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I'm curious to know where would be members of the Marxist vanguard get their weird brand of evangelism from. I see little evidence that either the proletariat or the universe in general cares about your imaginary crusade. Are you bored bourgeois intellectuals looking for a sense of purpose? Are you Stalin wannabes seeking pure power? What are your motives, and what is the root of your ideology? Cut the crap comrades, stop the trolling and let's have a serious discussion please. Thank you.
The irony is overwhelming. If I wanted pure power, I'd use my middle class power to become a Republican or Democrat politician. I'd make millions collaborating with businesses and then I'd go on to run some position in some private bank to make even more millions of dollars.
What evangelism is that?
It would be very hard for neutrinos and nebulae to care about communism. And as far as the working class as a whole is concerned, yes you're right, not that many fellow workers care or think about the communist project. That's something that needs to be examined seriously and without prejudice, such as "oh yeah sure, the uneducated masses simply can't understand things, so we'll do it for them and we'll tell them what to do".
But what's the "imaginary crusade" you're referring to? Surely, it is very misleading to refer to contemporary communism as a "crusade". We don't have an ideological axe to grind - we're part of the working class and, as workers (of course, that doesn't mean that all communists are workers), are affected just as any other worker who isn't militant.
And "imaginary"? Does that mean something like "a product of illusion(s)"?
Why do you assume that personal psychological background and motives form the "root" of an ideology? I don't think this is the case. And I don't think that interrogating such reasons of a person's acceptance of specific politics actually says anything of the validity of the positions taken up, and its relevance. But okay, let's play your little game.
Nope, I'm not a bourgeois intellectual. It's safe to say that I won't be in a position to exploit labor in the future. And I don't consider myself as an intellectual, though probably you'd say that I am since I'm finishing college. Most probably I'll end up employed by an enterprise dealing with language - interpreting or teaching. I might end up working in a public school. But really, I'd take any job offered since I'm in no position to do otherwise.
A Stalin wannabe? Yeah, right. As if communism is exhausted with Stalinism. Nope, what I hope for, and what I wish to contribute to, is proletarian self-emancipation. Why? Since I do not want to live as a subject of the pressures and tangible consequences of this social order. The threat of unemployment, competition and the degradation of human bonds, exploitation and workplace stress, existential insecurity and humiliation, all of that doesn't appeal to me, but sure, what also doesn't appeal to me is to advance myself by means of hustling for the social position of a capitalist or manager. It's boring, degrading in its own right, and definitely not appealing to me, to the way I understand myself and my capacities and aims in life.
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“The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties – this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.” Friedrich Engels
"The proletariat is its struggle; and its struggles have to this day not led it beyond class society, but deeper into it." Friends of the Classless Society
"Your life is survived by your deeds" - Steve von Till
This will undoubtedly be criticized as simplistic, but here goes: Leninism, a definite approach to building a revolutionary party, was absolutely necessary to preserve Marxism, because the European social democracies showed their true pro-war, chauvinist character in 1914, when the various traditional mass parties of the workers (are you listening, Grantists?) repudiated proletarian internationalism and voted in favor of funding the anti-worker, inter-imperialist First World War.
Last edited by sixdollarchampagne; 25th August 2013 at 21:07.
If we really want to transform life, we must learn to look at it through the eyes of women. – Trotsky, 1923
The ballot box is the coffin of class consciousness. – Alan Dawley
Proud member of the 47% since 2010 – Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!
Your post still doesnt quite hit the mark as far as vanguardism is concerned which, as I say, is the argument that a small enlightened minority have to capture power first in order be in a position then to persiuade or educate the majority to socialism.
I agree with argument that has been presented by others that Lenin & Co wanted a mass party along the lines of the German SPD even if conditions under Tsarist Russia prevented that. I agree also that millions of Russian workers supported the Bolsheviks (even if the Russian working class amounted to perhaps only 10% of the population at the time) although that support was predicated essentially on the Bolsheviks refromist programme and its opposition to the war which to its credit it stuck to on princi0led grounds.
