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apropos to nothing posted:really dont wanna have this debate again cause imo theres just no point not gonna change each others minds but are you seriously arguing that the people purged were wreckers and saboteurs? like i made the joke about martov specifically who was the arch menshevik, obviously wasnt purged cause was never in the CP, but do you feel like he was a wrecker and sabateur? guy spent his entire life running between prison and exile fighting for socialist revolution, founded iskra and the RSDLP. you can disagree with him, like many including lenin did, while still recognizing that it would have been much better if he and many others could have been reconciled to what would become the communist party, like lenin did. people got purged because they lost power struggles - not because they accidentally shook hands with the wrong man or because everyone else was just so dumb and goddamn crazy. sometimes they literally lost power struggles to wreckers and saboteurs who had acquired mid or even high level positions and were using them to do as much damage as possible! but purges don't happen for no reason. lots of people liked martov. for some reason, only a small number of those people got purged. synthesis: being friendly with one menshevik is not what gets you purged. lenin put those quote at the beginning of what is to be done: “...Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality; the greatest proof of a party’s weakness is its diffuseness and the blurring of clear demarcations; a party becomes stronger by purging itself...” (From a letter of Lassalle to Marx, of June 24, 1852) and indeed mandated/carried out the first of the bolshevik purges. a purge or split is not actually the worst thing that can happen to a party. for example, something even worse than purging the wreckers is letting wreckers stay in and waste everyone's time or outright destroy the project. moving on: apropos to nothing posted:like i honestly dont even know how to respond to the idea that figures like kamenev, zinoviev, trotsky, etc. were wreckers and saboteurs. you can disagree with them, you can hate them, whatever, but jfc. read a biography on any of them and then please tell me these people who spent their entire lives in exile, in prison, on the run, dodging assassins, and still able to organize vast networks of revolutionaries across europe really had the ultimate goal of leading russia to capitalist restoration. meanwhile dumbasses on twitter whove never even organized a book club with more than 5 people wanna spout off about how this one or that one were counter-revolutionary traitors, get loving real. even with stalin id never argue he was a counter revolutionary or anything, i believe he genuinely wanted and fought for a socialist society. the reason hes poo poo isnt because he didnt want socialism hes poo poo because he and the clique around him stifled any real meaningful dissent, something ive seen happen in the present day in various cases and organizations by leaders who mean well and who have contributed a great deal to the revolutionary movement who are too convinced of their own ideas and refuse to accept challenges to their authority. trotksy wasn't a wrecker in 1917 or 1924 or whatever. but in 1929 and onward? absolutely. was he literally, consciously attempting to achieve capitalist restoration? i don't know what's in anyone's heart of hearts, but personally i don't think so. i think trotsky could be taken at his word that he simply didn't think the soviet union could succeed on its own footing, even temporarily, because the peasants and other non-proletarian forces it was attempting to prop itself up on weren't trustworthy or reliable enough. (on top of this i would accuse him of simple narcissism because of his constant flip-flopping such that he consistently opposed ideas because he didn't come up with them originally and not because they happened to be match or oppose his previous position, but i'm being an armchair psychologist here and am describing his subconscious urges rather than his conscious aims). HOWEVER, FUNCTIONALLY, he was still a wrecker and saboteur because of his constant attempts to sow disunity and undermine the democratically-determined plan of action long after the strategy had been decided by the party. and he remained a wrecker outside the country when he basically handed the imperialist west its used-to-this-day anticommunist propaganda lexicon on a platter, and repeatedly wished around that the soviet people would rise up and depose their own government while nazi germany was building up its panzer divisions right next door again: people get purged for reasons. they're not always good reasons, but it doesn't happen instantly and at random as portrayed in Death of Stalin or whatever. the soviet union was in fact populated by human beings, not cartoon characters
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Aug 12, 2020 16:32
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Hefty Leftist posted:you're probably right. in where i am there's an enormous amount of sinophobia, so you see it crop up in radical circles. it seems like the best thing if you're in the imperialist core is to be anti-interventionist, anti-war, anti-imperialist, because materially capitalists are going to use any foreign criticism as an excuse to invade and extract. what the substance of that criticism is doesn't really matter. hmm, this sounds kinda tankie-like to me. can i get a version of this that's like 50% closer to the MSNBC line haha i'm just kiddin' around with ya, i agree
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Aug 12, 2020 16:33
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V. Illych L. posted:it is, to some extent. a huge part of the evironmental movement are basically middle-class moralists a la extinction rebellion, and dealing with climate issues requires some severe poo poo. most workers, in the west or elsewhere, genuinely do not seem to be much moved by environmental issues when weighed against security and community. their main use to socialists is imo as a case for why capitalism just absolutely has to go, no educated lib can actually respond with any substance and they'll start raving about batteries on cruise ships and poo poo this is absolutely wrong edit: idk about europe or whatever but in america all the left wing groups are some ratio of Red & Green. Hell the Socialist and Greens are running a combo ticket for prez (yes BEB but whatever)
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Aug 12, 2020 16:45
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Hefty Leftist posted:you're probably right. in where i am there's an enormous amount of sinophobia, so you see it crop up in radical circles. it seems like the best thing if you're in the imperialist core is to be anti-interventionist, anti-war, anti-imperialist, because materially capitalists are going to use any foreign criticism as an excuse to invade and extract. what the substance of that criticism is doesn't really matter. If anyone's bringing up china at a dsa meeting or whatever you can just ask them "why does having a line on the PRC matter to our chapter?". if they can't satisfactorily answer that question, politely tell them to focus on local issues.
