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.
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.