Nevertheless the basic point is that you cant have socialism/communism without a majority wanting and understanding it . Lenin himself was quite candid about the fact that most Russian workers were very far being socialist and said so on several occasions. Whatever his intentions to the contrary he and the Bolsheviks had only one course of action open to them which was to operate and develop capitalism since you cannot impose socialism on a non socialist majority
This what the Bolsheviks did and the rest, as they say, is history. The emergence of a party-state and and an ascendant state capitalist class in the shape of the nomenklatura spelt the complete end of any prospect of progressing to socialsim if there ever was one. The vanguard party was thus the very instrument by which a dictatorship over the Russian proletariat was put in place
Last edited by robbo203; 26th August 2013 at 07:00.
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A vanguard party presupposes that the working class needs its "consciousness raised".
IMHO you're forgetting that that's not what a vanguard party is. It's not exactly a "small enlightened minority," nor does the theory of the vanguard party presuppose that the masses be educated until the majority believes in or supports socialism (as if socialism can simply be introduced, which it can't)
The Bolshevik Party may have not been a mass party at all times, but waxed and waned as the situation changed and as it grew in strength electorally (i.e. in the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets).
Furthermore, they didn't want a mass party "along the lines of the German SPD," as the SPD and the Second International were both considered politically bankrupt by 1917 (1914 at the earliest). In his April Thesis, Lenin called for the formation of a Third International (which indeed finally came into being in 1919). They wanted a new revolutionary international, and they wanted a revolution first against the Czarist regime and later against the Provisional Government (when the latter government had destroyed its credibility amongst the people of Russia).
Lenin may have been very candid on the point that many Russian workers were backwards in their thinking, but that in no way presupposed the impossibility of socialism (even if in only one country, which had been the case since the failure of the European revolutions).
The Red Guard, as an arming of the whole people, had largely been achieved by 1918. A new Red Army was in the process of being formed as a way to defend the revolution adequately (despite the Bolsheviks' firm belief in an armed urban working-class, the primarily peasant-based Red Army proved to be a practical necessity). The soviets had successfully been defended, with periodic Soviet congresses being held on a regular basis.
John Adams once remarked that 'the revolution was effected before the war commenced. the revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people.'
Likewise, the socialist revolution was in the hearts and minds of the Russian people long before the civil war had begun. It was there in February as well as in October.
The vanguard party wasn't a dictatorship over the Russian proletariat, far from it. The Soviet regime may have been "state-capitalist" under the New Economic Policy, but was thoroughly socialist during and after 1928 and until the 1950's.
IMHO your conclusions are flawed, and showcases a serious lack of understanding towards basic Marxist (Leninist) theory.
Thats not quite what I said. You can use the term vanguard in a descriptive sense to mean a small enlightened minority and I have no problem with that. Vanguardism as a theory, howerever signifies much more - that this minority
must capture power first in order then to educate the masses into socialism. It can't happen like that. What will assuredly happen is that this vanguard , forced to manage capiutalism by default (since socialism cannot be imposed on a non socialist majority) will in fact become a new emergent ruling class whose interests are opposed to the majority.
There is no argument that a majority has to want and understand socialism before you can have socialism and even vanguardists would agree that the majority need to be educated into socialist thinkjing as they would put it. Trotsky for example was crystal clear on this point. Its just that vanguardists believe they should get into power first before the process of educatiing the masses can begin. That is what dooms the vanguardist project from the start
I think you sare mistaken there. Yes they considered the SPD politically bankrupt by 1917 and that it gone over to the side of opportunism - Lenins term for reformism but the organisational form of the SPD was something they aspired even if as Lenin said the political circumstances under Tsarist Russa prevented this. Dont forget the Bo;sheviks came out of the whole social democratic tradition
The absence of a socialist majority was not the only factor that made socialism impossible in Russia at the time but it was one of the factors. You cannot have socialism without a majority wanting and understanding it.
