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after the revolution the country was invaded by 17 other nations which all supported some of the most reactionary forces in history. the black hundreds and other white armies engaged in horrible pogroms and mass murder. what became of the revolution was a tragedy and many bolsheviks, even and especially lenin, wrote and argued about how the bureaucratization of the new regime was a threat to workers control and empowerment. many of the individuals who made up the original bolshevik party were murdered by the regime following 1928 and especially again in 1936 with the repression of the left opposition and the moscow show trials. to portray the bolsheviks as some kind of insidious force which always had the goal of enslaving the nation is completely disingenuous. if you read lenin's body of work he sounds more like a modern day anarchist
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Apr 29, 2018 17:49
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the ultimate fate of the ussr is unfortunate, but to put the blame on its ultimate failure and degeneration on the bolsheviks and not the imperialist and reactionary forces which opposed it is again, like blaming the leaders of the haitian revolution for the inequities and injustices in that country following the revolution and into the present day
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Apr 29, 2018 17:51
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Jizz Festival posted:I think their intentions to help the people were genuine (and i include Stalin here), the problem was their tactics. Lenin may have written like an anarchist, but he thought that he knew the correct course of action and thwarted his opposition through whatever means available, even if that meant subverting democracy and centralizing power. im sorry but this doesnt gel at all with the actual history of events. the provisional government was in no way a democratic government, it was a collection of ministers and party members from the various parties represented in the duma that just took power after the february revolution. the bolsheviks following lenins return argued for all state power to be transferred to the soviets, the literal workers and soldiers councils that were democratically elected by the working people of the factories, the barracks, and the cit blocks. the bolsheviks consistently argued for soviet control, even prior to the october revolution when other parties like the mensheviks and social revolutionaries held majorities in the soviets
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Apr 29, 2018 19:06
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just to elaborate some more on the course of events, the bolsheviks at large began calling for "all power to the soviets" around the start of the july days. during this period they were still a minority faction in the soviets. the mensheviks were largely the majority in the soviets at this time and also had representation and nominally control of the provisional government. despite this, the mensheviks refused to take the lead in granting control to the workers because they believed they basically needed to commit to a holding action whereby they safeguarded power to be later transferred over to the liberals and capitalists so as to complete the "liberal" revolution that "orthodox" marxism called for before a workers revolution could occur. this was not a position held by all the menshiviks and its why during this time so many bolsheviks and menshiviks were changing parties and why even the bolsheviks were not wholly agreed on the seizure of power or even their party opposition to the provisional government. following the july days and the unrest that occurred, the provisional government began a campaign of repression on the bolsheviks, despite the fact that the party had actually held the masses back from revolutionary action during july for fear that it was premature. on at least one instance bolsheviks had to basically talk the crowds down from attacking kerensky and other menshiviks. after the clampdown began, trotsky was imprisoned, lenin fled to finland, and the party headquarters was basically occupied by government forces. because of the tumult occuring in the capitol, elements of the army made overtures about marching back from the front to "restore order." the most infamous example is kornilov who was basically invited back to petrograd by kerensky, only for kerensky to realize as he approached that the general had every intention of deposing the government for a military dictatorship. a at this point, the provisional government basically had to free the bolsheviks and ask them to defend them, even after having just imprisoned them and committed to destroying their organization. the reason was because the bolsheviks were the only ones who the workers and people trusted enough to lead them and who had the organization to actually mobilize the defense. they were successful and from that point forward from about september, the provisional government was basically already meaningless and ruled in name only. the actual bolshevik revolution was almost entirely bloodless and by the time it actually happened, the workers and soldiers had gone over to their side almost whole cloth. the fact that the bolsheviks called for all power to the soviets even while the mensheviks and SRs controlled them shows they werent just opportunistic but legitmately believed in the soviets as a means for achieving real workers democracy. that they used them to achieve the goal of soviet rule after winning a majority of workers to their side was just making good on their promise and their political program.
