Kheras I refuse to answer that because you clearly didn't read what I said, here you go saying "but Stalin was an exploiter" when I just said that. now if anyone has some real counterpoints..
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Where was the motivation for the cavemen to work together and share what they got? Where was the motivation of peasants for thousands of years to work for their lords? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Using early human civilization is a flawed example.
Early societies were nomadic hunters and gatherers. The bands were small, consisting of 30-50 people and any wealth they were able to accumulate took the form of weapons, tools and cooking implements. All made with relative ease and portable, so everyone could possess them. Since the societies were small, it was feasible for everybody to give their input. Society was based around subsistence. Survival, not ideals or equality, was the driving force to cooperate.
Since survival took such a high priority, philosophical and scientific thinking took a back seat. Without the advancement of agrarian and pastoral societies that could produce beyond simple subsistence, science and philosophy wouldn't have been able to advance. It wasn't until humans settled down that advanced thinking became capable.Not surprisingly, the advances of those societies also gave rise to greater inequality, simply because more property and wealth was available. Dwellings, crops and domesticated animals all became recognized as property. As society grew, leaders emerged to direct the populous. Advanced society revolves around shared tasks and specialization. Advanced thinking revolves around producers generating enough so not everyone has to produce and thus has the time to think.
I'd also like to point out that most people seem to agree that communism would work on a small society. I'd wager that it could work in larger societies if a significant majority of the population was based in subsistence agriculture, but not for large industrial societies.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Faced with having to fight the entire world, the USSR was coming apart at the seams; to keep things together, bureaucracy grew and democracy shrank. Stalin built alliances with the bureaucracy and slowly gained political power. After Lenin's death, the Party became increasingly divided. As the country rebuilt, Trotsky and the Left Opposition argued that the troubles were not so bad and the bureaucracy needed to go, and democracy needed to be fully reinstated. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm curious as to how one could govern a large city, let alone a large nation without a bureaucracy. The concept of a town hall meeting doesn't work for large or even medium sized cities. Even with an electorate, it takes more than a few people to run the state. If the government had full control of not only services, but also production, the government would have to increase in size, not decrease. It's not feasible for a society to elect every position in the government, especially if it's even larger than it currently is.
Finally, I'm curious about two things. Art and dissent. How would your communist nation deal with those two things? If production is dictated by the state, wouldn't that squash art? Art is largely individualistic and almost never works according to a dictated schedule. Or do you take the Platonic philosophy that art is harmful to society?
Dissent seems to be just a tricky a subject. To prempt any "There wouldn't be dissent because everybody is enlightened yada yada yada." arguments, if there's more than a few people, you're not going to get them to agree on everything. If you've ever tried to get ten people to agree on pizza toppings, you know what I mean. Would dissenters simply have to suck it up and bow to the will of the majority (at gunpoint or not) or would they have the right to succeed from the state and form their own nation? If so, would the communist nation respect the other nation's right to exist, even if it were capitalistic?
Well, I lied. Two more things.
First, how would history be taught? Would history be censored by the state to avoid a resurgance in support of capitalism or would capitalism be taught benefits and all?
Second, is the communistic approach to the economy a zero-sum one, where the total economic gains are equal to the total economic losses? If so, how would a zero-sum approach to the economy encourage growth, or at the very least, prevent stagnation?
<!--QuoteBegin--revolutionary+Oct 27 2003, 09:43 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (revolutionary @ Oct 27 2003, 09:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Where was the motivation for the cavemen to work together and share what they got? Where was the motivation of peasants for thousands of years to work for their lords?
For the latter, I suppose the counter argument might be: There was no motivation, and that's why the peasants rose up in the French, American, and other revolutions.
To say that the Soviet Union was corrupted because of human nature is to ignore history. It was one of the first nations to grant women the right to vote (before the United States), so the democratic argument fails here. It was also the first time that socialist planning and workers' and farmers' democracy had been attempted on a national scale. But to stop an example of workers organizing themselves, and to prevent the creation of a revolutionary nation, the bourgeoisie of the world convened: <i>the USSR was invaded by 16 nations</i>: the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, etc. Both sides of the fight between businessmen, WWI, put aside their differences to attack the common enemy: the workers. 7.5 million people died in the ensuing Russian Civil War.
Faced with having to fight the entire world, the USSR was coming apart at the seams; to keep things together, bureaucracy grew and democracy shrank. Stalin built alliances with the bureaucracy and slowly gained political power. After Lenin's death, the Party became increasingly divided. As the country rebuilt, Trotsky and the Left Opposition argued that the troubles were not so bad and the bureaucracy needed to go, and democracy needed to be fully reinstated. In 1928 they were kicked out of the Party. The ones that Stalin killed in the great purges were often Trotskyists, and almost all of the political opponents that he killed were members or former members of the Communist Party (they were NOT pro-capitalists who wanted to "be free"). By 1940, only a few of the original Bolsheviks hadn't been murdered by Stalin: he commandeered the revolution, and replaced working-class rule with bureaucratic rule. The bureaucracy gradually grew in power until it was able, in 1991, to dissolve the Soviet Union, and the old bureaucrats bought up all the industry--they became the capitalist bosses of Russia.
The poverty level among Russians has increased, from 1989 to 1998, from 1 to 24 million people: even Stalinism was better than the **** they have now.
So don't say human nature killed the Soviet Union: the bourgeoisie of the world, and their armies, did it.
Now here is something I don't like about what you said, Jammer: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If people feel they're being 'exploited' by the rich, they're free to seek employment elsewhere.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, they get other employment.. but at the hands of other rich people! This is not a matter of individual situations, this is the entire class system. There is no Communist nation that they can just go to, and work there instead: they tried to make one in 1917 but you guys destroyed it, like I said above. Now if Communism was, as you say, a harmless flawed idea that would have collapsed upon itself without intervention, <i>why did you have to go to war and get millions of people killed</i>?
Cause it ain't that simple! The people of Russia were going to prove once and for all that workers didn't need bosses, poor people didn't need to be pushed around, and the rest of the bourgeois world couldn't handle that because of the threat it posed: so they turned to all they had: guns. That's how it always is, every day, when they can't flood our neighborhoods with drugs to keep us down like the British with opium in China or the CIA with coke turned crack in LA, they start shootin' at us. The only way a worker can make his/her lot better is not to choose a different boss--a different slave master--it's to take things into his/her own hands. Cause another world IS possible, it's just so sad we gonna have to fight for it.. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Where was the motivation? Quite clearly it was that if they didn't do that work they would either be killed or die from starvation. Didn't I say that myself in my last post?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->To say that the Soviet Union was corrupted because of human nature is to ignore history.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IMO, the opposite is quite true. To say that human nature wasn't a major cause in the downfall of Communist is to ignore history. The idea of Communism may have seemed plausible back then but it was a very flawed system. The reason communism failed is because A). It cannot support millions upon millions of people. and B). The human nature of Stalin (the thirst for power) caused it to stay a brutal Dictatorship. (realize that the USSR was closer to a Dictatorship then a Communist government.) The world may have torn apart Russia perfect little Communist country but the sad fact is that it wouldn't have worked in the first place.
I think we can all agree that Soviet Rusia may have been better off economically during USSR rule but do you honestly thing that the citizens, or at least the vast majority, aren't happy that the secret police wont be digging into their lives anymore? Democracy didn't bring Russia down to this level, the USSR took them down to that level and then left them there. Oh, and news flash, the rich bourgeoisie play a role in human nature because last time I checked, they were human.
You seem to have a very cynical view of the world today and personally, I don't blame you. Know this though, most of the people owning businesses worked their way from the groud up. These things haven't just "been there" and aren't just inheirited by the rich bourgeoisie who wish to stomp down all of us common workers. These people have worked their a**es off also and most deserve every cent they make. Not every man can do this, become a rich buisiness owner, but if they could the balence would be thrown WAY out of order. Anyway you look at it, we are a HELL of a lot better off with Democracy and the Free Market economy then we would be with a Communist government and economy.
Then be more clear, please, or else I've got to assume, because I'd hate to ignore someone. When I say Stalin I'm talking about the whole bureaucratic institution he propped up and not just Stalin the man.
<b>The Finch</b>: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Early societies were nomadic hunters and gatherers. The bands were small, consisting of 30-50 people and any wealth they were able to accumulate took the form of weapons, tools and cooking implements. All made with relative ease and portable, so everyone could possess them. Since the societies were small, it was feasible for everybody to give their input. Society was based around subsistence. Survival, not ideals or equality, was the driving force to cooperate. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There was division of labor in these societies. Men hunted, and shared their catch; while women created domestic goods and raised children, and shared what clothes or tents they had made.
But I was not trying to justify the idea of a worldwide socialist economy with the caveman example, and you are indeed correct in asserting how this would be an incorrect analogy. However, I was talking about human nature that time. I think the example of the caveman proves that the human survival instinct in harsh conditions is to cooperate, so we are really in agreement here, sorry about any misunderstandings.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm curious as to how one could govern a large city, let alone a large nation without a bureaucracy. The concept of a town hall meeting doesn't work for large or even medium sized cities. Even with an electorate, it takes more than a few people to run the state. If the government had full control of not only services, but also production, the government would have to increase in size, not decrease. It's not feasible for a society to elect every position in the government, especially if it's even larger than it currently is.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A communist city isn't based around one council but several; for example Paris during the Commune, or Russian cities when the Soviets sprang up, were not based aroudn one councils, but multiple councils, that would elect representatives to discuss with the others. More on representation later.
With regards to planning, the people within a city WOULD elect councils to form economic plans, and to produce these they would take surveys of people.. but they would only be endowed to make the plans: before anything was put into action, it would have to be decided on by the populace.
