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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists?
#15389949 - 11/18/11 05:06 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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It seems that there isn't a lot of support for the Stalinist or Soviet style state amongst contemporary Marxists or Marxist-sympathizers (used broadly).
Reading about the politicial and economic history of the west, especially the US, however; leaves me with the impression that there were quite a bit of Marxists who were openly apologetic, if not outright supporting of the Soviets.
What happened?
Even on this board, I've seen Marxist folks openly scornful of any refrence to the abuses of the Soviet states: dismissing the Soviet state as "not Marxist" or claiming the abuses of the Soviet state have nothing to do with Marxism as a government system or ideology.
Any thoughts? Why have the communists dropped their historical support for the Soviet state? (or have they continued it and I just don't realize it?)
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ChuangTzu
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: johnm214]
#15389970 - 11/18/11 05:10 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Maybe they supported it when it existed because it had the potential to support them in some way. Now that it's gone, it doesn't have that ability, but the negative associations remain...
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Don Juan
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: ChuangTzu] 2
#15390152 - 11/18/11 05:45 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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they are out occupying wall street?
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RationalEgo
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Loc: Boston
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: Don Juan]
#15390158 - 11/18/11 05:46 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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...
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Cherk
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: johnm214]
#15402756 - 11/21/11 12:23 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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comrade cherokee checking in
Marx had to recant his original thesis that a proletariat revolution could only occur in wealthy nations after the fierce Russian will proved him wrong with their abundance of bloodthirsty opportunistic maniacs and the regions consuming desperation and poverty
Russia is a country with a hell of a history of domestic conflicts and civil wars...they do things differently in Russia; including socialism
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I have considered such matters. SIKE
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RogerRabbit
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: Cherk]
#15402975 - 11/21/11 01:04 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Any thoughts? Why have the communists dropped their historical support for the Soviet state? (or have they continued it and I just don't realize it?)
I've never been a Marxist or communist sympathizer, but my wife grew up in the Soviet Union, and her father was a well-known dissident. The NY Times did a story on him in 1972. He spent 20 years in a Soviet prison for the 'crime' of wanting to emigrate with his family to America, and as he, my future wife(at age 4), her sister(at age 7) and mother were attempting to get into the US embassy, the KGB grabbed both children and threw them right in to heavy traffic, seized their mother and killed her, and sent their father to prison.
The problem with the Soviet state was the familiar adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we've seen in governments since the dawn of time. It had little to do with Marx, but a lot to do with Lennon, Stalin, and Brezhnev, but more specifically with the rich and powerful seizing control, whatever the current ideological fad may be. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: RogerRabbit]
#15403165 - 11/21/11 01:46 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Cool story, bro.
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: RogerRabbit]
#15403278 - 11/21/11 02:05 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said:
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Any thoughts? Why have the communists dropped their historical support for the Soviet state? (or have they continued it and I just don't realize it?)
I've never been a Marxist or communist sympathizer, but my wife grew up in the Soviet Union, and her father was a well-known dissident. The NY Times did a story on him in 1972. He spent 20 years in a Soviet prison for the 'crime' of wanting to emigrate with his family to America, and as he, my future wife(at age 4), her sister(at age 7) and mother were attempting to get into the US embassy, the KGB grabbed both children and threw them right in to heavy traffic, seized their mother and killed her, and sent their father to prison.
The problem with the Soviet state was the familiar adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we've seen in governments since the dawn of time.
Yeah, the soviet states were bad times, but it seems like towards the end of the cold war, there was much less support in western countries for the Soviet Union, even amongst people who advocated some sort of Marxism. I recall reading about how some communists were pretty put off after Kruschev's secret speech pretty much confirmed everything those critical of the Soviet state were saying- maybe that's part of it.
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It had little to do with Marx, but a lot to do with Lennon, Stalin, and Brezhnev, but more specifically with the rich and powerful seizing control, whatever the current ideological fad may be. RR
This attitude is one of those that seems pretty strong in some of the marxists that post here. They claim the problems of the Soviet Union weren't representative of Marxism, and that the Western boggey man just makes it out to be that way.
I have to disagree with this. Marxism in all its incarnations pushes for a consolidation of power that includes the entirety of the country's resources, including the population's labor and mental facilities. This absolute power is the inevitable result of a communist society, and is in practice essential to any marxist establishment. You end up having to fence people in to keep them in the worker's paradise: a strange reaction given the Marxist dogma that those who succeed in capitalism are simply those blessed by chance with the ability to do so, and not those with any particular merit.
