Yeah she cared far more for the democratic organization. The bolshevik model tried to justify itself as only transitional and so directing the mass of proletariat which is too stupid to understand its own needs was sold as somehow getting closer to the model where they own means of their production and all of a sudden know exactly what they need.
It’s the height of absurdity to claim that Bolsheviks didn’t care about democratic organization.
Again the historical argument is so weird. Literally the countries like Vietnam and Korea had solid democratic organisation by commities not dissimilar to initial soviets. They only moved to centralization after being attacked by us. They were not like bolsheviks before.
On which principles did they organize, Lenin’s or Luxemburg’s. You’re making my point for me here.
If lenins goal was to have workers who own their means of production, in the marxist sense, he failed. The vanguard party never went away, ideal was not accomplished.
That’s an absurdly infantile argument. The reality is that the USSR existed under threat from the overarching capitalist world throughout its whole existence and was not allowed to develop peacefully. It was invaded by western powers in 1918, then plunged into WW2 a couple of decades later, and then into Cold War. Claiming that it did not live up to Platonic ideals of communism under these conditions is inane to say the least.
Luxemburg being proved wrong I also dont understand, how is it that if the party cowardly abandons its cause it somehow disproves that cause?
Meanwhile, Luxemburg’s idealism gave us the nazis in the end. Had the German communists followed Russian example, then the history may have turned out completely differently. There may not have been a WW2, Europe would’ve become communist, and the US would’ve remained an isolated regional power which would’ve likely turned communist as well to follow the rest of the world.
This also makes it seem like you actually want some level of dogmatism. Assuming that Lenins idea of revolution is the correct one.
Looking at what has worked historically is the opposite of dogmatism.
yes you said that mensheviks are not revolutionary, and the only argument is that they want first a bourgeois revolution to happen before a socialist one
The fact that you don’t understand the absurdity of the sentence you wrote is incredible.
so we dont agree that historical materialism necessitates contradictions of capitalist society to give rise to socialist revolution?
I’ve already addressed this in an earlier reply. You can feel free to reread it.
When compared to most other marxist they were far less democratic. I cannot speak to their hidden cares. But they very much upheld the idea of stupid mass of workers that needs to be told what to do.
The point is that the commities only became centralized after they were attacked. I dont know how else to say this. They were not like the bolsheviks initially.
Well I have only adopted your methods. Its almost as insane as trying to argue that its was a failure of Luxemburgs ideas and not the abandonment of the party which caused the failure of revolution. That would be absurdly infantile.
Again this is just crazy. It was the party that failed not Luxemburg. If the party adopted her methods who knows what would have happened. Thats like saying that trotsky or bukharin failed because their ideas were just worse than stalins. Pure insanity.
Ok but if we then try to say that ones method was correct simply because thats what prevailed then this gives no extra value, we dont know what the system would look like if the party would not abandon Luxemburg, or if bukharin replaced stalin. By the same argument germans were correct because thats what happened.
again with mensheviks you seem to maybe not know their ideology. A communist which revolts against a capitalist system is still revolutionary. It doesnt need to be against a tzarist one.
alright then we shall disagree on this, i do believe that its a capitalist society which gives rise to the necessary contradictions.
When compared to most other marxist they were far less democratic. I cannot speak to their hidden cares. But they very much upheld the idea of stupid mass of workers that needs to be told what to do.
I don’t see any point comparing real world societies to fictional ones.
Well I have only adopted your methods. Its almost as insane as trying to argue that its was a failure of Luxemburgs ideas and not the abandonment of the party which caused the failure of revolution. That would be absurdly infantile.
Nah, you’ve stuck to your own methods of making nonsensical statements that fail to address the points I’m making. Why did the part abandon Luxemburg, why were German communists unable to organize the way Bolsheviks did. Have you considered that lack of party discipline was precisely the problem there?
Ok but if we then try to say that ones method was correct simply because thats what prevailed then this gives no extra value, we dont know what the system would look like if the party would not abandon Luxemburg, or if bukharin replaced stalin. By the same argument germans were correct because thats what happened.
Nobody is saying that methods are correct simply by virtue of prevailing. What’s being said is that methods that consistently fail to achieve desired results are definitely not correct.
again with mensheviks you seem to maybe not know their ideology. A communist which revolts against a capitalist system is still revolutionary. It doesnt need to be against a tzarist one.
