SPGB Euroelection broadcast for Wales

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I agree with this but I still think it's absurd to condemn the ad for not explicitly calling for an end to the family.

Perhaps. I think ads in general are absurd - socialism is not something you sell. But the ad was criticised for not mentioning gay people, and the SPGB in general for not raising slogans related to gay liberation, the smashing of the family etc.

Then the spamgbots had a fit because they post these threads with the expectation that everyone will tell them how clever and revolutionary they are. Criticism is forbidden - we wouldn't want to endanger socialism by turning away some voter in Wales after all.

Do you even read what you copy and paste? The excerpts you quote were in no way supporting the Whites against the Bolsheviks. Instead, they amounted to a scathing attack on the civil war itself and the brutality it engendered. As Martov put it "People are becoming more bestial on both sides" Not only is the terror employed by the Bolshevik authorities roundly condemned but also that of its enemies - the Whites: In those places where Bolshevik power has been overthrown by the masses or by armed force, the same terror is beginning to be used against the Bolsheviks as they had been employing against their enemies. The followers of Dutov, Semenov and Alekseev, the Ukrainian haydamaki, the troops of Skoropadsky and Krasnov, and Drozdovsky’s detachments are all hanging and shooting. Peasants and landlords, having toppled their local Bolshevik soviets, treat their members with the greatest cruelty

I did read the article, did you? Of course, it is obvious from your contributions on this topic that you tend to take things at face value - if someone says they're not a whiteguard, then they're not a whiteguard. I wonder why, then, you don't accept the self-description of SPEW as socialist. Now, if you read between the lines, it is clear that:

(1) Martov blames the Bolsheviks for White violence; that

(2) Martov advocates taking away the most powerful weapon of the proletarian state against its enemies; and that

(3) Martov advocates that the Bolshevik authority be overthrown in favour of some kind of "democracy", which means that his programme coincided perfectly with that of other Whites.

So you are completely wrong about Martov. Martov was not a supporter of the Whites. Here's what one site says [...]

The one site that spends almost the entire article about Purishkevich talking about Rasputin, a footnote in the bloody history of the Black Hundreds? That, indeed, doesn't mention the Black Hundreds? That slanders Rosa Luxemburg by treating her one unfinished article she never intended to publish as her final word on the October Revolution? That amnesties the SPD? Great source you've found.

Its members were imprisoned for their anti-war beliefs during both World Wars or fled abroad. Why you imagine that it would suddenly want to take sides in Civil war, I have absolutely no idea

Why did the American SWP, who hated Reagan with a passion, suddenly line up behind his anti-communist jihad in Afghanistan? Because these petit-bourgeois sellouts hated proletarian power more than they hated Reagan. Likewise with the SPGB and the British.

The SPGB, as I demonstrated, had mixed feelings regarding Martov but they did endorse his searing exposure of the Bolshevik dictatorship and its thoroughly anti working class character. And why not? For Martov spoke the truth about this brutal state capitalist regime and no communist who was a communist would disagree with what he said in that respect.

Yes, if "communist who was a communist" means "social-democratic whiteguard".

[robbo203]

In any case, the point is that robbo made a statement - that "a more detailed and nuanced analysis" of the question of homosexuality can be found in the SPGB material. So, where is it? He is avoiding the question because he knows damn well that the SPGB has kept mum about the subject.

No thats not true. I grant there has not been much material published in the form of articles or pamphlets that I am aware of but if you scour through their archive section you will no doubt be able to come across the odd article. Here's the link http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...andard/archive. Neverthleless the point Im making is that the SPGB is opposed to homophobia just as it is opposed to racism and sexism and if I am not mistaken - you will have to confirm with this with the SPGB members on this site as I am hazy on the details - there was a conference resolution passed some years ago making this stance explicit. The point I was making in relation to this thread is that you cannot include everything that you feel needs to be said in a very brief party political broadcast and if individuals had a particular point to raise that is when a more detailed and nuanced analysis would follow - after contacting the organisation. The purpose of the SPGB is not about lobbying for legal reforms or agitating for more equal rights in capitalism - its sole purpose is to work for socialism - but it does clearly recognise that attitudes such as racism, sexism or homophobia seriously impede that that work and divide the working class and it does clearly attack such attitudes

That is simply not the case - inheritance is explicitly mentioned in the analysis of what Engels, following Morgan, calls the punaluan family, although not as a right of inheritance (which presupposes the emergence of the state):