No the great bulk of the population had no inkling of socialism. Lenin himself candidly admitted this. Support for the Bolsheviks was based on its reform programme and its opposition to the war - not socialism
Well Im an anti-leninist Marxist and in my opinion you are just engaging in word games . Socialism in traditional Marxian usage was a synonym for communism - a classless stateless wageless system of society based on the common (not state) ownership of the means of production. By no stretch of the imagination was there ever socialism in Russia at any point in time
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which would be Blanquism, which isn't the same thing as the vanguard party.
The Bolshevik Party by October 1917 an in the ensuing months after the October Revolution was a mass party composed of intellectuals, workers, etc.
Nor IMHO was socialism "imposed" on the Russian masses; rather, socialism and socialist polices had become popular to a large degree and by 1917 (or 1918, or even further into 1919 and 1920) the bulk of the urban working-class had been won over to the side of the revolutionaries. no doubt the same can not be said of the peasantry (a class wherein the Bolsheviks' presence was weak in)
Socialism did exist in the Soviet Union (during and after 1928) but yes the USSR did go through a temporary stage during the New Economic Policy wherein the state practiced a form of state-capitalism.
Otherwise, the Soviet Union with all of its contradictions was socialist at a certain point in time.
Which explains why you fail to IMHO look at history from an alternate viewpoint; you accuse me of "word games" (when in truth I was only trying the illustrate the difference in the USSR between the NEP period and that of the five-year plan period of Soviet history)
Furthermore, socialism is not by definition a synonym for communism; the two words denote their own distinct stages of human society and are not interchangeable IMHO.
This is a humpty dumpty approach to the argument and therefore sterile. You define socialism as what existed in the Soviet Union; I dont. In my book what existed in the Soviet Union was state run capitalism, no more no less
In traditional Marxian usage socialism meant the same thing as communism. The idea that socialism was a transitional stage between capitalism ond communiusm is nowhere to be found in Marx and Engels. If you can cite anything to suggest otherwise then lets see the evidence. I can assure you no such evidence exists. It was Lenin who invented this idea although arguably Kautsky en route to becoming a reformist offered some pointers in that direction
The traditional Marxian usage equating socialism with communism was pretty much widespread in the 19th century and early 20th century. Socialism, like communism, meant a classless stateless moneyless society based on common ownership of the means of production. This was the definition generally used within the social democratic movement and even the Bolsheviks who emerged out of that movement conformed to this definition in the early days
A key text called A Short Course of Economic Science, written by A Bogdanoff, talked of socialism being “the highest stage of society we can conceive”, in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which “there will not be the market ,buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution.”. This book was published in 1897 and a revised edition, published in August 1919, was used as a textbook in schools and study circles of the Russian Communist Party (Russia 1917-1967: A Socialist Analysis, Socialist Party of Great Britain 1967). Stalin, too, in this early period talked of socialism in this way. For instance, in his book Anarchism or Socialism (1906) he wrote that "Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers". In socialism, argued Stalin, "Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.". (Anarchism or Socialism?J. V. Stalin,Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954, Vol. 1, pp. 297-391) It was this same Stalin who in the 1930s claimed that the Soviet Union was now a fully formed "socialist state" controlled by the working class when he had previously excluded both the state and classes from his conception of socialism. (http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...1936/11/25.htm).
So "socialism" was not imposed from above on the Russian working class - not in the Marxian sense. What was imposed was state run capitalism. You assert that "by 1917 (or 1918, or even further into 1919 and 1920) the bulk of the urban working-class had been won over to the side of the revolutionaries." but concede that "no doubt the same can not be said of the peasantry (a class wherein the Bolsheviks' presence was weak in" Given that the Russian working class constituted only about 10 per cent of the population at the times I fail to see how your version of "socialism" cannot be construed as a form of imposition from aboven when a clear majority by your own admission, had little enthusiasm for it.
