[daft punk]

Not to derail this thread further, but besides disputes over historical happenings, what keeps Trotskyites and Stalinists apart today? What's the use in debating permanent revolution vs. socialism in one country when, in point of fact, there is socialism in no country?

yeah, as Conscript says they are still relevant. The way Stalinists look at things is completely different to the way Trots look at things. Stalinists say 'no' to socialist revolution. Trots advocate it anywhere, even in backward countries where revolution is more likely but socialism more difficult.

Let me give you an example. Indonesia 1965. The Stalinists did their usual 'trust the progressive bourgeoisie, trust the army'. The army then killed a million citizens. See how Stalinism leads to disaster after disaster. It still goes on, no doubt in places like Venezuela. It certainly came into events in Chile in 1973.

They till believe the crap Stalin made up to achieve the opposite of what it purported to.


Also, it's very important to explain to people

1. that socialism has never existed
2. Why it hasnt.
3. That the monstrous Stalinist regime in Russia was a negation of Bolshevism not a continuation. It was a political counter-revolution.
4. Why Stalinism happened and why it meant a short lived regime.

important because most of the arguments against socialism rest on false premises - it's been tried, it was a dictatorship, it failed.

Lenin was very clear:

"But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism."

my emphasis

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... eb/x01.htm

[hip hop bunny hop]

Has anyone know any good articles of the Khmer Rouge regime?

Everytime I drive through a particularly bad city (Sioux City Iowa, for example), I can't help but feel sympathy for them. Cities are centers of depravity and more filth, the removal of man from the countryside seems to have profoundly negative effects. Instead of responding to the rhythm of the seasons, urban man responds to the rhythms of TV programming, and grows morally soft and physically weak as he is removed from the natural order of things.

Truly, there are times when I get a strong wiff of sewage, and think it'd be fun to pull a Khmer Rouge and rid this nation of these warts called cities.

What was the size of the the Cambodian industrial working class when compared with European Russia? If there was a wide disparity, perhaps this explains why Pol Pot chose to centre his own personal version of the Communist disease around the peasantry. As for the implication of U.S. support for Pol Pot,, I see nothing wrong with it. The Khmer Rouge were enemies of Hanoi, and after we left Nam the Vietnamese became an arm of the Soviets in Southeast Asia; this also explains why China jumped on the pro-Pol Pot bandwagon, despite the Khmer Rouge's genocide of the Chinese population in Cambodia.

This. I don't see why TIG thinks that Vietnamese opposition to the Khmer Rouge is somehow definitive proof that Pol Pot wasn't a Marxist. If simply calling other Commies posers indicates truth, then that has some unfortunate implications for Enver Hoxha.

[Rich]

The truth is there wasn't really a Marxist economic policy. Marxism was totally focused on the question of power, whether it was Marx's cynical manoeuvring within the socialist / union movement or his successors Kautsky, Bernstein etc. Marxism was always long on class analysis very, very short on economic policy. Hence when Lenin took power policy was made on the hoof with wild swings in direction. The New Economic Policy under an authoritarian political regime might not have been a bad policy if it had been applied consistently from October 1917. Russia could have followed the path that China has followed since 1978. In the chaos and spiralling economic, social and military collapse of 1917 even the so called classical liberal paths of Britain and America were utter fantasy. On the other hand if Marx could have seen 50s Britain under Winston Churchill's last premiership, I'm sure he would have considered it at least partly socialist and supportive of his notion that at least in Britain Communism might be achievable gradually and peaceably by buying the Capitalists out.

However while no fan of Marxism, Leninism, Troskyism or Stalinsim I think its fair to say that the Khmer Rouge were not Marxist. Marxism might be wooly, ill defined and can be stretched but It can't really involve the deliberate elimination of the industrial proletariat.