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Apr 29, 2018 19:19
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Wheeee posted:You give a very strong impression of knowing what the gently caress you're talking about, would you be willing to share a recommended reading list? for the course of events of 1917, trotskys history of the russian revolution is prolly the most detailed but its fairly dense. the biggest educator though isnt just reading, its reading with others for discussion with the focus of drawing lessons that can be applied to the current day, and then applying them. its why being a part of a party or organization is so important because the revolutionary party acts as basically the memory for the working class and continuously uses the past and what worked/didnt work as an analysis for action and strategy in the present day. this is why even though everyone in cspam hates on trotsky and trots, his writing is so valuable because he specifically wrote down so much of his experience and analyses and because he was so intimately involved in the revolutionary process. the same is true of lenin, luxembourg, and others, but unfortunately for those 2 specifically and many others they either didnt live long enough after the revolution or their revolutions failed and so they werent able to write as much after the fact
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Apr 30, 2018 03:23
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heres a collection of articles, book reviews, and podcasts on the centenary of the revolution put about by socialist alternative last year. they provide a good overview and how the events and actions can be applied to organizing and movement building today: https://www.socialistalternative.org/category/history/centenary-of-russian-revolution/
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Apr 30, 2018 03:26
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happy may days eve
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May 1, 2018 03:13
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i havent read it and if i do it will not be any time soon as i already have a backlog of stuff to read! a friend of mine and historian even published a book recently on american latino history that I still havent read yet
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May 1, 2018 13:17
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militant was the forerunner to the socialist party in the UK and the forerunners for socialist alternative in the US. the person on the left is peter taaffe who is the current party secretary and in terms of "why werent they successful" they were very successful and still are, they controlled several city governments at the time of that filming and would go on to lead the poll tax campaign that brought down theresa may. they were driven out of the labour party for basically being too good at what they do by what would become the blairites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOAJ9G4iytU
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May 3, 2018 15:24
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woops lol meant maragret thatcher. welp heres hoping!
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May 3, 2018 15:28
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yeah idgaf what people think about trotsky or whatever but when they make jokes about stalin being cool and good and ice picks and poo poo they ignore that thousands of socialists, committed bolsheviks, were sent to concentration camps and executed
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May 20, 2018 03:13
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trotsky was the leader of the red army but he didnt organize anything at kronstandt and had little if anything to do with the decisions made during the event. like if you want to blame him solely for the crimes and excesses of the red army during the civil war then ok but I dont think thats fair. in the same way that i wouldnt blame stalin for the mass rapes and assaults in places like yugoslavia by the red army when they occupied it at the end of ww2 despite my antipathy for stalin and the system that put him in place. all this ignores the fact that the post you quoted is me complaining about how people glorify stalin despite his regime killing thousands of political opponents within the party, many of whom were not trotskyists at all but were just "smeared" as such by the NKVD. the same thing happened to a lesser degree in parties around the world. for example the CPUSA expelling the trotskyist faction that went on to form the SWP but also expelling groups like the one formed around Jay Lovestone who weren't trotskyist but just objected to the CPUSA tactic of attacking trotskyists, IWW, and socialist party members in the streets while they were tabling or leading meetings
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May 20, 2018 15:53
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it was minor in the sense that it was one rebellion in a civil war that saw many such risings. it was the last major one to take place anywhere near the capitol though. a big part of the reason why its so closely tied to anarchists and the stabbed-in-the-back idea like thug lessons said is that during the spanish civil war, there was a lot of propaganda that attempted to discredit the trots there by slandering trotsky himself, specifically over his leadership role in the red army during the civil war. you wont find much if anything written about the event between 1922-1936 or so but then all of a sudden a lot is written about it in the mid-late 30s
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May 20, 2018 20:59
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emma goldman wrote about it in a book in 1923 about her time in russia, but hers isnt a firsthand account other than she was in russia during the civil war. thats where a lot of the charges against trotsky specifically and the bolsheviks more generally originate from among anarchists
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May 20, 2018 21:06
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also if the political organization of workers in the present period cant achieve a demand of 30 hours, then making a demand of 15 hours will be an even weaker call to action and organization because it doesnt align with where consciousness is at. any demand, action, or program that outpaces the current strength of the labor movement by that much is ultraleftism
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Jun 15, 2018 03:24
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Jun 16, 2018 13:48
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a lot of self identified marxist-leninists are just ultra lefts who want to feel justified for being sectarian and hating the rest of the left. not saying thats all of them but basically the twitter contingent which always has negative things to say about any left formation that isnt them, and them is literally just them since they're also not a member of any party or organization
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Jun 17, 2018 23:46
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ok take it back, dont know who any of the twitter left celebs are but clicked them and it looks like they are in psl. still sectarian as hell but whatever
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Jun 17, 2018 23:53
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you dont want to threaten the middle class, not so much the capitalists. like a lot of people on the left have a lot of disdain for middle class people and sometimes rightfully so, but policies and demands put forward should always have an eye to trying to win them over or at least keep them neutral because while their class interests align with the workers, they get bigger crumbs so they can be mobilized by the capitalists. capitalists are extremely well organized so its very detrimental if they can win the support of the petite bourgeoisie.
