Is Marxism dead?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is Marxism dead?

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Disinterested posted:

He also really loving hated Ukranian kulaks and nationalists. I don't really have to show that it was ethnically or nationalistically motivated to make my case though.

Yes, but something like the 1931 famine is something you probably need to spell out though because there are wide interpretations of it.

Anyway as far the USSR, it isn't a country I would replicate unless you were probably in almost the worse position imaginable (which Russia admittedly was in 1917). Even then though there was plenty of pointless atrocities.

That said, by the same token, it seems like Russia may have ended up with the worst of it all worlds in its 2015 version.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 02:25

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 15:27

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Stalin still used the threat of starvation regardless of whether the famine was artificial or not. It was an important way to bring women into the workforce.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 02:28

Aeolius: Jul 16, 2003; Simon Templeman Fanclub

Disinterested posted:

Hahaha.

I know it's a trip, given what we've all been reared to believe, but I would urge you not to be so quick to dismiss. To dredge up an earlier post:

Aeolius posted:

I definitely recommend looking into some of the more detailed recent scholarship on the matter. Academics like Mark Tauger, Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft — not communists by any stretch, and generally critical of Stalin-era policies — have assembled a significant corpus of research on the causes of the early 30's famine (e.g., this or this, the final chapter of the latter can be found here) that doesn't leave much room for the "intentional famine" hypothesis, which Douglas Tottle shows began as Nazi propaganda (extra ironic considering the efforts to link it rhetorically to the Holocaust). Plus it ought to strike even a casual observer as a mite strange that the food shortages started in 1928, affected a far, far greater area than just Ukraine (as Ardennes has pointed out), and to this day lack any sort of "smoking gun" in the archives suggesting a campaign of systematic starvation. To imagine a big, top-down policy without a single directive seems to attribute some nigh-superhuman competence to Stalin, no?

Basically, there are actual, real arguments to be made about the inadequacies of the policies of the era. Simply pointing and calling "STALIN" adds nothing — in fact, it stifles discourse. Further, I see no reason to give Nazis a seat at the table, though that apparently puts me at odds with the CIA.

Not to fear, though; we can all still be critical of Stalin even if the facts don't bear out this one talking point.

It also bears mentioning: I understand there is still a goodly chunk of the Soviet archive the Russian government has squirreled away, so it technically remains possible that a smoking gun could indeed exist. I just find it wildly improbable, considering how hard basically every subsequent administration has worked to trash him, that it wouldn't have come to light yet.

Helsing posted:

Stalin pretty much doomed the USSR by saddling it with a state apparatus that was inevitably going to generate a class of privileged nomenklatura who, unsurprisingly, reverted the system to an even worse form of capitalism than what had previously existed. I really do not see why Stalin should be praised when the state he created failed in its self stated goal of creating a socialist society.

Yes living standards in the USSR were better than they were for third world countries. Yes the USSR falsifies a lot of liberal myths about economic development. No, Stalin was not some great leader worthy of our reverence and affection.

Sure, but there's a big difference between revering someone and learning from them. The first step to the latter is interrogating the record and figuring out just how much of what we all already recognize as a highly propagandized history holds up to our ever-evolving understanding. Scholars have spent decades moving past the "totalitarian" framework, which, as Getty noted, very often veered away from history and into fairy tale, "complete with an evil and all-powerful sorcerer working against virtuous but powerless victims."

It's worth noting, as per my earlier post, that Stalin also spent the better part of his tenure butting heads with the nomenklatura amid efforts to scale back party control over the nation's administrative apparatus. So, it's clear that he also recognized the errors of the 20's. And, per the Ball paper I recommended, his grasp of the hows and whys of developing technology via planning was also exceptional, if we're taking a synoptic view of Soviet central leadership. (Admittedly, this understanding was not unique in his own time, as many of the other Old Bolsheviks were basically on the same page, and I don't even mean sycophants.)

