[TheSkyHMaestro]

(This is for a story, so I ask you for your help in commenting, if you so desire; thank you) Is it likely that, following a [successful] communist revolution, those identified as 'bougeois' or 'ruling class' could face a few "retributional" things? I.e., what we'd identify as 'oppression' and persecution. Can you imagine your wall street CEO slaving in a coal mine, emaciated and being whipped and screamed at as being a 'idle rich pig responsible for the suffering of millions', or is this unlikely?

A good part of the story I mentioned involves fate of a young empress and fellow class friends being fucked around in a communist society for the sole reason of being ruling class and bourgeois. I was always curious about this subject, trying to find Marxist literature and history books that detailed this happening. (Haven't found any by the way; if you know of any, please direct me to it) I've been curious as to whether this would actually happen. I heard from a communist, eh... "associate" that, unless said empress and friends 'quickly conformed to proletarian ideals, they would certainly face hardships. In an idealistic socialist society- in reality, they'd probably have bullets in their heads within hours of capture, if not sent to socialist-ready Guantanamo to be waterboarded in some form of get-back.'

Summary: During a dictatorship of the proletariat, how likely is it that there would be a persecution of the bourgeoisie?

[KurtFF8]

Well I don't have any particular recommendations but in cases like the Bolshevik or Cuban revolutions there was certainly oppression of the former ruling classes (from executions, exiles, to prison, etc.).

Also Zizek has an interesting take on this in the introduction to "Violence" when he discusses the "philosophy steamer"

[TheSkyHMaestro]

Any cases where bourgeois who had supported revolution but still faced oppression?

[Dagoth Ur]

Communists happily accept and hold up our bourgeoisie class-traitor comrades.

[Potemkin]

Any cases where bourgeois who had supported revolution but still faced oppression?

Not sure about any bourgeois cases, but it certainly happened to a few aristocrats after the Bolshevik Revolution; for example, Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov. His 'conditional acceptance' of the Russian throne following Nicholas II's abdication in his favour explicitly accepted the February Revolution as a necessary and just event, but he was later murdered by local Bolsheviks in Perm, as an act of revenge for the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany a few days earlier.

[The Immortal Goon]

Optimally, even an empress would be rehabilitated and brought into the fold of things.

The trouble with royalty, however, exists for communists in the same way it does for republicans. It's a system set up to continue to perpetuate long after you take the head off.

So, in the case of Russia, the Czar and his family was kept alive but arrested. It is my belief that the Bolsheviks would have liked to have had the Russian Emperor and his family brought back down to everyone else's level. This would have been a huge propaganda success to see the emperor living alongside everyone; it would also have been able to keep the Whites from having a martyr; it would have been able to demonstrate Lenin's commitment to ending capital punishment; and it would have done a much better job of demonstrating early soviet equality.

The problem came that the Czech Legion and other White armies were marching upon Yekaterinburg. The royal family had to be executed so as not to give legitimacy to the Whites on an international level. It was a cold, hard, practical move. This is demonstrated by the way the Bolsheviks tried to get rid of the bodies in order to stop a kind of shrine or rallying point from which the Whites could pivot. Incidentally, the Whites were very keen on doing so and set up immediately to try and exploit this. One of the ways they did it was to blame the Jews (whom they accused of orchestrating the Bolsheviks). Online you'll see they were oddly successful at this garbage.

But the Bolsheviks would have probably had Nicholas go the way of Puyi—the Last Emperor of China—who became supportive of the communists and happy to have a humble job as a gardner. What better outcome for everyone involved?

[TheSkyHMaestro]

The admittedly tearjerker of a story I'm writing consists of said empress being *incredibly* pro-poor and anti-monarchy, to the point of actually promoting revolution and giving her entire wealth to the poor (sort of as a twist on the typical dystopian story). Another twist being, this is a future/dystopian story, and the there are a few amongst the poor are so incredibly vengeful as to view the rich as 'inferior subhumans' (these being the leaders of revolution)- even the good ones such as my schizo protagonist, so I supposed I needed some sort of historical precedent to draw from. I don't think I'm quite going to find a case outside of anti-Jew fiction where the rich are seen as subhuman (even if by a small few of the larger movement), but anything works.

Optimally, even an empress would be rehabilitated and brought into the fold of things.

