type."- Mao Zedong ("Combat Liberalism!")

I contend that the parliamentary policies of the second International were Liberal and opportunistic in nature.

I think Stalin pretty much covers it in his book: The Foundations of Leninism (Very valuable Marxist book indeed), I'd highly recommend reading it if you haven't already. I'd say Stalin did a pretty bang up job exposing the opportunist elements of the second international, and replacing such idealology with revolutionary values. If you were to ask me to come up with an arguement without re wording, or reiterating the opinions of Comrade Stalin, I think I'd really be at a loss, he really did cover it all.

[chegitz guevara]

You can tell someone's in thrall when they recommend Foundations of Leninism. Honestly, if I want to understand the foundations of Leninism, I read Lenin. He's a much better writer than Stalin.

[Valeofruin]

You can tell someone's in thrall when they recommend Foundations of Leninism. Honestly, if I want to understand the foundations of Leninism, I read Lenin. He's a much better writer than Stalin.

I often recommend Lenins State and Revolution, and Left wing communism; An Infantile disorder as well.

Have you Ever actually read any Stalin?

[chegitz guevara]

Some. Foundations however, is one of the worst books. It is nearly unreadable, and frankly, it insulted my intelligence. Stalin's book on nationalism, however, was quite good. Hard to believe it was the same author.

[Led Zeppelin]

Stalin's book on nationalism, however, was quite good. Hard to believe it was the same author.

That's because it was written under the guidance of Lenin.

[Yehuda Stern]

Odd that they become all defensive when the tables are turned, isn't it?

It was odd back when I was a young bright eyed red idealist. Today, when I'm a cynical sectarian Trot, I've come to expect hypocrisy in all dealings with leftists : ).

[chegitz guevara]

That's because it was written under the guidance of Lenin.

I've heard that, but I find it hard to reconcile with the fact that Stalin was in Russia and Lenin in Switzerland. I think it more likely that Stalin was the actual author of the book on nationalism, and that others wrote Foundations for him. But that's an hypothesis, not supported by any facts, other than the thousands of miles separating the comrades.

[Valeofruin]

I've heard that, but I find it hard to reconcile with the fact that Stalin was in Russia and Lenin in Switzerland. I think it more likely that Stalin was the actual author of the book on nationalism, and that others wrote Foundations for him. But that's an hypothesis, not supported by any facts, other than the thousands of miles separating the comrades.

Any minor differences in the style of Stalins literary works usualy depend on the purpose they serve.

You must bear in mind the political purpose of Stalins "Foundations of Leninism" as well. There was a very clear objective in that book, as there was in his short pamphlet "On Disagreements" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1921/jan/05.htm).

[Led Zeppelin]

I've heard that, but I find it hard to reconcile with the fact that Stalin was in Russia and Lenin in Switzerland. I think it more likely that Stalin was the actual author of the book on nationalism, and that others wrote Foundations for him. But that's an hypothesis, not supported by any facts, other than the thousands of miles separating the comrades.

Stalin and Lenin were both in western-Europe, I believe it was Vienna, when that was written.

[Wanted Man]

My position's pretty simple on this. China was threatened in a very real way by the USSR, which was threatening to attack them and had nukes pointed at their cities - they were tense times. With this in mind, it is understandable and justifiable for the Chinese leaders to have made the decision to support forces that opposed the USSR, considering how threatened they felt by them.
So, basically, it was understandable and justifiable for the Chinese to support the Mujahideen because they were also being threatened by the USSR? And why exactly were they threatened in the first place? Maybe it had something to do with the Chinese alignment with US imperialism before that?

Of course, everything had to be seen in context. I think that the actions of both the revisionists and the Maoists were both wrong, and that they both split the movement. China is rightly criticised because it aligned with US imperialism, but it only did so because of the Sino-Soviet split that had been going on long before. In that split, the USSR, wait for it... withheld support for China and also warmed up to the US! You can go back even further, even to the Stalin era, when the Maoists already began promoting 'Mao Zedong Thought' at the expense of Marxism-Leninism. Or rewind even further, to Stalin's line in the Chinese Civil War.

Still, I think China made the gravest offences by actually supporting RENAMO (Mozambique), UNITA (Angola), and Somalia against Ethiopia. Also, supporting Pol Pot, invading Vietnam as 'punishment', allying with the US and Pakistan in the Afghan war and sending aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. Although these latter things mostly happened after Mao's death, so I think it would make sense for Maoists to at least disassociate from these crimes.

Besides an asinine contest of 'who started it', for me the only viable conclusion is that both groups split the movement with the two-headed serpent of left-sectarianism on one side, and right-opportunism on the other. Other forces against the movement also existed, like revisionism, national chauvinism, etc.

In any case, I don't think it's correct to claim that one side in the Sino-Soviet split was 'justifiable', just because the other side was already an enemy. That's like saying that Nazi Germany justifiably invaded Poland, because Poland had aligned itself with the British prior to that.

[Rawthentic]

To make a point: Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before. It needs to be criticized and understood in that light.

But unlike most do here (and I assume it has a lot do with the very tiny amount of Maoists on this forum and the wealth of trots on it), I am still a Maoist, and maintain the Chinese revolution as the most radical socialist movement to date.

Its achievements far (FAR) outweigh its many excesses and faults.

[Devrim]

I don't think that it is at all surprising that the foreign policy of the Chinese state was dictated by the needs of the Chinese state. In many ways it was just another part of the cold war with the China generally playing a pro-US/anti-Soviet role.


Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before.

But it had never supported internationalism. Maoism started as a current that led the working class in China into the second imperialist war.


If we accept that Maoists are socialists...

To go back to the title of the thread, I don't.

Devrim

[Pogue]

Theres no point in trying to work out some sort of defense for what the Maoists in China did, what Trotsky did, etc. It's also stupid to actually follow the teachigns of your Trotsky's and Mao's to the letter. They were both, in there time, at certain points, incredibly powerful beurecratic dictators (Trotsky to a lesser extent but he was high up in an undemocratic state capitalist system), and so as heads of not only states but dictatorial states, they committed terrible acts which contradicted socialism, mainly because the whole idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat in the statist sense inevitably leads to selling out the revolution.

Thats not to knock Trotskyists, I have full respect for them, formerly being a Trot myself. But Maoists I think are somewhat stupid in their ideas, their emphasis on national liberation seems like opputunistic sell out for me and generally I think they're a bit ideologically confused, and there plan of action for spreading socialist revolution worldwide is doomed to fail.

[BobKKKindle$]

(Trotsky to a lesser extent but he was high up in an undemocratic state capitalist system)This makes no sense - Trotsky was elected to the position of vice-chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 revolution and was also one of the few Bolshevik leader to fight against the proposed ban on internal factions at the 10th Party Congress, as he recognized that any vanguard party in a post-revolutionary state must seek to preserve and promote democracy so as to avoid the emergence of a new bureuacratic class within the party apparatus.


the whole idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat in the statist sense inevitably leads to selling out the revolution.This is an idealistic analysis which fails to account for the role of internal conflict as well as international pressure - the eventual failure of Soviet Russia and the emergence of a new class in the form of the party bureaucracy was not the result of mistakes made by the leaders of the Bolsheviks or any deliberate attempt to "sell out", but by the failure of the revolution to spread to other more advanced countries such as Germany, as this led to the disintegration of the proletariat during the Civil War, as large numbers of workers and especially the most militant sections of the proletariat were forced to flee to the countryside or return to their peasant villages due to intense food shortages and the collapse of industrial production.


their emphasis on national liberation seems like opputunistic sell out

Trotskyists also lend unconditional support to movements fighting against national liberation and this is not a "confused" or "opportunistic" position but a principled response to the challenges and struggles facing workers during the age of imperialism. Trotskyists are also the strongest advocates of world revolution as we recognize that the prerequisites for socialism have only been attained on an international scale due to the fact that imperialism has linked all countries together and created an integrated global economy through trade and investment transactions, whereas Maoists support Stalin's theory of socialism in one country. World revolution is not "doomed to fail" as all successful revolutions have created opportunities for revolution around the world, as shown by the situation in Germany as well as other countries such as Italy following the seizure of power in Russia.

[Rawthentic]

It is easy to dismiss Maoists when you come from a non-communist perspective (i.e like Leo and HLVS).

Maoists are stupid and confused? How so? At least in the United States, Maoism has been the current that has put forward revolution and communism in the boldest manner (from the 60s till now).

Applied creative and scientific manner, it is what we call "living marxism", that is, marxism applied to one's unique conditions.

And of course it had supported internationalism. The socialist china had lent levels of support to national liberation and other revolutionary movements. But I don't you would understand that.

[Devrim]

It is easy to dismiss Maoists when you come from a non-communist perspective (i.e like Leo and HLVS).

It isn't Leo posting on this thread, but I will presume that the comments about not coming from a communist perspective are just another insult.


And of course it had supported internationalism. The socialist china had lent levels of support to national liberation and other revolutionary movements. But I don't you would understand that.

No, I wouldn't. To me it seems quite bizarre that you think that support for 'national liberation movements' is internationalism.

Devrim

[Rawthentic]

Sorry, you have the same avatar.

And I don't mean anything as an insult. I don't believe either you, or Leo, or any left-communist, hold actual revolutionary communist politics.

And, support for national liberation movements (not those led by political or religious reactionaries - and with a high degree of critical awareness of what that movement means) is very important. I'm not going to discuss this question further here.

If you want to talk about China and its nature then I'm all for that.

[Devrim]

If you want to talk about China and its nature then I'm all for that.

OK, please give an example of 'Chinese foreign policy supporting revolutionary internationalism'.


Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before.

Devrim

[scarletghoul]

The PRC's foreign policy has been mostly realist and not much to do with internationalism or ideology or anything. Support for anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan was likely just for the security of China and the CPC's rule.

And whether you agree with it or not, as has been said before you cant just judge a whole ideology based on one thing like this. If maoism was defined as 'everything Mao or Mao Government ever did' then no one would be a maoist.

This is just China's foreign policy, not really a part of maoism (or at most a tiny tiny part).


OK, please give an example of 'Chinese foreign policy supporting revolutionary internationalism'.
Korea?
Debatable, but yeah.

[Devrim]

OK, please give an example of 'Chinese foreign policy supporting revolutionary internationalism'.
Korea?
Debatable, but yeah.

Yeah, that is pretty debatable. I would say that the Korean War was an imperialist conflict fought between two most powerful imperialist blocs of the period, the 'Western Bloc', and the 'Eastern Bloc'.

I don't see calling on workers to fight and die on behalf of imperialism as internationalism.

Devrim

[Leo]

I don't believe either you, or Leo, or any left-communist, hold actual revolutionary communist politics.

Don't worry - with such conflicting positions, it would be impossible for you to: you support workers slaughtering each other under the banners of nationalists, you actively strive to divide the proletariat and mobilize it for battles made for the interests of the bourgeoisie. Also, specifically about western maoists: you hold politically (if not individually) chauvinistic positions about the proletariat of the third world who you regard as inferior, and support them (and in some cases condemn first world workers) because of your liberal moralistic pity and other such values.

We call for the united class struggle of the entire world proletariat against all national bourgeois factions, formation of workers' councils in all parts of the and the establishment of an international dictatorship of the proletariat which is for us a precondition for the establishment of true socialism.

Holding ideologies of different classes, whatever you call yourself you shouldn't be able to call us, of course for us no maoist holds actual revolutionary, socialist, communist, internationalist etc politics.

[Pogue]

Sorry, you have the same avatar.

And I don't mean anything as an insult. I don't believe either you, or Leo, or any left-communist, hold actual revolutionary communist politics.

And, support for national liberation movements (not those led by political or religious reactionaries - and with a high degree of critical awareness of what that movement means) is very important. I'm not going to discuss this question further here.

If you want to talk about China and its nature then I'm all for that.

Thats funny, because Leo and Devrim both believe in a revolution which will lead to a communist society, a society which they want to acheive. Amazing how believing that and actively working towards it is compatible with not holding reovlutionary communist views isn't it?

[TC]

To make a point: Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before. It needs to be criticized and understood in that light.

But unlike most do here (and I assume it has a lot do with the very tiny amount of Maoists on this forum and the wealth of trots on it), I am still a Maoist, and maintain the Chinese revolution as the most radical socialist movement to date.

Its achievements far (FAR) outweigh its many excesses and faults.


I couldn't agree more: the western leftist demand for purity is unmaterialist and immature, the Chinese revolution needs to be recognized in its tremendous accomplishments as well as the strategic and theoretical errors in its (anti-soviet) foreign affairs.

[TC]

But it had never supported internationalism. Maoism started as a current that led the working class in China into the second imperialist war.


What a moronic comment. If you were a Chinese worker in Nanking during the 'second imperialist war', there wasn't a question that you were in it, the question was if you'd prefer to face Japanese bayonets unarmed, armed and organized with the KMT servants of the West, or armed and organized with your comrades fighting against both the Japanese imperialists and the locally based feudal, bourgeois and patriarchal bosses.