Most of the problems currently under discussion are to no small extent attributable to just how experimental all of this was. This is a crucial point; we've learned gads about what not to do. Even those of us willing to lend the benefit of the doubt are not so dense as to suggest that a future socialist state ought to emulate the Soviet approach down to the last detail (which, given the difference in material conditions may in fact be impossible); just those bits that functioned as they should have. Perfect is the enemy of the good, etc.

Edit:

Effectronica posted:

Stalin still used the threat of starvation regardless of whether the famine was artificial or not. It was an important way to bring women into the workforce.

I've noted in the past that even Ellman acknowledges that the whole "war by starvation" quote of Stalin's was not a policy he was endorsing but a criticism he was leveling at kulak saboteurs. (Though, as always, if you have a source I've missed, I am eager to see it!)

Aeolius fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 02:29

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Aeolius posted:

I know it's a trip, given what we've all been reared to believe, but I would urge you not to be so quick to dismiss. To dredge up an earlier post:

Not to fear, though; we can all still be critical of Stalin even if the facts don't bear out this one talking point.

It also bears mentioning: I understand there is still a goodly chunk of the Soviet archive the Russian government has squirreled away, so it technically remains possible that a smoking gun could indeed exist. I just find it wildly improbable, considering how hard basically every subsequent administration has worked to trash him, that it wouldn't have come to light yet.

Sure, but there's a big difference between revering someone and learning from them. The first step to the latter is interrogating the record and figuring out just how much of what we all already recognize as a highly propagandized history holds up to our ever-evolving understanding. Scholars have spent decades moving past the "totalitarian" framework, which, as Getty noted, very often veered away from history and into fairy tale, "complete with an evil and all-powerful sorcerer working against virtuous but powerless victims."

It's worth noting, as per my earlier post, that Stalin also spent the better part of his tenure butting heads with the nomenklatura amid efforts to scale back party control over the nation's administrative apparatus. So, it's clear that he also recognized the errors of the 20's. And, per the Ball paper I recommended, his grasp of the hows and whys of developing technology via planning was also exceptional, if we're taking a synoptic view of Soviet central leadership. (Admittedly, this understanding was not unique in his own time, as many of the other Old Bolsheviks were basically on the same page, and I don't even mean sycophants.)

Most of the problems currently under discussion are to no small extent attributable to just how experimental all of this was. This is a crucial point; we've learned gads about what not to do. Even those of us willing to lend the benefit of the doubt are not so dense as to suggest that a future socialist state ought to emulate the Soviet approach down to the last detail (which, given the difference in material conditions may in fact be impossible); just those bits that functioned as they should have. Perfect is the enemy of the good, etc.

Edit:

I've noted in the past that even Ellman acknowledges that the whole "war by starvation" quote of Stalin's was not a policy he was endorsing but a criticism he was leveling at kulak saboteurs. (Though, as always, if you have a source I've missed, I am eager to see it!)

I don't have a source handy but I remember reading that alongside collectivization came a cut in urban wages to just below the level where a single-income household was sustainable to push more women into the workforce and expand the labor pool. Not a rural thing at all. EDIT: The parallels to America after the 1970s are something that still cracks me up, which is probably why it's stuck with me.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 02:37

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

If anything it is an example of waiting until things get so bad that an authoritarian party needs to take power just so the country doesn't completely collapse in on itself. Basically, you don't want to have to be in the place the Bolsheviks were, and if anything it is a lesson to both the left-wing and the right-wing, both socialists and capitalists.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 02:38

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

I think we need to be honest with ourselves: the reason marxism has not worked in the past is simply that non-workers continue to exist within the new "Communist" states -- a true marxism revolution would involve the sudden and mandatory transition to subsistence farming as that is the only way to avoid a need for administrators (also known, of course, as class traitors to any real Marxist) and guarantee food for all those who are willing to work for it. All those who refuse this model are, however unknowingly, tools of capitalism.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 03:24

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Effectronica posted:

I don't have a source handy but I remember reading that alongside collectivization came a cut in urban wages to just below the level where a single-income household was sustainable to push more women into the workforce and expand the labor pool. Not a rural thing at all. EDIT: The parallels to America after the 1970s are something that still cracks me up, which is probably why it's stuck with me.