But as history has shown, bureaucracy has become less necessary as technology has advanced. More and more unnecessary posts are going to be eliminated over time, just like people working in sewage disposal can not have such "dirty" jobs if they are given good equipment.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Second, is the communistic approach to the economy a zero-sum one, where the total economic gains are equal to the total economic losses? If so, how would a zero-sum approach to the economy encourage growth, or at the very least, prevent stagnation? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If one of the plans as I mentioned above highlighted the need for: a new factory, a new science committee to design new products, a new bridge, residential area etc., then that would be built, and the economy would grow.
Now there are many ways to go about democracy; it does not have to happen exactly like I say--I am simply providing you with a basic idea of how these things are possible.
These councils aren't going to meet for every little thing, they can elect representatives or teams of representatives, endowed with the power of their constituency, to meet with other representatives in a "city council," a "county council," up to national / world councils. Because of the small size of individual councils, it will be very easy to instantly recall a representative--so they can always get rid of the representative if he/she has acted out of league with his/her constituency.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally, I'm curious about two things. Art and dissent.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>Art</i>. I will not attempt to describe art. Personally I think that it is the perspective one has of life. But a government that tries to stamp out art because it is of a dissentful nature is doing so because it feels threatened by dissent. Which leads to the next point.
<i>Dissent</i>. The revolution itself, is dissent. People become dissatisfied with economic downturn and they turn to: drugs, religion, some nationalist/racist movement, or socialism; the latter two (nationalism+socialism) are dissentful movements. But since a socialist economy does not encounter depression, only one thing could harm it and produce a turn to those movements (drugs, religion, et al): that one force is outside interference. Natural disasters or foreign invasion are the only two things.
A volcano, hell, there's nothing we can do about it.
Foreign invasion, on the other hand, is like what happened to the USSR, they had to put a clamp on dissent when that happened, despite starting off as a totally democratic country. They never established a safe economy so there was always dissent, so they always had to ban it. If the revolutions in Germany and other countries had not been defeated, the world revolution would have prevailed, and there would be no dissent.
Dissent is scientific. Without a bad economy, there will be no drug use, religion, or dissent. So I <i>don't</i> advocate the banning of these! They will fade on their own, once people have something better to turn to than the life of the wage-slave. If dissent grew, even with a strong socialist economy, then Communism would be flawed, and I would be a fool not to recognize that! I'd join the capitalist bandwagon myself. But history tells me that Communism presents the next step in human social evolution.
So again, I will present a historical example: the Age of Revolutions, most importantly, the American Revolution.
The American Revolution was the revolution of the new American bourgeoisie on one side against the old British nobility and bourgeoisie on the other. Fighting continued, even after the shaky victory of the Revolution, until well into the early 1800's. If you wrote a book glorifying the English monarchy at this period, you would be thrown in jail. But now that the American bourgeoisie no longer recognizes a threat to its existence from the English monarchy, if you wrote a book glorifying the Enlish kings today you would not get into any trouble.
Similarly, while capitalism will continue to pose a military threat while we are fighting the bourgeoisie, a threat made real by the dissent caused by revolutionary war, putting a clamp on dissent may be necessary. Revolutionary war is like any other, and the proletariat is like any other class that must fight against threats to its power. Even during <b>reconstruction</b>, after the victory of the world workers' revolution, there may be dissenting groups preying upon the woes of people that this war was the Communists' fault and solved nothing, inciting them to fight the workers' councils and return to capitalism. Some of these goers-back may even be workers: don't forget that there were mobs of French peasants who fought on the side of the Royalists during the French Revolution! However, once our vastly superior mode of production proves the capitalists wrong, they will cease to pose a threat, and their political parties will be permitted again--although I doubt they will get members.
The "reconstruction" period finds its analogy in history. The American Revolution and Civil War were very closely paralleled by their Russian counterparts, except that the American bourgeoisie <i>won</i> the civil war whereas the Russian workers <i>lost</i>--so we can apply the lessons learned in the American Reconstruction: In the south, during reconstruction, some groups wanted a return to slavery, such as the KKK. It was fought against by the US Government back when it represented a serious resistance to the capitalism that was being instated in the south. Now that the risk of "the south rising again" is gone, and capitalism has proven to Southerners that the slavery-feudalism was inferior, the KKK is tolerated, because it no longer represents a threat--no one believes that it really offers a solution. This is because they have seen the progress that capitalism has brought to the south. The only thing that could generate popularity for the KKK would be another economic depression in which they blame things on Blacks and Jews, but much like drug use, this is a manifestation of dissatisfaction with capitalism that isn't going to solve anything. Because minorities aren't what caused the depression. It didn't work for Germany and it won't for America!
To conclude, it is a sad necessity that we must crack down on dissent in tough times, but history has proven it to be a necesssity. A necessity of war. Further justified by the defensive attitude towards war of us Communists. We have always acted to defend ourselves: the USSR did not declare war on Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the USA; nor did the Commune declare war on Thiers; it has always been the other way around! If they'd leave us be we'd have no need of war--and thus, no need of censorship.
Thank you for letting me bring the point of dissent and censorship out, it is definitely a scientific social phenomenon.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The world may have torn apart Russia perfect little Communist country but the sad fact is that it wouldn't have worked in the first place. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh? Even with Stalin and the bureaucrats leeching off the people, the deformed version of socialism that existed was able to turn the Soviet Union from a backward collection of farming countries into an industrial superpower. The Soviet Union had 0% unemployment, and there was no forced labor in the USSR either except for prisoners. I know what you are going to say, there were a lot of those, but!: a lower percentage of the Soviet population was interned at the height of Stalin's crackdown, than the US population today.
If you realize that the USSR was a poor country to begin with, it is amazing what Stalin and his cronies were able to do. If the workers had been running the planning, the USSR would have been a tremendous example of socialist planning (Stalin had planning but not socialist planning: the proletariat and the farmers were not the ones in mind when he planned). A great example of socialist planning would have encouraged other nations' workers to rise up and follow suit, that is why the USSR had to be attacked.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Know this though, most of the people owning businesses worked their way from the groud up.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is often true, but once at their perch the bourgeoisie are hard to unseat. The bigtime businessmen, limited to 5000 or so within American society, are invincible within capitalism and usually born to wealth. They are the true rulers of our nation. Also, factory bosses and other members of the petty bourgeoisie, almost always come from well-to-do families.
And besides! Once you get to the top, truth be told, you ARE at the top. You are exploiting, and you are not working any more. The bourgeoisie functions as a social class like any other. It matters less in the class analysis how they got there, and more what they do.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Anyway you look at it, we are a HELL of a lot better off with Democracy and the Free Market economy then we would be with a Communist government and economy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the capitalists would stop talking theory, and let us try in peace to create socialism on a nationwide scale and it just failed on its own, then I'd agree. But there has been serious military opposition to this attempt.
Capitalism and socialism can not coexist together on the worldwide scale, however: capitalism and imperialism have never offered any quarter to socialism or nationalism. It is impossible for us to "test" without you attacking, and in the past you've always had more guns so you won--so we don't have any successful tests to speak of, either we beat you or you destroyed the experiment, and the latter happened! So unfortunately I can offer you no examples of successful socialist planning on a national scale, because it's always been impossible in the capitalist world. Sorry about that!
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Democracy didn't bring Russia down to this level, the USSR took them down to that level and then left them there.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I say making something 24 times as terrible isn't keeping it just as bad. It's like taking a toy with the top missing, smashing it with a hammer until it is just bits, and saying "it was like this when i found it--broken."
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Oh, and news flash, the rich bourgeoisie play a role in human nature because last time I checked, they were human. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True. The working class fights for its own interests as well, and as the majority of society they can best assert their interest by taking over.
<!--QuoteBegin--Fire Eel+Oct 28 2003, 09:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fire Eel @ Oct 28 2003, 09:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Oh for God's sake! Just look at the current world! Do you see more Communism countries or more Democratic Countries?
Give me an example of a truely successful Communism country. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I could ask the same about a democratic one, and whose to say you can't compare both. Its a shame the idiots of today stain communisms good ideals with their own idiocy
When you take a good look at Communism it dosen't even seem like a good idea anymore, might work for robots, but were human beings, we want to do well, and we want to be better then the people around us. Thank god we do or nothing would ever get done, nothing important that is. Communism works for mindless grunts, who do not aspire to be anything better in life. All through out history the most powerful and sucessful countries and empires had some form of a social structure that Communism does not allow. It simply won't work with human beings, which makes it a bad idea. Kinda like the jetpack replaceing the car, good idea, won't work with humans.
I'm trying to stay out of the discussion, but sorry folks, no matter what side you're on, once you start to discuss the feasability of a 'communist country', you've lost touch with the very basis of what you were trying to discuss. Communism is by definition a state of the <i>whole</i> of humanity and can thus <i>never</i> be implemented and brought to success within a single country. Communism knows no lesser scale than the globe. Thus, no communist country could have ever possibly existed, and neither the Soviet Union, nor China, nor Cuba, nor North Korea, nor Eastern Germany, nor any other country basing itself on communist teachings ever claimed to have reached communism.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Foreign invasion, on the other hand, is like what happened to the USSR, they had to put a clamp on dissent when that happened, despite starting off as a totally democratic country. They never established a safe economy so there was always dissent, so they always had to ban it. If the revolutions in Germany and other countries had not been defeated, the world revolution would have prevailed, and there would be no dissent. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Looks like someone never heard of the purges and Sibera. Repression of dissent started the day after the revolution started, and ended in 1989 (and some might say never - look at current news on the YUKOS in the Russian Federation). There was never any period where dissent was not ruthlessly crushed and millions of people 'disappeared', either before or after WW2. Go read Gulag Archipeligo, and learn from a survivor like Solzhenitsyn.
