Are opponents of "capitalism" capable of answering this question?

[Boojatta]

If you could go back in time and change Stalin's policies to make them the best possible policies given the circumstances of the USSR when Stalin first had political power, on what basis would people have been classified as "kulaks" and what would Stalin's kulak policy have been?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. 1) take stalin out and shoot him.

2) take the rest of the bolshevics out and shoot them.

3) on reflection, don't shoot any of them, just lock them all up until they died of old age.

Stalin's 'kulak policy' (and like 6 DUers even have a clue what you are talking about) had little or nothing at all to do with capitalism.

I am not sure anything could have been done after the revolution to successfully create a free democratic socialist society, but we (the people of this planet) never really had much of a chance, squeezed between the forces of the counter-revolution and the hideous dictatorship of the totalitarian left.

[salin]

2. let me drop my hat to show my ignorance and ask... what is a kulak?

Clearly I am *not* one of the 6 or so Duers who know what this is.

[stklurker]

Kulak's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak

Wikipedia is good for this kind of stuff.

[Sydnie]

390. Welcome to DU stklurker

and thanks for the link. :hi:

[Boojatta]

5. Russia had one revolution in 1905 and two more in 1917.

Stalin's 'kulak policy' (...) had little or nothing at all to do with capitalism.

Yes, but people who were classified as kulaks were considered to be class enemies associated with capitalism. I suspect that some kulaks were "capitalists", depending on what that word means.

[Warren Stupidity]

54. Well Stalin used words the way he used people.

Kulaks originally meant relatively well off peasants. And they were most certainly not capitalists. Class enemies came to mean shit like "you need to go die in the gulag because your father was a priest". It was total idiocy. There is hardly a way to overstate the vile idiocy of the stalinist system.

[rug]

63. Keep trying, I'm sure you'll find your way there eventually.

[manic expression]

27. Why the Bolsheviks?

they most assuredly helped the people of the USSR. The Bolsheviks were extremely positive and made much improvement.

Don't buy the bourgeois hype over the Russian Revolution.

[Warren Stupidity]

52. They were a bunch of elitist authoritarian misguided idiots.

"Don't buy the bourgeois hype over the Russian Revolution." Oh my. The revolution suffered a slow death from the many assaults on it by Lenin's gang of thugs. The terror didn't start with Stalin (and do you think the sorry history of his regime is bourgeois hype too?) it commenced with the bolsheviks abolishing the democratic institutions that the people had created and got steadily worse as they commenced concentrating all power in the hands of their authoritarian party and simultaneously set out to crush any and all independent activites.

There are plenty of good non marxist-leninist histories of what went wrong and why from 1917 on.

Here are two from an anarchist perspective:

Voline: The Unknown Revolution
http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Volin/dp/0919618251

Goldman: MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/further/further_toc.html

[manic expression]

57. Spare me your warped impressions

Lenin led the revolution to great heights, the Bolsheviks defeated the reactionary White Army, improved almost every aspect of the society and more.

Authoritarian? They put power in the hands of the Soviets, and they were not afraid of leading the people to equity and justice. While the bourgeoisie and their supporters were whining about "rights", the Bolsheviks were busy making the world a better place.

There was a terror against counterrevolutionaries, and it was necessary. The reactionaries were trying to bring down the rule of the people, and the Bolsheviks had no reason to tolerate the intolerable.

A lot of the perception of Stalin's rule is bourgeois hype. Read the posts through this thread, the Kulak problem NEEDED to be solved FAST. They were a menace to the people. The same goes for counterrevolutionaries who were rightfully suppressed by the Bolsheviks.

I am well aware of Goldman's criticisms, so that's nothing new.

Why not read up some accounts of what was really going on?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1918/state.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/aspects.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1921/01/russianow.htm

[Warren Stupidity]

58. Good grief.

"Authoritarian? They put power in the hands of the Soviets"

If you cannot even admit that this was an authoritarian regime from the start, that every move they made concentrated power not in some charade of democracy, but in the central committee of the party, then you are hopelessly deluded.

[manic expression]

62. Get a clue

Read the accounts of the Soviets that I posted. John Reed specifies the major, even central role they played in society. Did the party further its aims? Of course, and they were justified in doing so. Was the party centralized? Of course, Leninism is all about that, and it should be.

Go ahead and read what was actually happening. The Soviets had a central role, the party had an undeniable role as well. That contributed to the achievements of the revolution, and if you think the petty and deluded objections of capitalists matters, you are sadly mistaken.

[Warren Stupidity]

66. John Reed was an idiot guided around by his puppet masters

looking at the prototypical potemkin villages.

[manic expression]

75. I see you've resorted to quasi-slander

not surprising.

[tritsofme]

89. Good Lord, I haven't seen this dribble espoused by a serious person

in very many decades.

I didn't think folks like you existed any more.

[manic expression]

99. We've been here

there are many of us around and active in the US and elsewhere. We may be denied a voice most of the time, but that doesn't mean we're not here. As an example, World Can't Wait is actually very much connected with the Revolutionary Communist Party. Many anti-war activists of all stripes have participated in events that WCW helped organize.

On edit, I think your own sig quote is applicable as well.

[Name removed]

151. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[manic expression]

154. This site

is not just for people in the Democratic Party. Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and other socialist beliefs are more than progressive.

[Leopolds Ghost]

298. Yes, typical front-group mentality, just like their neocon parents

Subvert, undermine, spread propaganda, convince yourself to hate the human beings on the other side. Why are so many ethnic minorities and immigrants from other countries, especially, attracted to the authoritarian left? It is a terrible tragedy that these people would waste their lives on yet another cult (defined as an authoritarian, "revealed" ideology)... They routinely tell others in the antiwar movement "you liberals and libertarian leftists don't understand the need for command and control... organization... to stop the war and cause global revolution!" When they secretly want MORE war to "heighten the contradictions" (and/or liberate their homelands from whatever group of "counter-revolutionaries" killed their grand-dads.)

Are there really still leftist in the US who are not anti-Soviet? How do these people justify their pretend support for marginal cultures and peoples in the US whom Stalin would happily destroy? Because Paul Robeson told them Stalin said oppressed peoples were O.K? Or are they just secretly Pasadena nanny-state nazis at heart, waiting to impose speech codes and smoking bans in public places?

On Edit: Oh yeah, why do vanguardist hard leftists always so easily recognizible in the anti-war movement as well-dressed, well-fed looking art-school brats? Where do they get their money? Could it have something to do with their unions and organizations having been so thoroughly infiltrated by undercover types who dress the same way and have a lot of money to throw around to distract, disrupt, and suck up oxygen in the anti-war movement? I am having visions of ANSWER here...

[manic expression]

305. Being active and making a difference

means using those tactics. Propaganda, entryism, all those things are tactics which can spread revolutionary potential. That is something we want. As Trotsky said, the ends justify the means as long as there is something to justify the ends.

Those people are RIGHT. What has the anti-war movement done so far? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. There is no discipline, no unity or solidarity, no real direction, no energy and no practical methods. You march around shouting slogans, but what has it done? Ask yourself that, and ask yourself why that is.

Yes, there are leftists who are anti-Soviet, namely anarchists and left-communists (including Luxembourgists).

Marginal cultures? Paul Robeson went to the USSR many times and saw WHAT WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. His writings glow of admiration for the Soviet's treatment of marginal cultures.

And your naked generalizations are about as equally valid as the rest of your argument.

[Leopolds Ghost]

319. Yeah, the treatment of the Chechens was wonderful

I'm a populist, so I'm not sure about this "anti-war movement". There is not a movement I can see, certainly not on the hard left. I lost interest when I found out they are not populists (they are mere ivory tower Marxist culture warriors), they are not interested in stopping the war, and my populist colleagues don't recognize the current "movement" as anything more than an extension of the center-left DCCC, which is why you constantly hear people attacking Cindy Sheehan (no great hero) for "undermining her own movement" which they interpret to be "enlarging our majority just a little more until the predicted utopia comes, whereupon Bush and Clinton's Permanent War will end." Which is not much different from the rabbit hole Lenin and Trotsky went down.

When will leftists learn that any accumulation of power is equivalent to the accumulation of wealth? People desire power, sex, and wealth, generally in that order, and they will kill to get it. Class warfare is not a basis for ending class distinctions, it only reinforces them by making the wealthy a subject of envy. Think: by defending the Soviet system, you are saying that (a) the workers will be better off if everyone has a little, but (b) people who have more than just a little should be hated because -- why? Because of envy and greed on the part of people who are FORCED to have just a little -- they were not given the choice to distribute resources out of regard for the least fortunate, but quite the opposite, out of a materialistic desire to tear down those who have accumulated wealth and art and mansions. Anyone who truly believed property was a fiction would not care if someone else sat on mounds of inedible wealth. Usury and greed are the problem, and communism didn't stop it, in fact it outsourced all its usury to the West, financing the rise of the global capitalist system.

Your references to anarchism are ironic considering that groups you refer to with pride have consistently sought to infiltrate and undermine more-radical anti-authoritarian and direct-democratic groups, "wasting time" doing the business of the undercover stooges and touts who make up half the ranks of the hard left, instead of "doing what must be done" as you claim.

Given that half the ranks of your average hard left organization are either undercover agents or touts exploiting their family income and red diaper baby connections to start "worker owned" graphic design studios, applying the same mercenary tactics to infiltrate other, less authoritarian organizations and use them as patsies only makes sense.

[manic expression]

332. Talk to Paul Robeson

Oh, a "populist", how cute. :eyes:

The "hard left" is active and have real solutions, unlike these neutered people who march around with signs, hoping to make a difference. Leftists take power to give it to the workers. The Soviets were central to society, Cuba sees the workers have control over their communities. The wealthy are a subject of disdain, not envy, the bourgeoisie is suppressed under socialism.

Why should they have the ability to distribute or not distribute resources? You think the wealthy gives a f*ck about the poor? Give me a break. The workers must TAKE what is rightfully theirs and TAKE control of society and their communities. Don't give me that BS about "freedom", because you're only perpetuating abject poverty.

Infiltrating anarchist groups? Which ones? IWW? The IWW allows anyone who wants a boss-less society to join. What groups are you talking about? I suspect you have no idea, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

And again, your slanderous generalizations mean nothing. Insult people who are doing something all you like, but it doesn't change reality. Hey, next time, maybe you can call us unwashed hippies! It would make about as much sense!

[GirlinContempt]

337. I like that class war

causes envy. THat was good.

[JVS]

345. Yeah. Babies cause teen pregnancy too!

[GirlinContempt]

354. Little known fact

Objects falling cause gravity.

[Leopolds Ghost]

367. No, class war is BASED on envy. Populism is opposed to class war and vanguardist class warriors

Whose only agenda is to justify their tres chic bohemian lifestyle for which they would be executed if the class war they so desire, undertaken by real life working class people and not goateed intellectuals, actually happened.

Keep on carrying pictures of chairman Mao, comrade! You should know I grew up in a very (ahem) left-liberal community. I had neighbors who knew Trotsky or his wife PERSONALLY. Trotsky's great-grand-daughter lives in the DC area, you know. Lots of "union Dems" in the DC area who are really Old Leftists that became Dems because that is where the money was, for unions and their employees.

I have had this argument with those leftists in my home town. I am quite prepared to argue with Marx-spouting members of the so-called "New Left" most of whom are not even old left -- they got taken in by swindlers, well-paid touts for boss-friendly unions whose only objective is the accumulation and maintenance of a power base, and government agents whose only interest in the Old Left is that it makes a great cover for spying on groups that are actually a threat.

The remnants of the Old Left has internalized this undercover mindset that was passed down to them from the days in the 1960s, when the RCP and the CPUSA and the WWP consisted of a bunch of spies keeping tabs on each other and keeping people like you busy --

Apologizing for Stalin while everyone else had written off Russia as both a failed experioment and meaningless to the present day West. (get a clue -- we're not living in Russia, Russia was not the breadbasket of leftist ideas, it is and always was a country that loves strongmen and distrusts democractic government of any form, including collective self-government, which is why the Soviets were purged so soon after the Russian revolution. But you are perfectly free to go over there and encourage the people to restore the Communists to power -- some Sovietologists even agree that Yeltsin's gangster capitalists should have never have siezed power from Gorbachev and dissolved the USSR -- guess who made it possible for Yeltsin to come to power? The communist party bosses, your friends, who were too busy stealing everything that wasn't nailed down in response to Gorbachev's half-hearted attempts to open up industries to private, i.e. Western corporate investment, i.e. investment by your parents and relatives and whoever financed your education, who you seem disinclined to start by overthrowing.)

So don't give me this holier-than-thou bullshit about how "cute" it is to see someone taking their "first steps to learning about Marx", who in the reality-based world is just another mid-19th century sociologist.

[GirlinContempt]

372. You do realize

that you're making little to no sense. It's really hilarious. Anyone who can stretch a few words into a McCarthyist diatribe about how I make out with Chairman Mao every night and start randomly quoting things I never said, as well as accusing me of being friends with dead russian communist party bosses deserves some sort of award.

This is fucking hilarious. You may, somewhere, have some brain cells that are devoted to an actual argument or point, but they're entirely lost in this bizarre, gruesome misrepresentation of the ten words posted in response to you.

In the future, do exactly what you're doing. It's hilarious, and makes some of the points on this thread better than the people defending them.

[Leopolds Ghost]

375. I didn't accuse you of being friends with Trotsky.

I said there are people in my home town who knew Trotsky's family
personally and I have no patience for anyone who both defends Stalinism
and claims they have some kind of inside understanding of the successes
and failures of the Soviet Union, fueled by a class they took.

I do not claim to know more about the subject than the people I mention.

Perhaps you would like to talk to Sergey who actually fought in the
battle of Stalingrad.

Like I said, there are a lot of old-school leftists in my home town. Why? It is where all the UNION BOSSES who make shitloads of money, go to buy a house. (some of them don't make shitloads of money, but they all seem to wish they did, because they are materialists who don't seem to understand that they are no longer working class, and many of them got their union jobs purely on the basis of old-leftist patronage politics, and never had a hands-on job in their life.)

Having argued with these old-school leftists, Woody Guthrie and Paul Robeson types who think they are doing the right thing, and seen the failed consequences of their old-fashioned leftism, it is amusing to meet a bunch of hard-core folks who think they are working their way thru the system, to destroy it from within.

When you become disillusioned, you will be just like the baby boomer Old Leftists and ex-leftists who are infesting our society with their whining, "we know better now, I was once a leftist" condescension towards anyone remotely left of center in US politics.

[GirlinContempt]

377. Re-read my ten words to you

and then, re-read your reply to me. And think about it again.

[GirlinContempt]

378. Just in case you missed this

though I don't know how you could, as you typed it, and I'm not sure how trotsky got involved:

"The communist party bosses, your friends, who were too busy stealing everything..."

[Leopolds Ghost]

382. You're the person who's defending the Soviet system and claiming it wasn't even flawed.

How can you apologize for assassinating "kulaks" and have your Martin Luther King sig? It doesn't make sense to me.

It is one thing to say that Marx and Lenin had a bunch of ideas that, in the abstract, make sense, but I am tired of people apologizing for authoritarian leaders with "good ideas". If Bush started pushing for open borders, an idea many leftists support, or space exploration, or marble-tiled halls of the people, that does not constitute a mark in his favor.

You know what, why aren't the old left following their job description and unionizing all undocumented labor in the country? Everyone would benefit from that.

Of course, many of us would argue that only the laborers themselves could make the decision to do such a thing, Lenin would argue that it be imposed on them thru gentle manipulation by educated leftists.

[GirlinContempt]

383. Can you please provide me with some links

to my posts where in I defend the soviet system, say it wasn't flawed, and apologize for assassinations?
Please. Because I am at a total loss. I can honestly not remember saying any of those things, and I don't think anyone in this thread has a username similar enough to mine that you should be confused. So please, cite me.

[manic expression]

385. This is usually what happens when they run out of ideas n/t

[Name removed]

394. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GirlinContempt]

396. "You guys"

That is lazy bullshit. Just because I disagree with you and someone else who defends stalin disagrees with you doesn't mean I love stalin.

You have completely discredited yourself by accusing anyone who disagrees with you as being a tag team of sock puppets, and you're delusional belief that I exist on the internet only to keep you occupied is a little scary.

Get a grip. You're grasping at something to accuse me of because everything you've thrown at me was a blatant lie and so off base you've walled yourself into a corner. That isn't my fault, or the fault of other people who disagree with you. It's your own. Or, don't populists believe in personal responsibility?

Again: Show me where *I* defend stalin. And watch who you're calling a sock puppet.

[Leopolds Ghost]

400. There's no point in continuing the argument.

I am hardly closed-minded about these issues. Like many
Sovietologists who were recently interviewed on C-SPAN,
I tend to agree that the Soviet system could have been
reformed insted of devolving into the gangster capitalist
dictatorship that exists there now.