Wow. I wonder if Stalin or Nixon was more farsighted, yet indifferent to the fate of individual, puny humans?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 04:40

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

Aeolius posted:

Mostly good

I think there are some problems here.

For example, you could have teased out the differences of the authors cited:

quote:

Academics like Mark Tauger, Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft � not communists by any stretch, and generally critical of Stalin-era policies � have assembled a significant corpus of research on the causes of the early 30's famine.

Those three authors palpably do not agree about a lot of aspects of the famine, including aspects of intentionality. Wheatcroft and Tauger are in fact at one another's throats about the question of how intentional it was (Tauger is regarded as being at the furthermost end of the spectrum in asserting that the Ukranian famine was only as bad as the Irish potato blight, which is not saying an awful lot.)

I think in attacking the idea of a 'smoking gun hypothesis' you are really working at a straw man, at least in the context of this thread (or indeed the more critical literature, including Conquest's earlier work).

I think all that has to be demonstrated is only a combination of some of the below:

1. Collectivisation hurt Ukraine to a greater degree than most other locales
2. The resulting shortages were predictable or even known beforehand
3. The effects of the shortages (by whatever cause) were disproportionately bad in Ukraine
4. The effects of the shortage were preventable to some degree

Already that's 4 that more or less none of the scholars you have cited disagree with, and then you can add, Re: Stalin:

4. It is sufficient to be merely the symbolic figurehead of this policy or merely negligent in relation to it to be complicit in it, if you had the authority to prevent it, knowledge of it, or were aware in advance of the strong likelihood of the outcomes.
5. There is strong reason to suspect that if Stalin was merely callous or reckless in relation to the outcomes of his policies, instead of willing them, his callousness may have been encouraged by a demonstrable dislike for Ukrainians in general and kulaks and self-proclaimed Ukranian nationalists in particular.

I think there's a lot more you could say by way of how the famine was exacerbated or in how it fit a wider pattern of Stalinist particularly strong ill-treatment of Ukraine, but I think the first 4 points are more or less sufficient to argue that some kind of enforced and man-made scarcity occurred in Ukraine that effected Ukrainians disproportionately. The very best thing one can say about it is that the deaths were a predictable and accepted by-product, but not the principal intention of, the policy of industrialisation and collectivisation as practiced under Stalin.

I also paraphrase my Russianist friend's brief contribution to the topic, he himself not having an account:

quote:

1. Did Ukrainians suffer disproportionately as a result of Stalinist policies?

Yes

2. Why?

Three theories as to why

1. Stalin ordered ethnic cleansing to crush the native nationalist / anti-communist movement

2. Ukraine was always going to suffer disproportionately as a result of collectivisation as it was a major agricultural centre of the USSR and therefore had more to lose

3. Khrushchev's careerism

The answer, in short terms, is a mixture of the three. Ukraine had more rich farmers or 'kulaks' as it had more fertile land than most parts of the east - like all farmers, the Ukrainians resisted collectivisation. Ukrainian nationalists invoked dissident emblems to give voice to their opposition to the policies - my view is that the peasants didn't really care about nationalism, they just didn't want to be collectivised. Anyway, the soviet authorities were happy to regard it as a national problem, since that fitted in well ideologically.

Khrushchev was leader of the Ukrainian socialist republic during the period known as 'holodomor' to the nationalists - he himself was a Ukrainian. He probably was especially brutal even by the standards of the times, partly because he would have personally despised the nationalists and kulaks as a product of his Ukrainian communist identity, but mainly to show he was able to maintain order in a troublesome region.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 12:02

VictualSquid: Feb 29, 2012; Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.

If those famines were caused intentionally that is a point in favor of Marxism.
To be more exact it is a strong indication that the famines were not a result of collectivist/socialist/marxist policies, but a result of the dictatorial policies of Stalinism.

