[QUOTE=Green Dragon;1477955]And just about here is where this thread should be moved to the "Religion" Forum.
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Considering that socialism is the goal of these struggles- if it's socialism, then by definition it has succeeded. An experiment that brings us closer to the cure to a disease is not the cure it's self, if the end result didn't fulfill the conditions of a cure then you wouldn't call it a cure.
[QUOTE=Green Dragon;1477955]And just about here is where this thread should be moved to the "Religion" Forum.
Although I was expressing your opinion not too long ago, I feel it is important that we note that a revolution by socialists, with the intention of forging socialism is a "socialist" revolution, regardless of whether or not they were successful in that attempt.
Otherwise we all into a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy where we redefine a socialist revolution to make a desired conclusion about such revolutions true.
We can have a discussion about whether or not the intention of the Russian revolution was to create socialism (or if that was just the rhetoric used to justify it) but if its actual intention was the creation of socialism, then we have to concede that it was a socialist revolution, albeit a failed one.
"We're gonna tear this stupid city down, throw our trash on the ground. "Liberate" that bottle of malt liquor. Oh I get it! Anarchy means that you litter" -
Anarchy Means I Litter by Atom and His Package
No one is saying that socialists can't fail. No one is saying that there can't be failures on the path to socialism. Socialism is the goal. We say the Soviet Union failed because it didn't fulfil it's goal of creating socialism.
Explain how socialism can fail, given that socialism is the goal. If it's socialism then evidently it has not failed in it's goal of creating socialism. If it has failed in it's attempt to create socialism then evidently it's not socialism.
I don't think it was Communist to begin with, it may have had Communist intentions. As for the reactionaries saying it was a failed example of the dictatorship of the proletariat, tell them it wasn't one, so how could it be a failed one.
"... [E]very one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence at its disposal." - Peter Kropotkin
"For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism... by confusing a man with what he possesses... The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is." - Oscar Wilde
My point is that as long as you think Socialism is a possibility, or a goal or it can happen someday I have no problem. I think there is a very good chance myself that it will happen. But once you say that it CAN'T fail that it is inevitable and certain it stops becoming economics and it becomes religion as much as the second comming of Jesus.
I do agree about the Soviet Union also. I think the Revolutionaries had the best intentions, but too many problems along the way crashed the program. And while I think Lenin might very well have been the right man to carry out a Communist system I think the moment Stalin too over--any chance of the SU evolving into Communism was dead.
Stalin was a Tsar by other means. What followed him was just 40 years of slow painful death of a dream.
Even Marx himself eventually backed down on the fatalistic position that socialism is a historical inevitability. Eventually the capitalist system will fall, due to its inherent contradictions. What stands in its place will either be socialism or some sort of regression, depending on the circumstances of that collapse.
"We're gonna tear this stupid city down, throw our trash on the ground. "Liberate" that bottle of malt liquor. Oh I get it! Anarchy means that you litter" -
Anarchy Means I Litter by Atom and His Package
I agree, which is why, having a socialist nation that restricts unions in anyway is an oxymoron.
I agree it is (I'm here too), democracy is a sham everywhere, but unions here have a lot more say than workers did in the USSR, and the government IS more accountable to the poeple, than both the USSr and the US.
Of coarse, I'm not saying its perfect at all. Of caorse big capital wins, but when you compared worker influence here vrs the USSR and the US, there is more here. In the US the governmetn is way way mor accountable to Capital, in the USSR it was pretty much juts accountable to itself.
Its not better, but state ownership is only better when its accoutnable to th epeople. BTW I'm not familiar with the human rights breaches?
50% government ownership with a government thats somewhat accountable is better than 90% with a governement that is not imo.
Ok, perhaps I hav'nt been here long enough
Of coarse, but look at the rest of the world. Seriously.
Did those "tries" give control over to the workers? No, then they wern't tries.
The "coup" happened after the revolution with the Bolsheviks siezing political power and securing it with the excuse of "defending the revolution". It was a real revolution, the bolsheviks stole it.
1. All of them, over their respective industries/areas
2. I suppose they were naive / afraid of loosing the revolutionary gains.
Without a state there are not mechanisms to TAKE power.
No, its not socialism, if its not controled by the workers.
The Soviets DID'nt have the real power in the USSR.