"In the very great majority of cases the institution of the gens seems to have originated directly out of the punaluan family. It is true that the Australian classificatory system also provides an origin for it: the Australians have gentes, but not yet the punaluan family; instead, they have a cruder form of group marriage. In all forms of group family it is uncertain who is the father of a child; but it is certain who its mother is. Though she calls all the children of the whole family her children and has a mother’s duties towards them, she nevertheless knows her own children from the others. It is therefore clear that in so far as group marriage prevails, descent can only be proved on the mother’s side and that therefore only the female line is recognized. And this is in fact the case among all peoples in the period of savagery or in the lower stage of barbarism. It is the second great merit of Bachofen that he was the first to make this discovery. To denote this exclusive recognition of descent through the mother and the relations of inheritance which in time resulted from it, he uses the term “mother-right,” which for the sake of brevity I retain. The term is, however, ill-chosen, since at this stage of society there cannot yet be any talk of “right” in the legal sense."

You completely miss the point. Whether inheritance is explicitly mentioned in connection with the punaluan family is neither here nor there. The point is that Engels was speaking of different forms of the family that existed prior to the emergence of private property and "civilisation" [B]and therefore could not be explained in terms of private property - namely, the consanguine family, the punaluan family and the pairing family. He then analysed another specific kind of family formation - namely the monogamous patriarchal family which he quite clearly states emerged out of the pairing family which, as it were, contained the seeds of its own destruction. It merely required other factors to push the pairing family, which he regarded as a characteristic form of the family in the stage of "barbarism" ,towards the monogamous famity which was the characteristic form of the family in "civilisation" i.e. class society

Generalised scarcity due to insufficiently developed means of production, resulting in the institution of inheritance, and the relations that prevailed when it came to domestic labour (i.e. domestic labour being preformed by one sex in several family-units).

And what would be the material basis of the family in socialism, pray tell? Are you going to tell us fairy-tales about how the family is "natural"?

I asked you "what was the "material basis" of the family prior to the emergence of private property?" and this was your reply: "generalised scarcity due to insufficiently developed means of production, " . I dont accept this argument at all. How would it apply in the case of so called primitive hunting and foraging bands which Marshall Sahlins dubbed the original affluent society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society). What you are doing is retrospectively interpreting such a society from the standpoint of capitalism and projecting capitalist motives and capitalist values onto such a society. A far more plausible explanation in my view is that the specific form that the family took in hunting and foraging societies was governed by the very exigencies of these activities themselves. Band societies frequently fission into a small nuclear family units in one part of the year and coalesce again into multi-family units in another part of the year. Marcel Mauss classic work Seasonal Variations among the Eskimos is a good illutation of this

Do I consider the family to be "natural". Well, I dont consider the particular form that the family takes to be natural but as far as I am aware there have always been what are called family units through human history. A fundamental factor in this is parent-child bond, the nurturing and upbringing of children, providing the child with a sense of identity and ensuring the transmission of culture between generations. Of course it is quite true that all this need not solely undertaken by the biological parents and that the responsibility for such things can be shared on a group basis. But that does not mean the disappearance of the family as such , it is merely to extend the definition of what is meant by the "family"

In socialism people will continue to live in households - obviously - and while the concept of a household does not exactly, and need not, coincide with that of a family - I think in practice there will be a strong tendency for them to coincide. Thats is to say the consanguineal factor will continue to exert a strong underlying patterning influence on household formation in a socialist society. And why not? Whats the problem with that?

This has always been the case throughout human history to a lesser or greater degree and the onus is on those who dogmatically assert that the family will completely disappear in socialism to show why they imagine things will be different. My suspiciion is that when they attack the family they are attacking only a specific form of the family such as it exists in contemporary capitalist society. That is not unreasonable but it is not in any way an argument for saying the family will disappear in socialism

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No thats not true. I grant there has not been much material published in the form of articles or pamphlets that I am aware of but if you scour through their archive section you will no doubt be able to come across the odd article. Here's the link http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...andard/archive.

No, just no. You made the claim, you provide the evidence. I am not going to dig through the archives to find some meagre support for your point. If you claim something, be prepared to back it up or retract it.