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Jun 18, 2018 01:59
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rudatron posted:In theory, yes, but I'm not sure its possible. The shadow of the USSR is long, and all the people buying Jorp's books are all middle class. its entirely possible, there are plenty of middle class individuals or at least people with middle class backgrounds involved in organizing and movement work
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Jun 18, 2018 02:21
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ultraleft is a phrase that is thrown around by a lot of people and means a lot of different things. lenins essay "left wing communism an infantile disorder" does a pretty good job imho of laying out what it means but basically its when parties/orgs/individuals put forward slogans, demands, policies, etc. that do not serve as poles of attraction for the labor movement or separate the socialist movement from workers. so like in the essay lenin calls the german communists refusal to engage in elections as incorrect because while they ideologically disagree with bourgeois electins, the workers still see them as valuable so to dismiss them and not engage with them means dismissing one of the major ways in which workers are interacting with politics. usually it comes from mistaking the ideological principles of marxism for the program that should be fought for at any given moment by marxists.
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Jun 18, 2018 03:57
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anyone who publicly calls out or poo poo talks orgs/parties/tendencies should be ignored. criticism is fine, but usually twitter isnt criticism its just "lol X group is trash" type poo poo. i disagree with anarcho-syndicalism or whatever but im not gonna write a long think piece about how wrong the IWW is if they get a sudden influx of 100k new members, ill be happy that a bunch of people are getting active and organized in anticapitalist politics. socialists should always be striving for unification with one another and the broader working class and that doesnt mean unprincipled "left unity" but it does mean trying to find common cause and agreement so that we can work together wherever possible foster cooperation and greater understanding for all of us
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Jun 18, 2018 13:15
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Top City Homo posted:middle class is the creche of fascism yes. if you dont win their support or at least keep them neutral then they will form the backbone of reactionary counter revolution. like i get thats its always cool to say poo poo like the middle class gets the wall too LMAO but almost every serious revolutionary has understood and written about how the petite bourgeois can be won over to the side of the working class, and while theyre not the backbone of the class struggle for the proletariat, it is not correct to drive them into the hands of the counter revolution.
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Jun 19, 2018 11:43
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Aliquid posted:Are we talking high-wage-earners here or people rich enough to live off capital gains yeah this is an important distinction, and the reality is that the line between working class and capitalist class can be very blurred during this stage of capitalism. any american worker with a 401k could be described as petite bourgeois because their interests do at least partially align with the maintenance of capital. its important to distinguish between the landlord that owns a single home they inherited from their parents and they rent to a single family, versus the landlord that owns several hundred+ unit apartment buildings. the former has working class interests even if they have aspirations to become capitalists. again, the middle class can be recruited in the service of reaction or revolution and while a program should always be based on the political consciousness and organization of the working class, it should at the very least attempt to prevent the middle class going over whole cloth to reaction. an example of what I mean is specifically is like the recent head tax in seattle which would have taxed corporations per employee after they have so many employees. this wouldnt apply to a small shop owner who has 5 employees but instead is focused on large corporations like amazon that prove to be popular targets for workers and even elements of the middle class.
