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Dreddout posted:I too am a leftist who believes the entirety of the USSR's succes depended on one single great man I think any serious historical materialist, regardless of what they think of Trotsky or Stalin, would acknowledge that it is specific material conditions that created the space for these two individuals to rise to prominence and carry out their particular conflict. for instance, I don't think most Trotskyists believe that if Trotsky rose to power, everything would have been peachy, there were much bigger fundamental problems at hand in Russia that would have played out in one form of tragedy or another regardless of anything else. but they would say at least some of the more authoritarian aspects of life in Stalinist Russia might have been mitigated, as the obvious thing that could have prevented Stalinist purging is if the radical democratic elements of the bolshevik party had enough political leverage to challenge the consolidation of offices and powers into top-down bureaucracies. and the question of the consolidation of power into one individual really is more the fundamental conflict of Trotskyism and Stalinism than the individual personalities of Stalin or Trotsky. well, that, and generally also Trotskyists and Stalinists tend to not exactly agree on the facts of history either, but that's somewhat orthogonal to the ideological conflict
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Sep 8, 2018 22:36
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the early USSR would still suck as I continue to maintain that Stalin's authoritarianism was a reaction to decades of civil war and foreign intervention and similar measures would have been taken out no matter who was running the Soviet Union.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:47
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Larry Parrish posted:the early USSR would still suck as I continue to maintain that Stalin's authoritarianism was a reaction to decades of civil war and foreign intervention and similar measures would have been taken out no matter who was running the Soviet Union. yeah that is what I mean by the material conditions that shaped the conflict. that particular situation is what created the power vacuum that was filled by authoritarianism.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:49
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Exactly. Plenty of people want totally democratic forces in a revolutionary state, but it's not realistic for the continuance of the revolution. Look at Allende's Chile. He was elected, popular, but because he didn't attempt to control unions, the truckdriver's union was bought off by the CIA and "made the economy scream". Then the Army which he didn't counteract with a well armed people's militia overthrew him.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:50
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Mr. Lobe posted:and the question of the consolidation of power into one individual really is more the fundamental conflict of Trotskyism and Stalinism than the individual personalities of Stalin or Trotsky. well, that, and generally also Trotskyists and Stalinists tend to not exactly agree on the facts of history either, but that's somewhat orthogonal to the ideological conflict which isn't an ideological question either Larry Parrish posted:the early USSR would still suck as I continue to maintain that Stalin's authoritarianism was a reaction to decades of civil war and foreign intervention and similar measures would have been taken out no matter who was running the Soviet Union. sucking much or less is kind of an important matter when the question being considered is who specifically gets exterminated in a political conflict deciding the future leadership of a state
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Sep 8, 2018 22:50
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Ardent Communist posted:Exactly. Plenty of people want totally democratic forces in a revolutionary state, but it's not realistic for the continuance of the revolution. Look at Allende's Chile. He was elected, popular, but because he didn't attempt to control unions, the truckdriver's union was bought off by the CIA and "made the economy scream". Then the Army which he didn't counteract with a well armed people's militia overthrew him. That's all well and good but do you really think more than half the 1917 era Bolshevik party was full of dangerous counter revolutionaries who had to be executed to preserve the revolution?
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Sep 8, 2018 22:59
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Graphic posted:and physical attractiveness lmao ya almost got me
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Sep 8, 2018 23:06
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Helsing posted:That's all well and good but do you really think more than half the 1917 era Bolshevik party was full of dangerous counter revolutionaries who had to be executed to preserve the revolution? I dunno, what percentage was proper per your exhaustive investigation of the 1917 Bolshevik party members?
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Sep 8, 2018 23:08
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:lmao ya almost got me 
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Sep 8, 2018 23:10
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Sep 8, 2018 23:23
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edit: wrong thread
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Sep 8, 2018 23:26
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Helsing posted:That's all well and good but do you really think more than half the 1917 era Bolshevik party was full of dangerous counter revolutionaries who had to be executed to preserve the revolution? Possibly? How can you say for sure? And what's more, are they members from pre-1917 or members that joined then, when the Bolsheviks went from a tiny party to the one that had a plurality in the soviets? Plenty of people probably joined when they were on the way up, as careerists. Look at what happened to the Chinese revolution. Mao didn't execute people he thought were capitalist roaders because they had been with the revolution for awhile, and after he died, they re assumed their positions and attempted to put China on the road to capitalism that it is currently on.