That the marxist states inevitably need to erect fences and use guards to force the people to stay pretty clearly demonstrates that even they don't believe their own propoganda- or at least that their policies are inconsistant with the core state philosophies.
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gluke bastid
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: johnm214] 1
#15403789 - 11/21/11 03:55 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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Marxism in all its incarnations pushes for a consolidation of power
It does? Marxism at its base predicts that in the future power and ownership will be shared, not consolidated. Do you mean to say that all of the Communist Nations have resulted in a consolidation of power? Or are you talking about Marxist theory? Marx's predictions and the real-life manifestations of Communism are worlds apart.
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This absolute power is the inevitable result of a communist society, and is in practice essential to any marxist establishment.
Again you're not making a differentiation between Marxist theory and prediction and historical reality. You may not care to do so for your own personal reasons but there is a distinction, as there is a distinction between almost any political theorist and the reality of governments founded to some degree on those ideas. The US constitution and the resulting Republic were founded by men interested in the ideas of Locke, but there is a large difference between Locke's treatises and predictions and the reality of the US. This is also the case with the difference in ideas of Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, and Marx.
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You end up having to fence people in to keep them in the worker's paradise: a strange reaction given the Marxist dogma that those who succeed in capitalism are simply those blessed by chance with the ability to do so, and not those with any particular merit.
Marxism states that those who succeed in capitalism are those who have access to the most capital.
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That the marxist states inevitably need to erect fences and use guards to force the people to stay pretty clearly demonstrates that even they don't believe their own propoganda- or at least that their policies are inconsistant with the core state philosophies.
Marxism has nothing to do with this whatsoever. I'm pretty certain Marx never called for coercion, although I could be wrong. That communist nations have been oppressive is extremely important to note, but plenty of capitalist nations have also oppressed their citizens and executed dissenters and would-be deserters.
My point in all of this is that, as the Nations that have claimed Marx as their own and have gone on to create oppressive Communist states are important to learn from as social and civic disasters, equally important to understand is where Marxism stops and Stalinism or Mao-ism begins. Stalin and Mao agreed with Marx on certain key ideas but they also had their own set of ideas that Marx probably would not have agreed with, and most of those have to do with the things you are critical of: creating a centralized bureacracy that controls all decisions and dictates to the people how they are going to live, work, procreate, think, speak, and act. Marx assumed, perhaps rather naively, that after a worker's revolution there would be a transition into a gradually more de-centralized state in which the government was less and less of a presence. This has never happened. Whether Marx was an idiot for predicting this or not, you can decide for yourself, but it is why people make a distinction between his theories and Soviet Communism.
-------------------- Society in every form is a blessing, but government at its best is but a necessary evil - Thomas Paine
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: gluke bastid]
#15404035 - 11/21/11 04:54 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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gluke bastid said:
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Marxism in all its incarnations pushes for a consolidation of power
It does? Marxism at its base predicts that in the future power and ownership will be shared, not consolidated. Do you mean to say that all of the Communist Nations have resulted in a consolidation of power? Or are you talking about Marxist theory? Marx's predictions and the real-life manifestations of Communism are worlds apart.
No, I meant what I said. Marxist theory is that the state exists to forcefully enact and maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is, by definition, nonvoluntary.
The chosen class, howsoever defined in practice, would work through the state. The state functionaries would have the power of the state, unrestrained by any considerations other than the interests of the proletariat, which they claim to excercise. Beyond the obvious problems this class warfare engenders, the state is given absolute power to enact its will, unrestrained by traditional notions of constitutional restraint, popular sovereignty (except by the proletariat in so much as it ever exists in practice), and individual rights.
- “...When the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by their revolutionary dictatorship ... to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie ... the workers invest the state with a revolutionary and transitional form" Marx
- “As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one’s adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a ‘free people’s state’; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist" Engels
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This absolute power is the inevitable result of a communist society, and is in practice essential to any marxist establishment.
Again you're not making a differentiation between Marxist theory and prediction and historical reality. You may not care to do so for your own personal reasons but there is a distinction, as there is a distinction between almost any political theorist and the reality of governments founded to some degree on those ideas
You've said so, but how do you show this is the case?
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term used in the very real sense of the term 'dictatorship': control of a person's actions, property, labor and effort, and products.
The state is the means through which this dictatorship is achieved, and it indeed has no practical limit on its power except through the overthrow and rejection of the Marxist government.