But given the failure of the Soviet system, I see no reason
to try and figure out what reasons people have for defending
it. My advice is that if you're a leftist in the strict
sense, articulate your own recommendations for what you want
America to look like.

If it looks anything like what Lenin or Stalin did, most
Americans would not buy into your approach -- and what
leaders we have who behaved like Lenin -- Andrew Jackson,
for instance -- tended to be conservative side of the
spectrum, and people didn't like it THEN, either.

[GirlinContempt]

401. Lazy lazy lazy.

And yet, somehow not lazy. It takes more effort to come up with this round-about defense than it does to just provide a link to my love of Stalin, the USSR, my defense of murder, etc. Unless of course those posts don't exist, and it would take more energy to find them, as somehow they would have to be created out of thin air.

You just keep on going off on rants so completely unrelated to anything said, and have fun with it.

[GirlinContempt]

397. Editing after a person has replied is usually in bad form

however, it didn't help you at all, so I'm not too worried.

[manic expression]

384. You're probably thinking of me

I'm defending the USSR far more than girlincontempt is.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

[GirlinContempt]

386. I don't actually think I've defended the USSR once

in this thread. I've engaged in primarily semantic debate, or called out things I think are just wrong or silly, but I've not actually defended the USSR.
Not to say I take this guys side on the issue exactly, but it's funny how I've become a soviet apologist because I'm not incoherently ranting about free-markets and populism.

[manic expression]

388. To the rabid anti-communists here

"semantic debate" and "calling out things" means that you're a disciple of Stalin and Mao. Soon people are going to say you burned down the Reichstag.

[GirlinContempt]

392. Well it's like I said:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=175974&mesg_id=179074

[manic expression]

395. Classic

:rofl:

I bet you're giving Mao a back rub right now!

[GirlinContempt]

398. Hot stone massage

[manic expression]

374. Priceless

Class war is based on the fact that the working classes' interests are directly opposed to that of the capitalist classes (and visa versa). Class war is based on the fact that the bourgeoisie exploit the workers, create enmity and disdain. If it were based on envy, then a classless society WOULD NOT be the ultimate goal (this is pretty simple stuff).

Your other points are pretty pathetic as well. Keep waxing poetic about our movement, the movement that HAS ACTUALLY HAD SUCCESS AND MADE ACCOMPLISHMENTS (what have our opponents done?), but the FACT is that you are spouting pure delusion.

The USSR in the 80's was riddled with problems. However, it is an accepted fact that life was better in the USSR than after its collapse. It is obvious that even the most problematic workers' state is better than capitalism, and so it is obvious that you are completely incorrect.

[Leopolds Ghost]

387. There is no capitalist class. American society is based on naked ambition and greed.

Give an American a fish and he will thank you. Give an American a $20 bill and he will laugh at you all the way to the bank. This is true for rich Americans, poor Americans who wish they were rich, and leftist intellectuals who wish they were working class (so long as it doesn't mean grinding poverty and the absolute lack of control over anyone's life or future that real working class status means in this country.)

In other words, you can't argue that the working class "should" do something when you are isolating them as a class, because that requires you to either lie about who is working class, or pretend that they have bargaining power over anyone -- even their landlord. If they did, in America's lottery mentality, they wouldn't be working class. That's why materialist leftists abandon factory floor jobs as soon as they get the chance to get paid as a union rep. Because they are, well, materialists.

Trying to attain bargaining rights thru violence simply creates a climate of envy towards the rich and their belongings, instead of establishing that wealth is wasteful and unnecessary, it somehow suggests that the wealthy are somehow depriving you of your fair share of their private jet.

Not to mention that there are no factories left in this country, so a class war mentality benefiting the producer class makes ZERO sense, and I don't see you going abroad to fight on behalf of the actual factory workers.

[manic expression]

389. Yes there is

you just need to actually look. The bourgeoisie is defined by their relationship to the means of production. That is the capitalist class.

Yes, if you give money to anyone, they're probably going to take it. You think this is groundbreaking stuff?

The working classes are isolated as a class. They have their own relationship to the means of production, making them a distinct class.

We don't want bargaining rights. We want control over the means of production.

All this just goes to show that you have no grasp of what you're trying to criticize.

[Leopolds Ghost]

391. You want control over China? n/t

[manic expression]

393. I want the workers of China to control China n/t

[JVS]

419. If you only knew how tres chic my lifestyle was. My lifestyle is downright crusty!

[JVS]

422. don't blame the hardliners for yeltsin. Blame scabidarity and it's western henchman and reagan

including western "leftists" who myopically thought that encouraging the destruction of the soviet bloc was wise. thanks for collaborating with capital again!

[smb]

426. Oh, You Have That....

We may be denied a voice most of the time

On the contrary -- people like you always have voices of some invisible friend or other speaking in their heads....

[manic expression]

427. Cute

insipid and meaningless, but cute.

[GirlinContempt]

429. Thank you for that keenly insightful observation.

[Raksha]

296. Yup, real live Old-Left commie rhetoric...

It almost makes me feel young again!

[Odin2005]

118. Excuse me, this place ain't the Marxist-Leninist Underground

The crap Lenin and Trotsky pulled did more to damage the socialist movement then anything else. This socialist says fuck them.

[JVS]

123. If by "damage", you mean actually accomplish something rather than sitting around...

and enjoying the innocence that is inherent in impotence

[manic expression]

124. Excuse me, you don't get to decide who can and can't post here

The "crap" Lenin and Trotsky pulled established socialism and worker control. While the "socialist movement" was sitting on the sidelines, the revolutionaries were making the world a better place. Complaining about the Bolsheviks' successes and achievements doesn't get anyone anywhere.

[Warren Stupidity]

136. "established socialism and worker control"

It did neither. Worker control? You are either a liar or delusional. Socialism? State capitalism under a totalitarian regime complete with slave labor. Some socialism. No thanks.

[manic expression]

139. Yes, it did

there was worker control over the means of production, at least until 1928. State capitalism has no definition, no one knows what it means; it is just a term kicked around by people who have no valid analysis. Slave labor? That's laughable, as are most of your other points.

[patrice]

3. I don't understand;

If I could do that, why would there even be kulaks? On edit: I mean why would I say the bourgeoisie are oppressors? Couldn't I say they are partners and create policies that are so profitable to them that they support that AND allow the peasants more access to capital?

[Boojatta]

7. The kulaks were there already when Stalin acquired political power.

[patrice]

14. Right, but if I could do anything . . .

Why can't I make them so profitable and so dependent upon granting access to capital to those who don't have it - AND - so un-profitable to do otherwise that they choose my way or the highway.

I'm not much of an economist, but I suspect that the Workers were never really given access to real capital, so their system failed.

[mix]

4. stalin

the soviet union's only hope was trotsky : a non-bureaucratic, decentralized revolution

[JVS]

20. Trotsky's decentralized revolution would have been easily destroyed by the Capitalist countries

The best case scenario for Trotsky would be that the country wouldn't collapse for a few years, but without central economic planning the USSR would not have been able to survive the kind of attack they endured in WWII

[mix]

23. not likely

trotsky was a consumate military tactician, HIS red army defeated the anti-revolutionary forces (the whites)

[manic expression]

29. True

and Stalin executed Tukhachevsky, the USSR's most able general.

I must say that Stalin's frantic pace of industrialization was indisposable in defeating the Germans, but his policies laid great and unnecessary burdens upon the workers.

Trotsky would have been a much better leader of the USSR (understatement x100).

[mix]

39. no doubt

in the context of the ideological struggles of the 20th century, soviet industrialization contributed to the nazi defeat, but i wonder if that alone was the cause...few invading armies have had long-term success in occupying russia, napoleon for instance...i think in the end, stalinist industrialization or not, the nazis would have lost

[manic expression]

41. In WWI

the Germans smashed the Russians in a matter of months. Without Stalin's industrialization, the USSR's indispensable tank force would not have been able to defeat the German armour (since they wouldn't have been there), guns would have been even more scarce than they were, the USSR would have been in far more trouble than they found themselves in (Stalin didn't help the effort when he issued insipid orders to his troops).

[JVS]

40. Military tactics were relatively unimportant in WWII

Production was the biggest issue. Without industrialization's economic base, the war would have been lost. I doubt Trotsky could have brought the Soviet economic base up to a par with Germany so quickly. The US was also primarily involved as a producer of material. US forces nearly always avoided fighting German forces without overwhelming numbers because they knew the Germans had better tactics. But this didn't matter when the US could just churn out tanks, guns, ammo, food, planes, and eventually attack with overwhelming force.

[mix]

44. why?

nm

[JVS]

45. read again. I edited to add more info

[JVS]

6. I wouldn't have changed hus Kulak policy

hard problem and hard solution, but it worked

[Boojatta]

8. Could you tell me, sir, what has led you to classify yourself as a progressive?

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. could you tell me, sir, what led you to classify yourself as a capitalist?

Of which capitalistic offshoot do you approve?

US?

Pinochet's?

the current Russian variety?

Chinese?

the deBeers family's?

[HEyHEY]

104. I won't stand for people knocking the de beers family on this site!

Fucking diamonds are forever, jerk!

[JVS]

108. What better way to symbolize a man's eternal serfdom to his wife than...

something dug out of sweltering hole by a half-starved African and immediately expropriated by a Dutch family/ cartel?

Some things just make perfect sense.

edited to add "/cartel"

[HEyHEY]

114. I know, if only people would realize that

I think the real meaning of diamonds are forever referes to the time in hell you get for supporting them,

[redwitch]

260. I just spit out my soup.

You are funny and I was so surprised to find your post in the middle of this tres serious discussion. Thank you for a good laugh.

[Boojatta]

256. Is this a satisfactory answer to your questions?

could you tell me, sir, what led you to classify yourself as a capitalist?

You guessed that I do not classify myself as "an opponent of capitalism" and guessed right. Why do you suggest that I classify myself as a capitalist?

Of which capitalistic offshoot do you approve?

I approve of the idea that, if a government decides to simultaneously dismiss all professors of genetics working at government-controlled educational institutions, then those professors have the legal right to attempt to teach privately to customers willing to pay. For example, some of the professors could work together and establish a private school of genetics.

[JVS]

16. I will not answer your question, as I regard it as a personal attack to claim...

that I need to justify myself in your eyes. Why not just be blunt about your opinion and call me unprogressive?

[Boojatta]

185. There are debates about the meaning of the word "progressive."

Since the time of Aristotle it has been known that arguing about the meaning of words is not helpful. If the word "progressive" lacks a definite, agreed-upon meaning, then it's essentially impossible to know that anyone is unprogressive. I like to think that I have not made a habit of claiming to know what I do not know.

Now, perhaps we can agree that you are not a typical progressive. Surely you would not take offense if a child were to ask, "How did biologists decide that whales should be classified as mammals?" or "Why is a penguin classified as a bird?"

Now, in the same spirit, one could ask how you decided that you should be classified as a progressive.

[mix]

12. class

genocide, not cool

[JVS]

13. They were allowed to join the collectives, but refused and made trouble

They certainly had a better opportunity to cooperate than the rising capitalist class gave the aristocracy when they had the bourgeois revolution in France.

[mix]

17. the kulaks, however,

did not have the armies of ancien regime europe backing them up, as did the french aristocracy

[JVS]

19. Wahhhhh! BFD. The Kulaks' interests and the Proletarians' interests were opposed.

The Soviet government was the instrument of the proletarians. The Kulaks were not cooperating and there is no obligation for for the working class to play nice. The Kulak's lack of powerful allies (which is a questionable claim considering the capitalist encirclement of the USSR) is their own problem. If they were truly in such a vulnerable situation, perhaps they should have read it as a reason to cooperate rather than attempt to maintain their priviledges so stubbornly

[mix]

21. in principle, maybe

their 'interests' were opposed, but the kulaks were agrarian, so it is hard to see how they were a threat to workers

but was stalin really pursuing a 'proletarian' rev, or merely consolidating his power?

[rug]

24. The sickle is the symbol of the farworkers, intertwined with the hammer.

The kulaks had a history, albeit brief, of exploiting nonpropertied farm workers and had the potential of starving urban proletarians. The kulaks were not benign.

[mix]

26. of course

they were not benign in the context of a workers' rev and they did exploit the landless peasantry, but does this justify genocide?

collectivization was a ethical and human catastrophe

[rug]

33. By definition, defanging an economic class is not genocide.

There is nothing wrong with collectization per se. What Stalin did at the particular time is more a critique of absolutism, not communism.

Beyond that there are more imminent ethical and human carastrophes emanating out of Washington and Wall Street.

[JVS]

36. great minds, eh?

:toast:

[rug]

38. Tovaarish!

[mix]

43. except

collectivization, particularly in the '30s, resulted in famine, which in turn led to millions of deaths in the countryside

'defanging' a class is one thing, killing its members is another

sorry, the soviet model of revolution is a dead-end, comrade ; socialism has moved on

[rug]

46. It is the nature of socialism to move on, my menshevik friend.

How long did it take capitalism - a literal dead end - to supplant feudalism?

[mix]

51. menshevik!

why that's practically a slur! : )

there were alternatives to stalinist communism, luxembourg for instance, not to mention trotsky ; she heralded the russian rev, but warned that it's leninist focus would lead to an authoritarian administration of life and thus squelch the the creativity of the working classes in solving there problems, as opposed to the 'party'

re socialism moving on, true it does, look at south american, but if the soviet union had had its way, its model alone would have prevailed ; there was little or no room to deviate

[JVS]

53. I'm sure that Stalin carefully considered her warnings in 1919 when he...

learned of her being killed and dumped into a Berlin canal by Freikorps who were in cooperation with the "Social Democratic" party.

Come on. These guys had bigger things to worry about than being perfectly correct. It was about survival.

[mix]

55. the irony is

that had she survived, in all likelihood, like trotsky, she would have been eliminated by stalin

[JVS]

56. The irony is that people consider who might possibly have eliminated her in the future...

but seem to ignore the people WHO ACTUALLY DID KILL HER and view that murderous Social-democratic compromise with the capitalists as positive.

[mix]

59. yet

social democracy has proved to be far more resilient than stalinism, despite the crisis of the democratic left

arguing for alternatives to soviet communism does not mean that a compromise should have been made with capitalism ; it is doubtful that either trotsky or luxembourg would have compromised

simply put, there were other socialist/communist models out there at the time and given stalin's record, they would probably have been more successful

[JVS]

65. social democracy's resilience is based on a willingness to lower standards for what is "social"...

democracy.

The fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism is not that socialism has better health benefits.

Social Democracy is not social at all, it's just the european version of the New Deal, and has been being rolled back for decades. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, capitalism is less reluctant to put western europeans back in their place.

[mix]

71. look

we do agree that the neo-liberal version of capitalism is destructive and inhumane, i think i can assert that, and we believe that a more just society is only possible via a socialist model

the question is how do we get 'there' ; personally, i feel that it must be done via democratic means, not just liberal democratic means, mind you ; and not from the top down through a totalitarian bureaucracy

i find trotsky and luxembourg and their vision of the future much more appealing than what emerged in the soviet union

moreover, if they had prevailed in someway in either germany or russia, the international left might have been stronger today and a more potent alternative to free market fanaticism

[Warren Stupidity]

74. And that this is not obvious here is appalling.

I am astounded that we have the dead end defenders of totalitarian marxism prattling their justifications for one of the most brutal regimes in human history here on DU. This argument was over decades ago.

[manic expression]

77. Don't be appalled

when people actually know what they're talking about, or when people oppose capitalist exploitation.

The USSR was nothing but positive for the people, that much is obvious.

The argument was over decades ago, socialism is far better.

[Warren Stupidity]

86. "The USSR was nothing but positive for the people, that much is obvious"

Do you happen to know any Russians? I know quite a few, and I have never heard one of them make any even remotely positive statement about the old regime. So I am just wondering which people this wonderful experiment in totalitarin socialism was so positive for?

The best description of this great system was 'we pretended to work, they pretended to pay us'.

[manic expression]

92. Yes

Their families left because they didn't like it (I knew a Latvian family VERY well, and they hated socialism). However, I take into account the fact that they were probably well-off and resented many things that others didn't.

At any rate, many Russians today (you know, in Russia) have somewhat positive views of the USSR, even though the USSR in the 80's had many problems. Life expectancy has sharply fallen, unemployment has skyrocketed, oligarchs control the country, few can afford products and more. That, clearly, is obvious, and those are all negative effects of the fall of the USSR.

A good description of your argument is "I pretend to know what I'm talking about".

[rug]

78. Give it up. You're using authoritarianism arguments to mask your own revulsion with Marxism.

Do you really think capitalism is desirable and eternal?

