Much as I love a good dunk on the tankies, I find Marxism a bit lackluster in this day and age.
Marx was an important thinker for his time, and made important insights on the nature of capitalist economies, but he also lived over 100 years ago. Practically the entire field of economics developed after this point, not to mention a lot of relevant history and struggle related to his ideas.
So go ahead, read Marx, read Lenin, read whoever. But place them in the proper historical context. We’ve learned much about the world since these people lived, and the world has changed as well. They weren’t prophets whose sacred words we must follow, just a few voices among many. Take what is true and useful and discard what has been disproven.
Alot of the criticism of Stalin was basically already laid out by Bakunin before Lenin so maybe the second face for both
“fascism is when classless society without exploitation of surplus value, when no mythical past of greatness of the nation, when no ethnonationalism, when women’s rights and when equal political representation among different ethnicities, when promoting internationalist solidarity, and when greatest union membership in the history of humanity”
How about instead of, as a self-proclaimed leftist, you stop wasting time making sectionalist memes and you focus on actually productive discussion?
“fascism is when classless society without exploitation of surplus value, when no mythical past of greatness of the nation, when no ethnonationalism, when women’s rights and when equal political representation among different ethnicities, when promoting internationalist solidarity, and when greatest union membership in the history of humanity”
Rich. If anyone is wondering, this is what MLs genuinely believe about the Soviet Union and China.
How about instead of, as a self-proclaimed leftist, you stop wasting time making sectionalist memes and you focus on actually productive discussion?
Like explaining basic concepts of Marxism to MLs? No thank you.
this is what MLs genuinely believe about the Soviet Union
Please explain how there were exploitation of surplus value, a mythical past of greatness, ethnonationalism in the USSR, and how womens rights weren’t categorically forwarded to world-pioneer levels, tell us the percentages of representation in the party of different ethnicities, tell us how the USSR’s ideas weren’t based on internationalist solidarity, and tell me one country with more union members than the former USSR.
I know you’re not going to answer to any of these questions seriously and you’re gonna dismiss it with “lol u are fash”, just pointing out you haven’t done and won’t do any research on the topic because you’ve been brainwashed by leftist anti-communism.
Please explain how there were exploitation of surplus value,
Insane that you think the workers weren’t exploited for the surplus value they created in the USSR. I guess the holsum state apparatus just took what value the workers produced and then very conveniently gave them the amount it was worth in incredibly shitty housing, bread lines, and police repression.
a mythical past of greatness, ethnonationalism in the USSR,
Denying ethnonationalism and an obsession with a great and mythical past in the USSR. Rich.
Great Patriotic War was never mythologized, no cult of personality with Lenin or Stalin, no mass deportations and genocides of ethnicities inconvenient to the Russian majority -
Oh. Wait. That’s right.
and how womens rights weren’t categorically forwarded to world-pioneer levels, tell us the percentages of representation in the party of different ethnicities,
Women’s rights were world pioneer levels in the USSR. Hah. Maybe in the 20s.
tell us how the USSR’s ideas weren’t based on internationalist solidarity,
Internationalist solidarity is when you run a colonial empire, and the more colonial it is, the more solidarity you express.
and tell me one country with more union members than the former USSR.
What good is a union that doesn’t even have the right (or ability) to strike? But sure, tell me more about how striking workers getting gunned down is actually union power.
I know you’re not going to answer to any of these questions seriously and you’re gonna dismiss it with “lol u are fash”, just pointing out you haven’t done and won’t do any research on the topic because you’ve been brainwashed by leftist anti-communism.
Oh no.
Not leftist anti-Stalinism.
Insane that you think the workers weren’t exploited for the surplus value they created in the USSR. I guess the holsum state apparatus just took what value the workers produced
You trying to justify that a society can exist without any degree of bureaucracy, and somehow the existence of administrative personnel earning normal wages totally means that there’s an oppressive class and an exploited one.
and then very conveniently gave them the amount it was worth in incredibly shitty housing, bread lines
Hahaha oh god no, “communism is when bread line and your house is ugly”. We’re at peak lib levels here. Bread lines were nonexistent in the USSR after WW2 until Perestroika, but sure buddy, you’ve done your research.
no mass deportations and genocides of ethnicities inconvenient to the Russian majority
you run a colonial empire
You’re a fucking joke. You can possibly make the argument of forced deportations of Crimean Tatars, but that’s literally the only case of anything remotely like an attack to a given ethnicity that you can conjure. Saying that there was anything remotely resembling genocide in the USSR is ahistorical anti-communist bullshit. Again proving you haven’t read a fucking history book not written by libs. Oh, the russian majority, adoring a Georgian as a statesman and leaving as his successor a Ukrainian! There hasn’t been a single state on earth less oppressive towards local ethnicities than the USSR. Education being offered by law in the regional language of the republics, written publications in the local language exceeding that of Russian in most republics, celebration of local customs and traditions (go to Uzbekistan and tell me how Russified they are), equal access to education, healthcare, similar salaries between republics and ethnicities, vast investment in industrial development of all regions… You have no fucking idea what colonialism is.