[BobKKKindle$]

Thats funny, because Leo and Devrim both believe in a revolution which will lead to a communist society, a society which they want to acheiveThe utopian socialists also aimed to establish a society based on human solidarity and an egalitarian distribution of goods and so the fact that someone may have communism as their ultimate objective does not mean they automatically hold revolutionary politics or should be seen as part of the revolutionary left. Instead, we have to look at how the proponents of a given ideological tendency act within the framework of capitalism and the positions they adopt in relation to contemporary issues such as imperialism and the electoral success of fascist parties. I don't agree with the assertion that Left-Communists are reactionary, but Rawethnic was presumably referring to the fact that Left-Communists are frequently isolated from the mainstream proletariat and have consistently failed to appeal to workers facing imperialist aggression due to the positions they adopt.

[Leo]

I couldn't agree more: the western leftist demand for purity is unmaterialist and immatureIronically, the so-called demand for "purity" comes from posters from the middle east, while the chauvinistic support for third-world nationalists comes from western leftists right now.

[Devrim]

What a moronic comment. If you were a Chinese worker in Nanking during the 'second imperialist war', there wasn't a question that you were in it, the question was if you'd prefer to face Japanese bayonets unarmed, armed and organized with the KMT servants of the West, or armed and organized with your comrades fighting against both the Japanese imperialists and the locally based feudal, bourgeois and patriarchal bosses.

As a matter of fact the Rape of Nanking happened before the outbreak of World War Two, the CCP had virtually no cadres there at the time, the CPC was in alliance with the KMT at the time, and had called for workers to abandon class struggle and for national unity against the Japanese.

However, please don't let any of the facts get in the way of your moralistic ranting.

Devrim

[Pogue]

The utopian socialists also aimed to establish a society based on human solidarity and an egalitarian distribution of goods and so the fact that someone may have communism as their ultimate objective does not mean they automatically hold revolutionary politics or should be seen as part of the revolutionary left. Instead, we have to look at how the proponents of a given ideological tendency act within the framework of capitalism and the positions they adopt in relation to contemporary issues such as imperialism and the electoral success of fascist parties. I don't agree with the assertion that Left-Communists are reactionary, but Rawethnic was presumbaely referring to the fact that Left-Communists are frequently isolated from the mainstream proletariat and have consistently failed to appeal to workers facing imperialist aggression due to the positions they adopt.

I don't think anyone on the revolutionary left can seriously call another revolutionary socialist current 'isolated from the mainstream proletariat' and expect to be taken seriously.

This is a serious question: How do you define imperialism and why are you so focused on it?

[Devrim]

I don't agree with the assertion that Left-Communists are reactionary, but Rawethnic was presumbaely referring to the fact that Left-Communists are frequently isolated from the mainstream proletariat and have consistently failed to appeal to workers facing imperialist aggression due to the positions they adopt.

Whereas the SWP has nass parties in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.

Devrim

[BobKKKindle$]

As a matter of fact the Rape of Nanking happened before the outbreak of World War TwoThis depends on how you define the "outbreak" of WW2. From a western perspective it may seem as if WW2 only began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, but for the inhabitants of China the war began much earlier with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 and possibly even the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The CCP had mass support from 1931 - the year in which the Jiangxi Soviet, encompassing an area holding more than 3 million Chinese peasants as the first example of a rural base area being put into practice, was established, and even when this initial area had been captured by the KMT, the CCP was able to retain support, and eventually succeeded in creating a new base area in Yan'an following the Long March.


This is a serious question: How do you define imperialism and why are you so focused on it?It seems that you and many other members of this forum mistakenly believe that imperialism simply means the use of military force against other countries, or is a government policy dependent on a certain party (such as the Republicans in the case of the United States) being in office - and this is why you view imperialism as unimportant or a mere "issue", equal in importance to other "issues". Marxists hold a different view - we recognize that imperialism is a stage in the development of capitalism exhibiting economic characteristics such as the emergence of powerful monopolies which encompass multiple economic sectors and obstruct market competition, the combination of industrial and banking capital to create finance capital, the central importance of capital exports relative to the export of material commodities, and the territorial division of the world between major imperialist powers. Imperialism produces a range of shifts, all of which have profound effects on the strategies that revolutionaries should adopt and the potential for revolution in different parts of the world, including the creation of a labour aristocracy in the imperialist core (i.e. countries exporting capital overseas, eventually resulting in the creation of "rentier states" which derive all of their wealth from overseas investment returns) the underdevelopment of the periphery, and periodic wars between the major imperialist powers. These shifts are clearly important for millions of working people around the world - imperialism is responsible for the dependency of African nations on agricultural goods, the ongoing food crisis, the deaths of more than 0.5 million Iraqi citizens, and the intense exploitation of workers in sweatshops in semi-industrialized nations. Imperialism is not an "issue" or a "topic" - it is the reality of contemporary capitalism.

I also dealt with these issues in this thread, ' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../north-korea-wrong-t52278/index6.html?t=52278&page=6&highlight=imperialism)Was North Korea wrong to test nuclear weapons' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/north-korea-wrong-t52278/index6.html?t=52278&page=6&highlight=imperialism) but you failed to respond.

[Devrim]

This depends on how you define the "outbreak" of WW2. From a western perspective it may seem as if WW2 only began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, but for the inhabitants of China the war began much earlier with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 and possibly even the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

Arguable, yes. One could say that the two Sino-Japanese wars were a part of the Second World War, but what is your point?

Devrim

[Leo]

What a moronic comment. If you were a Chinese worker in Nanking during the 'second imperialist war', there wasn't a question that you were in it, the question was if you'd prefer to face Japanese bayonets unarmed, armed and organized with the KMT servants of the West, or armed and organized with your comrades fighting against both the Japanese imperialists and the locally based feudal, bourgeois and patriarchal bosses.

Almost the entire world proletariat were mobilized for war - this does not make the war in their interests.

The CCP on the other hand were allies with the KMT during the war, and did not fight the "the locally based feudal, bourgeois and patriarchal bosses". Quite the contrary, they included the national "locally based feudal, bourgeois and patriarchal bosses" as opposed to their counterparts who were "servants of the West". Unsurprisingly, at this point the CCP on it's part was made up of servants of Moscow.

That does not mean that these were the only options militant and revolutionary Chinese workers could see: the Internationalist group, lead by Zheng Chaolin, opposed the imperialist war intransigently and defended the same positions revolutionaries defended against the First World War.

[TC]

This depends on how you define the "outbreak" of WW2. From a western perspective it may seem as if WW2 only began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, but for the inhabitants of China the war began much earlier with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 and possibly even the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The CCP had mass support from 1931 - the year in which the Jiangxi Soviet, encompassing an area holding more than 3 million Chinese peasants as the first example of a rural base area being put into practice, was established, and even when this initial area had been captured by the KMT, the CCP was able to retain support, and eventually succeeded in creating a new base area in Yan'an following the Long March.

It seems that you and many other members of this forum mistakenly believe that imperialism simply means the use of military force against other countries, or is a government policy dependent on a certain party (such as the Republicans in the case of the United States) being in office - and this is why you view imperialism as unimportant or a mere "issue", equal in importance to other "issues". Marxists hold a different view - we recognize that imperialism is a stage in the development of capitalism exhibiting economic characteristics such as the emergence of powerful monopolies which encompass multiple economic sectors and obstruct market competition, the combination of industrial and banking capital to create finance capital, the central importance of capital exports relative to the export of material commodities, and the territorial division of the world between major imperialist powers. Imperialism produces a range of shifts, all of which have profound effects on the strategies that revolutionaries should adopt and the potential for revolution in different parts of the world, including the creation of a labour aristocracy in the imperialist core (i.e. countries exporting capital overseas, eventually resulting in the creation of "rentier states" which derive all of their wealth from overseas investment returns) the underdevelopment of the periphery, and periodic wars between the major imperialist powers. These shifts are clearly important for millions of working people around the world - imperialism is responsible for the dependency of African nations on agricultural goods, the ongoing food crisis, the deaths of more than 0.5 million Iraqi citizens, and the intense exploitation of workers in sweatshops in semi-industrialized nations. Imperialism is not an "issue" or a "topic" - it is the reality of contemporary capitalism.

I also dealt with these issues in this thread, ' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../north-korea-wrong-t52278/index6.html?t=52278&page=6&highlight=imperialism)Was North Korea wrong to test nuclear weapons' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/north-korea-wrong-t52278/index6.html?t=52278&page=6&highlight=imperialism) but you failed to respond.

Since I can't add any more reputation to you I'll just say that I always appreciate reading response from a genuine Marxist perspective to utopian socialists with phoney pretenses to 'marxism'

[BobKKKindle$]

the Internationalist group, lead by Zheng Chaolin, opposed the imperialist war intransigently and defended the same positions revolutionaries defended against the First World War.What form should opposition to the imperialist war have taken? All communists would agree that the world would have been a better place if the communist movement had successfully overthrown capitalism before WW2 was able to occur, but the fact is that in the late 1930s the whole of the Chinese proletariat was faced with the threat of a rapidly advancing Japanese army equipped with some of the most modern weaponry available at that time, and whenever the Japanese established themselves as a major political force they conducted brutal massacres against the local population and rooted out all communist militants. Given these circumstances, how should the CCP have acted? In reality, the CCP fought against the Japanese and created base areas to demonstrate the advantages of socialism and prevent the peasantry from falling into the hands of the KMT, and also entered into a temporary alliance with the KMT in order to prevent internal divisions within the anti-imperialist movement. The Japanese would have been able to benefit from any divisions that did emerge - and so although this was unfortunate from an abstract, ideological, viewpoint, it was necessary and acceptable given the circumstances.

TC: Thanks, and likewise.

[Leo]

What form should opposition to the imperialist war have taken?

Opposition to all imperialist forces, the KMT, Japanese Army, CCP and their respective international patrons / allies. Call for fraternalization and joint struggle of Chinese and Japanese workers and soldiers against their bosses and generals specifically and of the whole world proletariat against the imperialist war, call for turning the imperialist war into civil war.

This is what the internationalist communists in China did.


All communists would agree that the world would have been a better place if the communist movement had successfully overthrown capitalism before WW2 was able to occur, but the fact is that in the late 1930s the whole of the Chinese proletariat was faced with the threat of a rapidly advancing Japanese army equipped with some of the most modern weaponry available at that time, and whenever the Japanese established themselves as a major political force they conducted brutal massacres against the local population and rooted out all communist militants.

Yes, this is imperialist war and is horrificly brutal. It is, on the other hand, no reason to call for national defence which never is in the interests of the proletariat. Nor did genuine Chinese communists did anything as such.

Would you say that a communist movement in Imperial Japan or in Nazi Germany should have called for national defence and enter into allience with local bourgeois factions? Because more or less equally horrific and aggressive massacres were comitted by the Allies.


Given these circumstances, how should the CCP have acted?

Realistically, the only way the CCP could have acted was doing what Moscow ordered. They were long dead as a proletarian party, and were a mere tool of Russian imperialism.


In reality, the CCP fought against the Japanese and created base areas to demonstrate the advantages of socialism and prevent the peasantry from falling into the hands of the KMT, and also entered into a temporary alliance with the KMT in order to prevent internal divisions within the anti-imperialist movement. The Japanese would have been able to benefit from any divisions that did emerge - and so although this was unfortunate from an abstract, ideological, viewpoint, it was necessary and acceptable given the circumstances.

Depends on whether the interests of a specific nation or those of the international proletariat are taken into consideration. The former is completely irrelevant to the interests of the latter.

[BobKKKindle$]

This is what the internationalist communists in China did.Evidently the slogans raised by the "internationalist communists" did not succeed in breaking the morale of the Japanese military apparatus and it is possible that even if these slogans had been raised by the whole of the communist movement and not just an isolated section of it, they would still have failed, due to the ideological strength and popular support of militarism in Japan. Given this situation, how should workers have acted? Should the Chinese proletariat have allowed Japanese troops to enter their towns with the knowledge that communist militants would be killed and massacres perpetrated as a result? Given the human costs of Japanese occupation, it would have been foolish for the CCP to reject the right of the Chinese proletariat to defend itself when faced with the aggressive maneuvers of an imperialist power, because doing so would justifiably lead to the CCP losing whatever support they had in China when the invasion was taking place, and it possible that the Chinese proletariat would have turned to the KMT instead, as the only organization willing to fight against imperialism.


Would you say that a communist movement in Imperial Japan or in Nazi Germany should have called for national defence and enter into allience with local bourgeois factions?Obviously not - communists who inhabit nations which are part of the imperialist bloc should adopt a position of revolutionary defeatism, whereby we hope for and support the defeat of our own nation, and call for imperialist war (i.e. war between nations) to be transformed into civil war between classes. China is an oppressed nation, whereas Japan is not, and so supporting the struggle against imperialism was the right position for communists in China to adopt.


Whereas the SWP has nass parties in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.What does the SWP have to do with any of this? The SWP/IST is just a small part of a much broader group of communist organizations around the world, all of which give unconditional support to movements fighting against imperialist oppression. This group encompasses both Trotskyists and Maoists, and historically workers living in oppressed nations as well as workers living inside the imperialist bloc have supported and identified with this group to a greater extent than Left-Communism.