The fundamental ideological differences between Trotsky and Stalin were actually quite few – the central one being that Trotsky believed in 'permanent revolution' (a concept and phrase originated by Karl Marx), which implied that the Bolshevik Revolution should be exported across the world as rapidly as possible. Stalin, however, believed in 'socialism in one country', in which the Soviet government would concentrate on building up the economy and military power of the Soviet Union first before attempting to spread Communism worldwide. It is important to note that this was a disagreement about tactics rather than ultimate aims – both Trotsky and Stalin wished to spread Communism across the world; they merely disagreed concerning the correct timing and method of achieving this aim. It is also important to note that almost all of Stalin's internal policies within the USSR had been proposed about a decade earlier by Trotsky – in that respect it could be said that, in an important sense, 'Stalinism' is 'Trotskyism'.

Actually I would suggest that the Socialism in one country was a trap set by Stalin. Stalin understood that ones abstract position on socialism in one country had little practical effect. Trotsky couldn't win by dragging up past history. Even if he had been correct that wasn't something that the Bolshevik leadership wanted to be reminded of. In truth they were nearly all a bunch of prima donnas. I suspect Stalin new his position was theoretically questionable.

[Conscript]

Marx wouldn't have regarded Britain as socialist any more than Germany under Bismarck. The influence of unions doesn't mean much, the workers are still exploited, but at the most class conscious (which their leaders have no interest in). Only revolution can remove ruling interests from power.

I don't see why it would make sense for Russia to follow China's path, Lenin opposed such state capitalism, it's the blatant rule of the national capitalist. I think following Lenin's plan for turning all enterprises into cooperative ones and fostering a cultural revolution from such is more promising, though considering the threat of the capitalist world and isolation of the revolution, maybe impossible.

[Turning Point]

(Pol Pot) tried to create some kind of peasant supported base - something no Marxist would support.

Something which Mao Zedong also did. The difference was the the Chinese Communist Party, while effectively having based itself amongst the rural peasantry after Chang-Kai-Shek's massacres of communists in Shanghai and other urban centers of China, still expressed that it stood for the supremacy of the urban proletariat in the revolution.

Whereas the Chinese Communist Party was forced to temporarily abandon the urban proletariat (to a certain extent) following the Horse Day Incident, ideologically it was rooted in urban centers through it's organization of labor unions in the workplaces early on after its immediate formation.

The peasantry was mostly ignored by the Chinese communists in favor of the urban proletariat, the early CPC being more of a traditional Marxist organization which sought to create a (urban) proletarian dictatorship. In this way they were similar to the Bolsheviks who, although expressing their main support for the urban working-class, sought to create a 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry' which did not entirely exclude the peasantry from the revolutionary process.

Mao was one of the first communists in the CPC to recognize the peasantry as a major force in the revolution, most of China having been rural at that time.

It wasn't until the communists were forced into the countryside, hemmed in by Chang-Kai-Shek's forces, that the peasantry was given more favoritism over that of the traditional urban proletariat but even then the CPC did not raise the peasantry onto a pedestal and become a solely rural party such as the SR Party in Russia.

Actually I would suggest that the Socialism in one country was a trap set by Stalin. Stalin understood that ones abstract position on socialism in one country had little practical effect.

Socialism-in-one-country was, like the CPC's shift in its support base from the urban proletariat to the rural peasantry, a temporary strategy.

The New Economic Policy had long since been implemented, and by the late 20's it was clear that the communist party in the Soviet Union was moving away from the reformist policies favored by Lenin in the early 20's and was trying to choose an independent pathway for the USSR. Before Stalin's rise to power, even Trotsky was favoring collectivization of agriculture and rapid industrialization, with only moderates such as Bukharin favoring an evolutionary transition to socialism.

Stalin rose to power claiming that he was finally building the socialism which Lenin had initially retreated from after the civil war. Socialism, after all, had yet to be built in the USSR and, at least for the time, it would remain to be constructed elsewhere following the failure of the European socialist revolutions.

1. that socialism has never existed
2. Why it hasn't.
3. That the monstrous Stalinist regime in Russia was a negation of Bolshevism not a continuation. It was a political counter-revolution.
4. Why Stalinism happened and why it meant a short lived regime.