I know their ideology quite well that’s precisely how I know that you’re blowing smoke here. The fact that you’re trying to argue that a party trying to do a capitalist revolution is socialist without a hint of irony is really incredible.
alright then we shall disagree on this, i do believe that its a capitalist society which gives rise to the necessary contradictions.
Yet, history proves you wrong. Thanks for confirming that you are not in fact a Marxist and you refuse to do material analysis of history.
We speak of systems not societies. Unless you meant to say that its fiction to think that russians perhaps were able to govern themselves. That in reality the proletariat was so stupid that such thing is only fiction. Very marxist of you.
They abandoned her because they were reformists. She was not. Not her fault. Also mensheviks were the initial organizers not bolsheviks.
yeah and they “failed” in one case, very consistent. By this method trotskys and bukharis also failed
no it was not them doing that part though, thats not even the argument
yeah i suppose i just agree too much with marx and majority of marxists. You know he seems to think that capitalism is necessary to centralise capital and the extreme exploitation of labor at that point gives rise to some socialist movement. See bolsheviks somewhat implicitly agreed and intended to use quite capitalist policies to transform the society into one thats more centralized. Thats in part why they were a rightist deviation from the marxist movement. The way in which stalin then proceeded with the collectivization was not whay was popular between bolsheviks during lenin.
We speak of systems not societies. Unless you meant to say that its fiction to think that russians perhaps were able to govern themselves. That in reality the proletariat was so stupid that such thing is only fiction. Very marxist of you.
Systems are sets of rules upon which societies are built. These things are inseparable. A Marxist would understand that theory cannot be divorced from practice.
They abandoned her because they were reformists. She was not. Not her fault. Also mensheviks were the initial organizers not bolsheviks.
The reformist wing won precisely because the revolutionary wing failed to organize effectively. Meanwhile, who the initial organizers were is utterly irrelevant. It’s what purpose they were organizing for that matters.
You know he seems to think that capitalism is necessary to centralise capital and the extreme exploitation of labor at that point gives rise to some socialist movement.
No, he did not think capitalism was a necessity. However, what Marx definitely did think is that you have to analyze actual material history and base your theories on the material reality. And the reality proves that this assertion is incorrect.
See bolsheviks somewhat implicitly agreed and intended to use quite capitalist policies to transform the society into one thats more centralized.
Seems like you’re making a false equivalence between capitalism and centralization here.
The way in which stalin then proceeded with the collectivization was not whay was popular between bolsheviks during lenin.
Yet, that’s precisely what allowed USSR to survive the nazi invasion, which proves Stalin correct.
I agree and the fictional system of Lenin would be dysfunctional when mensheviks were predominant by your logic. If we want to use the historical argument we can also claim that stalin completely disregarded main bolshevik ideas during his collectivization. Does this mean that Lenin failed? Because his theory was abandoned in this case?
indeed we partially agree. It is a failure of the movement not the ideas of the individual which from certain point were disregarded. Who the organizers doesnt matter in the exact way you use, their idea which leads the organizing matters. I agree.
he as a hegelian did believe that the contradictions would arise in a capitalist society, socialism would be a reaction to it. The timing of the formation of such movement he did put at the moment when the capitalists lost their purpose. In his words it was something like the capital is increasingly centralized, one capitalist exploits the other. Then he goes on to describe how when the sole purpose of centralization of capital was met, capitalism can die. The collectivization is simply not something put forward by marx. Neither was it a particulalry bolshevist policy. They liked policies like NEP, bukharin was even more capitalist. But I agree that stalins policy was different, it was also different from typical bolshevism.
Well yeah i base this equivalence on marxs capital where he sees centralization of capital as the sole purpose of capitalism as a whole.
and no when regarding bolsheviks i do mean capitalist like nep for example. Now i get that the policies are still better than pure capitalism, but they are not marxist.
the argument about stalin is a common one. The first 2 5 year plans indeed brought great successes and benefits to the population. And collectivization like stalins was never a bolshevik policy. Bukharin was far more liked in the party and seen as likely to lead after lenin. I dont know what to say about stalins policies. There are undeniable benefits, costs and we simply dont know what would bukharin bring. Probably not the purges, since his policies would be market bases probably some economic benefits. Sorry for long reply.
I agree and the fictional system of Lenin would be dysfunctional when mensheviks were predominant by your logic. If we want to use the historical argument we can also claim that stalin completely disregarded main bolshevik ideas during his collectivization. Does this mean that Lenin failed? Because his theory was abandoned in this case?