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Jun 19, 2018 12:49
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I think this discussion maybe illustrates the importance of differentiating between principles/ideals and the program. as socialists we strive ultimately for the elimination of class society, so the interests of the middle class or their aspirations dont concern us on a principled level. in terms of the program - the ideas, slogans, demands, etc. put forward by the party or the movement at this moment - their aspirations and interests do concern us because how they orient to a program can impact the success of the program in furthering the political consciousness and organization of the working class.
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Jun 19, 2018 13:05
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its not a matter of recruiting those middle/upper middle class people into the party its about keeping them neutral or at least not mobilizing in opposition. if you've ever done any mass work you know that within most labor orgs and unions these folks exist, as well as any "activist" type org. groups like indivisible, our revolution, and even some DSA chapters are filled with high wage earners/middle class/petite bourgeois/however you want to classify them folk. obviously indivisible is not filled with socialists, but you can find success mobilizing their membership around certain issues and demands given the right approach and how receptive groups like those are can often be a good barometer of how the public at large will respond when canvassing and tabling.
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Jun 20, 2018 10:36
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some of the most dedicated and capable anti-war and labor organizers I know are former soldiers who became radicalized partially from what they had to go through as soldiers. "Movements do not come to us from heaven, fully formed and organized. They are built by actual people, with all their political questions, weaknesses and strengths." - Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
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Jun 21, 2018 00:45
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HorrificExistence posted:I have this fear that the modern IWW is just basically people cosplaying the real IWW anyway. That might be a bad take, I don't really know about the contemporary organization. theres a lot of people on the left in general who are just in it for the aesthetic, its by no means limited to any single org
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Jun 21, 2018 02:19
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waiting to hear how Thomas sankara was a reactionary because his dad was a cop and he fought a nationalist war as an officer in the army of a liberal state
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Jun 21, 2018 11:49
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Communism is more than just a journey of self-discovery. Thomas Sankara did more to make up for his crimes than just quit the army and say other soldiers should quit too. no poo poo so maybe that should serve as a lesson. this dude is like 21 or something so maybe it's more useful to say oh nice going kid come be a socialist than decide that all that matters is the poo poo he did before he was 21 so he will die an imperialist monster when he's maybe 72 and spent 50+ years fighting imperialism and class society
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Jun 21, 2018 11:56
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that's not what people here and elsewhere are saying they're saying cause he was an officer in the army he's an irredeemable troop who is a class traitor. the dude has for whatever reason thrown his life off course for at least on the surface, his belief in revolutionary politics. calling him out for how lovely he is at the moment he is actually trying to possibly find a way towards mass politics is the same as the people who yell and scream that te left needs guns at the high schoolers who got shot at back in April. perfectly fine if you disagree with them or the troop kid but at least try to build bridges and solidarity with people that could be allies in building mass movements instead of calling them all out and publicly making GBS threads on them
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Jun 21, 2018 12:11
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basically a bunch of Internet leftists are in a constant contest to not be out-radicaled by other lefties. revolutionaries orient towards the mass of working people and seek to win them over and organize them into a force capable of ending class society. even if you disagree with the dude or what he did if someone can't find ways to connect what has happened to him with mass consciousness and propagandize and reach people then I'd question their ability to be anything but a dead weight to revolutionary organizing
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Jun 21, 2018 12:17
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the people complaining about that kid are the same people that show up to a rally wearing a soviet flag around ther neck and a ushanka. they don't know poo poo about unions or how to run a meeting or organize a rally like te one they're at but they'll happily poo poo talk every party org or individual who does know and do that poo poo for not being radical enough. they're more interested in larping a revolution than actually working to realize one
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Jun 21, 2018 12:26
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HorrificExistence posted:The only reason Lenin and Mao succeeded was due to extremely specific circumstances outside of their control. Retroactively taking their paths to revolution and declaring them the correct model that will totally function outside of the Russian Empire and war-time China is pretty dumb. this is a misreading of lenin and revolutionary organizing in general. revolutionary parties dont form to create revolutionary situations, they organize themselves and help organize the broader working class into the institutions and organizations that, when a revolutionary moment does present itself, can be used to absorb the energy of the mass movements in such a way to channel them into an actual revolution. during periods of low class struggle, the goal of the revolutionary party is to recruit, train, and organize the workers who are already starting to draw revolutionary conclusions so that there is an apparatus in place when everybody else starts to draw those same conclusions during an actual revolutionary period. its correct though i think to say that a lot of socialists apply the writings of the old revolutionary leaders and writers as a strict dogma which is usually an incorrect reading. a good example of that is the CPUSA around the 1920s wanting to remain underground because the bolsheviks went underground during the russian revolution. when the american delegation went to russia in 1921 or 23 cant remember which, lenin and trotsky had to help the minority convince the rest of the delegation that staying underground was a mistake and that they should operate openly and legally unless under the most brutal repression. the CPUSA members were looking to the experiences of the bolsheviks in the july days as an example they should follow, but the CPUSA was not in a position like the bolsheviks in july 17 and so they were misapplying those lessons as something universal, rather than the correct tactic at a specific point in time.
