quote:

But first, we need to clear something up, because every time I post theory for liberating a country in a half-revolution, I get the same comments asking over and over what it means, even though I have a whole paragraph in the introduction explaining it, which even starts with "if you're wondering what a half-revolution is, read this before commentating to ask". But maybe what you guys need isn't a paragraph. Maybe you guys need an EXAMPLE.

So, consider Lichtenstein--not even the whole county; just consider getting to that spot away from Switzerland's banking system, which is a necessary part of getting communism in Lichtenstein. So, how many revolutions does it take to get there? Well, if you say zero...that's wrong, because then the working class can't go far enough. If you say one, well, it's true that the working class can get there with one, but we can do a little better. We can do it in half a revolution. To do that, we enter Lichtenstein with the means of production already seized, and then we use that revolution to reach the platform.

Now, hold on. I know what you're thinking: A revolution is a revolution, permanently. You can't say it's only a half. Well, Leon """""Icepick""""" Trotsky, hear me out.

A revolution press actually has three parts to it: When the means of production are seized, when the means of production are held (in either a dictatorship of the proletariat or an anarchist commune), and when the state dissolves. And together, this forms one complete revolution. Now, usually, it's the seizing that's useful, because that's the only part that makes the borgiousie react. However, sometimes it's sufficient to just use the holding part, which allows the working class to do little kicks, to swim in liberal tears, to move outside of a market, and to spend labor vouchers instead of money. And as for the dissolution of the state, well, there's currently no cases where that's useful or important, so don't worry bout that part (since it hasn't happened historically yet).

Now, if we map out the required revolutions for Lichtenstein, it would look like this: we merely need to have our own means of production to not be dependent on the Swiss banking system, we need a revolution to provide a counternarrative against Lichtenstein's "princely" history, and we need a revolution again to achieve communism. So, how many revolutions is that total? Well, it appears to be three, and if we we're liberating this country in isolation, then yeah; it would be three. But in a worldwide spread of communism, there are other revolutions that occur earlier in history, such as /this/ revolution needed to offically dissolve the Switzerland-Lichtenstein border. So, if we take that revolution into consideration as well, then how many revolutions would it take? The left-com answer would be three: one to enter Lichtenstein, and the three within the country that we established earlier. However, we can do better! We can actually do it in two and a half, by simply holding the means of production seized during the border dissolution to be used for independence from the banking system, because the half-revolution only required the means of production to be held, not actually seized. So in this fashion, Lichtenstein only adds on an additional two revolutions to the worldwide spread of communism, since the first revolution only leeches off a previous revolution. So to capture this dialectic, we call it 2.5 revolutions. In a single country, you'd round that up to three, but in a worldwide spread, you'd round it down to two. So, in conclusion, since that first revolution counts in some contexts, but adds no additional revolutions in other contexts, we refer to it as a "half revolution".

Plutonis posted:

theflyingexecutive posted:

mods gave him a different kind of ip

A Typical Goon posted:

how long before the twitter MLs reinvent Bolsonaro as an anti-imperialist hero do you guys think?

GunnerJ posted:

Think down this road though you're going to start seeing a bunch of 1920s-rear end takes about "the Slav" as a kind of sub-white white ethnicity to square that circle.

THS posted:

trotsky wanted to put a ton more resources into exporting revolution and helping communist parties in western europe. stalin thought this wouldn’t work and wanted to focus on building up the ussr’s own productive capacity, with comintern support as an afterthought (and careful to not truly piss off france and the uk). that’s my baby understanding

R. Guyovich posted:

you have to wade through a heap of anti-communist detritus to get to the couple decent nuggets of info in there, it's true

Captain Billy Pissboy posted:

Stalin was a very powerful stand user

Flavius Aetass posted:

How did the DPRK permit that film to be released when the moral seems so obviously animal farm-ish

Larry Parrish posted:

since im not a fake leftist im gonna say he's good. probably the worst thing i can say about him is he's a trot

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/_RedMay_/status/1186251674224082944

StashAugustine posted:

the only true communist is the deserter in disco elysium

Dreddout posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/gullfire_/status/1215018397647413249

NotNut posted:

is there any good left-wing magick or mystics now adays? it seems like left magick reached its apotheosis with Homestuck and its gnosticism, or at least that represented what was happening more broadly. it was corrupted and torn up in miniature by the complicated forces that affected left-wing magic as a whole. then you had Jordan Peterson come on just to stomp on Sophia's dust and let you know that yes, even a prophet as dumb as him can tell you it's over. now all the high-level magic I see is being done by right-wingers like BAP or Low HP Lovecraft on Twitter. you do have Disco Elysium but it's a dead end, maybe even by design. so what the gently caress

Jon Joe posted:

Let's relitigate Trotsky.