A Marxist would apply dialectical view to this question, and look at how each group resolved the contradictions that were present, and who was able to navigate these contradictions successfully. Again, Marxism isn’t a dogma, it’s a framework for interpreting the world and making decisions. Treating Marx as an oracle is the very antithesis of Marxism.
Marx was theorizing based on what was known at the time, and many developments have happened since the days of Marx. Modern Marxists must account for the way history actually developed in their analysis. Marxist theory is living and constantly evoilving, it’s not a set of commandments that Marx handed down.
Well yeah i base this equivalence on marxs capital where he sees centralization of capital as the sole purpose of capitalism as a whole. and no when regarding bolsheviks i do mean capitalist like nep for example. Now i get that the policies are still better than pure capitalism, but they are not marxist.
The policies USSR produced were created in direct response to the material conditions it found itself in. They were the products of the existing contradictions. You appear to think that you can just apply the policies you want while disregarding the material conditions.
I dont know what to say about stalins policies. There are undeniable benefits, costs and we simply dont know what would bukharin bring. Probably not the purges, since his policies would be market bases probably some economic benefits.
It is clear that rapid industrialization that was key to USSR prevailing in WW2 would not have been possible had Stalin’s policies not been pursued. This is the simple fact of the situation. Stalin, being an actual Marxist, understood that policy has to be derived from the material conditions.
Ok I think i mostly agree. We have deviated from initial topic. When marxists account for history of bolshevism, I still believe that its a certain proof of concept, and some inspiration, but I simply have big issues with how the workers are treated as stupid, i think that grassroot organization is more resilient.
Yeah but the conditions are not an excuse, there were successes and there were terrible policies. Pretending that one is without fault or not open to alternative interpretation is wrong. Mensheviks had issues so did bolsheviks.
Yes that being said its simply weird to call someome paraphrasing marx not marxist.
Well this cuts both ways, both mensheviks and bolsheviks and later stalin were responding to the conditions. Im arguing for a certain specific branch of that response.
no it is absolutely not clear, bukharin very much had plans for the industrialization and his were more consistent with bolsheviks. Stalin definetly called himself marxist. His reign was probably the lowest point of soviet communism. From eliminating any marxist dissent within the party and throrought the society, many times dissent was not even needed for elimination, to the catastrophic effects of the collectivization, which have no equally disastrous soviet policy and lets not forget how the working class, which was the one which threatened world capitalism initially, was completely brought to its knees, being oppressed in the literal sense more than even during the last tzar. True cautionary tale and most of the marxist movements today, at least that i know of, luckily for future of the working class interpret is as such.
That being said we have departed far from the topic of menshevism.
I disagree with the characterization of workers being treated as stupid by the Bolsheviks. In fact, Bolsheviks spent a lot of time on educating the workers and helping them develop politically. Bolshevik organization was fundamentally grassroots driven with party cells self organizing across Russia. What the Bolsheviks recognized however is that not everyone has the time to invest in developing deep understanding of politics, and that’s why you need professional revolutionaries who make this their job.
Nobody is arguing that USSR was some utopia, and the reality is that any human society will have bad policies and other kinds of problems. What matters is the overall direction of travel and whether the society is able to learn from its mistakes.
I’m arguing that menshivisks wanted to create capitalist relations instead of a proletarian revolution. Claiming that Marx originally thought that capitalism would forge a proletariat that would turn against capitalism as the basis for introducing capitalism is nonsensical. Russian existing conditions already produced a proletariat that was revolutionary as was evidenced by the revolution that Bolsheviks carried out. Meanwhile, more advanced capitalist societies in the west failed to produce revolutionary proletariat of their own. The history shows that Marx was not correct in his initial assessment.
While there certainly were problematic aspects of Stalin’s policies, they were clearly correct in the broad sense. The notion that the working class was more oppressed under Stalin than during tsarist times is absurd beyond belief.
It’s the height of absurdity to claim that Bolsheviks didn’t care about democratic organization.
On which principles did they organize, Lenin’s or Luxemburg’s. You’re making my point for me here.
That’s an absurdly infantile argument. The reality is that the USSR existed under threat from the overarching capitalist world throughout its whole existence and was not allowed to develop peacefully. It was invaded by western powers in 1918, then plunged into WW2 a couple of decades later, and then into Cold War. Claiming that it did not live up to Platonic ideals of communism under these conditions is inane to say the least.