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Aug 12, 2020 17:42
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Also in my experience the younger a person is the more likely they are to recognize climate change as the looming disaster that it is. Probably because they understand they can't dodge ecological collapse by dying of old age like their mom & pop are planning on doing.
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Aug 12, 2020 17:47
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communism is hot sauce on fried chicken
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Aug 12, 2020 20:26
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all I really have left to say re: purges is good luck to anyone who supports them who doesnt end up top dog at the end. and that typically the ones who do the purging find themselves purged in pretty short order themselves. just ask bukharin or lovestone.
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Aug 12, 2020 20:27
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i will be purged from the 2020s american communist movement for not thinking the trump threads are funny
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Aug 12, 2020 20:31
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if i am one day purged from the united soviet socialist republics of america i'll consider that a life well-lived
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Aug 12, 2020 20:39
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I guess in a general sense I'm fine with the idea of purges but I wish the purgers wouldn't be so extra about it
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Aug 12, 2020 20:50
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apropos to nothing posted:all I really have left to say re: purges is good luck to anyone who supports them who doesnt end up top dog at the end. and that typically the ones who do the purging find themselves purged in pretty short order themselves. just ask bukharin or lovestone. or Robespierre
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Aug 12, 2020 21:53
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Percelus posted:i will be purged from the 2020s american communist movement for not thinking the trump threads are funny 
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Aug 12, 2020 22:21
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i say swears online posted:if i am one day purged from the united soviet socialist republics of america i'll consider that a life well-lived
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Aug 12, 2020 23:05
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Percelus posted:i will be purged from the 2020s american communist movement for not thinking the trump threads are funny
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Aug 12, 2020 23:07
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https://twitter.com/generalityiii/status/1293675521306492928?s=21
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Aug 12, 2020 23:32
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I've got the urge to purge.
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Aug 12, 2020 23:43
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just wanna reemphasize once again how bad the trump thread is, god bless arf jason for all he endures. also
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Aug 13, 2020 00:18
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i say swears online posted:if i am one day purged from the united soviet socialist republics of america i'll consider that a life well-lived i mean the dream of every communist is to be found guilty of being too right wing
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Aug 13, 2020 00:22
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apropos to nothing posted:just wanna reemphasize once again how bad the trump thread is, god bless arf jason for all he endures. also it would be better if the first tweet was the one where he's castigating kamala for wrongfully putting his friend in prison for 7 years (sentenced to 50)
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Aug 13, 2020 00:22
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Doctor Jeep posted:it would be better if the first tweet was the one where he's castigating kamala for wrongfully putting his friend in prison for 7 years (sentenced to 50) sucks that he would advocate another 43 years
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Aug 13, 2020 00:37
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VictualSquid posted:Those crazies are do not slander NATO’s righteous bombing campaign in Kosovo in that thread, they get extremely upset
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Aug 13, 2020 01:25
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Bryter posted:do not slander NATO’s righteous bombing campaign in Kosovo in that thread, they get extremely upset ime poke anything that's aggressively "anti-tankie" even lightly and you get absolutely rancid takes that put redkahina's unhinged wine-fueled rants to shame
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Aug 13, 2020 01:36
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I just found this out incidentally but Leonard Peltier was removed from the PSL ticket for health reasons two weeks ago figured I would have heard about it here
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Aug 13, 2020 01:36
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ppl who disagree over whether to vote green or psl for president is so funny, cant think of anything less that matters