Women’s rights were world pioneer levels in the USSR. Hah. Maybe in the 20s
By the 70s, there were more engineer women in the USSR than in the rest of the world together. You can’t at that period find comparable numbers of women in justice, in higher positions at education, as doctors, or as any highly regarded position in society in literally any other country of the world, not even those that had been industrialised for 150 years longer than the USSR. Widely available canteens and restaurants so the burden of cooking won’t fall on women. Widely available kindergartens so that the burden of upbringing children won’t fall on women. Again with the fucking ahistorical bullshit. Claiming that the USSR was the most feminist nation of its time is simply a historical fact if you look at any fucking statistic on the topic, which you clearly haven’t done.
What good is a union that doesn’t even have the right (or ability) to strike?
Controlling important aspects of production. Enforcing workplace safety regulation. Organizing educational activities for workers by workers, and training for higher positions. Providing access to doctors and medical revisions. Providing access to affordable housing. Choosing representatives to make their demands. Electing higher positions within the workplace. Providing announcement boards and periodical publications with complaints and remarks of workers for everyone in the workplace to read. Again, proving you haven’t read a fucking book. I’ll flip the question: if unions were useless, why was the USSR factually the country with the highest number of unionized workers? Did Stalin personally go to everyone’s house and put a gun to their head to join the union or what?
Not leftist anti-Stalinism
Nuanced anti-Stalinism is actually good, I’m not Stalinist by any means. The great terror was absolutely horrendous, unnecessary, and accomplished nothing. But the extent of the analysis of Stalinism being “this happened because Stalin bad” isn’t Marxist, it’s lazy and peak lib.
70% cherry picking here. Uzbekistan is the way it is because of its remoteness and lack of exploitable natural resources not because of some state level benevolence. Look at what the Soviets did to Kazakhstan (RIP Aral Sea)…no matter how you spin it there is a huge chasm between the ideals of the USSR and the way its leaders exercised their power and authority.
You trying to justify that a society can exist without any degree of bureaucracy, and somehow the existence of administrative personnel earning normal wages totally means that there’s an oppressive class and an exploited one.
lol
Figured you wouldn’t even try to respond to the arguments seriously. That might involve critical thought, which is dangerous to the party line, right?
Saying that there was anything remotely resembling genocide in the USSR is ahistorical anti-communist bullshit.
“When you murder tens-to-hundreds of thousands of a given ethnicity, and deport an even larger number (a practice known as ethnic cleansing and generally considered a key piece of genocide) when attempting to reshape ethnic borders to your liking, it’s nothing even remotely resembling genocide.”
Least genocidal tankie.
Thank you for not responding to all parts of my comment when I bring actual fucking data that you can’t contest because you haven’t read a book.
“When you murder tens-to-hundreds of thousands of a given ethnicity, and deport an even larger number (a practice known as ethnic cleansing and generally considered a key piece of genocide) when attempting to reshape ethnic borders to your liking, it’s nothing even remotely resembling genocide.”
When you don’t discriminate or target by ethnicity because of paranoia during the unjustifiable Big Terror, when there’s no previous incidents against a given ethnicity and no later attempts to hurt a given ethnicity, then no, you can’t call it genocide, I’m sorry. You can condemn the big terror for what it was, but you can’t call it genocidal because there was no continuous attempt against any given nationality.
When you don’t discriminate or target by ethnicity
Jesus Christ. And you accuse me of not reading. Come back after you’ve read a bit about Stalinist era massacres instead of tankie hagiography glossing over the details of the NKVD hunting down people with Polish surnames to execute.
Wait. I’m ignorant about this stuff. Can someone explain please?
OP’s entire ideology is summed up by “Stalin bad”. Which fair enough, criticism of Stalinism is always welcome, but he’s a leftist anti-communist dedicating more time to spread negative sectionalist propaganda than to actually push for leftism.
Wow, he’s just like ML then. Well minus the hypocrisy.
Orthodox Marxism believes that societies develop through different modes of production, each one building the foundations for the next - feudalism builds the foundation for capitalism, which overthrows it; capitalism builds the foundation for socialism, which overthrows capitalism in turn.