[Asoka89]

Okay I dont label myself, but I would say I come out of the Trotskyist tradition--- with that as a preface I must say Mao was despotic in many ways made many mistakes, but he was a great anti-imperialist leader and there are aspects of the Cultural Revolution, contrary to bourgeois propoganda, that were some of the most revolutionary and genuinely socialist things that we have seen so far.

But foreign policy-wise China fucked up big time. Their actions in North Vietnam, their stance on Cambodia, their actions supporting imperialism in Africa (Angola), their actions in Afghanistan, their support of talks with Nixon, etc.. were all incredibly reactionary, and it did start during Mao's reign. Most Maoists today recognize this, this doesn't take anything away of them using Maoist ideas as a toolset to enact revolutionary change.

[redguard2009]

Opposition to all imperialist forces, the KMT, Japanese Army, CCP and their respective international patrons / allies.

Realistically, that would've been about as useful as gathering up your family, handing out kitchen utensils as weapons, and launching an attack against the entire Japanese army. Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where romantic notions of the heroic determination of a scant few will somehow endure the worst hardships. And while it'd be nice if we could avoid any action which in any way whatsoever goes back even an inch on any sort of progress -- or even just stalls it temporarily -- we just don't have that luxery. Yeah, the CCP formed a temporary truce and efforts of co-ordination with the KMT, but what, exactly, was the alternative? The KMT in 1937 still held the reigns to quite a lot of power in China and their capitulation to Japan would have been an immense blow to China as a whole. It was damned smart of the CCP to work with the KMT, a hell of a lot smarter than it would've been to stubbornly refuse to co-operate with anyone against a much larger and much more dangerous and immediate threat.


It is, on the other hand, no reason to call for national defence which never is in the interests of the proletariat.

Wait, what? I must be misunderstanding you because it would appear you're advocating that acting in self-defense isn't in a proletarian's best interests.

I'm starting to understand you far-left guys. It seems to me that when you look at the world, you do not see the machinations of any modern political or socio-economic system. Politics, governments, armies -- you see none of it. You see only the shadowly image of a completely united proletarian existence, some abstract parallel dimension in which any form of information or being which was born outside of your perfect imagery of socialist paradise shouldn't be recognized let alone accepted.


Realistically, the only way the CCP could have acted was doing what Moscow ordered. They were long dead as a proletarian party, and were a mere tool of Russian imperialism.

Ironically, that's exactly what the CCP didn't do. Prior to the Japanese invasion Moscow and the Comintern "ordered" the CCP to "co-exist" with the KMT, going so far as to use its influence to stir the pot of the CCP leadership until a satisfactory "formula" was established. Mao, on the contrary, refused this "order" and went on to mobilize factions of the CCP in the formation of the Army of Worker's and Peasants to wage war against the KMT. Fortunately, KMT purges of the urban base of the CCP removed this Moscow-aligned influence, allowing Mao to become one of the only remaining prominant leaders left.


Depends on whether the interests of a specific nation or those of the international proletariat are taken into consideration. The former is completely irrelevant to the interests of the latter.

How do you gather that? Were the proletarians of Poland, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, western USSR, and the baltics completely immune to the effects of the Nazi occupation? Were Chinese workers and peasants immune to Japanese bayonets driving into their stomachs, their homes and workplaces being burned down, proletarian women being turned into sex-slaves?

I guess you hadn't heard the news, but in general, when an invading army occupies your land, especially an imperialistic and quite aggressive one, things tend to get a little rough. Of course, recognizing this assumes one recognize that armies exist and do bad things, and that the realm of proletarianism is connected to the realm of reality. Y'see, we tried the "let's not fight, let's hold hands and hooplah and kill our bosses and generals" thing during WW1. It didn't work. Infact, that's where we learned that agitation and propaganda, which is a fine tool during "peacetime", doesn't really affect mobilized, regimented, disciplined and trained armed forces. It is not realistic to expect us to be able to collapse the foundation of power of the bourgeoisie and its armed forces by urging the workers of the other country to rise up with you. There will be no magical, simeltaneous clamour of revolutionary uprising across the globe; there will be no giant lightbulb that suddenly fires off floating above the entire planet as workers everywhere suddenly realize "the truth" and are hit with the epiphany that they can all rise up at the same time and change the world.

For those of us living in the real world (and yes, that means we take things like guns and bombs and tanks seriously) the revolutionary struggle will never succeed unless we are willing and able to be both determined and intelligent. Short of the afore-mentioned impossibility of a sudden worldwide epidemic of epiphanies, the global system of capitalism can and will not be suddenly undone. We have to fight the battles that are important in the long run, not sit on our hands waiting for "the one" battle to come along. If this means mobilizing to stop the advance of an invading army which will surely crush all organized proletarian and progressive efforts, than so be it. If doing that requires working with an enemy to defeat a larger one, then so be that, too.

Case in point, if the CCP hadn't mobilized against the Japanese, and hadn't declared a truce with the KMT to do so, it would have never been in the position it was after the war to take control of all of China and defeat the KMT completely.

Seriously, stop living in a fantasy world. We've got real issues to deal with.

[Revy]

The mujahideen were supported by the U.S. as a Cold War conflict by proxy. They were Islamic fundamentalists, who were fighting to turn back the relatively secular nature of the Soviet backed Afghan regime.

The U.S. wanted to provoke an invasion by the Soviet Union. The mujahideen were the agents of U.S. imperialism and had a reactionary and oppressive ideology. The Soviet Union's invasion was also imperialist, so you had two sides that were not worthy of support for either.

[Revy]

Personally, I take a neutral position on that particular struggle, supporting neither the fundamentalists nor the Soviet invaders. I think RAWA has a good line on this;

http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html

I agree. RAWA's a great group.

[redguard2009]

They are similar to the Maoist Progressive Youth Organization and in general Maoists during the Soviet occupation era. The PYO was also purged by the PDPA government in Afghanistan (the pro-Moscow party) with help from the KGB in the late 70s and during the occupation the Afghanistan Liberation Organization and other Maoists urged a similar "neutral" position, urging defense against the Soviet invasion and denunciation of fundamentalism. So :thumbup1: for them.

Edit: Ironically, the founder of RAWA was married to the founder of the Afghanistan Liberation Organization (Maoist organization, a sort of prodigy of the PYO; its founder was a "student" of the founder of the PYO).

[Random Precision]

I agree. RAWA's a great group.

They call for the replacement of US troops in Afghanistan by forces from the United Nations. So I'm not too sure about that.

[Revy]

They call for the replacement of US troops in Afghanistan by forces from the United Nations. So I'm not too sure about that.
Source?

i've never heard that.

[Random Precision]

Some former Communists and Maoists, like Rawa (the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan), call for the Americans to leave but for all the other occupying forces to remain as the United Nations. This would change nothing, is not a serious position and amounts to choosing the occupation over the resistance.

Link (http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=481&issue=120).

[BobKKKindle$]

RP is right. The IST maintained a principled position during the conflict in Afghanistan by giving military support to the Mujahideen - calling for the UN to take the place of the United States is an idealist stance, because the UN has frequently been used by the imperialist powers to create a facade of legitimacy for their own imperialist designs by making it seem as if occupations reflect the will of the international community and are intended to meet the humanitarian needs of populations living under despotic governments. This is partly why RAWA failed to develop strong roots amongst the Afghan population, and by doing so allowed the Mujahideen to become the most important part of the resistance to Soviet occupation, eventually resulting in the victory of the fundamentalist forces and a prolonged civil war following the withdrawal of the Red Army. In addition to holding a reactionary position on the UN, RAWA also called for the restoration of King Zahir Shah:


RAWA has stated that it would support the return of the exiled King Zahir Shah

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1562596.stm

[Die Neue Zeit]

The mujahideen were supported by the U.S. as a Cold War conflict by proxy. They were Islamic fundamentalists, who were fighting to turn back the relatively secular nature of the Soviet backed Afghan regime.

The U.S. wanted to provoke an invasion by the Soviet Union. The mujahideen were the agents of U.S. imperialism and had a reactionary and oppressive ideology. The Soviet Union's invasion was also imperialist, so you had two sides that were not worthy of support for either.

I agree with everything you said except the last sentence. In each of the three major "tankie" incidents involving the Soviet Union, no "social-imperialist" motivations existed. :(

[Random Precision]

To make a point: Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before. It needs to be criticized and understood in that light.

But unlike most do here (and I assume it has a lot do with the very tiny amount of Maoists on this forum and the wealth of trots on it), I am still a Maoist, and maintain the Chinese revolution as the most radical socialist movement to date.

Its achievements far (FAR) outweigh its many excesses and faults.

Not very materialist is it? Foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy, and you need to be looking at the nature of Mao's regime in the PRC to find where its foreign policy came from, what motivations drove it instead of writing it off as an "error" that only tarnishes a bit the legacy of this "most radical socialist movement to date".

[Pogue]

Yeah, RAWA is an anti-communist, reactionary outfit. Claiming to be "revolutionary," they've taken the opposite position at every opportunity. That's why it received backing from Democrats in the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan. They support a UN occupation and the restoration of King Zahir Shah as was said (they were even invited to attend to the talks in Bonn that set up the occupation government). While claiming neutrality, they supported the mujahedin against the revolutionary government (the same one that brought education to women, prohibited forced marriage, legalized divorce, etc.). RAWA's founder said “To fight against the Russian aggressors is inseparable from struggle against the fundamentalists. Nevertheless for the time being we should give priority to the former.” The "aggressors" were forced into Afghanistan by the threat of an anti-communist U.S. puppet state on the border of the USSR. The bureaucrats in the USSR refused to send troops for some time initially. There are many threads on it here for anyone interested.

RAWA's international representative later complained that the revolutionaries and Red Army “were trying to give some rights to Afghan women that are obviously okay in Western societies, but are not acceptable in our societies.... For example, they wanted to give so-called liberties of having a boyfriend or dancing in a nightclub, which are not acceptable in our society.”

China was run by a privileged bureaucratic caste whose policy was dictated by national interests instead of proletarian internationalism. That's why China supported the counterrevolutionaries in Afghanistan that threw acid in the face of school teachers, that's why Mao's China immediately recognized the government of Pinochet which came to power in a bloody coup that ousted Allende, and that's why you can find pictures of Mao hanging out with Nixon, Kissinger, Imelda Marcos, etc.

Even when they gave arms to some group somewhere claiming to be communist or fighting for national liberation, it was done with the perspective that their victory would be in China's best interests.

That doesn't change the nature of the state though. A bureaucratized proletarian state was constructed after the old capitalist state was smashed in the Revolution of 1949. That state still exists to this day. It has not yet been destroyed.

To the last part of your post:

Its irrelevant. Its a state encouraging capitalism.

[BobKKKindle$]

If a capitalist state existed in China communists would fight to smash it.What significant differences are there between the form of state administration in China and other countries which are universally accepted as capitalist? The Chinese state exercises its power through armed bodies of men separated from the rest of the population and is comprised of representatives who make decisions with no system of recall to hold them democratically accountable to the electorate. There are of course several features of the Chinese state in relation to the economy, such as state ownership of strategic industries including armaments production and the energy sector, government control of financial transactions and the value of the national currency, and limits on the ability of foreign shareholders to make decisions without the support of the government, and these features should be defended, but these features are not qualitatively different from other forms of government intervention which allow the proletariat to defend itself against capitalism - for example, the minimum wage, laws regulating the length of the working day, and nationalization of utilities.

[Nakidana]

Well I support the Afghan people's struggle against imperialism, whatever form that takes. The Taliban is the only group taking up arms against the occupation in Afghanistan, and I respect them for that. I don't agree with their ideology, but I agree with their militant resistance towards occupation.

Their popularity in Afghanistan can't be denied. They wouldn't be able to move around in the country, and set up ambushes they way they do, if they didn't have popular support. A couple of days ago I saw a video where a marine fuckface went on patrol with his "bois" to a local village. They'd been attacked with mortar grenades a couple of days earlier and knew the grenades had been fired from the village.
So they go down there to get some info from the local populace, and the first thing the marine says when he sees the village leader is "Yeah that's the guy we need to talk to, fat guy with the red beard".

The Islamophobic racists don't have any respect for the people they're trying to "liberate". They don't know about their culture, don't know about their way of living and honestly I don't think they give a shit. We know how they cheer when they bomb weddings with hundreds of women and children. They see the population as nothing more than stupid "sandniggers" that need to be force fed "democracy". And when you ask them to pull out they respond "Oh no, that would lead to a power vacuum and the Afghans would kill each other!". They don't see the Afghans as equals, they see them as lesser beings. Beings incapable of ruling and developing their own country. Barbarians that, when left alone, will rape and murder each other. Same bullshit the French were spitting in Algeria. Fortunately the Mujahedeen in Algeria made them change their mind.

