Socialist parties in the U.S.

[robbo203]

Asking for a simple "yes or no" response just shows how absolutely unscientific you are. it suggests that the entire international communist, anti-imperialist and proletarian movements of the world can be analyzed in a black-and-white manner, which is absolutely laughable. .

Oh come on - its a straightforward question I asked. Stop wriggling. I am not asking for an extended thesis on imperialism, peer reviewed and complete with footnotes and references. All I want to know is whether it is true as the article claims that your group extends support to such regimes as North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Libya, Syria and that your Mr Becker sided with the Chinese authorities in the face of mass movements hostile to the regime. Do you or do you not as a group support Gaddafi in the current conflict?


As i say, its a simple enough question. Why the evasion? Got something to feel embarrased about?

[Jose Gracchus]

So, in other words, you have no idea about any of this and you're not going to listen to what people involved with the PSL say about the topic. Cool. At least you admit you don't care about facts.

I said I could not find evidence, so I retract my claim. You're not going to get any more prostration than that, sorry.

Yes, and there are plenty of reasoned explanations in support of the re-liberation of Hungary. I suggest you go over them with more care and attention.

I've read entire books on the topic, but okay.

First, you won't quantify what a "police state" is because it's a made-up term liberals like to use to bash socialism.

No, it is a simple acknowledgment of fact. The police will prevent the workers or anyone else from public (and even private) political activity or discussion that is not a reflexive acting out of decrees from the party leadership.

Again, funny enough the workers in Russia and Spain who actually began to place their hands upon production and the political rule of society, did not need to manifest this by top-down suppression of all political activity except by the franchise of the CPSU.

Second, in order to establish and defend socialism it is oftentimes necessary to limit the political capacity of bourgeois forces. The re-liberation of Hungary did that by reversing the promotion of capitalist parties done by your man Nagy.

Bullshit. Find me any evidence to substantiate the claim that legalizing political parties was precipitating actual moves toward a reintroduction of foreign capital, a re-imposition of private property in industrial production, and the like.

R[FONT=Verdana]ather, according to [FONT=&quot]Peter Fryer, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and a journalist, is in Budapest to report for the London Daily Worker[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“upsurge of a whole people, in which rank-and-file communists took part, against a police dictatorship dressed up as a Socialist society – a police dictatorship backed up by Soviet armed might.”[FONT=&quot][1][/FONT] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][1][/FONT] Matthews, Explosion, pp. 216-217



Or, furthermore: (http://mek.niif.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf, p. 154)

485. No aspect of the Hungarian uprising expressed its democratic tendencies or its reaction to previous conditions more clearly than the creation of Revolutionary Councils in villages, towns and on the county level, and of Workers’ Councils in factories. Within a few days, these bodies came into existence all over Hungary and assumed important responsibilities. Their chief purpose was to ensure for the Hungarian people real, and not merely nominal, control of local government and of factories, mines, and other industrial enterprises. There was even a suggestion that a National Revolutionary Committee might replace the National Assembly,(1) while another proposal was that a Supreme National Council could exercise the prerogative of Head of the State.(2) While nothing of the kind took place, the fact that such proposals could be put forward at all suggests the degree to which they were felt to reflect the desires of the
people.

Those reactionaries! How dare they call for "All Power to the Soviets!"

Furthermore:

On 28 October the Hungarian Workers’ (Communist) Party commended the establishment of these Councils in an article in Szabad Nép, its official organ:
“News comes all the time from all parts of the country about the setting up of municipal and county Councils, Workers’ Councils, National Councils or Revolutionary Socialist Committees - many different names. All are alike, however, in being spontaneous, popular organs which came into existence through the upsurge of a new democracy in this country. We do not know who the members of the Councils are; we do know, however, that they are representatives of the workers and that they are being elected in a democratic way. There is none among them who would abuse the confidence of the people, who would misuse his power or think only of his personal position. Among them are those Communists who are respected and loved by the people. The good judgment and intelligence of the working masses are seen in the first measures taken by these popular organs.”
492. Official recognition was given to the Revolutionary Councils by Mr. Nagy “in the name of the National Government” on 30 October. He referred to them as “autonomous, democratic local organs formed during the Revolution,” and asked for “full support” from them. The setting up of factory Workers’ Councils in all plants was recommended by the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ (Communist) Party in a statement issued on 26 October, and on the same day the Praesidium of the National Council of Trade Unions published a similar appeal to all workers.

