Why does much of the left have such a distain for the Soviet Union and China

You extreme Stalinists are fucking hilarious.

Was there any workers control of the workplace? Nope, Was there economic democracy? No

Was there even public ownership? Not really, the state was'nt democraticlaly accountable.

I'm glad that the OP at least refers to China being communist in the past tense. Even so, China was never communist in the slightest because China, being China, was/is a state.

That aside, China and the USSR were oppressive and exploited the working class. China is still oppressive and exploitative, but now it's ardently capitalist as well.

You can't really get less communist than that.

What are you arguing here? That repression is necessary for socialism?!

Because the state takes on the role that private investors and banks would play in other capitalist countries. Not all state-capitalist countries claimed to be "worker's states" - Germany in the late nineteenth century, Japan, and Arab nationalist countries all used the state to coordinate development of a national economy.

"It's not perfect, but it's better than what they got over there..." is the same argument made by US defenders of capitalism and the status quo. It's not a very good argument for people wanting the liberation of humanity though.

So why do I criticize the USSR and China and other so-called socialist countries (including democratic-socialist countries which claim that their lower inequality and reforms mean that they have "a socialist government")? Well because not only did they not achieve worker's power over society and production, but they actively prevented it domestically and abroad during the cold war (in order to keep the status quo) and when socialism (worker's power) was not achieved, the maintained that it had been established which basically derailed the entire working class movement for much of the 20th century.

Because of the betrayals of the CPs all over the world and the deliberate bastardization of the basic concepts of Marxian socialism by the USSR in order to create a fiction, we are entering into a new period of class conflict largely disarmed and back starting at square one.

So why WOULD anyone who wants to see the end of exploitation and the self-emancipation of the working class have anything BUT disdain for a whole history where tyrants used our traditions, language, and symbols to carve up the world between them and the western capitalists?

So true here, the Third International really destroyed the world's CPs, forcing us Trotskyists and anyone who wasn't following Stalin's party line out, destroying any unity we had built on for so long. After this move most of the world's CPs were rendered useless, only able to tow the line of the party in Moscow and unable to think on their own. Our Trotskyist parties were betrayed by the leaders of the 4th international, as well as dealing with KGB infiltration and repression under capitalist governments leaving our parties small, weak, and dis-unified...and furthermore Stalin's measures made sure that his rhetoric turned his and later Mao's followers against us for no reason aside from we didn't like Stalin, creating even more friction for us on the left.

So I cannot honestly find a good reason to find any support for the post Lenin USSR....nothing good came of it, it failed to complete the revolution, and really destroyed the worker's movement

don't try and make out that the trots would have been much different. It would have still been state capitalism or if Donovan thinks that term is redundant we'll just call it capitalism. Trotskyism is still top down leadership with professional revolutionaries tasked with carrying out revolution on behalf of the proletariat. Same shit different smell.

That is pure bullshit. Trotskyism would have led to a worker's democracy and expansion of the revolution the world over, with a non-central government no classes, and a party which would disappear after the transition period is over. This can in no way be compared to the bureaucratic bullshit state of the Stalinists and their "socialism in one country" theory, which leads to nothing but revolutionary stagnation and authoritarianism

The fact that you seem to think that communism is something which can be measured by degrees does not speak well of your comprehension of Marxist thought on the matter.

And where is the working class in all this, exactly?

The working class is in power for the transition phase, thus the vanguard party. Which is, after everything is set (after the dictatorship of the proles that is), dismissed and the workers are left to self-management.

It's still the dictatorship of the party not the proletariat. Can you really claim that Trotskyism would have not been state capitalism? Considering the tendency for Trotskyist parties to enter into reformist strategies and collaboration with the state. I mean Lenin talked the talk but they couldn't live up to his strategies because they were flawed to begin with. Also how would the Trots have spread global revolution any differently to the M-L's? While Lenin was still alive he showed that covert interference in other countries was more harmful than helpful.

I think most people should be upset with the USSR and China because, quite frankly, they were failures especially if you think that they were supposed to be socialist.

Sounds pretty much like the party dictatorship.

I don't think Trotsky would have called whatever it was socialist anyway.

As compared with other ideological parties?