In general I do argue that most of the problems and excesses of the sovjet countries are a result of the dictatorial government and the lack of rule of the law.
Comparing the Sovjet countries with similarly dictatorial capitalist countries also generally supports this point.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 12:43

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

tonberrytoby posted:

If those famines were caused intentionally that is a point in favor of Marxism.
To be more exact it is a strong indication that the famines were not a result of collectivist/socialist/marxist policies, but a result of the dictatorial policies of Stalinism.

In general I do argue that most of the problems and excesses of the sovjet countries are a result of the dictatorial government and the lack of rule of the law.
Comparing the Sovjet countries with similarly dictatorial capitalist countries also generally supports this point.

Not entirely, since Stalinism and its antecedents do have an ideological underpinning that stems from Marx.

corn in the bible posted:

I think we need to be honest with ourselves: the reason marxism has not worked in the past is simply that non-workers continue to exist within the new "Communist" states -- a true marxism revolution would involve the sudden and mandatory transition to subsistence farming as that is the only way to avoid a need for administrators (also known, of course, as class traitors to any real Marxist) and guarantee food for all those who are willing to work for it. All those who refuse this model are, however unknowingly, tools of capitalism.

You are basically describing early stage Maoism (on an uncharitable description of Maoism) and not Marxism as espoused by Karl Marx, who was not at all interested in subsistence farming. Just go read the preamble to the Communist Manifesto. Marx is not romantic about the pastoral in the way you seem to imagine:

quote:

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his �natural superiors�, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous �cash payment�. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom � Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man�s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians� intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

Disinterested fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 12:47

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

corn in the bible posted:

I think we need to be honest with ourselves: the reason marxism has not worked in the past is simply that non-workers continue to exist within the new "Communist" states -- a true marxism revolution would involve the sudden and mandatory transition to subsistence farming as that is the only way to avoid a need for administrators (also known, of course, as class traitors to any real Marxist) and guarantee food for all those who are willing to work for it. All those who refuse this model are, however unknowingly, tools of capitalism.

Pol Pot lives!

# ? Feb 11, 2015 12:48

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Disinterested posted:

Not entirely, since Stalinism and its antecedents do have an ideological underpinning that stems from Marx.

It does but it is also justifiable to say at that point it really did morph into its own weird thing, and if anything, even from the branching of Marxist-Leninism, shot off into the distance.

It is more or less the reason why discussing Marxism more or less solely through Stalin doesn't work, even it is a easy rhetorical technique that is constantly used including this thread. Stalinism (if you can believe it) is primarily Stalin's responsibility including the crap that came out of it and he didn't matter how many statues of Lenin he made or Karl Marx streets there when he was around.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 12:56

VictualSquid: Feb 29, 2012; Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.

Disinterested posted:

Not entirely, since Stalinism and its antecedents do have an ideological underpinning that stems from Marx.

Stalinism is mainly a combination of Marxism and Dictatorship, yes.

My point is that as the crimes of the regime are common problems of dictatorships it makes little sense to blame those on the economic policies. Just as blaming the crimes of capitalist dictatorships on capitalism only makes sense in rare cases.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 13:01

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

Ardennes posted:

It does but it is also justifiable to say at that point it really did morph into its own weird thing, and if anything, even from the branching of Marxist-Leninism, shot off into the distance.

It is more or less the reason why discussing Marxism more or less solely through Stalin doesn't work, even it is a easy rhetorical technique that is constantly used including this thread. Stalinism (if you can believe it) is primarily Stalin's responsibility including the crap that came out of it and he didn't matter how many statues of Lenin he made or Karl Marx streets there when he was around.

Yes, quite. I make this point earlier in the thread. I think you have to admit that in some respects Stalinism owes a debt to Marx, but it is primarily its own creation made in similar terms. The sort of people who blame Stalin on Marx would blame Hitler on Nietzsche.

tonberrytoby posted:

Stalinism is mainly a combination of Marxism and Dictatorship, yes.

Stalinism and its Marxist-Leninist antecedent is more ideologically and historically sophisticated than that. Some of what goes wrong in Stalinism goes wrong in the theory of Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism (most often cited is the belief that communism can come from an agrarian society). These are also not just economic theories.