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Sep 8, 2018 23:32
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 i totally bought it for the label but georgian sweet red is good wine i'll probably save it for the apocalypse
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Sep 9, 2018 04:02
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He killed all the geneticists because genes didn't fly with dialectical materialism. Whoopsy daisy
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Sep 9, 2018 06:07
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Ardent Communist posted:Possibly? How can you say for sure? And what's more, are they members from pre-1917 or members that joined then, when the Bolsheviks went from a tiny party to the one that had a plurality in the soviets? Plenty of people probably joined when they were on the way up, as careerists. Look at what happened to the Chinese revolution. Mao didn't execute people he thought were capitalist roaders because they had been with the revolution for awhile, and after he died, they re assumed their positions and attempted to put China on the road to capitalism that it is currently on. And yet China is closer to socialism today than Russia is
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Sep 9, 2018 06:49
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Yeah, that's true, but it was a more drastic fall that wasn't particularly democratic and took basically a whole generation after him. Gorbachev didn't realise how much foreign interference would destabilise things. Capitalism had 40 years of training on selling a false image, the average Soviet citizen had no mental defences against such grandstanding.
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Sep 9, 2018 09:37
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Ardent Communist posted:Possibly? How can you say for sure? And what's more, are they members from pre-1917 or members that joined then, when the Bolsheviks went from a tiny party to the one that had a plurality in the soviets? Plenty of people probably joined when they were on the way up, as careerists. Look at what happened to the Chinese revolution. Mao didn't execute people he thought were capitalist roaders because they had been with the revolution for awhile, and after he died, they re assumed their positions and attempted to put China on the road to capitalism that it is currently on. lol
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Sep 9, 2018 11:21
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Karl Barks posted:He killed all the geneticists because genes didn't fly with dialectical materialism. Whoopsy daisy History will prove Lysenko right
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Sep 9, 2018 14:27
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https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1038448546863833089
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Sep 9, 2018 16:37
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Not up to date on my Venezuela news but I wonder if that dude in the helicopter was part of this. My guess: probably.
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Sep 9, 2018 16:39
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Ardent Communist posted:Yeah, that's true, but it was a more drastic fall that wasn't particularly democratic and took basically a whole generation after him. Gorbachev didn't realise how much foreign interference would destabilise things. Capitalism had 40 years of training on selling a false image, the average Soviet citizen had no mental defences against such grandstanding. Seems like a pretty glaring flaw with to be honest
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Sep 9, 2018 17:57
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im starting to suspect this ardent communist to be harbouring some rather belittling notions about the average soviet citizen
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Sep 9, 2018 18:22
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No, it's just they were used to things being a certain way, and being told that capitalists were liars who promoted a false image of happiness that was beyond the reach of most people, and that capitalism was enforced slavery. But then the free press came in, and said all of these products are possible, and can be reached by you! You just have to work, like you already do! They didn't say that you'll have to work longer hours, less maternity leave, less health care protections, because they loving lie! It didn't have to work on everybody. Just enough of the population. You can't say I deride the average Soviet citizen when I point out that when they had a referendum, the majority voted for the continuance of the Soviet Union. But certain elements saw it as a chance for huge personal gain, at the expense of their fellows, and took it. It is possibly that communism can be brought down by personal greed among people in positions of power. Purges can reduce that risk, if it creates an aura of fear amongst such betrayers that any betrayal will have swift personal repercussions. What's more, any communist would have no problem with increased responsibility coming with increased scrutiny. With great power comes great responsibility, and if you enjoyed an elected position, you have a responsibility to be an exemplar to others of selflessness and effort.
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Sep 9, 2018 18:57
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The Soviet public wasn’t exactly clamoring for capitalism.