Be that as it may, Nem is right - this has turned into a topic about the history of the Soviet Union. Open a new topic if you want to talk about those specifics of why the communists failed in that country.
You completely ignore the main point, if that invasion didn't happen then Stalin would have never came to power. While Trotsky was out fighting the war, Stalin sat back and planned his rise to power. Lenin even said it himself that Stalin did not posses the necessary characteristics to be a communist leader. They needed someone who was dedicated to the cause, an original Bolshevik, not an oppurtunist.
World Revolution in communism has many forms, Marx said that it would be done by workers, and Trotsky said it would spring up in different countries that would unite and then take the rest of the globe.
What the heck kind of revisionism is that? Stalin fought in that war, just as Trotsky did - he fought against the White Russians and drove them out of the southern provinces. He wasn't just off in some basement plotting his takeover. They named Stalingrad after him for his battles in the caucasian plains, for pete's sake. The fact that Lenin and Trotsky didn't like him is just sour grapes - they didn't like how well he did for himself.
What did I just say about making this into a USSR history topic? Go start a new one about how Stalin blahblahblah the USSR blahblah. This one is about to get locked if people can't excercise some self control... Sheesh.
One thing that really bothers me is a lot of peoples hate against communists. I personally never did some of the terrible things past leaders have, and How can you hate something that only means good? Its like bashing Santa's head in with a baseball bat and calling it protection :/
<!--QuoteBegin--Anti-Bomb+Oct 28 2003, 05:54 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Anti-Bomb @ Oct 28 2003, 05:54 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Then how else did he isolate Trotsky from the party and gained power? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Man oh man this thread is freaking irritating as hell.
Trotsky tied his horse to a star that died a few years after the revolution - Lenin. Lots of people vied for heading the Politburo, not just Trotsky. This was <i>long after the civil war was over</i>. Stalin was just more ruthless than the rest, and that's saying something, because Trotsky was a degenerate murdering scumbag (read up on his war record). Trotsky was also incompetent at party politics, so without Lenin to back him up he was easy pickings. The fact that he is remembered at all is mainly because of his two books, 'History of the Russian Revolution' and 'The Revolution Betrayed', in which he obviously paints himself as the victim.
<!--QuoteBegin--CommunistWithAGun+Oct 28 2003, 04:55 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (CommunistWithAGun @ Oct 28 2003, 04:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> One thing that really bothers me is a lot of peoples hate against communists. I personally never did some of the terrible things past leaders have, and How can you hate something that only means good? Its like bashing Santa's head in with a baseball bat and calling it protection :/ <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> And many people hate Republicans just because they must be "right-wing nazi power grabbing scrubs"
Revolutionary, do you expect their econmy to make a huge turn around from the crappy state it was into a great one?
Its going to take a while, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communisum can not be fixed in even our life times perhaps, but it will pay off in the long run.
I believe that people who wish for Communism to make a return are only looking for the short, narrow minded solution. Not to flame of course, but it does seem that many who perfer communism just don't feel that things can be worked out in any other way.
I just have this one thing to say. The end of the Soviet Union brought their economy down into the crapper, the rise of Democracy didn't.
Revolutionary, I have one question for you. Which side of Berlin faired better after WWII, west or east? There's the best proof in the world about why Democracy is better than Soviet Russia was.
<b>M Evil</b>: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->What did I just say about making this into a USSR history topic? Go start a new one about how Stalin blahblahblah the USSR blahblah. This one is about to get locked if people can't excercise some self control... Sheesh<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The capitalists in this argument brought up the idea that "human nature was responsible for the destruction of the Soviet Union."
I attempted to prove that false in order to advance my argument against human nature. I don't know what you define as self control but if you won't let me argue freely then perhaps you aren't fit to moderate.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Trotsky was a degenerate murdering scumbag (read up on his war record). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
George Washington was a "murderer" too. The Russian Civil war was a war like any other. The whites insulted him as a "degenerate" because of his Jewish heritage and claimed that he decimated (executed 1/10) badly-performing units as part of their propaganda campaign. In reality, Trotsky only acted as military necessity directed: deserters have to be shot if you're fighting a massive war. Deserters from the Red Army were sometimes shot, but only a small minority. Most of the Red Army were peasants and they would go to their farms during harvest time, returning to their regiments after they had done their farm work. This was forgiven, and was behind most of the desertions.
Drafting and the shooting of deserters are both very ugly affairs, but war is ugly to begin with. Bloodshed is necessary. To insult Trotsky for doing his best to drive out the invaders and the old order is ridiculous: the whites and interventionists were the aggressors! To quote Blanqui,
"Yes, Messrs, this is the war between the rich person and the poor: the rich wanted it thus, because they are the attackers. Only they find unfortunately, that the poor fight back; they would readily say: 'This animal is so ferocious that it defends itself when attacked.'"
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Looks like someone never heard of the purges and Sibera. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What the hell are you talking about? I'm going to assume you didn't read my post, because your argument only backs up my point: that repression continues under unstable economies in order to stamp out political threats. Why you make it sound like you are arguing against me, but support me, I do not know; although I do not sympathize with Solzhenitsyn who claimed that Stalin was responsible for 100 million deaths (totally ridiculous given the population of the USSR). Stalin purged the Communists and the army, because of Trotsky's influence with both. He also purged the other non-Trotskyist but anti-Stalinist groups (such as the Riutinites). 800,000 is the official figure on Stalin's body count, and like I said, he killed mostly other Communists.
I hate having to repeat myself to you. And I shouldnt bother, because if you didn't read what I had written before, chances are that you won't read this post either: you'll just read a couple sentences here and there and make incoherent "arguments" against them that cause me to waste time repeating myself.
<b>Xzilen</b>: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Revolutionary, do you expect their econmy to make a huge turn around from the crappy state it was into a great one? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In 10 years they should be showing some signs of improvement. It's not like there was a war and they had to reconstruct, in fact, even the leaders are still the same: most of the businessmen used to be bureaucrats and members of the Communist Party.
Now this is totally hypothetical and impossible but: let's assume there was a peaceful Communist takeover in, Finland, and even though no foreign armies attacked, the economy went into the shitter, the poverty level went up by 24 times. Would you let them off for "rebuilding," I dont think so. You'd say that this was an example of how Communism just doesn't work and makes everyone poorer.
With the demise of Stalinism, we are seeing foreign companies move into these former "socialist" countries, exploiting and ruining. Now if there was one thing that Stalin, Mao, etc. did, they protected their countries against imperialism. But now we are seeing a new age of imperialism and it's quickly becoming just as ugly as it was before the Russian Revolution and the epoch of Stalinism.
<b>DarkDude</b>: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I just have this one thing to say. The end of the Soviet Union brought their economy down into the crapper, the rise of Democracy didn't. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's true, Democracy had been around for some time--in fact, Stalin was elected by a general consensus and during Stalin's reign, about 1/4 of the Soviets were represented by delegates who were not even members of the Communist Party.
It is also true that the end of the Soviet Union has allowed Western Europe to rape Russia like it did to India, China, and all that in the old days.
And furthermore, the end of the Soviet Union allowed the bigtime bureaucrats to buy all the industry that was being auctioned off 1991-1992, and become what has been appropriately termed by Russians the "oligarchy." Without any limits to their exploitation, they are FAR worse for Russia than they were as bureaucrats.
Also, with the collapse of the Soviet police apparatus, organized crime has taken a serious hold in Russia, and politicians that fight against corruption are often murdered by the mafia. If any serious political opposition to the current Russian government arose, and if it threatened the mafia, I am very sure that they would crack down on opposition at least as brutally as Stalin did in 1937.
Democracy has not gained a foothold in Russia: capitalism has, and it has made things much worse.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Revolutionary, I have one question for you. Which side of Berlin faired better after WWII, west or east? There's the best proof in the world about why Democracy is better than Soviet Russia was. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Democracy or capitalism? It's not such a simple distinction--but I have to assume you mean capitalism if I am to answer your question. Nevertheless I don't really know much about recent German history so I can't answer your question..sorry. I will try and get back to you on that.
<!--QuoteBegin--Windelkron+Oct 28 2003, 07:31 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Windelkron @ Oct 28 2003, 07:31 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> darkdude, have you been reading his posts? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Hehe, umm, well, most of them. Sometimes I just skim through but I do pick up most information he puts out and I do think he has many good points. Why are you asking me that though? One of his main areas of arguement was about how Soveit Russia is better then Russia is today and I feel that my last post was related to that. If you want to me go in depth about that then ok I guess I will...
I was showing the difference between a Democratic/Capitalist (I'm bundling these in one in the future unless I say differently) "country" and a strongly Socialist/"Communist" country. If you know anything about the cold war you <i>should</i> know about Berlin and how it was split in two at the end of WWII. One side for the Democratic/Constitutional side another for the USSR. You should also know about the Berlin Wall and the mad scramble of Berliners from East to West Germany/Berlin. As time went on the West grew into an economic powerhouse in Europe surpassing every other country while East Germany/Berlin sunk into poverty. When the wall finally went down in 89/90 and the people were united nothing really changed much in terms of economics for the east. Today the east side of Berlin and Germany are still the "slums" and are still suffering from the effects of the USSR. Now if in 10 years Germany, an economic powerhouse, couldn't repair and reconstruct totally imagine how long it will take for Russia to do that.
I'm still wondering why you asked that... anyway. I'm not try to respond to all of his points, just the one about how Russia should've been repaired already. It will take awhile, especially because nothing seems to go right in Russia.