The Russian workers certainly gave significant support to the Bolsheviks, I dont deny that. But that support was essentially predicated on the Bolshevik reform programme - not socialism - and above all , the Bolsheviks opposition to the war
In the years following the revolution we see the emergence of an authoriitarian dictatorship ,the centralisation of power in the hands of the party state, the crushing or co-option of workers bodies like the trade unions and the factory committtees and the banning of opposition to the Party both within and without. To suggest that this not the actions of a ruthless state apparatus imposing its wishes upon the population is an abuse of the very meaning of the word. It is utterly indefensible and yet there are still people today who pathetically wheel out the same old tired and discredited arguments in their bid to defend this discredited state capitalist regime
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The vanguard would argue, correctly, that there are many differing interpretations as to what is, and what is not, socialism and socialist thinking. As such, their role is to guide the workers down the correct path. Such efforts will require distinguishing between differing thoughts of socialism, as well avoiding traces of counterrevolution.
And does conflict amongst the socialist parties doom socialism from the start? How about counter-revolution?
But so what? Marx himself sought to distinguish between his ideas and others whom he labeled utopians.
Unlike Marx, Lenin actually had responsibility to create a socialist community- it was not a theoretical undertaking for him.
As above-- it was entirely theoretical for the Bolsheviks-- until they found themselves n charge and actually had to govern-- to create socialism. Furthermore, they needed to distinguish between themselves and socialists of other parties who disagreed with the path the Bolsheviks were taking.
It seems you don't understand to what you refer.
Those quotes above are trying to say that Lenin has made unforgettable errors in terms of Marx's ideology. And actually he has.
"Property is theft."
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
"the system of wage labor is a system of slavery"
Karl Heinrich Marx
You blindly state that the Soviet Union was "state-capitalist," as if you are right and I am wrong.
I understand that we both as individuals can have widely differing opinions, but rather then attempt to argue with me you simply state that the Soviet Union was state-capitalist. case closed in other words.
In my humble (and strong) opinion, the USSR was state-capitalist under the New Economic Policy but was socialist owing to the creation of a planned economy during and after 1928 with all of the contradictions inherent in the Stalin-era (the attempts to collectivize agriculture, the struggle against kulaks, rapid industrialization as to catch up with the west esp. Europe, etc.)
IMHO no, socialism is not the same thing as communism by definition. Socialism is the transitional stage appearing after the destruction of capitalism but prior to the final stage of communism. It is characterized by the existence of a state and thus class struggle still goes on under socialism (i.e. a proletarian dictatorship).
Communism is a stateless, classless society arriving just as socialism and the subsequent state under socialism withers away over time.
No, this isn't the case in the 19th or 20th centuries. Marx, Engels, and later Lenin never stated that socialism and communism were one and the same thing. To think so is absurd as it hasn't been the case theoretically or practically. Socialism and communism are two separate stages of society.
The Bolsheviks did enlist the peasantry into the struggle, through the spreading of soviet power and early attempts at actual land reform. Soviet power meant the creation of rural soviets, while land reform unlike under the Provisional Government (which resisted land reform tooth-and-nail according to Orlando Figes in his book Peasant Russia Civil War) was actually carried out under the new Soviet government extensively.
Without the peasantry (and even Orlando Figes says this) the urban workers' revolution couldn't have been consolidated in the cities assuming that the countryside refused to cooperate with the new Soviet government.
Hence Lenin's constant insistence that the Russian (October) Revolution rested on two classes: (urban) workers and peasants, who in turn were represented by the ruling communist party and through the soviets, non-party trade unions, and other forms of local power.
How un-Marxist of you IMHO to label the future Soviet Union as a "authoritarian dictatorship."
Fairly open and free elections to rural soviets still occurred in the Volga countryside according to Orlando Figes in 1919, even as War Communism was implemented, and the same can be said of the urban soviets (primarily the main Petrograd and Moscow Soviets).