Bolshevism, mind you, had already been practicing "Stalinist" policies long before Stalin. Collectivization of agriculture had already happened to an extent by the time of Lenin's death (according to Orlando Fige's A People's Tragedy), while rapid industrialization was almost inevitable due to the backwardness of the Soviet Union. Trotsky called for all of these things around the same time Stalin did so, the only difference being his pessimism about socialism being a possibility in the post-civil war USSR.

Bukharin was one of the only Bolsheviks after Lenin who favored a gradual approach to building socialism, and by the late 1920's their was impatience over this.

So no ,IMHO, "Stalinism" wasn't/isn't a negation of Bolshevism.

[KurtFF8]

Nothing spells "Marxism" like the defeat and continued persecution of the proletariat by a regime that was created and supported by capitalists and brought down by Marxists.

Something about the "Marxist-Leninist" v. "Stalinist" debate should be mentioned.

As of late it's been fashionable to say that Stalinism was what Stalin practiced inside the realm of general "Marxist-Leninism" that everybody in the Soviet Union post Stalin practiced. This isn't really accurate, however. Stalin created an induing system that he headed. Just because other people came along and disputed Stalin's policy, none of them went out of the way to undermine the system and policies that Stalin put into place. The structure always remained the same until the very end. It was only lip service about modifying a few tweaks here and there while the system was set.

It would be like saying that Obama represents a very different form of government that is completely different from the rest of the American superstructure. It's simply not the case.

As per the argument that Stalin supported capitalism, I disagree - as did Trotsky. Stalin had a wrong-headed idea about "Socialism in One Country" and "The Third Period" - the latter of which was dropped. The fundamental result in these wrong ideologies was that the USSR's current system had to be protected at all costs, even from other socialist movements in the world.

The anti-revisionist crowd would certainly disagree with this analysis. They are perhaps the prime promoters of the idea that the post-Stalin USSR was qualitatively different in the most important ways than during Stalin's rule.

I don't quite think that they're right but this argument is quite interesting and usually goes without mention in these conversations. I usually take them more seriously (although I'm not an anti-revisionist) because I've always been quite averse to Trotsky's take on the USSR, although I can appreciate that most Trotskiyst groups still defend the gains of places like the USSR when it existed and Cuba today. Although groups like the ISO and SWP (UK) uphold the Cliffite "state capitalist theory" which makes little sense when we actually look at Marx's analysis of what capitalism is and was.

[Dagoth Ur]

What's strange is how similar Cliffites and Hoxhaists sound re: the USSR (well excepting the typical sect buzzwords). There is a shithead in every flavor of Marxism that basically makes it out that the real problem is other Marxists, not the bourgeoisie, and that of course this also means they're the sole guardian of the correct line. Maybe it's a product of our weakness but it's discouraging as someone who agrees with factions in the party. So long as no faction aims to take shit over.

[Conscript]

Everyone from Lenin onwards considered at least some self-professed 'Marxist' a real problem.

Ideas you subscribe to don't mean shit when you serve counter-revolutionary states that kill and marginalize Marxists not affiliated with it, revise Marxism, or abandon/sabotage revolution.

I guess you don't like Stalin and his faction for taking over, or Lenin for banning them.

@Kurtff8 By Marx's analysis of capitalism and Lenin's admission, the USSR was state capitalist.

[Dagoth Ur]

Conscript you'll grow out of this obsession with the enemy within hopefully. Our real enemy has always been the capitalist liberal and always will be.

[fuser]

Conscript you'll grow out of this obsession with the enemy within hopefully. Our real enemy has always been the capitalist liberal and always will be.

Stalinists or Trotskyites, both sides constant bickering against each other is one of the most regressive thing ever happened to international socialist movement.

[Conscript]

There's no forgiving past atrocities and ignoring massive differences.

Maybe you'll grow out of this phase of supporting anything with a red flag like a populist, if you ever learn history. American communists have no reason to accept stalinists and 'soviet patriots' when such disarmed the communists in the first place.

The most regressive thing to ever happen to the socialists is without a doubt the stalinist comintern, which was so blatantly a counter-revolutionary force for soviet interests, that it dissolved itself when it was in soviet interests to do so.