Sorry about asking you something you didn't know about Revolution. It was more a a rhetorical question, you don't need to look it up at all to answer it because I just put in a fairly short one. I do recommend you study German history if you get a chance though. It's a very interesting country.
i'm sorry, but something is bothering me about these posts i've been reading. 1. democracy and capitalism are two completely absolutely different things, and should never EVER be lumped into the same thing or used in place of one another. democracy is a form of government, and i quote from my american government book "Government by the people, either directly or indirectly, with free and frequent elections". now, a direct democracy is one in which all the citizens of the state vote for all things the state wants to do, easiest example, the greek city state Athens. this kind of government is well suited for small island nations with few people. and indirect democracy, or representative democracy, is a government that derives its powers indirectly from the people, who elect those who will govern, this, my friends, is what we americans live under, it is what we call a republic.
capitalism is NOT a governmental system, it is an economic system based on private ownership of property, individual risk taking and market determination of prices of goods. that is a quote taken from my world civ book.
economy and government systems, with no relation to each other aside from their reliance on the individual citizen to make decisions.
2. the fact that the USSR, China, and North Korea are constantly being referred to as communist. revolutionist, you surprise me, you of all people i thought would be able to recognize the difference between what the USSR had set up and what actual communism is. the USSR, along with all those other so called communist nations out there that were, or still are, are/were socialist dictatorships...a dictator was in control. now, in the soviet revolution's case, the USSR started out as a communist country, where, the mandatory revolution against the capitalist bourgeoisie(middle/upper class people...rich) by the prolitariat(the working class...the poor) was completed, and the next step, socialism was commenced. this is where they got stuck. in communist theory, socialism is a step taken where a leader emerges and guides the people of the nation towards a communist society, which was correctly described earlier in this topic, though i think has lost its specificness. there IS no government in a communist state, it is a state where people work together in harmony, with equality for all, without a need of someone in control.
3. i saw human nature pop up a couple of times, and i noticed revolution mentioned it...it does not exist. what people are, what you and i are, right now, how we think, what we do, how we respond to circumstances, that's all based on how we are taught as children. we are a "blank slate" to quote a philosopher(i can't remember his name, if you want me to, i'll look him up), when we are born. everything we know is based off of experiences we have already been through.
now, to the point of the topic. i was a communist for a while during highschool, before i understood the society i lived in, and live in now. as of now, i am resigned to the fact that capitalism is the way to go, not because it is a better system, not because human nature is in the way. but because greed and power struggle is too greatly rooted in our society at this point. if communism had won out early on, maybe in the indutrial revolution of europe, instead of capitalism, then it may've had a chance. now, with the global economy as it currently is, there are too many capitalists out there, training their children to exploit weaker children, triaing their children to look for every possible reward that can be recieved from a certain situation. you could argue that this is support of human nature, and i disagree. it became our teaching taht there is a leader, that there is one who is in command and the rest follow, back in the dark ages of europe when feudalism was in control, and the church. a society without a single person in control can not exist on this earth in its current state, even the united states, a country who, in its beginning, was deathly scared of big central government, has a president, the founders saw a need for one. to top things off, this president, as our leader, has been gaining more and more power. i hold that to you as proof that in the worlds current state, a nation, or the world as one united front, could not exist without a single figurehead leader, because that would go against all our upbringings.
edit: i forgot to mention something. communism is also an economic system. but, unlike capitalism, it describes not only a way to run an economy, but how a whole state is run. this topic is misnamed...it should be named "communism vs. capitalism" or "communism vs. the combination of capitalism and democracy"
And OMG I was saying just a week ago in english class that people are born as blank slates ... we were having a discussion abotu human nature after reading lord of the flies. cool, I think the same way as some philosopher <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<b>DarkDude</b> <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now if in 10 years Germany, an economic powerhouse, couldn't repair and reconstruct totally imagine how long it will take for Russia to do that. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is still an indictment of Capitalism if anything.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One side for the Democratic/Constitutional side another for the USSR.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Here, you are implying that the "democratic/constitutional" side was a collection of like-minded nations, and that Eastern Europe was just the colonial reign of the USSR.
West Germany, like France and Britain, fell under the new sphere of influence of American imperialism.
Recently, Western Europe has organized itself and with the exception of Britain has begun to defy the United States. With the destruction of the Stalinist bloc, we are seeing a split between the European Union and the USA + Britain. Japan, too, waits attentively under the American wing while harboring its own intentions of greatness. If the USA found itself weak, Europe and Japan would most certainly desert us.
So, in my opinion, calling East Germany part of the Soviet domain is unfair since West Europe was effectively the American domain.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As time went on the West grew into an economic powerhouse in Europe surpassing every other country while East Germany/Berlin sunk into poverty.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The East hardly sunk into poverty. I did some research and I found that by the 1970s, the GDR (German Democratic Republic / East Germany) was producing more than the whole of Nazi Germany had its height, and with a population of 17 million, 1969 against the 69 million in the Reich, 1936. East German industrial output increased <i>sevenfold</i> from 1950 to 1974.
The USSR played a role in hindering the East's growth, seizing industry for "reparations;" but as the above has shown, that did not stop the GDR from growing.
Overall, it was capitalist integration that produced the economic downturn in East Germany.
As I will continue in the next reply, I <i>do not advocate Stalinism</i>. Given the bureaucracy's opportunist nature, a Stalinist country is doomed to go capitalist eventually, following the example of "bureaucrats to businessmen" that we've seen in Russia, China, and East Germany, among others. Stalinism is not revolutionary--it is <i>doomed</i> (to transform itself into a capitalist economy). Therefore, it offers a threat no bigger to the bourgeois countries than another, enemy, bourgeois country. It does not promote revolution in the capitalist countries: it behaves like any other opportunist, nationalist leadership. But despite this shortcoming, its nationalist leanings have been able to keep the West's imperialist intentions at bay since its growth as a world power (see below).
<b>the johnjacob</b>: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->revolutionist <b>[sic]</b>, you surprise me, you of all people i thought would be able to recognize the difference between what the USSR had set up and what actual communism is. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think well of the gang of bureaucrats that was running the USSR, but they did work to slow the advance of Western imperialism for half a century. Despite the atrocities of the Stalinists, I refuse to sacrifice the USSR without proper analysis of what it did. I must defend the USSR against imperialism. We saw what the British did when they had a free hand in the world, and it was a very tragic affair for those on the exploited end of the vast rape of the third world. That the Soviet Union helped stop that from happening again is certainly worth mention.
Cuba is a great example. While I detest Castro's bourgeois-nationalist regime, I sympathize far less with the emigres living in Miami, and their call to a return to the days before 1959, when Cuba was an American parking lot. Jose Martí would turn in his grave to know that they claimed to represent him.
revolutionary: my argument is not whether what happened in the USSR is wrong, but it is whether a discussion of the USSR belongs in this topic at all. to a point it does, when describing it as an example of a failed attempt at communism, but, at no point during its existence was it a communist nation, and i bristle whenever i hear it referred to as a communist nation. i do not disagree that it helped to hold imperialism at bay, though i prefer the term capitalism, for that is what was the actual driving force, but i disagree that it be used as an example of why communism cannot work. the ussr was not communist. it is an exampple of capitalist raised russians seeing a new way, and trying to change peoples views who are even more entrenched then the soviet's views of socialism and communism. the experiment was doomed from the start.
<b>the johnjacob</b>: How did the bourgeois revolutions of the late 18th and the 19th centuries change the peasants' viewpoints? If they were so concrete as you said? Besides, feudalism was only 3000 years old, while capitalism is only a few hundred years old, we should be able to change viewpoints for sure!
And how was the Soviet Union changing peoples' views when it was they who rose up?
This is like the christmas day truce in WWI: the soldiers didn't care about all that nationalism **** like your history book says: they were all human beings who came out together to share a moment of light in the tragedy that they couldn't stop because they didn't realize: that with proper organization, the working class CAN rise up. They were sold out by the "marxist" Social-Democratic parties, who voted on grounds of national self-determination to let WWI pass unhindered.
It begs mention that, in outrage at this final betrayal of the workers, the Third or Communist International movement was founded to give a legitimate voice to the international working class.
But why even bother talk about Communism, comrade, when you're consigned yourself to Capitalism? You fail to realize that the world is not concrete! I highly suggest you take the path of a revolutionist and teach others; spread the word--because if the workers know their power, they can assume it, and end all war and oppression.
Things change, comrade. Please join me as a hopeful agent of change and do not let that outlook go to waste.
As for the USSR stuff that I said, well, some people here said "human nature will break communism apart at the seams, like it did in the USSR" well i just wanted to say that the USSR was not communism, nor was it human nature that brought down the USSR. I know that this thread is a lot to read, but if you'd read the whole thing, you'd understand why I had to talk about the USSR to defend <i>my</i> viewpoint, the Communist viewpoint.
The world isn't simple, neither is Communism, I can't explain a serious viewpoint in a few sentences. So you have my apologies for writing a bunch, but that's just how it is.
revolutionary: you fail to realize that capitalism has been inevitable since the dawn of kings, queens, emporers, and dynasties. capitalism merely allows you to work to achieve that role as a leader. for one, in the USSR, it was not the working class that rose up, it was a view visionaries, leading a percentage of the population, not unlike the american revolution. i don't know numbers for sure, but i can tell you that the majority of the population in both revolutions couldn't have cared less about the communist ideals, or, in the united state's case, the tyanical rule of the king, that was not their problem, their problem was surviving.
the world was not concrete, "comrade," thousands of years ago, when civlization was just beginning and a person decided that "people" needed a ruler to survive. it was not concrete then, in the beginnings of civilization, but the ideals of leadership and control of the masses is too deeply rooted to be moved, the USSR is a prime example of that. the people rose up, the capitalists shoved 'em down, told them they were wrong, and full of crap, and now, due to their failure, communism is doomed, it will never have a base of power strong enough to stand against the powerhouse that is capitalism.
i am not consigned to capitalism, i am consigned to the fact that i, and you, can no longer change the course that has been set into motion. there is too much power among the nations of the world, too much oppression by the "free" countries. yes, even the US opresses its people, it's been doing it since the beginning. first it was slaves, then it was the civil war(about whether or not a cesation from the union is legal...it's not...i thought this country was based on the will of the people, if the will of the people is to leave the nation, why does the nation have the right to stop them?), then women's rights, then the opression of the japanese. you know, looking back, america, the land of the free, outlawed slavery AFTER almost(if not all, i'm not exactly sure on this point) of europe had done so. gg land of the free. how free are we that at the president's will he can strategically deny certain rights, and intern a certain minorty group into camps. we are not free, we are an oppressed people, but, we are happy, so the presidency says, and so we are, and so we go to war against those who are different, against those who have differeing view that "we" see as wrong, why? because we have a huge military that can.
this world can not change. if you'd be so kind as to look at any place in the last decade that has had civil unrest, you will see the oppression of the world governments.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->the ideals of leadership and control of the masses is too deeply rooted to be moved<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's like what Hitler said, that different races couldn't live together, their traditions being too deeply rooted to cooperate without their cultures "degenerating."