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Jun 22, 2018 22:06
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if people wanna criticize the DSA and ocasio-cortez there's definitely some principled arguments to be made both for and against her campaign. if people want to argue that standing in elections is wrong in and of itself then I'd guess they are not really marxists
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Jun 28, 2018 14:41
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theres a subset of people who claim to be marxist lenninist or maoist who imagine themselves as following in like the bolsheviks footsteps, but in practice theyre politics end up being a lot more like anarchists than any marxist
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Jun 28, 2018 14:44
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Kudaros posted:The real issue for many of us who are currently abstaining from organizing around elections is that we do not think it is currently practical in our place and in our time (which may not be in some particular district in NYC or wherever). It's putting the cart way before the horse. I know I get written off as 'ultraleft', which is weird, but it's probably weirder to run tenant union organizing efforts into the ground in favor of elections that are ultimately lost by a huge margin, after 6 months of diverted labor. If 10% of the eligible population votes in a primary, I don't think that's actually where people are at -- which I agree is where we should be meeting them! making the case that socialists arent ready for elections in terms of organization is also a valid argument, even if I dont necessarily agree. unfortunately most "ultraleft" people I interact with act instead like its a sacrosanct rule that socialists should never take part in elections. discussions and arguments about when/how/where/etc. socialists should run candidates are all perfectly valid, arguments about if socialists should ever run candidates are not
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Jun 28, 2018 21:30
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Wheeee posted:elections are all youve got to work with, the revolution is not coming the fact that were not currently in a revolutionary period means that its even more important to be building the organization of revolutionary movements right now. the revolution leaves no time to build the party and if its not in place then revolutionary moments will pass or fail. being a revolutionary and running candidates in elections are not mutually exclusive. if you think socialism can be achieved through electoral means though, then youve failed to learn the lessons of the second international and the failures of social democracy.
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Jun 28, 2018 21:34
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yeah, being a revolutionary means building the organization and class consciousness of the working class such that when we enter a revolutionary period, they have the ability to take power. running people in elections isnt antagonistic to revolutionary politics, so long as those elections are building the independent power of the working class.
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Jun 29, 2018 14:29
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Kudaros posted:Agreed. Where we differ (in my locale) is an assessment on the state of electoral politics and their effectiveness. When volunteer labor is limited, the choices are actually mutually exclusive -- you throw your time in to funneling people into the democratic party (not wise in general, imo, but especially where I'm at), or you organize with otherwise unorganized and disinterested individuals. no, that sounds like you are taking the correct approach. not sure what party/org youre with but generally standing in elections should be happening only once you have sufficient independent working class organization. running in them without that first will waste time and resources. thats an important distinction cause while its ludicrous to reject bourgeois elections full stop, there are groups which see running in elections as a way to build movements and organization, but the reality is they are an expression and consequence of organization.
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Jun 29, 2018 14:42
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