You completely miss the point. Whether inheritance is explicitly mentioned in connection with the punaluan family is neither here nor there. The point is that Engels was speaking of different forms of the family that existed prior to the emergence of private property and "civilisation" [B]and therefore could not be explained in terms of private property - namely, the consanguine family, the punaluan family and the pairing family. He then analysed another specific kind of family formation - namely the monogamous patriarchal family which he quite clearly states emerged out of the pairing family which, as it were, contained the seeds of its own destruction. It merely required other factors to push the pairing family, which he regarded as a characteristic form of the family in the stage of "barbarism" ,towards the monogamous famity which was the characteristic form of the family in "civilisation" i.e. class society

You claimed that inheritance is characteristic of the monogamous family, which is not what Engels claimed at all. In any case, as you can verify I never claimed that the family originated at the same time as private property, but that it will be destroyed along with class society.

I asked you "what was the "material basis" of the family prior to the emergence of private property?" and this was your reply: "generalised scarcity due to insufficiently developed means of production, " . I dont accept this argument at all. How would it apply in the case of so called primitive hunting and foraging bands which Marshall Sahlins dubbed the original affluent society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society).

That's just pseudo-primmie nonsense, though. The point is that the means of production had not developed to the extent that there was no scarcity. Objects could not be easily produced, necessitating the inheritance of objects through several generations.

That, and you ignore my other point, that is that the individual nature of domestic labour is one of the material basis of the family.

A far more plausible explanation in my view is that the specific form that the family took in hunting and foraging societies was governed by the very exigencies of these activities themselves. Band societies frequently fission into a small nuclear family units in one part of the year and coalesce again into multi-family units in another part of the year. Marcel Mauss classic work Seasonal Variations among the Eskimos is a good illutation of this

An interesting point, but in the context of this debate, it is irrelevant. Obviously these conditions will not obtain in socialism; there will be no seasonal variation or economic activity centred on small mobile groups etc.

Do I consider the family to be "natural". Well, I dont consider the particular form that the family takes to be natural but as far as I am aware there have always been what are called family units through human history.

So you do consider the family natural, just like every "family values" idealist.

A fundamental factor in this is parent-child bond, the nurturing and upbringing of children, providing the child with a sense of identity and ensuring the transmission of culture between generations. Of course it is quite true that all this need not solely undertaken by the biological parents and that the responsibility for such things can be shared on a group basis. But that does not mean the disappearance of the family as such , it is merely to extend the definition of what is meant by the "family"

In socialism, labour, meaning also domestic and reproductive labour, is social, it is not limited to small groups. Why should the biological parents or some group associated with them have any kind of prerogative when it comes to the socialisation of children?

In socialism people will continue to live in households - obviously - and while the concept of a household does not exactly, and need not, coincide with that of a family - I think in practice there will be a strong tendency for them to coincide. Thats is to say the consanguineal factor will continue to exert a strong underlying patterning influence on household formation in a socialist society.

Why? What will be the material basis of that? That's the question you're trying to avoid with hand-waving about "naturalness".

And why not? Whats the problem with that?

Because the family rests on the subjugation of women, unpaid domestic labour, and is one of the most potent sources of anti-woman, anti-transsexual and anti-homosexual violence in society.

[robbo203]

Perhaps. I think ads in general are absurd - socialism is not something you sell. But the ad was criticised for not mentioning gay people, and the SPGB in general for not raising slogans related to gay liberation, the smashing of the family etc.

As repeatedly explained to you a very brief party political broadcast could not include everything that needs to be said. Perforce it has to be selective and focus on the fundamentals. That apart , to sloganise about "smashing the family" is dumb and theoretically questionable. This too has been explained to you but you haven't heeded a word, have you?

Then the spamgbots had a fit because they post these threads with the expectation that everyone will tell them how clever and revolutionary they are. Criticism is forbidden - we wouldn't want to endanger socialism by turning away some voter in Wales after all.

Dont be daft. Who is forbidding criticism? You are criticising and I am responding to your criticism. I am not saying you should not be allowed to criticise

I did read the article, did you? Of course, it is obvious from your contributions on this topic that you tend to take things at face value - if someone says they're not a whiteguard, then they're not a whiteguard. I wonder why, then, you don't accept the self-description of SPEW as socialist. Now, if you read between the lines, it is clear that:

(1) Martov blames the Bolsheviks for White violence; that

(2) Martov advocates taking away the most powerful weapon of the proletarian state against its enemies; and that

(3) Martov advocates that the Bolshevik authority be overthrown in favour of some kind of "democracy", which means that his programme coincided perfectly with that of other Whites.

