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At the risk of pissing everyone off, the reason these discussions are so aggravating and useless is that the two predominant opposing arguments are transparently absurd. On the one hand, we have the liberal imperialist / pseudo-Trotskyist depiction of Stalin the vicious autocrat, the mad paranoid Red Tzar, who dominated the party and the state in a way that no serious person can credit without falling back on orientalist mythology about submissive Asiatic minds. On the other hand, we have Grover Furr's portrait (not necessarily always or even usually inspired by him, but he gives it the clearest articulation), of the totally blameless hero, somehow perpetually surrounded by traitors on every side, no matter how many of might be discovered and purged, whose apparent mistakes in every case resulted from the diabolical manipulations of those same traitors. It drives me up a wall. Now, we know very well that anti-communists, whatever they call themselves, will not give up the demonizations that are their stock in trade, but for honest comrades, what is the difficult in admitting, for example, that while the very existence in any form of the "United Opposition" amply justified suspicion of dangerous conspiracies within the party, and that the Kirov assassination would to any reasonable observer have served as confirmation of these suspicions, there is no evidence that such a conspiracy existed? What is the difficulty in admitting that while Khrushchev is a damnable traitor, serious errors were made on Stalin's watch that made that treachery possible? We will be far better served trying to understand the bad 30 percent, the reasons why an honest communist might make serious mistakes, even with the most laudible motives, and honest, serious discussion along these lines will make liberal and ultra-left anti-communist nonsense look more ridiculous than anything else could.
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Jul 25, 2020 06:00
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Pomeroy posted:What is the difficulty in admitting that while Khrushchev is a damnable traitor, serious errors were made on Stalin's watch that made that treachery possible? How selectively charitable of you.
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Jul 25, 2020 06:09
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Enjoy is trolling the thread. I have no compunction with disregarding his opinions on the USSR.
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Jul 25, 2020 06:10
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Admittedly, Krushchev was more of a gullible doofus than an actual traitor. Palling around with Nixon, the Sino-Soviet split, and Virgin Lands were not great calls. As far as that post regarding how the Soviet economy supposedly worked...where did you pull that info from and was the author British or American? Otherwise, I could write a long-rebuttal but I get a feeling it isn't going to help. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jul 25, 2020 |
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Jul 25, 2020 06:13
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Ardennes posted:Admittedly, Krushchev was more of a gullible doofus than an actual traitor. Palling around with Nixon, the Sino-Soviet split, and Virgin Lands were not great calls. Tbh at a certain point being stupid and being a traitor can be the same thing functionally .
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Jul 25, 2020 07:43
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Doc Hawkins posted:How selectively charitable of you. I think Stalin can be accused of, at times, betraying Marxist Leninist principles, of excessive pragmatism, in attempting to defend the USSR in some of its most desperate hours. That's by no means a small thing, and some of the consequences were terrible and should be discussed honestly. Khrushchev was willing to do, and in fact did do, fatal harm to the interests of the USSR, even considered in the narrowest sense, for the sake of the opportunist tendencies within the party that he represented. The two simply aren't comparable. EDIT: To put it slightly differently, I think the worst decisions made under Stalin's leadership, right deviations that in the end fatally wounded the party, were by and large made in the hopes of saving the country and the people; by contrast, Khrushchev's precipitation of the Sino-Soviet Split, just to take one example, has no rational explanation except that he and his faction were willing to deal, or at least risk, fatal wounds to the country and the people, for the sake of their own positions within the party. Pomeroy fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Jul 25, 2020 |
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Jul 25, 2020 08:28
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Cerebral Bore posted:the ussr objectively went from a burned out peasant country to the second industrial superpower in the span of 30 years while also bearing the brunt of ww2 in the meantime, but do tell me more about how horribly inefficient their economic system was Well, the system objectively stalled with time. The early period had it easy because it grew by constantly pulling peasants into the proletariat and made their labor that much more productive. IMO Lenin was right that a system of capitalist-style scientific management was necessary to get this kind of very young workforce on track. Later on, I would say that stakhanovist enthusiasts showed time and again that things could be done better, that the workers could surpass the management at managing themselves but the taylorist orchestrator-manager system was holding back the workers without the same individual initiative to learn about things and bravery to defy their instructions. But this acceptable form of rebellion was fought off by making those people into harmless icons, promoting them into management, and pressuring them to take it easy. The Cultural Revolution period understanding held the Soviet-imported management system to contain capitalist relations of production that were holding back the productive forces, the newly educated and disciplined workers' potential to develop ways to do everything better. I hold that the CR had a huge class struggle aspect between the workers and the management, and the management revealed its a status as a class for itself by defeating the workers and taking away the rights that had allowed them to rebel. apropos to nothing posted:the communist party after lenins death would have been alien to him and if you imagine the party functioning in 1917 as it did post lenin, lenin would have been arrested and executed for counter-revolutionary ideas. when he returned he was arguing for positions in the april theses which went completely against the position the party leadership and editorial board had been arguing for since the start of the revolution. it was basically a complete break with most orthodox marxist thought. and of course dont forget his ties and associations with counter-revolutionary menshiviks like julius martov Lenin was the one who banned factions and literally created the post of the general secretary exactly so there would be this mediator who knew everything and could have their