Anyway, the translator, at the behest of the marine sergeant, asks the village leader when he last saw the Taliban and the leader responds: "umm, around a year ago". Needless to say the marine was pissed. :laugh:

The Taliban is not the same Taliban we saw before the occupation. Lots of new recruits have come in, and many among the ranks are talking about not repeating the "mistakes" Taliban made when last in power. They also seem to be a bit more tolerant and modern than before. I'm not saying they're completely turned around, but they've made improvements.

If the choice is between Afghanistan under the boot of the West, and Afghanistan under the Taliban, then I choose the latter. Less people will get killed, and at least the Afghan people will get some fucking stability. That's what they really want. They want to have a couple of years without fucking civil war and occupation so they can settle down and develop the country. And that will never happen under occupation.

The occupation will lead to nothing, national liberation will eventually bring progress.

[Rawthentic]

Not very materialist is it? Foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy, and you need to be looking at the nature of Mao's regime in the PRC to find where its foreign policy came from, what motivations drove it instead of writing it off as an "error" that only tarnishes a bit the legacy of this "most radical socialist movement to date".

Sure, it is materialist.

I can recognize the socialist revolution in china as being a tremendous achievement in human history while also condemning and criticizing the foreign policy as dangerously wrong.

And your scare quotes dont scare me. Or phase me.

[Rawthentic]

"Chinese Foreign Policy during the Maoist Era and It's Lessons for Today" is a great piece put together by the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Revolutionary Study Group (MLMRSG). It is put together in a professional manner with quotes and everything.

The thing is, it is forty pages long and needs to be downloaded. But if people are serious about taking a look at this question, it would be a great read (since this forum is devoid of any Maoist analysis).

http://www.mlmrsg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51:chinese-foreign-policy-during-the-maoist-era-and-its-lessons-for-today&catid=25:articles

[Random Precision]

Sure, it is materialist.

I can recognize the socialist revolution in china as being a tremendous achievement in human history while also condemning and criticizing the foreign policy as dangerously wrong.

You're not addressing what I said at all. The foreign policy that you freely admit was dangerously wrong wasn't something that Mao and the other higher-ups in the PRC just did in their sleep or whatever, thus making huge mistakes that they otherwise wouldn't have. The PRC throughout the Maoist era pursued a very purposeful foreign policy, and it's an insult to everything Marxist to just write it off as a terrible mistake without looking at where it came from.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, I understand there was a purpose behing the foreign policy, and I've said it was wrong.

There are no Maoists (amongst the millions) in the world today that uphold that particular aspect of his leadership.

Tell, what do you think about Trotsky's menshevik background?

[Random Precision]

Yeah, I understand there was a purpose behing the foreign policy, and I've said it was wrong.

But what was that purpose? And why was it pursued? These are questions that you must ask and search out answers to. Right now you're acting just like Deng Xiao Ping, proclaiming various parts of Mao's rule "good" and other parts "bad" without looking at it as a whole to see how foreign policy related to domestic policy.


There are no Maoists (amongst the millions) in the world today that uphold that particular aspect of his leadership.

That's a pretty broad statement.


Tell, what do you think about Trotsky's menshevik background?

Well, this hardly compares to a whole foreign policy, but nevertheless I'll dive in.

Trotsky felt compelled to side against Lenin, whom he was good friends with, because of the high regard he had for the "old guard" of the RSDLP, including Vera Zasulich and Yuli Martov. Nevertheless he was soon inspired to break with the Mensheviks because of their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals, and spent time trying to reconcile the two factions, not always mistakenly. When 1917 came, after wavering for a month or so he and his group joined the Bolshevik Party; he said later that splitting with Lenin in 1902 had been "the biggest mistake of my life".

Did Mao or Zhou En-lai ever admit that their foreign policy was wrong and contrary to proletarian internationalism? I very much doubt it.

And also, I just remembered this:


Chinese foreign policy during this era was very wrong and went against the revolutionary internationalism it had supported before

When did the CCP or PRC ever support revolutionary internationalism?

[Rawthentic]

The CCP supported (before what went wrong) the Korean and Vietnamese revolutionaries.

I posted a very well-written document, and says a lot more than I can.

Well, why don't you tell us where this foreign policy came from?

And, just like you won't condemn trotkyism for its menshevik background, I find it stupid and un-materialist to throw out maoism for a certain period, regardless of where it came from.

And there aren't maoists who uphold that aspect of his leadership. We are scientists, not religious monks. Criticism and self-criticism are key components of maoism.

I am interested in this discussion, but it certainly isn't something that can turn me away from maoism, for obvious reasons.

[Led Zeppelin]

Tell, what do you think about Trotsky's menshevik background?

It doesn't phase me at all. I am totally unphased by it.

[Rawthentic]

Led:

good. And I wouldn't expect you to be.

[Devrim]

The CCP supported (before what went wrong) the Korean and Vietnamese revolutionaries.

These are considered by many not to be revolutionary struggles, but expressions of inter-imperialist tensions.

Whilst the Communist left would apply this analysis to be of them, even the SWP/IST holds that position about Korea.

Devrim

[KC]

The character of a state is not determined by its "form of administration."

Then perhaps you could explain to us the "qualitative difference" between China and other capitalist nations other than its form of administration. What makes China a "proletarian state" to you?


The CCP supported (before what went wrong) the Korean and Vietnamese revolutionaries.

There was no revolution in Korea.

[KC]

"A state is an institution of armed violence that defends and rests on particular property forms. It cannot simply switch from defending and resting on one form to another. In order to take power, the working class has to smash the capitalist state. In order to take power, the capitalists have to smash the proletarian state.

"The Chinese revolution smashed the existing state and overturned capitalist property relations (i.e. when the capitalists were expropriated, when the means of production were taken into public ownership, etc.). A new bureaucratic proletarian state came out of this. That state still exists today. It has never been destroyed."

Ok, so what I'm getting from this is that because the "Chinese revolution smashed the state" the state that exists today is automatically proletarian. Now what's your definition of "proletarian state"? A state that protects proletarian class interests?


Really? Perhaps you can explain to us how the capitalists and landlords lost control of the means of production then. Did they just hand it over or what?

I understand perfectly what happened in Korea, thank you very much. It is apparently you that don't understand the concept of state and how it manifests in its different forms (probably owing to your "Castroist" origins and acceptance of Cuba as "socialist"; this is also evidenced in your belief that China is still a "proletarian state").

From your article:

"An agreement was reached [B]between the USSR and the U.S. that each country would occupy one-half of the Korean Peninsula while preparations for independence were made.

...

In the northern part of the peninsula, a temporary “Civil Authority” under the USSR’s military was set up in 1945, while “provisional committees” were established across the region by Koreans. With the backing of the present military forces of the USSR a social revolution took place.

While the revolutionary transformation that occurred in the north was no doubt genuine, its reliance on the soldiers of the USSR"

And on and on and on. North Korea was the result of the USSR/US conflict and not a revolution in any real sense.

[Devrim]

This is interesting to mention, since it was the question over which the Cliffites split with Trotsky (and in fact communism).

Well they split with 'Trotskyism', not Trotsky.. The old man was dead by then. As for your comments about splitting with Communism, we would analysis it differently.

There was a crisis in Trotskyism following the Second World War. The Cliff tendency was one of many groups that was moving away from Trotskyism, which we would characterise as a movement that had passed over to the bourgeoisie with its support of the imperialist war. Unfortunately with the Cliff tendency the break was shallow and incomplete. By Vietnam, they were back with the Trotskyist mainstream, taking sides in imperialist conflicts.

Devrim

[KC]

We're historical materialists. We know after the bourgeoisie and its system is pushed from the stage of history the proletariat and its system will replace it. That system will be based on property held in public ownership.

The states that come out of anti-capitalist revolutions rest on and defend post-capitalist property relations and thus are proletarian in nature, just like states that came out of anti-feudal revolutions and rested on private property were bourgeois in nature.

Ok so then could you please explain how the Chinese state is "based on property held in public ownership"? Moreover, could you explain how public ownership in China is qualitatively different than public ownership in, say, England?

[Leo]

Now what's your definition of "proletarian state"? A state that protects proletarian class interests? We're historical materialists. We know after the bourgeoisie and its system is pushed from the stage of history the proletariat and its system will replace it. That system will be based on property held in public ownership.

The states that come out of anti-capitalist revolutions rest on and defend post-capitalist property relations and thus are proletarian in nature, just like states that came out of anti-feudal revolutions and rested on private property were bourgeois in nature (...) The capitalist state was smashed in an anti-capitalist revolution. The capitalists and landlords were expropriated. A new state was created that rested on and defended the new property relations. That state exists to this day. What you are doing is fitting the reality to a very dogmatic and idealistic understanding of a terminology by paying lip service to it. This is neither historical nor materialist.

First of all, you are equating public ownership with state property and the expropriation of capitalists and landowners by the state with an anti-capitalist revolution, and presenting what appears as a "post-capitalist" relation because of this.

With all this, you conclude that there exists a "workers' state" in those countries, and you ignore the existence of an organized group of people, a class, of those who control all the means of production through their positions running the state, who run businesses, who put the commodity - money - commodity circle into practice and who aims to increase the controlled state capital using surplus value, and who enjoys great privileges because of all under his hands, and who has the power to hire, to fire and who pays wages. In every way, this group of people, regardless of their juridical status which is dependent on state ideology, with their mode of function and their real social status resemble the board of executives and/or shareholders of a corporation. And then there is another group of people, a class who work in all sectors, produce all the value of which the surplus value is exploited by the other group, who are paid wages, who can be fired at any time, who has no power against their bosses individually - their bosses who can send them to all sorts of horrible places. The material situation regarding the economical-social relations in all these supposedly "socialist" countries, the relations between the two social "groups", which can be called classes as it is in all other countries, is a capitalist one, the first mentioned class being the bourgeoisie and the latter being the working class. So we can say that the practice in these places clearly show that the relations there are capitalist. And after all, the argument that state property meant public property, that it was something anti-capitalist is very easily disproved by the fact that so many countries about whose nature not even you have nationalized time and time again. In such case, though these countries would not have an "anti-capitalist economy" as you use, they clearly must have "socialistic" or "anti-capitalist" sectors according to your logic.

But there is an even more important point that you are missing, regarding the historic nature of what a state is. A state is fundamentally an organ that is used to defend the interests of a certain class rule. More than hundred years ago, existing states which were previously a battleground for the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie challenging it and to a much lesser extent the newly forming proletariat ended up fully surrendering the world capitalist order and becoming an ossified part and organ of that mode of production. Thus marxists of the era have been underlying that it's impossible to take over the old state, and that the old state had to be smashed. It of course is clear that a state is necessary organ during the proletarian dictatorship, and although hoped to be a "nice and communal" semi-state, a state is a state, an organ conservative by it's nature and potentially reactionary and counter-revolutionary. Even the new state formed by the working class will be a potential threat, and a serious one also. The working class has to exercise it's dictatorship, both political and also administrative by extension using workers' councils over what is called the state, in order to form and use structure that have deep conservative tendencies by their nature for revolutionary purposes. Obviously a state over which the workers exercise their dictatorship is not a "proletarian state" or a "workers' state", because the interests of this state can not be identified with those of the working class ever. Thus without the workers dictatorship over it, there is nothing to stop a state, even though workers initially exercised their dictatorship over it, from taking the most reactionary, most murderous, most counter-revolutionary capitalist road possible (as we have seen in Russia) and if this political dictatorship of the working class through independent organs of the whole class, the workers councils wasn't ever exercised, if these organs never came into existence to begin with, then we can easily say that states in question weren't ever used for the revolutionary interests of the proletariat, that there never were any anti-capitalist revolutions there and that they were and remained bourgeois after their coups. Thus an analysis about these states being "proletarian" fails on being accurate on class relations with the state historically also. So basically I'd say what you are putting forward is not a historical materialist analysis in any meaningful methodological sense.

[Die Neue Zeit]

With all this, you conclude that there exists a "workers' state" in those countries, and you ignore the existence of an organized group of people, a class, of those who control all the means of production through their positions running the state, who run businesses, who put the commodity - money - commodity circle into practice and who aims to increase the controlled state capital using surplus value, and who enjoys great privileges because of all under his hands, and who has the power to hire, to fire and who pays wages..

Why C-M-C? Don't you mean the M-C-M cycle here?

[Led Zeppelin]

If you think that capitalists took control of a state that was constructed in an anti-capitalist revolution then you have no understanding of the state, and you are, as Trotsky put it 'running the real of reformism in reverse.'

Please don't pretend your position is the same as Trotsky's.

He argued that it was quite possible for the USSR to degenerate to such an extent that it would restore capitalist property relations without going through another social revolution.

If you want I will quote him on this. And yes, I know you can find quotes saying the opposite, but I can put those in context and find more recent quotes than those, so let's not get into a quote war please.

[Hiero]

Opposition to all imperialist forces, the KMT, Japanese Army, CCP and their respective international patrons / allies. Call for fraternalization and joint struggle of Chinese and Japanese workers and soldiers against their bosses and generals specifically and of the whole world proletariat against the imperialist war, call for turning the imperialist war into civil war.