You are doing exactly what the right wing nutjobs in the McCarthy era in America did: anyone who was not a loyal patriot was a "communist" (i.e. a supporter of soviet state capitalism). In your case anyone who attacks your beloved Bolshevik capitalist state is, or was, a White. You live in a world in which everything is either white or black (if you will excuse the pun) and your whole approach to politics grotesquely, not to say, childishly simplistic

The fact that Martov blamed the Bolsheviks for White violence does not make him a supporter of the Whites, does it? He was equal critical of White violence against the Bolsheviks which the very quotes you posted demonstrate


All this bluster on your part is merely an attempt to get round the solid, undeniable but, for you, very inconvenient fact that

1) Martov actually supported the Red army against the White army but opposed the brutality of the Bolsheviks (and the Whites too) in prosecuting the war

2) Martov in exile refused to support any foreign intervention in Russia to overthrow the government but urged that the Russian workers themselves to withdraw their support from the Bolshevik state and quite rightly so.

You persistently evade these points and decline to answer them because you know damn well they completely destroy your whole argument and demolish the tissue of lies you have fabricated

The one site that spends almost the entire article about Purishkevich talking about Rasputin, a footnote in the bloody history of the Black Hundreds? That, indeed, doesn't mention the Black Hundreds? That slanders Rosa Luxemburg by treating her one unfinished article she never intended to publish as her final word on the October Revolution? That amnesties the SPD? Great source you've found.

Listen, the site I posted a link to was just one of many many sites I could have posted a link too - all of which reached much the same conclusion, all of which expose the falsehood of what you are saying. Whether or not the site is a "great source" is neither here nor there and citing other articles on the site rather than the one I linked to smacks of underhand diversionary tactics. The real point is was what the article I posted saying the truth about Martov's attitudes towards the Whites? If so then you are obliged to acknowlege that you have made a grave error in your assessment of the man

Why did the American SWP, who hated Reagan with a passion, suddenly line up behind his anti-communist jihad in Afghanistan? Because these petit-bourgeois sellouts hated proletarian power more than they hated Reagan. Likewise with the SPGB and the British.

FFS. The Marxist analysis of the Bolshevik state is not that it is was an expression of proletarian power but, on the contrary, that it was the means by which proletarian power was smashed and destroyed in the interests of emerging state capitalism. What do you think Lenin's top down "one man management" policy was all about? What do you think the crushing of the factory committees and the subordination and transformation of the trade unions into a mere arm of the state was all about? What do you think the obnixious "militarisation of labour" programme was all about? Why do you think the Bolsheviks bannned all opposition to their capitalist dictatorship both with the so called communist party and without?

And dont dare raise again your stupid claim about the SPGB supporting the British in the civil war. This has been more than adequately demolished already and I still wait to hear how you imagine an organsation that throughout its long history has consistently refused to take sides in any capitalist conflict would suddenly opt to support the British against the Bolshevik state. But I dont expect I will ever get an answer from you

Plain fact is you are a complete and utter fantasist

[The Idler]

The fact that every single debate on modern issues inevitably turns into a fuckfest about people's rigid, ever unchanging position on events in early 20th century Russia.

You might want to see who first mentioned Lenin on page 1. Or who first turned the discussion to early 20th Century Russia on page 2 by making up the following "Of course, during the October Revolution, the SPGB supported the worst elements of the Second International, the Mensheviks, objectively placing them on the same side as Kerensky, Kolchak and the British interventionists. To this day the SPGB mourns their beloved Constituent Assembly with an intensity that would have shocked the most committed Kadet."

[The Idler]

The fact that not mentioning LGBTQ rights explicitly directly makes you homophobic ....

I can't think of a group that wouldn't be "homophobic" by this criteria.

[PhoenixAsh]

I can't think of a group that wouldn't be "homophobic" by this criteria.

Exactly.

This whole thread has basically degenerated to cherry picking.

[The Idler]

There can be no unity between revolutionaries and opportunists, and if having principles and carrying on the political struggle by criticising other groups disrupts this false "unity", well, so much the better for those who have principles.

why should we treat the October Revolution as some minor footnote in history? So we can "focus on the now" and unite with opportunists? But we'd rather not.

