The Natural Instinct to stick to your own kind.

[Rafiq]

Finally, here's a good quote explaining what I meant in regards to National Liberation,
"It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in our country." This is from a work you should know (pb mentality), and there is also the "socialism is impossible without modern scale science and technology" (or something like that). The October Revolution was a rejection of bourgeois politics, but not capitalist development. That is what I mean in regards to national liberation, that the feudal elements need to be destroyed, and perhaps make alliances with bourgeois forces (February) but ultimately is under political control of the proletarian. Compare this to a nation "developed" by capital, that has already destroyed its "feudal bonds," in which the methods of a National-Liberation would be completely backwards.

What cack! So first I'm the reformist, but you're the one claiming that the allowance of capitalist development is the solution to the problem of proletarian dictatorship in the third world? I'M THE BERNSTEIN-SOCIALIST, BUT YOU"RE THE ONE CLAIMING THAT CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT IS NECESSARY!?

Of COURSE it WAS necessary in Russia, but only as a result of the failure for the revolution to spread. PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP and the reinforcement of capitalist relations, capitalist development are INCOMPATIBLE and CANNOT coexist.

DNZ has, quite simply proposed that a proletarian alliance with the rural petite bourgeoisie, or the peasantry unified by strong executive power, would be in control of the state which could struggle against the bourgeois class and whatever potential counter-revolution for the building of socialism. There's a reason why users have accused him of "Stalinism" and so on. Even if this is not a solution, it is much more Communist than yours, which suggests CLASS COLLABORATION with the bourgeoisie. The February revolution was NOT an alliance with the bourgeois parties, for fuck's sake not even a year later the Bolsheviks abolished the provisional government.

Of course state-capitalist development was Lenin's only solution - that doesn't mean it's a DESIRABLE outcome, you do realize Lenin was not optimistic about the situation - the fact of the matter is that capitalist development is the signification of the revolution's FAILURE. Unless of course, you want to argue that the October revolution had not failed, and that the retention of the proletarian dictatorship was possible. The majority of the proletariat had perished in the civil war, it was up to the state to take the role of the bourgeoisie in assimilating the peasantry. Also, was Lenin really correct here? Most Left Communists would not agree, socialism was NOT established in the republic, the result was a catastrophe. Stalin was not this gross mutation of Lenin, he was a logical successor GIVEN the circumstances. Had Lenin grown old, he would most likely not have been very different.

[Rafiq]

Oh Jesus rafiq I was interested in your conception of "mysticism" and why you undertook Sorel's myth. Of course ideology grips the Masses and becomes a material force (young marx Oh noes!1111) that doesn't mean I agreed with the Sorelian conception - which doesn't mean I can't read on about it to see if there's anything of worth (which, in this case, the answer was no).

No shut the fuck up, don't act like that wasn't completely and wholly different to how you approached me recently, with such venomous hostility. Myths are not the materialization of ideas, they are the expression of material interests in terms of ideas, no matter how irrational, and so on they are. THAT is the Marxist implication you can draw from Sorel's social myth - not to disregard there is something deeply problematic about Sorel as a whole, starting from his anti-materialism. Gramsci, whom you despise, further elaborated and touched upon this.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

naturally ethnocentric and bind together, that's how nations came to be.

You really have to be careful when basing arguments on pop-culture understandings of history. That is in fact not how nations came to be. The nation-state is an entirely modern construct that did not exist in Europe before the 19th century. It did not exist anywhere else until Europeans imposed it on the rest of the world. European nation states emerged around common vernacular languages that were standardized by printers.

Majorities and minorities are likewise social constructs that have no natural basis. In the USA, the default American culture is white, the majority that needs no articulation. In 1900, people who did not count as white included Jews and Irishmen, yet Latinos and assimilated natives did count as white. Americans construct racial and ethnic difference not just on skin color, but on religion and language. Likewise in Germany, Jews were never considered non-German until the interbellum period. The Ottoman Empire was never thought to be Turkish by its inhabitants until WW1. The Ottomans were never really a nation, though in the 19th c. the state tried to act like one. Rather it was a collection of may peoples, languages, religions, and cultures. Before they lost the Balkans in the 19th c., Christians likely outnumbered Muslims.

Most of the states of the Middle East and Africa were created by Europeans for their own purposes. The successor states to the Ottomans are also multi-ethnic, though modern ethnic cleansing has made them far less multi-confessional. Most of the Jewish communities of the Levant are gone except for the mostly European Jews of Israel. The Christian communities have also shrunk, except in Lebanon and Egypt.

The point is, nations and eventually nation states are artifical constructs as are ethnicities. Nothing in history is inevitable and the existence of nation-states was contingent on printed vernacular language and the success of powerful monarchies--then imposing that system on everyone else.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Even if this is not a solution, it is much more Communist than yours, which suggests CLASS COLLABORATION with the bourgeoisie.

Comrade, your partner-in-exchange and I speak of different things, which would explain his misunderstanding.

He speaks of "feudal bonds," while I speak of demographics. My demographics-based case considers the presence or absence of "feudal bonds" simply irrelevant. Whether small tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and the like are "peasants" or not, they aren't farm workers like some ultra-left academic hacks through their books would like us to believe.

[GodOfEvil]

What an absurdly loaded question. People won't "rid themselves" of their "culture" -- what people consider their culture will change, as has happened since the dawn of humankind. It isn't as if being a communist erases every other identity one has. Being a communist or living in a communist society will become part of their culture.

most of that was because of invading forces & cultural genocide

[#FF0000]

most of that was because of invading forces & cultural genocide

Obviously though, cultural interaction and exchange isn't restricted to genocide and military invasion.