The trouble with royalty, however, exists for communists in the same way it does for republicans. It's a system set up to continue to perpetuate long after you take the head off.

So, in the case of Russia, the Czar and his family was kept alive but arrested. It is my belief that the Bolsheviks would have liked to have had the Russian Emperor and his family brought back down to everyone else's level. This would have been a huge propaganda success to see the emperor living alongside everyone; it would also have been able to keep the Whites from having a martyr; it would have been able to demonstrate Lenin's commitment to ending capital punishment; and it would have done a much better job of demonstrating early soviet equality.

The problem came that the Czech Legion and other White armies were marching upon Yekaterinburg. The royal family had to be executed so as not to give legitimacy to the Whites on an international level. It was a cold, hard, practical move. This is demonstrated by the way the Bolsheviks tried to get rid of the bodies in order to stop a kind of shrine or rallying point from which the Whites could pivot. Incidentally, the Whites were very keen on doing so and set up immediately to try and exploit this. One of the ways they did it was to blame the Jews (whom they accused of orchestrating the Bolsheviks). Online you'll see they were oddly successful at this garbage.

But the Bolsheviks would have probably had Nicholas go the way of Puyi—the Last Emperor of China—who became supportive of the communists and happy to have a humble job as a gardner. What better outcome for everyone involved?

On that topic... I have run into that. Looking up 'Chekist' and whatnot, I see that many people- some even remarking themselves as Nazis shamelessly and without trolling- firmly believe that the Russian Revolution is a Jewish phenomenon. Then there's conspiracy theorist boards...
I always found it funny. They claim that this was a conspiracy and that their job is to 'enlighten the world', and yet they are the ones being misinformed and lied to. It makes you wonder how many of these 'Anti-NWO', anti-Illuminati nutjobs have stable sanities to question more than one thing. But perhaps it's just human nature to want to ally with one thing and one thing only.

I might as well say this as a post-note: being a postcapitalist, I consider "bourgeoisie" to mean ANY one of the upper middle and upper classes, not just capitalists.

[Turning Point]

...firmly believe that the Russian Revolution is a Jewish phenomenon

It is true that Trotsky was a Jew and there was a considerable number of Jews serving in the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), but that in no way made the Bolshevik Party a Jewish conspiracy.

The Jewish Bolshevik conspiracy theory was present historically amongst Nazis, the Third Reich having suppressed trade unions and the German Communist Party after the 1932 elections (which were financed to a considerable degree by German businesses, non-Jewish of course).

If there is a conspiracy to be found it is in the rise of the Nazis to power in 1932. The Nazi regime established good relations with industrialists as well as businesses large and small, having been popular seen as representing a form of 'shopkeepers' socialism' during it's inception in 1919, with a racist tinge. (the Nazi Party's original manifesto specifically called for a stripping of Jews' citizenship rights, that and the formation of a Greater Germany, territory, colonies, and all).

Even Strasser who represented the left-wing of the Nazi Party was highly racist, anti-communist, and nationalistic. All characteristics alien to traditional Marxism which historically stressed internationalism and frequently (in the case of the early CPUSA and SACP) African-Americans and/or native South Africans were allowed into the two parties' ranks.

In effect the Nazi Party was primarily a middle-class movement and was thus posed starkly against the socialist revolutions which rocked Germany from 1918-19, numerous Nazis having come from the Free Corps (the right-wing militias which sprang up across Germany and which unleashed a reign of terror upon forcibly dismantling the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic based in Munich).

So no, the Russian Revolution of October (November) 1917 was far from having been a Jewish conspiracy. Very far from it.

[Dagoth Ur]

The fuck is postcapitalism?

[TheSkyHMaestro]

The fuck is postcapitalism?

Something either very good or very, very, very, very bad.