Marxist-Leninists believe that you can skip the whole pesky “capitalist accumulation” bit if you just believe really hard with a small group of dedicated ideologues (the vanguard party), and that if you give all power to this vanguard, it will DEFINITELY turn into a worker’s state. Somehow. Someday. Seemingly, though, every time MLs have tried this, it’s devolved into a fascist state or a capitalist oligarchy.
Very curious. I’m sure this isn’t some flaw in their brilliant planning. Maybe they didn’t believe hard enough.
And the beauty of such an excellent summary is that it’s all historically based. So many things look good on paper but never factor human nature—which coincidentally loves ignoring history and repeating it’s mistakes.
You can’t have a hierarchical society without the problems with hierarchy
I knew I didn’t like Leninism, but it was moreso because I hate totalitarian regimes. TIL about the vanguard and it’s purpose, thanks for that.
No problem!
The worst part is I really do understand the temptation of that kind of thinking - “If only I was in charge, if only the people who were on my side were in charge, we know exactly what’s wrong and we know what to do to fix it!” - but societies operate according to the way their interests are structured, and no amount of ideological fervor can change that.
Vanguard parties pretty inevitably turn against worker’s democracy, because people are fickle and will not keep them in total power indefinitely (and gods know leftists love infighting), but in doing so, they set up their own interests in opposition to the interests of the workers. At that point, it’s just a matter of time, the clock ticking until despotic clientism of a very feudal sort reasserts itself.
I mean, it’s kind of like the concept of the benevolent dictator.
…benevolent to whom?
I mean, it’s kind of like the concept of the benevolent dictator.
…benevolent to whom?
My favorite example of the flaw in this thinking is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
An incredibly brilliant, driven, and ruthless man. Wildly popular, unmatched power, friendless workaholic, insane charisma, genuine ideological dedication, incredibly well-read, deeply involved with coordinating with experts on every facet of society, cult of personality, the works. And though he could do great things for Turkiye, he still could not fundamentally change its power structures without undermining his own power - but if he undermined his own power, he could not guarantee that the power structures would change to his liking.
It’s a fundamental flaw in the accumulation of power in a single institution (such as a strongman/dictator/vanguard party/etc). Accumulating power causes society to form around the actual locus of power, regardless of how that power tries to redirect society.
Is there any good ideas on a plausible way to manage power? The fundamental laws governing power, politics, wealth etc seem to always lead to negative outcomes.
Like state socialism led to the same complete concentration of economic power in the hands of the few as late stage capitalism is doing now. But I’ve never heard of any plan to address this.
One idea would be to randomly select representatives, bypassing filters that select for those who are best at accumulating power at the expense of anything else. Randocracy?
Or are we just out of good ideas?
Is there any good ideas on a plausible way to manage power? The fundamental laws governing power, politics, wealth etc seem to always lead to negative outcomes.
Like state socialism led to the same complete concentration of economic power in the hands of the few as late stage capitalism is doing now. But I’ve never heard of any plan to address this.
Generally, the suggestion is either “Separation of powers” (ensuring that each power-hungry institution has a self-interest in keeping the other power hungry groups from getting too powerful) or decentralization of power (a la anarchists). Both have strengths and weaknesses. State socialism in most polities has only been attempted with very… authoritarian regimes with no real interest in separation of powers (and certainly not in decentralization), so there’s some ambiguity as to whether it would work out better in a legitimately democratic polity.
One idea would be to randomly select representatives, bypassing filters that select for those who are best at accumulating power at the expense of anything else. Randocracy?
Sortition, that’s called. The ancient Athenians used it for some offices.
The strength to overcome capitalism has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? Lenin says that for the workers to achieve this strength, the organization of the working class is necessary, because it is the only weapon we have in front of the entire state apparatus that the bourgeoisie holds and the only way to organize this force is through a vanguard party
The strength to overcome capitalism has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? Lenin says that for the workers to achieve this strength, the organization of the working class is necessary,
So far, so good.
because it is the only weapon we have in front of the entire state apparatus that the bourgeoisie holds and the only way to organize this force is through a vanguard party
See, this is where it runs into problems. The whole idea of the vanguard party ignores that this vanguard, if successful, is placed into exactly the same position as prior (usually feudal) elites, and that material conditions thus suggest that a similar relationship of the vanguard with society will come about - which is what has happened every time thus far.
I’m more partial to syndicalist notions, personally.
We may not agree on the method of how our class (I assume you are not a bourgeois) should organize but if you defend the idea that the workers should overcome capitalism and take the reins of power, we are friends
Awesome. Unironically. It would be nice to see a real labor revival and the destruction of capitalism within my lifetime. I won’t hold my breath for doing anything on a timetable that short - gods know the course of history is fickle - but hope for that eventual future is what keeps us going.