[quote]

tonberrytoby posted:

My point is that as the crimes of the regime are common problems of dictatorships

The type of dictatorship you get, and its eccentric behaviour, tends to relate to the ideology underpinning it. Fascism and Communism are alike in some fundamental qualities but also very different.

Disinterested fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 13:01

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

V. Illych L. posted:

Pol Pot lives!

Pol Pot was the only leader to truly try real communism, and I think nobody would disagree that it was a great success.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 16:25

HorseLord: Aug 26, 2014

Ardennes posted:

It does but it is also justifiable to say at that point it really did morph into its own weird thing, and if anything, even from the branching of Marxist-Leninism, shot off into the distance.

It is more or less the reason why discussing Marxism more or less solely through Stalin doesn't work, even it is a easy rhetorical technique that is constantly used including this thread. Stalinism (if you can believe it) is primarily Stalin's responsibility including the crap that came out of it and he didn't matter how many statues of Lenin he made or Karl Marx streets there when he was around.

I think the problem with your worldview here is that you insist upon "stalinism" being a thing. The science is called Marxism-Leninism, if only because "Sociology" was already taken.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 18:20

Aeolius: Jul 16, 2003; Simon Templeman Fanclub

Thanks for the considered response, Disinterested.

Disinterested posted:

I think there are some problems here.

For example, you could have teased out the differences of the authors cited:

Those three authors palpably do not agree about a lot of aspects of the famine, including aspects of intentionality. Wheatcroft and Tauger are in fact at one another's throats about the question of how intentional it was (Tauger is regarded as being at the furthermost end of the spectrum in asserting that the Ukranian famine was only as bad as the Irish potato blight, which is not saying an awful lot.)

I could have teased out the differences, but I didn't think it germane to the discussion. Those debates I've seen have been fixated on technicality rather than intentionality, and tend to focus on matters like the magnitude and significance of harvest figures, whereas discussion on Something Awful is perennially stalled at "STALIN: EAST HITLER?" I'd actually be surprised to learn that they ever debated the famine as intentional, given that The Years of Hunger itself comes down strongly against the charges of genocide — its first edition even prompted Conquest to clarify his position in softer terms, documented in a footnote at the end.

That said, their arguments are indeed important and quite heated, and I don't mean to downplay how much of this remains disputed. It says a lot that accusations of bad-faith arguments have been flying between them in the last decade, considering one can find work from the mid-90's jointly authored by all three.

Disinterested posted:

I think all that has to be demonstrated is only a combination of some of the below:

1. Collectivisation hurt Ukraine to a greater degree than most other locales
2. The resulting shortages were predictable or even known beforehand
3. The effects of the shortages (by whatever cause) were disproportionately bad in Ukraine
4. The effects of the shortage were preventable to some degree

Already that's 4 that more or less none of the scholars you have cited disagree with

Number 4 is absolutely correct, and without a doubt represents one of the greatest failings of the Soviet leadership throughout its history.

That said, the others are less unequivocal. For example, contrary to point 2, one of the consistently remarked upon details of the period was just how thoroughly all predictions were thwarted. Targets for harvests, for grain stocks (see the above link), et al., all went unmet. In terms of gross mortality, it's indisputable that Ukraine had the most horrific death toll. Taken relatively, though, the disproportionality you mention is not so clear: Significantly, while noting the serious measurement issues, D&W appear to be suggesting Kazakhstan may have suffered something to the tune of 1/3-1/2 the total deaths of Ukraine. If so, that's huge, considering Kazakhstan had about 1/5 Ukraine's population from the outset.

Disinterested posted:

and then you can add, Re: Stalin:

[5]. It is sufficient to be merely the symbolic figurehead of this policy or merely negligent in relation to it to be complicit in it, if you had the authority to prevent it, knowledge of it, or were aware in advance of the strong likelihood of the outcomes.
[6]. There is strong reason to suspect that if Stalin was merely callous or reckless in relation to the outcomes of his policies, instead of willing them, his callousness may have been encouraged by a demonstrable dislike for Ukrainians in general and kulaks and self-proclaimed Ukranian nationalists in particular.