This wasn't Lenin or the Bolshevik's view who urged CPGB members to join Labour, despite it being in his words "a bourgeois party led by reactionaries".

the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.


...at the Labour Party Conference, the British Scheidemanns were obliged to openly raise the question of affiliation to the Third International, and that all party branches and sections were obliged to discuss the matter. In such circumstances, it would be a mistake not to join this party.


… If the British Communist Party starts by acting in a revolutionary manner in the Labour Party, and if the Hendersons are obliged to expel this Party, that will be a great victory for the communist and revolutionary working class movement in Britain.

Trotsky added to this

The struggle of the trade unions to debar unorganised workers from the factory has long been known as a manifestation of ‘terrorism’ by the workers – or in more modern terms, Bolshevism. In Britain these methods can and must be carried over into the Labour Party which has grown up as a direct extension of the trade unions.

[robbo203]

I see there have been a few more SPGB forays on the media front in connection with the euroelections. Some of these are listed below

Danny Lambert from the SPGB at the European Election Hustings at Southhampton University, 07/05/14
[Go to 36 minutes in for the main contribution]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNKbuo_4T4

Danny Lambert from the SPGB at the European Election Hustings at Southhampton University, 07/05/14
[Segment from the above]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Qhjp3PbV8

Danny Lambert from the SPGB on BBC South East Today, 09/05/14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKlILdLWrFg

Brian Johnson from the SPGB on Jason Mohammad's show on BBC Radio Wales, 14/05/14
[Go to 2 hours 51 minutes for the contribution]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043njyl

Howard Moss from the SPGB on The Wales Report, 14/05/14
[Go to 52 minutes 30 seconds in for the contribution]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...eport-14052014

Howard Moss from the SPGB on The Wales Report, 14/05/14
[Segment from the above]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4VON1Oab8M

Havent gone through them yet but maybe some of these might have filled in the blank spaces that various bods here complained of in respect of the SPGB euroelection broadcast...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

As repeatedly explained to you a very brief party political broadcast could not include everything that needs to be said. Perforce it has to be selective and focus on the fundamentals. That apart , to sloganise about "smashing the family" is dumb and theoretically questionable. This too has been explained to you but you haven't heeded a word, have you?

Don't big yourself up too much, you haven't "explained" anything, although you have asserted quite a few things (over and over and over and...) without anything resembling a supporting argument. In fact you have evaded answering direct questions - such as the question about the material basis of your supposed "socialist" family.

(It is increasingly becoming apparent to me that the "communism" or "socialism" most people on this site are talking about is not even remotely like anything a revolutionary might imagine - it is, for all the r-r-revolutionary rhetoric of its supporters, a barracks "socialism" with socialist or people's police, prisons, mental hospitals and now the family. There really is no point in carrying on.)

The fact that Martov blamed the Bolsheviks for White violence does not make him a supporter of the Whites, does it?

"The fact that X blamed the victim of a rape for rape doesn't make him a supporter of rape, does it?" Yes it does.

All this bluster on your part is merely an attempt to get round the solid, undeniable but, for you, very inconvenient fact that

1) Martov actually supported the Red army against the White army but opposed the brutality of the Bolsheviks (and the Whites too) in prosecuting the war

Listen, Mr. Socialist Family Values, I have cited numerous examples of the official Menshevik organisation, the Organising Committee and its successors, with Martov in the Central Committee, participating in the White movement. One token declaration, made while inside Bolshevik territory, to the effect that Mensheviks should support the Red Army (but "fight for democracy" - what was it that Engels said about all of the opponents of socialism rallying around the watchword of democracy?), which was never enforced, does not mean anything.

In fact I am slightly pissed off that I went to the trouble of combing through actual published, academic sources, for nothing. Shows what I know.

2) Martov in exile refused to support any foreign intervention in Russia to overthrow the government but urged that the Russian workers themselves to withdraw their support from the Bolshevik state and quite rightly so.

"...and quite rightly so." - and therefore you are a whiteguard, as was Martov, and we will call you, quite rightly so, a whiteguard and an opponent of proletarian power.