People are very fed up with the system when they turn to drug addiction, crime, or racist movements that defy the state. If they had faith in the state, we would not see such large numbers of them. It is our goal as Communists to convince those who are pushed around by capitalism that the revolution is possible and inevitable with their support, and that everything else is a dead end and won't fix society's problems.
People don't need to be bossed around.. but sitting around too lazy to fight for what you believe in, you will never see the end of struggle and oppression.
Civil conflict over the last decade has hurt many governments, and has often sprang from working-class unrest. The reason that no victorious revolutionary conflict arose was not because of the inviability of Communism as a political ideal, but because of the lack of a party in the genuine interests of the working class, and one to properly educate the workers.
In the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks did this, turning worker (and peasant) unrest to working-class support. The peasantry is basically gone in the USA, most farm workers these days are wage workers controlled by agribusiness farms. So things will be different in the movement here.
But without Marxist education, the party will have no base of working-class support. I wish you'd join us comrade, rather than waste that outlook of yours on a gloomy support of capitalism.
Comments
Using early human civilization is a flawed example.
Early societies were nomadic hunters and gatherers. The bands were small, consisting of 30-50 people and any wealth they were able to accumulate took the form of weapons, tools and cooking implements. All made with relative ease and portable, so everyone could possess them. Since the societies were small, it was feasible for everybody to give their input. Society was based around subsistence. Survival, not ideals or equality, was the driving force to cooperate.
Since survival took such a high priority, philosophical and scientific thinking took a back seat. Without the advancement of agrarian and pastoral societies that could produce beyond simple subsistence, science and philosophy wouldn't have been able to advance. It wasn't until humans settled down that advanced thinking became capable.Not surprisingly, the advances of those societies also gave rise to greater inequality, simply because more property and wealth was available. Dwellings, crops and domesticated animals all became recognized as property. As society grew, leaders emerged to direct the populous. Advanced society revolves around shared tasks and specialization. Advanced thinking revolves around producers generating enough so not everyone has to produce and thus has the time to think.
I'd also like to point out that most people seem to agree that communism would work on a small society. I'd wager that it could work in larger societies if a significant majority of the population was based in subsistence agriculture, but not for large industrial societies.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Faced with having to fight the entire world, the USSR was coming apart at the seams; to keep things together, bureaucracy grew and democracy shrank. Stalin built alliances with the bureaucracy and slowly gained political power. After Lenin's death, the Party became increasingly divided. As the country rebuilt, Trotsky and the Left Opposition argued that the troubles were not so bad and the bureaucracy needed to go, and democracy needed to be fully reinstated. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm curious as to how one could govern a large city, let alone a large nation without a bureaucracy. The concept of a town hall meeting doesn't work for large or even medium sized cities. Even with an electorate, it takes more than a few people to run the state. If the government had full control of not only services, but also production, the government would have to increase in size, not decrease. It's not feasible for a society to elect every position in the government, especially if it's even larger than it currently is.
Finally, I'm curious about two things. Art and dissent. How would your communist nation deal with those two things? If production is dictated by the state, wouldn't that squash art? Art is largely individualistic and almost never works according to a dictated schedule. Or do you take the Platonic philosophy that art is harmful to society?
Dissent seems to be just a tricky a subject. To prempt any "There wouldn't be dissent because everybody is enlightened yada yada yada." arguments, if there's more than a few people, you're not going to get them to agree on everything. If you've ever tried to get ten people to agree on pizza toppings, you know what I mean. Would dissenters simply have to suck it up and bow to the will of the majority (at gunpoint or not) or would they have the right to succeed from the state and form their own nation? If so, would the communist nation respect the other nation's right to exist, even if it were capitalistic?
Well, I lied. Two more things.
First, how would history be taught? Would history be censored by the state to avoid a resurgance in support of capitalism or would capitalism be taught benefits and all?
Second, is the communistic approach to the economy a zero-sum one, where the total economic gains are equal to the total economic losses? If so, how would a zero-sum approach to the economy encourage growth, or at the very least, prevent stagnation?
For the latter, I suppose the counter argument might be: There was no motivation, and that's why the peasants rose up in the French, American, and other revolutions.
To say that the Soviet Union was corrupted because of human nature is to ignore history. It was one of the first nations to grant women the right to vote (before the United States), so the democratic argument fails here. It was also the first time that socialist planning and workers' and farmers' democracy had been attempted on a national scale. But to stop an example of workers organizing themselves, and to prevent the creation of a revolutionary nation, the bourgeoisie of the world convened: <i>the USSR was invaded by 16 nations</i>: the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, etc. Both sides of the fight between businessmen, WWI, put aside their differences to attack the common enemy: the workers. 7.5 million people died in the ensuing Russian Civil War.
Faced with having to fight the entire world, the USSR was coming apart at the seams; to keep things together, bureaucracy grew and democracy shrank. Stalin built alliances with the bureaucracy and slowly gained political power. After Lenin's death, the Party became increasingly divided. As the country rebuilt, Trotsky and the Left Opposition argued that the troubles were not so bad and the bureaucracy needed to go, and democracy needed to be fully reinstated. In 1928 they were kicked out of the Party. The ones that Stalin killed in the great purges were often Trotskyists, and almost all of the political opponents that he killed were members or former members of the Communist Party (they were NOT pro-capitalists who wanted to "be free"). By 1940, only a few of the original Bolsheviks hadn't been murdered by Stalin: he commandeered the revolution, and replaced working-class rule with bureaucratic rule. The bureaucracy gradually grew in power until it was able, in 1991, to dissolve the Soviet Union, and the old bureaucrats bought up all the industry--they became the capitalist bosses of Russia.
The poverty level among Russians has increased, from 1989 to 1998, from 1 to 24 million people: even Stalinism was better than the **** they have now.
So don't say human nature killed the Soviet Union: the bourgeoisie of the world, and their armies, did it.
Now here is something I don't like about what you said, Jammer:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If people feel they're being 'exploited' by the rich, they're free to seek employment elsewhere.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, they get other employment.. but at the hands of other rich people! This is not a matter of individual situations, this is the entire class system. There is no Communist nation that they can just go to, and work there instead: they tried to make one in 1917 but you guys destroyed it, like I said above. Now if Communism was, as you say, a harmless flawed idea that would have collapsed upon itself without intervention, <i>why did you have to go to war and get millions of people killed</i>?
Cause it ain't that simple! The people of Russia were going to prove once and for all that workers didn't need bosses, poor people didn't need to be pushed around, and the rest of the bourgeois world couldn't handle that because of the threat it posed: so they turned to all they had: guns. That's how it always is, every day, when they can't flood our neighborhoods with drugs to keep us down like the British with opium in China or the CIA with coke turned crack in LA, they start shootin' at us. The only way a worker can make his/her lot better is not to choose a different boss--a different slave master--it's to take things into his/her own hands. Cause another world IS possible, it's just so sad we gonna have to fight for it.. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Where was the motivation? Quite clearly it was that if they didn't do that work they would either be killed or die from starvation. Didn't I say that myself in my last post?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->To say that the Soviet Union was corrupted because of human nature is to ignore history.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IMO, the opposite is quite true. To say that human nature wasn't a major cause in the downfall of Communist is to ignore history. The idea of Communism may have seemed plausible back then but it was a very flawed system. The reason communism failed is because A). It cannot support millions upon millions of people. and B). The human nature of Stalin (the thirst for power) caused it to stay a brutal Dictatorship. (realize that the USSR was closer to a Dictatorship then a Communist government.) The world may have torn apart Russia perfect little Communist country but the sad fact is that it wouldn't have worked in the first place.
I think we can all agree that Soviet Rusia may have been better off economically during USSR rule but do you honestly thing that the citizens, or at least the vast majority, aren't happy that the secret police wont be digging into their lives anymore? Democracy didn't bring Russia down to this level, the USSR took them down to that level and then left them there. Oh, and news flash, the rich bourgeoisie play a role in human nature because last time I checked, they were human.
You seem to have a very cynical view of the world today and personally, I don't blame you. Know this though, most of the people owning businesses worked their way from the groud up. These things haven't just "been there" and aren't just inheirited by the rich bourgeoisie who wish to stomp down all of us common workers. These people have worked their a**es off also and most deserve every cent they make.
Not every man can do this, become a rich buisiness owner, but if they could the balence would be thrown WAY out of order. Anyway you look at it, we are a HELL of a lot better off with Democracy and the Free Market economy then we would be with a Communist government and economy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I wasn't talking about Stalin. keke thx la~<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then be more clear, please, or else I've got to assume, because I'd hate to ignore someone. When I say Stalin I'm talking about the whole bureaucratic institution he propped up and not just Stalin the man.