No argument on 5, and 6 seems entirely unobjectionable if we accept all the previous items, though as I have noted there is room for a range of positions on them.

Disinterested posted:

I also paraphrase my Russianist friend's brief contribution to the topic, he himself not having an account:

I won't retread the problems with stating unequivocally that anyone "ordered ethnic cleansing," though your friend makes a fair point about the commingling of class and ethno-nationalism. Then again, the response of peasants was also less uniform than often portrayed. While the loss of quality of life for the average kulak was impressive (to say nothing of loss of life, period), landless badraks and poor bednyaks saw immediate gains in their material positions, along with (supposedly) many middle-income peasants as well. Public support for collectivization generally varied inversely with wealth, and D&W note official documents from the period report "the active support of the poor peasants and collective farmers" in operations to dispossess kulaks.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 18:32

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

As someone better equipped to make this argument than me can point out, arguments about genocide (that aren't incredibly apparent, like the holocaust) almost uniformly end up in a mess, in large part because almost nobody has a good grip on both the relevant international legal concepts and history simultaneously. Intent, to make the most obvious point, does not have the same meaning at law as it does in common parlance, and that is enough to turn arguments about genocide in history books to a loving trainwreck, particularly when economists, lawyers and politicians start weighing in with their own disciplinary baggage.

The Ukraine genocide question is so cluttered and such a clusterfuck as a result that the arguments come across to me more as pure responses to one-another.

I'm happy to leave the argument between us as it sits here because I think for us to do better we'd really have to drag the texts out, and I don't have them readily available, so I'd have to lean on my friend more heavily (who incidentally sent me that text on a facebook message at midnight, which may account for its Alexandrian nature).

Although, on one point - in relation to the Kazakh case, I did say

quote:

most other locales.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 18:41

Aeolius: Jul 16, 2003; Simon Templeman Fanclub

Disinterested posted:

I'm happy to leave the argument between us as it sits here because I think for us to do better we'd really have to drag the texts out, and I don't have them readily available, so I'd have to lean on my friend more heavily (who incidentally sent me that text on a facebook message at midnight, which may account for its Alexandrian nature).

No problem; I'm in a similar situation, myself. Contrary to how it may look, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to "rehabilitate" Stalin; the mythos surrounding him, though, has been easy kindling for decades of There Is No Alternative bonfires, so it's worth fighting for an actual nuanced understanding when possible. This doesn't mean we have to accept that the USSR wasn't in many respects an ungodly mess, but nobody's going to assent to salvage any useful bits from the wreckage if we can't get past the Curse of the Mustache Sorcerer.

Disinterested posted:

Although, on one point - in relation to the Kazakh case, I did say

Oof, why so you did. Mea culpa.

Aeolius fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 19:42

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

How do you have communism in the real world without a dictatorship, how do you have a dictatorship without it becoming a personality cult, and how do you have a personality cult that doesn't lead even the best possible dictator from getting bad information and making irrational decisions with what information is available?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:35

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Control over society doesn't have to form a hierarchy centralising around one person, everything is a learning process about how to organise ourselves to a level of equal control for everyone. Starting with a dictator is pretty much the wrong way of going about things.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:41

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

So where do we start? How do we get to communism democratically?

What happens when 2/3rds of people are very down with communism, and 1/3rd aren't?

Correspondingly, what does a democratic war look like?

Once you have communism, how do you have a strong enough state that can enforce communism while while preventing strong elements within the state from taking total control?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:43

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Best Friends posted:

How do you have communism in the real world without a dictatorship, how do you have a dictatorship without it becoming a personality cult, and how do you have a personality cult that doesn't lead even the best possible dictator from getting bad information and making irrational decisions with what information is available?

Did Brezhnev have much of a personality cult?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:44

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

Wikipedia certainly thinks so.

But say he didn't, he was still getting inaccurate information and flattery, as that happens at every level of power and scales up with power, leading to non-optimal decisions. Individuals are idiots.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:50

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Best Friends posted:

Wikipedia certainly thinks so.