The purpose of the vanguard party, which is made up of the proletariat, is just to get through the revolution and spread to surrounding nations, then to dissolve after the transition period, and the transition period is a democratic one where the workers vote, and rule over themselves and determine what is to happen, ect. until the completion of the revolution to communism.

I'm not certain which Trotskyist parties you speak of with collaborating with the state, but the IMT calls for entryism into the labour movement and organise in this manner.

Lenin's movements into other nations didn't pan out well mostly due to the fact that Russia was itself fighting the revolution, and the counter-revolutionary forces in the other nations were heavily supported by capitalist/reactionary nations.

On a side note: Hopefully there is another Trotskyist on who can continue this debate with you, as I must take my leave...been awake so long I can no longer read my laptop screen clearly ;)

yawn, I'm so sick of hearing people try to defend the vanguard. It's quite frankly insulting to the working class to say that revolution needs to be done for them by a top down hierarchy. And you can make all the attempts you like. Like saying the vanguard means a majority of workers and it's democratic and blahdi blahdi blah but it's just electing a central committee to make decisions on behalf of the party and it never works out that a majority of the population make up one of these vanguard parties.

I was thinking predominantly about the SWP I have a looong list of their reactionary positions. But rooster is also right it's true of most Leninist parties.

so what would Trotskyists have done differently?
I'm not that fussed to be honest. sweetdreams ;)

I actually prefer Scandinavian styled private capitalism over USSR-styled "socialism".

This is because:
1) Workers have more rights
2) The workers have a greater say
3) The elite is less powerful
4) There is seemingly less income inequality

shortly put, Scandinavian capitalism is more socialist than USSR's "socialism".

And revisionism is the most commonly used fallacy by Marxist-Leninists. "We exposed revisionism of X, therefore we are right and you should advocate Marxism-Leninism".
"Exposing revisionism" is meaningless as revisionism does not equate a false theory--unless we accept Marxism is an objective science that holds absolute truth, thereby extolling it to religious heights.

In fact, we can already discover revisionism in Lenin's work.

Marx said: "the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes".

Lenin contradicted this by advocating "utisiling the current state".

Stalin furthermore argued the law of value was pretty much negligible.

The USSR systematically killed any trace of genuine socialism.

That's not "myths" created by the West, those are cold hard facts.

Under Stalin, any country--except Nazi-Germany perhaps--was more free than the USSR.

That makes no sense "If Pinochet's fascism was more free than Nazism, then why did Italian fascism killed people?". Western world was more free than the USSR, but that does not mean the Western world was not authoritarian.

Have you actually read Marx or Lenin? I doubt it, because you interpret the DOTP literally as a dictatorship.

No he absolutely did not. Lenin did not even implement his own ideas accurately!

He did "revise" it, Marx did not advocate it.

See my previous post. Scandinavian style capitalism is better than USSR styled "socialism", additionally because of the degree of freedom.

In the Norwegian system the major industry is public, and the people running is are ACTUALLY accountable to the people, i.e. the policy of the company is subject to public debate and public decision making, Not the case for any nationalized industry in the USSR.

In the Sweedish system all corporations require representatives of the workers to be on the board of directors (the German model is better but still), meaning that workers have an actual say in the running of a company, not the case in the USSR.

Basically put certain Social-Democratic or Mixed market capitalist european countries are actually more socialistic when it comes to actual policies.

This.

Good grief, the usual people who don't know the first thing about Trotsky's ideas managed to totally derail a thread on why Stalinist USSR and Maoist China aren't communist.
Read him, I don't criticise other theorists before even knowing what they said.

Because it is easy to join the liberal chorus and criticise any practical application of socialism, while holding on to some 'pure' romantic ideal.

What is harder is to critically uphold the achievements of the international working class, including areas which horrify the bourgeoisie, and to build on them in theory and practice. To do this in the face of hegemonic liberalism requires righteous proletarian balls, and those are something that the revisionists trotskyites and cliffites lack.

I've read Trotsky thank you very much. I've also read the history of the positions held by some of the main Trot parties although you guys split so much it's kinda hard to keep up with all of them, so I feel I'm adequately prepared to take a massive dump all over Trotskyism, Leninism or anyother form of Bolshevik Bollocks.