[mix]

80. no problem with marxism, as a critique

and i greatly admire john reed ; )

the cold war has left a legacy of thinking that there are only 2 viable ideological models, soviet communism or american capitalism

personally, i believe socialism should forever remain creative and open and not grow nostalgic about the stalinist past

[JVS]

81. This argument continues because Social Democracy is constantly wasting away

I haven't seen a Social Democracy that hasn't had some Reagan, Thatcher, Schroeder, Clinton or insert other leader that eventually decides that the idea is too expensive so it is time for major budget cuts. In the US our wealth is increasingly polarized and this is because we still have an economic system in which the rich make the decisions about how much everyone else can have. Because Social Democracy does not change the economic system, it is not an alternative to capitalism, it is merely a collections of scraps tossed to the people. To use a metaphor. Social Democracy and capitalism are the same model of car. Just in Social Democracy you get a nicer set of options, but on the other hand the car-dealer keeps telling you to send in pieces from those options over time because it's just too expensive.

[mix]

87. the crisis

of the post-war, new deal social democratic model is obvious, so why go back?

the challenge is to harness the productive capacity of contemporary capitalism, its innovations and wealth, and channel it towards social justice

given the state of our country, very much a post-industrial society heavily reliant of information technologies, stalinist communism would be a travesty

[Leopolds Ghost]

300. We are not a post-industrial society. We're a society of hypocrites who depend on Chinese factories

Run by "communists" who, unlike social democrats, never sell out "the people" LOL! No wonder the Left in the US isn't upset about losing all our factories to "communist" China, they like the model. Never mind that there's 10x the pollution of the factories we can't tolerate here at home... we won't change our lifestyle so put the factories out of sight in some 3rd World country with cheap labor and sell the goods back to them, just like the British did in the 1700's. "Information age economy" indeed! Yep, Lenovo is the heartbeat of the American, "post capitalist" economy....

[Leopolds Ghost]

299. Social Democracy is nanny-state fascism lite. Stalinism is worse.

Left-libertarian populism, not socialism per se, has been
fighting oppression throughout human history, but especially
from the 1300s onward.

All these schemes you people draw up to codify people's ideas
about justice and equality into enforceable concepts that can be
manipulated and screwed with by persons in power, are really
just corruptions of the old populist ideal. Thomas Jefferson had
it right.

It is in human nature for evil men to have power. Power attracts
evil men. Legislated socialism is a system of power and control
that is set up to coddle the corporatists, not supplant them.

Social democracy is socialism for the rich. Stalinism is wealth
for the socialists -- and a system of control built on envy of wealth
for everyone else -- a dark mirror of American style capitalism.

[JVS]

84. Trotsky and Luxembourg have appealing visions, but they don't have to be held to reality...

because they never really were able to institute them.

[mix]

90. and that's

perhaps the real tragedy of today's left, that T's and L's ideas never saw the light of day and thus did not give us a stronger historical argument for socialism

but they live on in tiny corners of cyberspace, mercifully

[JVS]

94. Well we don't have them. We have what happened and we must build from there

[mix]

96. true

we must build on the past, but that also entails realizing what did not work

[JVS]

98. And giving credit where credit is due, even if you don't like who did it.

or if they did stuff that upset you. The the econmic development of the USSR from 1922-1962 was a great 40 year accomplishment and such economic methods should not be rejected merely because the authorities were tough on those who wouldn't cooperate.

[manic expression]

47. Again, a small disagreement

The famines were a result of both a bad harvest and Kulak sabotage. The Soviets did what they could to help, but it wasn't the fault of collectivization at all.

The Soviet model has succeeded in the USSR and Cuba, and so the comrades of today should remember their example.

Just my opinion, and these are really small issues to be honest.

Hasta la victoria siempre! The internationale unites the human race!

[Odin2005]

122. The famines were intentionally caused by overly high grain quotas

It was about Stalin wanting to punish the Ukrainians.

[manic expression]

126. If they were trying to 'punish the Ukrainians'

then why did they ensure that the cities had enough food? Forgot that little detail, didn't you?

The famine had little to nothing to do with collectivization, it had to do with a bad harvest and the actions of the Kulaks.

[JVS]

48. The kulaks caused that famine by destroying food as a way of showing their power.

They were trying to put the screws to the communists. The soviets called their bluff by coming in deciding that those who destroyed the crops would be those to suffer the famine, and took away the Kulak's private stashes of food. That showed the Kulaks who was ready to play hardball.

[Warren Stupidity]

68. Yeah and they shot themselves too.

Just to make a point. What total bullshit.

[JVS]

69. Awww poor babies. Getting shot after trying to starve the cities

:nopity:

[manic expression]

79. Too true

:applause: :applause: :applause:

[JanMichael]

138. I'll 2nd or 3rd that sentiment.

The soft left is well soft and almost totally clueless as to the conditions in other places and other times. When it comes to Stalin I understand why he gained power but in Lenin's defense he wrote letters beseeching people to be aware of and to reject Stalin.

Oh well. Nothing is perfect and the counter revolution by Yeltsin and Gorbachev don't "prove" the failure of Marxism anymore than Chile (Abject failure), the Depressions, and rise of the "Meritocrituous" Plutocracy, don't prove the failures of Capitalism especially the Friedman variety. Wait those do but you get my drift.

[HEyHEY]

109. My Dad used to do the same thing at dinner

:-(

[JVS]

111. By eating it, or by damaging it in some way, like fire, water, or throwing it in the trash?

[HEyHEY]

113. he put salt on it... claiming it was to be cured and saved

[Donald Ian Rankin]

169. "Defanging" is a nice euphemism for "killing them all".

By many definitions what Stalin did was genocide - it's basically a semantic point.

Either way, it was mass murder on a virtually-unprecedented scale, though.

[JVS]

35. Liquidization of a class IS NOT genocide

The people merely enter into the new classes. Unless they'd rather fight to the death than give up their priviledged position.

[Warren Stupidity]

61. They entered into new classes only through reincarnation.

Oh wait I know, you think that millions did not die at the hands of this regime, either through outright execution or slowly in the gulag, right?

[manic expression]

82. As has been said before

they tried to screw over the peasants and starve the cities. Were you expecting them to get a cookie?

[JVS]

85. Yes. Stalin was supposed to give them a big hug and reassure them...

that the new socialism is just as enamored of the petty-bourgeoisie as capitalists claim to be.

[Boojatta]

175. Re claim that "they" tried to starve the cities

First, it doesn't make much sense to me to suggest that an individual farmer tried to starve a city. Are you suggesting that there were conspiracies to starve cities?

Did farmers sell their food only to people they knew? Did they set up intelligence networks to spy on people they sold food to in order to ensure that those people wouldn't re-sell the food to cities? Did they sell food subject to the condition that it would not be resold and were purchasers afraid that courts in the USSR would severely punish them if they violated such conditions of sale?

[manic expression]

178. The Kulaks were wealthy farmers

they had a control over a large portion of agriculture. Therefore, they had the ability to threaten the wellbeing of cities and other peasants if they acted in a roughly uniform manner.

The Kulaks started burning grain and hoarding it for themselves when they didn't like the policies that the people decided upon. The system of the Soviets wasn't based upon selling food, although many farmers were allowed to do so to a certain extent. The problem came when the people decided to distribute food, and the Kulaks didn't like it, so it wasn't about selling it per say, it was about rich farmers not wanting to let go of their privileges.

[Boojatta]

195. One doesn't become a wealthy farmer by burning grain.

The Kulaks (...) didn't like the policies that the people decided upon.

Which people decided upon the policies?

The system of the Soviets wasn't based upon selling food, although many farmers were allowed to do so to a certain extent.

To what extent?

The Kulaks were wealthy farmers (...)

The Kulaks started burning grain and hoarding it for themselves (...)

Are you saying that every individual who burned or hoarded grain was on that basis labeled as a "kulak" and that by definition a "kulak" was someone who performed one or both of those actions?

In times of shortage, people typically try to ensure that they have a safety margin. How do we decide whether, on the one hand, a given safety margin is justifiable or, on the other hand, it is an example of hoarding?

[JVS]

198. No. One becomes wealthy by being a tight-wad taskmaster who works the shit out of landless peasants

Which is how they got to be called kulaks (i.e tight fists) in the first place, and why plenty of people were more than happy to kill them when they finally got the chance

[manic expression]

200. self-delete n/t

[manic expression]

203. First

see JVS's post.

Next, I'll address your points.

The Soviets and the Communist Party both decided upon those policies.

Under Lenin's New Economic Policy, peasants were allowed to sell a limited amount of food and make profit off of it. I don't know exactly how much, but it wasn't supposed to be much.

I'm saying that the wealthy landowning farmers were doing those things (and others). They were contributing to the shortage more than anyone else.

[JVS]

Their being agrarian does not remove the threat they posed to the proletarian.

In fact, because the major power of Russian economics was not yet the urban industrialized sector, in order for the proletarians' goals to be realized the influence of the countryside was absolutely intolerable. Such conflict is not unusual in societies going from agrarian to industrial (look at the US Civil War). There is also no way that you can have socialism in the cities but capitalism in the countryside.

[manic expression]

32. Excellent points n/t

[mix]

18. also

the question of whether or not 1789 was bourgeois revolution, i.e. one launched by the 'commercial classes', is debatable ; certainly in the long-term what emerged was a liberal democracy that favored property and market relations

also, there is much research now that shows how the revolution was in fact constituted by bourgeois and aristocratic elements

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tritsofme]

100. No response?

Interesting...

[manic expression]

103. Completely different situation

perhaps the opposite situation.

The fact is that the Bolsheviks were solving the problem created by greedy Kulaks.

What was Pinochet doing? Murdering people after a coup against a government that was helping the people.

Had Allende taken the necessary actions that the Bolsheviks did, Pinochet would have never led the coup.

[Hippo_Tron]

173. No, killing is still killing

Just because you think that Stalin's cause is more justified than Pinochet's doesn't mean that he was right to kill people simply because they stood in the way of his political agenda.

[manic expression]

174. There is quite a difference

It wasn't because they were political enemies (he did that, too, but that's another matter and I criticize that more than anything else), it was because they were burning grain and menacing the people.

There can be justification for such actions.

[Hippo_Tron]

181. Okay, let me get this straight, burning grain is a justification for killing people?

Destroying resources doesn't justify taking human life, period. They should have been tried, convicted, and given a fair prison sentence not executed on the spot.

Totalitarianism on the left may be marginally better for the people than totalitarianism on the right but it still sucks.

[JVS]

183. If you destroy resources necessary for survival...

it should be you who feels the pinch when there isn't enough to go around, because it's your fault that there isn't enough to go around.

When you destroy what the people need, you are effectively trying to kill them.

And yes, killing people who are destroying resources that everyone needs to live is justifiable because it stops them from continuing their destruction of the people.

[manic expression]

184. They were trying to starve people

that is acceptable? Of course it isn't.

This might be news, but the fact is that they didn't have the time to go through a meaningless (and bourgeois) process that would've taken precious time and resources.

It's not totalitarianism, it's people taking control of society.

[Hippo_Tron]

189. The right to a fair trial is a bourgeois process?

[manic expression]

192. Define 'fair'

Trials are important, but both the process and the situation surrounding it is important.

In this case, there was no need for such a wasteful process. They were trying to starve people and screw over everyone else because they were greedy, and the people took action.

and on edit, rights don't exist.

[Hippo_Tron]

199. Trials before punishment are not a wasteful process

They prevent governments from abusing their power. Perhaps trying the Kulaks in front of a jury (the peasants) would have ended in the same results. They would've been convicted of starving the masses and probably hung. However, maybe the peasants wouldn't have seen eye to eye with Stalin and they would've imposed a lesser sentence.

Regardless, the point is that if there had been fair trials in the USSR, Stalin wouldn't have been allowed to murder his political enemies because they would've had to go through a judicial system. A justified abuse of power is still an abuse of power which sets a precedent for further abuses of power which will likely not be justified.

[manic expression]

209. They were at that point

they weren't worried about trials that would've done nothing because they were worried about making their communities better. Fretting over petty principles that have nothing to do with the situation at hand is ill-advised. What's the real difference between punishing a Kulak and putting him in front of a person wearing a powdered wig and a jury, giving him some time to speak, and THEN punishing him? Nothing.

IIRC, the peasants were usually the people carrying out the actions in the first place, so seeing eye to eye with anyone wasn't a problem.

The trials of the Bolsheviks were not fair, they were show trials (many Bolsheviks admitted to the false charges because they were dedicated to the party). However, that was a completely different issue, and has nothing to do with the people taking action against greedy landowners.

[GirlinContempt]

210. "they would've had to go through a judicial system"

Like the Moscow Trials?

Of course we know the moscow trials were bullshit to the millionth degree, but trials before punishment in no way shape or form prevent governments from abusing power. The government in question will just fix the trial.

[Leopolds Ghost]

301. "Rights don't exist"

For the Marxist-Leninist, only power relations exist. Give a Leninist power and he will become a Stalinist because his enemies have no rights.

"Love your enemies" is not just a religious quote, it is a practical
alternative to genocide for members of the human race.

Human Beings are very large ants. Rights and morality are all that make us people. We are all going to die anyway -- it does not make the world a better place to temporarily sieze justice for some at the expense of crimes against another, instead of social justice for all people. Does social justice mean bullshit trials and fines for bad behavior? No, it means treating people the way you'd have them treat you -- and anyone willing to murder "class enemies" better be extra forgiving of others.

You don't make the world a better place and you destroy any reason your so-called "revolution" has for being.

[manic expression]

304. No, rights do not exist

Give a Leninist power and s/he will give the proletariat power. Leninists understand that only through the liberation of the working classes and the suppression of the bourgeoisie will society change for the better. We must smash the power structure of the bourgeoisie and establish a structure of equity.

"Love your enemies" is a nice sentiment, but something that has no relevance to the real world. Look around you, it's about changing the world, not espousing some feel-good mentality that gets you nowhere.

Human beings are human beings. Rights have no basis outside of the definition society gives them. Rights are something we make up, they do not exist in any real sense.

Social justice means socialism, the end of capitalism, the end of exploitation and the beginning of a future without classes.

Your capitalist objections mean nothing. You can care about your imaginary "rights" all you like, but the fact is that we will be trying to make the world a better place, as our comrades have done before us.

[Leopolds Ghost]

321. I'm a populist, not a capitalist. My intellectual forebears were co-opted and betrayed by your

proponents of an intellectual dead-end cul-de-sac.

(as were the other non-communist groups you mention... you don't need to co-opt liberalism itself, liberalism itself having been turned into a mere finger-puppet for jaded, ex-Trotskyite neocons -- DLC and progressive think-takers -- who never stopped believing that they were worming their way into public office by pretending to vote for their "wealthy, racist constituents" as one hard leftist who ran for office as a liberal once told me)

You are a materialist, so right there your beliefs don't make sense.

Marx was a great sociologist, he was a terrible philospher.

Materialism + removal of all belief in non-material ideals, be they
god or ethics + a belief that both wealth and power exist as concepts
(social facts) to be envied and expropriated + Utilitarian belief that
power will accrue to the people is a totally illogical combination.

[manic expression]

334. You're in self-denial

give yourself whatever cool-sounding and innocent name you want to, but the solutions you propose do nothing to target the power structure that is precisely the problem. In other words, you're lost.

Leftist don't want to "co-opt" a neutered "movement" that is unwilling to make any real change.

I look at society as a materialist, which means I analyze history and the reality of a situation.

Your arguments = making up crap that has not a shred of validity

[Leopolds Ghost]

371. I already said you were a materialist

Which means you believe in taking power for your own benefit and justifying it by "scientific" descriptions of who deserves what resources.

Populists believe in reducing and eliminating power bases of the sort you are trying to set up (er, have made no real effort or success setting up) to finance your "class war".

How many divisions have the RCP, by the way?

Unlike Lenin, we trust people to make their own decisions, even if they are the wrong ones. Because they have the RIGHT to do so. Freedom means not having to take orders from self-appointed folks like you. Or from our "representatives" for that matter... who are supposed to be servants of the people, and not give us diktats in an effort to tell us how to live. Never trust an elected official to solve any economic issue thru legislation: they will always side with the corporation. Whereas you would nationalize the corporation and eliminate unions, and then you would legislate issues, always siding with the corporation -- er, state. You can't simply "appropriate the people's property" because you have to give it to someone, or distribute it. That is the source of the power you seek.

I don't see you infiltrating and co-opting CONSERVATIVE groups who hold the real power in society. Oh wait -- that's exactly what your former Trotskyite buddies in PNAC did.

It was ex-leftists who believed in "spreading democracy and freedom and markets" to the Middle East at the point of the gun.

[manic expression]

380. Which means

that I believe in taking power from the bourgeoisie and giving it to the proletariat. "Rights" have nothing to do with reality, so I don't worry about such concepts.

Populists believe that they have the ability to do something, which they don't. Your mindset is pathetically devoid of meaningful analysis and direction.