But say he didn't, he was still getting inaccurate information and flattery, as that happens at every level of power and scales up with power, leading to non-optimal decisions. Individuals are idiots.

Brezhnev had less actual power than any other Soviet leader before him or since him.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:52

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

The American Revolution only ever had the active support of about a third of the population, with roughly a third actively opposing it. Clearly, American government is illegitimate.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:52

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

And it's also a huge historical quirk that Washington didn't rule as a dictator after victory.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Brezhnev had less actual power than any other Soviet leader before him or since him.

He still had enough to make a lot of really bad decisions.

Best Friends fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:55

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Best Friends posted:

And it's also a huge historical quirk of lucky fate that Washington didn't rule as a dictator.

You, uh, kinda missed the point. It's also not really a historical quirk unless you have a very misanthropic view of the world or are yourself a megalomaniac.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:56

Constant Hamprince: Oct 24, 2010; by exmarx; College Slice

Nintendo Kid posted:

Brezhnev had less actual power than any other Soviet leader before him or since him.

Chernenko spent most of his Secretaryship on his deathbed, with Gorbachev sitting in for him. Try again Fishmech.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:57

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Jonad posted:

Chernenko spent most of his Secretaryship on his deathbed, with Gorbachev sitting in for him. Try again Fishmech.

Most people don't bother counting him as anything other than Gorby's puppet. Since Gorby held the power, Gorby was the leader.

Leadership of the Soviet Union was granted by power, not titles.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:58

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

Effectronica posted:

You, uh, kinda missed the point. It's also not really a historical quirk unless you have a very misanthropic view of the world or are yourself a megalomaniac.

Washington at victory had total power and love of the people. There is not a lot of that in history that ends with "and then he disbanded the army and took a political position, and left that political position early for the good of the future." If you have a lot of contrary examples, by all means.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:58

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Best Friends posted:

Washington at victory had total power and love of the people. There is not a lot of that in history that ends with "and then he disbanded the army and took a political position, and left that political position early for the good of the future." If you have a lot of contrary examples, by all means.

No he didn't. He regularly struggled with the Continental Congress during the war, and by no means did he have total power after Yorktown. You're also ignoring the Acts of Confederation period in favor of the mythology of GW as superhuman Cincinnatus. But if he had total power because he had won a victory, then so did Grant, Sherman, Pershing, Eisenhower/Marshall, etc. just in American history. Funny how few of them sought political power. I can only really think of McClellan, MacArthur, and LeMay as an edge case in that regard.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:06

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

I'd disagree with that almost all of that, but if your position is that Washington never could have had total power, then I don't see what the point of this digression is, as the original point that total power concentrated in an individual will almost never / never correspond with democracy.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:17

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Best Friends posted:

I'd disagree with that almost all of that, but if your position is that Washington never could have had total power, then I don't see what the point of this digression is, as the original point that total power concentrated in an individual will almost never / never correspond with democracy.

You're the one who started this by saying that overthrow and rapid change always result in dictatorships and majority rule is wrong. I pointed out that the USA derives its legitimacy from an uprising that only a minority actively supported, and you brought in Washington to say that America was special then but is not special now.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:25

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

Okay, I see where you're going with that. Yes, that's true, the U.S. did have a minority take power through military means, and turned out more or less okay, and more or less democratic (certainly democratic for the time). In the long arc of world history, that still stands out as very unusual, but it does demonstrate that that can happen.

So, let's say that one problem is removed, you can have a communist revolution and end up with a democracy, through as yet unnamed and ideologically un-fleshed out means. Now you are left with a state that is powerful enough to maintain communism. How is this state maintained in line with democracy? You're going to have the capitalists trying to be capitalists, and they need to be suppressed or eliminated right? So, how is this done? And how does whoever does that not have the power to take charge themselves, or at the very least, pervert the system strongly in their favor?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:32

Bob le Moche: Jul 10, 2011; I AM A HORRIBLE TANKIE MORON
WHO LONGS TO SUCK CHAVISTA COCK !