As usual, we find that Stalinists support the working class which exists only on the paper of the crap they write, and in some dream-cosmos in their head, not the "actually existing" working class:

The Councils included representatives of all segments of the population. In Debrecen, the Council had one hundred members of whom 60 per cent were workers, 20 per cent University students and 20 per cent representatives of the armed forces. The Councils of Győr and Eger consisted of workers, peasants, soldiers and intellectuals, while half of the twenty eight members of the Council of Jászberény were peasants. Revolutionary Councils were fully supported from the beginning by the armed forces (e.g., Debrecen, Eger, Győr, Szeged, Szolnok, Veszprém), and by the local police (e.g., Debrecen, Győr, Mosonmagyaróvár, Szolnok, Tatabánya, Veszprém).
501. Some of the Revolutionary Councils were set up with the consent of the local Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ (Communist) Party (e.g., Debrecen) many of them had from the beginning to the end Communist members (e.g., Debrecen) ; others dropped their Communist members after 1 November (e.g., Pécs). Most of them enjoyed almost at once the editorial support of the local organ of the Hungarian Workers’ (Communist) Party. Regarding the attitude taken by the Councils towards the Party, the following comments of Hétfői Hírlap of 29 October are significant:
“The demands [of the Revolutionary Councils] are, on the whole, identical and essentially socialist and democratic(5) in their character, and do not intend to destroy the people’s power. This is proved by the fact that wherever Party organizations endorsed the aims of the democratic revolution, no action was taken against them.”

So even the CP and trade unions came out for the workers' councils. But for you the only real workers and revolutionaries are in the Soviet Politburo.

But here's the money quote, pg. 156-7:

Further demands included changes within the structure of the Government, the abolition of the ÁVH and the creation of new police, the establishment of the National Guard, liberation of political prisoners, in particular, of Cardinal Mindszenty, freedom of speech, press, religion and association, the setting up of Workers’ Councils in factories; new agrarian policies and, in particular, abolition of compulsory delivery of produce by the peasants.(7) It was often emphasized that a return of the landed estates to their former owners would not be tolerated.
“The people have already decided as far as the question of land, factories and mineral wealth is concerned”, one Council delegate told the Government on 3 November. “The people will never alter that decision.”

The workers' councils:

“Constitution of Workers’ Councils in every factory with the participation of factory intellectuals there. Installation of a worker-directorate parallel with the radical transformation of the centralized planning system and of economic direction by the State; workers and factory-intellectuals to take over the direction of factories. Immediate formation of workers’ councils, which should contact their trade union centres without delay to decide on tasks”. The announcement continued that the Hungarian trade unions had to become active again as before 1948, and they would have to change their name to “Hungarian Free Trade Unions”. Later on the Praesidium made the following appeal: “Workers! The desire of the working class has been realized. Undertakings will be managed by Workers’ Councils. This will complete the processby which the factories are taken over as the property of the people. Workers and technicians!
You can now regard the enterprises as being entirely your own. From now on, you will manage these yourselves. The excessive central management of the factories, which has prevailed hitherto, will now cease, together with the faults arising from it. A heavy responsibility is laid upon the Workers’ Councils; therefore you must elect the members of such Councils with great circumspection and from the most experienced and best workers. The new Government will increase the pay of those earning low wages. The sooner you start production in the factories and the better our Councils work, the more speedily can wages be raised, and the higher will they rise. Therefore, support the new Hungarian Government in its efforts for socialist construction and a free and democratic Hungary.”

Funny how apparently "capitalism" can look so much like socialism (all power to the soviets, workers' self-management on the factory floor), and "socialism" look so much like capitalism (your shameless stumping for police).

Ah, so you think socialists who defend their fellow workers from imperialism should be lynched? Some "revolutionary" you are.

No, I think armed thugs who executed people routinely for thoughtcrimes in order to more properly lubricate the massive wealth transfers from the "freed workers and peasants" of Hungary to the Soviet Union deserved to be lynched by workers and youth. Butchers who shoot into crowds of actually existing workers and youth, rather than the never-existing phantasm in your mind? Fuck 'em.