fingers in everything. The difference is just that Stalin was supposed to work for him and give him an edge in internal party struggles. Lenin started the party purges that Stalin continued, and it was basically just expelling people and later allowing back those who seemed to have improved or been mistaken expulsions in the first place. Perhaps the party would have become alien to him by 1936 when Stalin had seriously gone over to the side of eliminating people in preparation for war, but definitely not in the 20's. Actually one of my favorite critiques of Stalin is that he was too lax on people, too trusting of them. No one ever criticises him for defending Lenin's policies while the evidence against them was mounting, it's more common to see people talk of betrayal of Lenin once he finally tries to correct the course. For instance, the whole NEP vs. collectivization issue. Collectivization wasn't a mistake or betrayal of Lenin, the mistake was defending the NEP until serious systemic reform was long overdue. Another hotly debated thing in the same vein is the 1936 constitution that aspired to put an end to Lenin's revolutionary legal flexibility which had made market relations so crisis-prone and produced the arbitrary violent intervention it allowed for. BTW, factions are specifically opposition that defies democratic centralism. Lenin basically started the art of factionalism in the period of the split with Mensheviks, and the IMO correct take on them learned from him. Basically, no party can allow internal factions to exist, they are a sign of distress that will seriously harm it if it's allowed to fester. But factions can't be just legislated away on paper, since they're a symptom. The concrete issue of line that produced the faction has to be identified and struggled over until the unity for democratic centralism is there again. (The fact is, lots of people choose their side based on personality and personal ties until the issue itself is in focus.) Splitting off from or expelling people who refuse unity should be a last resort, but preferable over sacrificing core principles.
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Jul 25, 2020 09:47
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no, lenin LOVED factions. freedom of criticism was very important to him, in fact he wrote an entire book about it,
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Jul 25, 2020 15:26
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factions dont specifically break democratic centralism. they can, just like any individual can, but the point of a faction is to argue for a political position while not breaking democratic centralism and specifically avoid the kind of intrigues that can occur within political work. the context is always important, lenin supported the ban on factions in 1921 for very specific historical reasons, namely the large influx of new elements in the party and the civil war that was being fought at that time. if you look at the makeup of the party leadership following the ban, major leaders of various tendencies within the party still kept their positions and were not expelled despite their political differences and association with factions prior to the ban. again I'd ask if anyone has experience in a faction fight in a democratic centralist party and can share their experiences? i have and my thoughts are based on those experiences. democratic centralism is strong because it allows the on the ground cadre to put forward party positions and gain political insight into how theyre perceived by the whole class. if the positions are weak, this has to be communicated upwards towards the party leadership and then party leadership crafts new perspectives on that feedback and experience to better connect with the class. but party leadership, just like any other leadership within a class can become alienated from the class and the membership. the vast majority of trade union leaders are a really good example of how this process can occur and become a feature over time. the same can and does occur within parties. the party leadership has power within the party, they set agendas, they set timing, they set priorities, etc. and the need to have the ability to immediately recall leadership when necessary is important, as is the protection of factions. if the leadership is so inclined, they can steer the party in a direction which ruins it unless the rank and file membership have the political experience and ability to challenge leadership democratically. think about this in a realistic way: you put forward a position within the party that is counter to the leadership, some people start to agree with you but ultimately youre in a minority. events proceed based on the majority perspectives but they lead to setbacks, and your position seems to be proving true. but the party leadership is hesitant to admit the mistake and change course because doing so would cause more people to look to your perspectives, you and many comrades might even ask then why you shouldnt be in leadership since your perspectives proved true. in this case the leadership has a personal interest in maintaining their power. the other options are you drop it entirely and become a loyal footsoldier, but youve already put forward your opposition, and so the leadership identifies you as someone who doesnt go with the leadership. or you just dont speak up ever and let the leadership decide for you. this is literally what happened to many bolsheviks during the show trials where affiliation with or even suspected agreement with opposition positions in the 20s were used to purge them or execute them in the 30s. this led to a situation in the USSR where anyone who had voiced opposition to the party perspectives previously, something that in my experience happens almost constantly within party meetings today, you could be punished later for this. and if you hadnt previously, seeing people who had is gonna help reinforce that you never should. the core strength of democratic centralism is diversity of thought, unity in action which can only be achieved if you actually have diversity in thought, and the unity in action is achieved through winning comrades to your political positions. having legal factions doesnt remove these problems and ultimately you cant solve a political problem with an organizational solution. however, having set guidelines and processes for factions means that they can make formal claims to have speaking time or agenda items in meetings to discuss their perspectives rather than have the speakers list dominated by those in power or with the majority position, that they won't be retaliated against or lose their positions because of a difference of opinion, and that communication between comrades around political ideas has a process it can follow. in the modern context if you put a ban on factions you can use this to shut down any and all discussion within a party. if you text a comrade your political thoughts and they differ from the parties then you can be accused of factionalizing. similarly it means the only way opposition to party perspectives can actually take shape is either through splits or through unprincipled coordination where you secretly organize as a group to advance your political positions within the party in undemocratic ways.