Lenin gave power to the Soviets. Furthermore, the politically advanced sector of the working classes should take the lead, which means the party needs to be the vanguard. The people have every REASON to take power and suppress the bourgeoisie, and through this process we see the formation of socialism and the end of the corrupt system you defend in your naivete. Through the abolishment of private property, through the establishment of worker control and other methods, we see society improving. The p:eyes:pulists, on the other hand, accomplish absolutely nothing by ignoring the power structure that needs to be overthrown; not to mention implementing a total of zero effective solutions to the problems that need to be addressed. You play right into the bourgeoisie's hands while simultaneously sitting in their lap.

Side with the corporation? There are no corporations to side with in socialism. Nice try, though. :eyes: You haven't the SLIGHTEST IDEA about the ideas you're trying to criticize, do you? Yes, PNAC is full of Trotskyists...:rofl:

And really, who is "you"? Populists have as much presence as primitivists.

[manic expression]

31. I partially agree

the USSR could've dealt with the Kulaks in a much better way. However, you are right, it was an extremely hard problem.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

165. My god, I never thought I'd see someone on DU expressing approval of Genocide.

I don't know by what standard you think Stalin's policies worked, but evidently it's not one that regards millions of needless deaths and mass poverty as failure.

[smalll]

191. Whoa!

:yoiks:

One vote for deliberate mass starvation. Alrighty then. Here's a tip - if you ever meet up with any Ukrainians, keep that kind of stuff to yourself, mmmmmkay?

[Warren Stupidity]

347. LOL

Indeed. Although there is nothing funny about this thread.

[rug]

9. The kulaks owned a lot of land, a lot of mills and exploited a lot of farmworkers.

Before dealing with this situation I would examine what Henry VIII did with church lands and property.

[Xithras]

42. Depends on how you define Kulak.

Look at the wiki article above. As one famous Soviet declared, "We are fond of describing any peasant who has enough to eat as a kulak."

[rug]

49. And a kulak would declare "We are fond of describing anyone who has not enough to eat, a peasant."

[Leopolds Ghost]

302. Yes, he vastly increased the wealth of the British Imperialist Mercantile State

By stealing and looting all the gold that was sitting harmlessly in
monasteries where it had been hoarded over the past 1000 years.

Not to mention that the British Catholic church was a notorious
haven for Christian socialists who wanted to overthrow the monarchy,
expecially Oxford....

[Cleita]

15. Just MHO opinion.

Murdering the Czar and his family, I believe, got the movement off on the wrong foot. You see the ordinary Russian peasants considered the Czar a god and imagine the mistrust in the new politics that must have caused. Superstition is a stubborn stain to remove.

So I think it paved the way for the strong man Communists to move in like Stalin who ruthlessly enforced the new regime and started the era of totalitariansm that was doomed to eventually fall under it's own weight as all these dark systems eventually do. Of course any reconciling with the capitalists for a more balanced system was doomed from the start because of this action and other equally heinous crimes.

[brazos121200]

22. Say what you will about Stalin, he was the ultimate pragmatist.

According to HIS view of the revolution he never betrayed it and did whatever it took to see it succeed. He was brutal, bloodthirsty, and murderous, but he lived in brutal, bloodthirsty and murderous times. He could see no reason to allow another political party to arise which would be used by kulaks or others to reinstate capitalism. Stalin considered the Communist party to be the ultimate tool for the Russian people to progress to the "socialist utopia".

[manic expression]

25. Yes

First, let's establish that Stalin had no interest in Marxism-Leninism. He executed most of the Bolsheviks and consolidated power. He betrayed the revolution.

Anyway, the Kulaks (defined as wealthy farmers of the countryside) were not only an obstacle to equity, but they were becoming a problem altogether; they burned grain to screw over everyone else on a routine basis. It was obvious that something had to be done. The USSR should have siezed their land and collectivized it, much like the Bolsheviks did to the wealthy land owners after the revolution. They shouldn't have been imprisoned or sent to labor camps, that was both unnecessary and detrimental. Take their land and make it publically owned and worked.

That's my opinion.

[Gabi Hayes]

28. hey! what's wrong with you? you sound like one of those guys that idolizes

Chavez

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=162035&mesg_id=162035

[Warren Stupidity]

72. So chavez is collectivizing venezuelan agriculture?

Abolishing democratic institutions?

Executing the opposition?

Establishing a vast gulag?

Who knew?

[Gabi Hayes]

73. Warren, Warren.....you didn't read the link, now,

did you?

[Warren Stupidity]

76. Er uh no I still trying to reassemble my head

which seems to have exploded after discovering that we have a nest of totalitarian marxist apologists running around DU like this was the 30's and what happened in Russia was still up for debate.

[Gabi Hayes]

106. dammit...now you're going to force me to read this thread.....

just did a little cherrypicking here and there, along with a bit of stovepiping

[Amused Musings]

130. My God,

This thread reads like a third rate communist pamphlet. Frankly, I have not seen so much defense of the indefensible since I went to a Maoist bookfair. I ask those apologizing for the most inhuman regime ever created: is your committment to ideology so fanatical that you are blind to atrocity? To be honest, this reminds me of those who still defend George Bush. No matter how bad or inexcusable his actions are, there are those who find the most reprehensible excuses out there. What Stalin did to the Ukrainian farmers is genocide on a scale never before witnessed; worse than the Nazi Holocaust! The only thing worse than Stalin's forced famines were Mao's Great Leap Forward. But wait, are you going to blame that on "class enemies" who refused to make enough steel?

This is why 1984 was written. George Orwell wrote it for those on the Left, despite the inumerable crimes of Stalin being exposed, would not renounce the horrific bloodthirsty demon.

Oh, by the way. Soviet industrialism, won on the altar of human sacrifice, did not defeat the Nazis. It was American and British war materiel as well as the Soviet's utter disregard for their own soldier's life.

[rug]

135. It's interesting how you move from a discussion on kulaks to the Holocaust and Orwell.

Excuse me if I cannot follow the nuances of your thoughts.

[Warren Stupidity]

140. Something to do with systematic slaughtering of ukranian peasants.

Estimates of the number of people directly murdered by the soviet version of 20th century totalitarianism range from 3-5 million on the low end to 60 million on the high end. And that is just the Soviet Union, those numbers do not include th PRC. Those are pretty impresive numbers, and are immediately worthy of comparison to the numbers Hitler chalked up with his version of totalitarianism.

[manic expression]

145. Those figures are beyond incorrect

most of the deaths that actually happened were from a famine that was hardly the fault of the USSR.

And no, there was no "systematic slaughtering of Ukrainian peasants". There was a famine that the USSR tried to deal with, but that is a far cry from anything you're insinuating.

[Warren Stupidity]

291. Which figures?

I cited a range from 3 - 60 million. Three is undoubtedly too low and 60 is very likely too high. The truth is somewhere in between those numbers. But you are not interested in the truth. There most certainly was systematic slaughter, systematic dislocations of entire ethnic populations, systematic enslavement into the vast gulag of your worker's paradise.

[manic expression]

292. That range is laughable

and anyone who has reviewed those claims (like the "Black Book of Communism") knows this.

And it wasn't systematic slaughter. A bad harvest makes up the majority of what happened. However, what we are talking about is action taken against a group of greedy landowners, which is more than justified

[rug]

146. Warren, drop your mask. Do you in fact oppose socialism or do you equate it withe USSR and PRC?

[Warren Stupidity]

290. Uh - this thread is about the marvelous system

of socialism concocted by the marxist leninist butchers who ruled Russia. That form of socialism is what we are talking about and I oppose it. If you want to discuss the merits of other less lethal systems, fine, but a bit off topic here.

[Amused Musings]

150. If you cannot see why these two things are

relevant, then perhaps they are two areas that warrent further study on your part.

Edit: The famines were caused by Stalin's collectivization efforts so yes, Stalin's Soviet Empire are to blame.

[rug]

155. And I suggest you pause to think before you race breathless into the arms of your opinions

[smalll]

201. It might be worse than you think -

in the 30s, I think a lot of good Marxists would at least be willing to finesse Stalin's enforced famine as some sort of unfortunate product of "state capitalism" or something. This thread's marxists seem to be unashamed Stalinists. Somewhere, men like Sam Marcy and Bill Band are smiling. Où sont les Shachtmans d'antan?

[Leopolds Ghost]

303. Trotskyists are always big talkers when it comes to advertising their paranoia & ruthlessness

They claim it's all in the necessity of the moment, "these were dangerous days" etc. Inflate their own self importance by imagining enemies round every corner. A huge portion of the American left/liberals are Trotskyist New Left or the children of Trotskyist New Left. They need to wake up and smell the coffee. Righteous indignation never saved a human life, and acting on your bluster merely results in the taking of human life -- which is the worst thing your enemies could do to you.

You want to fight on that level, prepared to get slaughtered by people like Stalin -- or hide out here in the US.

[GirlinContempt]

306. Yep. The trotskyites were imagining it.

Good call, hombre.

[manic expression]

307. Most leftists actually understand how to change things

so naturally, they will be OK with dealing with Kulaks and other such people. We get the fact that changing society isn't a picnic or something decided over tea, it's a struggle. While the leftists are out making the world a better place, the liberals are whining on the sidelines, pouting over the actions of people who are actually making a difference.

[Leopolds Ghost]

323. And the Populists and (d)emocrats are noting that both sides are a bunch of killers

seeking resources for themselves.

The Anarchists you flippantly refer to are telling you the same thing.

Funny how your hard-left friends spend so much time infiltrating
organizations you claim are less likely to make a difference.

Planning on killing anyone in those organizations when your
"revolution" comes?

Or just arresting them when the next President has no more use
for your organization as a front group for distracting, disrupting,
and consuming oxygen on the left?

[manic expression]

331. I'm noting that your arguments are ridiculous

try supporting your arguments with something substantive, back up your claims. So far, you have only spewn the same tired BS that the bourgeoisie and their cronies cherish so.

We sometimes try to enter into organizations that wouldn't make a difference at all, and hopefully that will make those organizations effective and revolutionary. However, it is a gamble, so most people don't do it.

There would be no reason to kill them. Nice try.

Oh, I'm sorry, actually getting something accomplished and fighting for an equitable society is "distracting, disrupting and consuming oxygen on the left"? Get a clue. Liberals have done absolutely nothing worth talking about, while true leftists have gotten something done (as in worker control, toppling of the bourgeoisie and other things the liberals are too meek to do).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. The kulaks were merely family farmers, and since Marxism says

that the workers should own the means of production, that means that family farmers SHOULD be left alone.

Unfortunately, neither the Soviet Union nor China allowed private farms.

[manic expression]

34. One small disagreement

the Kulaks were taking the means of production into their own hands. They were denying much to the peasants, even going as far as burning grain when they didn't like the decisions made by the people.

Just a small disagreement.

[rug]

37. He was a family farmer too.

[JVS]

50. Once you start hiring others to do the farming, you're no longer a family farmer.

You are now in agribusiness.

I can see hiring a vet or mechanic once in a while. Or even hiring a few neighbors to help build a barn. But when you have some guy doing day-in day-out farmwork on your land, you're no longer a family farmer.

[Warren Stupidity]

64. You haven't been around many farms, have you?

"Once you start hiring others to do the farming, you're no longer a family farmer."

Almost all farms depend on hired hands to do the farming.

But do keep on justifying the leninist butchers, it is a fascinating retread of arguments discredited in the 30's as the truth slowly started leaking out.

[JVS]

67. then those farmers are small-scale capitalists

[Warren Stupidity]

70. Only if you are obtuse. nt.

[GirlinContempt]

97. No, actually. He just has a better understanding of basic Marxism than you do.

"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."

"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market."

- Communist Manifesto, I: Bourgeois and Proletarians

"We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism."

- Communist Manifesto, II: Proletarians and Communists

Of course, Marx argued that the petty bourgeois could and would join the proletariat, not the bourgeois. Some did, and some chose to follow the path of the bourgeoisie.

[Warren Stupidity]

117. Oh great another one.

The sordid history of forced collectivization of agrarian communities in the name of some misguided revolution is not something to be proud of, nor was it anything that your vaunted marx anticipated.

[rug]

119. "another one"? Here, change your avatar.

[JVS]

121. I was expecting to see Joe McCarthy

[Warren Stupidity]

129. Ah yes. Of course.

Hey how about that Hitler-Stalin pact, wasn't that just great?

[JVS]

131. The Western Democracies had turned Hitler East at the Munich Conference

Stalin decided to turn him back West and secure better borders for the USSR. A prudent decision.

[rug]

134. How about Stalingrad? That was some smokin' shit.

[GirlinContempt]

144. What the fuck are you talking about?

You're debating that family farms are still Marxist even if they hire labour. Marxist theory states that they aren't.

I didn't say shit about forced collectivization or my pride in it or otherwise, so forgive me if your response totally loses me.

[JVS]

159. The whole "Another one" thing is because he's shocked SHOCKED at the communist conspiracy that has..

managed to survive at DU

[GirlinContempt]

164. Oh, well... Yeah

The secret handshakes were hard to work out at first. I'd be shocked too.

[GirlinContempt]

279. I'd also just like to say

that I, as a person who quoted the communist manifesto in direct contradiction to you, thus clearly making a blood bond with stalin, am going on the record to say his mustache tickles when we make out.

[mix]

102. cuba

has allowed 'small-scale capitalism' in its agrarian sector, resulting in increased productivity, interestingly enough

[JVS]

105. Well, Cuba is playing with fire then, and it could lead to problems down the line.

Similar to if part of England were to return to small-scale feudalism

[mix]

116. cuba's economy

also heavily relies on tourism, particularly sex tourism

there is an argument to be made that the soviet union and cuba made life 'better' is some vague materialist sense. i.e. medical care, education, etc., all very important, but when one looks at the human cost (look how people w/AIDS are treated ; or how the castro regime emptied its prisons and asylums during the Mariel boat lift) and inability of either system to move beyond totalitarian cults of personality or to adapt to the global economy or to develop their societies economically, they are failures

unfortunately, within the soviet and cuban models of socialism, equality means everyone is basically impoverished, surviving, but little more

in the cuban case, however, it may be said that the reason that society is so ossified is due to the US trade embargo

(and no, i am not saying that american neoliberal capitalism is preferable)

[Hippo_Tron]

186. I agree that the US trade embargo is stupid

But Cuba has every right to trade with other countries. If their economy is entirely dependent on trade with the US then that signals a serious problem with their domestic policy.

Again, I think the US should lift the embargo. Cuba hasn't been a threat to US national security since the 1960's.

[killbotfactory]

276. The Embargo is more invasive than that

The long standing U.S. embargo was reinforced in October 1992 by the Cuban Democracy Act (the "Torricelli Law") and in 1996 by the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act (known as the Helms-Burton Act). The 1992 act prohibited foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and family remittances to Cuba. The Helms Burton Act states, among other things, that any non-U.S. company that "knowingly traffics in property in Cuba confiscated without compensation from a U.S. person" can be subjected to litigation and that company's leadership can be barred from entry into the United States.<23> Effectively, this covers any transactions with Cuba, since everything is in some way connected to something that was confiscated in the late 1950's. Sanctions may also be applied to non-U.S. companies trading with Cuba. As a result, multinational companies have to choose between Cuba and the U.S., the latter being a much larger market. This restriction also applies to maritime shipping, as ships docking at Cuban ports are not allowed to dock at U.S. ports for six months. On October 10, 2006 the United States announced the creation of a task force made up of officials from several US agencies that will pursue more aggressively violators of the US trade embargo against Cuba, with penalties as severe as 10 years of prison and hundreds of dollars in fines for violators of the embargo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba-United_States_relations#Economic_Sanctions_against_Cuba

[manic expression]

93. Almost all farms in the US are coporately owned

what, exactly, is your point?

[Nikia]

133. I don't think that is true

They might own the majority of acreage or produce the majority of crops but there are probably more family farms than corporate farms. Come here to Wisconsin or where I grew up in Ohio and you'll see thousands of family farms. Some family farms may have incorporated but this is only smart business.

[manic expression]

141. Family farms are dwindling

fast. Corporations run, through direct or indirect means (as you pointed out) the production of crops. The incorporation is basically what I was talking about.

[Warren Stupidity]

143. It turns out those folks are all capitalist pigs. Who knew?

The two farms up the street from me are family farms, and they are of course incorporated as well. They are not capitalist enterprises. If they are accumulating any capital it is only inadvertantly through the appreciation of the land around them as the area urbanizes. They do hire workers to help with the crops, for which they would have been eagerly slaughtered as 'kulaks' by our totalitarian marxist friends here. Too bad, they are real nice folks.

[manic expression]

148. So they don't profit from anything? n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

293. Generally about enough to replace equipment

and live a modest lifestyle, and that would be a good year. As I noted, as family farming pre-existed capitalist forms of economic organization (although obviously not market based economies) describing a small farm as a capitalist enterprise is ridiculous. Your argument would be laughable if not quite so many farmers had been murdered by idiots with the same demented view.