Was he good? Was he bad? Let's find out!

T-man posted:

Why trust a boot maker with no boots?

T-man posted:

How's the ussr doing these days? I hear good, since the death camps must have worked to root out all the insidious (((kulacks))) and gays

T-man posted:

remember when stalin thought biology was capitalism lol

uncop posted:

The trot mischaracterization of SIOC would have described a "stupid dead end" but it's also a mischaracterization. SIOC is not the idea that you can just build communism internally without anything like a world revolution. The sort of "transition to communism by 2050" declared policy goals in e.g. today's China and Vietnam represent some sort of neo-SIOC that the right wing of socialism in the USSR may have dreamed of already but which wasn't the actual SIOC policy.

You can't crit SIOC except in light of the other options the USSR supposedly had when the SIOC policy won there: it was the only country in the world interested in building socialism, devastated by war and largely run by amateurs, but large and primitive enough to have a relatively independent economy. SIOC then was the choice to build as much of a stable socialish society as possible, and propagandizing its achievements everywhere while belligerently supporting revolutionary movements across the world, actively collaborating to produce new world revolutionary conditions in the style of WW1.

I have never heard of any plausibly better alternative that was available then. The best crit I can think of is that they did the S-part somehow wrong, given how the on-paper incredible situation achieved by 1950 was sort of wasted, how the international cooperation was left fairly shallow and ultimately bred terrible neo-SIOCs rather than putting it all to rest as policies that didn't reflect the times anymore.

quote:

But first, we need to clear something up, because every time I post theory for liberating a country in a half-revolution, I get the same comments asking over and over what it means, even though I have a whole paragraph in the introduction explaining it, which even starts with "if you're wondering what a half-revolution is, read this before commentating to ask". But maybe what you guys need isn't a paragraph. Maybe you guys need an EXAMPLE.

So, consider Lichtenstein--not even the whole county; just consider getting to that spot away from Switzerland's banking system, which is a necessary part of getting communism in Lichtenstein. So, how many revolutions does it take to get there? Well, if you say zero...that's wrong, because then the working class can't go far enough. If you say one, well, it's true that the working class can get there with one, but we can do a little better. We can do it in half a revolution. To do that, we enter Lichtenstein with the means of production already seized, and then we use that revolution to reach the platform.

Now, hold on. I know what you're thinking: A revolution is a revolution, permanently. You can't say it's only a half. Well, Leon """""Icepick""""" Trotsky, hear me out.

A revolution press actually has three parts to it: When the means of production are seized, when the means of production are held (in either a dictatorship of the proletariat or an anarchist commune), and when the state dissolves. And together, this forms one complete revolution. Now, usually, it's the seizing that's useful, because that's the only part that makes the borgiousie react. However, sometimes it's sufficient to just use the holding part, which allows the working class to do little kicks, to swim in liberal tears, to move outside of a market, and to spend labor vouchers instead of money. And as for the dissolution of the state, well, there's currently no cases where that's useful or important, so don't worry bout that part (since it hasn't happened historically yet).

Now, if we map out the required revolutions for Lichtenstein, it would look like this: we merely need to have our own means of production to not be dependent on the Swiss banking system, we need a revolution to provide a counternarrative against Lichtenstein's "princely" history, and we need a revolution again to achieve communism. So, how many revolutions is that total? Well, it appears to be three, and if we we're liberating this country in isolation, then yeah; it would be three. But in a worldwide spread of communism, there are other revolutions that occur earlier in history, such as /this/ revolution needed to offically dissolve the Switzerland-Lichtenstein border. So, if we take that revolution into consideration as well, then how many revolutions would it take? The left-com answer would be three: one to enter Lichtenstein, and the three within the country that we established earlier. However, we can do better! We can actually do it in two and a half, by simply holding the means of production seized during the border dissolution to be used for independence from the banking system, because the half-revolution only required the means of production to be held, not actually seized. So in this fashion, Lichtenstein only adds on an additional two revolutions to the worldwide spread of communism, since the first revolution only leeches off a previous revolution. So to capture this dialectic, we call it 2.5 revolutions. In a single country, you'd round that up to three, but in a worldwide spread, you'd round it down to two. So, in conclusion, since that first revolution counts in some contexts, but adds no additional revolutions in other contexts, we refer to it as a "half revolution".