This is what the internationalist communists in China did.

And I am sure they were popular.

You don't live on planet earth do you?

[Devrim]

And I am sure they were popular.

You don't live on planet earth do you?

Well, I imagine that they weren't. Not because left communism is an 'unpopular' idea, but because the working class had been defeated. The working class in China suffered a historic defeat in 1927, which it was unable to recover from by the time of the war.

Historically the communist left has been strong when the working class has been strong. It has shared both its victories and its defeats.

Devrim

[Leo]

I'm not going to spend time responding to Leo's diatribe.

Now why am I not surprised?:rolleyes:


He misquotes me and makes a bunch of baseless assertions.

Such as?

[Hiero]

Well, I imagine that they weren't. Not because left communism is an 'unpopular' idea, but because the working class had been defeated. The working class in China suffered a historic defeat in 1927, which it was unable to recover from by the time of the war.

Historically the communist left has been strong when the working class has been strong. It has shared both its victories and its defeats.

I imagine it has more to do with your shit line. If family and friend's were being raped around me by the Japanese I would ally with anyone who fought against the Japanese regardless of class or political alliegences. And I could imagine whatever moron was propogating the idea of waiting till the Japanese proleteriat overthrow their own ruling class as a way to deafeat imperialism would not have many friends at all.

Face it Left Communism is such a idiotic and unpopular idea that no intelligent human being would have taken it seriously at a time when the Japanese were playing soccer with the heads of Chinese children.

[Devrim]

When the working class has been crushed and is mobilised in defence of the nation, communist politics seem absurd, yes.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

It's not a question of what Trotsky said. It's a question of reality. I don't base myself on Trotsky's writings or whether or not I have the same position as him. Sometimes he made useful analysis, and other times he didn't. Eat the meat, spit out the bones..

That's fine, and actually I agree with that. I just got the impression that you were basing your position on Trotsky's writings.

I believe his opinion, that it is possible for a workers' revolution to degenerate to such an extent that it reintroduces capitalism in the economic system and the bureaucracy thereby becomes a ruling class as opposed to a ruling caste, is what history, and therefore reality, has proven. Not just in the USSR but also in China (most clearly in China actually).

[Devrim]

I believe his opinion, that it is possible for a workers' revolution to degenerate to such an extent that it reintroduces capitalism in the economic system and the bureaucracy thereby becomes a ruling class as opposed to a ruling caste, is what history, and therefore reality, has proven. Not just in the USSR but also in China (most clearly in China actually).

Do you think that there was a workers' revolution in China, LZ?

Devrim

[KC]

I already did. The capitalists and landlords were expropriated in an anti-capitalist revolution. Property was collectivized. The old state was smashed. A new state was constructed. It rested on and defended the new property forms. It sure didn't rest on and defend the old property forms that had just been done away with!

You're deliberately dodging the question. I want you to describe what makes a state a proletarian one, and "they had a revolution" doesn't really do it. If a proletarian state has a qualitatively different form than a capitalist one, you should be able to describe it on that basis, and if it has qualitatively different property relations, then you should be able to describe it on that basis as well.

You're being dishonest by just repeating "they had an anti-capitalist revolution". That's great that you believe that, but it's mostly irrelevant to the question that I am asking.


Was the capitalist state smashed through an anti-capitalist revolution in England? Were the capitalists as a class expropriated through an anti-capitalist revolution in England?

You are doing it again here. Saying that there was an anti-capitalist revolution in China says nothing about the particular character of property relations in the country. You should be able to explain the particular form of property relations in China, and then go on to say how they are qualitatively different than those in England, and if you are unable to do so then you should admit it and stop being dishonest.

[Led Zeppelin]

Do you think that there was a workers' revolution in China, LZ?

No, I was referring to the USSR with that part of my post. I was referring to both the USSR and China with the degeneration part of it.

[SocialRealist]

On the original Afghanistan jihad movement, the movement was indeed needed to stop the Soviets from controlling Afghanistan and exploiting Afghanistan. I respect the members who risked their lives to fight, Soviet imperialism.

To those denying the Soviet Union had an empire should honestly look at what the Soviet Union was, a decaying state. To protect the Soviet Union, they were relying on building an authoritative empire.

China under Maoist control had sent weapons to the Afghanistan jihad groups on the intent of protecting Afghanistan from Soviet control.

[Devrim]

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a moment in the confrontation between two imperialist super powers. China sent weapons to the Afghan resistance as part of their own imperialist games.

Supporting USA imperialism against Soviet imperialism was not in any way a progressive move.

Devrim

[KC]

I'm not sure if you're deliberately taking only bits and pieces of what I said to try and gain some debate points or if you really just don't understand.

I didn't just say they had a revolution.

A state existed in China that rested on and defended private property. The means of production were owned buy a capitalist class. Land was under the control of landlords.

An anti-capitalist revolution occurred (and yes that's an important part of understanding what came next). It shattered the capitalist state. It expropriated the capitalists as a class and swept away capitalist property relations. It took the means of production out of private hands and brought them under public ownership. A centralized economy was established along with a monopoly on foreign trade. A new state was created on the basis of all of that. That's the state that exists today. It hasn't been broken up or replaced with anything else yet.

Ok, but what I asked you to do is define "proletarian state". I'll take this as your "definition":


It took the means of production out of private hands and brought them under public ownership. A centralized economy was established along with a monopoly on foreign trade.
Now, based on this definition you claim that "that's the state that exists today". Yet the means of production in China are mostly in private ownership, and there is no longer monopoly on foreign trade. Can you reconcile these facts?

[Led Zeppelin]

I don't think Trotsky ever believed that. Anyone with a basic understanding of the state knows that it cannot simply change hands.

Anyone with a vulgar and, I hate to use the term, non-dialectical understanding of the state would believe what you do.


"...There are, however, ultralefts who apply to the fascist bureaucracy the reasoning that Craipeau applies to the Soviet bureaucracy and who place an equal sign between the fascist and Stalinist regimes (some German Spartacists, Hugo Urbahns, certain Anarchists, etc.). We have said of them what we say of Craipeau: their error is in believing that the foundations of society can be changed without revolution or counterrevolution; they unwind the film of reformism in reverse.

"But it is here that Craipeau, still jubilant, quotes another statement from The Revolution Betrayed regarding the Soviet bureaucracy: 'If these relations should be stabilized, legalized, become the norms, without any resistance or against the resistance of the workers, they would end up in the complete liquidation of the conquests of the proletarian revolution.' And Craipeau concludes: 'Thus Comrade Trotsky envisages the possibility (in the future) of a passage without military intervention (?) from the workers’ state to the capitalist state. In 1933, that used to be called unrolling the film of reformism in reverse.' That is called the same thing in 1937. What for me is a purely logical argument, Craipeau considers a historical prognosis. Without a victorious civil war the bureaucracy cannot give birth to a new ruling class. That was and that remains my thought." - Trotsky

Oh god, I thought I warned you about this? I guess you just want me to prove you wrong then.

Fine, I'll oblige:

You took both those quotes from Trotsky's article Once again; The Defense of the USSR (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/11/ussr.htm), written in November 1937.

If you had read that article in its entirety and took the context into account, you would have noticed that Trotsky was arguing against someone who was saying that the bureaucracy had already become a new ruling class, and had all sorts of "evidence" to prove it. Therefore it is logical that Trotsky had to "bend the stick", that is very common in polemics, especially heated ones, and Trotsky and Lenin had quite a few of those. That factor has to be taken into account, but you ignored it entirely because it doesn't happen to suit your needs and because you probably haven't read anything else by Trotsky on this subject.

Well, let me show you what else Trotsky wrote on it:


If – to adopt a second hypothesis – a bourgeois party were to overthrow the ruling Soviet caste, it would find no small number of ready servants among the present bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries and privileged upper circles in general. A purgation of the state apparatus would, of course, be necessary in this case too. But a bourgeois restoration would probably have to clean out fewer people than a revolutionary party.

[...]

The Soviet bureaucracy has expropriated the proletariat politically in order by methods of its own to defend the social conquests. But the very fact of its appropriation of political power in a country where the principal means of production are in the hands of the state, creates a new and hitherto unknown relation between the bureaucracy and the riches of the nation. The means of production belong to the state. But the state, so to speak, “belongs” to the bureaucracy. If these as yet wholly new relations should solidify, become the norm and be legalized, whether with or without resistance from the workers, they would, in the long run, lead to a complete liquidation of the social conquests of the proletarian revolution. But to speak of that now is at least premature. The proletariat has not yet said its last word.

[...]

Let us assume to take a third variant – that neither a revolutionary nor a counterrevolutionary party seizes power. The bureaucracy continues at the head of the state. Even under these conditions social relations will not jell. We cannot count upon the bureaucracy’s peacefully and voluntarily renouncing itself in behalf of socialist equality. If at the present time, notwithstanding the too obvious inconveniences of such an operation, it has considered it possible to introduce ranks and decorations, it must inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations. One may argue that the big bureaucrat cares little what are the prevailing forms of property, provided only they guarantee him the necessary income. This argument ignores not only the instability of the bureaucrat’s own rights, but also the question of his descendants. The new cult of the family has not fallen out of the clouds. Privileges have only half their worth, if they cannot be transmitted to one’s children. But the right of testament is inseparable from the right of property. It is not enough to be the director of a trust; it is necessary to be a stockholder. The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion into a new possessing class.

Those quotes are taken from Trotsky's analysis of the USSR, Revolution Betrayed. In this work he presented his analysis in full form and plainly stated that the development of the USSR was an 'unfinished proces' and gave some options of what might happen, without saying that one was "the answer", because that would be unscientific.

However, you may say, 'my quote is from a later date, so he must have changed his mind!'.

No, he didn't:


We frequently call the Soviet bureaucracy a caste, underscoring thereby its shut in character, its arbitrary rule, and the haughtiness of the ruling stratum who consider that their progenitors issued from the divine lips of Brahma whereas the popular masses originated from the grosser portions of his anatomy.

But even this definition does not of course possess a strictly scientific character. Its relative superiority lies in this, that the make shift character of the term is clear to everybody, since it would enter nobody’s mind to identify the Moscow oligarchy with the Hindu caste of Brahmins.

The old sociological terminology did not and could not prepare a name for a new social event which is in process of evolution (degeneration) and which has not assumed stable forms. All of us, however, continue to call the Soviet bureaucracy a bureaucracy, not being unmindful of its historical peculiarities. In our opinion this should suffice for the time being.

[...]

We have diverged very far from the terminological controversy over the nomenclature of the Soviet state. But let our critics not protest: only by taking the necessary historical perspective can one provide himself with a correct judgment upon such a question as the replacement of one social régime by another. The historic alternative, carried to the end, is as follows: either the Stalin régime is an abhorrent relapse in the process of transforming bourgeois society into a socialist society, or the Stalin régime is the first stage of a new exploiting society. If the second prognosis proves to be correct, then, of course, the bureaucracy will become a new exploiting class.

In this article he is clearly repeating what he said in Revolution Betrayed; we don't know what will happen because the process hasn't finished yet, but it can definitely degenerate to such an extent as to become "a new exploiting class".

Written in September 1939 in the article USSR In War (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/09/ussr-war.htm).


What can happen is the bureaucracy can seek out new (and for them, and especially their descendants better) property forms, allowing capitalism to make big inroads, breaking down the property forms born of revolution, and leading to a crumbling of the state. Some of the old bureaucrats will then undoubtedly become part of the new capitalist class. That's what happened in the USSR. The state born out of the October Revolution isn't the state that exists today. There was an easily observable counterrevolution in the USSR, with horrible results for workers and farmers who lived within it. That hasn't happened in China, in spite of everything else that has.

That hasn't happened in China because China isn't the USSR.

In China the party degenerated to such an extent as to implement capitalism (something which Gorbachev was planning to do as well, by the way).

What if Yeltsin's takeover of power failed and Gorbachev stayed at the head of the party, and implemented capitalism just as China did? You'd probably say that the USSR wasn't capitalist because "there wasn't a counter-revolution".

I'd consider that ridiculous.

Anyway, the point is though; Trotsky did not share your position on this.

[Sendo]

well China today is a mixed bag.

It's not a matter of armed counter revolution, or a dgenerated workers' state.

They retain some socialist features (strong public sector and good provisions within that) but have a neoliberal economy supplanting the old. The capitalists have taken over the state. They can't go full cappie b/c that would mean widespread riots. What the Central Committee can do, though, is neuter attempts by workers to use the state to address grievances and sit back while foreign and domestic capital allocate more and more to themselves.

The China problem is not terribly cut-and-dry, but certain issues are. The living conditions of workers (rural and urban) compared to the elites of Beijing et al are appalling and the foreign owned factories display every crass cruelty capitalism as to offer. On the other hand, there is no inherent necessity to dismantle the Chinese state.

[Led Zeppelin]

Like I said before, I don't care whether my position is the same as Trotsky's.

If you don't care I don't see why you posted quotes by him and mentioned him in this discussion.


