Why history matters

[Bud Struggle]

Democracy is the political expression of the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy and its privileges.

It may not be all about money--democracy may be about freedom.

Capitalism is the economic system that creates the bourgeoisie.

Yes.

At a particular point, the emergent capitalist bourgeoisie overthrows the feudal system in the name of a universal democracy (mainly because they need the proletariat to help overthrow privilege, but maybe some of them actually believe it). Thus, democracy is the ideology of emergent capitalism. They're indelibly linked.

But what else is there for people to "proclaim" themselves? Soviets?

Later, once capitalism is no longer 'emergent' but decidedly decadent, 'state capitalism' becomes the dominant form. This often involves brutal dictatorships (eg Chile, Argentina in the 70s-80s, Cuba in the 1950s, the South Africa Apartheid regime, etc),

AND, AND, AND the Soviet Union. The Iron Curtain countries. Communist China. Those people were/are STATE CAPITALISM.

but that doesn't alter the fact that the capitalist class promised the working class a better future having overthrown the aristocracy.

And they delivered/

On Cuba, Vietnam, China etc, I regard them as inadmissable for the prosecution.

Agreed. Red herrings.

Only in Russia did the working class take power.

Nope. The Proletariate never took power. It was the peasants. Just like in every other "Proletarian Revolution." Proletarians NEVER take power. It's always peasents. And some old king (whitness Nepal) walks away with their head hung low.

There's no Workers taking over.

In all the other 'revolutions' you mention, a party-clique took power, establishing not the basis for communism but another state-capitalist dictatorship, like the military dictatorships I mention above, but with a dfferent coloured flag. So, no 'attempted communism' there. To claim that 'communism failed' because the Chinese Communist Party failed, is as facile as if I claimed 'democracy failed' because the American Democratic Party failed. Only for a short time in Russia (and very briefly in parts of Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and a few towns and cities elsewhere) were the working class ever in control. In each case the revolution was drowned in blood by capitalism. That doesn't demonstrate communism doesn't work, it demonstrates capitalism is psychotic and sociopathic, and the capitalist class is desperate to hold on to power.

It demonstrates that Communism is a peasent Revolution which bring a nation from Feudalism to Proletarian power-that then surrenders itself to Capitalism. That's how it seems to play out in real life.

Were you ever engaged to a British guy with a red beard?

RevLeft is just like the British navy of the 1900s.

Rum, sodomy and the lash.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm sorry Bud, you're wrong. The working class did take power in Russia. Then they had it taken off them. Like they did in Paris in 1871, like they did in Berlin in 1919, like they did in Shanghai 1927 and in Barcelona in 1936; not the peasants, the workers. All of these workers revolutions were drowned by capitalism's counter-revolution, sometimes under red flags. That doesn't negate communism, it negates capitalism. As you say, these were all state capitalist regimes. Until capitalism is abolished, communism is impossible (and always has been).

[Bud Struggle]

I'm sorry Bud, you're wrong. The working class did take power in Russia. Then they had it taken off them. Like they did in Paris in 1871, like they did in Berlin in 1919, like they did in Shanghai 1927 and in Barcelona in 1936; not the peasants, the workers. All of these workers revolutions were drowned by capitalism's counter-revolution, sometimes under red flags. That doesn't negate communism, it negates capitalism. As you say, these were all state capitalist regimes. Until capitalism is abolished, communism is impossible (and always has been).

Either Communism sucks at every fight with Capitalism or--the premise is totally wrong. Proletarians NEVER revolt--it's the peasants. They throw off some sad old king and then they wait and wait for Capitalism to come around.

Why should Communism fail so often? The problem is not with the counter revolution--it's the REVOLUTION ITSELF. The wrong people were revolting. In every one of these countries proletarians were in the vast minority. They were peasent countries with a couple of Prolearians thrown in for the mix.

No Germany or America or England. Just China, Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia. See the problem?

Communism is flawed from the beginning. Communism needs to be rewritten.

Want to do it? I'm paying $10 an hour. If the Revolution happens--I'll up it to $20 an hour.

[graffic]

I guess a short answer to why revolutions "failed' is because humans are not perfect. History teaches us that humans have made serious errors and the general idea is to learn from them, not forget them. Marx said that capital makes no logical sense, and I agree with him. However, you can say the same about human beings in general. A lot of things humans do makes no logical sense, things that make people happy etc. Some scientific socialists like Marx try and put everything into neat boxes and put everything into a explanatory category, like Engels almost religious idea of a "false consciousness". Not that science, critical thinking and rationalism are not good things, but its a mistake to think you can achieve perfection because you think you know the "truth" and are in a correct state of consciousness perhaps.

[graffic]

To claim that 'communism failed' because the Chinese Communist Party failed, is as facile as if I claimed 'democracy failed' because the American Democratic Party failed. Only for a short time in Russia (and very briefly in parts of Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and a few towns and cities elsewhere) were the working class ever in control. In each case the revolution was drowned in blood by capitalism. That doesn't demonstrate communism doesn't work, it demonstrates capitalism is psychotic and sociopathic, and the capitalist class is desperate to hold on to power.

