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.
The mensheviks were far more foundational to the soviets. After the revolution the bolsheviks immediately went to centralize the hierarchy and weaken the autonomy of soviets. But yeah even bolsheviks are marxists, so there is a level of respect for the worker. I simply dont believe that they would in future actually push for the policy of workers owning their means of production and being able to be autonomous.
Well with mensheviks they did not want to be the bourgeois though. I dont know how you mean that they would create the capitalist relations. I think they simply saw capitalism as a necessary middle step and opposed bolsheviks in thinking that industrialization should be carried out after the socialist revolution.
In the marxs case capitalism does forge the proletariat through exploitation. The function of capitalist is to produce workers separated from their means of production. He also attributes inevitable centralization to capitalism and, because hes humanist, he goes to imply that when the majority of exploited workers becomes large enough, the system must undergo a revolution. His argument in my view makes sense precisely as a critique of capitalism.
i still disagree with the broad correctness. Here i side with the bolsheviks, because i still prefer their ideas on industrialization to those of stalin. Yeah i take back the comparison to tsar, sorry. I could nitpick about how in specific locations in specific periods I would be right, but overall i still would be wrong. I take that back.
Well with mensheviks they did not want to be the bourgeois though. I dont know how you mean that they would create the capitalist relations. I think they simply saw capitalism as a necessary middle step and opposed bolsheviks in thinking that industrialization should be carried out after the socialist revolution.
While you don’t believe that Bolsheviks would push for workers owning the means of production, you have no problem believing that capitalism would magically turn into communism. Despite a century of evidence to the contrary.
His argument in my view makes sense precisely as a critique of capitalism.
That is the only way his argument make sense, and that’s precisely why it’s no logical for Marxists to pursue capitalism. However, now that we have more historical evidence, it’s clear that Marx vastly underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, and the levels of exploitation the workers will put with under it.
Not magically i think unionization is paramount to the revolution. The evidence could be interpreted as you do. The european nations are indeed good counterexample to marx. Germany before nazis, france in the 1968, partially greece, but there us just invaded. That being said this does not discourage democratic unionization and strikes. They are still effective we just have to adapt so that they remain effective. I think that as the exploitation will increase like now in the us, workers will feel the class struggle and recognize that they cannot remain idle. The organizers then I would prefer to be revolutionary marxists instead of just revolutionaries. Maybe we use the word differently, by marxists here i mean that workers owning the means of prod. is their main goal.
Nobody is arguing against unionization and strikes though. What’s being said is that these things alone are demonstrably insufficient to overthrow capitalism. The only approach that has been shown to work reliably is the one Bolsheviks pursued. By Marxists, I mean people who have genuine understanding of material dialectics and are able to apply this understanding to the current material conditions to produce the desired results. Marxism is a framework for understanding the world.
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.
The mensheviks were far more foundational to the soviets. After the revolution the bolsheviks immediately went to centralize the hierarchy and weaken the autonomy of soviets. But yeah even bolsheviks are marxists, so there is a level of respect for the worker. I simply dont believe that they would in future actually push for the policy of workers owning their means of production and being able to be autonomous.
Well with mensheviks they did not want to be the bourgeois though. I dont know how you mean that they would create the capitalist relations. I think they simply saw capitalism as a necessary middle step and opposed bolsheviks in thinking that industrialization should be carried out after the socialist revolution.
In the marxs case capitalism does forge the proletariat through exploitation. The function of capitalist is to produce workers separated from their means of production. He also attributes inevitable centralization to capitalism and, because hes humanist, he goes to imply that when the majority of exploited workers becomes large enough, the system must undergo a revolution. His argument in my view makes sense precisely as a critique of capitalism.
i still disagree with the broad correctness. Here i side with the bolsheviks, because i still prefer their ideas on industrialization to those of stalin. Yeah i take back the comparison to tsar, sorry. I could nitpick about how in specific locations in specific periods I would be right, but overall i still would be wrong. I take that back.
While you don’t believe that Bolsheviks would push for workers owning the means of production, you have no problem believing that capitalism would magically turn into communism. Despite a century of evidence to the contrary.
That is the only way his argument make sense, and that’s precisely why it’s no logical for Marxists to pursue capitalism. However, now that we have more historical evidence, it’s clear that Marx vastly underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, and the levels of exploitation the workers will put with under it.
Not magically i think unionization is paramount to the revolution. The evidence could be interpreted as you do. The european nations are indeed good counterexample to marx. Germany before nazis, france in the 1968, partially greece, but there us just invaded. That being said this does not discourage democratic unionization and strikes. They are still effective we just have to adapt so that they remain effective. I think that as the exploitation will increase like now in the us, workers will feel the class struggle and recognize that they cannot remain idle. The organizers then I would prefer to be revolutionary marxists instead of just revolutionaries. Maybe we use the word differently, by marxists here i mean that workers owning the means of prod. is their main goal.
Nobody is arguing against unionization and strikes though. What’s being said is that these things alone are demonstrably insufficient to overthrow capitalism. The only approach that has been shown to work reliably is the one Bolsheviks pursued. By Marxists, I mean people who have genuine understanding of material dialectics and are able to apply this understanding to the current material conditions to produce the desired results. Marxism is a framework for understanding the world.