I already said that the bureaucracy was seeking out new property forms. But a slide back into capitalism requires a counterrevolution. The state that came out of an anti-capitalist revolution can't be latter used by the capitalists. Those seeking to reintroduce capitalism would have to carry that out.

You keep saying this without giving any reason for it. It's like you take this dogmatically from some quotes, and then continually repeat it without pondering why the quote said this in the first place.

That's not how a Marxist would go about doing it.


"Without a victorious civil war the bureaucracy cannot give birth to a new ruling class." That was the crux of the quote I posted (and yes I know where it comes from... where do you think I pulled it from, the air?).

You pulled it from an article to which I already replied in my previous post, you ignored that part.

Either Trotsky purposefully contradicted himself or he was "bending the stick" in a polemic on the issue. I believe it to be the latter given Trotsky's other writings on the subject.


In the Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky predicted that if the bureaucracy wasn't ousted by the proletariat or a capitalist counterrevolution, it would "inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations... The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion into a new possessing class. On the other hand, the victory of the proletariat over the bureaucracy would insure a revival of the socialist revolution." But he qualified it by saying this "The third variant consequently brings us back to the two first, with which, in the interests of clarity and simplicity, we set out." Remember what the first two were? Either capitalist counterrevolution or the ouster of the bureaucracy by the proletariat.

You're ignoring what was said in the first variant, which was that a bourgeois party would find; "no small number of ready servants among the present bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries and privileged upper circles in general. A purgation of the state apparatus would, of course, be necessary in this case too. But a bourgeois restoration would probably have to clean out fewer people than a revolutionary party."

He doesn't talk about a "counter-revolution" or a "civil war" being necessary for the restoration like he was in that article, now is he?

That purgation happened in the Chinese Communist Party quite quickly after Mao's death, and afterwards they found "no small number of ready servants among the bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries and priviliged upper circles in general".


He said "a victorious revolution is fortunately not only a program and a banner, not only political institutions, but also a system of social relations. To betray it is not enough. You have to overthrow it."

In this I think he was correct.

You are taking quotes out of context and ignoring the other things he wrote about the subject because it suits your particular needs. You didn't even reply to all the other quotes I posted from the article he wrote in 39'.

If you want to do that that's fine, but no serious person is going to be convinced by it.


So you're bagging the understanding of the state developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc.

Your understanding of the state is certainly not the same as Marx, Engels and Lenin's, now is it?

Quite the opposite actually.


Tell me, if the capitalists can take control of a proletarian state and implement capitalism, why can't the proletariat take control of a capitalist state and implement socialism?

China and the USSR were never "proletarian states" to begin with, they were states with bureaucratic deformations and they could be nothing else given the material conditions in which they arose.

What you're saying is; "how can a socialist state become capitalist?", you are forgetting that those states were never socialist (in the full sense of the term) to begin with. They always had bureaucratic and reactionary tendencies working within them, and those tendencies either grew stronger or weaker depending on the class-struggle internally and externally. When that tendency overtook the progressive side of the state, it was no longer worth saving it, which is why Trotsky called for political revolution in the USSR after that happened.

Anyway, that's where you take a leap in logic which would have been absurd to the likes of Lenin and Trotsky. This isn't a question of fully socialist states becoming capitalist from within, this is a question of states with bureacratic deformations either strengthening socialism and advancing it, or degeneration further and re-implementing capitalism. This can happen in the variants Trotsky laid out in Revolution Betrayed.


I defined a proletarian state more times than I care to mention. Here's one more for old times sake: A state created born out of anti-capitalist revolution in which the capitalists as a class are expropriated, the means of production are taken into public ownership, a planned economy is instituted, and a monopoly on foreign trade is secured.

That is a ridiculous definition of a proletarian state.

Are you saying that any state which goes through an anti-capitalist revolution in which capitalists are expropriated, the means of production are taken into public ownership, a planned economy is instituted, and a monopoly on foreign trade is secured, is a fully socialist state?

That such a state has already reached the historical stage of socialism?

Are you really saying that?


Trotsky put it this way: "Classes are characterized by their position in the social system of economy, and primarily by their relation to the means of production. In civilized societies, property relations are validated by laws. The nationalization of the land, the means of industrial production, transport and exchange, together with the monopoly of foreign trade, constitute the basis of the Soviet social structure. Through these relations, established by the proletarian revolution, the nature of the Soviet Union as a proletarian state is for us basically defined."

I like how you pick and post quotes by Trotsky whenever it suits you and ignore his whole body of work in the process, but it doesn't tell the whole story and isn't really fair to him, is it?

Trotsky never believed that the USSR was a "proletarian state"...without adding that it was a degenerated bureaucratic "proletarian state". You leave out that part but it's certainly there.

Also, Trotsky never believed the USSR to have been socialist, that is, to have reached the historical stage of socialism and thereby secured itself from a internal revertion to capitalism, that's just absurd.


The monopoly on foreign trade is gone. Key industry, banking, utilities and transportation remains in state hands. Capitalism has made huge inroads into China, about that there can be no doubt. But that doesn't mean capitalism is restored there anymore than capitalism was restored in the USSR with the NEP.

Again, an absurd comparison.

The NEP's introduction of limited capitalism wasn't near as advanced as the capitalism which is allowed to advance in China. Private property is now considered "holy" as much in China today as it is in any capitalist nation. It is protected by law.

That is all we need to know, that is, us Marxists.


As Trotsky put it, "The character of the economy as a whole thus depends upon the character of the state power."

Yes, and even though I'm sure you plucked that quote out of context like you always seem to do with Trotsky, the state power of China is one which protects, advances and defends private property; capitalism.

It has done so now to such an extent that it has definitely overtaken all the "progressive" tendencies which the state had in the past.


To successfully implement capitalism, as a system, and raise the capitalists as a class to the ruling position, the state born out of the Chinese revolution has to be smashed. Things may be heading that way.. the basis for it is increasing, and a section of the bureaucracy is definitely pushing for that, but it hasn't happened yet.

This is vulgar stagism, nothing more.

You believe something has to go a certain way, as if something as complicated and drawn-out as the process of degeneration of a state or the make-up of a society always goes through the same steps, like counting from 1 to 5 requires having to go through 2, 3 and 4.

That's not the Marxist method, far from it. When we see that a state has degenerated to such an extent as to have become a capitalist state almost fully, if not fully, we consider it a capitalist state. It doesn't have to go through a civil war. It doesn't have to go through a bloody counter-revolution. It doesn't have to go through a war.

If we apply your logic to proletarian revolutions, we would have to consider it impossible for any armed group of people being able to start a revolution militarily in a nation which does not have capitalist property relations. After all, it has to go through several stages first to be "ripe" for it, right? Or we'd have to consider it impossible for one state to impose forms of "property relations" to another country, like for example the USSR did to most of eastern-Europe after WW 2. How on earth can a nation become "socialist" without having a workers' revolution, after all?

That's where that form of thinking leads to. That's why we call stagism vulgar.

[redguard2009]

It's fallacious to argue that capitalism, like communism, requires the destruction of the previous system in order for its birth.

For one, the case of China disproves your point in several ways:

A) China's system, from 1949 to the present, has never fundamentally challenged the standard concepts of capitalist production. Though throughout its history the Chinese state has experimented with the application of various forms of progressive labour policy it at no point eradicated capitalism or capitalists.

B) The period of the Cultural Revolution could easily be explained as a conflict which "allowed" for the re-establishment of the capitalist class in China. Though western propaganda often describes the Cultural Revolution as a sort of kristalnacht, a great purging of undesirable non-communists, in reality it was more similar to an outright civil war. By some accounts, Chinese forces from rival factions even clashed in open conflict. It was during this conflict that many of those who supported Communism were in one way or another pacified (arrested, killed, or exiled), and those who supported capitalist restoration (some in part, some in full) maneuvered their way into authoritative and influential positions in a more aggressive way (such developments had been occuring since the mid-50s if not earlier). As the state began to gain control of the situation and subdue the uprising populace it had a dramatically changed face and character than prior to the GPCR.

I'd have to agree with LZ on this, completely. China is not and has not been for quite some time a degenerated worker's state. While it's very easy to declare the basis of the Chinese economy as being "workerist" based on the on-paper, official documentation of publically-owned corporations, as Marxists it is our duty to actually investigate the real, concrete relationship of production in China. We can not simplify the matter and claim a worker's state simply because the state owns most businesses, or because the state claims as much. The fact remains that from the standpoint of the Chinese worker, whose labour is exploited, who has no ownership, in full or part, of the means of production, who in no way owns any part of the commodities he produces, the Chinese system is capitalist, through-and-through.

To be quite honest, there is very little real difference between capitalism in China and capitalism in the United States. In the US, although there is no bullocks about businesses being publically owned, it's no secret that the vast majority of politicians, political groups and lobbyists are past, present or future businessmen. It is no secret that corporate interests are completely interwoven with public politicians. In a sense, the relationship between the average US politician with the means of production, and the average Chinese politician, is nearly identical.

China as any semblence of a progressive state is dead. Progress of the sort communists espouse has not occured in that country for nearly half a century. The Chinese worker is just as exploited as you and I.

[Random Precision]

There are a few faults I see in NHiA's arguments. The first is that he tends to think of a counter-revolution as having the same world-shaking, dramatic significance as a revolution. In other words, he thinks of it as a single event rather than a process. However, this means that he is forced to see the events of 1991-2 in Russia as that world-shaking event, despite the USSR's breakup being relatively peaceful and without much in the way of opposition.

In fact the counter-revolution in Russia was a process that occurred over two decades, and terminated its economic aspects well before its political aspects: the bureaucratic control over the economy was cemented in the late twenties while the counter-revolution in the politics of the Soviet Union, the bureaucracy's "preventive civil war", as Trotsky called it, against its opponents, waited until ten years later.

The second error he is making is to assume that capitalism must involve a capitalist class as traditionally thought of. In fact the class basis for capitalism is not a modern capitalist class in control of the means of production, but rather a modern working class without control of the means of production. Thus, the Soviet bureaucrats were able to act as a "proxy bourgeoisie" that drove accumulation until their legal forms of rule became an encumbrance on that process. That is the point when they transformed themselves into a modern capitalist class, as it is traditionally thought of.

[BobKKKindle$]

Exactly - and Marx warned his contemporaries, particularly Proudhon, that property should not be seen as a "metaphysical abstraction" because the exact character of private property in each historical epoch is always dependent on the relations of production, and so if a society exhibits capitalist relations of production, especially the existence of people who are forced to sell their labour power and lack control over the means of production (i.e. a proletariat), then even when private property is not expressed judicially in the same way as other capitalist societies, such a society would still be capitalist.

[Led Zeppelin]

Is this the third time now that you posted after saying you wouldn't?


Because I think what he said in the quotes I posted was correct, and I didn't see a need for making the same argument myself that he already made decades ago.

Ok, fair enough, but when you posted those quotes and considered the content of them to be the opinion of Trotsky, or at least presented it as such, you were doing so wrongly, because the context and other writings of him were ignored, and they tell another story as I quoted in my previous post.


If you say so. It's no different than Trotsky's definition of a workers state.

Eh, it's very different.

No offense, but have you read anything by Trotsky besides a few articles? If his definition was the same as yours then he would've considered the USSR to have been a proletarian state and he wouldn't have called for a political revolution in it...


No. You made a hell of a jump there. I said proletarian state, and you somehow turned that into a "fully socialist state."

That's the only way your argument would make sense, because if China and the USSR were "fully socialist", that is, had reached the historical stage of socialism, then it would indeed be impossible to revert that without a succesful counter-revolution because the social basis for socialism would exist.

In a society wherein that social basis does not exist and therefore only a bureaucratic/degenerated workers' state can come out of a proletarian revolution, the capitalist and proletarian elements are in constant struggle with each other and the class-struggle continues.

If one wins out over the other, capitalist property relations are restored.

That is what happened in China and the USSR.


I don't think there can be a socialist state. Socialism is simply a lower phase of communist - which is necessarily classless - society. If there aren't any classes, there can't be a state.

"Socialism means the abolition of classes." - Lenin

You should really stop using quotes like that in a discussion with me because they don't work. When Lenin said that he meant that socialism would start the process of abolishing classes. Right after the part you quoted he went on to elaborate on that:


In order to abolish classes it is necessary, first, to overthrow the landowners and capitalists. This part of our task has been accomplished, but it is only a part, and moreover, not the most difficult part. In order to abolish classes it is necessary, secondly, to abolish the difference between factory worker and peasant, to make workers of all of them. This cannot be done all at once. This task is incomparably more difficult and will of necessity take a long time.

If there were no classes in socialism then there would be no state as well, yes, that's right...but we call that communism, not socialism.

The point in which scarcity is eliminated in society, the distinction between workers and peasants, that is, city and village, is eliminated etc. classes will cease to exist and therefore the state is no longer necessary.

At that point socialism becomes communism.

Before that there is a socialist/proletarian/workers' state which is in the process of achieving the above.