- "Every provisional state setup after a revolution requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. From the beginning we taxed Camphausen with not acting dictatorially, with not immediately smashing and eliminating the remnants of the old institutions." Marx
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That the marxist states inevitably need to erect fences and use guards to force the people to stay pretty clearly demonstrates that even they don't believe their own propoganda- or at least that their policies are inconsistant with the core state philosophies.
Marxism has nothing to do with this whatsoever. I'm pretty certain Marx never called for coercion, although I could be wrong.
Nonsense, Marx was very clear about the nature of the dictatorship and the state. The use of state violence and force is not simply the outcome of every marxist revolution in practice, its a core part of Marx's own ideology.
- "It means that so long as the other classes, especially the capitalist class, still exists, so long as the proletariat struggles with it (for when it attains government power its enemies and the old organization of society have not yet vanished), it must employ forcible means, hence governmental means. It is itself still a class and the economic conditions from which the class struggle and the existence of classes derive have still not disappeared and must forcibly be either removed out of the way or transformed, this transformation process being forcibly hastened" Marx
How exactly is the socialist society supposed to be enacted without forceful aquisition of the means of production?
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Marx assumed, perhaps rather naively, that after a worker's revolution there would be a transition into a gradually more de-centralized state in which the government was less and less of a presence. This has never happened. Whether Marx was an idiot for predicting this or not, you can decide for yourself, but it is why people make a distinction between his theories and Soviet Communism.
Yes, but there was no pretense about how the transition to socialism was supposed to be carried out: through force and state authority. I agree that he spoke of a post-socialist transition to some mystical stateless paradise, but the fact remains this was only to occur at the point of a gun. (in practice it indeed seems naive to think this would ever occur- even beyond the practical problems of ever achieving a workable communist state. Give the government and ruling class unlimited power and they will never give it up except through forceful overthrow of the government through which they excercixe that power)
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communeart
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: johnm214]
#15412224 - 11/23/11 09:33 AM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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It seems that there isn't a lot of support for the Stalinist or Soviet style state amongst contemporary Marxists or Marxist-sympathizers (used broadly).
Reading about the politicial and economic history of the west, especially the US, however; leaves me with the impression that there were quite a bit of Marxists who were openly apologetic, if not outright supporting of the Soviets.
During World war 1, Communist broke from the social-democrats in germany about the war declaration, they established the short-lived german communist republic to be finally brutally crushed at the end of the war, the remaining elements who were not bolsheviks (ideology of the russian communist) were persecuted in nazi germany, put into camps and gased. During the spain republic civil war, stalinist repressed other trotskyist in an attempt to unite the movement wherever they could as well as around the world, like vietnam or cuba. The paris commune itself, was severely repressed with around 50 000 death with the streets being described as river of blood. Karl marx severely criticized the paris commune for being too soft, and taking time to make elections while versailles was organising their defeat. The entire history of the communist movement is of idealist being slaughtered and disorganized, overthrown like Allende or attempted like Chavez. Or leaders like Castro treating their prisoners much worse than they themselves were treated as political prisoner.
The form of the political ideology and history events contributed to this radicalism of the communist movement as well as it's inevitable downfall if it continuted in that path. George orwell himself said that the soviet union had to change or it will go down in history. Many people around the world closed their eyes on soviet atrocities for the sake of protecting the Soviet Union.
Suffice to say the communist never hide their radicalism , and their willingness to violence, they always said they would be just as violent as the capitalist system and would target the weakness of the capitalist state just like the bourgeois attacks worker rights by exploiting their weakness.
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Shill
♋♋♋♋♋♋♋♋♋♋♋
Registered: 11/23/11
Posts: 3,205
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: RationalEgo]
#15413933 - 11/23/11 05:10 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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RationalEgo said: ...
they are
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The countdown to the break up of the euro has officially begun. A great financial crisis is going to erupt in Europe, and it is going to shake the world to the core. If you were frightened by what happened back in 2008, then you are going to be absolutely horrified by what is coming next. "You throw the sand against the wind And the wind blows it back again." - William Blake
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Travis Bickle
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Re: What happened to all the Soviet-supporting marxists? [Re: Shill]
#15414582 - 11/23/11 07:29 PM (12 years, 4 months ago) |
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I would venture that it is mainly due to the overshadowing of any gains made during the Lenin years by the atrocities atrocities committed during the Stalin years. Too many associate the Soviet Revolution with Stalinism as opposed to Marxism/Leninism.
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