Simply repeating "market mechanism" ad nauseam means absolutely nothing.
— Xtrix
And if you don't understand how socialism worked in Soviet Union or China... — ssu
I have no idea what you're talking about here.
— Xtrix
Seems so. And that's why you use socialism and communism as synonyms. — ssu
Actually too successful for many eager leftists.What is this branch? Where can I get me some? Sounds successful and popular. — Jingo7
Who would equate socialism with the USSR and Communist China (or Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea)? — ssu
I think you are living proof of how shallow and nonexistent historical knowledge is and how people pick just what they want to hear. Because I don't think you are trolling. Oh yes, USSR and Communist China weren't mainstream socialist thinking!In my view, you’re yet another victim of years of indoctrination on this matter. So much so that it seems ludicrous to suggest the USSR and China aren’t in line with mainstream socialist thinking at all (which is true). — Xtrix
Let's do that!First and foremost, of course, is to actually read Marx. But then Rocker, Bakunin, Luxemburg, etc. — Xtrix
The Russian Revolution represents the most tremendous event to have occurred during the world war. Its outbreak, its unprecedented radicalism and the effect that it continues to exert give the lie to the rhetoric employed zealously by official German social democracy as an ideological cover for German imperialism’s campaign of conquest when this campaign was initiated—i.e. the rhetoric according to which it was the mission of German bayonets to overthrow Russian Czarism and to liberate its oppressed peoples. The revolution in Russia has assumed an enormous scale; its far-reaching effects have convulsed all class relations; it has enveloped all social and economic problems; and it has made consistent progress since the initial stage of the bourgeois republic, such that the overthrow of Czarism remains a mere brief episode and is virtually reduced to a trifling significance. All these circumstances clearly demonstrate that the liberation of Russia was not the work of the war and the military defeat of Czarism, that it was not to be credited to ‘German bayonets in German fists’—contrary to the pledge thus formulated in a leading article in Die Neue Zeit under Kautsky’s editorship. Instead they show that the liberation of Russia had deep roots in Russia itself, and that internally it was fully ripe. The military adventure of German imperialism under the ideological cover provided by German social democracy did not bring about the revolution in Russia—on the contrary, this military adventure initially interrupted the revolution for a period following the latter’s first storm surge in the years from 1911 to 1913, and served to create the most adverse, abnormal conditions for the revolution following its subsequent eruption.
* * *
Lenin’s party was thus the only one in Russia that had a grasp of the true interests of the revolution in this initial period—it was the element which drove the revolution forwards, being in this sense the only party to pursue a socialist politics.
This also explains how the Bolsheviks, who at the beginning of the revolution constituted a minority that was ostracized, slandered and hounded on all sides, were led within the briefest period of time to the forefront of the revolution and were able to rally under their banner all the genuinely popular masses—the urban proletariat, the army, the peasantry—alongside the revolutionary elements within democracy (i.e. the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries).
The actual situation in which the Russian Revolution found itself came down within a few months to the following alternative: victory of the counter-revolution or dictatorship of the proletariat—i.e. Kaledin or Lenin. Such was the objective situation which very soon arises in every revolution once the first intoxication has evaporated; in the Russian case, this situation resulted from those concrete, burning questions—the question of peace and that of land—for which no solution was to be found within the framework of the ‘bourgeois’ revolution.
Here the Russian Revolution has merely confirmed the basic lesson of every great revolution, whose vital law can be formulated as follows: the revolution must either press forward very rapidly and decisively, tearing down all obstacles with an iron hand and setting its goals ever further ahead, or else it will very soon be cast back behind its weaker starting point and crushed by the counter revolution. In revolution there can be no standing still, no running on the spot, no settling for the first goal that happens to be achieved. And those who attempt to apply the homespun wisdoms gleaned from the parliamentary battles of frogs and mice to revolutionary tactics merely demonstrate that the psychology of the revolution and its very vital law are utterly alien to them, and that all historical experience is to them a book with seven seals.
* * *
Lenin, Trotsky and their comrades have fully accomplished all that a party could possibly muster in the hour of revolution in the way of courage, forcefulness of action, revolutionary far-sightedness and consistency. The Bolsheviks evinced the revolutionary honor and cap acity for action that was so entirely lacking in western social democracy. Their October uprising not only actually rescued the Russian Revolution, it also salvaged the honor of international socialism.
I have no problem with that. Besides, people contradicting themselves isn't anything new.can't you just let the council communists have their venerable Rosa Luxembourg? — thewonder
I think you are living proof of how shallow and nonexistent historical knowledge is and how people pick just what they want to hear. — ssu
Oh yes, USSR and Communist China weren't mainstream socialist thinking!
That is hilariously funny. — ssu
Soo...↪Xtrix tells us that USSR was "non-mainstream socialism" and we (or I) should read, among others, Rosa Luxembourg. — ssu
Well, after reading that praise of Lenin and the bolsheviks above from Rosa Luxembourg herself, I think it's obvious that one of us doesn't know history, or what people actually wrote, and in this case it isn't me. — ssu
Of course, with mainstream socialism (in the West) one could argue to be talking about social democracy, not communism. That would have a point. But I don't think that people here are making that argument. — ssu
The core of socialism was understood to be workers control over production. That was the core. That's where you begin, and then you go on to other things. The beginning is control by the workers over production. That's where it begins.
Actually I was taught Marxist economics in the University. Along with mainstream economics, perhaps I should add.Right -- it's hilariously funny for those with a shallow understanding of the socialist tradition and who apparently have never read a word of Marx. — Xtrix
Right -- it's hilariously funny for those with a shallow understanding of the socialist tradition and who apparently have never read a word of Marx.
— Xtrix
Actually I was taught Marxist economics in the University. Along with mainstream economics, perhaps I should add. — ssu
But I guess you never did visited East Germany or the Soviet Union. — ssu
I had opportunity to do so, even lived for a short time with a Russian family in Moscow during the Gorbachev era. Pretty interesting to compare that experience to the few years I was in the US as a child. — ssu
Actually, there is a "libertarian" left. They are the social democrats, parties like the Labour party in the UK. And they have been very successful politically, opposed to the communists in Western democracies.you do as a certain disservice when you fail to recognize the distinctions between what I guess that I'll call the "authoritarian" and "libertarian" Left. — thewonder
Of course. Something as important as Marxism ought to be naturally taught in an university. And the assistant professor was a Marxist, actually. He made his best effort to teach just what Marx had in his mind. Far better than the brief introduction I got in philosophy at the gymnasium.They had you read Marx in university? I know you're not in the US, but I can guarantee you didn't go to an American university. Glad to hear. — Xtrix
It wasn't a shithole. Russians as people are really great and friendly. When they have a guest, they really treat you very well. Here people try to be "decent" and just give you something modest in order not to "show off". But they, the Russians, didn't believe at all in the system. I remember that I wanted to go a Lenin museum we walked by in the City Center. I remember the expression of the girl from the family and her reply: "Uuuhh...OK, let's go". Even if she was a pioneer (or something) and could then visit my country.I'm sure Russia was a shithole and the US was much nicer. — Xtrix
Personally I'd hold such views to the math & logic section in PF. There it can be so.You're just mistaken. I would fault you for being unwilling to learn and listen, however. — Xtrix
Let's get back to the topic. — ssu
I was indeed too!I was still typing. — thewonder
I was still typing. I don't feel a need to keep debating this, but, that may or may not be possible as Xtrix's solution to the ecological crisis, like mine, though I'm willing to exit this thread, as they have taken a disliking to me, may involve some sort of alternative to Liberal democracy. — thewonder
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