You know what, I give up. Fighting ignorance, philistinism and bigotry might sound good on paper, but all it does is bore and tire me for no good reason. So I'll leave you to shit this site up with more of your interminable announcements about interminable SPGB campaigns to get an SPGB arse to sit in a parliamentary chair. I remember how it was when some of the IG sympathisers posted an article from the Internationalist every few months - most of the reactions were negative. Whereas the spamgbots slowly turn every section of the site into an announcement board for the SPGB's parliamentarian attempts - seriously, there's a group that might as well be called "The Idler Informs Us About SPGB Campaigns And Publications". The difference, I suppose, is that the Internationalist Group are genuine socialists and not parliamentary windbags. And genuine socialism is highly frowned upon on this site.

As for the rest, I think that your championing of the family, along with your defence of the gay erasure the SPGB preforms, the homophobic slur you used against TAT, and your defence of your friend Manic Impressive and, indirectly, a member banned for homophobia, says it all. I would say that you relics of a bygone era are on the way out - but this only really applies to revolutionary groups, not societies for debating with fascists and campaigning for parliament.

[Red Deathy]

Careful now, if you indulge in any more hand-waving you might just be the first person to fly without mechanical assistance. Obviously the "necessity for cooperation" does not necessarily extend to any single group - it is more than possible to exclude gay people from society.

And it's possible to exclude blond people, short people, fat people, etc. but with no economic incentive to do so, and every incentive not to do so, I would suggest it is unlikely. If it did continue to occur, with the abolition of class society, people, like myself and thyself, would continue to campaign to stop such exclusion. Socialism isn't a cure all, it's a cure for class society and the wages system.

It is possible to kill people without the state.

It isn't possible to have the "Death penalty" (upper case) as a formal and accepted and enforced practice. However, that's as far as I pursue your "When did you stop beating your wife" fallacy...

The point is that just as the RSPB, Save the Wale, The Society for the Preservation of Historic buildings, etc. the SPGB is an organisation set up for a specific task, abolishing the wages system. To then criticise it for not doing something other than campaigning for that is a otiose as writing to those other societies asking why they didn't collect your bins.

Incidentally, debating with you, and rebutting you (and asking you to sabtantiate your claims) is no no way a sign of disliking criticism, but, rather a willingness to defend ourselves and to engage in debate.

[PhoenixAsh]

I absolutely LOVE Bolsheviks accusing other factions of being anti-proletariat. So far the only faction which has a proven trackrecord of being anti-proletariat are the Bolsheviks who managed to single handedly degenerate a proletarian revolution to an absolutist non-worker elitist state alienating the proletariat from the very start of the revolution.

Some of these members here seem to be perfectly willing to gloss over the very anti-proletariat mass murders which were committed (executing striking workes who opposed the absurd privileges of the Bolsheviks, the direct and specific targetting of women and children (killin, murder and rape) by their institutions (which incidentally was "justified" or waved away).

Awesome.

[PhoenixAsh]

What I would really like to know is from the Bolshevists/Leninists what they are going to do about the inherent flaws in their conversion from theory to practice and how they are going to solve the problems which were fundamental in the degeneration/breakdown of their own ideology and system.

We can pretend everything was hunky-dory up until "the Evilz of Stalin" but that of course raises the question how Stalin could ever actually happen if the system worked. Of course I know all the excuses of "infiltration" and "counter revolutionaries" taking over the party....and we all have heard the excuses of "war communism" and the "NEP" but the fact remains that the system failed, the ideology failed in preventing this exploitation and infiltration from happening and subsequently Stalin is just another expression stemming from a lack of actual proletarian control and alienation which happened way before that era.

So what are they going to do about it? What is the repair?

[PhoenixAsh]

Because....you know....if there is one thing the proletariat is fond of and what will definitely turn them to your cause is when you specifically target their daughters, neighbors, children and rape, torture and execute them....you know....in their name....and: "really....it was unavoidable to kill all those striking and hungry workers who opposed our privilege....that privilege was to their benefit....yes, yes...we know they were starving, but we were fighting a war in their name. Which is why we killed their sons, daughters, wives and lovers. Plus of course there is no need to actually have any real political power. No worries. Everything will be ok. Just leave it to us and our system of repression which will make your world such a much nicer place. Just don't think or do something we don't like....and most of all: don't be gay, Jewish or any other ethnic minority group. Plus dress your hair to the regulation haircut and smile and don't mind the corpses"

[The Idler]

"...and quite rightly so." - and therefore you are a whiteguard, as was Martov, and we will call you, quite rightly so, a whiteguard and an opponent of proletarian power.