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Sep 9, 2018 19:18
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when everything is falling apart around you, your main priority is probably just to survive. i don't think anyone in this thread has ever claimed the dissolution of the soviet union was anything but an injustice, so idk why the morality is now a subject
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Sep 9, 2018 19:22
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Fair enough. So what're you thinking on why the Soviet Union collapsed then? I've advanced an working theory, what's yours?
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Sep 9, 2018 19:24
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it’s a bit complicated to phone post about right now.
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Sep 9, 2018 19:30
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Not up to date on my Venezuela news but I wonder if that dude in the helicopter was part of this. hes dead
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Sep 9, 2018 19:35
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the vast majority of russian people did not want capitalism, the dissolution of the USSR was the result of a coup that had a lot of support from the US. the reforms that were undrway weere attempts to grant the other soviet republics more autonomy and make the USSR less centralized which may have led to some of the individual states taking steps toward market based economies, but the way the actual dissolution and breakup happened was via an undemocratic coup that banned the free press
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Sep 9, 2018 21:04
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Plus Yeltsin stealing the election
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Sep 9, 2018 21:22
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https://twitter.com/GarbageApe/status/1038837233237872640?s=19
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Sep 9, 2018 21:33
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It was a combination of letting the state apparatus of the Soviet republics become more autonomous, while being Russian chauvinist in the Communist Party itself that spurred on national chauvinisms and led to all the republics declaring independence. The inability of the Red Army to stop the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabagh also made it clear that the military was too weak to stop any kind of separatist push. When they liberalized elections to allow liberal and nationalist parties to run in elections, the communist party was unseated in 6 republics, and it just kept snowballing from there. They started refusing to follow Soviet laws, passing laws of their own, and refused to give taxes to Moscow anymore. It was clear at that point that the Soviet Union was falling apart, and the Russian SFSR was going to become the real seat of power in Russia proper - which Yeltsin maneuvered himself into by first pretending to be a committed communist and then dramatically renouncing his membership in 1990. Despite all this, Gorbachev kept pushing for more autonomy and liberalization - which spurred the August coup of Soviet hardliners to put Gorbachev under house arrest and undo all of his reforms. But the coup had no public support and melted away after three days, which is when Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee and tried to form a new government that would function as a co-equal Soviet council. That effectively ended communist rule over the Soviet Union, and gave Yeltsin's government in the RSFSR the opportunity to completely supplant a Soviet Union that only existed on paper. Yeltsin then stoked a constitutional crisis in the RSFSR, which caused a revolt in the Duma. He then used the army to attack the Duma in his own coup, which is when the Soviet Union was officially completely dissolved. Soviet people may have admired the material wealth of the West, but what they wanted was a Soviet system that could realize those benefits along socialist democratic lines. Nobody set out in 1986 with the intention of dissolving the Soviet Union, but Gorbachev hosed up his reforms so bad, and the Red Army was so weak - that all the opportunists smelled the blood in the water and pounced on their chance to go their own way. It snowballed over the course of 5 years in which Soviet power just completely melted away.
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Sep 9, 2018 21:47
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The USSR finally fell to it's enemies, literally all of Europe and the USA loving with it at the worst possible time
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Sep 9, 2018 22:27
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Larry Parrish posted:The USSR finally fell to it's enemies, literally all of Europe and the USA loving with it at the worst possible time https://twitter.com/keithgessen/status/568544740834217984
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Sep 9, 2018 22:31
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Are there any good books on the collapse of the USSR? I'd like to read something that takes me through the last decade or so
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Sep 9, 2018 22:35
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red army should've kept rolling through the american and imperial forces straight to the english channel, agreed
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Sep 9, 2018 22:37
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Dreddout posted:Are there any good books on the collapse of the USSR? I'd like to read something that takes me through the last decade or so I have not read it, but 8 Pieces of Empire covers the final 20 years. I know some history professors who have read it and recommended it.
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Sep 10, 2018 01:04
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Propaganda of the deed https://twitter.com/WCVB/status/1038238767604150273
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Sep 10, 2018 04:11
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Graphic posted:Propaganda of the deed 
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Sep 10, 2018 04:52
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it's funny how they thought the morbidly obese would even bother to use their legs.
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Sep 10, 2018 04:55
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