The basics- capitalism is based entirely on progress, technologically, and that means that- at some point in its future- it will lead to a Technological Singularity. This is the point where capital- machines- match the intelligence and dexterity of humans. Once this is achieved, you also meet the Capital Singularity, where it becomes more profitable to use a machine proletariat rather than a human proletariat for at least 60% of the economic output (we're absolutely no where near that level right now because machines aren't smart and machines can't replicate human touch).
When this happens, robots have to replace human workers, according to capitalism. If you're a true capitalist, you agree with a profit incentive, and going with the less profitable humans is not profitable. If you stay with humans or return to them, you risk stagnating capitalistic economies, especially in liberal societies, which could then cause massive depression.
If it hasn't already occurred. With the proletariat now rendered the ex-proletariat, the class divide widens dramatically- in some theories. The consumer base collapses completely. There is no supply and demand because the demand can't afford the supply. The producers are superhuman and work for the rich, who are now solely the consumers. Now the rich get a moneyless society, for all their goods and services are met by the machine proletariat. The poor? To hell with the poor. In fact, in this era, the rich can finally get rid of us because we're officially useless. We could be the bitches of transhumanism, our minds and memories wiped and forced to follow a 1984-esque dystopia, never knowing or being allowed to know anything different while the uber-rich become physical gods.

OR- and this is big OR- the rich could (or we could force them to) offer massive welfare to prevent a horrific purge of the poor. No one group of people would get all the benefits. To be fair, we'd need equal welfare, and with the potentially infinitely more efficient machine proletariat working for us (and artilects thinking for us, alongside transhumanism bettering us), humanity could then move on to a better, higher, successfully communistic state of existence.
The biggest selling point being that money will become entirely based upon digital value- meaning physical value behind objects becomes meaningless. This gold bar I wish I was holding? It's worth nothing. What it's worth digitally- what I can change it to, for example, with sufficiently advanced nano- and femto-technology- is what makes it worth something. This leads to something I've dubbed "transcommunism," where all value is held by digital goods, and everyone has equal access to digital goods. The earliest stages of this? The Internet.
So if we go down the socialist timeline, we workers would never have to work in the first place. I envision liquid metal machines being the big thing in the future- far better than our pathetic capitalist 'pivot and hinges, blocks of steel' robots of 1950s lore- and do you honestly think your feeble hands are better than atomically accurate intelligent atoms? Add in some transhumanism, and voila. Which is why we could definitely be doin' some evolvin' in the next few centuries.

The paradox of Postcapitalism some capitalists have asked, "Well how do we stop this and keep free markets free, liberty, individualism and incentive?"
Good-ass question with a great-ass answer.
You don't.
No matter what happens, capitalism will either become communism, or fall to communism. The point where it becomes possible to circumvent postcapitalism as to prevent it, you'd have created either communism or fascism. AKA- you want to keep your free markets from now until the year 5,000? Become a Luddite and go Amish. Otherwise, welcome to our ultra-high tech communist society or a totally plutocratic/mechanocratic society. No way out. Capitalism has essentially defeated itself by its very nature being what leads to communism. One way or another.


In laymen's terms, robots take our jobs and either the rich kill us all and hoard the greatness for themselves, or we become a futuro-communist super civilization. And thanks to capitalism's nature, this is the only thing that can happen, barring global revolution in the next 20 years. Or total annihilation of the human race. And from there, we could get transcommunism, but that's another story.

Sounds like sci-fi, but it has actually already in its infant stages, what with increasing robot dexterity, already very early stages of artificial intelligence, and the Internet itself. Common sense dictates that capitalism leads to this, and- unless you figure artificial intelligence possible, or you've been successfully brainwashed by propaganda-empire Hollywood to hate and fear artificial intelligence- it's the only thing we can do unless a massive retroactive revolution rips across the planet.
Otherwise, this will begin... according to estimates... by around 2040, 2050... Give or take a few decades, but definitely within this century. Unless the stated above happens, or our corporate kings keep us proles back long enough with their ineptitude. Oop... I probably shouldn't have said that on the Internet. I already feel a government monitor's web bot tracking my information!
The point of postcapitalism is, what happens when robots take all our jobs? It's currently impossible because I don't think customers are going to be happy if you replaced your McDonalds cashiers and cooks with some $2 pocket calculators. And even if they were smart, do you really want some metal rods and screws touchin' your burger, making it with robotic soullessness? Sure, everything I said is already pretty much true with teenagers, but the point is, we can and we will improve from this. One day, your robot expy can and will outdo everything you can do.
Revolution in the 21st Century, my friend...

Communists happily accept and hold up our bourgeoisie class-traitor comrades.

I'm assuming you mean, "in the case of successful revolution, communists will both persecute subversive bourgeois and integrate submissive or pro-revolutionary bourgeois."
I already know, roughly, that some will escape persecution on a variety of reasons. But what if they don't, and what would happen to them, is what I ask.