Earlier you were saying 'support' or 'take the side of' the Mensheviks so I'll put this one down to you getting pissed off or hyperbole as it's unlikely robbo203 is literally a white guard unless someone very elderly was continuing the Russian Civil War in 2014. I have visions of an old man in a faded full uniform with a rusty bayonet and a map of Russia sitting at a keyboard getting into a revert war over the result of the Russian Civil War on wikipedia.

[robbo203]

Earlier you were saying 'support' or 'take the side of' the Mensheviks so I'll put this one down to you getting pissed off or hyperbole as it's unlikely robbo203 is literally a white guard unless someone very elderly was continuing the Russian Civil War in 2014. I have visions of an old man in a faded full uniform with a rusty bayonet and a map of Russia sitting at a keyboard getting into a revert war over the result of the Russian Civil War on wikipedia.

I think what it is is that our Mr West has finally buckled under the strain of trying to square the circle , poor chap, and has now completely lost the plot. There is only so much blatant lying through one's teeth that one can humanly do afterall. All that wriggling and squirming and evading the point tells in the end

As for his silly jibe about "Mr. Socialist Family Values", I will take up his and Queervanguard's crackpot claim later that "smashing the family" has something to do with socialism. Not just the "bourgeois monogamous family", mind, but The Family as such. Any kind of "family". In other words there would be , according to these individuals , no such thing as people living in families at all. Nada de nada. Zilch. Presumably , couples who chose to live together and to have a kid or two would not be allowed to do so by Commissars West and Queervanguard. One wonders what kind of living arrangements our merry duo have in mind for the citizens of a future socialist society, anyway? Barracks for the masses or "one person, one cell"? Perish the thought that a kid might actually chose to live with its biological parents and vice versa

As I say, Ill deal with this argument later. For the moment, and after a back-breaking day's work, bed beckons

[PhoenixAsh]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/koll...ism-family.htm

Working mothers have no need to be alarmed; communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing! The aims of communist society are quite different. Communist society sees that the old type of family is breaking up, and that all the old pillars which supported the family as a social unit are being removed: the domestic economy is dying, and working-class parents are unable to take care of their children or provide them with sustenance and education. Parents and children suffer equally from this situation. Communist society has this to say to the working woman and working man: “You are young, you love each other. Everyone has the right to happiness. Therefore live your life. Do not flee happiness. Do not fear marriage, even though under capitalism marriage was truly a chain of sorrow. Do not be afraid of having children. Society needs more workers and rejoices at the birth of every child. You do not have to worry about the future of your child; your child will know neither hunger nor cold.” Communist society takes care of every child and guarantees both him and his mother material and moral support. Society will feed, bring up and educate the child. At the same time, those parents who desire to participate in the education of their children will by no, means be prevented from doing so. Communist society will take upon itself all the duties involved in the education of the child, but the joys of parenthood will not be taken away from those who are capable of appreciating them. Such are the plans of communist society and they can hardly be interpreted as the forcible destruction of the family and the forcible separation of child from mother.

There is no escaping the fact: the old type of family has had its day. The family is withering away not because it is being forcibly destroyed by the state, but because the family is ceasing to be a necessity. The state does not need the family, because the domestic economy is no longer profitable: the family distracts the worker from more useful and productive labour. The members of the family do not need the family either, because the task of bringing up the children which was formerly theirs is passing more and more into the hands of the collective. In place of the old relationship between men and women, a new one is developing: a union of affection and comradeship, a union of two equal members of communist society, both of them free, both of them independent and both of them workers. No more domestic bondage for women. No more inequality within the family. No need for women to fear being left without support and with children to bring up. The woman in communist society no longer depends upon her husband but on her work. It is not in her husband but in her capacity for work that she will find support. She need have no anxiety about her children. The workers’ state will assume responsibility for them. Marriage will lose all the elements of material calculation which cripple family life. Marriage will be a union of two persons who love and trust each other. Such a union promises to the working men and women who understand themselves and the world around them the most complete happiness and the maximum satisfaction. Instead of the conjugal slavery of the past, communist society offers women and men a free union which is strong in the comradeship which inspired it. Once the conditions of labour have been transformed and the material security of the working women has increased, and once marriage such as the church used to perform it – this so-called indissoluble marriage which was at bottom merely a fraud – has given place to the free and honest union of men and women who are lovers and comrades, prostitution will disappear. This evil, which is a stain on humanity and the scourge of hungry working women, has its roots in commodity production and the institution of private property. Once these economic forms are superseded, the trade in women will automatically disappear. The women of the working class, therefore, need not worry over the fact that the family is doomed to disappear. They should, on the contrary, welcome the dawn of a new society which will liberate women from domestic servitude, lighten the burden of motherhood and finally put an end to the terrible curse of prostitution.