[manic expression]

309. You're trying to tell me

that a farm which seeks to make profit, is intergrated into a corporate system, exists within a capitalist system and contributes to that system is not capitalist? Please.

[GirlinContempt]

297. Hyperbole about 'capitalist pigs' aside

you're honestly suggesting that these farms do not attempt to make money? They're not for profit? Do they have not for profit status?

This has nothing to do with how nice the people are, whether they're socialists or capitalists, or any of your other ridiculous hyperbole about totalitarian marxists wanting to kill your friends.

[Warren Stupidity]

339. No a small farm is a pre-capitalist enterprise

It does not generate much if anything in the way of surplus capital, existed prior to the development of the capitalist economic system (way prior,) and continues to exist within the capitalist system as a relic of the earlier market economies. Despite the best efforts of both modern industrial capitalism and the command economies of the totalitarian marxists to eliminate the traditional forms of agricultural economies, they persist. Visit any farmers market and you will be walking back in time to the simple market economies of the pre-capitalist world.

If you would like to have a better understanding of the economic history of the world might I suggest as a starting point Fernand Braudel's three volume Civilization and Capitalism. You might actually stumble out of the claptrap hodegepodge of antiquated 1920s marxist-leninist bullshit you seem to be stuck in.

[GirlinContempt]

341. Wow that was pretty nuts

But good laughs, one way or another.

So you claim these farms inadvertently generate capital. So they're an old school, eat what you grow style farm? is that it? They make their own candles for light, don't use electricity? Or, built their own solar power or generator using materials off the land, and power it using the products of their own hands? Because otherwise, you gotta work at generating capital, so you can use that capital.

I think you need to recheck what capitalism means. A privately owned for-profit farm is capitalist. It doesn't get to be called pre-capitalist, unless their turning in 50% of their crops to the Baron down the street. It doesn't matter if farms existed before capitalism. Capitalism has nothing to do with industrialization, and doesn't only apply to forms of labour only begun since capitalisms inception.

But I love the romanticizing of what was generally feudalism as "the simple market economies of the pre-capitalist world". That's good. I enjoy it.

[bicentennial_baby]

358. Not to mention that, in the economic sense,

In the pre-capitalist eras, including mercantilism and feudalism, there was no such thing as a true "market economy" as we understand the word to mean today, in the economic world. Romanticizing and inaccurate.

:hi:

[GirlinContempt]

360. Thank you for that

:)

[Warren Stupidity]

370. Well of course there was a market economy

In the pre-capitalist era. Where do you think the term comes from? Just a coincidence? The free exchange of goods and services is about as old as agriculture.

[GirlinContempt]

356. Oh wait, I missed something

Farming doesn't exist as a relic of 'earlier market economies', it exists as the best current way to provide human beings en masse with food & derivative products.

[Warren Stupidity]

373. No you just revised the terms of the discussion

to make a dishonest point. If you recall we were discussing the justification for the extermination of small farmers in the soviet union. The claim was made that small family farms are 'capitalist enterprises'. That claim is stupid. Small family farms pre-existed modern capitalism, do not accumulate capital in any significant sense as a result of their farming activites, and pretending that they were a threat to the (future) proletariat in russia deserving of the murderous treatment they received, given the scope of the crimes committed by the soviet regime, is the equivalent of holocaust denial. You folks would be quaint and humorous if you weren't quite so depraved.

But I'm done. You may have the last word.

[GirlinContempt]

376. Now THAT is disingenuous

Family farms ARE capitalist enterprises. Whether or not you personally regard them as such means shit all in the frame of this debate. I was never discussing extermination of small farmers in the soviet union, I was pointing out the ridiculousness of claiming YOUR FRIENDS who are farmers are not for-profit farming. And, your re-framing of the debate as me defending killing "small family farmers" (which was never anything I discussed with you, or anyone else on this thread) is just the final nail in the coffin of your defenses.

[sweetheart]

329. more than that

Any of the following characteristics defined a kulak:

* regular usage of hired labour;
* ownership of a mill, a creamery (маслобойня, butter-making rig), or other complex equipment, or a complex machine with mechanical motor;
* systematic letting of agricultural equipment or facilities for rent;
* involving in commerce, money-lending, commercial brokerage, or "other types of non-labour occupation".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak

It appears rather that kulak is more a small business person, this description has merit in our own culture without much
modification.

[chaska]

83. Basically uninformed comment....

I've really only just begun to study Socialism. But it seems to me that the cure for capitalism's ills aren't likely to be found in a Stalinist Russia. That was an extreme, and certainly not worth emulating. BUT, what we have today is certainly no happy medium. There are better ways to do things than how we do them now. That's why we're here, right, because we believe things can be better?

I've heard very good things about Sweden.

[Nikia]

88. The kulaks were once peasants

Who were able to do well once they were no longer essentially slaves to the aristotic landholders.
Some of my ancestors who were family farmers would have been classified as kulaks by Stalinist policies. I think that they had every right to their land and fruits of their labor. If these farmers were exploiting their neighbors by hiring them at substandard wages, a better solution would have been to offer good paying jobs to those neighbors so they were no longer being exploited and make the "rich" farmers do it themselves or pay decent wages.

[Warren Stupidity]

91. Lenin's Hanging Order

"Send to Penza To Comrades Kuraev, Send to Penza To Comrades Kuraev, Bosh, Minkin and other Penza communists Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volost's must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle "with the kulaks." We need to set an example. 1) You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers. 2) Publish their names. 3) Take away all of their grain. 4) Execute the hostages - in accordance with yesterday's telegram. This needs to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks. Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this. Yours, Lenin P.S. Use your toughest people for this."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Hanging_Order

This is your wonderful totalitarian marxism at its very beginning. Keep on justifying this crap.

[GirlinContempt]

101. Marx wasn't a totalitarian.

It's silly to say that he was.

[Warren Stupidity]

107. "totalitarian marxism " is a form of marxism.

For example, the sort practiced by the leninist thugs who took over control of the state during the Russian revolution.

Not all marxists are totalitarians, and I made no such claim about marx.

[GirlinContempt]

110. I've never heard of this "form" of "Marxism"

Maybe because Marx wasn't totalitarian, so it'd be pretty hard to be a totalitarian following Marx.

[Warren Stupidity]

112. What?

Try reading a history of Russia from 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"so it'd be pretty hard to be a totalitarian following Marx"

I don't know what to conclude from that statement of yours. Either you don't think all those totalitarin marxist-leninsst states were or are 'marxist' or you don't think they were or are totalitarian.

[GirlinContempt]

147. Totalitarianism and Marxism

are basically incompatible. Unless you think that someone who takes one or two Marxist principles and incorporates them into their own worldview is representing Marx and Marx's ideas. In which case, you're right and I'm wrong.

[Warren Stupidity]

294. Ah - so that mess in Russia wasn't marxism.

Got it. Well at least that way you don't have to bother with defending the indefensible, you can just pretend that they were all a bunch of heretics. Funny how the same heresy kept cropping up over and over again.

I actually have no problem with democratic socialism - the other form of marxism that actually got put into practice. Viva Chavez. Somehow I suspect you are not in favor of that heresy either.

[GirlinContempt]

295. Yup. Sure.

Capitalists do the same thing.

Marxism is inherently democratic.

[Amused Musings]

128. Lenin's theory was "Vanguard elite"

This was a small cadre of Bourgeois elite who would lead masses (Lenin did not believe they possessed any spark of initiative). This was a Marxist heresy. Why do I use the term "heresy"? Because marxism is a religion and (I have used this comparison in the past) they are like early Christians waiting for the Second Coming. A future utopian event that will save us all from the depradations of reality. Anyway, Lenin, an utterly contemptable man, never intended to give any power to the proletariat or the "Soviets" he pretended to represent. All power was concentrated in him- like some terrifying Ubermann without anything restraining his will to power.

[rug]

132. So, the Russian Revolution was Lenin's personal head trip?

"The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

Thomas Carlyle's been dead 126 years, along with this drivel.

[Amused Musings]

142. No entirely,

But Marxism, like "Creation science", is based on a false interpretation of history: Historical Determinism or as Herbert Butterfield famously coined: Wiggish history. It is an analysis of history that wrongly believes there is any certain course. It examines all of history through the narrow lense of a particular ideology, disregarding anything that does not pertain. What happens is that the conclusions that such a historian comes up with are usually wrong. You know that proletarian revolution you guys are waiting for? Marx, "scientifically" concluded that the Revolution would happen at any moment, just like early Christians thought that the Second Coming was going to happen at any moment two millenia ago. When it did not happen and the working class was coopted, and thus the "scientific" hypothesis was wrong, Marxists had to change their ideology to a worker's revolution happening "sometime in the future." Close enough that those marxists still believed it could happen in their lifetime, but far enough off so that should it fail to materialize, they could say the stage has not been properly set, so to speak.

The anarchists were right all along about Communism: governments,even a "transitory" communist government, are inherently self-perpetuating and thus would never willingly give up power.

[rug]

149. Well, if you're going to cite Herbert Butterfield, I may as well just shut up.

[GirlinContempt]

153. That made me laugh

[Amused Musings]

158. Any serious historian understands

the importance of his work criticizing historical determinism. Clearly, you do not disagree with him because he refutes the idea that liberalism (in the classical sense) is historically inevitable, so why do you dismiss him out of hand?

[rug]

161. He has a funny name.

[manic expression]

137. You are completely mistaken

the vanguard is of the proletariat, it is simply the politically advanced portion of the working class.

Yes, Marxism is a religion; just like capitalism. :eyes: Get a clue. We have political beliefs, but does that make us a religion? Hardly.

The Soviets had a central role in society. That is a fact.

And finally, your chracterization of Lenin is ridiculously misled.

[Amused Musings]

162. Was Lenin part of the Proletariat?

Was Trotsky? Was Bukharin?

Stalin might have been the bloodthirsty tyrant, but it was Lenin who created the Cheka and consolidated all power into himself.

As for capitalism, those who would sancntify such a system are just as wrong and as liberals we must look for ways to provide safety nets and regulations to prevent its exploitation. I do not think I said otherwise.

[manic expression]

166. He was a lifelong revolutionary

Are you really questioning his dedication to the cause? Being a leader doesn't mean you're not of the working classes. The same goes for Trotsky.

Lenin created the Cheka to combat counterrevolutionaries and their sabotage, which was necessary. Furthermore, Lenin did not impede the Soviets, which were central to society.

[Amused Musings]

170. I am relieved that you

will support and apologize for secret police who are above the law as long as the ends justify the means. Proponents of the PATRIOT ACT said it was necessary to protect us against Islamic Terrorists. Perhaps you would be willing to use Guantanamo as a "re-education camp" for "class enemies."

[manic expression]

171. There's no need to apologize

The Cheka was trying to weed out counterrevolutionaries who were actively hurting the people (entire cities would have starved without the action taken).

No one is using the PATRIOT ACT against Islamic terrorists, just people who the establishment doesn't like. The Soviets never tried to tell people they weren't targeting counterrevolutionaries.

[Amused Musings]

179. And thus tyranny, genocide, and all the

apparati of State authoritarianism becomes justified and rationalized. Kill them all and send the rest to the Gulags- Let God sort them out. Kulaks "exploiting workers? Yeah! That must be it. There is no way our flawed theoretical framework wrecked an already feudal sociey. Electrification, if not food, for all! Weeee! At least your honest, I suppose. It is a rather brave stance to take, what with defending this smorgasboard of atrocity and illiberal practices in the name of some unreachable, discredited, ideal. Surely, anything that darkens the name of our beloved Lenin and Stalin must be Bourgeois lies and propaganda!

[manic expression]

182. No, you are ignoring the reality

the situation was that the people's revolution was being threatened on all sides. A large reactionary army was trying to defeat the Bolsheviks; the French, British and Americans sent forces against the Soviets; the Baltic states and Poland were both opposed to the USSR; counterrevolutionaries were doing whatever they could to impede the people and more.

Kill them all? No, stop the rich farmers from starving cities and exploiting other peasants.

Like I said, you are ignoring reality.

[Amused Musings]

196. Yeah that bad reactionary army with international backing

Why, if they succeeded, they might have been able to prevent all those murders Stalin ordered and millions of deaths due to famine. Praise Marx, that such things did not fail to pass! And the Cold War might not have happened! Glory be! Those fancy-schmancy rich-folk farmers were probably American spies as well, right?

"I have been over into the future, and it works."

Woops. Boy was Lincoln Steffens wrong.

[manic expression]

212. If they succeeded

they would've likely re-established the nobility, or at least re-enslaved the workers. If they succeeded, they would've massacred Jews and other minorities (the Bolsheviks made an effort to STOP pogroms against Jews). Thankfully, they didn't succeed.

[GirlinContempt]

222. Yep

Those good old Cossacks who went to killing bolsheviks after spending years and years killing jews and labourers. Cause Russia's ruling class & tsar were great! Fabulous! No atrocities in Russia pre-1917.

[Amused Musings]

You may want to adjust

your sense of perspective. It may be out of whack!

[GirlinContempt]

277. Thanks for the illuminating heads up

[mix]

95. hot thread

dude!

[Gabi Hayes]

115. F those dirty commies/bolshies/socialists, etal. they're all the same, aren't they?

Kapitalism uber alles!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/pov-j16.shtml



A new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) details the persistent effect of massive social inequality on the world's children. The report—the first in a series of “Report Cards” issued by UNICEF—examines child poverty in the world's richest nations.

The countries considered in the report consist of the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Development (OECD). The report states that 47 million children in these countries, or one out of every six, live below the national poverty line, defined as half the average national income. For most of the report, this measure of “relative” poverty is used rather than “absolute” poverty, which is defined as the inability to purchase a certain quantity of goods deemed universally necessary for an “acceptable” life. The report primarily examines inequality and poverty as it impacts children in the supposedly most prosperous countries.

Significantly, the report found that the United States has one of the highest rates of relative child poverty of all OECD members. In the US, 22.4 percent of children live in poverty, a number second only to Mexico, with 26.2 percent. Countries with high rates also include: Italy (20.5 percent), the United Kingdom (19.8 percent) and Turkey (19.7 percent). Countries with slightly lower poverty rates include: Canada (15.5 percent), Australia (12.6 percent), Germany (10.7 percent) and Hungary (10.3 percent). The lowest levels of child poverty are to be found in countries with relatively high social expenditures, including: France (7.9 percent), Finland (4.4 percent) and Sweden (2.6 percent).

The report points out that the position of most countries is not changed significantly when absolute, rather than relative poverty is measured. The United States moves to the middle of the distribution, while the former Stalinist countries that have joined the OECD (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) have very high levels.

...........


old report, yes, but do you think things have improved in the US, Mexico, etal, since 2000 for the poorest of the poor?

[razors edge]

172. Not to nitpick but...

"The report states that 47 million children in these countries, or one out of every six, live below the national poverty line, defined as half the average national income."


How exactly could a national poverty line be established in a communist country if the vast majority takes home the same amounts of goods and services?

In this model it seems to me that abject poverty could affect the masses and no actual national poverty line would even exist.

Never studied communism much but I find this thread very interesting, and am seriously wondering if this makes communism immune from this criticism or does communism just screw the bell curve?

[Gabi Hayes]

120. the difference between Marxism and Capitalism

“Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”--Karl Marx

the resemblance between that of Marxism/Leninism is about the same as that between the Repulicanism of Lincoln and Bush

[Odin2005]

125. This thread reminds me why I'm not a Marxist anymore.

[Warren Stupidity]

127. Kronstadt

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1920s/disillusionment/ch27.htm

...

The Kronstadt sailors were ever the first to serve the Revolution. They had played an important part in the revolution of 1905; they were in the front ranks in 1917. Under Kerensky's regime they proclaimed the Commune of Kronstadt and opposed the Constituent Assembly. They were the advance guard in the October Revolution. In the great struggle against Yudenitch the sailors offered the strongest defense of Petrograd, and Trotsky praised them as the "pride and glory of the Revolution." Now, however, they had dared to raise their voice in protest against the new rulers of Russia. That was high treason from the Bolshevik viewpoint. The Kronstadt sailors were doomed.

...

On March 7th Trotsky began the bombardment of Kronstadt, and on the 17th the fortress and city were taken, after numerous assaults involving terrific human sacrifice. Thus Kronstadt was "liquidated" and the "counterrevolutionary plot" quenched in blood. The "conquest" of the city was characterized by ruthless savagery, although not a single one of t he Communists arrested by the Kronstadt sailors had been injured or killed by them. Even before the storming of the fortress the Bolsheviki summarily executed numerous soldiers' of the Red Army whose revolutionary spirit and solidarity caused them to refuse to participate in the bloodbath.

Several days after the "glorious victory" over Kronstadt Lenin said at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia: "The sailors did not want the counter- revolutionists' but they did not want us, either." And-irony of Bolshevism!-at that very Congress Lenin advocated free trade-a more reactionary step than any charged to the Kronstadt sailors.