apropos to nothing posted:

socialism in one country is not a problem because of the development of the productive forces of the soviet union, something that the left opposition argued for. the problem is a political one of the approach of the comintern to the labor and communist parties of the rest of the world. the politics became focused on using the other parties of the comintern as extensions of the russian communist party and therefore to exist to spread and promote the interests of the USSR over those of the national labor movements where they were based. if you read the history of the factional struggles in the CPUSA during the period from 1923-1930 you see the comintern stepping in and basically overriding leadership and decision making by the US sections and forcing the section to remove its leadership. it completely destroyed the democracy within the party and cut it off from many of the workers struggles of the time.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1252944030448734208

apropos to nothing posted:

first youd have to clarify which time specifically, and second no in any of the times. at least not around the faction fights of the 20s

apropos to nothing posted:

the issue with the comintern inserting itself so forcefully into the early days of the CPUSA arent a problem because they were wrong about this specific issue or that, it was bad because it completely destroyed any kind of actual democratic organization the party could have. there were so many factions forces coming together in the first days of the CPUSA and by the end of it all there was a completely undemocratic regime in the party due to the expulsions that had taken place. lovestone is the best example because he led the expulsions through most of the period and had moscows approval because he aligned with bukharin who was the secretary of the comintern at the time. however, once bukharin and stalin split he was immediately purged himself.

it created a situation where actual debate and discussion to arrive at a program was impossible. the same can be seen when you read about the discussions around the chinese communist party of the 20s. the comintern guided them into alliance with the kuomintang, its debateable whether it was a good idea or not, though I'd say it was a mistake given what happened next. there was a lot of debate and interest around this issue at the time, but in many places to even bring up the question of the chinese communists for discussion and what the position should be would get you labeled a trotskyist and possibly expelled. the party is only as good as its program and once the program cant be open to debate or discussion, then the program wont match reality or peoples consciousness.

theres a certain amount of understanding to be had that the russian party wanted to run things. they had been successful after all and others should learn from them. but the problem was this took on a dangerous characteristic which essentially dismissed the complexities of national labor struggles elsewhere in service to the USSR specifically. this created very opportunistic and unprincipled blocs then during the faction struggles, like what existed between the bukharin and stalin factions in the us. they were all more worried about winning control of the party and their allies in the comintern were more worried about their supporting faction winning than what would be best for the party.

T-man posted:

Stalin was a tsar, and much like all czars, did nothing to actually fight his many wars

If you are remembered in mainstream history you were never a member of the proletariat

gradenko_2000 posted:

libcops.org

apropos to nothing posted:

did I ever say I thought they were secret right wingers? im pointing to it as an example of how the strategy pursued by the Comintern at that time led to mistakes. it’s not as if the leadership of the USSR didn’t experience many of the same opportunistic pressures once they came to power that labor leaders today fall to when they come to power as well. you can defend the Soviet Union and the Bolsheviks specifically and still try to draw lessons on where they made mistakes and in fact I’d say it’s pretty in keeping with the genuine tradition of bolshevism to do exactly that

Lumpy posted:

I sort of oversimplified, but yes. That's the gist. Like I said, as your costs move more and more towards fixed costs, your rate of profit falls.

Why?

If you bought 1000 in capital equipment, and did nothing with it, you'd have 1000 in capital equipment. No value is created, because there is no labor transforming that capital into a new commodity. As companies automate, they get closer and closer to this idealized situation. If you could buy the "BallPointPenOmeter 2000™" that would simply have ballpoint pens fall out of it when you held the button on it down, the price of ballpoint pens would effectively be zero, since you could produce an infinite amount for the fixed cost of the machine. If I had to put materials in to the machine, the cost of pens would simply be the cost of the materials, since anyone can make as many pens as they want for the fixed cost of those.

EDIT: the capitalist dream is to reduce labor costs by _less than_ the increase in capital costs. This doesn't work LONG TERM for the reasons above, and because as you automate, you reduce the socially necessary labor time to create your product, which reduces its value, and reduces the exploitation you can pull off. In the sort term, you can increase profit via automation, but this is not stable.

Lumpy posted:

Ah, I wasn’t clear on that in the original post. I thought it was two firms in the same industry.

smarxist posted:

"low organic composition" industries (large amount of labor power [farming etc]) should have HIGHER PROFITS than "high organic composition" industries (large amount spent on raw mats and means of production [tooling])