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Jul 25, 2020 16:09
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everything you're saying is based off the arendt-style fiction that there wasn't diversity of thought and vigorous debate within the cpsu after lenin's stroke, which just isn't true. the lack of formal, named faction in no way precluded constant disagreement and back and forth objection. the purges had a chilling effect on this but people spoke up to fight about what to do before, during, and after them, and the majority of bolsheviks were in fact not summarily killed for speaking out of turn because that would be ridiculous and doesn't pass a basic historical sanity test. you're generalizing from the fact that a faction you, specifically, like got blown out to the idea that all opposing factions did and everyone was just quaking in their boots afraid to speak out of turn, when in fact said blowout only points to that one faction (lowercase f) being wildly unpopular and disruptive
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Jul 25, 2020 16:17
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Ferrinus posted:everything you're saying is based off the ardent-style fiction that there wasn't diversity of thought and vigorous debate within the cpsu after lenin's stroke, which just isn't true. the lack of formal, named faction in no way precluded constant disagreement and back and forth objection. the purges had a chilling effect on this but people spoke up to fight about what to do before, during, and after them, and the majority of bolsheviks were in fact not summarily killed for speaking out of turn because that would be ridiculous and doesn't pass a basic historical sanity test. you're generalizing from the fact that a faction you, specifically, like got blown out to the idea that all opposing factions did and everyone was just quaking in their boots afraid to speak out of turn, when in fact said blowout only points to that one faction (lowercase f) being wildly unpopular and disruptive you keep bringing up the left opposition specifically but there were MANY opposition groups and leaders. you wanna call me the stinky trot and make it all about trotsky but it wasnt, bukharin and the right opposition faced the same consequences, same with the zinoviev-kamenev faction, all of which at various points supported and opposed the stalin faction, and the same thing played out in other countries all around the world. even the left opposition supported the stalin faction against the right opposition prior to like 1926. was there diversity of thought in the USSR and the CP? yeah of course there was. is there a big switch that says "diversity of thought" which you flip on or off? not really, theres levels to it and the internal party culture of the USSR was less open. theres a variety of reasons for why the counter revolution occurred but it did occur. like does anyone actually think or agree that zinoviev and kamenev were plotting to assassinate stalin and restore capitalism in russia? and its not about a few "great men" dying or some such, its the process which played out at all levels of society. where bolsheviks were arrested and sent to firing squads where they died singing the internationale.
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Jul 25, 2020 16:35
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Pomeroy posted:Well, nothing against that, but in my neck of the woods, the folks doing the best work on that front aren't anarchists or Maoists, but eclectic liberals, and while I like them well enough, I don't think taking their practice as a model would be helpful. It's the beginning of a mutual aid network. It's not the biggest or the most organized but we're working out of a neighborhood in Chicago with ties into broader city-wide orgs. Thankfully there's a ban on evictions in illinois until august 22nd now but we're also trying to prepare for eviction stoppages and similar things. There's acknowledgement and discussion about ways we're working in the system and ways to try and move past it and build something new. Which, at the end of the day, who knows? There are some fantastic bigger orgs in Chicago. I have no idea how much steam this has. But I'm talking with people in my neighborhood and attempting to build a community. People are not in this because they think it's 'cool' or they're teenagers. They want to do something. And it was a couple anarchists who started it. I want a better world, a communist country is not my ideal solution but it would also be a shitton better than what we have right now. If there was a communist org in my area actively working on this kind of thing and organizing people I would be interested. But this is what I found. I really hope that ya'll are actively recruiting people to join the military and civil government apparatus so that when the glorious revolution kicks off you have a dedicated and trained cadre. I hope you're using all the theory you've been talking about and are just being smart and not talking about that kind of poo poo in a public forum with no security whatsoever. Godspeed. But in the meantime I'm watching the world fall apart, I'm grimly interested in my own survival, and I'm trying to build closer ties with the people around me. The ones doing the same thing are anarchists.
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Jul 25, 2020 16:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:Enjoy is trolling the thread. I have no compunction with disregarding his opinions on the USSR. As if your 'contribution' here is any better? Lmao
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Jul 25, 2020 16:47
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apropos to nothing posted:you keep bringing up the left opposition specifically but there were MANY opposition groups and leaders. you wanna call me the stinky trot and make it all about trotsky but it wasnt, bukharin and the right opposition faced the same consequences, same with the zinoviev-kamenev faction, all of which at various points supported and opposed the stalin faction, and the same thing played out in other countries all around the world. even the left opposition supported the stalin faction against the right opposition prior to like 1926. was there diversity of thought in the USSR and the CP? yeah of course there was. is there a big switch that says "diversity of thought" which you flip on or off? not really, theres levels to it and the internal party culture of the USSR was less open. theres a variety of reasons for why the counter revolution occurred but it did occur. like does anyone actually think or agree that zinoviev and kamenev were plotting to assassinate stalin and restore capitalism in russia? and its not about a few "great men" dying or some such, its the process which played out at all levels of society. where bolsheviks were arrested and sent to firing squads where they died singing the internationale. no i realize you're also concerned with like... two or three other suppressed factions in addition to trotsky's, but we're talking about a communist party with what, ten million members? fifteen? (looks like ~19m in 1986 but i couldn't immediately find demographic data for the 30s-50s) high-up factional fights were only able to play out the way they did because most members were not in fact constantly terrified of being rubbed out for saying the wrong word and could line up behind the dominant line after the kind of vigorous internal debate and critique that was constantly going on
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Jul 25, 2020 16:54
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NaanViolence posted:As if your 'contribution' here is any better? Lmao You’ve done nothing but threadshit and cheerlead for the disingenuous trot, who while annoying and wrong at least puts effort in. Shut the gently caress up, creep.