Between the 1st and the 17th of March several regiments of the Petrograd garrison and all the sailors of the port were disarmed and ordered to the Ukraina and the Caucasus. The Bolsheviki feared to trust them in the Kronstadt situation: at the first psychological moment they might make common cause with Kronstadt. In fact, many Red soldiers of the Krasnaya Gorka and the surrounding garrisons were also in sympathy with Kronstadt and were forced at the point of guns to attack the sailors.

On March 17th the Communist Government completed its "victory" over the Kronstadt proletariat and on the 18th of March it commemorated the martyrs of the Paris Commune. It was apparent to all who were mute witnesses to the outrage committed by the Bolsheviki that the crime against Kronstadt was far more enormous than the slaughter of the Communards in 1871, for it was done in the name of the Social Revolution, in the name of the Socialist Republic. History will not be deceived. In the annals of the Russian Revolution the names of Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Dibenko will be added to those of Thiers and Gallifet.

This was the end of the revolution in russia and the beginning of the totalitarian tyranny of the soviet union.

[rockymountaindem]

338. You are absolutely, one-hundred percent correct

Kronstadt was the end of the revolution and the beginning of an 80 year long Soviet Thermidor, no doubt about it.

[happydreams]

152. The Bolsheviks were bought and paid for by Wall Street

They were nothing more than puppets of a technical slave colony serving their capitalist puppetmasters.

Anything that happened as a consequence was a farce, wrapped in a joke and labeled Communism.

See Anthony Suttons "Wall Street and Rise of Bolshevism".

[rug]

156. Have I run across you in the 9/11 forum?

[AngryAmish]

157. Stalin had no choice

They backed him into a corner and he protected his people.

And the kulaks of Amerikkka, you will be dealt with also.

[JVS]

160. Fuckin A! That's the spirit!

Make sure to sign the registry ;-)

[rug]

163. No need, Warren's already taken his name.

[manic expression]

167. Perfectly said

Great post.

:applause:

[Hippo_Tron]

187. Sorry, but we live in a civilized society, we don't execute people for their wealth

Frankly I wish we were more civilized and didn't execute people at all, but that's another story.

There's a reason that Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal and that Teddy before him gave us anti-trust legislation, and that LBJ gave us the Great Society. It is so that we can create opportunity for everyone without resorting to Stalinist tactics.

[JVS]

188. FDR and LBJ were just buying us off

And since for the last 25 years those things have been constantly rolled back, nobody gives a shit.

[Hippo_Tron]

193. I don't think there's any way that we could find common ground

If you believe that totalitarian Marxism is the best way to improve the lives of working people then that's certainly your right. But I refuse to accept that the only choice is between neoliberal capitalism and totalitarian Marxism.

[manic expression]

197. The solution you propose

is capitalism with lipstick. We seek to end a system based on exploitation.

And there are other options if you don't like capitalism. Check out anarchism, specifically anarcho-syndicalism.

[Hippo_Tron]

202. Capitalism with lipstick works great in Canada and Western Europe

The people have a much better standard of living than people in the USSR did and they still have welfare programs to take care of the poor, sick, and elderly.

[JVS]

204. We already have Capitalism with lipstick here in the US

and give Western Europe some time. They're about 10 years behind on the stipping down the programs thing, but they'll come along.

[Hippo_Tron]

207. So what does Western Europe have now exactly?

Again France, Canada, and Germany have mixed market economies with some moderate socialist elements and they still take care of their poor, sick, and elderly. This is what I presumed you guys were referring to as capitalism with lipstick.

IMO, the US doesn't have the lipstick anymore. Since 1980 we have just gone for complete neoliberal capitalism.

[JVS]

211. And compared to 10 years ago, Germany's system is less made up

The trend is toward the removing of makeup. The rich decided not to give up the money for such things. So what's your Social Democratic answer to this dismantling of the welfare state?

[Hippo_Tron]

228. For one, keep people like Helmut Kohl out of power

Which would pretty much take care of the third way movement. If the right wingers aren't in power then they can't influence the political spectrum to the point where the left of center parties start to go the third way route.

Things were going fine until Thatcher, Reagan, and Kohl came to power because the political spectrum was much farther to the left. The third way didn't exist and the sacred cows (like universal healthcare in the UK) couldn't even be touched by the conservatives when they were in power for fear of losing re-election.

France hasn't experienced the likes of a Thatcher, Reagan, or Kohl just yet. Chirac is far more moderate.

[JVS]

230. They got rid of Kohl for Schroeder, aka Der Genosse der Bosse (comrade of the bosses)

who demonstrated his social democratic principles by stripping down the welfare system more than Kohl would dare to.

These Social Democrats merely move right to compete with the conservatives. The 30's slur calling them social fascists was correct

[Hippo_Tron]

242. But there never would've been a Schroder without Kohl

Without the right wing trying to actively dismantle the social welfare state there can't be a "third way" that is doing the same but putting it in different packaging.

BTW, the fact that Schroder couldn't get a majority in 2005 is a good sign.

[JVS]

246. Blaming the CDU for the SPD turning into a bunch of wimps does not absolve the SPD!

[Hippo_Tron]

252. You're absolutely right and the SPD isn't without blame for what has happened

But you were asking me how I would solve the problem. The answer is that I would never allow the political spectrum to veer far enough to the right to the point where large scale dismantling of the social welfare state is considered a mainstream political position. That starts by making sure that any conservative party leader that wants to dismantle the social welfare state is never elected.

This worked fine in the United States until 1980 because Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford had no interest in dismantling the social welfare policies created by FDR. The one guy who did want to dismantle them, Goldwater, lost in a landslide.

[JVS]

254. So how do you make sure that only leftist politicians win?

Without eliminating the economic system that give right-wing politicians such power

[GirlinContempt]

227. Well

Canada isn't the socialist paradise some would make it out to be.
And most of the elderly that were poor in their early and middle years are now borderline destitute in their late years./

[manic expression]

205. In the same way it worked in the US

however, it's a bandaid at best. Canada has high unemployment; Western Europe sees a shocking amount of poverty and alienation, as well as virulent racism (paging rioters in France and street vendors in Rome...) and other problems.

The reason those countries have those standards is because of imperialism, which has effectively enslaved unending workers in the third world.

Overthrowing the system of exploitation is far better.

[Hippo_Tron]

213. It's because the third world doesn't develop their own businesses

The biggest threat to the United States standard of living is China. Once China cashes in on all of trade bonds we give them the value of the US dollar is going to plummet.

If the rest of the world would start competing for their share of the world's resources in the global economy, the US and Western Europe would not remain on top.

[manic expression]

215. Because they can't

Because the first world is neglecting their infrastructure while building TOY FACTORIES (in case you didn't figure it out, they don't need more toys in the third world). They are being screwed over by the first world, of course they can't develop their own businesses.

You make it sound like world-wide exploitation and maliciousness is a good thing.

[Hippo_Tron]

235. In certain cases yes, in others no

I'll admit that if I were negotiating US trade policies I would only trade with countries on the condition that they treat workers humanely, pay them living wages, and allow them to unionize.

But the fact is that conditions for workers in Mexico aren't bad because of NAFTA, they're bad because the Mexican government allows them to be that way. US soldiers aren't standing there intimidating people into voting for right wing regimes in Mexico. They can elect people that will actually improve their situation, but they don't.

China is the same way. Personally I would have never let them into the WTO until they improved their human rights standards but it's not the WTO that allows China's human rights standards. It's China that does.

In the cases where the United States using its military to prop up right wing regimes that oppress working people, I agree with you. But that is not the case in every country.

[GirlinContempt]

240. People say this shit all the time

and it makes me wonder if someone is drugging the water down there.
I can't believe people SERIOUSLY look at no only the US's past involvement in South American politics, but their present and continuing involvements, and also peek at the actual changes seen in Mexico since NAFTA and still come up with this shit.

[manic expression]

244. In most cases

The Mexican government is so dependent upon US trade policies that it MUST cater to the US. Even if Obrador won, it would've been almost impossible to pull out of those policies.

China allows US businesses to treat their workers like crap. That is because of capitalism.

And in most countries, businesses have no chance of really starting, the market is controlled by first world businesses. Furthermore, NO ONE who wants to make a profit can treat their workers well, it's the nature of the market.

[Hippo_Tron]

249. Again, it's nothing in NAFTA prevents Meixco from treating workers humanely

Obrador could've enacted something similar to the Fair Labor Standards Act and that wouldn't have had an effect on NAFTA. If you want to do business in Mexico, you still have to abide by Meixcan laws. The same is true in China.

And in most other countries, there's no rule that says that first world businesses have to move in. They can start their own and remain free from competition of first world businesses if they choose to do so. It's not going to happen overnight but America didn't exactly have multinational corporations in 1789.

And if you really believe that one can't be interested in both profit and the welfare of their workers then I think this discussion is pointless.

[GirlinContempt]

255. "If you want to do business in Mexico, you still have to abide by Meixcan laws."

Untrue.

"NAFTA was the first international trade agreement to allow a private interest, usually a corporation or an industry sector, to bypass its own government and, although it is not a signatory to the agreement, directly challenge another NAFTA government if its laws, policies and practices impinge on the actual and potential profits of the corporation. Chapter 11 gives the right to sue for compensation for lost income, regardless of the legality of government actions. It incorporates the remarkable principle that a government cannot implement legislation that "expropriates" a company’s future profits."
http://www.thewitness.org/archive/april2002/fasttrack.ambrogi.html

"NAFTA allows corporations to sue the national government of a NAFTA country in secret arbitration tribunals if they feel that a regulation or government decision affects their investment in conflict with these new NAFTA rights. If a corporation wins, the taxpayers of the "losing" NAFTA nation must foot the bill."
http://www.citizen.org/trade/nafta/CH__11/

[Hippo_Tron]

261. I don't believe that there is any provision in NAFTA

That says that if Mexico were to pass fair labor laws that US corporations would be allowed to bypass them. What I should have said is that you have to abide my Mexican laws unless there is a provision in NAFTA that says otherwise. There is no provision in NAFTA that says US corporations can treat their workers like shit even if Mexico passes labor laws to prevent that.

[GirlinContempt]

264. But there are provisions that say

if a corporation can successfully argue that the new labour laws impinge on their ability to make assloads of money they'll get compensated and the laws will get torn down. So to me that sort of seems like bypassing. Cause, NAFTA says otherwise in cases where laws impinge on corporations making boatloads of unrestricted money.

Mexico tried to use it back against the US, too.

[Hippo_Tron]

268. When did Mexico try this exactly?

[GirlinContempt]

278. Incredibly easy to find out

http://www.intfish.net/cases/other/gatt1994/index.htm
http://www.foei.org/trade/activistguide/tunaban.htm
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=mexico+usa+tuna&btnG=Search&meta=

[manic expression]

263. Be serious

THEY HAVE TO TREAT THEIR WORKERS LIKE SHIT! It's the nature of the market. Are you really so insipid that you think Mexicans work in those conditions because THEY LIKE IT? Get a clue.

[Selatius]

168. Don't liquidate the Kulaks. Just institute MARKET SOCIALISM and a PROGRESSIVE tax code and...

use the revenue to launch a public banking mechanism. There would be a national bank, and below that would be regional and then local branches. The national bank would apportion the money it receives from the taxes to the respective regions of the USSR in proportion to the population size. Then, the regional branches will distribute money to the local branches using the same rules with respect to population. The local branches, governed by their respective communities, would use the money to fund the start-up of worker co-ops, the expansion of existing co-ops, and the expansion of industry and commerce in general.

In addition, a capital assets tax will be implemented upon the idea that capital belongs to society as a whole. As a result, for a firm to use such capital requires the firm to pay a "usage fee" for use of that capital, the capital assets tax. A depreciation fund will be mandated for each firm to offset the loss of revenue to the public bank due to depreciation of equipment. The tax revenue generated from the capital assets tax will be used solely to fund the public banking mechanism, and this bank would give the money in the form of grants to expand industry and start new co-op firms.

The national, regional, and local branches will be the prime advocate of establishing worker co-ops throughout the land. Ideally, public input is allowed at all levels of this banking mechanism. Individuals, if they wish, can start privately owned firms and hire workers and make a profit off the workers and the capital as long as they pay a capital assets tax for use of that capital and other incidental taxes as well and obey labor standards. When the individual wants to cash out or dies, the public bank can choose to purchase his firm, reorganize it, and relaunch it as a worker co-op.

The goal would be to give workers a choice between working in a co-op and working in a privately owned enterprise. If workers do not wish to work for somebody else but themselves, then they should be given an avenue into the co-op sector. If you wish, you can start a privately held corporation with private shareholders and such, but workers would have a real choice to work for you or to work for themselves. Private corporations need not be the dominant force in the land. People can be the dominant force.

Firms, either co-op or private enterprises, would be free to sell their goods and services at market prices in most cases. In certain cases, the public banking mechanism can offer incentives to control production in certain markets such as the market for food.

The Bolsheviks? The Capitalists watching from the outside? I would kill all who decide to attack me or the workers from within or from abroad. It is a matter of self-preservation in the face of annihilation. The rest of the Bolsheviks can choose to reorganize the party and join me if they wish, or they can be pushed aside and watch their experiment be co-opted by the people. Because the public banking mechanism would only work with input from the public, it would serve as a convenient vehicle to introduce notions of democratic self-rule. When workers are given a choice in a community to allocate funds, such as to build schools, hospitals, mass transit, fund the expansion of enterprises, etc., pretty soon workers will also ask questions with respect to political democracy.

In time, the martial period will give way to a democratic period. At that point, I walk away once people learn how the system that was set up works. Once they know, they take over and run the public banking mechanism themselves, and my job is done. The model would serve as an attractive lure for all workers across the planet, and hopefully, those workers will be wondering why their own governments and masters aren't giving them the same freedom to allocate the capital the way they see fit that the people in Russia have.

This is market socialism.

[leftstreet]

218. Excellent ideas!

:thumbsup:

And this needs repeating:

When workers are given a choice in a community to allocate funds, such as to build schools, hospitals, mass transit, fund the expansion of enterprises, etc., pretty soon workers will also ask questions with respect to political democracy.

[Leopolds Ghost]

318. If you believe in this stuff, why the syndicalist star in your sig?

What you're advocating sounds like a Hamiltonian command economy, powered by a Marxist-Leninist Platonic intellectual elite, with a thin veneer of anarcho-syndicalist "future intentions" ("I will give up my power as soon as the attacks by my enemies stop")

[Leopolds Ghost]

403. OTOH, populism could be considered a libertarian version of syndicalism

But I don't think calling something "market anything" is a good way of
effecting change in the US economy, especially if it's directed by the
government. In politics, "Market-oriented" usually means "whatever serves
the interests of the current beneficiaries." Just my opinion.

The reality is that any approach done by the government "on behalf of the
people" will always be corrupted to serve a priveliged few, often the same
few who already have money.

That doesn't mean a system of credit unions wouldn't be worthwhile. It definitely would! But "if I ruled the world" I would by definition be in the wrong position to implement them by fiat. It is no easier for a ruling cadre of ideologues to change society, than it is for a large number of committed individuals. Attempts to do so from the top down are usually destructive or ineffectual. After all, just look at the Bush administration.

In other words, I don't disagree with you, but the way you put it sounds more like big-government populism than syndicalism.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I am more of a believer in direct-democratic populism. The Marxists on this thread will say that there are no mechanisms for implementing a populist economy of the sort you advocate, but I disagree.

Marxist-Leninism uses up a lot of oxygen that could be otherwise
expended dealing with solutions in the real world, not rehashing
old debates about policies implemented by the Soviet Union that are
almost as old, and did not last as long, as the institutions set up by the 19th century People's Party in the US.

[Selatius]

420. On the contrary, it's a form of market socialism, not state socialism.

The community banks themselves would be run by respective communities, not a central bureaucracy. The communities would decide how the banks allocate capital in the form of grants to start new co-ops, capitalize existing co-ops, and expand trade and industry in general in these communities. The role of the state in terms of these banks would simply be limited to disbursement of funds in terms of population size to regional and local branches. Contrary to more purist anarchists, I generally believe there may be a role of the state, but compared with traditional state socialists, my conception of the state in comparison to theirs is limited. I end up appearing as a hybrid as a result.

A true command economy would be what you saw with the Soviet Union post-Stalin or with current North Korea. The simple fact is a centralized decision-making structure such as the state simply cannot process the sheer amount of information that an economy needs to allocate resources efficiently. The result is tremendous waste of resources. The anarchists, which also includes anarcho-syndicalists, were right from the very beginning on that point, and I agree with them. The point where I may diverge from other anarchists is over the role of the state. I think its role is limited, but I generally am hesitant to say the state should be eliminated entirely in the face of external threats. My model would bare far more resemblance to the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation. The only difference is that the banking function would serve as a nexus between the co-ops and the state.

