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A few questions for Marxists-Leninists
1) The Bolsheviks smashed the Tsarist feudal state, and created a new 'workers state'. Why didn't the revisionists or bourgeoisie smash this so-called 'workers state' in turn when they reintroduced capitalism?
2) In China, the Communists also smashed the old feudal state and created a new 'workers state'. However, Deng Xiaoping and his successors seem quite able to use the 'workers state' for capitalism. How?
3) In the USSR, why did the masses seem unable to tell the difference between a revolutionary line and a counter revolutionary line, or the difference between the line of Lenin and that of Stalin (if you're a Trotskyist), and the line of Stalin from that of Khrushchevs?
4) Likewise in China, why did the masses seem unable to tell the difference between the revolutionary line of Mao Zedong and the gang of four, and the revisionist line of Deng Xiaoping?
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Because those who did notice or complained or tried to restart the revolution were sent to prison camps or killed as being anti-communist and anti-revolutionary before they could get their oppositions off the ground. Thus they are absent from most major historical narratives.
Edit: If you want more information on this look at this excellent book on worker strikes and uprisings that stalin repressed.
Worker Resistance Under Stalin: Class and Revolution on the Shop Floor by Jeffrey J. Rossman.
Last edited by nativeabuse; 11th January 2013 at 00:53. Reason: addition of source
Because the bourgeoisie doesn't need to smash the workers state as they must simply reintroduce capitalist social-relations. once that has been accomplished the framework will degrade.
They weren't: they first had to destroy the socialist aspects of it: from education to labor and even family policies Deng turned back the clock and reintroduced bourgeois reforms which placed the legal power back in the hands of the managers and revisionist elements.
Media is powerful and the state controlled the propaganda, hence the working class coming to their own conclusions about important current events would seem unlikely without some independent outlet.
Lots of revolutions and disorder but more to the point the reforms Deng introduced were gradual and not something the masses were to pick up right away (though currently they are starting to rediscover Mao's contributions).
(Very quick answers)
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Also, not to nit-pick, but most of your questions seemed to be about Mao and China so your title should read something like "What do Maoist..." or "What to Maoists and Marxist-Leninist..." think about...
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How does simply replacing some guy in office for another change an entire social relationship?
And why were the masses passive as Deng Xiao Ping took away their means of production and handed them back over to the capitalists?
So the workers are sheep who would be led right back to capitalism without a Great Leader and the right propaganda to guide them?
Socialism is a completely different system from capitalism. You cannot go from socialism to capitalism by introducing some reforms.
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My questions were about the Russian and Chinese revolutions, the two big Marxist-Leninist revolutions of the 20th century.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
His policies over the course of years, it is not simply a matter or replacing one man with another but of what policies they enact.
There was resistance to each new measure but as I said these reforms were introduced over the course of years and they were gradual. Many were caught off guard and confused by their rhetoric. With such conditions present, especially after so much chaos by the subsequent interior revolutions, one cannot expect the masses to spontaneously rise up.
Your words, not mine.
(No.Politicking and subterfuge with revisionist language goes a long way in a socialist state)
Not by a few reforms, yes, but if you completely overhaul the social-relations and reintroduce pro-capitalist policies which encourage the growth of such ideologies, than yes, you will find that a few major bourgeois policies will go a long way.
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(At any rate this is where I will hand it of to a comrade. You can debate with them. I only have so much desire to repeat the same kind of discussions over and over)
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What's the point of this Gladiator? You know M-L's spout nonsense about creating new modes of production within the confines of a state. There are better ways of spending your energy. I'll argue with anarchists cause I view them as having the same end goal as myself, ie: communism, anarchy. However if what you're striving for is the 'socialism' which existed in the USSR, then you're certainly no comrade of mine. So what's the point of this thread?
Doesn't this say something for the strict censorship created before the "Communists in counterrevolutionary guise" or whatever people want to call them, took over?
Its all well and good people apologising for strict state censorship because "The workers state must mercilessly crush all enemies", but if they accept the possibility of the capture and use of the workers state by anti-communist/bourgeois elements, it sort of means you just have to hope that the "good guys" win the power struggle in the Central Committee and/or Politburo as you have no way of rallying opposition if they don't.