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Jul 25, 2020 16:58
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exmarx posted:veggies rule
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Jul 25, 2020 20:15
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I've been reading Heavy Radicals by Aaron Leonard & Conor Gallagher. It's pretty good as a history of the Maoist remnants of the 60s New Left that eventually became the Avakian cult, and it's interesting to see that Avakian was not always the dumbest man in the world but actually had good takes once. It's very disheartening how the FBI had so many informants and information on pretty much everything that happened, and also disheartening seeing how the FBI used every means at their disposal to just completely gently caress up the American left. but on the other hand fbi informants gave us this very funny quote so whos to say whether theyre bad or notFBI Informant posted:One night we had a 6-hour meeting just on the contradictions of what makes a cup stay together; they get down deep into it. That seems ridiculous, but it is not; everything is completely thought out, why even you have thoughts and things like this. It is completely a Godless doctrine. Edit: lmao holy poo poo https://twitter.com/leonaa01/status/1035329746727403520 e-dt fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jul 27, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 06:29
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apropos to nothing posted:... You're literally describing breaking democratic centralism. Opposition in the Soviet Union wasn't hounded for their opinions, opposition-related opinions were treated as evidence that they were covertly breaking it, being a *faction* instead of simple opposition. There was hard evidence that covert factions existed: there were e.g. secret printing presses distributing documents harmful to the party but backing up some opposition group's claim to power. Harming the party is always breaking with democratic centralism. Like I said, the original factions were the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the RSDLP. That's what relations between factions are like: they are at each other's throats, engaged in a real fight that is much more than difference of opinion. Your example about a situation where forming a faction is good is totally correct: in fact, Lenin did exactly that when he himself broke with RSDLP democratic centralism and formed the Bolshevik faction. But that doesn't mean the RSDLP could work normally as a united party while the two factions existed, the inability to reconcile or for one to defeat the other meant there had to be a split where the factions became parties and RSDLP became just a name that two parties fought over who had the right to carry it. Legal factions can't be established without legally making democratic centralism optional or at least conditional. The CPSU would have needed a process for when it's ok to conspire in secret to print and distribute "Lenin's testament" and call for a change of leadership on its basis when the central Party position is that the case of the document had been discussed and settled. And when it's ok to otherwise organize to privately convince communists to work against Party orders. Nothing less could have permitted the 20's factions to legally exist. Legalising organising for formal dialogical opposition would have been nothing: the opposition factions would have chosen to operate illegally anyway, and formal dialogical opposition was *already tolerated*, Left and Right oppositionists weren't being hounded for revealing themselves to be opposition. They spent the good will of the rest of the party for repeatedly trying to erode people's trust in its formal processes, and were finally liquidated out of fear that the Union might be in a war soon and who knew if they would do what Lenin would have done if he considered it necessary to form a faction: utilized a badly going war to take power, perhaps even by conspiring with the enemy (remember that Lenin overthrew a menshevik-supported government). The reason I'm sort of stopping at the 20's is that I believe marxists generally agree that the war-paranoid variant of demcent that hunted people down with only minimal evidence against them, as well as the later Soviet demcent were subtle or not-so-subtle distortions of the principle rather than the principle itself. Formal opposition should not be dangerous to a person, no party has been successful for long once it has become dangerous. But you have to understand that when oppositionists innocent of conspiracy against the party were called factionalists, it was disfamation calculated to hurt them for political reasons, not a statement of fact. Once it became de facto party policy to accept that kind of thing as a response to opposition, factionalism actually kinda became the right thing to do for analogous reasons as in your example. It's complicated!
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Jul 26, 2020 10:17
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i dont really have much to add except i just disagree with others in the threads understanding of what democratic centralism is and how it should work and prolly neither i nor yall will change our minds on it. i cant imagine being in a party like whats being described cause it sounds completely undemocratic and honestly not sure why someone would want to join a party like that in the first place. during a factional dispute or debate its entirely reasonable to print and distribute faction documents on both sides, its just that ideally all sides perspectives are published together in party materials. again because of the ban on factions any and all disagreements with the parties course would have had to to take on an extra party character once they reached a threshold of disagreement with the party perspectives or wider support among the membership. in either case, take the ideas about how to best be organized and put it to the wider class. organize people on the basis of your ideas about party organization, ill do the same and whichever is correct the best methods will be taken up by the class and the socialist movement will be stronger for it either way.