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Aug 13, 2020 01:42
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apropos to nothing posted:just wanna reemphasize once again how bad the trump thread is, god bless arf jason for all he endures. also does arf even still do anything
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Aug 13, 2020 01:48
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Doctor Jeep posted:it would be better if the first tweet was the one where he's castigating kamala for wrongfully putting his friend in prison for 7 years (sentenced to 50) https://twitter.com/QueenInYeIIow/status/1293565696941719552
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Aug 13, 2020 01:52
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lumpentroll posted:does arf even still do anything he posts, as is his duty
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Aug 13, 2020 02:12
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And here's the end to the USSR 2 SaGa: https://twitter.com/YEASTY_COMMIE/status/1291952813409525760
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Aug 13, 2020 02:57
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aw drat I was so sure 2SSR was real
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Aug 13, 2020 02:58
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e-dt posted:And here's the end to the USSR 2 SaGa: Prester Stalin
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Aug 13, 2020 03:02
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i was only pretending to build a communist state
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Aug 13, 2020 03:15
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apropos to nothing posted:all I really have left to say re: purges is good luck to anyone who supports them who doesnt end up top dog at the end. and that typically the ones who do the purging find themselves purged in pretty short order themselves. just ask bukharin or lovestone. lovestone was a huge dumb piece of poo poo who tied up the CPUSA with factional power struggles for years in his efforts to prevent the CPUSA from taking white supremacy seriously, and yet he was given opportunity after opportunity to come correct before finally being purged (which is to say, kicked out; not killed) after refusing the international's directives and attempting to like, legally appropriate party funds and resources for himself or something. he proceeded to become a CIA collaborator. completely beyond me why you would bring him up as an example of purges being either arbitrary and unjust or set off with a hair-trigger sensitivity to anything even slightly smelling of dissension when neither was remotely true in his case
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Aug 13, 2020 03:49
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https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1293583686466785281?s=20 can't wait to be called a lukashenkoist
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Aug 13, 2020 03:55
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Atrocious Joe posted:can't wait to be called a lukashenkoist Aliaksandra Kavaĺčuk-Mengele is drawing up the youtube explainer on Belarus as we speak
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Aug 13, 2020 04:06
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It is humorous because Poland was supporting Lukashenko because he was preferable to complete Russian control. This isn’t to say Lukashenko isn’t poo poo (his response to Covid...). In terms of materialism, he has done a poor job the last few years.
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Aug 13, 2020 05:19
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Ferrinus posted:people got purged because they lost power struggles - not because they accidentally shook hands with the wrong man or because everyone else was just so dumb and goddamn crazy. sometimes they literally lost power struggles to wreckers and saboteurs who had acquired mid or even high level positions and were using them to do as much damage as possible! but purges don't happen for no reason. lots of people liked martov. for some reason, only a small number of those people got purged. synthesis: being friendly with one menshevik is not what gets you purged. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but as Getty argues, I think it's misleading to conflate the prior "purges" of the sort Lenin refers to there, with "the Great Purge" The fact that things don't happen in a vacuum, or for no reason, doesn't mean they happened for good reasons. I've said before, there were legitimate reasons for Stalin to suspect dangerous conspiracies within the party, even before Kirov was murdered, but blaming the bad results of the purges on sabotage is a cop-out. With the benefit of hindsight, I think it's pretty clear that the kind of vast factional conspiracy your argument requires did not exist, but even if it had, I don't think one can seriously argue that they could have done more damage, absent the purges, than they are alleged to have done by hijacking them. It's all very well to say Yehzov and Yagoda were traitors who conspired to wreck the party by falsely accusing honest communists, but if a high ranking party official was executed for repeatedly appointing "wreckers" to positions that they used to to condemn honest socialists, you would call him a wrecker, and his execution justice. You cannot explain the Yezhovshchina in terms of the subjective intent of supposed saboteurs, and absolve the highest levels of leadership that appointed Yezhov.