But by Communism you mean the "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Workers rule etc. The practical application of democracy has changed over the years, and there is representative democracy, direct democracy, peoples democracy, developmental democracy, classical, and protective to consider.

From a cynical mindset representative democracy perhaps failed in various different ways however direct democracy originating in Greece was successful to an extent. Athenian democracy was the most direct form of democracy, there was no oligarchy, although slaves and woman were excluded from the decision making process.

The constitution of the USA, written by Madison and Jefferson, was influenced more by Rome than ancient Athens. The representative democracy of the USA was democratic in many respects however Communism as an ideology and what they achieved and believed was much more coherent and clear than representative democracy and democracy as a general concept.

[ComradeOm]

Either Communism sucks at every fight with Capitalism or--the premise is totally wrong. Proletarians NEVER revolt--it's the peasants

What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that the workers of Paris did not play a central role in the Commune of 1871? That the Russian proletariat did not take to the streets and form Soviets of Workers Deputies in 1905 and 1917 (hint: the clue is in the name)? That German workers did not form workers councils in 1918-19? Are all these all lies or false history?

The fact that these movements failed in no way detracts from the fact that they existed

[Blake's Baby]

Yes; and communism, through the soviets (workers' councils), is direct democracy. More democratic than bourgeois democracy.

Bud, communism can't be delivered at the point of a bayonet. You can't bomb people into freedom, you can't shoot them into class consciousness - this was amply and sadly demonstrated by the failed counter-attack into Poland in 1920. Of course communism sucks in a fight with a capitalism, just like a nice people will always lose in a fight with a psychopath, and even more so with 20 psychopaths.

When the workers of Paris revolted and instituted the Commune, the Prussian and French armies were both in a position to crush them and reactionary and badly-educated peasants (badly-educated by democratic capitalism, mind you) rushed to support the French state in crushing the revolting workers.

When the Russian proletariat revolted gainst the brutal, capitalist world war that had slaughtered millions, and its own incompotent government, the landlords and the army, backed by the main capitalist powers (USA, France, Britain and Germany) and a good many of Russia's lesser rivals (Japan, Poland, Greece, Serbia), attacked the Soviet Republic. In the Intervention there were 15 foreign powers (14 Allies, plus Germany) with troops on Russian soil as well as several White commanders. Against them were the Bolshevik-led Soviet Republic, and the Ukrainian Anarchist Army of Makhno. It's a miracle that the Soviet Republic wasn't crushed - it wasn't in the end militarily defeated - and what happend to it afterwards was a direct result of its isolation, not the result of Bolshevik policy, the weight of the peasantry, the relative lack of industrialisation or anything of the kind. Capitalism starved the revolution of oxygen and it dies. Not the fault of communism, the fault of capitalism, a system of exploitation and mass slaughter.

When the Berlin workers revolted against their own war-mongering (democratic 'socialist') government it sent demobbed soldiers, fresh from fighting Bolsheviks in the Baltic States, to murder them. Was that the fault of the workers? No; it was the fault of the nationalistic war-mongers of democratic capitalism - backed by the ever-so civilised democratic French Republic, that granted the German High Command the use of 30,000 machine guns (originally part of the conditions of the Versaille Peace Treaty) to machine-gun the German working class. Where were the workers going to get 30,000 machine guns, the ammunition to work them, or the trained machine gunners to operate them? They weren't. So, printers and sheet-metal workers against a well-equipped army? Any wonder the army won?

So yes, communism finds it hard to wage war. That's because it's not capitalism, a system built on slavery, nations, competition and war. And that's precisely why capitalism needs to be abolished.

[RGacky3]

Democracy treats every vote the same. Everyone is created equal--NOT payed the same. A big difference

Yeah, do you believe in democracy?

Should'nt every vote be the same also when it comes to the economy?

See, I disagree there. In demoracy people have the right and the voice and the ability to take control of everything and anything they want. And true--they don't. They don't even come close. But they have the opportunity--and I think that opportunity will be used EXACTLY the same way under Communism or Anarchism. Some Handsome Johnny will steal away hearts and votes and become another Uncle Joe.

They don't because in a Capitalist democracy the vote has very little actual power, the dollar is the real power, so your premis is falwed to begin with.

I'm not saying it is good, it isn't. But there is a human nature element to it all. I wish I was wrong about this--but being a businessperson I meet high rollers and workers--and I think I see a real difference in how these people take on life. And there's a difference. RevLeft has given me a bit of perspective on all of this.

I kind of agree with you, which is why we should have a system that minimizes the damage and power those people have.

Nope. The Proletariate never took power. It was the peasants. Just like in every other "Proletarian Revolution." Proletarians NEVER take power. It's always peasents. And some old king (whitness Nepal) walks away with their head hung low.

There's no Workers taking over.

Wait what? The Russian revolution started with the workers, they were the ones that MADE the soviets, especially in St. Petersburg, the peasents lagged behind, you gotta get your history right.