To wit: (UN report, p. 20)

56. On the evening of 22 October, some of the students had sought to have their demands broadcast by Budapest Radio, in order to bring them to the attention of the people as a whole.
The censor had been unwilling to broadcast the demands for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and for free elections, and the students had refused to allow incomplete publication.(15) The following day, some of the students went from the Bem statue to the Radio Building, with the intention of making another attempt to have their demands broadcast. A large crowd gathered at the Radio Building, which was guarded by the ÁVH or State security police. The students sent a delegation into the Building to negotiate with the Director. The crowd waited in vain forthe return of this delegation, and eventually a rumour spread that one delegate had been shot.
Shortly after 9 p.m., tear gas bombs were thrown from the upper windows and, one or two minutes later, ÁVH men opened fire on the crowd, killing a number of people and wounding others. In so far as any one moment can be selected as the turning point which changed a peaceable demonstration into a violent uprising, it would be this moment when the ÁVH, already intensely unpopular and universally feared by their compatriots, attacked defenceless people. The anger of the crowd was intensified when white ambulances, with Red Cross license plates, drove up. Instead of first aid teams, ÁVH police emerged, wearing doctors’ white coats. A part of the infuriated crowd attacked them and, in this way, the demonstrators acquired their first weapons. Hungarian forces were rushed to the scene to reinforce the ÁVH but, after hesitating a moment, they sided with the crowd.(16)

Yeah, obviously you haven't read the in-depth explanations of this issue that are posted all over this forum. Read up:

…the mentality of the revolutionaries shows that almost anyone from the West, of whatever nationality, color or purpose would have been received with open arms by any of the revolutionary councils in the cities of Hungary during the period in question.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB206/CSH_Hungarian_Revolution_Vol1.pdf
(pages 83, 84, 85 and 86 are of interest, the quote comes from page 86...page 91 details rebel requests to the CIA for arms and ammunition)

Maybe this is because the other imperialists were about to crush them and summarily execute Communist politicians who actually had the public support of the workers and peasants.

IF that is true (which you haven't proven), it's a natural part of the fact that large swathes of the USSR were demolished in the struggle to free Europe from fascism. In fact, the Soviet liberation of Hungary couldn't have come at a more pressing time, as the massacres of Jews were increasing exponentially in Budapest. Leningrad, Stalingrad, Minsk and other cities had been decimated (or worse)...working-class solidarity demanded that the workers of Hungary support the efforts of Soviet workers to rebuild.

I think its quite telling you think that "working class solidarity" is something compulsively beaten into workers by men with guns. If this was authentic, all of the newly "freed" socialist workers throughout the Eastern Bloc would all collaborate equally in contributing to their joint reconstruction. Instead, the Soviets imposed a classic victor's piece in classic imperial fashion.

http://www.rev.hu/history_of_45/tanulm_gazd/gazd_e.htm

[FONT=ARIAL]Only the 1956 Hungarian Revolution brought a temporary respite in the Stalinist policy towards agriculture and the peasantry. Heading the list of rural demands in October were the abolition of compulsory produce deliveries, tax reductions, redress for the injustices done on the pretext of consolidation of land holdings, restoration of a free market in land, freedom to withdraw from and disband agricultural cooperatives. The only one to be granted in full was abolition of the compulsory produce deliveries, which happened twice within a few weeks, under an order by the Nagy government at the end of October, and a similar by the Kádár regime after the revolution had been crushed.[/FONT]

Ah, so the evil market reforms of that dastardly Western puppet Nagy were duplicated by Moscow's man immediately thereafter! This shows the bankruptcy in your position: repressing the revolt was not about restoration of capitalism, but rather making sure that Hungary remained politically and diplomatically vassalized to the USSR. Why did Kadar grant most of their demands (aside from actual control by the working class), if they were so reactionary?

On the exploitation of the economic regime:

http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/dipl/dipl16.htm#16

The Hungarian bank estimates the rate of reparations at 16-24% of GNP for Hungary during the post-war period. You were saying?

So you're going to argue that Austria, which was non-aligned, wasn't in the sphere of "the West"? Don't be silly, leaving Hungary wanted to get close and comfy with NATO, even if they weren't at that point in favor of joining. But many of the same leaders involved or else inspired by the anti-socialist revolt of 1956 did get Hungary to join NATO recently, so it just goes to show that those steps away from socialism and the Warsaw Pact would later lead to joining the imperialist camp.

I said they wanted neutrality on the basis of Austria's treaty, not that they wanted to BE Austria. But don't allow details to get in the way of your agenda. In any case, who cares about opportunist 'leaders'? The Hungarian masses in the workers' and soldiers' councils were the driving force of the Revolution. Nagy dragged his feet and tried to play the good Moscow's man in Budapest and was dragged forward by the Hungarian soviets. By this kind of reasoning, Trotsky really wasn't fighting for the Soviet state in the Civil War, while leading the Red Army, because you think he scabbed for the West later. Is that what MLs actually think?