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Jul 26, 2020 13:44
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uncop posted:You're literally describing breaking democratic centralism. Opposition in the Soviet Union wasn't hounded for their opinions, opposition-related opinions were treated as evidence that they were covertly breaking it, being a *faction* instead of simple opposition. There was hard evidence that covert factions existed: there were e.g. secret printing presses distributing documents harmful to the party but backing up some opposition group's claim to power. Harming the party is always breaking with democratic centralism. it seems like you're using the term 'opposition' to refer to what apropos of nothing means by the term 'faction' like, unless i'm just too drunk to parse this back and forth—which is entirely possible because it's 8 am on a sunday and i've been up all night--you both seem to agree that, within the group that is the party, there are legitimate subgroups which are allowed to put forth competing arguments within the party in hopes of determining the future line. it seems like you are drawing a distinction between legitimate subgroups within the party and legitimate means of dissent and illegitimate subgroups and means of dissent, using 'opposition' to refer to the former and 'faction' to refer to the latter. if that's true, it seems like the point of contention shouldn't be over which term is used, but where the line is drawn between legitimate and illegitimate groups/activities
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Jul 26, 2020 14:02
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Ferrinus posted:everything you're saying is based off the arendt-style fiction that there wasn't diversity of thought and vigorous debate within the cpsu after lenin's stroke, which just isn't true. the lack of formal, named faction in no way precluded constant disagreement and back and forth objection. the purges had a chilling effect on this but people spoke up to fight about what to do before, during, and after them, and the majority of bolsheviks were in fact not summarily killed for speaking out of turn because that would be ridiculous and doesn't pass a basic historical sanity test. you're generalizing from the fact that a faction you, specifically, like got blown out to the idea that all opposing factions did and everyone was just quaking in their boots afraid to speak out of turn, when in fact said blowout only points to that one faction (lowercase f) being wildly unpopular and disruptive wouldn't it be better to formalize these already-existing dissenting groups? it would have the benefit of not only making the disagreements even more perspicuous, but could provide organizational guarantees/rights to members on the losing sides of these struggles that would preclude some of this 'getting blown out' stuff?
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Jul 26, 2020 14:08
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im too loving dumb to follow along with this discussion but critical support to apropros to nothing and I hope you never stop posting but more importantly I wish you success on your organizing efforts
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Jul 26, 2020 14:31
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apropos to nothing posted:i dont really have much to add except i just disagree with others in the threads understanding of what democratic centralism is and how it should work and prolly neither i nor yall will change our minds on it. i cant imagine being in a party like whats being described cause it sounds completely undemocratic and honestly not sure why someone would want to join a party like that in the first place. during a factional dispute or debate its entirely reasonable to print and distribute faction documents on both sides, its just that ideally all sides perspectives are published together in party materials. again because of the ban on factions any and all disagreements with the parties course would have had to to take on an extra party character once they reached a threshold of disagreement with the party perspectives or wider support among the membership. again, disagreement - even disagreement that divided people into de facto groups, cliques, cabals, whatever - was a continuous fact of being in the cpsu. there was constant debate over what to do and how to do it expressed in party plenums, literature, whatever. what was banned was actually failing to execute part two of democratic centralism, the “unity in action” part. if a question has already been vigorously discussed, and after that discussion a clear majority emerges which supports a particular plan of action, but the minority which opposed that plan continues to agitate against the plan even after the question’s been settled and indeed covertly distributes anti-plan literature to the wider populace despite being expressly told not to - what the gently caress are they doing? whose side are they on? perhaps they’re tragic cassandra figures and ignoring their wisdom will doom the party, but how is the party supposed to know that except through rigorous study and debate, which has already happened, and which the minority’s plan did not survive? i think uncop’s example of the original RSDLP is a very good one. two mutually antagonistic factions developed and one of them HAD to suborn the other to be able to implement its policy. it’s a good thing it did, but this also spelled the doom of the RSDLP. it was not actually in the RSDLP’s interest to allow this to occur, and insofar as we’re interested in preserving the RSDLP we need to stop lenin from engaging in his conspiratorial and splittist activities! obviously i’m not particularly interested in that, but if you want the CSPU to suffer the same fate, you’re obviously an enemy of the CSPU - why should it aid and abet you when it thinks it’s the USSR’s best chance for survival? now, maybe it’s wrong and deserves to be overthrown from within by the minority with the truly correct political line, but that’s for the historical dialectic to decide. your stance that the CPSU should have been open to being riven with internal disputes, that it would’ve been better for the people of the USSR as a whole if there were less discipline and weaker mechanisms for enforcing the “cent” part of “demcent” is a highly questionable one and it seems to me that a less decisive party, a party that was too hesitant to declare a debate over and actually make ready to act on the results, would have been more vulnerable to sabotage and less able to act decisively in the peoples’ interests
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Jul 26, 2020 17:40
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Finicums Wake posted:wouldn't it be better to formalize these already-existing dissenting groups? it would have the benefit of not only making the disagreements even more perspicuous, but could provide organizational guarantees/rights to members on the losing sides of these struggles that would preclude some of this 'getting blown out' stuff? the "getting blown out" stuff happened to people who continuously and often secretly agitated for their already-discredited position long after the question had been considered settled, not just people who lost an argument. and i think discouraging the formal naming and organization of internal factions (small f, where an actual "Faction" is taken to mean an organized group willing to defy democratic centralism) is actually a good idea because it at least creates pressure against self-identification with with a team and the impulse to keep going along with that team's decisions on future issues just out of inertia/camaraderie. everyone's A Party Member and ideally they shouldn't be engaging in internal politicking to ensure that the caucus they're personally part of is the one that gets all the secretary appointments or whatever but rather moving from position to position as their own analysis dictates. obviously there is no way to actually stop a group of party members from being friends and tending to drift to the same positions and organizationally look out for each other and so on because it's human nature and actually enacting """totalitarian""" thought policing is stupid and impossible. but a plurality of internal caucuses is not actually a good sign - it means your party is such a “big tent" that it doesn't actually have a coherent line or plan of action, and if people are pushing to organize themselves in that way it speaks to a bigger problem of internal cohesion Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 26, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 17:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:im too loving dumb to follow along with this discussion but critical support to apropros to nothing and I hope you never stop posting but more importantly I wish you success on your organizing efforts