<b>The Finch</b>:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Early societies were nomadic hunters and gatherers. The bands were small, consisting of 30-50 people and any wealth they were able to accumulate took the form of weapons, tools and cooking implements. All made with relative ease and portable, so everyone could possess them. Since the societies were small, it was feasible for everybody to give their input. Society was based around subsistence. Survival, not ideals or equality, was the driving force to cooperate.
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There was division of labor in these societies. Men hunted, and shared their catch; while women created domestic goods and raised children, and shared what clothes or tents they had made.
But I was not trying to justify the idea of a worldwide socialist economy with the caveman example, and you are indeed correct in asserting how this would be an incorrect analogy. However, I was talking about human nature that time. I think the example of the caveman proves that the human survival instinct in harsh conditions is to cooperate, so we are really in agreement here, sorry about any misunderstandings.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm curious as to how one could govern a large city, let alone a large nation without a bureaucracy. The concept of a town hall meeting doesn't work for large or even medium sized cities. Even with an electorate, it takes more than a few people to run the state. If the government had full control of not only services, but also production, the government would have to increase in size, not decrease. It's not feasible for a society to elect every position in the government, especially if it's even larger than it currently is.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A communist city isn't based around one council but several; for example Paris during the Commune, or Russian cities when the Soviets sprang up, were not based aroudn one councils, but multiple councils, that would elect representatives to discuss with the others. More on representation later.
With regards to planning, the people within a city WOULD elect councils to form economic plans, and to produce these they would take surveys of people.. but they would only be endowed to make the plans: before anything was put into action, it would have to be decided on by the populace.
But as history has shown, bureaucracy has become less necessary as technology has advanced. More and more unnecessary posts are going to be eliminated over time, just like people working in sewage disposal can not have such "dirty" jobs if they are given good equipment.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Second, is the communistic approach to the economy a zero-sum one, where the total economic gains are equal to the total economic losses? If so, how would a zero-sum approach to the economy encourage growth, or at the very least, prevent stagnation? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If one of the plans as I mentioned above highlighted the need for: a new factory, a new science committee to design new products, a new bridge, residential area etc., then that would be built, and the economy would grow.
Now there are many ways to go about democracy; it does not have to happen exactly like I say--I am simply providing you with a basic idea of how these things are possible.
These councils aren't going to meet for every little thing, they can elect representatives or teams of representatives, endowed with the power of their constituency, to meet with other representatives in a "city council," a "county council," up to national / world councils. Because of the small size of individual councils, it will be very easy to instantly recall a representative--so they can always get rid of the representative if he/she has acted out of league with his/her constituency.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally, I'm curious about two things. Art and dissent.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>Art</i>. I will not attempt to describe art. Personally I think that it is the perspective one has of life. But a government that tries to stamp out art because it is of a dissentful nature is doing so because it feels threatened by dissent. Which leads to the next point.
<i>Dissent</i>. The revolution itself, is dissent. People become dissatisfied with economic downturn and they turn to: drugs, religion, some nationalist/racist movement, or socialism; the latter two (nationalism+socialism) are dissentful movements. But since a socialist economy does not encounter depression, only one thing could harm it and produce a turn to those movements (drugs, religion, et al): that one force is outside interference. Natural disasters or foreign invasion are the only two things.
A volcano, hell, there's nothing we can do about it.
Foreign invasion, on the other hand, is like what happened to the USSR, they had to put a clamp on dissent when that happened, despite starting off as a totally democratic country. They never established a safe economy so there was always dissent, so they always had to ban it. If the revolutions in Germany and other countries had not been defeated, the world revolution would have prevailed, and there would be no dissent.
Dissent is scientific. Without a bad economy, there will be no drug use, religion, or dissent. So I <i>don't</i> advocate the banning of these! They will fade on their own, once people have something better to turn to than the life of the wage-slave. If dissent grew, even with a strong socialist economy, then Communism would be flawed, and I would be a fool not to recognize that! I'd join the capitalist bandwagon myself. But history tells me that Communism presents the next step in human social evolution.
So again, I will present a historical example: the Age of Revolutions, most importantly, the American Revolution.
The American Revolution was the revolution of the new American bourgeoisie on one side against the old British nobility and bourgeoisie on the other. Fighting continued, even after the shaky victory of the Revolution, until well into the early 1800's. If you wrote a book glorifying the English monarchy at this period, you would be thrown in jail. But now that the American bourgeoisie no longer recognizes a threat to its existence from the English monarchy, if you wrote a book glorifying the Enlish kings today you would not get into any trouble.
Similarly, while capitalism will continue to pose a military threat while we are fighting the bourgeoisie, a threat made real by the dissent caused by revolutionary war, putting a clamp on dissent may be necessary. Revolutionary war is like any other, and the proletariat is like any other class that must fight against threats to its power. Even during <b>reconstruction</b>, after the victory of the world workers' revolution, there may be dissenting groups preying upon the woes of people that this war was the Communists' fault and solved nothing, inciting them to fight the workers' councils and return to capitalism. Some of these goers-back may even be workers: don't forget that there were mobs of French peasants who fought on the side of the Royalists during the French Revolution! However, once our vastly superior mode of production proves the capitalists wrong, they will cease to pose a threat, and their political parties will be permitted again--although I doubt they will get members.
The "reconstruction" period finds its analogy in history. The American Revolution and Civil War were very closely paralleled by their Russian counterparts, except that the American bourgeoisie <i>won</i> the civil war whereas the Russian workers <i>lost</i>--so we can apply the lessons learned in the American Reconstruction:
In the south, during reconstruction, some groups wanted a return to slavery, such as the KKK. It was fought against by the US Government back when it represented a serious resistance to the capitalism that was being instated in the south. Now that the risk of "the south rising again" is gone, and capitalism has proven to Southerners that the slavery-feudalism was inferior, the KKK is tolerated, because it no longer represents a threat--no one believes that it really offers a solution. This is because they have seen the progress that capitalism has brought to the south. The only thing that could generate popularity for the KKK would be another economic depression in which they blame things on Blacks and Jews, but much like drug use, this is a manifestation of dissatisfaction with capitalism that isn't going to solve anything. Because minorities aren't what caused the depression. It didn't work for Germany and it won't for America!
To conclude, it is a sad necessity that we must crack down on dissent in tough times, but history has proven it to be a necesssity. A necessity of war. Further justified by the defensive attitude towards war of us Communists. We have always acted to defend ourselves: the USSR did not declare war on Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the USA; nor did the Commune declare war on Thiers; it has always been the other way around! If they'd leave us be we'd have no need of war--and thus, no need of censorship.
Thank you for letting me bring the point of dissent and censorship out, it is definitely a scientific social phenomenon.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The world may have torn apart Russia perfect little Communist country but the sad fact is that it wouldn't have worked in the first place.
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Oh? Even with Stalin and the bureaucrats leeching off the people, the deformed version of socialism that existed was able to turn the Soviet Union from a backward collection of farming countries into an industrial superpower. The Soviet Union had 0% unemployment, and there was no forced labor in the USSR either except for prisoners. I know what you are going to say, there were a lot of those, but!: a lower percentage of the Soviet population was interned at the height of Stalin's crackdown, than the US population today.
If you realize that the USSR was a poor country to begin with, it is amazing what Stalin and his cronies were able to do. If the workers had been running the planning, the USSR would have been a tremendous example of socialist planning (Stalin had planning but not socialist planning: the proletariat and the farmers were not the ones in mind when he planned). A great example of socialist planning would have encouraged other nations' workers to rise up and follow suit, that is why the USSR had to be attacked.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Know this though, most of the people owning businesses worked their way from the groud up.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is often true, but once at their perch the bourgeoisie are hard to unseat. The bigtime businessmen, limited to 5000 or so within American society, are invincible within capitalism and usually born to wealth. They are the true rulers of our nation. Also, factory bosses and other members of the petty bourgeoisie, almost always come from well-to-do families.
And besides! Once you get to the top, truth be told, you ARE at the top. You are exploiting, and you are not working any more. The bourgeoisie functions as a social class like any other. It matters less in the class analysis how they got there, and more what they do.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Anyway you look at it, we are a HELL of a lot better off with Democracy and the Free Market economy then we would be with a Communist government and economy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the capitalists would stop talking theory, and let us try in peace to create socialism on a nationwide scale and it just failed on its own, then I'd agree. But there has been serious military opposition to this attempt.
Capitalism and socialism can not coexist together on the worldwide scale, however: capitalism and imperialism have never offered any quarter to socialism or nationalism. It is impossible for us to "test" without you attacking, and in the past you've always had more guns so you won--so we don't have any successful tests to speak of, either we beat you or you destroyed the experiment, and the latter happened! So unfortunately I can offer you no examples of successful socialist planning on a national scale, because it's always been impossible in the capitalist world. Sorry about that!
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Democracy didn't bring Russia down to this level, the USSR took them down to that level and then left them there.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I say making something 24 times as terrible isn't keeping it just as bad. It's like taking a toy with the top missing, smashing it with a hammer until it is just bits, and saying "it was like this when i found it--broken."
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Oh, and news flash, the rich bourgeoisie play a role in human nature because last time I checked, they were human.
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True. The working class fights for its own interests as well, and as the majority of society they can best assert their interest by taking over.
Give me an example of a truely successful Communism country.
Give me an example of a truely successful Communism country. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I could ask the same about a democratic one, and whose to say you can't compare both. Its a shame the idiots of today stain communisms good ideals with their own idiocy
It simply won't work with human beings, which makes it a bad idea. Kinda like the jetpack replaceing the car, good idea, won't work with humans.
