Ultra-Leftism

[Swimmingadict]

I have problem with many so called 'Trotskyists' who direct their most feriocious critcism toward the former Soviet Union and China. Trotsky never wanted the Soviet Union to fall, he said we should have moved for a democratic revolution, but certianly not attack it in an Ultra-Leftist fashion and use regurgitated capitalist lies. I still support the North Korean masses in a Communist/democratic revolution but I will still support the NK government against the US and I fully support their arming with nuclear weapons. I loath the regmine there but I will never rejoice in its down fall, unless it is by a true communist revolution.
What do you think? Do you think we have too many new Marxist who hold bourgeois predudices?

[orwellcommie]

I think it could be confusing constructive criticism with hoping for failure.  If one speaks Critically of the Soviet Union, or China, one should look to WHY they criticize.  If they say "Well they were totalitarian, and Communism will always only lead to State Currutpion and dicatorship therefore no thinking person should follow communism"  THEN you can clearly see they are clearly counter revolutionary mouthpiece Capitalist using their old slander and spin to discredit the Ideals of Marxism.  However if one looks back and says "these states have made mistakes that we can CORRECT and Still carry through the principles of Marxism and Spread international Socialism",  in THAT case you'd probally do well to atleast hear them out.  Is the motive of the critic to discredit and denounce Marxism?  OR do they seek SOLUTIONS through critically analizing the strong points and weak points of the system?  I think in that light we should listen clear to the voice of critics as what we all want is SOLUTIONS don't we?  I say if one comes with criticism of Communism you meet them head on with SOLUTIONS and THAT is how you get the people to follow you, and the people WILL follow you if you have the answers to their problems and can solve them.  The people under capitalism WANT to be liberated from the conditions they are subjected to the Capitalist keep them Believing that Communism wouldn't solve their problems so it's up to us to prove OTHERWISE, and there the people's support of that systems will errode.

[Swimmingadict]

Indeed  I don't argue that we defend the soviet union or china blindly, but as marxist we have a duty to not used all of lies the capitalists use. Take the USSR, there was still some democracy, perhaps more than in the anyother country in the West, but it still wasn't democracy.

[Red Coup]

I don't think that I still withhold my predjudices, but I can never support the former Soviet Union. For me, it stands against everythig I believe about Communism. How can you say that the Stalinist regime respected universal worker rights and abolished the class system? I don't consider myself ultra-leftist or a liberal marxist. I simply pick up the ideaologies of various Communists that I believe in. Perhaps I'm too inexperienced in Marxism to comment further.

[OUTOFTHENIGHT]

What do you mean by a 'liberal marxist'??
What the hell does that mean?

[Dasher]

The USSR under Stalin was a monstrous regime with no democracy.  We defend the State ownership and plan, but because it lacked democracy it seized up and collapsed(gdp) through bureaucratic corruption and bungling.  25 million bureaucrats who benefitted under Stalinism moved to capitalism as the way out.

Despite the wastage, the conditions for Soviet workers were good, work, housing, education and health were a decent standard.  Since the change, capitalism has devastated all aspects of peoples lives.  We thus defend the workers/Stalinist states critically, because they have no real democracy.

[Morag]

I think criticism of the Soviet Union is best expressed as (and is most persuasive as): "Well, there were some real accomplishments, but without true democracy, you can't possibly have socialism." This allows you to not criticize the efforts of the people of the USSR, because they don't deserve our disdain, while pointing out that the authoritarianism ruined any chance of the plan working, not the socialist elements. It also tempers any argument someone might have about the USSR having been socialist.

[orwellcommie]

One can most praise the Soviet Union for one thing however.  It was a check against right Wing Nazism of the U.S. and it's closest supporters.  They would not have invaded Iraq for example had the Soviet union been intact and still able to say "If you attack Iraq we will be there to punish you."  Good or bad as such a call would have been it's a force in the world that is sorely NEEDED!  Doesn't exactally mean I'm pro-Sadam however the fact that he couldn't have turned to Russia to millitarily deter the U.S. even if he could not have gotten it is what so dismays me on this issue.  the Peril of Facist Capitalism is all to great in our modern era.

[P.O.U.M]

What do you mean by a 'liberal marxist'??

Me thinks, it is something like, Autonomous Marxism. Where you believe in historical and dialectical materialism, but has a less authoriatarian flavor too it. Kinda like some varied form of anarchism but believeing in the materialisms.

[anomaly]

Are not the USSR, China, and NK just bourgeois authoritarian governments? They are not true socialist-worker's states, but rather harsh dictatorships. This being said, aren't the two surviving regimes truly our enemies? We must realize that only democracy is compatible with socialism, authoritarian socialism will always fail.