Meanwhile, Luxemburg’s idealism gave us the nazis in the end. Had the German communists followed Russian example, then the history may have turned out completely differently. There may not have been a WW2, Europe would’ve become communist, and the US would’ve remained an isolated regional power which would’ve likely turned communist as well to follow the rest of the world.
Looking at what has worked historically is the opposite of dogmatism.
The fact that you don’t understand the absurdity of the sentence you wrote is incredible.
I’ve already addressed this in an earlier reply. You can feel free to reread it.
When compared to most other marxist they were far less democratic. I cannot speak to their hidden cares. But they very much upheld the idea of stupid mass of workers that needs to be told what to do.
The point is that the commities only became centralized after they were attacked. I dont know how else to say this. They were not like the bolsheviks initially.
Well I have only adopted your methods. Its almost as insane as trying to argue that its was a failure of Luxemburgs ideas and not the abandonment of the party which caused the failure of revolution. That would be absurdly infantile.
Again this is just crazy. It was the party that failed not Luxemburg. If the party adopted her methods who knows what would have happened. Thats like saying that trotsky or bukharin failed because their ideas were just worse than stalins. Pure insanity.
Ok but if we then try to say that ones method was correct simply because thats what prevailed then this gives no extra value, we dont know what the system would look like if the party would not abandon Luxemburg, or if bukharin replaced stalin. By the same argument germans were correct because thats what happened.
again with mensheviks you seem to maybe not know their ideology. A communist which revolts against a capitalist system is still revolutionary. It doesnt need to be against a tzarist one.
alright then we shall disagree on this, i do believe that its a capitalist society which gives rise to the necessary contradictions.
I don’t see any point comparing real world societies to fictional ones.
Nah, you’ve stuck to your own methods of making nonsensical statements that fail to address the points I’m making. Why did the part abandon Luxemburg, why were German communists unable to organize the way Bolsheviks did. Have you considered that lack of party discipline was precisely the problem there?
Nobody is saying that methods are correct simply by virtue of prevailing. What’s being said is that methods that consistently fail to achieve desired results are definitely not correct.
I know their ideology quite well that’s precisely how I know that you’re blowing smoke here. The fact that you’re trying to argue that a party trying to do a capitalist revolution is socialist without a hint of irony is really incredible.
Yet, history proves you wrong. Thanks for confirming that you are not in fact a Marxist and you refuse to do material analysis of history.
We speak of systems not societies. Unless you meant to say that its fiction to think that russians perhaps were able to govern themselves. That in reality the proletariat was so stupid that such thing is only fiction. Very marxist of you.
They abandoned her because they were reformists. She was not. Not her fault. Also mensheviks were the initial organizers not bolsheviks.
yeah and they “failed” in one case, very consistent. By this method trotskys and bukharis also failed
no it was not them doing that part though, thats not even the argument
yeah i suppose i just agree too much with marx and majority of marxists. You know he seems to think that capitalism is necessary to centralise capital and the extreme exploitation of labor at that point gives rise to some socialist movement. See bolsheviks somewhat implicitly agreed and intended to use quite capitalist policies to transform the society into one thats more centralized. Thats in part why they were a rightist deviation from the marxist movement. The way in which stalin then proceeded with the collectivization was not whay was popular between bolsheviks during lenin.
Systems are sets of rules upon which societies are built. These things are inseparable. A Marxist would understand that theory cannot be divorced from practice.
The reformist wing won precisely because the revolutionary wing failed to organize effectively. Meanwhile, who the initial organizers were is utterly irrelevant. It’s what purpose they were organizing for that matters.
No, he did not think capitalism was a necessity. However, what Marx definitely did think is that you have to analyze actual material history and base your theories on the material reality. And the reality proves that this assertion is incorrect.
Seems like you’re making a false equivalence between capitalism and centralization here.
Yet, that’s precisely what allowed USSR to survive the nazi invasion, which proves Stalin correct.
I agree and the fictional system of Lenin would be dysfunctional when mensheviks were predominant by your logic. If we want to use the historical argument we can also claim that stalin completely disregarded main bolshevik ideas during his collectivization. Does this mean that Lenin failed? Because his theory was abandoned in this case?
indeed we partially agree. It is a failure of the movement not the ideas of the individual which from certain point were disregarded. Who the organizers doesnt matter in the exact way you use, their idea which leads the organizing matters. I agree.
he as a hegelian did believe that the contradictions would arise in a capitalist society, socialism would be a reaction to it. The timing of the formation of such movement he did put at the moment when the capitalists lost their purpose. In his words it was something like the capital is increasingly centralized, one capitalist exploits the other. Then he goes on to describe how when the sole purpose of centralization of capital was met, capitalism can die. The collectivization is simply not something put forward by marx. Neither was it a particulalry bolshevist policy. They liked policies like NEP, bukharin was even more capitalist. But I agree that stalins policy was different, it was also different from typical bolshevism.