I SUGGEST YOU IGNORE ANY POSTS MADE BY THIS PERSON ABOUT VENEZUELA, POLITICS, OR ANYTHING ACTUALLY !

(This title paid for by money stolen from PDVSA)

You don't try to build communism unless you have socialism first. A communist dictatorship is impossible according to the Marxist definition of communism, which includes statelessness. Historical "communist parties" claim to seek to be working towards communism, but do so through socialist economic policies.

Here are two examples for where to start with when building real-life democratic socialism:

http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/02/6-notes-on-the-economics-of-the-rojava-revolution/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/marinaleda-spanish-communist-village-utopia

Marinaleda hasn't met much violent reaction from capitalist interests yet, and the reaction that Rojava has faced so far comes from islamic terrorists instead of the CIA, making both of these examples friendly to liberal sensibilities.
Once either of these start getting bombed by Western fascists you can bet that you'll be provided by the media with plenty of examples for why they are proof that communism doesn't work or whatever.

Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Feb 11, 2015

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:32

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

This is why you could also say in the long term democracy is incompatible with free market capitalism, you end up with an aristocratic republic.

Horselord posted:

I think the problem with your worldview here is that you insist upon "Stalinism" being a thing. The science is called Marxism-Leninism, if only because "Sociology" was already taken.

I break up much of ideology when discussing history by practice, in this sense Stalinism was an identifiable phenomena of practice even if its ideological foundations at times were rather weak (but still existed). Bolshevik Russia/USSR from 1917 to 1928 on the other hand worked off a considerably different mechanisms of political and economic practice which I believe had to hew closer to what Lenin intended even after he died.

After Stalin's death it gets more murky obviously until Gorbachev.

-----------------

As far as the US, remember that the colonies by that point had their own independent governments essentially and that the system had a "fall back" beyond Washington himself. He could declare himself a dictator, but it is unsure of what if the states immediately refused to work with the federal government. However, the decentralized nature of the US for the most part worked because the US had a near limitless quantity (in comparison) of arable land, resources and was for the most part protected from foreign invasion. Indian raids were weak enough to only require the most minimal militias and a tiny federal army. The US worked because it existed in a near perfect geopolitical goldilocks zone.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:34

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Best Friends posted:

Okay, I see where you're going with that. Yes, that's true, the U.S. did have a minority take power through military means, and turned out more or less okay, and more or less democratic (certainly democratic for the time). In the long arc of world history, that still stands out as very unusual, but it does demonstrate that that can happen.

So, let's say that one problem is removed, you can have a communist revolution and end up with a democracy, through as yet unnamed and ideologically un-fleshed out means. Now you are left with a state that is powerful enough to maintain communism. How is this state maintained in line with democracy? You're going to have the capitalists trying to be capitalists, and they need to be suppressed or eliminated right? So, how is this done? And how does whoever does that not have the power to take charge themselves, or at the very least, pervert the system strongly in their favor?

Why would it need to be substantially different from a liberal state that needs to maintain capitalism?

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:35

Best Friends: Nov 4, 2011

Effectronica posted:

Why would it need to be substantially different from a liberal state that needs to maintain capitalism?

Because unless the socialist society exists with perfect efficiency, there will be profit to be found, and so combating profit seeking will be about as difficult as combating premarital sex. States that have attempted the latter in the modern era require secret police and so I suspect the former will as well. In contrast, a liberal state does not need to crack down on sharing.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:40

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 15:27

Bob le Moche: Jul 10, 2011; I AM A HORRIBLE TANKIE MORON
WHO LONGS TO SUCK CHAVISTA COCK !

I SUGGEST YOU IGNORE ANY POSTS MADE BY THIS PERSON ABOUT VENEZUELA, POLITICS, OR ANYTHING ACTUALLY !

(This title paid for by money stolen from PDVSA)

You can't be a capitalist when you can't own any capital - private ownership of capital is something that is enforced by the state through various institutions including the legal system and the institutionalized violence of the police and prison system. To prevent capitalism: just don't do that.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:44

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