[Swimmingadict]

I don't think that I still withhold my predjudices, but I can never support the former Soviet Union. For me, it stands against everythig I believe about Communism. How can you say that the Stalinist regime respected universal worker rights and abolished the class system? I don't consider myself ultra-leftist or a liberal marxist. I simply pick up the ideaologies of various Communists that I believe in. Perhaps I'm too inexperienced in Marxism to comment further.

I think that you still hold your predjudices, you still are the product of capitalism's education system and its propaganda. Yes there were autrocities but the West has added so much on to these things and the West has done far more autrocities than Mao or Stalin, Capitalism in general still murders more than those two combined. Do you support the free market in Russia and China?

Are not the USSR, China, and NK just bourgeois authoritarian governments? They are not true socialist-worker's states, but rather harsh dictatorships. This being said, aren't the two surviving regimes truly our enemies? We must realize that only democracy is compatible with socialism, authoritarian socialism will always fail.

They aren't 'Bourgeois' they are bureaucracies. I guess you would support the United States in its invasion of Vietnam, interventions into Latin America because that will help in your throwing the bureaucracies away. They aren't workers states; they are deformed workers states, if you are talking about Cuba and NK. Of course there needs to be democracy, but there needs to be some unity, you can't just throw your support behind Imperialism just because the guy on the other side isn't your idea of socialist.

Support the workers movements for WORKERS' democracy, but just remember that even NK would be under and even more horrible rule if they were ruled by capitalism. Although, I doubt that we can label NK even a deformed workers state, because it was created by the Russians and Chinese.

[P.O.U.M]

Are not the USSR, China, and NK just bourgeois authoritarian governments?

No. They are deformed workers states. They have elements of socialism (planned economy) but the bureaucracy is the leading element layer of society.

They are not true socialist-worker's states, but rather harsh dictatorships. This being said, aren't the two surviving regimes truly our enemies?

Yes the regimes are our enemies. But they should also be defended against US imperialism. These countries just need a political revolution to setup a democratic workers state.

But just dismissing everything that these "communist" countries have done is silly. All these countries have made progress in some way or another. Take for example Cuba, which has just come out with a new cholera vaccine

Cuba has been behind a number of new vaccines. Cuba also has a great healthcare system, much better than the US.

You cannot simply dismiss all the former or current "communist states" as bad. The good must be defended while the bad must be rejected and criticised.

[Holocaustpulp]

I fervently criticize the "failed" socialist regimes of the Soviet Union and China, among many others. Despite small-scale (in the political spectrum) progressions, I disown all tyrannical "socialist" (in reality, pseudo-socialist) states that oppressed the masses by abridging democratic measures and general rights and by imposing decrees from a centralized governing body. Such states implement Marxism in such a way that communism's founding philosophies are shattered.

I willingly support the Soviet economic advances and Mao's idea of a decentralized, non-bureaucratic People's Republic of communes (pre-Cultural Revolution; these are just some examples), yet I still denounce these non-socialist societies for their general lack to accomplish socialism by neglecting basic socialist philosophies (i.e., all failed socialists states increased the role of the state, and didn't allow it to "wither away").

I voice these criticisms as a true socialist, not a bougeois capitalist. I just cannot see how one can advocate socialism as manifested through everything that socialism is against (i.e., Stalinism and Maoism, dictorship states...).

- Holocaustpulp

[Frederik]

I am not very fond of posting a lot of links, but I would recommend the comrades to read this document:

http://www.marxist.com/TUT/TUT3-2.html

It provides a perfectly material analysis of the stalinist regimes in USSR and Eastern Europe at a time when there was a lot of confusion on this subject among the advanced workers.

The basic thing for marxists when analysing a social system is this: does it develop the productive forces and thereby provides the material conditions for an advance for humanity?

The private ownership of the means of production and the national state is the two main barriers against progress. The means of production has a social character due to its huge proportions, but still the distribution is private. This creates one crisis after another in capitalist society. And the only way to solve this problem is for the working class to expropriate the capitalist class and take control of the means of production.

But in order to have a healthy development (and to survive in a longer period) in a planned economy, there must be workers' democracy. Criticism must be free, so mistakes can be avoided and prevented from repeating themselves.

This was not present in stalinist Russia and Eastern Europe. And there are still no workers' democracy in Cuba or in North Korea.

But the planned economy is a great advantage and provides the material basis for advance in the future. The planned economy enables Cuba, an under-developed third world country, to have a smaller amount of child mortality than the city of New York, one of the most advanced capitalist areas in the world.

