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Some beginner questions
Hey everyone, new user here. So I have a few questions I'd like to have answered or discussed. Now I've not been a fan of capitalism for awhile. And living in the USA it's pretty easy to get disgusted by things in its history and present day. I've been interested in socialism and communism for a few years now, though I've never done much in-depth reading until recently. That said I believe I have a decent grasp on the inner workings and how communism could be applied (as well as the critique against capitalism and all the issues it has), so my three questions involve history and application.
1: So first off is Stalin. I imagine Stalin and the USSR comes up a lot in beginner questions. For me specifically I'm curious about some claims I've heard that us in western, capitalist countries have gotten a skewed view on the USSR, and that Stalin actually wasn't as bad as we've been led to think. Now I don't find that idea 100% ridiculous; it seems to follow logically that in a world full of capitalist states that exaggerating or making up stories about the evil commies is perfect for them to maintain control and instil a fear of anything non-capitalist in the people. But I've read things like the Holdomer being denied, or that Stalin maybe killed a million people at most. Whenever I read things they claim that Russian archives prove this.
My question re: Stalin is: how is he generally viewed amongst communists, socialists, marxists, etc.? Is there any validity to what I've been reading about supposed USSR lies taught in the west? Any links to these archives or other reliable sources would be preferable.
2: Following suit, I've also heard the same claim about North Korea. Now, I can to some extent believe that Stalin has been exaggerated, but claiming North Korea isn't all that bad and the people there are happy sounds a little too much like wishful thinking. Again I'd ask, how valid are these claims?
And the final question is a bit more broad, but I'm curious about violent revolution in regards to overturning capitalism. I think it was plausible some years in the past (Like, I dunno, pre-1980?) And I don't necessarily see violence as a reason to discredit overturning the status quo in russia or SA etc., given that major overturnings throughout history seem to have only been accomplished through violence (i.e. Oliver Cromwell in England, or the French Revolution and revolutions across Europe). I started reading into Che Guevara awhile back and found I agreed with him on a lot of his views, but he also seemed incredibly violent to me and it didn't sit well with me. Now that I've read more I don't feel that the whole violence in revolution = bad! thing that's been taught in school in regards to these things. The way I see it capitalism has had its fair share of collectively shitting on, killing, imprisoning, and oppressing people that it feels more like a moot point coming from capitalists who want something to use in order to discredit economic change.
3: In present day, what are peoples' opinions on how a revolution from capitalism to communism would transpire in regards to violence? I just don't see how effective guerrilla armies like Che and Castro or the russian revolution would be in present time due to technology. I can't see a fight against a modern day military playing out well unless revolutionaries also have a decent access to militarized weapons and vehicles. Is it generally agreed upon that some level of violence will be needed, or is it possible for communism to take hold in the working class of all nations and for it to be achieved through peaceful resolution?
1. Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union was a police state. Freedom of thought and speech were suppressed. Falsification of reports was widespread including about Holodomor. Many people were purged from the Communist Party and executed merely for opposition to any element of Stalin's rule. In Comintern-aligned 'official' Communist parties today, there exists a current favourable to Stalin. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Comintern-aligned 'official' Communist parties are a largely a thing of the past. Most other Marxists are opposed to repeating the nature of the rule of Stalin.
2. North Korea under the Kim dynasty is a totalitarian police state. Again, freedom of thought and speech are suppressed. From a handful of documentaries I've watched and news reports I've read, the population of North Korea, I don't believe to be happy. However they seem to have been duped into thinking the outside world is much worse.
3. There are a lot of keyboard warriors out there, but while a majority of workers support capitalism then guerrilla armies would not be very successful against modern state military machines. However, it's generally agreed that when a majority of workers support socialism and act to implement it, then some minimal proportionate coercive self-defense measures might be necessary against violent opponents.
If you want to learn about Marxism, don't look to Stalin and the Kim dynasty in North Korea.
I'd agree with a lot of what The Idler says here. We will never know how many people died as a result of Stalin's policies, from starvation, being worked to death, freezing in the GULAG, being shot or whatever else; perhaps the 22 million quoted by some people is too many, but the 680,000 quoted by Stalinist apologists is surely too few. When the estimates range from 680,000 to something more than 30 time as large, people aren't even having the same discussion.
There are still Stalinists and Maoists in the world, probably quite a lot of them, and you'll even find some people who support the North Korean regime. But on RevLeft I think you'll find that a large proportion of Marxists don't support what we'd generally regard as brutal state-capitalist regimes that have little if anything to do with 'communism' as we understand it (not that all the anti-Stalin Marxists agree about what communism is or could be of course).
As to violence - I think most here would disagree with The Idler. In general I think we would would regard violence as being inevitable. But I certainly agree that the working class is going to find it very hard to survive pitched battles with the military. Without the increasing class-consciousness of the proletariat affecting the military and the state's ability to wage war - this really is a crucial problem - the working class will be massacred by reaction. Any notion of guerilla actions, foco-ism, 'protracted people's war' or anything similar is just... fantasy. This isn't a game of Risk or Warhammer.
Last edited by Blake's Baby; 20th January 2015 at 09:38.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
Soviet archives contradict the claim of Stalinists, at least, if you're claim about Stalinists is correct. 3.2 million died in the Holodomor, 680,000 died in the Great Purge, and 1.2 million died as a result of the Gulag. Then there were some other campaigns like deporting entire ethnicities. So about 5 to 7 million died under Stalin.