I didn't leave anything out.

The quote I posted was directly from The Revolution Betrayed. He said "proletarian state" in that passage, with no qualifiers. He later uses the terms "degenerated workers state" to describe the USSR.

Don't lyingly accuse people of things. It doesn't help your argument.

Yes you did leave it out. Just because Trotsky didn't always use the term "degenerated proletarian state" doesn't mean that you can quote him saying "proletarian state" and then say that he considered it as such.

That's absurd and deceptive. And it certainly doesn't help your argument.

Do you want me to quote Trotsky saying degenerated workers' state and describing the USSR as such in Revolution Betrayed to prove that?

I don't think so, so I won't do that.


:confused: What does an understanding of the state have to do with stageism?

A stageist understanding of the state like yours has....everything to do with stageism.


A state cannot change hands from one class to another or transform into something else. The capitalists could not rule with a feudal state. That's why they had revolutions, to abolish it and set up their own states.

Again you assert something without providing any evidence for it. And the proletariat was never in power in China, so to say that it "changed hands from one class to another" is ridiculous. And even if a proletarian party did lead a revolution and was at the head of it, that doesn't mean that it can't degenerate; actually it's only logical that it would degenerate if there was no international revolution to allow it to build and reach socialism.


Marx talked about "The conspiracy of the ruling class to break down the revolution by a civil war" in relation to the Paris Commune. He would never have suggested the old ruling class could simply have taken control of the new organs set up by the commune.

I'm not making any new arguments here. This is just basic stuff. I share the same understanding of the state as Marx, Engels, et. al.

I know you're not making any new arguments, stageism has been around in many forms for a long time. Your suggestion that Marx, Engels, et. al. had the same understanding as you has also been made in the past.

Of course facts tell another tale.

Marx was never a vulgar determinist and would never suggest that a certain sequence of things should happen before a state could be qualified as capitalist, just because "that's the way it's supposed to be".


You're not saying anything new. Cliffites and disciples of Mao, among others, have made the same arguments for years.

You're not saying anything new either.

Mensheviks had the same method of reasoning as you do. It was ridiculed and disproven long ago by Lenin and Trotsky.


The state is a force that enforces the dictatorship of a particular class. A proletarian state cannot be used by capitalists to rule anymore than a capitalist state can be used by the proletariat, or a feudal state used by the capitalists.

There is no proletarian state in China, something you are unable to comprehend. There also wasn't a pure "proletarian state" in the USSR, it had bureaucratic elements in it that were at the outset competing with the proletarian elements.

"The state" isn't a monolithic static body as you want to make it out to be. A lot of processes and sub-processes play a part in its development and existence.

And your quotes are inane and pointless.

If I thought posting flashy quotes would get me anywhere I'd dig some up but I don't believe they are helpful at all.


Would it be possible for a feudalist party to gain a majority in the government of the Netherlands and reinstitute feudalism??

No, because feudalism has no economic or social basis in the Netherlands.

Capitalism did and does have a social and economic basis in the former USSR and China, exactly because socialism didn't and doesn't.

This is part of the ABC of communist theory.

[Led Zeppelin]

Something like that. Why does it matter to you? Do you gain something by pointing that out?

It matters to me because you keep saying something which isn't true over and over again. Like in this discussion.


Oh really?? What's Trotsky's definition of a workers state?

"Classes are characterized by their position in the social system of economy, and primarily by their relation to the means of production. In civilized societies, property relations are validated by laws. The nationalization of the land, the means of industrial production, transport and exchange, together with the monopoly of foreign trade, constitute the basis of the Soviet social structure. Through these relations, established by the proletarian revolution, the nature of the Soviet Union as a proletarian state is for us basically defined." - Trotsky

That's the "flashy NHIA Trotsky quote" version, here's a better version:



The assertion that the bureaucracy of a workers’ state has a bourgeois character must appear not only unintelligible but completely senseless to people stamped with a formal cast of mind. However, chemically pure types of state never existed, and do not exist in general. The semifeudal Prussian monarchy executed the most important tasks of the bourgeoisie, but executed them in its own manner, i.e., in a feudal, not a Jacobin style. In Japan we observe even today an analogous correlation between the bourgeois character of the state and the semifeudal character of the ruling caste. But all this does not hinder us from clearly differentiating between a feudal and a bourgeois society. True, one can raise the objection that the collaboration of feudal and bourgeois forces is immeasurably more easily realized than the collaboration of bourgeois and proletarian forces, inasmuch as the first instance presents a case of two forms of class exploitation. This is completely correct. But a workers’ state does not create a new society in one day. Marx wrote that in the first period of a workers’ state the bourgeois norms of distribution are still preserved. (About this see The Revolution Betrayed, the section Socialism and the State, p.53.) One has to weigh well and think this thought out to the end. The workers’ state itself, as a state, is necessary exactly because the bourgeois norms of distribution still remain in force.

This means that even the most revolutionary bureaucracy is to a certain degree a bourgeois organ in the workers’ state. Of course, the degree of this bourgeoisification and the general tendency of development bears decisive significance. If the workers’ state loses its bureaucratization and gradually falls away, this means that its development marches along the road to socialism. On the contrary, if the bureaucracy becomes ever more powerful, authoritative, privileged, and conservative, this means that in the workers’ state the bourgeois tendencies grow at the expense of the socialist; in other words, that inner contradiction which to a certain degree is lodged in the workers’ state from the first days of its rise does not diminish, as the “norm” demands, but increases.

That's not even a quarter of it.

If you think that you can define Trotky's definition of proletarian state in one flashy quote you clearly haven't read much else by him on the subject.


Why is it that anytime you disagree with someone you accuse them of not having read something?

Because when someone claims that a person stood for something or "meant something" by what they wrote, it implies that they read what that person had to say on the subject.

When it is clear from what they claim that person said that they have not read a lot of things that person wrote on the subject, then it's clear that they have not read it...unless of course they're stupid and are unable to comprehend what they read, but I wouldn't want to place you in that category.

If you want to claim here that you have actually read books or other articles by Trotsky on the subject, then I can easily disprove that by simply quoting him.


But he did consider it a proletarian state. A bureaucratized proletarian state is still a proletarian state.

Yes, clearly a workers' state or a proletarian state is the same as a degenerated workers' state or proletarian state, which is why it was necessary for Trotsky to add the word "degenerated" to it, right? Because it's exactly the same thing, he just had to do that for clarity.

Do you even know what you're arguing?


The fact that the state was a proletarian state and not a capitalist state was exactly why he called for a "political revolution" (a revolution which ousts the bureaucratic caste but leaves the existing state intact) instead of a social revolution which would destroy the state.

The fact that it was a degenerated proletarian state, yes. Something that you seem to forget to add so often.

By the way, if you believe that Trotsky's position was that the existing economic and state systems should be "left intact" then you have no clue what you're talking about and I suggest you stop pretending that you know anything about his position on the subject.


I'm not sure who the "we" you speak of is? You, Stalin, Mao and Hoxha?

No, that would be me, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and every other Marxist.

Stalin, Mao and Hoxha would probably agree with your stageist method of reasoning which says that a nation with capitalist property relations isn't capitalist because "it didn't go through the right sequence of events".


For Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che, etc., socialism was simply the lower stage of communism.

There are no classes in socialism. This is basic stuff.

Apparently it's so basic that you don't know it:



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.

This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

In other words, socialism, the lower phase of communism, is society as it comes out of capitalism and it remains the lower phase of communism until the material conditions have allowed it to evolve and advance into communism, which is when all class distinctions are abolished and there is true equality in every sense.

It's real basic stuff indeed.


Building socialism is not the same as socialism.

Roughly speaking it goes like this: DOTP -> Socialism -> Communism.

That's a nice little chart you wrote there, it's just too bad that it doesn't have anything to do with Marxism.

"Building socialism", if you didn't know, is what socialism consists of as a historical stage. As Marx said: "Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby". The whole point of that historical stage is to supersede the past economic structure and "build it" until scarcity is eliminated, the difference between city and village is eliminated, etc.

When that "job" is done and all class distinctions and forms of inequality have dissappeared (which can only happen when the material conditions allow it), the state "withers away" and socialism, the lower phase of communism, advances to the higher phase of communism.

As Marx said:

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

Pretty much what I said in my last post.


Wrong. You're talking about a different essay than me. In the essay I took the quote from, he goes on to say exactly what I said he went on to say:

What are you talking about?

I took it from the exact same source as you and it goes exactly as I quoted it.

Here it is including the quote you originally posted:



Socialism means the abolition of classes.

In order to abolish classes it is necessary, first, to overthrow the landowners and capitalists. This part of our task has been accomplished, but it is only a part, and moreover, not the most difficult part. In order to abolish classes it is necessary, secondly, to abolish the difference between factory worker and peasant, to make workers of all of them. This cannot be done all at once. This task is incomparably more difficult and will of necessity take a long time.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm)

And yes, I know classes remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat and inequality and class distinctions will continue to exist until socialism is "built" and society advances to communism. I agree with Marx and Lenin on this because they provided some good arguments for their case.


That doesn't follow.

Stagism is the theory that to get to socialism a backward society which has not had a bourgeois revolution must go through a state of capitalism. It has to do with modes of production. It does not have anything to with the understand that states cannot change hands freely.

That's one definition of stageism, which is based on the idea that for an event to happen (socialist revolution in this case) it has to happen after another event has happend (capitalist development in this case). It is determinism of the worst kind because it claims that things have to advance in a definite sequence or it "doesn't make sense".

That type of thinking is stageist and you show the exact same method regarding the state.


To say the capitalist class ruled is what's ridiculous, since it was completely expropriated.

I didn't say that. It's not so simple as "proletariat or capitalist class rules". The bureaucracy can at times supersede classes and take-over the role of arbiter in society for a period, which happens in times of widespread crisis.

Marx and Trotsky called that Bonapartism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/b/o.htm#bonapartism).


The proletariat does not have to have direct political control of the state for the class nature of the state to be proletarian (resting on collectivized property, taken out of the hands of the capitalist class in an anti-capitalist revolution). That's one of Trotsky's best contributions to communist theory.

The whole "collectivized property equals proletarian state equals socialism" line is absurd and I have pointed out how many times before.

It doesn't even make sense when applied to China because capitalist property relations have been re-established in the economic system for years.


Degenerate yes. Eventually even degenerate to the point where capitalism can be reintroduced, if the obstacle of the state - which by its definition rests on and defends the property forms that gave birth to it - is first eliminated.

The state is no longer an obstacle when the degeneration has tipped over so as to give the pro-capitalist element the upper hand.

This is not theory, it has been proven in practice in China. There is no "limited NEP style capitalism" there, the economic system cannot exist without it. Private property is just as "holy" there as it is in any other capitalist nation.


State power is based on armed bodies defending certain property forms. A state that defends one kind of property forms cannot transform into a state that defends another kind of property forms, period.

I like how you added "period" to that as if it means or proves something.


What is a state? Apparently it's not the institution of armed violence that rests on and defends certain property forms, so I'd like to hear how you define it.

You can't grasp change it seems. Why does a state defend certain property forms? Because it's "cool and wants to fit in"? Or because it has economic, social, cultural and other reasons which are based on material reality?

It's the latter.

Can those factors change over time? Yes, they can. Not only can they, they inevitably do, because the world does not stand still, not even for NHIA.

At its inception, as the quotes by Marx and Lenin pointed out above, a socialist society is conditioned by its material conditions and therefore there is a certain degree of "bourgeois law" that it enforces. The less advanced the material conditions of a nation are that comes out of the womb of capitalism/feudalism, the more prominent that degree of "bourgeois law" will be.

The problem with NHIA is that he looks at history, spots a "socialist proletarian revolution", and automatically concludes that new property forms have been firmly established and socialism is being built by a proletarian state. That's how most people would view it, but then again, most people aren't Marxists.

As Marxists we have to take the totality of the event into account.

The states borne out of the Russian revolution and the state established in China both had a high degree of "bourgeois law", given the fact that they were established in underdeveloped areas of the world. As a result of this there was always a competition, that is, a struggle, in the state and economic system between the pro-capitalist elements and the proletarian socialist elements.

Understanding this basic fact is the key to understanding the problem.

When one of these elements becomes dominant over the other, as a result of all kinds of factors internal and external, the policy of the state and bureaucracy changes to reflect that. Do purges occur to get rid of the other elements? Of course, that's necessary. Does there have to be a civil war or bloody counter-revolution for the state, which has already centralized power to the greatest extent and is "Bonapartist" in the truest sense of the term, to alter its economic policy?

No, there doesn't, as China has proven.

As Trotsky rightly said, the capitalist elements of the party and bureaucracy had to purge a lot less from the state and bureaucratic machinery than a revolutionary party would have to, there were after all many functionaries, secretaries, ministers etc. more than willing to do their job. So a few "loyalists to the old days" were purged, the economic policy took a 180 degree turn, and about 30 years on China is well on its way to become a capitalist superpower.

But then, how does this make sense? Where is the bloody counter-revolution we were all waiting for?!?!