In terms of the hypothetical situation with Russia after the end of Romanov rule, I would've likely devolved power from Moscow to the several regions of Russia in respect to the fact that many regions were only under control of Moscow due to force of the previous Czars and that many Soviets established after the Great War simply weren't under central control but were more autonomous in nature. Introducing market socialism through a public banking mechanism at any rate would've meant these regions with their peoples would've opted to remain autonomous. Introducing state socialism would invariably require that these autonomous regions must give up decision-making power in terms of allocating resources to the central bureaucracy, and I wouldn't have gone down that road.

The only question for me in terms of the role of the state in the October Revolution is whether there would be coordination between the various geographic regions of post-Czarist Russia, and the state, in that case, could serve as a coordination mechanism, and coordination would've been key to the survival of the revolution not only against the White Army but also from armies sent by outside European and American powers to ensure that no socialism would emerge.

With respect to this star, I've always felt more of an affinity to what it means than with the red star, whose definition has become warped in the minds of many.

[LWolf]

176. Why would opponents of capitalism have to

look to russia for an alternative?

???

[WinkyDink]

177. Exactly. False dichotomyville.

[Boojatta]

216. They don't have to, but apparently some of them do.

This thread is evidence of that, no?

[rakovsky]

180. What kind of question is this?

Kulaks were people who owned a normal farm. Capitalism means a company hiring alot of people. If the farm hired alot of people, the Russians could have just told the hired people to work on government farms. No need for Stalin to repress anyone.

Don't you think someone can agree with Socialism and disagree with Stalin?

In fact, even the Soviet Union announced in 1956 that Stalin committed crimes. Bush's war murdered 300,000 Iraqis in 4 years, ruining America's reputation. Stalin killed 6 million in 25 years, ruining the USSR's reputation.



You can be a capitalist and disagree with Bush, you can be a Socialist and disagree with Stalin.

[GirlinContempt]

190. Kulak actually refers to the petty bourgeois,

wealthy 'peasants' who owned larger farms and hired outside labour. The "normal" farms were owned by the bednyaks and somewhat the seredniaks.

[JVS]

194. If I ran a farm by driving to home depot each day and getting a bunch of undocumented workers...

to bust their humps for me at low wages and then kept the profits from harvest for myself, nobody here would like me. But call it being a kulak and suddenly baby Jesus weeps if anyone would say a word against me.

[GirlinContempt]

206. Laissez-faire much?

[smalll]

208. If you ran a farm by driving to home depot each day and getting a bunch of undocumented workers

to bust their humps for you at low wages and then kept the profits for yourself and I not only took your farm from you, but assured, by withholding food supplies, that you and your ilk in your region would die on purpose, no-one would say a word in SUPPORT of ME. And yet Stalin gets a pass. Do I need to grow a mustache or something?

[JVS]

214. I sooooo need to test this theory!

Anyone want to pitch in to start a farm?

[GirlinContempt]

223. In!

[GirlinContempt]

225. You forgot the part

where first he attacked collectivist farmers, destroyed or hid crops, and formed a subversive group to harm the national interest.

Just, you know, in the pursuit of fair comparison.

[JVS]

226. We'll be Gods I tell you, more like Pirates than Farmers

[GirlinContempt]

234. And don't you forget it

[Leopolds Ghost]

324. Well, since there are no bourgeois "rights" or "morals" according to you guys...

I say hard-left front groups are subversive and undermine the left.

Shall we perform a citizens' arrest at the next ANSWER rally to identify which of your senior kamarades are government agents and which are merely agent provocateurs? Or should we just burn your pamphlets as punishment for your (what everyone else on the left considers to be) elitism, cadre-ism, and subversion of your closest political allies?

I say we get all Ukraine on these subversive Leninist-Stalinists who want
to turn back the clock 70 years and reverse the progress the left has made
since the death of the Soviet Union. Call for consensus, brothers & sisters?

I am being facetious but you get the point.

[manic expression]

336. You have no point

We reject bourgeois "morality" and "rights" proudly. Why? Because their morals are based upon exploitation and dog-eat-dog, and rights have no basis in reality.

Yeah, go ahead, try to stop the only people with real direction in the anti-war movement. (I thought you were against purges, but I guess hypocrisy is to be expected as much as misunderstanding of history and reality)

[smalll]

217. The anti-Kulak posters on this thread must be really depressed about Campaign 2008.

I mean for most of us here, we might be a little non-plussed because the major candidates aren't strong enough in their opposition to the war, or are too willing to rattle the sabre at Iran, or aren't bold enough in their health care proposals. Just think about the poor Stalin fans on this thread! None of the candidates have even HINTED at the idea of a policy of class elimination. Not even a whisper about liquidation of CEOs, for heavens sake. Not even from Kucinich! :cry:

[JVS]

219. John Edwards has talked about there being 2 Americas!

We want there to be 1! That right there is class elimination!

[smalll]

221. Yeah, but has Edwards said he's up for killing anyone?

No, I don't think so. They're all a bunch of spineless DINOs!

[rug]

224. I believe the Iranis are not off the table.

I hope you reread this post of yours in a couple of years. A party that consistently allies with corporate interests will not endure and cause much misery, death and destruction on its way down.

[Boojatta]

220. Thank you.

This thread needed a bit of comic relief!

[Warren DeMontague]

231. Don't worry, Ralph Nader will show up any minute now.

After all, what have the past seven years been but a vindication of his assertion that there would be "no real difference" between the GOP and the Democratic Party way of doing things? :crazy:

[Warren DeMontague]

229. Wow. Way to corral all the real ding-dongs into one thread.

:thumbsup:

For the record, communism doesn't solve anything, and it doesn't work. And Stalin was truly one of the great assholes of the 20th Century.

What we need is MORE freedom for individuals, not less. Unfortunately, in this country, we have a state supported corporate welfare system known as the military-industrial complex (and, to a lesser extent, the prison-industrial complex) that produce nothing anyone in their right mind would want to buy.

I'll say it again- we need more freedom for individuals, not less. Corporations, on the other hand, need fewer "rights" and a higher mandate of responsibility to society.

Free enterprise- real free enterprise- is not the enemy (neither is it mutually exclusive with a solid social safety net, infrastructure, and a single payer health care system) the enemy is top-down authoritarianism and nanny or daddy statism, whether cloaked in the guise of "leftist" Stalinism or right-wing corporatist fascism.

[rug]

232. Show me "real" free enterprise and I'll show you a unicorn.

[Warren DeMontague]

233. I don't need to show it to you. It's everywhere, and as ubiquitous as air.

Despite repeated attempts by humans to shut it down, lock it up, drag big green bags of it off in DEA vans, or stamp it out.

[rug]

236. Oh look! A rainbow!

[Warren DeMontague]

237. Yep. That's right.

Some things just are.

[JVS]

239. whoa, groovy dude!

[GirlinContempt]

238. "real" free enterprise doesn't solve anything

and it doesn't work.

[JVS]

241. The first thing to do when in a free market environment...

is to try to gain some extra wealth and keep leveraging it until you can make it unfree to your advantage

[Warren DeMontague]

245. And the first thing that happens when resources are collectivized

is that the folks in charge of the collectivization process use their position to gain advantageous status for themselves.

[JVS]

248. The amount of graft in the USSR pales in comparison to the open greed that is not just tolerated...

but celebrated as success in the US

[Warren DeMontague]

251. Well, you and I obviously differ on some basic philosophical points.

I don't think there's anything wrong with people making things other people want to buy, and earning money that way- I don't even think there's anything wrong with people getting rich that way.... Oh noes!

:hide:

I don't appreciate having a government-subsidized military industrial complex corporate welfare state producing crap that no consumer would ever want, to the tune of half a trillion dollars a year. I think we could do better allocating those resources. But what we need is more freedom for individuals, not less.


And Stalin was a shithead.

[JVS]

253. here's something fun to read

http://www.exile.ru/2006-October-06/whos_your_daddy.html

[Warren DeMontague]

258. Never said cronyism wasn't a problem.

One would have to be blind not to see that it is.

[manic expression]

270. Just how do people get rich?

please tell us how there's nothing wrong with exploiting the people who ACTUALLY produce things.

[Warren DeMontague]

274. Who's "us"? The comintern?

I don't buy into that zero sum game, Euclidian economic dialectical materialist bullshit. I also don't buy that every job is "exploitation" or that everyone who has ever made any money at all doing something that other people find valuable is "evil".

Sorry, you'll have to find people on your campus to lecture about this crap. I'm really not interested.

Good grief.

[GirlinContempt]

280. comintern sounds so funny

i love it. but I would have gone with Politburo

[Warren DeMontague]

281. Hell, for all I know, there are six or eight of them, all huddled around a screen

behind that username, collectively.

Lord knows, anyone that fiercely committed to Marxist ideals doesn't privately own their own computer.

[GirlinContempt]

282. It's always possible.

Unless you understand that marx would have had no problem with anyone owning a computer.

heh heh politburo heh heh

[Warren DeMontague]

284. Seeing as Marx died in 1883

your post points up perfectly the reason why his ideas; which weren't even terribly workable in or appropriate to the 19th Century, are ridiculously outdated now. Perhaps not as much as the folks who want to use several thousand year old western religions to run the world, but certainly not current.

The notion that "there are those who own the engine lathe and those who run the engine lathe" defines the entire world of property, ownership and work is equivalent to trying to take a horse drawn carriage on the freeway. Doesn't work. Marx would have been fucking flabbergasted by a computer, as would anyone else from that era-- anyone short of, perhaps, H.G. Wells.

[GirlinContempt]

285. Wow thats a pretty dumb conclusion to come to

Of course anyone from that era would have been 'flabbergasted' by a computer, but a computer falls under personal property, and therefore:

"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations."
-Communist Manifesto: II Proletarians and Communists

[Warren DeMontague]

287. Okay, then.

I guess I'm dumb.

But at least I'm capable of critical thinking, and not just spitting out pre-programmed answers drilled into me from my Das Kapital study group irregardless of context- like, say, the context of a thread where people are justifying the mass murder of 20 million human beings to satisfy some dumbshit's version of "class defanging"

My point was, whether or not Marx's ideas would have worked in the reality of the late 19th century (they wouldn't have) they are clearly not appropriate to the world today. But good luck convincing the planet otherwise- you certainly don't have to worry that you'll be called "trendy".

[GirlinContempt]

289. I didn't say you were dumb

I'll save that for someone who knows you. I said that was a dumb conclusion to come to.

And you clearly aren't capable of critical thinking, because critical thinking requires knowing what you're thinking about critically before hand. Apparently my Das Kapital study group drilled me in enough not-das kaptial material to know you're grasping at straws. I'm not justifying mass murders or talking about class defanging, I'm taking about a specific thing that you said to me, which was false. If you can't handle being false, employ some of your critical thinking skills in pre-reading. The conversation I'm having with you has nothing to do with the rest of the thread, but by your own logic everything you've said is out of context because it has nothing to do with Stalin killing people.

Your point was poorly made. In fact, it wasn't made at all or backed up by anything. So, good job I guess. Maybe next time, make a point and don't just SAY they don't work. EXPLAIN why they don't work, give some facts, or at least some detailed opinions, and don't just state his birth/deathday. I can do that too.

Adam Smith was born in 1723, what a moron. So unworkable.

And rolling in at the #1 spot of things I love about DU: The assumption that because I'm arguing a point against you, I'm a raging communist trying to take over the world. True or false, the assumption based on nothing is enough to put me in stitches.

[Warren DeMontague]

310. What specific thing did I say to you that was false? nt

[GirlinContempt]

315. Well there was this

"Lord knows, anyone that fiercely committed to Marxist ideals doesn't privately own their own computer."

[Warren DeMontague]

408. I guess your facetiousness meter is broken.

Big surprise.

[GirlinContempt]

411. Good job!

[manic expression]

288. The people reading your BS

Because your points make no sense.

People who employ other people are guilty of exploitation. The bosses make the workers work, and the bosses benefit. The workers get crumbs for actually producing things.

Once you actually analyze class relations and, you know, stuff in reality, you see that capitalism is based upon exploitation and detrimental behavior.

[Warren DeMontague]

308. Yeah, I'm sure if I was properly re-educated it would all make perfect sense.

As it is, however, I'll stick with my nonsensical "BS" about letting people be free to run their own damn lives, economic and otherwise.

[manic expression]

311. Economic freedom

translates into stark exploitation. Check out reality.

[Warren DeMontague]

312. Reality. That's a good one. Reality is not a brick building

It's not even a hot wind blowing over the desert.

It's certainly not the dismal affair envisioned by Karl and Freidrich. In fact, their only rival for such a stark, meat-n-potatoes, settled-in-stone basis for objective "reality" is the equally depressing yet ideologically antithetical Ms. Rand.

If you're misfortunate enough in your own head to live in any of their Universes, The Marx one or the Rand one, you have my condolences. No fucking thanks. We are the dreamers of the dreams, and we are the music makers. "Reality" is what we make of it.

But I digress into metaphysics.

I guess all those people who got shot trying to get out of East Germany back during the Cold War were just buying the lies about "stark exploitation", clearly. Obviously they didn't know how good they had it. :eyes:

[manic expression]

313. Not if you refuse to look at it

East Germany was supposed to keep Germany weak. The Russians saw two German invasions in the span of a few decades, both of them taking millions of lives, and wanted a buffer, so they created East Germany to keep Germany weak and Russia protected. Again, you display a complete lack of understanding of history (and reality).

[Warren DeMontague]

314. Oh, okay. So life was really good in the Soviet Union, then.

It was just the East Germans who got the rotten, badly managed part of communism.

I guess life must be pretty good in North Korea, these days- they're still holding true to Old Joe's model, aren't they?

[manic expression]

316. Communism has never been implemented

do you even know what communism is?

Life in the USSR was far better than life in post-USSR Russia and Ukraine. Go research the drop in life expectancy, rise in homelessness and unemployment and worse.

Do you even know what the ideology of North Korea is? Go find out and then talk to me. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

[Warren DeMontague]

322. Guess not.

That would explain why arguing with your Right Answer Machine has grown so tiresome. 'Nite.

[manic expression]

330. So you don't know those things?

not surprising.

[Warren DeMontague]

409. That's right. You've got all the answers.

Enjoy!

[manic expression]

410. It's clear that you have none n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

412. Yep.

You said it! :hi:

[manic expression]

413. I sure did n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

325. Yes, so? Marx's socioeconomic critique does not equal Marx's faulty prescription. n/t

[manic expression]

335. Marx's solution works

meanwhile, the liberals and "p:eyes:pulists" whine and complain about real change from the lap of the bourgeoisie.

[Warren DeMontague]

243. Thanks for clearing that up.

Now I'm convinced. Onward, Comrade!

[GirlinContempt]

250. Well, it was an equally compelling argument

as completely based in fact and rationality. Glad those tactics work! I'm off to publish an essay.

[Warren DeMontague]

257. Fact and Rationality. Let's review.

For the record, communism doesn't solve anything, and it doesn't work.
I think at least the second part of that sentence is backed up by the historical record.

And Stalin was truly one of the great assholes of the 20th Century.
Opinion, perhaps, but nevertheless one backed up by his body count. I stand by it.

What we need is MORE freedom for individuals, not less. Unfortunately, in this country, we have a state supported corporate welfare system known as the military-industrial complex (and, to a lesser extent, the prison-industrial complex) that produce nothing anyone in their right mind would want to buy.
Opinion, again, but one grounded in facts, like the fact that we spend half a trillion a year on the M/I complex- more than half of ALL the discretionary spending in the US Budget. We spend $40 Billion a year on the drug war, not including the costs of our being the number one per capita incarcerator of non-violent offenders in the civilized world. Meanwhile, nothing anyone actually wants to buy is made in the US anymore, and countries like Japan have been kicking our ass at making better cars- and more environmentally friendly, advanced ones to boot- for decades.

Free enterprise- real free enterprise- is not the enemy (neither is it mutually exclusive with a solid social safety net, infrastructure, and a single payer health care system) the enemy is top-down authoritarianism and nanny or daddy statism, whether cloaked in the guise of "leftist" Stalinism or right-wing corporatist fascism.
I think the idea that out of control authoritarianism, in all its guises, has been one of the biggest problems facing the human animal over the past few millenia is a self-evident truth. Oh well.

[GirlinContempt]

259. Backed up by what historical record?

I don't even really care that much what you think, to be honest. I just find it hilarious when people just throw shit like that out there for anything other than a comical purpose. That isn't a point it's a hit and run opinion.

[Warren DeMontague]

262. Eh, Communism doesn't have a stellar success record.

But, since you "don't really care that much what I think", I'll cease performing for your amusement.

Obviously, in a thread where some folks are bending over backwards to justify the mass murder of "wealthy" farmers and landowners in Soviet Russia, I'm a fucking riot.

[GirlinContempt]

265. Yeah you kind of are.

[Warren DeMontague]

266. There's a dinner show, too.

[rman]

327. Show me Stalin's communist policies

You know, the policies that helped distribute wealth more equally, and the policies that brought the means of production under public control.