I'm confused, why would anyone or an institution react violently to someone who wanted to purchase something off them, when if they didn't want to, they could easily just refuse?
Unless you meant individual owners of private property (not personal property, but private, as in the means of production, distribution and services) wouldn't, or cannot react violently ... in which case, you're very very very wrong there. You just have to look at what everyone's favourite brand of soft drink (Coca Cola for anyone who didn't get it) is doing in India, Mexico and other exploited and oppressed LEDCs in the world to realise that.
"The class war begins in the desecration of our ancestors: millions of people going to their graves as failures, forever denied the experience of a full human existence, their being was simply cancelled out. The violence of the bourgeoisie's appropriation of the world of work becomes the structure that dominates our existence. As our parents die, we can say truly that their lives were for nothing, that the black earth which is thrown down onto them blacks out our sky."
RGacky;
I agree with your points. Norway is pretty much better than most other places, but it's important not to glorify it.
Also in my time I've only seen decline in the workers power, and conditions, here, as the rest of the western world probably has for the last 25 years.
Btw, the oil fund is critizised for investing in dozens of corporations which commits human rights breaches, while it counsciously has a policy of only controlling less than 4% of differing corporations so it can't control policy.
Maybe the USSR failed because the goal cannot be reached...
I agree, my point was'nt to glorify Norway at all. Its still a Capitalist state, where workers are exploited, and where Capital still rules.
My point was to show that when comparing examples of states incorporating (for whatever reason) principles of socialism, a bourgeois country like Norway does so more than a country like the USSR (the principles being worker control of industry, democracy, and the such). So saying the USSR is socialist, thus it failed, is a rediculous argument.
Aha, that makes sense politically, i.e. you want to reap the benefits of international corporate cut throat capitalism without the responsibility.
However at least that oil fund is public rather than private, and subjet to relative democratic influence.
Well I've only been here for a short while and I know that compared to where I was before workers here have much more rights. But, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in social-democracy, and understand that its not sustainable even in Norway.
But a functioning social democracy, I would say is more socialistic than the USSR, just based on democratic and worker power principles.
Maybe you hav'nt been paying attention to anything anyone here has said, and insist on spouting baseless claims while plugging your ears.
Sure I have- the argument has been made that the USSR failed because it made poor decisions in reaching for socialism. I would suggest the failure is in its attempt to reach for socialism.
It began with the "Stalinist" bureaucracy. The USSR swayed from its goals and eventually had a capitalist restoration due to the soviet bureaucracy wishing to enrich itself. Pick up a revolution betrayed.
"Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity" - Noel Ignatiev
"Oogle pride!" -Spook Rat
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The purpose of a labor union in a capitalist community is to represent labor against the capitalist. Its an adversarial relationship, no matter how benign the relationship otherwise is in pratice.
Since the workers own and control the means of production in a socialist community, the role of a labor union there is different. It is far more plausible that labor unions face greatre restriction in communities reaching for socialism, than in capitalist communities. And since that has been the historical record...
The revolution will have to be defended. Not even all the workers will agree on a particular path to be followed.
In the USSR the workers did not own and control the means of production, if they did, essencially, it would be unions (or workers councils, or whatever worker organization) controling the means of production. If an entity is banning those worker organizations clearly its not socialist.
It was'nt being defended against itself, it was being defended against the white army.
The main argument was that the USSR was'nt socialistic, and it was'nt an attempt, it replaced a class system with another class system.
how about it began with Lenin's authoritarian suppression of worker movements and the left opposition?
[All workers were members of a labor union in the USSR.
It defended itself against the rebellion of the Kronstadt sailors...
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The argument is that the USSR failed in its attempts for socialism. What you are doing is arguing that because it did not reach for socialism in the manner in which you preferred, it was not socialist at all.
Do I have to explain this? A State Union that is controled by the state and not the workers, IS NOT a real union.
This was before the Bolsheviks consolidated power.
It was not socialist at all because it was not a society where the workplace was controlled by the workers and where the people controlled the society, wihch by definition, means it was not socialist.
[QUOTE]
YOU are defining a "real" union based upon how unions function in a capitalist environment. It has to be based upon how it would function in a socialist community.
To prevent other such threats to the revolution...
No such community can exist. The workplace is controlled by the consumers of the product which is produced. Their demands, and not the opininions of the workers, is what controls how goods and service are produced and distributed.
