Selling land to foreigners

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Are you serious? That was the Bolshevik position on Russia's bourgeoisie.

Maybe during the NEP, but the Bolsheviks for the most part avoided stageist positions - I think you are confusing the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks. Marx himself even thought Russia might have been able to skip a bourgeois revolution, considering the tradition of collective land ownership.

There were certainly Marxists who supported the national bourgeoisie over the international bourgeoisie, but generally speaking, Marx himself was critical of such an approach and I think his views have been confirmed through past experience of social democratic regimes who used protectionist policies.

[Conscript]

I see what you're saying, but the point was more that the Bolsheviks saw the national bourgeoisie as too weak to carry out their own revolution. I see Colonial India as no different, and therefore speaking of 'domestic hands' is just the de jure ownership of India's aristocracy, which, just like Russia, had subdued the national bourgeoisie. Of course the latter didn't profit off British railways and other development.

India was more unique in that you could argue its bourgeoisie was still progressive and revolutionary, similar to Stalin's view of the KMT.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Socialists oppose all forms of capital from Ma and Pa shops to Martin and Lockheed.

Um, I don't. One of my main complaints is that the giant companies are forcing Ma and Pa out of business, concentration wealth into corporate assets and creating poverty as a result. Small businesses are a very good way of spreading that wealth around and giving person more individual agency than they have under the neo-liberal, big company model. I think there is a gigantic difference between the bourgeois ruling class and the petty bourgeois who are as much subjects as the rest of us.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Are you serious? That was the Bolshevik position on Russia's bourgeoisie.

Then surely you can cite primary sources to that effect. As you should concerning your slanderous statement that Marx advocated "defense of the fatherland".

As for Lenin's own views, recall his statement that:

"In our capitalist age these “neighbouring squires” are increasingly becoming factory owners, distillers, sugar manufacturers, and so forth; they are increasingly becoming shareholders in all kinds of commercial, industrial, financial, and railway undertakings. The highest nobility are becoming closely interwoven with the big bourgeoisie."

(Emphasis mine, from "Neighbouring squires".)

Which brings me to my next point: the bourgeoisie is defined by its relation to the means of production. Just as the impoverished petty artisan becomes a proletarian when he sells his labour-power, the aristocrat or high government official becomes a member of the bourgeoisie when he buys labour power and extracts surplus value from capitalist production. This nonsensical notion of aristocrats, as a non-capitalist class, running capitalist enterprises, and oppressing (and even if this were true, who cares? communists are the party of the proletariat) the "national" bourgeoisie, here meaning petty merchant capital, is simply a way for ostensible Marxists to alibi the bourgeoisie for its participation in imperialism and the strengthening of economic and social backwardness in regions of delayed capitalist development. It is the same notion Roy defended against Lenin in the ComIntern, the policy that led to the defeat of the Chinese and Vietnamese communists.

Um, I don't. One of my main complaints is that the giant companies are forcing Ma and Pa out of business, concentration wealth into corporate assets and creating poverty as a result. Small businesses are a very good way of spreading that wealth around and giving person more individual agency than they have under the neo-liberal, big company model. I think there is a gigantic difference between the bourgeois ruling class and the petty bourgeois who are as much subjects as the rest of us.

Well that's nice. But the fact is, in the context of revolutionary politics, socialists are those who stand for the socialisation of all means of production. (Of course, in the context of bourgeois politics, most groups that call themselves "socialist" are right-wing social-democrats. Some are fascist. But this is irrelevant.) We socialists do not wish to "spread the wealth", but destroy wealth, we don't want to decentralise assets but abolish them etc.

What you're describing seems to be one of the myriad attempts to cook up some "nicer" form of capitalism, which is analogous to the stupid bourgeois notion that war can be made "humane". And it is based on a particularly reactionary attachment to petty commodity production, an obsolete economic form if there ever was one.