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Jul 26, 2020 23:20
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Finicums Wake posted:it seems like you're using the term 'opposition' to refer to what apropos of nothing means by the term 'faction' Yeah, I'm not personally married to these definitions for words, but they're the ones used in the historical record and this was a debate about history, what was historically a mistake and what wasn't. I think apropos's stances about organizing seem basically good, hard centralism is a tradeoff that probably isn't worth it in above-the-board organizing and shouldn't be mindlessly copied. But his conception of organization also can't be applied universally, even back to early 1900's Russia. The words the Russians used to make sense of their situation can't be understood through the lense of contemporary first-world organizing. The Communist Party of Peru IMO had the clearest elaboration on democratic centralism in history. Democracy and centralism form a contradiction, and organizations (even those that don't consciously accept any principle called "democratic centralism") always have to choose a side: which side are they going to compromise on so that they don't have to compromise on the other? The only third option is to compromise on both in favor of some opportunist goal. Correct weightings evolve accordingly with the conditions, but going too hard in favor of one side is going to eliminate the other and make the system just centralism or just democratism, unable to adapt to new situations anymore. One could say that the German social democrats were principally centralist in illegal conditions, principally democratic once their operations were above the board again. The Russians wished for an opportunity to be principally democratic, but they never got it. My arguments are based on that: democratic centralism as the principle came to be popularized was principally centralism. It's based on not being able to compromise on centralism. If disunity doesn't pose serious dangers to your organization, compromising on centralism so as to not have to compromise on democracy may well be the right choice! But for every actually revolutionary organization comes a time when unity is an existential necessity and even someone disgruntled speaking unthinkingly at a bar is a danger to the whole organization. And with both international and internal relations in a socialist country being what they are, it's hard to tell when the period of danger and fighting is finally over. Ferrinus understood what I was going for: legitimacy exists from the point of view of the real organization, there's no universal morality that could decree what is universally legitimate and what is not. There is no prefigured set of rules that an organization could simply follow or not follow, and based on that it could be determined a priori whether they are a historic capital-P Party. OTOH only an organization that uncompromisingly holds onto their perspective as if they knew a priori it was correct can become The Party. Just like people, organizations that were once on the right side can take a wrong turn and lose the title to another that happened to have the correct program for the new times and carry it out in a principled way. It depends on how history plays out. ("Scientific ideology" is another wonderful self-contradictory term used by marxists, including the PCP, that describes the above conundrum. The science in is studying what is necessary to get to a goal. The ideology is in believing that the goal is both possible and necessary. The contradiction is exposed by uncertainty, at which point one has to choose which side they can't compromise on: a principally-scientific organization must say: "We don't know, acting without more evidence would be malpractice." A principally-ideological organization must insist that they always know enough to keep going forward right then and there. Compare and contrast academic marxism with revolutionary marxism and you should get it instantly.) uncop fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jul 27, 2020 |
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Jul 27, 2020 02:53
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democracy and centralism are absolutely contradictory and theres times and places where one has to give way to the other or vice versa. its completely reasonable that during a civil war that the centralism was prioritized. i think the fact that formal factions did not exist between the ban in 1921 and the end of the USSR is pretty telling. theres no way you can argue that the full democratization of the party needs to be suspended for 80 years. during the october revolution there were leading bolsheviks opposed to the soviet seizure of power. in that instance, there was not time to have a fully fleshed out discussion which could lead to a broader consensus. but the majority agreed and it was in keeping with the bolsheviks primary slogan of all power to the soviets so they were following through on perspectives which had previously been discussed. and thats how it should work, rigorous debate and discussion on perspectives in preparation for future actions so that the leadership is empowered to act in a centralized and efficient way following through on those perspectives from the rank and file. like an election for example: you discuss who should run, what the primary issues are, etc. beforehand, lots of debate. you tell everyone that hey this is our plan and were going to follow through on it. there might be some changes as events unfold but as rank and file members theres no time to debate strategy and tactics and change course rapidly in the middle of a campaign so the leadership has a freer hand it setting priorities and directing the work. after the campaign then win or lose, there has to be an opening back up for debate and discussion, what worked, what didnt, what are next steps? that means members both leaders and rank and file writing documents and arguments, crafting new perspectives, etc. to strengthen the party and prepare it for the next phase of struggle. that kind of open debate and discussion never existed within the party, not in the way it needed to anyway, and it meant that once the political crises of the 90s happened, the party either didn't have the perspectives or the rank and file cadre who were prepared to resolve the crises, or they didnt have the desire to. I still think the best way to view the USSR is similar to how most trade unions exist currently in the US. trade unions are still working class institutions that need to be fought for and defended and i would encourage every comrade or self described socialist i know to get involved in their trade union as much as they possibly can, but most of the major unions themselves are completely degenerated with little rank and file activity, and leadership who is unwilling to engage in fights with the management and generally separated from the rank and file and so for socialists getting involved in them it means building the union but also fighting within the union for better leadership and more militant and fighting approaches to struggle. for anyone interested id seriously recommend trotskys "the class, the party, and the leadership" https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/party.htm cause its relatively short and does a really good job of explaining the relationship of classes and their leadership. i think it has insights on this issue even though its not specifically about this, but more generally counters a lot of very common liberal ideas about how politics works which are wrong.