Sure, as numerous historians have mentioned (such as Alexander Rabinowitch, Mary McAuley, etc.) the soviets had become bureaucratized from 1918 onwards but that in no way eliminated their role in the Russian Revolution and Civil War as popular and elected bodies of workers and peasants.
IMHO the Soviet Union in the 1920's, 1930's, and into the early 1950's until Stalin's death was a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, although one with notable flaws and setbacks throughout the decades mentioned.
"How un-Marxist of you IMHO to label the future Soviet Union as a "authoritarian dictatorship."
But what is ment by "autoritarian"?
Have you read Engels' "On Authority"?
The so called "planned" economy (GOSPLAN's were more a wishlist of production targets that were routinely motified to make it look like the plan was being fulfilled) is not at all the same thing as a socialist economy. I dont simply state that Soviet Union was state capitalist and leave it at that. Trying reading what I said for a change instead of inventing trumped charges. My point is that the fundamental core features of capitalism were all present in the Soviet Union - wage labour, prof'it/surplus value, commodity exchange etc - and this is what made the Soviet economy a capitalist economy. While at a fundamental level the economy was capitalist there were neverthless important differences between soviet style state capitalism and say, American capitalism or for that matter Japanese capitalism which was different again
But your opinion in this regard is a Leninist opinion. It is Lenin who made this distinction between socialism and communism , not Marx. This is the point I was making.
Excuse me, but I have quoted from texts which directly refute what you claim here. Have you nothing to say about that? Socialism and communism were almost universally held to be interchangeable terms up until the early 20th century within the broad social democratic movement from which the Bolsheviks emerged and this explains why even people like Stalin in the early days defined socialism in exactly the same way as communism
Not quite sure what point you are trying to make here. All I said was the Russian working class was a small minority of the population - 10% - while the great majority were still the peasantry. It was you who said that "by 1917 (or 1918, or even further into 1919 and 1920) the bulk of the urban working-class had been won over to the side of the revolutionaries. no doubt the same can not be said of the peasantry (a class wherein the Bolsheviks' presence was weak in) Draw your own conclusions. If the Bolsheviks were a weak presence in the peasantry that constituted the great majority then it would seem to be not an unreasonable inference to make tbat the Boslsheviks were a fairly weak presence in the population as a whole, no?
Oh come now. So you dont think the kind of things I talked about are indicative of an authoritarian dictatorship. Ill repeat here what I said
In the years following the revolution we see the emergence of an authoriitarian dictatorship ,the centralisation of power in the hands of the party state, the crushing or co-option of workers bodies like the trade unions and the factory committtees and the banning of opposition to the Party both within and without
I did not suggest political dictatorship commenced upon the Bolsheviks gaining power. In fact the party machine had little control even over its own memberhship in the first few turbulent years, post revolution. The accumulation and consolidation of state power in the hands of the Party , the centralisation of power within the Party itself and the elimination of all opposition inside and outside the Party was a gradual incremental process that took place over a number of years. It was not a one-off event and it culminated in - lets not be mealty mouthed about it - an authoritarian dictatroship. You can bury your head in the sand if you like but you cannot deny the plain historical facts in this case
Genuine dictatorhip of the proletariat, my arse. It was a dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat who were alienated from the means of production and had no say at all in the important decisions affecting the soviet economy. The red bourgeoisie - the nomenklatura - enjoyed a privileged way of life wholly removed from the experience of ordinary Russian workers. Some amongst this red bourgeoisie accumulated considerable personal wealth in their own right during the Stalin years according to a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires", written by Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime, Bishop proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success. How ironic!
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So by your definition, an economy that is planned (and hence not based on the free-market and/or capitalism in-general) is different from that of a socialist economy (which IMHO is the same thing as a planned economy and vice versa)
That and Marx and Engels repeatedly talked about socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat (in relation to the Paris Commune) as a transitional stage prior to communism, whose writings Lenin quoted from in his The State And Revolution to substantiate the fact that socialism comes/came before communism.