[Thirsty Crow]

It indeed is a nicer capitalism, capitalism with a human face. And the buzzword of individual agency fits well with democratic prejudice of all kinds. One only needs to ask themselves what kind of individual agency - that of state guaranteed bigger market share and that of better chances in intra-capitalist competition.

[Conscript]

Then surely you can cite primary sources to that effect. As you should concerning your slanderous statement that Marx advocated "defense of the fatherland".

I don't need to, that's what defined Bolshevism Why do you think they ever had a concept of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry and a completion of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Why not just support the national bourgeoisie and pass through a phase, as the Mensheviks would have us? As for Marx, I'll just retract that statement.

As for Lenin's own views, recall his statement that:

He is describing countries like Germany and Britain. Russia, which is so reactionary the bourgeois-democratic revolution isn't completed, still has capitalism because of the imperialists and their political and economical alliance with the aristocracy, which had only recently then abolished serfdom. Nothing really changes except for imperialists expanding the market to encompass them.

However you should also recall that as capitalism creates a mobility between the aristocracy and the bourgoisie, Lenin also said that modern, state capitalism has such a degree of concentration and development, that there really is nothing between it and socialism (as state capitalism made to serve the interests of the whole people)

Which brings me to my next point: the bourgeoisie is defined by its relation to the means of production. Just as the impoverished petty artisan becomes a proletarian when he sells his labour-power, the aristocrat or high government official becomes a member of the bourgeoisie when he buys labour power and extracts surplus value from capitalist production. This nonsensical notion of aristocrats, as a non-capitalist class, running capitalist enterprises, and oppressing (and even if this were true, who cares? communists are the party of the proletariat) the "national" bourgeoisie, here meaning petty merchant capital, is simply a way for ostensible Marxists to alibi the bourgeoisie for its participation in imperialism and the strengthening of economic and social backwardness in regions of delayed capitalist development. It is the same notion Roy defended against Lenin in the ComIntern, the policy that led to the defeat of the Chinese and Vietnamese communists.

You call yourself a trotskyist? What the hell do you think Trotsky advocated permanent revolution for, if not to go from overthrowing these non-capitalist classes and their imperialist allies, and continuing on to the socialist revolution? And obviously in places like Russia Marxists were not simply the party of the proletariat. Lenin even said his revolution is bourgeois so long as the Bolsheviks marched with peasants.

And no, it doesn't mean 'petty merchant capital'. The native aristocracy is not some haute bourgeoisie, do you seriously think they would be imperialist pawns that failed to carry out the bourgeois revolution and liberalize, otherwise?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

No matter what the Bolsheviks said, there is no country in the world remaining with the kind of aristocratic class that existed in Russia during the 1910s. Even absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia are basically capitalist aristocracies at this point, whose wealth is based on the exploitation of oil and its export in large state capitalist firms. So there is simply no equivalent.

I don't need to, that's what defined Bolshevism Why do you think they ever had a concept of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry and a completion of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Why not just support the national bourgeoisie and pass through a phase, as the Mensheviks would have us? As for Marx, I'll just retract that statement.

That's not what defined Bolshevism at all, at least until Stalin's WWII propaganda became the party line. Bolshevism was for (1) stopping the Imperialist war, (2) nationalizing the means of production and (3) spreading international revolution. There was no nationalist discourse about defense of some mythic "fatherland".

[Conscript]

You cannot separate the completion of the bourgeois revolution with the empowerment of nations. Bolshevism represented their liberation from the Tsarist jailhouse through the proletarian revolution. These nations eventually reached absolute heights under the USSR and rapid modernization. In places where nations were already achieving self-determination, like in Finland, Turkey, and Afghanistan, the Bolsheviks respected or even supported it.

Why do you think people like Sun Yat-sen, Ho Chi Minh, Gandhi, and so many other national liberation heroes admired Lenin? Why do you think Lenin talked about workers and the "oppressed"? Perhaps Bolshevism was defined by how it dealt with nations with regards to anti-imperialism?