Those numbers can simply be found on the respective wikipedia pages by cntrl+f-ing for "archives".
pew pew pew
Great thread comrade this answered a few questions I was dying to find answers to. In my opinion the world has yet to see a fully functioning true communist system. We have gotten as far as the precommunism stage where production, etc. Are in the hands of a select few but it never graduates to the final stage. Either greed or outside influence always destroys it. I'm reading j. Edgar hoovers "a study of communism" which is basically a full blown cappie bash on communism and all its beliefs, doctrines, participants, contributors and attempts that trys to basically prove the lies and failures of marx and Engels great accomplishment. It angers me because how can you prove the inability of something when its never had a chance to fully blossom how its creators intended? But once again great thread and sorry for the rant haha. In solidarity.
~Poets Are Damned. But See With The Eyes Of Angels~
I don't the problem has been 'greed'. Or even incompetence.
Outside influence, yes; I'd agree with that. Communism will follow capitalism, and capitalism is a worldwide system. So for communist society to exist, capitalism will have to be destroyed. We haven't managed to do that yet, so how can we have ever built a communist society? It is not until the working class takes hold of the world economy and uses it for need not gain, that we can start to take about 'communist society'. And as you rightly say, that's never happened. Primarily because every time the working class starts to get a bit fighty, someone shoots them.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
Thanks for answering my questions everyone. I probably should've read about on here a bit first before asking my first two questions, as it seems Stalinists and supporters of North Korea compose a minority rather than a majority (whereas before I had the opposite impression).
As far as violence goes, it seems to me that the best case scenario is that if the working class revolts, ideally, soldiers would realize they're being given commands to slay their friends and family and would question their leadership. Then they would cease to fight for them and fight for the revolution instead. Maybe it's a question of how many enlisted soldiers would fight for our cause rather than "defend their country", so to speak? It almost seems to be a requirement that a significant number of revolutionaries would need to be in the army and have the opportunity to give weapons and ammunition to those revolting while also doing what they can to sabotage the military from within.
Not necessarily -- really it's a matter of numbers, and solidarity. There's the argument that the members of the armed forces would actually be more *malleable* to popular / revolutionary movements than would the police, even, because the police can be seen to act as base opportunists, consistently, while those in the military tend to be motivated by a pledge to the *country* -- if the *people* of that country are in revolt and massively calling for upheavals, revolution, etc., then soldiers can be won over by the country's new popular sentiment, on a face-to-face basis in the streets.
Last edited by ckaihatsu; 23rd January 2015 at 18:56. Reason: added 'in the streets'
I believe that is exactly what happened in the Russian Revolution, but in any case welcome to Revleft and I hope any further questions will be answered on the forums.
The real deal here is if it matters how many people exactly this man, as head of state, had executed - or not. I don't think it is, and while this opens my own position to an emotional kind of criticism, I can't help but state again that what is crucial here is a clear and uncompromising view of the entire historical development of the USSR.
My own position is that the latter represented most definitely a society based on class division, and therefore on exploitation and domination. In connection with this, the view of communism, class struggle (and practically everything else) I adhere to is radically different from any political current that might be said to be modelled on historical Stalinism, or on some kind of an apologia for it.
What practically jumps out at this point is the famous charge of no true scotsman logical fallacy. I don't think it makes sense here though, as the issue of "true communism" is secondary to that of consistently employing the Marxist framework in thinking about that particular social and state formation. Communists today can't simply wave away this nasty problem; some of them try to do that by doing exactly that, claiming "oh but USSR wasn't communist and communism by definition is stateless" but I don't think this is productive. What needs to be reckoned with is the degeneration of both communism as a political and class movement and of the revolution in USSR.
The basic postulate is that the world ruling class will try to hold on to its position of power no matter what. I think this is more than reasonable, and that any discussion of violence simply needs to proceed from that basic idea.
The rest of your question is hellishly complex insofar as I'd have to go into detail about the dynamics of revolutionary class struggle (which is not the same as guerilla warfare, and almost always antithetical to it) for it to make sense. But as a general remark, I think that forms of civil war are a necessary by-product of revolutionary upheaval.
FKA LinksRadikal
“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
Exactly right. Take the US army oath to fight all enemies "foreign and domestic". That clause was almost certainly added specifically to counter-act communist activism.
But god knows there's enough popular anti-statism, enough sentiment that regards the state as itself the enemy, that the reliability of soldiers who have sworn this oath is dubious in the extreme. Will they choose to regard a popular uprising as a domestic enemy, or the state itself?
The nub of all this is: the police may be a committed and unrelenting enemy, but the army is not. The army can be turned.
Another way of looking at this is that if the capitalist system enters a profound and debilitating crisis -- say, something like what's brewing with Greece and the euro -- then that exposes the politicians / heads of state because they, of course, have no direct control over the functioning of the economy as a whole. As the personifications of the system, they will be the ones pointed to by rising popular political sentiment as being the 'betrayers of the country' (populism-nationalism), and that could be enough to swing the military personnel around to the side of the people.
The question at *that* point would be if mass consciousness could break through / be won-over to a *generalization* -- that it's not enough to have loyalty to the *country*, because this kind of economic solvency crisis is repeating itself in countries all *across* Europe, and, of course, other parts of the world aren't even on-par with Western economies to begin with.
If the bulwark of the state -- its military -- can draw these conclusions for itself, the whole economic system could finally be seen as bankrupt, and not worthy of 'reforming' or 'saving' for the sake of the nation-state anymore.