When capitalist restoration took place in Russia, it was a disaster for the peoples of the USSR. Production fell by 60 %, which is much more than the fall of 30% in USA in 1929. It was a catastrophe that can only be compared to a terrible defeat in war - or, more correctly, two wars.
This can only be explained by the fact that the USSR, despite the monstrous distorsions of stalinism, had an economic base which was more advanced than capitalism.

The reason why we call USSR a degenerated workers' state is ecsactly that the planned economy was held back by a stalinist bureaucracy. Trotsky said in the Transitional Programme, that either the workers would make a political revolution and restore the soviet democracy, or the workers' state would be crushed, which would be a disaster for working people. This perspective was very correct.

What needs to be done in todays stalinist regimes in Cuba and North Korea is a political revolution where the bureaucracy is booted out and replaced with a regime of genuine workers' democracy.

[Daymare17]

In the debate over whether a given regime is democratic or despotic, there's always a lot of metaphysics, semantics and assorted tomfoolery being flung around. Especially in the case of such contradictory countries as Cuba, where the population is, by all standards, cared for well than in the world's richest capitalist country, the USA, but does not participate any in the running of political life. Is Cuba a dictatorship? Well, yes... but it is more benevolent than the USA? Yes... so it's a benevolent dictatorship then? In that case, what is the USA? Dictatorship? Democracy? Benevolent dictatorship? This kind of wordplay only makes the confusion words. I mean worse. Haha.

The needs and aspirations (actually the same thing) of humans have been analyzed scientifically and presented in Maslow's pyramid, which is generally accepted in the scientific community as a simplified model.

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/maslow_pyramid.html

We can say that freedom for a human being is the ability to have his or her needs satisfied. This has been true throughout history, and the manner of satisfaction (and/or deprivation) has always been linked to the occupation of the individual in society and the stage of development of that society. A feudal peasant is satisfied (physiologically, and arguably on the safety and belonging levels) and deprived (in the esteem and self-actualization departments) by working for his lord. The lord, basically, has all his needs fulfilled, except for being forced to do things that don't suit his fancy like having to put down peasant revolts, making war and so on. The capitalist is satisfied by having people work for him (this is a crude oversimplification, since capitalists and their hangers-on are often some of the most unhappy people, but will do for our purposes) while the worker is satisfied and deprived by his existence as a worker. The freedom of the capitalist is that to exploit his worker, while the ultimate freedom of the worker is that to overthrow his capitalist and attain communism.

Note in passing that throughout history only a small minority of the ruling class has been able to rise to the level of self-actualization. Under communism the average human type will rise up to and beyond this level.

Even bourgeois politicians refer to this interpretation of freedom, case in point being when they determine whether a certain political measure will gain the support of the working class, the middle class or the corporations. What they mean is whether it will satisfy their needs (=express their longing for freedom). Even though they may not formulate the phenomenon consciously or understand its implications, they use it in their political calculation.

This is why Marxists say that a capitalist society like the USA is not a democracy but a dictatorship. The working class, 80% of the nation, is entirely deprived of any political influence. Why do we say that? Because it is incapable of making life better for itself. This is what being unfree means - inability to pursue your interests. None of the parties are prepared to make life better for the American working class by transferring national wealth to it through increased wages, better public healthcare and education and so on. Instead the capitalist establishment is steadily widening the social divide and thus preparing an explosion of class struggle. The struggle won't end until the workers have had their interests entirely satisfied through taking the whole economy under their patronage. And even after that there will be want which will not disappear until the superabundance threshold.

These attributes of freedom that I have described are also why a "benevolent dictatorship" is an oxymoron - if everybody's needs are satisfied then it's not a dictatorship, and not even democracy, but anarchy, communism. Why? Because there's nothing to fight over. There's no need for one part of the society to repress another, to keep it in its deprived state.

So in conclusion, capitalism is not a democracy since it only satisfies a minority of the population. Socialism is the first true democracy, because it satisfies the wishes of the majority (the workers). Under communism there will be no minority and majority in the sense they have had throughout history (rich and poor). For this reason there will be neither democracy nor dictatorship but anarchy. Cuba is not socialist, but because it satisfies the majority better, we have to say that it is more democratic than the United States and we have to defend it by all means necessary against US aggression. The Soviet Union was not as democratic as Cuba (for one, the state machine was much more menacing and a larger factor in unhappiness) but in comparison with the capitalist regime that was installed there with the help of imperialism, it was practically a socialist utopia. For this reason we would have to defend all elements of the planned economy against capitalist attacks. The same goes for the even more brutal and repulsive states like China and North Korea. 3/4 East Germans now say they would prefer "some kind of socialism" to capitalism, and that was where the transition from Stalinism to capitalism went smoothest. If South Korea annexes the North we can be sure that the masses will have it even worse than under Big Baby.

'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:

'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

-Percy Shelley