-Marx, from his Critique of the Gotha Programme
Hence socialism, and hence Lenin's instance that socialism as a transitional stage was still birth marked by 'the birth of the old society from whose womb it it emerges.'
You seem to be suggesting as an alternative to socialism full-scale communism, which is impossible IMHO after a revolution owing to the fact that the new society still manages to retain numerous elements of the old and overthrown society (In revolutionary China there was a struggle to put women on an equal footing with men, the rural village society having been male-dominated even as women were given farmland and housing to combat such views)
Unless, of course, your suggesting that we try to implement communism immediately after a revolution (i.e. Cambodia, which didn't end well)
My point is that despite the Bolsheviks' weaknesses in terms of peasant support, considerable efforts were taken early on and during the civil war to win the peasantry over to the side of the revolution (hence the worker-peasant alliance, hence trying to broaden the revolution to incorporate the vast majority of the population)
So you just repeat the same (erroneous) info as if that makes you right (again) and me wrong?
You're not refuting my argument, as you're simply repeating what you said earlier verbatim as if that makes it any more right.
I'm not denying the existence of a bureaucracy under socialism, which IMHO is a very real thing (in any society, be it capitalist or socialist) that should be combated.
I'm also not denying that a handful of bureaucrats prospered due to their key governmental positions.
In a revolution, as well as in a revolutionary society, there's always going to be opportunists who don't care about anyone except themselves (and who disregard the will of the people)
I look at the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, etc. from a practical and dialectical materialist viewpoint.
Last edited by bluemangroup; 1st September 2013 at 18:45.
All economies involve planning. The free market version of capitalism is full of plans. Entrepeneurs plan their investment strategies. These plans spontaneously interact with each other although the overall pattern of allocation is not planned. Central planning is the proposal to replace these millions of plans with one single plan or , what amounts to the same thing, to plan the interactions between these separate plans instead of allowing them to interact on a spontaneous basis and thus in effect absorbing them into a single societywide plan.
This concept is not only completely impracticable but I would say totally at variance with the nature of a socialist or communistic economy. I dont at the moment have the time to elaborate on this point right now - its way beyond my bedtime - though we can look at it later. But my main point is simply that a socialist/communist mode of production, like any other mode of production, is defined by its structure of relations to the means of production and not by the way in which production is planned
Give me one single instance where Marx and Engels actually described socialism as a transitional stage prior to communism. You cant, can you?
Nowhere does the Critique talk of socialism as the lower stage of communism. All Marx did was differentitate between lower and higher communism. I repeat again - this is Lenin's own misinterpretation of the Critique
On the contrary you keep on missing the point which is that what you call "socialism" has nothing to do with what is meant by socialism in the traditional Marxian sense . It is simply state run capitalism and those revolutions that you refer to were simply capitalist revolutions dressed up in the political rhetoric of socialism.
I keep providing you with the evidence but you keep ignoring it and then accuse me of repeating what I said earlier. Thats a bit rich coming from you, frankly.
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Which may just be your definition for the USSR or the People's Republic of China, but isn't my definition. I have my opinions, and you have yours.
IMHO the Soviet Union, China, etc. were at one point in time socialist.
The only evidence you've thus far provided is repetition of earlier statements of yours and condemnations of my statements and views as if I'm wrong and you're right.
You haven't persuaded me to think of the USSR as "simply state-run capitalism" and the Russian Revolution as "simply a capitalist revolution dressed up in the political rhetoric of socialism."
So slogans such as all power to the soviets and peace, land, & bread were "capitalist slogans" in the guise of "socialist rhetoric?"
As if the Bolsheviks, the organized left, were all just petty capitalists using "socialist rhetoric" to apparently trick the workers and peasants into forming a Soviet government.
In terms of Marxism, your opinion is wrong. Just as anyone who calls Sweden socialist is wrong... Like Bill Maher.