Thus, no communist country could have ever possibly existed, and neither the Soviet Union, nor China, nor Cuba, nor North Korea, nor Eastern Germany, nor any other country basing itself on communist teachings ever claimed to have reached communism.
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Looks like someone never heard of the purges and Sibera. Repression of dissent started the day after the revolution started, and ended in 1989 (and some might say never - look at current news on the YUKOS in the Russian Federation). There was never any period where dissent was not ruthlessly crushed and millions of people 'disappeared', either before or after WW2. Go read Gulag Archipeligo, and learn from a survivor like Solzhenitsyn.
Be that as it may, Nem is right - this has turned into a topic about the history of the Soviet Union. Open a new topic if you want to talk about those specifics of why the communists failed in that country.
World Revolution in communism has many forms, Marx said that it would be done by workers, and Trotsky said it would spring up in different countries that would unite and then take the rest of the globe.
What did I just say about making this into a USSR history topic? Go start a new one about how Stalin blahblahblah the USSR blahblah. This one is about to get locked if people can't excercise some self control... Sheesh.
Man oh man this thread is freaking irritating as hell.
Trotsky tied his horse to a star that died a few years after the revolution - Lenin. Lots of people vied for heading the Politburo, not just Trotsky. This was <i>long after the civil war was over</i>. Stalin was just more ruthless than the rest, and that's saying something, because Trotsky was a degenerate murdering scumbag (read up on his war record). Trotsky was also incompetent at party politics, so without Lenin to back him up he was easy pickings. The fact that he is remembered at all is mainly because of his two books, 'History of the Russian Revolution' and 'The Revolution Betrayed', in which he obviously paints himself as the victim.
And many people hate Republicans just because they must be "right-wing nazi power grabbing scrubs"
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Its going to take a while, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communisum can not be fixed in even our life times perhaps, but it will pay off in the long run.
I believe that people who wish for Communism to make a return are only looking for the short, narrow minded solution. Not to flame of course, but it does seem that many who perfer communism just don't feel that things can be worked out in any other way.
Revolutionary, I have one question for you. Which side of Berlin faired better after WWII, west or east? There's the best proof in the world about why Democracy is better than Soviet Russia was.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->What did I just say about making this into a USSR history topic? Go start a new one about how Stalin blahblahblah the USSR blahblah. This one is about to get locked if people can't excercise some self control... Sheesh<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The capitalists in this argument brought up the idea that "human nature was responsible for the destruction of the Soviet Union."
I attempted to prove that false in order to advance my argument against human nature. I don't know what you define as self control but if you won't let me argue freely then perhaps you aren't fit to moderate.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Trotsky was a degenerate murdering scumbag (read up on his war record). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
George Washington was a "murderer" too. The Russian Civil war was a war like any other. The whites insulted him as a "degenerate" because of his Jewish heritage and claimed that he decimated (executed 1/10) badly-performing units as part of their propaganda campaign. In reality, Trotsky only acted as military necessity directed: deserters have to be shot if you're fighting a massive war. Deserters from the Red Army were sometimes shot, but only a small minority. Most of the Red Army were peasants and they would go to their farms during harvest time, returning to their regiments after they had done their farm work. This was forgiven, and was behind most of the desertions.
Drafting and the shooting of deserters are both very ugly affairs, but war is ugly to begin with. Bloodshed is necessary. To insult Trotsky for doing his best to drive out the invaders and the old order is ridiculous: the whites and interventionists were the aggressors! To quote Blanqui,
"Yes, Messrs, this is the war between the rich person and the poor: the rich wanted it thus, because they are the attackers. Only they find unfortunately, that the poor fight back; they would readily say: 'This animal is so ferocious that it defends itself when attacked.'"
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Looks like someone never heard of the purges and Sibera. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What the hell are you talking about? I'm going to assume you didn't read my post, because your argument only backs up my point: that repression continues under unstable economies in order to stamp out political threats. Why you make it sound like you are arguing against me, but support me, I do not know; although I do not sympathize with Solzhenitsyn who claimed that Stalin was responsible for 100 million deaths (totally ridiculous given the population of the USSR). Stalin purged the Communists and the army, because of Trotsky's influence with both. He also purged the other non-Trotskyist but anti-Stalinist groups (such as the Riutinites). 800,000 is the official figure on Stalin's body count, and like I said, he killed mostly other Communists.
I hate having to repeat myself to you. And I shouldnt bother, because if you didn't read what I had written before, chances are that you won't read this post either: you'll just read a couple sentences here and there and make incoherent "arguments" against them that cause me to waste time repeating myself.
<b>Xzilen</b>:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Revolutionary, do you expect their econmy to make a huge turn around from the crappy state it was into a great one?
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In 10 years they should be showing some signs of improvement. It's not like there was a war and they had to reconstruct, in fact, even the leaders are still the same: most of the businessmen used to be bureaucrats and members of the Communist Party.
Now this is totally hypothetical and impossible but: let's assume there was a peaceful Communist takeover in, Finland, and even though no foreign armies attacked, the economy went into the shitter, the poverty level went up by 24 times. Would you let them off for "rebuilding," I dont think so. You'd say that this was an example of how Communism just doesn't work and makes everyone poorer.
With the demise of Stalinism, we are seeing foreign companies move into these former "socialist" countries, exploiting and ruining. Now if there was one thing that Stalin, Mao, etc. did, they protected their countries against imperialism. But now we are seeing a new age of imperialism and it's quickly becoming just as ugly as it was before the Russian Revolution and the epoch of Stalinism.
<b>DarkDude</b>:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I just have this one thing to say. The end of the Soviet Union brought their economy down into the crapper, the rise of Democracy didn't.
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That's true, Democracy had been around for some time--in fact, Stalin was elected by a general consensus and during Stalin's reign, about 1/4 of the Soviets were represented by delegates who were not even members of the Communist Party.
It is also true that the end of the Soviet Union has allowed Western Europe to rape Russia like it did to India, China, and all that in the old days.
And furthermore, the end of the Soviet Union allowed the bigtime bureaucrats to buy all the industry that was being auctioned off 1991-1992, and become what has been appropriately termed by Russians the "oligarchy." Without any limits to their exploitation, they are FAR worse for Russia than they were as bureaucrats.
Also, with the collapse of the Soviet police apparatus, organized crime has taken a serious hold in Russia, and politicians that fight against corruption are often murdered by the mafia. If any serious political opposition to the current Russian government arose, and if it threatened the mafia, I am very sure that they would crack down on opposition at least as brutally as Stalin did in 1937.
Democracy has not gained a foothold in Russia: capitalism has, and it has made things much worse.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Revolutionary, I have one question for you. Which side of Berlin faired better after WWII, west or east? There's the best proof in the world about why Democracy is better than Soviet Russia was. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Democracy or capitalism? It's not such a simple distinction--but I have to assume you mean capitalism if I am to answer your question. Nevertheless I don't really know much about recent German history so I can't answer your question..sorry. I will try and get back to you on that.
Hehe, umm, well, most of them. Sometimes I just skim through but I do pick up most information he puts out and I do think he has many good points. Why are you asking me that though? One of his main areas of arguement was about how Soveit Russia is better then Russia is today and I feel that my last post was related to that. If you want to me go in depth about that then ok I guess I will...
I was showing the difference between a Democratic/Capitalist (I'm bundling these in one in the future unless I say differently) "country" and a strongly Socialist/"Communist" country. If you know anything about the cold war you <i>should</i> know about Berlin and how it was split in two at the end of WWII. One side for the Democratic/Constitutional side another for the USSR. You should also know about the Berlin Wall and the mad scramble of Berliners from East to West Germany/Berlin. As time went on the West grew into an economic powerhouse in Europe surpassing every other country while East Germany/Berlin sunk into poverty. When the wall finally went down in 89/90 and the people were united nothing really changed much in terms of economics for the east. Today the east side of Berlin and Germany are still the "slums" and are still suffering from the effects of the USSR. Now if in 10 years Germany, an economic powerhouse, couldn't repair and reconstruct totally imagine how long it will take for Russia to do that.
I'm still wondering why you asked that... anyway. I'm not try to respond to all of his points, just the one about how Russia should've been repaired already. It will take awhile, especially because nothing seems to go right in Russia.
Sorry about asking you something you didn't know about Revolution. It was more a a rhetorical question, you don't need to look it up at all to answer it because I just put in a fairly short one. I do recommend you study German history if you get a chance though. It's a very interesting country.
1. democracy and capitalism are two completely absolutely different things, and should never EVER be lumped into the same thing or used in place of one another. democracy is a form of government, and i quote from my american government book "Government by the people, either directly or indirectly, with free and frequent elections". now, a direct democracy is one in which all the citizens of the state vote for all things the state wants to do, easiest example, the greek city state Athens. this kind of government is well suited for small island nations with few people.
and indirect democracy, or representative democracy, is a government that derives its powers indirectly from the people, who elect those who will govern, this, my friends, is what we americans live under, it is what we call a republic.
capitalism is NOT a governmental system, it is an economic system based on private ownership of property, individual risk taking and market determination of prices of goods. that is a quote taken from my world civ book.
economy and government systems, with no relation to each other aside from their reliance on the individual citizen to make decisions.
2. the fact that the USSR, China, and North Korea are constantly being referred to as communist. revolutionist, you surprise me, you of all people i thought would be able to recognize the difference between what the USSR had set up and what actual communism is. the USSR, along with all those other so called communist nations out there that were, or still are, are/were socialist dictatorships...a dictator was in control. now, in the soviet revolution's case, the USSR started out as a communist country, where, the mandatory revolution against the capitalist bourgeoisie(middle/upper class people...rich) by the prolitariat(the working class...the poor) was completed, and the next step, socialism was commenced. this is where they got stuck. in communist theory, socialism is a step taken where a leader emerges and guides the people of the nation towards a communist society, which was correctly described earlier in this topic, though i think has lost its specificness. there IS no government in a communist state, it is a state where people work together in harmony, with equality for all, without a need of someone in control.