Well yeah i base this equivalence on marxs capital where he sees centralization of capital as the sole purpose of capitalism as a whole. and no when regarding bolsheviks i do mean capitalist like nep for example. Now i get that the policies are still better than pure capitalism, but they are not marxist.
the argument about stalin is a common one. The first 2 5 year plans indeed brought great successes and benefits to the population. And collectivization like stalins was never a bolshevik policy. Bukharin was far more liked in the party and seen as likely to lead after lenin. I dont know what to say about stalins policies. There are undeniable benefits, costs and we simply dont know what would bukharin bring. Probably not the purges, since his policies would be market bases probably some economic benefits. Sorry for long reply.
A Marxist would apply dialectical view to this question, and look at how each group resolved the contradictions that were present, and who was able to navigate these contradictions successfully. Again, Marxism isn’t a dogma, it’s a framework for interpreting the world and making decisions. Treating Marx as an oracle is the very antithesis of Marxism.
Marx was theorizing based on what was known at the time, and many developments have happened since the days of Marx. Modern Marxists must account for the way history actually developed in their analysis. Marxist theory is living and constantly evoilving, it’s not a set of commandments that Marx handed down.
The policies USSR produced were created in direct response to the material conditions it found itself in. They were the products of the existing contradictions. You appear to think that you can just apply the policies you want while disregarding the material conditions.
It is clear that rapid industrialization that was key to USSR prevailing in WW2 would not have been possible had Stalin’s policies not been pursued. This is the simple fact of the situation. Stalin, being an actual Marxist, understood that policy has to be derived from the material conditions.
Ok I think i mostly agree. We have deviated from initial topic. When marxists account for history of bolshevism, I still believe that its a certain proof of concept, and some inspiration, but I simply have big issues with how the workers are treated as stupid, i think that grassroot organization is more resilient.
Yeah but the conditions are not an excuse, there were successes and there were terrible policies. Pretending that one is without fault or not open to alternative interpretation is wrong. Mensheviks had issues so did bolsheviks.
Yes that being said its simply weird to call someome paraphrasing marx not marxist.
Well this cuts both ways, both mensheviks and bolsheviks and later stalin were responding to the conditions. Im arguing for a certain specific branch of that response.
no it is absolutely not clear, bukharin very much had plans for the industrialization and his were more consistent with bolsheviks. Stalin definetly called himself marxist. His reign was probably the lowest point of soviet communism. From eliminating any marxist dissent within the party and throrought the society, many times dissent was not even needed for elimination, to the catastrophic effects of the collectivization, which have no equally disastrous soviet policy and lets not forget how the working class, which was the one which threatened world capitalism initially, was completely brought to its knees, being oppressed in the literal sense more than even during the last tzar. True cautionary tale and most of the marxist movements today, at least that i know of, luckily for future of the working class interpret is as such.
That being said we have departed far from the topic of menshevism.
I disagree with the characterization of workers being treated as stupid by the Bolsheviks. In fact, Bolsheviks spent a lot of time on educating the workers and helping them develop politically. Bolshevik organization was fundamentally grassroots driven with party cells self organizing across Russia. What the Bolsheviks recognized however is that not everyone has the time to invest in developing deep understanding of politics, and that’s why you need professional revolutionaries who make this their job.
Nobody is arguing that USSR was some utopia, and the reality is that any human society will have bad policies and other kinds of problems. What matters is the overall direction of travel and whether the society is able to learn from its mistakes.
I’m arguing that menshivisks wanted to create capitalist relations instead of a proletarian revolution. Claiming that Marx originally thought that capitalism would forge a proletariat that would turn against capitalism as the basis for introducing capitalism is nonsensical. Russian existing conditions already produced a proletariat that was revolutionary as was evidenced by the revolution that Bolsheviks carried out. Meanwhile, more advanced capitalist societies in the west failed to produce revolutionary proletariat of their own. The history shows that Marx was not correct in his initial assessment.
While there certainly were problematic aspects of Stalin’s policies, they were clearly correct in the broad sense. The notion that the working class was more oppressed under Stalin than during tsarist times is absurd beyond belief.