Rooster

I remember when I first came here, the assertion that the Soviet Union was capitalist was beyond my comprehension. It's very difficult to understand Marxism at first, but as you read more it becomes easier.

To the extent that Stalinists read, it tends to be on what they're allowed to read(i.e. very small and select morsels from Marx which are usually out of context) like Ludo Martens. I try to read from everything, even Mao and Hoxha; but it does get very annoying when you demolish a Maoist and here their rebuttal(if it could even be called such) of "Revolution is not a dinner party" for literally the thousandth time. I find discussions and theory among the so called "ultra left" to be much more interesting.

(cont'd) I think a lot of people would rather take an ideology which has a pre-packaged set of opinions for them rather than bothering to read and form their own opinions. I would imagine most younger folk(hell, most people in general) don't want to spend the time to read; but there are some teenagers on here that have some really good views on things.

I didn't think any of Socrates' works are confirmed to be real; I mean I thought that they were actually written by Plato, who claimed that they were actually Socrates(personally I find that unlikely; Plato probably came up with most of that stuff himself, but I'm not overly familiar with Greek philosophy so I can't be sure)

I'm a big fan of Nietzsche, in all I think his work is pretty good. I do take some exceptions, like with his rampant misogyny for example, but there are a lot of sensible things that he says.

You're right that a lot of Marxist-Leninists(here at least) tend to be very young or children. When I first discovered this movement(I was 21 then, I'm 22 now), I was initially drawn to it for a short time, but after reading Critique of the Gotha Programme, Poverty of Philosophy, and the German Ideology I realized that Stalinism is complete trash and anti-Marxist. It's not a coincidence that most are ignorant of the actual works of Marx and Engels and content themselves with reading Lenin; and even then, not always.

The called Ussr? The more time I spend on here, the more I am convinced it's literally impossible for anything productive to happen with them around. They just whine that everything is "anti-communist propaganda"(ignoring the fact that I'm pretty damn sure the United States, Britain, or anyone else never criticized the Soviet Union as a capitalist state). I registered at that other forum you mentioned, so I should be posting there soon as well.

Once someone asked me whether I was a leftist:

"Are you a leftist? Like one of those people who is constantly kissing the asses of people like Gaddafi, Kim Jong Il, and Ahmadinejad, isn't that counter-intuitive?"

I don't think it's counter-intuitive because these people are exactly what they appear to be.

Also, the USSR thread is lolz. It was actually a proletarian dictatorship, but everything went according to a carefully crafted plan to grant the illusion of failure, bureaucratic dictatorship, and working class oppression to lull the enemies of socialism into a false sense of security!

No, I have not.

I'm not really sure what to make of it.. they both seemed to have points, but Marx seemed to be on the defensive in the latter part where Bakunin pointed out the likelihood of Stalinism emerging. On the other hand I agree with Marx that the interests of the peasants are in opposition to the interests of the workers. What do you think of it?

I definitely take the personal view that it was capitalist. The people who say it was a non-mode of production seem to be suggesting that it was able to escape the determinations of capital, which doesn't seem to be the case at all. It seems to me that, like every state in the world, the Soviet Union was moving to liberal capitalism steadily. Not to mention that their argument just seems kind of incoherent, they essentially are saying that the Soviet Union didn't have a ruling class? That seems like BS to me. Artesian was saying "they didn't organize production for individual capital accumulation, ergo they weren't capitalists" I have a hard time accepting that argument. They pretty much have all the characteristics of a class, and I don't think trying to disqualify them on a technicality(which arguably, isn't really valid) is persuasive.

I have the same problem, I'm in the process of reading like 3 or 4 different books right now

I enjoy seeing your and Robbo's perspectives a lot, you seem to not be governed by historical attachment or ideology(compared to the left-communists, who in my opinion have not been fully able to break with tradition and historic attachments to certain subjects). In fact, most people that call themselves communists I wouldn't consider to be leftists at all. Seems like 85-95%(not including anarchists) of them seem to not have fully broken with bourgeois values like nationalism and imperialism. Anarchists, through their dogmatic rejection of all states, seem to come closer to the truth(or what could be loosely construed as such) by luck; though their lack of nuance and understanding of the complexities of certain subjects like Marxist theory can be to their detriment.

Thanks for the link, you make some great book suggestions.

I looked through the table of contents and it looks like it should be an interesting read. Unfortunately I've been really busy, so it will probably be a while before I get around to reading it. When you're a part of this movement, it seems like there is an endless supply of literature you have to get through. I'm still very interested in the "Soviet Union: was it capitalist or something else?" though I soundly reject it being a worker state that should be defended. I consider the question of whether it was capitalist vs a "non mode of production" to be primarily academic in nature, but it seems difficult to deny that even if the Soviet Union wasn't capitalist, it was capitalistic and still governed by the laws of capital.