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Aug 13, 2020 06:43
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Pomeroy posted:I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but as Getty argues, I think it's misleading to conflate the prior "purges" of the sort Lenin refers to there, with "the Great Purge" i don't think the "Great Purge" was good (just explainable) and i don't blame its bad results on sabotage. in fact one of the problems with it was that it allowed actual saboteurs so much more room to maneuver when it came to doing damage to the party! but i don't think you can generalize from the excesses of the great purge to all other efforts at enacting party discipline, dispersing factions, etc, and it's just not correct to conclude that the expulsions of people like trotsky or lovestone were done frivolously and capriciously rather than at the end of long periods of debate, following proffered second and third chances, etc. i suppose it's true that the threat of something like the great purge does follow logically from an existing willingness to engage in that kind of rectification/party struggle but, well, the ussr did survive the great purge. would it have survived an indefinitely prolonged and expanded NEP or continuing stabs at european adventurism or whatever the cockamamie plans were of all those strategists and theoreticians whose ideas got rejected? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Aug 13, 2020 |
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Aug 13, 2020 07:48
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Pomeroy posted:I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but as Getty argues, I think it's misleading to conflate the prior "purges" of the sort Lenin refers to there, with "the Great Purge" This is saying what I wanted to say. Today's popular conception of "purges" mostly comes from fascist long knives (Stalin's Great Purge is mostly read through the totalitarianism thesis that likens the two) with a touch of religious cult shunning procedures. The procedure of The Great Purge is also widely recognized to be a subjectivist mistake, and the correct way to do things is considered to be more like Lenin's times, where leadership figures were repeatedly thrown out and accepted back in later when they had proven themselves somehow. Generally, shunning procedures should rarely be needed, a lot can be done using subordinate positions (outside the party, but inside the movement) where it's hard to do great harm to the movement even if one genuinely tried. Fantasizing about having one's life destroyed by someone's whim is a bit silly and martyr-complexy, all in all. I suppose it does happen when people get obsessed with the idea that wrongdoers are around and *have to* be uncovered and punished. But the fact is, they don't, and groups that understand that tend to do better because they'll avoid destroying themselves from the inside. Once one does away with the notion of "punishment", they can do away with the notion of "guilt": they don't have to paint the purged as somehow known to be bad apples, they can be understood as people who are being tested out of a weak suspicion that doesn't in itself imply anything about their persons. If they show through work that they serve the movement rather than themselves, welcome back aboard! That's the attitude I see in historically rising groups, whereas excessively violent purges are a thing in stagnant or dying groups. I say "excessively", because of course things aren't as simple as that. Being content with the equivalent of "paid leave" looks straight-up corrupt when someone has been plausibly shown to be guilty of a serious crime. But of course investigations sometimes turn up bad results, amateur investigations all the more, and someone not guilty has to take part in the theater. But to make it all work out, successful movements design punishment procedures that leave the accused a path to restore their honor and status, if they choose to do useful work that publicly tests their person. Shunning is for those whose pride prevents them from taking that option. (I might be full of poo poo with this implicit accusation, but "internal exile" really sounds like the perfect way to misrepresent the two above kinds of procedure. I mean, for a Bolshevik who knows everyone knows and hates the tsarist punishment, in response to the narcissistic injury of being cast down from prestige that they feel they have earned. There's a lot of work that needs to be done and a lot of it is hard to find competent people to do precisely because of the lack of prestige, but people who see it as below them aren't going to present it as such. It's ironic that not declaring tasks to be beneath you was seen as "mediocrity". The emigre Bolsheviks were not great in some ways: I imagine Stalin would have taken a demotion with a heavy dose of self-pity but then gotten to work, while Lenin might have acted much like Trotsky.) The lesson to take away from history IMO is not that purging procedures are too terrible to use, people who interpret a perceived assault on their personal honor as an assault on the whole movement and country *needed to* stay away from high leadership, no matter their stature. The lesson is that any single person or groupthink-infested body is going to be on one hand too lenient, on the other too harsh, based on how they subjectively see the people under evaluation. The location of the power likely belongs in a body that isn't filled by appointment from the center.
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Aug 13, 2020 09:13
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apropos to nothing posted:all I really have left to say re: purges is good luck to anyone who supports them who doesnt end up top dog at the end. and that typically the ones who do the purging find themselves purged in pretty short order themselves. just ask bukharin or lovestone. it is vital for the progress of communism that we have as many power struggles as possible within the party, since progressive disintegration of our revolutionary ideals into tribalistic power cliques that eternally purge the poo poo out of each other, is what made the soviet union such an miraclous procession of assrape througghout the centuries. truly, you cant ever discover enough wreckers in the party. its what makes it a party, really. party on
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Aug 13, 2020 10:31
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Peanut President posted:this is absolutely wrong radical left activist groups almost always care a lot about climate issues. voters, by and large, don't, or they may try to isolate them by voting for bourgeois Green parties who have more mainstream authority on the issue and still don't break 5-10% most of the time both corbyn and sanders presented pretty serious plans for climate action and were defeated, corbyn because there was something else perceived to be more important (but there always is) and sanders because the democratic elites just didn't like his agenda. there's no reason to believe that anyone that serious on the issue will emerge for the foreseeable future
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Aug 13, 2020 10:33
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