No, that doesn't make sense. It goes like this:

-> socialist revolution -> proletarian state -> bloody civil war or counter-revolution smashing the proletarian state -> capitalism

That's how it is, period. :rolleyes:


Obviously. Leave it to you to point out the obvious and ignore the jest of the question.

Don't blame me for answering your inane questions.


I'm asking would a feudalist party be able to use the capitalist state to restore feudalism? I'm not asking if it's going to happen.

I already replied to this, I guess I'll have to repeat it:


No, because feudalism has no economic or social basis in the Netherlands.

There can be no "feudalist party" or "feudalist element" in the state-machinery of the Netherlands because the Netherlands is a advanced capitalist nation.

There can be, and there were, pro-capitalist tendencies in the Stalinist bureaucracies because those nations had not "built socialism" but existed with a high degree of "bourgeois law" in place.

[Led Zeppelin]

There's no point replying to any of that. You make a bunch of assertions, attribute quotes to me which I never wrote, and continue with your annoying schoolyard style of debate.

Yeah, "circle-jerk", "schoolyard style of debate", "I'm leaving because I have no time", we've heard all the petty excuses before, NHIA.

Just say you're out of arguments and have no idea what you're talking about and try to leave gracefully.


Show me where Marx says classes exist under communism, of which socialism is but a "stage" (and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is something else).

See the quote I posted.

Unless of course you believe that "bourgeois law" can exist in a society that is classless and fully equal, and if you believe that a society which cannot "have a law higher than it's material conditions" and just comes out of capitalism has no class distinctions and is classless.


Show me how Trotsky's definition of a "workers state" is different from the definition I provided of a proletarian state.

Already done, I'm not going to repeat myself to stroke your ego.


Show me that a state is something other than an institution of organized violence that defends and rests on a particular set of property relations.

Pointless because I already explained how a state can change.


Show me how the same state that is founded on and defends a certain set of property forms can later rest on and defend a different set.

Already done, I'm not going to repeat myself to stroke your ego.


Show me where a dispossessed class has reconquered the new state machinery built on the ashes of its old system of rule and reestablishing them through it.

Already done, I'm not going to repeat myself to stroke your ego.


Show me how the "state is no longer an obstacle" to capitalist restoration in China, and if that's case, why even anti-communists understand that “How to privatize such a huge estate of state ownership within the framework of the existing political system and structure is really problematic and technically unworkable. The experience of other former communist countries has shown that there is no single case of making privatization successful with the communist party remaining in power and its political system intact.”

China has already restored capitalism and private property reigns supreme in the economic system.


Show me how China is becoming a "capitalist superpower"

Only a blind person can say that China is not one of the developing superpowers at the moment.


Show me [insert inanity]

Use the internet and look for it yourself, I'm not your teacher.


Unless you can explain all of these things, there's not much else to talk about.

You haven't explained or logically argued any of your positions. There was not much else to talk about long ago.

[Random Precision]

I didn't leave anything out.

The quote I posted was directly from The Revolution Betrayed. He said "proletarian state" in that passage, with no qualifiers. He later uses the terms "degenerated workers state" to describe the USSR.

Your problem here is that you are only using one of the two (contradictory) definitions of a “workers’ state” that Trotsky proposed regarding the Soviet Thermidor. You have the second that he proposed. Here is the first, as he wrote in a letter to a member of the Democratic Centralist opposition group:

“There is no doubt that the degeneration of the Soviet apparatus is considerably more advanced than the same process in the party apparatus. Nevertheless, it is the party that decides. At present, this means the party apparatus. The question thus comes down to the same thing: is the proletarian kernel of the party, assisted by the working class, capable of triumphing over the autocracy of the party apparatus which is fusing with the state apparatus? Whoever replies in advance that it is incapable, thereby speaks not only of the necessity of a new party on a new foundation, but also of the necessity of a second and new proletarian revolution.”

In other words, in a workers state, the workers are in direct or indirect control of the means of production. Trotsky could still claim that the Soviet Union was a “workers state” as long as he allowed the possibility of the degeneration in the state and party being dealt with by reforms coming from the “proletarian kernel”. He abandoned this possibility in 1933 with the founding of the 4th International; at this point he called for a fresh proletarian revolution against the bureaucracy. Regretfully, after this point Trotsky failed to apply his own rigorously Marxist criteria to analyze the Soviet state.


What planet do you live on?

There was a clear and observable counterrevolution in the USSR and it was leadby Boris Yeltsin. The old state was smashed. It lead to an immediate fall in living standards unlike anything ever seen.

The “counterrevolutions” of 1989 in the glacis states produced no violence whatsoever, except perhaps in Romania. There were fewer violent clashes in the breakup of the regimes in eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary than the British miners had with the police under Thatcher in the eighties. In Poland, Jaruzelski and Kiszcak themselves negotiated with Solidarity to shape the new capitalist coalition government. No kind of civil war that any half-competent Marxist would expect of a counter-revolution occurred in that period.

As for Russia the same is the case. The Red Army, KGB and state bureaucracy remain as they were before the “counterrevolution”. Mike Haynes puts this rather well:

“It is precisely because both sides of the transition show the same structural features that individual opportunism on the scale we have analysed has been possible. We are not merely looking at class societies, but class societies rooted in a common mode of production where what has been changing has been the form rather than the essence. Unless this is understood it becomes impossible to understand how, beneath the turnover at the top, the same people, the same families, the same social networks are still toasting their good fortune in the 1990s as they had toasted in the 1980s. It is true that as they chatter and socialise they might on occasion spare a thought for some of their absent friends but they will not lose sight of the greater whole – that they are still on top despite the transitions. Beneath them is the same working class, still carrying the burden of their wealth, privilege and their incompetence as it has done in the past. The people who were the real victims of the old order are now also the real victims of the new.”


In order to revert to capitalism in the USSR, the proletarian state has to be smashed. And it was.

Herein lies the major problem that your argument faces: why didn’t the workers come to the defense of their own state? If the workers took any side, it was that of Yeltsin and the “counterrevolutionaries”.

For the workers’ state to be smashed, the working class itself has to be smashed. And indeed it was smashed- but this happened seventy years earlier than the events you are looking at, during the Russian Civil War. Then their state was smashed through steady bureaucratic deformation that turned the Soviets into a rubber stamp on the Party’s decisions. And this happened precisely because the working class could not rally to defend their gains.


Contrary to what the Cliffites claim, reorganizing military leadership as a part of a "process" does not a counterrevolution or civil war make.

The purges not only reshuffled military leadership, but more importantly exterminated the bureaucracy’s most dangerous political opponents, the generation of revolutionaries trained under Lenin that helped bring about the world’s first workers’ revolution. In this way they were the outward political consolidation of the counterrevolution.


Note for readers: "As tradtionally thought of" here means as it actually is.

There cannot be one big capitalist monopoly. Capitalism requires "many capitals."

Technically this is correct. However, you are not taking into account the global nature of capitalism during the twentieth century. That is to say, the USSR was organized as one big firm that competed on the global market, a process that was often mediated by military competition with the United States.


Capitalists cannot, by the nature of their system, organize production according to a plan.

Actually they do it all the time. Many large capitalist firms have “plans” where they direct production and distribution.

You would point out here, quite correctly, that the “plans” of individual capitalist firms does not translate into a planned economy. However, neither did the USSR have a “planned economy” in the truest sense of the term, when we take into account the system’s compartmentalization, the hoarding of supplies by managers and workers, that so many managers resisted technological innovation, the failure to establish an efficient and rational price mechanism, etc:

“If by the term “planned economy”, we understand an economy in which all component elements are adjusted and regulated into a single rhythm, in which frictions are at a minimum, and, above all, in which foresight prevails in the making of economic decisions, then the Russian economy is anything but planned. Instead of a real plan, strict methods of government dictation are evolved for filling the gaps made in the economy by the decisions and activities of this very government. Therefore, instead of speaking about a Soviet planned economy, it would be much more exact to speak of a bureaucratically directed economy.”- Tony Cliff, Russia: A Marxist Analysis


The bureaucracy of a bureaucratic proletarian state, which rises to political power on the economic basis of collectivized property, cannot transform itself into a capitalist class as long as that basis continues to exist.

Whether property is collectivized or not doesn’t really matter. What matters are the fundamental property relations in a society. For example, in medieval Europe the Catholic Church owned huge amounts of land that were worked by peasants belonging to the Church, just as their brethren who worked on private estates belonged to their individual lords. No individual monk or priest or bishop or even the Pope had legal rights over the land or people owned by the Church. But just because that property was owned collectively, does that mean the Church became something other than feudal? Of course not, because for Marxists the relations of production are the primary consideration rather than the property’s owners.

In the same way, therefore, the fact that a state, devoid of workers control, was legally in control of property in the USSR doesn’t mean it was anything other than capitalist, as those were the dominant property relations.

[redguard2009]

Except we're talking about the class nature of the state

You can not differentiate at your leisure the class nature of a state from the relations of production existing in that state, for the latter largely determines the former.


Show me how the "state is no longer an obstacle" to capitalist restoration in China, and if that's case, why even anti-communists understand that “How to privatize such a huge estate of state ownership within the framework of the existing political system and structure is really problematic and technically unworkable. The experience of other former communist countries has shown that there is no single case of making privatization successful with the communist party remaining in power and its political system intact.”

Source of this quote? From the sounds of it it is from the mouth of a capitalist economist who, like you, sees "Communist China" and expects it to be ruled by worker's power.


Show me how China is becoming a "capitalist superpower" (and incidentally, by arguing in favor of that myth, you are saying the bourgeoisie can still play a progressive role... that backward countries can catch up with the imperialist powers while remaining capitalist).

Show me how "capitalist" China was able to make it through the East Asian economic crisis of 97/98 and subsequent recession relatively unharmed while all the other capitalist countries in the region were hit extremely hard.

Irrelevent questions.


Show me when key industry and banks left the hands of the Chinese state.

You're trying to draw a very obscure black-and-white image of capitalist relations. Whether or not a corporation is officially in "the hands of the state" is not the end-all of its class character or the nature of its relationship with production. In China there are many corporations which are officially owned by the state but managed by private interests; China North Industries, one of the largest technology manufacturers in China, is such a corporation.


Show me how share holders in China are able to influence management or production in any way as they are in capitalist countries.

How can I "show you how"? It seems you're purposely arguing rather irrelevent and abstract points.



Show me when a counterrevolution (not a shifting of policy or personnel) occurred in China. Or show me how a revolution is defeated without a counterrevolution and give a historical example.

1978 could be marked as the year in which China resumed in full its capitalist traditions. This year saw the beginning of the establishing of privately-managed, state-owned corporations, and the transformation of former state-run businesses into privately-managed ones (for instance, prior to this time, state-run producers used terms such as "Commission", "Committee", etc; after 1978, "Corporation", "Group" and "Company" were adopted).

And I've already explained (which you obviously ignored) the "exact moment" of China's "great capitalist counterrevolution".


Show me when the agricultural land, on which 700 million Chinese people live and work, was privatized. Show me how and when the same peasantry, which was the basis of the Chinese Revolution, lost control of it. Show me when and how landlords returned to the countryside.

The transformation took on two phases. The first phase was re-introducing open market dynamics by allowing peasants to sell their surplus produce at market prices domestically (a surplus which gradually increased as the state lowered quotas) and allowing for the development of small-scale privatized systems for that trade (the development of grain trading operations for instance). The second phase was the dissolving of the collective agricultural communes and the divvying up of their assets and resources on an individual household basis. Farmers were gradually decentralized and decisions focused more on individual families and land plots. This culminated in the effort by the government to essentially cut up all collectively-owned land and lease each part to a single family household for a period of 15 years.

One of the ways in which the Chinese economy has been able to enact such capitalist reforms without "drawing attention" is due to the China's immense population and the decentralized nature of these reforms. Throughout the 80s it was common practice for pro-market and pro-capitalist reforms to be "experimented with" in secluded locals, such as a single province, township or enterprise (for instance, grain production in one province would be semi-privatized while remaining collectively-owned in the rest of China). Depending on the results of the economic experimentation, ie if it resulted in increased production, it would be adopted on a wider scale.

The main way in which the state was able to essentially disassemble collective ownership in agriculture was by "bribing" individual families and households. State controls were lessened, allowing families to sell off their surpluses at increasing rates, until they were essentially offered complete shared ownership over their land (shared with the state rather than their neighbours).

Yet another factor is the decentralization of the role of the central government in international trade dealings. Many corporations throughout China are sanctioned by provincial rather than federal authorities. This has led to the development of "special economic zones" throughout the country, mainly along the heavily-populated coastal areas, in which the "economic rules" do not apply, or apply for far less worth. by 1992 nearly 10,000 of these special economic zones were created which has allowed Chinese industry in these areas to trade and operate more freely and allowed billions in foreign investment to tap China's consumers and workforces.

So please, show me how the class character of the Chinese state remains proletarian. Show me where the communes are. Show me where agricultural collectives have gone. Show me where workers councils still manage factories.