[KurtFF8]

I'm assuming you mean, "in the case of successful revolution, communists will both persecute subversive bourgeois and integrate submissive or pro-revolutionary bourgeois."
I already know, roughly, that some will escape persecution on a variety of reasons. But what if they don't, and what would happen to them, is what I ask.

Again why must we speak in questions when we can look to history. Just look at what happened to those bourgeois elements in Cuba who escaped to Miami and have set up a reactionary counter force to the revolution to attempt to overthrow it. This pretty much validates Lenin's notion of a workers' state being there to protect the revolution from counter-revolution.

[Turning Point]

The Russian, Chinese, Cuban, etc. revolutions all showcased active attempts to both defend revolution and to destroy it.

Sometime after the October Insurrection of 1917 and the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, an 'all-Russian emergency commission for combating counterrevolution and sabotage,' or Cheka, was set up. One for Petrograd (the PCheka), and another (national) Cheka based in Moscow (VCheka)

In the days, weeks, and months after the formation of a new Soviet government there were active attempts to hinder the revolution from spreading. Militarily, Kerensky was rallying forces loyal to the deposed Provisional Government around him following his escape from the capital.

Domestically a British agent by the name of Captain Francis Cromie was actively plotting against the Soviet government from his base of operations in the British Embassy, which would eventually be raided by the PCheka. He was aiming for either a military dictatorship or a restored monarchy.

counterrevolution in Russia by 1918 was a very real, vivid threat. A Cholera outbreak had devastated the city, while fuel shortages only exasperated the already tenuous situation. It is worth noting that the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly coincided with a withdrawal of Bolshevik and Left SR delegates from the congress meeting hall, Lenin among them who was disgusted by what followed upon the convening of the Constituent Assembly.

From The Bolsheviks In Power:

...However, these reforms challenged Soviet power head-on. Explicitly rejecting the assumptions and policies embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Toiling Exploited People, they appealed directly to Russian workers to reject the Soviet dictatorship and, instead, to defend to the death the unrestricted power and authority of the Constituent Assembly...

The Bolsheviks and the Left SR Parties were opposed to the Constituent Assembly as it represented, IMHO, reformist bourgeois (center-left) rule. Prior to the convening of the Constituent Assembly and, during the lead up to the Red Guard assault on Moscow, the Mensheviks and Right SR Parties were actively campaigning for the overthrow of the new Soviet government militarily, having rallied around the banner of the deposed Provisional Government. Lenin and Trotsky were to be barred from the new government; they only backed off once Moscow fell to the Reds and after the march on Petrograd failed to gain momentum and in fact was routed by the Red Guard south of Petrograd.

IMHO the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly was a crude yet entirely necessary act insofar as the defense of the revolution (i.e. soviet power) was concerned.

China was more clear cut. For the most part it was a war between two main parties, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (smaller parties did exist, but were insignificant in comparison to the two big parties in 1940's China)

Certain repressive measures had been taken in the past (such as in the '30's in areas of China under communist party control, wherein a purge occurred amidst the threat of the encirclement and ultimate destruction of the Red base areas).

In the 1940's in Long Bow village (the village featured in Fanshen) the local Catholic community was partially suppressed, the members and leaders of the local Catholic church having been under suspicion. This coincided with a concerted effort to root out wartime collaborationist elements in the village following the end of the war waged against Japan in 1945. By 1948 land reform had become the order of the day, that and taking steps to secure the revolution's very presence in the village of Long Bow. landlords and their 'running dogs' (primarily rich peasants) were 'beaten down,' the revolution having assaulted the wealthy and privileged section of the village as part of carrying out the Draft Agrarian Law.

The experiences of Russia and China illustrate IMHO the very real (historical) danger of counterrevolution, even after a revolution has supposedly triumphed. Repression will no doubt be utilized by the revolutionaries with participation from the broad masses, who have just as much to lose from the defeat of the revolution as does the revolutionary leadership.

[Sithsaber]

families do get blacklisted according to most historical revolutions, but than again the same thing was hapening in Ireland towards Ally volunteers and in America during the same period so maybe that was and is a constant of perpetuating a us vs them "look at the bastards" routine. Boogiemen are hard to stop thinking about when the nightmare is already is in your head.

[TheSkyHMaestro]

But long story short, should someone from a 'targeted class' actually aid with the revolution, then they were usually exempt I assume.