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Jul 27, 2020 03:33
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and to actually contribute to the thread:
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Jul 27, 2020 03:34
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I'm rambling again, but there's a random take I need to air. You know how it's even a bit of a joke how the Peru-based maoist tendency call everything a weapon? Like, democratic centralism is a weapon, this or that book is a weapon, and so on? I've sort of intuitively appreciated how PCP took that aspect of Mao's writings and really ran with it, but hadn't really thought about why. You know, calling things swords is pretty corny and all. But I feel like I realized that one just can't understand it thinking like a US-American. In a way, it's an analogy that only people in a country with a conscription system can reliably understand. A weapon isn't just this glorious tool of liberation. When you don't immediately need it, it's a heavy, uncomfortable piece of poo poo that you learn to hate during the months you need to lug it around every loving where you go. The only reason you don't just leave it somewhere is that either you understand that you don't know when you'll need it, or someone who does (or thinks they do) makes you do it against your will. The fact is that marxism pushes a lot of burdensome, uncomfortable weights on people to carry. Basically everyone's immediate reaction when they see that pile of stuff (especially including mine!) is to back away and start debating what of it they don't actually need to lug around. Books not to read, principles not to follow, all kinds of things not to do. People want to debate and glorify weapons, not carry them and get into situations where they need them to survive. And they rarely say they do it simply because they're lazy or otherwise imperfect people, instead they invent reasons why it was someone else's job all along to carry all the stuff they have no personal interest in carrying.
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Jul 27, 2020 05:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:im too loving dumb to follow along with this discussion but critical support to apropros to nothing and I hope you never stop posting but more importantly I wish you success on your organizing efforts
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Jul 27, 2020 06:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:im too loving dumb to follow along with this discussion but critical support to apropros to nothing and I hope you never stop posting but more importantly I wish you success on your organizing efforts
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Jul 27, 2020 17:47
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apropos to nothing posted:democracy and centralism are absolutely contradictory and theres times and places where one has to give way to the other or vice versa. its completely reasonable that during a civil war that the centralism was prioritized. i think the fact that formal factions did not exist between the ban in 1921 and the end of the USSR is pretty telling. theres no way you can argue that the full democratization of the party needs to be suspended for 80 years. during the october revolution there were leading bolsheviks opposed to the soviet seizure of power. in that instance, there was not time to have a fully fleshed out discussion which could lead to a broader consensus. but the majority agreed and it was in keeping with the bolsheviks primary slogan of all power to the soviets so they were following through on perspectives which had previously been discussed. that this kind of rigorous debate and discussion "never existed" within the party is a ridiculous claim. members and leaders and rank and file did in fact write documents and arguments, craft new perspectives, etc. continuously in order to strengthen the party and prepare it for the next phase of struggle. your problem, again, is that you are taking the word of various minorities whose documents and arguments were rejected as accurate, when in fact any crank from any field, whether scientific or political or otherwise, whose claims and theories have been widely debunked and rejected will talk your ear off - if you let them - about how true democracy is lost and forgotten, cruel authoritarians are suppressing free debate, etc
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Jul 27, 2020 18:13
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Ferrinus posted:that this kind of rigorous debate and discussion "never existed" within the party is a ridiculous claim. members and leaders and rank and file did in fact write documents and arguments, craft new perspectives, etc. continuously in order to strengthen the party and prepare it for the next phase of struggle. your problem, again, is that you are taking the word of various minorities whose documents and arguments were rejected as accurate, when in fact any crank from any field, whether scientific or political or otherwise, whose claims and theories have been widely debunked and rejected will talk your ear off - if you let them - about how true democracy is lost and forgotten, cruel authoritarians are suppressing free debate, etc yeah its very true that cranks and weirdos will do that stuff and wow do i have some stories i could tell on that front, but i dont think the people arguing against lysenko were cranks and weirdos they were actually the good scientists who understood science and the lysenkoists who had power were the cranks and with their power they arrested and executed the good scientists. and the oppositionists who were expelled and later murdered included the likes of bukharin, trotsky, zinoviev, kamenev, rykov, etc. list goes on and on, basically a lot of the people who led the first ever successful working class revolution in human history. you might disagree with them but they werent cranks and weirdos they were revolutionists who kinda proved their bona fides by navigating some of the most tumultuous political times to have ever existed successfully. so any thoughts they had, even if you think they were wrong, prolly have a bit more weight and grounding to them than whatever the local crank who is perpetually running for state house rep has to say
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Jul 27, 2020 18:38
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I think lenin came up with democratic centralism which functionally means "no bickering" in order to confuse amerikkkan labor settler colonialists a century later. very forward thinking!