But most importantly, Hungary leaving the Warsaw Pact would have been a great blow to the workers of Europe, a weakness for the imperialists to exploit and a violation of the solidarity that got Europe through the menace of Nazism.

What solidarity? And what workers? The ones put down by force in 1953 in East Germany, in Poland in 1956, in Hungary? The actually existing working class, which had to be cowed by political terror?

How would it have allowed a magic infiltration of the Eastern Bloc? As is, the West did not lift a finger to do anything in the Soviet sphere of influence during the Hungarian Revolution.

We heard similar rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Yeltsin and Walesa. All those promises of no private property were washed away in a tsunami of privatization, exploitation and deprivation. We know that story. It's just too bad you're too blinded by your hatred for socialism to heed history's lessons.

Except where were the "Armed people", the "workers' councils" behind Walesa and Yeltsin? The former was openly a Catholic nationalist and the latter an opportunistic Russian nationalist. Both were surrounded by open neoliberal politicians. And both had the great and wondrous party-state apparatus negotiate the end of "socialism" with them.

I'm sorry your addled brain cannot comprehend anything that does not fit into a childish Manichean struggle where you just pick a GOOD GUYS and everyone who they say they don't like is bad.

You're listening to what people said and ignoring what they did. The Independent Smallholders Party (one of the most important bourgeois parties after WWII) was legalized and promoted.

How was it 'promoted'? I'm sorry that you can't beat into peasants adoration for the CP, but is that their fault, or Rakosi's?

What else could this signify except an ascendancy of capitalist forces? What else could this mean except a return to bourgeois oppression and exploitation.

Where is your evidence they would have won power? Many peasants simply seized control of their cooperative farms, rather than breaking them up. They didn't want this farce of "socialist property" used as a means of extracting surplus value from them for Moscow's benefit. How dare they.

This made the internationalist intervention necessary for the benefit of the workers of Hungary as well as Europe and the world.

What workers of Hungary? The ones who organized in workers' councils and were crushed by the intervention?

You're the one who's convinced yourself NATO forces had nothing to do with the rebellion, that the rebels were all good socialists () and that anything an anti-Soviet hack says can be trusted (Yeltsin and Walesa thank you for your faith in them). Maybe when you bring yourself to analyze what actually happened instead of what you read in TIME magazine, you'll be ready to address the event seriously and like a revolutionary.

You're an imbecile. I'm quite certain you have never examined a history book by the way you talk.

By the way, I came to support the internationalist re-liberation of Hungary before I joined the PSL.

Then you're a committed moron. I guess I was being unfair in trying to give you some credit.

The only drapes that matter here are the ones drawn firmly over you eyes. Anti-imperialism is a principle that all progressives apply, not just the PSL. Opposition to imperialist attacks on Iran and Libya does not equal support for their governments. Obviously you have little interest in hearing what the PSL has to say or what the PSL does. In short, your only interest is to slander socialists in order to make yourself feel better about not acting like one.

Why do you form cross-class fronts which hide your working-class politics?

[Kassad]

Oh come on - its a straightforward question I asked. Stop wriggling. I am not asking for an extended thesis on imperialism, peer reviewed and complete with footnotes and references. All I want to know is whether it is true as the article claims that your group extends support to such regimes as North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Libya, Syria and that your Mr Becker sided with the Chinese authorities in the face of mass movements hostile to the regime. Do you or do you not as a group support Gaddafi in the current conflict?


As i say, its a simple enough question. Why the evasion? Got something to feel embarrased about?

Not a thing. We have a difference though: I can provide sources and you can't. Try again.

[robbo203]

Not a thing. We have a difference though: I can provide sources and you can't. Try again.

Ah I see . So youve got the information but you are not about to spill the beans, eh?. Us mere mortals are evidently judged to be of too low a stock to be told the strategic thoughts of inner sanctum of the PSL Vanguard on such matters as whether or not your sect supports the Gaddafi regime against the uprising and so on and so forth.

"Try again" you say. OK, I'll try again. Do you support Gaddafi aganist the uprising? Do you support regimes such as North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Libya, Syria?

Now this time can we try and get an answer from you, O Enlightened One, or is that too much to ask?

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

eric922, the lesson you should draw from this is to run as far as you can away from this website. People on the internet only become MORE sectarian, MORE insulting, MORE egotistical, MORE zealous. Research the groups by reading their websites and wiki pages and send e-mails, letters or call their national offices to speak with them about their politics and what they can offer you. No one on RevLeft wants to help you, they just want to masturbate about their "correct line" on this or that sixty-or-more year old argument and bandy about every leftist slur in the book.