3. i saw human nature pop up a couple of times, and i noticed revolution mentioned it...it does not exist. what people are, what you and i are, right now, how we think, what we do, how we respond to circumstances, that's all based on how we are taught as children. we are a "blank slate" to quote a philosopher(i can't remember his name, if you want me to, i'll look him up), when we are born. everything we know is based off of experiences we have already been through.
now, to the point of the topic. i was a communist for a while during highschool, before i understood the society i lived in, and live in now. as of now, i am resigned to the fact that capitalism is the way to go, not because it is a better system, not because human nature is in the way. but because greed and power struggle is too greatly rooted in our society at this point. if communism had won out early on, maybe in the indutrial revolution of europe, instead of capitalism, then it may've had a chance. now, with the global economy as it currently is, there are too many capitalists out there, training their children to exploit weaker children, triaing their children to look for every possible reward that can be recieved from a certain situation. you could argue that this is support of human nature, and i disagree. it became our teaching taht there is a leader, that there is one who is in command and the rest follow, back in the dark ages of europe when feudalism was in control, and the church. a society without a single person in control can not exist on this earth in its current state, even the united states, a country who, in its beginning, was deathly scared of big central government, has a president, the founders saw a need for one. to top things off, this president, as our leader, has been gaining more and more power. i hold that to you as proof that in the worlds current state, a nation, or the world as one united front, could not exist without a single figurehead leader, because that would go against all our upbringings.
edit: i forgot to mention something. communism is also an economic system. but, unlike capitalism, it describes not only a way to run an economy, but how a whole state is run. this topic is misnamed...it should be named "communism vs. capitalism" or "communism vs. the combination of capitalism and democracy"
And OMG I was saying just a week ago in english class that people are born as blank slates ... we were having a discussion abotu human nature after reading lord of the flies. cool, I think the same way as some philosopher <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now if in 10 years Germany, an economic powerhouse, couldn't repair and reconstruct totally imagine how long it will take for Russia to do that.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is still an indictment of Capitalism if anything.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One side for the Democratic/Constitutional side another for the USSR.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here, you are implying that the "democratic/constitutional" side was a collection of like-minded nations, and that Eastern Europe was just the colonial reign of the USSR.
West Germany, like France and Britain, fell under the new sphere of influence of American imperialism.
Recently, Western Europe has organized itself and with the exception of Britain has begun to defy the United States. With the destruction of the Stalinist bloc, we are seeing a split between the European Union and the USA + Britain. Japan, too, waits attentively under the American wing while harboring its own intentions of greatness. If the USA found itself weak, Europe and Japan would most certainly desert us.
So, in my opinion, calling East Germany part of the Soviet domain is unfair since West Europe was effectively the American domain.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As time went on the West grew into an economic powerhouse in Europe surpassing every other country while East Germany/Berlin sunk into poverty.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The East hardly sunk into poverty. I did some research and I found that by the 1970s, the GDR (German Democratic Republic / East Germany) was producing more than the whole of Nazi Germany had its height, and with a population of 17 million, 1969 against the 69 million in the Reich, 1936. East German industrial output increased <i>sevenfold</i> from 1950 to 1974.
The USSR played a role in hindering the East's growth, seizing industry for "reparations;" but as the above has shown, that did not stop the GDR from growing.
Overall, it was capitalist integration that produced the economic downturn in East Germany.
As I will continue in the next reply, I <i>do not advocate Stalinism</i>. Given the bureaucracy's opportunist nature, a Stalinist country is doomed to go capitalist eventually, following the example of "bureaucrats to businessmen" that we've seen in Russia, China, and East Germany, among others. Stalinism is not revolutionary--it is <i>doomed</i> (to transform itself into a capitalist economy). Therefore, it offers a threat no bigger to the bourgeois countries than another, enemy, bourgeois country. It does not promote revolution in the capitalist countries: it behaves like any other opportunist, nationalist leadership. But despite this shortcoming, its nationalist leanings have been able to keep the West's imperialist intentions at bay since its growth as a world power (see below).
<b>the johnjacob</b>:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->revolutionist <b>[sic]</b>, you surprise me, you of all people i thought would be able to recognize the difference between what the USSR had set up and what actual communism is. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think well of the gang of bureaucrats that was running the USSR, but they did work to slow the advance of Western imperialism for half a century. Despite the atrocities of the Stalinists, I refuse to sacrifice the USSR without proper analysis of what it did. I must defend the USSR against imperialism. We saw what the British did when they had a free hand in the world, and it was a very tragic affair for those on the exploited end of the vast rape of the third world. That the Soviet Union helped stop that from happening again is certainly worth mention.
Cuba is a great example. While I detest Castro's bourgeois-nationalist regime, I sympathize far less with the emigres living in Miami, and their call to a return to the days before 1959, when Cuba was an American parking lot. Jose Martí would turn in his grave to know that they claimed to represent him.
edit: got your name wrong revolutionary...sorry
How did the bourgeois revolutions of the late 18th and the 19th centuries change the peasants' viewpoints? If they were so concrete as you said? Besides, feudalism was only 3000 years old, while capitalism is only a few hundred years old, we should be able to change viewpoints for sure!
And how was the Soviet Union changing peoples' views when it was they who rose up?
This is like the christmas day truce in WWI: the soldiers didn't care about all that nationalism **** like your history book says: they were all human beings who came out together to share a moment of light in the tragedy that they couldn't stop because they didn't realize: that with proper organization, the working class CAN rise up. They were sold out by the "marxist" Social-Democratic parties, who voted on grounds of national self-determination to let WWI pass unhindered.
It begs mention that, in outrage at this final betrayal of the workers, the Third or Communist International movement was founded to give a legitimate voice to the international working class.
But why even bother talk about Communism, comrade, when you're consigned yourself to Capitalism? You fail to realize that the world is not concrete! I highly suggest you take the path of a revolutionist and teach others; spread the word--because if the workers know their power, they can assume it, and end all war and oppression.
Things change, comrade. Please join me as a hopeful agent of change and do not let that outlook go to waste.
As for the USSR stuff that I said, well, some people here said "human nature will break communism apart at the seams, like it did in the USSR" well i just wanted to say that the USSR was not communism, nor was it human nature that brought down the USSR. I know that this thread is a lot to read, but if you'd read the whole thing, you'd understand why I had to talk about the USSR to defend <i>my</i> viewpoint, the Communist viewpoint.
The world isn't simple, neither is Communism, I can't explain a serious viewpoint in a few sentences. So you have my apologies for writing a bunch, but that's just how it is.
you fail to realize that capitalism has been inevitable since the dawn of kings, queens, emporers, and dynasties. capitalism merely allows you to work to achieve that role as a leader. for one, in the USSR, it was not the working class that rose up, it was a view visionaries, leading a percentage of the population, not unlike the american revolution. i don't know numbers for sure, but i can tell you that the majority of the population in both revolutions couldn't have cared less about the communist ideals, or, in the united state's case, the tyanical rule of the king, that was not their problem, their problem was surviving.
the world was not concrete, "comrade," thousands of years ago, when civlization was just beginning and a person decided that "people" needed a ruler to survive. it was not concrete then, in the beginnings of civilization, but the ideals of leadership and control of the masses is too deeply rooted to be moved, the USSR is a prime example of that. the people rose up, the capitalists shoved 'em down, told them they were wrong, and full of crap, and now, due to their failure, communism is doomed, it will never have a base of power strong enough to stand against the powerhouse that is capitalism.
i am not consigned to capitalism, i am consigned to the fact that i, and you, can no longer change the course that has been set into motion. there is too much power among the nations of the world, too much oppression by the "free" countries. yes, even the US opresses its people, it's been doing it since the beginning. first it was slaves, then it was the civil war(about whether or not a cesation from the union is legal...it's not...i thought this country was based on the will of the people, if the will of the people is to leave the nation, why does the nation have the right to stop them?), then women's rights, then the opression of the japanese. you know, looking back, america, the land of the free, outlawed slavery AFTER almost(if not all, i'm not exactly sure on this point) of europe had done so. gg land of the free. how free are we that at the president's will he can strategically deny certain rights, and intern a certain minorty group into camps. we are not free, we are an oppressed people, but, we are happy, so the presidency says, and so we are, and so we go to war against those who are different, against those who have differeing view that "we" see as wrong, why? because we have a huge military that can.
this world can not change. if you'd be so kind as to look at any place in the last decade that has had civil unrest, you will see the oppression of the world governments.
the world is not concrete my ****.
It's like what Hitler said, that different races couldn't live together, their traditions being too deeply rooted to cooperate without their cultures "degenerating."
People are very fed up with the system when they turn to drug addiction, crime, or racist movements that defy the state. If they had faith in the state, we would not see such large numbers of them. It is our goal as Communists to convince those who are pushed around by capitalism that the revolution is possible and inevitable with their support, and that everything else is a dead end and won't fix society's problems.
People don't need to be bossed around.. but sitting around too lazy to fight for what you believe in, you will never see the end of struggle and oppression.
Civil conflict over the last decade has hurt many governments, and has often sprang from working-class unrest. The reason that no victorious revolutionary conflict arose was not because of the inviability of Communism as a political ideal, but because of the lack of a party in the genuine interests of the working class, and one to properly educate the workers.
In the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks did this, turning worker (and peasant) unrest to working-class support. The peasantry is basically gone in the USA, most farm workers these days are wage workers controlled by agribusiness farms. So things will be different in the movement here.
But without Marxist education, the party will have no base of working-class support. I wish you'd join us comrade, rather than waste that outlook of yours on a gloomy support of capitalism.