[JVS]

328. dekulakization and collectivization both did that

[pitohui]

247. are proponents of /capitalism/ capable of answering that question?

what the hell is a kulak?

capitalism is killing the entire planet, in case you ain't noticed, if everybody is dead except some breeding pairs around the poles, the details of what happened in 1921 probably don't matter

everyone agrees that stalin is shitty, so what, * is shitty, and he's a capitalist, how many are dead on his watch and it's still happening! -- i'm going to suggest that stalin is dead and thus qualifies as a straw man!

[killbotfactory]

267. Do proponents of capitalism have to defend slavery and genocide?

Or colonial conquest?

Do they have to defend the many instances of powerful capitalists slaughtering innocent striking workers?

Do they have to defend "manifest destiny" or the many wars in many countries all over the Earth for the benefit of powerful capitalist elites?

Or is that all water under the bridge now?

[rug]

269. Good point.

[Boojatta]

271. No, proponents of capitalism don't have to defend those things.

Why would they defend what cannot be defended? Why would they try to support what does not deserve anyone's support?

[killbotfactory]

273. We still profit from those things

We never gave the land back to native americans.

The money made from bloodshed and war didn't disappear once we decided it was wrong.

Hell, many capitalists are profiting from our illegal war in Iraq.

Yet many people claim that the abuses of Stalin discredit socialism (or whatever ism they don't support) entirely, and don't ever consider applying that logic to capitalism.

[Boojatta]

275. This is already a big thread. Why not start a new one for American Indian Lands, Iraq war, etc?

many people claim that the abuses of Stalin discredit socialism (...) and don't ever consider applying that logic to capitalism.

That's a legitimate point, but I didn't make that claim. I simply asked a question. Here was one answer:

I wouldn't have changed hus Kulak policy
hard problem and hard solution, but it worked

Now how exactly should one respond to that?

[Amused Musings]

283. Those were terrible things

The difference is fourfold (at least):
1. I acknowledge those things to be bad, unlike the astounding display of historical revisionism being done on this thread.

2. The magnitude of destruction and death caused by Stalin's purges and especially his efforts at collectivization (and Mao's- which was even worse) are unparalleled in the sense that so many died in such a brief period and that there was a human hand guiding it. The tragedy of transporting livestock diseases to the New World (and in the case of Lord Amherst, intentional) is a stain on American and European history, but the scale and speed of the artificial famine in Ukraine is dizzying in the sheer brutality and pace of the death.

3. How ever many striking laborers that were killed, it does not amount to the death toll of the Kulaks

4. Capitalism is not a utopian ideaology, like Marxism, and recognizes that a certain amount of inequality will forever be a reality. It is the job of the liberal to ensure the least amount possible.

[GirlinContempt]

286. Wait wait wait

So Communism of all forms ROUTINELY gets lumped under the heading of the USSR, deemed unworkable because of fucking Stalin, and called utopian, and THEN to add insult to injury, I have to listen to capitalists claim first that it's you know, a DIFFERENT form of capitalism, and it isn't utopian because well where I live it isn't, and basically suck up this bullshit that no one would EVER listen to if it wasn't coming from the status quo?

Good to know.

[ComerPerro]

272. here's what I'd like a true-believer in capitalism to answer, first

How do you reconcile the fact that you aren't a billionare?

After all, the American dream is alive and well, and anyone who works hard can become successful and rich...

[rman]

317. Dude, Stalin was a capitalist

A State-capitalist.
What was happening in Russia at the time had nothing to do with equal distribution of wealth and public control over production. In other words: it had nothing to do with communism nor socialism.

[Boojatta]

350. The title of this thread is merely a hint. The OP is too big to be the title.

It's up to the individual DU member who responds to the OP to decide whether or not he/she is an opponent of "capitalism."

(...) had nothing to do with equal distribution of wealth and public control over production.

What do you mean by "public" control? Do you mean control by private individuals who are members of the general public? Do you mean government control? Do you mean something else altogether?

In other words: it had nothing to do with communism nor socialism.

Where did you see the word "communism" or the word "socialism" in the original post? I don't accept responsibility for the tangential debates raging throughout this thread. Read the OP and read my other contributions to this thread.

[Boojatta]

355. You should have no trouble finding the original post in this thread.

Here are my other contributions to this thread:

Russia had one revolution in 1905 and two more in 1917.

The kulaks were there already when Stalin acquired political power.

Could you tell me, sir, what has led you to classify yourself as a progressive?

Is this a satisfactory answer to your questions?

There are debates about the meaning of the word "progressive."

This is already a big thread. Why not start a new one for American Indian Lands, Iraq war, etc?

Re claim that "they" tried to starve the cities

One doesn't become a wealthy farmer by burning grain.

They don't have to, but apparently some of them do.

No, proponents of capitalism don't have to defend those things.

[happydreams]

407. Yep, It was a big bamboozle.

[fishwax]

320. and why should one spend their time answering that question?

:shrug:

[Melynn]

326. You can either go forward or go backward

Stalin choose to go forward.

[mmonk]

333. All this depends on how people define capitalism

or other economic systems. Sometimes, systems get the blame for bad governments or bad actions of individuals and organizations.

[Warren Stupidity]

340. Would that other site permit the defenders of fascism

to have their say? Can one find long winded threads chock full of holocaust denial over on that other board?

I guess we should be proud of the level of tolerance we show here.

[manic expression]

342. Leftism is progressive

I'm not sure what the problem is.

[JVS]

343. Our opponents have too much nostalgia for the early stages of capitalism

They want to go to the days before walmart closed the local store, not realizing that Walmart is the logical conclusion of the local stores' competition. But because they consider themselves progressive, they think that trying to turn back capitalism's clock is progress. They don't understand the contradiction.

[manic expression]

352. Precisely

extremely well said.

[Warren Stupidity]

344. Totalitarianism is not progressive.

And you are advocating and defending just that. The difference between totalitarian fascism on the right and totalitarian communism on the left is rather slight.

[manic expression]

346. So let me get this straight

people taking action against people who are actively trying to starve them is the same as (wait for it) fascism? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

Worker control, equity, fair distribution of resources and other parts of socialism are about as progressive as you can get.

[Warren Stupidity]

349. Keep defending the stalinist butchers

it really is very impressive.

It is odd though how when the slightest bit of democratization was allowed in to your workers paradise, the system collapsed overnight: it had no supporters. It seems all those workers wanted nothing to do with your utopia, despite 70 years and three generations of grim re-education. Equally odd it is that over on the other side of asia the form of the marxist leninist totalitarian state persists, however it is the command economy rather than the state that has been allowed to wither away in favor of capitalist forms of economic activity. I guess they just ran out of hard nosed real revolutionaries like Uncle Joe, eh?

[manic expression]

351. Keep denying history and reality

It is odd that you bring up the late 80's, when the system had become riddled with problems and nationalism was becoming an undesirable issue.

It is also odd that you neglect to mention the complete disaster that the fall of the USSR was for Russia and Ukraine. Homelessness, life expectancy, accessibility to food, oligarchism and more are all indicators of the FACT that the USSR, EVEN WITH all of its problems at the end, was better than what replaced it.

[bleedingheart]

348. First you must eliminate Stalin

1. He was insane
2. He was not a communist but a hardline dictator and if anything he was worse than the Czars
3. It would have been better for the russian people to have walked into a better way of life than to have been pushed through the idiotic 5 year plans..

If only Lenin and Trotsky had survived ...I think Stalin should have been murdered on the orders of Lenin..even Lenin appeared to know that Stalin was insane.

[deutsey]

353. Look for a book called "The Long Detour"

The author argues Soviet communism (which retained czarist authoritarianism and rigid social heirarchy) actually had nothing to do with socialism (which is the fulfillment of democracy and industrialism). He points out how the Soviets even used American corporate town models in implementing their policies.

[Boojatta]

357. Where in this thread did I make any claim about socialism?

Please show me where I did that.

[deutsey]

406. Hey, I'm just recommending a fricking book

And it was directed to the general thread. Show ME where I single YOU out.

Take or leave it.

Jeesh.

:eyes:

[Boojatta]

415. The OP itself has 39 replies.

MyDU gives a list of the 39. I thought that yours was one of those 39. Shall I check? Does it matter?

I usually try to eventually respond to replies to my messages where a response seems to be warranted.

[deutsey]

423. Do whatever you want.

:shrug:

I made a recommendation on a book that had some relevance to the larger topic at hand. It is customary for posters here to respond to an OP with a tangential response intended for the general thread.

[Boojatta]

424. "It is customary for posters here to respond to an OP with a tangential

response intended for the general thread."

A new custom: one could respond to some particular post that is directly related to one's response. Then one's response is directed not only to third-party readers, but also to at least one direct participant in the thread who may then respond with some further comments that might be relevant and interesting.

[deutsey]

425. One could do that, couldn't one?

Perhaps one could contact the administrators of said board and, being one just bursting with keen ideas for how everyone else on said board should participate on the board in question, one should recommend such a suggestion be integrated into said board's rules of conduct?

:eyes:

[JVS]

359. Woohoo this thread has reached the top 10 in # of replies

[mix]

362. impressive ain't it ?

em

[manic expression]

402. In honor of over 400 posts

The first verse of The Internationale, as performed by me.

Arise, ye workers from your slumber!
Arise, ye prisoners of want!
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant!
Away, with all your superstitions
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We'll change henceforth the old traditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize!

So, comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face!
The internationale unites the human race!
So, comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face!
The internationale unites the human race!

[GirlinContempt]

421. Innit sweet?

[mix]

361. nostalgia

what is up with this strange admiration for the soviet union, as if the utopia of communism had been achieved there, rather than betrayed

[manic expression]

363. Again, I partially agree

the Soviet Union, even after Stalin's takeover, needs to be seen as what it was. Stalin did betray the revolution in my eyes, but that does not mean the USSR wasn't socialist and a workers' state. Even Trotsky said the USSR should be defended in 1940 (IIRC), so I'll take his word for it.

[mix]

364. the soviet union

for many on the left is this impassable horizon, much like neo-liberalism

how do we get beyond both ?

[manic expression]

365. It's a model

that we should analyze and apply to today. The question is not if we get beyond it, the question is if we take valuable lessons from it (which, IMO, will finally get us past the obstacle of the free market).

[mix]

366. it's an anachronism

the soviet model is the product of a particular time and place, that's why it could never be applied universally in its time, or today

take the contemporary USA ; this is a post-industrial society with a shrinking industrial base, where is that fabled agent of history 'the working class' to be found?

the soviet union had its accomplishments, for me, the defeat of fascism is its greatest ; but as a model it relied on political repression and violence and was an economic disaster

[manic expression]

399. I don't think so

it can be applied today to our own societies.

Today we see an ever-growing disparity between rich and poor; even the suburbs (which is basically a fortress of capitalism) are under siege by the forces of the bourgeoisie. Now that we have more and more people being laid off and being replaced by cheaper workers or machines, which is what Marx talks about.

There is revolutionary potential yet. Our movement has always seen setbacks, but we have always bounced back and taken the day again.

[Amused Musings]

414. Meanwhile

Christians still wait for the Second Coming and Shia wait for the return of the Mahdi. Yet the world keeps turning. Oh the irony of a faith-based system that purports atheism. Bounced back? Communism has been permanently retired to that old folks home of lost causes: the University basement.

[manic expression]

416. Read your history

the bourgeoisie and their lapdogs were saying socialism was dead in 1871, and 40 years later, the Bolsheviks take power.

The movement toward equity and the liberation of the working classes will never be dead. Ever hear of Oaxaca? Chiapas? Two movements that have started AFTER the fall of the USSR. Venezuela? Chavez is starting to nationalize more and more industries and give more control to the wokers (he even said that people who don't know what type of socialism he wants "should read Marx and Lenin"). How about Cuba? A Marxist-Leninist state right next to Uncle Sam. Nepal? Maoists are gaining momentum. No, we are far from dead, just look around you.

Again, anti-communists ignore reality and history in favor of their delusions.

[manic expression]

368. I hope people read and consider the points made in this thread

so that real problems can be pinpointed and real solutions can be agreed to. Too many people are ignoring the issues at hand today, and these posts address that. We need more threads like this one.

[mix]

381. i agree

it is so strange how this thread lit some fire ; the original post is so arcane and weird, but interesting

[bridgit]

369. i think free market capitalism is a tremendous idea, i think america should try it...

sometime and see how it goes :patriot:

[mix]

379. now

that would radicalize people!

[manic expression]

404. So, Boojatta

are we capable or not?

[GirlinContempt]

405. bueller? bueller?

[Boojatta]

417. Let the record show that the Original Post was not

sterile (as I had feared it might be), but instead went forth and begat on a biblical scale.

[Rex]

418. Stalin was insane.

His policies were mere tools that helped him stay in power. He picked a command economy and stuck with it. He picked people off of a list for execution. You can't go back and change any of that, unless you get rid of Stalin from the very beginning. It had nothing to do with capitalism.

[JVS]

428. Is it answered enough for you yet?

[MSchreader]

430. To begin with, you have to go farther back than Stalin

The basis for the rise of the bureaucratic state that Stalin led was formed during the Civil War, when the early Soviet government rehabilitated the old tsarist state apparatus and tried to wield it for its own purposes.

That said,...

If I was there in 1923, and had the ability to change the course of history (which would mean that I was part of a revived proletarian communist movement that was able to displace the main petty-bourgeois socialist factions in the Bolshevik Party -- both the Stalin-Bukharin "Center" and the Trotsky "Opposition"), there would be a number of changes that, as a whole, would be made in rapid succession:

1) Lifting of the ban on internal factions in the Bolshevik Party and the ban on pro-soviet workers' parties.
2) Organization of new elections to local soviets.
3) Restoration of democratic rights to all working people's organizations and workers themselves, based on the 1918 Declaration of the Rights of Exploited People and RSFSR Constitution.
4) Repeal of the policies of one-person management and restoration of direct workers' control of production.
5) Restoration of the Factory-Shop Committee Congress and local FSCs.
6) Passage of a new equalization of wages law, which would mandate that no government worker or official make any more than the average wage of a skilled worker.
7) Passage of a new accountability law, restoring the right of immediate recall of representatives.
8) A massive reorganization of the New Economic Policy to better meet the needs of working people in the cities and countryside.
9) Implementation of a new public works program to build up the infrastructure, working alongside the GOELRO and other modernization plans previously begun.
10) Calling of a new Congress of Soviets to review and amend the 1922 USSR Constitution, in order to bring it into line with the spirit and sense of the 1918 Constitution and basic principles of communist transitional policy.

As for the kulaks, I would imagine that the basic definition would not change. A kulak was a landlord. I don't think that would change at all. However, I would definitely have changed the policy.

Instead of waiting until the rise of the "smychka" crisis and the general revolt of the kulaks in the late 1920s, I would have advocated expropriating them immediately: voluntarily at first; through forcible means later on (if necessary). In addition, I would have advocated that this be accompanied by a parallel program of collectivization -- again, voluntarily at first; through forcible means later on (if necessary). I make no apologies for taking this position.

One of the main tasks of the workers' republic (i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat; the workers' state; the socialist state) is to eliminate the material basis for classes and class antagonisms, in order to pave the way toward achieving the classless society (communism). That means it is necessary to abolish private ownership of the land, since, in rural situations, land ownership is the basis for exploitative class relations.

Now, how this is done can vary. Voluntary collectivization and transfer into common ownership is the most preferrable way to go. This can be accompanied by material incentives to encourage landowners to voluntarily collectivize (e.g., allow them to continue to live on that patch of land rent free until they die; discounted prices for agricultural implements and necessary items, like fertilizer and seeds; etc.). However, many landowners will fight tooth and nail to defend their position as exploiters, and will have to be dealt with accordingly when the time comes. And I can almost guarantee you that the decision on when that times comes would not be made by the workers' republic, but by the landowners. History has shown that they will take up arms and revolt before any move is made by the working class to expropriate them and bring their lands into common ownership.

The only areas of this policy where I would have taken a more immediate stance would have been in forest lands and large swaths of grazing land over a certain size. These areas should have been immediately placed in common ownership.

(I was going to include something here about "factory farms", but such things did not exist in the USSR of the 1920s.)

OK, go ahead. I welcome your comments.

Martin

[eridani]

431. Anybody who has no employees cannot be a capitalist by definition

Kulaks, as I understand the term, were peasants, and therefore owned their own means of production. Being against capitalism means that nobody gets to own anybody else's means of production, not that you can't own your own. Guess Uncle Joe didn't see things that way.

[GirlinContempt]

432. Wrong.

Kulaks were rich 'peasants', and typically hired outside labour.

[eridani]

433. In that case, making sure the laborers got the full value for their production--

--is hardly the same thing as Stalin effectively making laborers and rich peasants alike his personal employees.

[GirlinContempt]

434. Just sayin'