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Jul 27, 2020 19:24
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apropos to nothing posted:yeah its very true that cranks and weirdos will do that stuff and wow do i have some stories i could tell on that front, but i dont think the people arguing against lysenko were cranks and weirdos they were actually the good scientists who understood science and the lysenkoists who had power were the cranks and with their power they arrested and executed the good scientists. and the oppositionists who were expelled and later murdered included the likes of bukharin, trotsky, zinoviev, kamenev, rykov, etc. list goes on and on, basically a lot of the people who led the first ever successful working class revolution in human history. you might disagree with them but they werent cranks and weirdos they were revolutionists who kinda proved their bona fides by navigating some of the most tumultuous political times to have ever existed successfully. so any thoughts they had, even if you think they were wrong, prolly have a bit more weight and grounding to them than whatever the local crank who is perpetually running for state house rep has to say
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Jul 27, 2020 19:39
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whatever lysenko was, it was the suppression of internal dissent and the purges that ultimately sealed the fate of teh bolshevik party as the revolutionary morningstar
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Jul 27, 2020 19:41
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apropos to nothing posted:yeah its very true that cranks and weirdos will do that stuff and wow do i have some stories i could tell on that front, but i dont think the people arguing against lysenko were cranks and weirdos they were actually the good scientists who understood science and the lysenkoists who had power were the cranks and with their power they arrested and executed the good scientists. and the oppositionists who were expelled and later murdered included the likes of bukharin, trotsky, zinoviev, kamenev, rykov, etc. list goes on and on, basically a lot of the people who led the first ever successful working class revolution in human history. you might disagree with them but they werent cranks and weirdos they were revolutionists who kinda proved their bona fides by navigating some of the most tumultuous political times to have ever existed successfully. so any thoughts they had, even if you think they were wrong, prolly have a bit more weight and grounding to them than whatever the local crank who is perpetually running for state house rep has to say they were not, but, notably, the ussr did reject lysenkoism and did not go on to summarily purge and execute every former lysenkoist for their thought crimes. the democratic infrastructure by which the party could evaluate and reevaluate its existing views to determine whether they should be kept or discarded was plainly in place and in use. so the important think to note here is that kamenev, bukharin, zinoviev were very initially important to the party but ultimately found to be lacking and jettisoned... just like lysenko was
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Jul 27, 2020 19:42
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apropos to nothing posted:yeah its very true that cranks and weirdos will do that stuff and wow do i have some stories i could tell on that front, but i dont think the people arguing against lysenko were cranks and weirdos they were actually the good scientists who understood science and the lysenkoists who had power were the cranks and with their power they arrested and executed the good scientists. and the oppositionists who were expelled and later murdered included the likes of bukharin, trotsky, zinoviev, kamenev, rykov, etc. list goes on and on, basically a lot of the people who led the first ever successful working class revolution in human history. you might disagree with them but they werent cranks and weirdos they were revolutionists who kinda proved their bona fides by navigating some of the most tumultuous political times to have ever existed successfully. so any thoughts they had, even if you think they were wrong, prolly have a bit more weight and grounding to them than whatever the local crank who is perpetually running for state house rep has to say buddy, trotsky was the poster boy for being a crank and weirdo
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Jul 27, 2020 19:44
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Ferrinus posted:they were not, but, notably, the ussr did reject lysenkoism and did not go on to summarily purge and execute every former lysenkoist for their thought crimes. the democratic infrastructure by which the party could evaluate and reevaluate its existing views to determine whether they should be kept or discarded was plainly in place and in use. so the important think to note here is that kamenev, bukharin, zinoviev were very initially important to the party but ultimately found to be lacking and jettisoned... just like lysenko was lol
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Jul 27, 2020 19:47
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| # ? May 24, 2024 18:55 |
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apropos to nothing posted:democracy and centralism are absolutely contradictory and theres times and places where one has to give way to the other or vice versa. its completely reasonable that during a civil war that the centralism was prioritized. i think the fact that formal factions did not exist between the ban in 1921 and the end of the USSR is pretty telling. theres no way you can argue that the full democratization of the party needs to be suspended for 80 years. during the october revolution there were leading bolsheviks opposed to the soviet seizure of power. in that instance, there was not time to have a fully fleshed out discussion which could lead to a broader consensus. but the majority agreed and it was in keeping with the bolsheviks primary slogan of all power to the soviets so they were following through on perspectives which had previously been discussed. In what meaningful sense can you have democracy without centralism? If a minority will not faithfully carry out a majority decision with which they disagree, in what sense do you have democracy? If elements within the party conspire, make private arguments and agreements among themselves, to which their fellow party comrades are not privy, rather than raising them openly where their opponents have the opportunity to answer them, and where they cannot make contradictory arguments or promises to different groups or individuals without exposing themselves, in what way does it make a decision more democratic? As far as consensus goes, consensus decision-making is far from democratic. Look at Occupy, or Poland's "Golden Liberty" for that matter. Pomeroy fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jul 28, 2020 |
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Jul 28, 2020 06:06
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