[PhoenixAsh]

^ debate about family in communism ended. Family will continue in other form.

Time saved

[robbo203]

^ debate about family in communism ended. Family will continue in other form.

Time saved

Exactly PhoenixAsh! That is precisely what I was trying to tell messrs West and Queervanguard. But did they listen? Nope. For them , the family began with private property and will end with private property ....because it is the product of private property. Therefore it is incumbent upon communists to mindlessly sloganise about "smashing the family". But that is not only completely misguided, it is factually wrong. The family long predated private property as Engels showed - not to mention,the whole discipline of modern anthropology itself - and therefore you cannot attributed its existence to private property.

What happened is that the form of the family changed with private property - to that of the monogamous patriarchal family. One can reasonably argue that this particular form will disappear in socialism but in no way does that mean the family as such will disappear

I would love to know what these two individuals imagine a familyless socialist future would actually look like? How would people live together? What would be their living arrangements?

It depends on how you define the family, I suppose. If you mean by "family" the genealogical sense of the term then of course not even messrs West and Queervanguard would be so stupid as to deny the family's continuation in socialism. That would be tantamount to saying there would be no more mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. In short no more human race. Last I checked, you cant have socialism without human beings

So we are talking about the family in a socioloigcal sense - as a social institution - that is , two or more individuals who live in a particular household and are connected through consanguineal or affinal ties (which means incidentally that even a gay couple living together could constitute a family insofar as they connected through affinal ties). Literally speaking, to "smash the family" means, for example, that a mother could not live with her infant child; the latter would have to be confiscated from her. Ironically West suggested I was trying to naturalise the existence of the family while at the same timne acccusing me of "idealism" in respect of the family which goes to show just how muddled his thinking is on the subject. It would be interesting to hear from him how he views the mother-infant bond . That is if he can be bothered to respond now that he has seemingly withdrawn from this debate in a big petulant sulk.

So what would a familyless socialist future look like according to these people? The options seem to boil down to

1) Barrack socialism a la Edward Bellamy's Looking Backwards - where large numbers of individuals live in big insititutions of some kind

2) Atomistic socialism where each individual lives on his/her own

3) Household socialism where individuals continue to live in households much like today but are not connected through consanguineal or affinal ties

Now each of these particular forms might well exist in a socialist society but alongside the family household and not at the expense of the latter. I maintain that the family in the sense defined above will continue to exist in a socialist society and, for all sorts of reasons, will continue to exert a strong patterning influence on the living arrnagments of people in such a society. I have yet to hear a single plausible explanation as why this should not be so.

This is why talking about "smashing the family" is just mindless and counterproductive sloganising. Of course the SPGB should not have included such a slogan in their election video - it would simply make them look downright stupid and not only that , throughly authoritarian and idealistic in prescribing how people in a future socialist society should live together

[Dave B]

Sex and Marriage

Before I could answer, Lenin continued:

“Your list of sins, Clara, is still longer. I was told that questions of sex and marriage are the main subjects dealt with in the reading and discussion evenings of women comrades. They are the chief subject of interest, of political instruction and education. I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard it.



The first country of proletarian dictatorship surrounded by the counter-revolutionaries of the whole world, the situation in Germany itself requires the greatest possible concentration of all proletarian, revolutionary forces to defeat the ever-growing and ever-increasing counter-revolution. But working women comrades discuss sexual problems and the question of forms of marriage in the past, present and future. They think it their most important duty to enlighten proletarian women on these subjects. The most widely read brochure is, I believe, the pamphlet of a young Viennese woman comrade on the sexual problem. What a waste!

http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetk...in/zetkin1.htm

“Besides, the question of prostitutes will give rise to many serious problems here….

Including getting soldiers drunk!

Lenin 160, To: G. F. FYODOROV

August 9, 1918

Comrade Fyodorov,

It is obvious that a whiteguard insurrection is being prepared in Nizhni. You must strain every effort, appoint three men with dictatorial powers (yourself, Markin and one other), organise immediately mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers, former officers and the like.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni.../aug/09gff.htm