The ultra-left is more anti-national than it is international.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't need to [...]

You sort of do.

[...] that's what defined Bolshevism Why do you think they ever had a concept of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry and a completion of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Why not just support the national bourgeoisie and pass through a phase, as the Mensheviks would have us?

There is so much confusion here I really don't know where to start. The slogan of a "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" was ultimately a flawed one (and Lenin himself abandoned it; by the time of the trade union dispute he talked about the RSFSR as a workers' state with bureaucratic deformations), but the peasantry is a stratum of the petite, not the haute bourgeoisie. As for the Russian bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks (at least the most influential section - the Bolshevik group was not some monolith, and there are noticeable difference between e.g. Kamenev and Nogin on one hand and Lenin on the other - this became more pronounced as the Bolshevik absorbed other revolutionary groups, from the "Pravdist" pro-party Mensheviks to the United Internationalists and remnants of the PLSR) held that the Russian bourgeoisie was weak, but not subdued or oppressed. And if they mentioned the national bourgeoisie, it was to oppose it and its privileges (something that all national "Leninists" need to recall).

As for Marx, I'll just retract that statement.

Well that's convenient. But this raises some uncomfortable questions. Are you for the "defense of the fatherland"?

He is describing countries like Germany and Britain.

Wrong. Read the text - it's barely a page long. He is describing Russia. The "neighbouring squires" are Goremykin and a member of the Nationalist group.

You call yourself a trotskyist? What the hell do you think Trotsky advocated permanent revolution for, if not to go from overthrowing these non-capitalist classes and their imperialist allies, and continuing on to the socialist revolution?

Except, of course, nothing I have said goes against the notion of permanent revolution. But, pardon, the permanent revolution is not two stages telescoped into one, it doesn't start by overthrowing the imperialists and then the national bourgeoisie. The permanent revolution is always a revolution under the leadership - the political leadership - of a proletarian party, which means that in all stages it necessitates the dictatorship of the proletariat. And that, in turns, means smashing both the imperialist and the "national" bourgeoisie (and, of course, one of Trotsky's points is precisely that the "national" bourgeoisie can't extricate itself from imperialism).

And obviously in places like Russia Marxists were not simply the party of the proletariat. Lenin even said his revolution is bourgeois so long as the Bolsheviks marched with peasants.

Bourgeois in its immediate tasks, a qualification most people who try to quote Lenin to either score a factional point against Leninism or advance some sort of neo-Menshevik theory forget.

And no, it doesn't mean 'petty merchant capital'.

It certainly meant that in China, and in Vietnam.

The native aristocracy is not some haute bourgeoisie, do you seriously think they would be imperialist pawns that failed to carry out the bourgeois revolution and liberalize, otherwise?

Of course. Countries of belated capitalist development exist in conditions that are radically different from those experienced by the future imperialist powers at the time of their industrialisation - they are at the periphery of the capitalist mode of production, where superprofits for imperialists (and their agents, including the bourgeoisie of the dependent states) are best maintained by maintaining and reinforcing economic backwardness.

[Slavic]

Um, I don't. One of my main complaints is that the giant companies are forcing Ma and Pa out of business, concentration wealth into corporate assets and creating poverty as a result. Small businesses are a very good way of spreading that wealth around and giving person more individual agency than they have under the neo-liberal, big company model. I think there is a gigantic difference between the bourgeois ruling class and the petty bourgeois who are as much subjects as the rest of us.

Every Ma and Pa shop wishes and strives to be the next Walmart if given the opportunity. In fact, atleast in the US, there is a very popular and powerful misconception that with hard work you can transform your small business into the next big block buster.

The petty bourgeois as you say are indeed subjects to the ruling class, but that does not make them anymore benevolent or more of an ally. Also, the "spreading the wealth" that you speak of does nothing but create more petite bourgeois; more petite bourgeois does not strengthen the class's position.