[KurtFF8]

@Kurtff8 By Marx's analysis of capitalism and Lenin's admission, the USSR was state capitalist.

Lenin's term "state capitalism" has nothing to do with the Cliffite notion of state capitalism

[The Immortal Goon]

There is no doubt that the USSR today bears very little resemblance to that type of Soviet republic that Lenin depicted in 1917 (no permanent bureaucracy or permanent army, the right of recalling all elected officials at any time and the active control over them by the masses “regardless of who the individual may be,” etc.). The domination of the bureaucracy over the country, as well as Stalin’s domination over the bureaucracy, have well-nigh attained their absolute consummation. But what conclusions would follow from this? There are some who say that since the actual state that has emerged from the proletarian revolution does not correspond to ideal a priori norms, therefore they turn their backs on it. This is political snobbery, common to pacifist-democratic, libertarian, anarcho-syndicalist and, generally, ultraleft circles of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. There are others who say that since this state has emerged from the proletarian revolution, therefore every criticism of it is sacrilege and counterrevolution. That is the voice of hypocrisy behind which lurk most often the immediate material interests of certain groups among this very same petty-bourgeois intelligentsia or among the workers’ bureaucracy. These two types – the political snob and the political hypocrite – are readily interchangeable, depending upon personal circumstances. Let us pass them both by.

And though he clearly wasn't talking about the Marxist-Leninist/Bolshevik-Leninist divide, Connolly has some geth to say too:

We realised that every victory gained by the working class would be followed by some capitalist development that in course of time would tend to nullify it, but that until that development was perfect the fruits of our victory would be ours to enjoy, and the resultant moral effect would be of incalculable value to the character and to the mental attitude of our class towards their rulers. It will thus be seen that in our view – and now that I am about to point the moral I may personally appropriate it and call it my point of view – the spirit, the character, the militant spirit, the fighting character of the organisation, was of the first importance. I believe that the development of the fighting spirit is of more importance than the creation of the theoretically perfect organisation; that, indeed, the most theoretically perfect organisation may, because of its very perfection and vastness, be of the greatest possible danger to the revolutionary movement if it tends, or is used, to repress and curb the fighting spirit of comradeship in the rank and file.

I don't know that I have much to add to the quotes above.

[Conscript]

Lenin's term "state capitalism" has nothing to do with the Cliffite notion of state capitalism

The only difference I can see is that Lenin thought it was state capitalism where the workers held political power with the confidence of the peasantry.

I wonder how the PSL would deal with the question, do they even address such things?

[The Immortal Goon]

Not to be all scholarly, but could you cite? I know I'm particularly big on doing so, but I like looking through sources and whatnot.

[Conscript]

The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... ov/14b.htm


He talks more about the difference between 'ordinary' state capitalism and that of the USSR in On Cooperation.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... jan/06.htm

The essence of which is that a political revolution has taken place ahead of the economic/social one (permanent revolution style imo), manifesting as the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, which as he notes elsewhere (can't find it right now) can be represented by the party. It only follows, that after changes in the party and state in such a way that destroys working class political power (all the revolution has), all that is left is state capitalism, no longer 'permitted and restricted' by the workers but the seat of power for this new nation-state, or 'socialism in one country'. As Lenin says in his letter to Sokolnikov, bureaucracy will destroy the communists.

[KurtFF8]

The only difference I can see is that Lenin thought it was state capitalism where the workers held political power with the confidence of the peasantry.

I wonder how the PSL would deal with the question, do they even address such things?

This is quite a fundamental difference. To add to the differences, Lenin was operating with a much firmer understanding of Marx's analysis of Capitalism than Cliff, whose definitions of capitalism are embarrassingly limited.

[Conscript]

It's a difference but shows where Lenin thought the USSR was at historically. After all, he thought german state capitalism was a model for the USSR.

Besides Cliff just plagiarized the left communists basically. There's nothing particularly wrong about claiming the USSR was state capitalist. Engels didn't think the modern state could be anything but such.