"The worst reproach that Engels could make against the first English Marxists was that they were applying Marxism in a sectarian spirit. What would he have said, had he lived to see it about a school of Marxists, who, having captured the state power proceeded to make a state religion, of Marxism, a religion whose articles of faith and their interpretation are watched over by the government, a religion, the criticism of which, nay the slightest deviation from which is sternly punished by the State; a Marxism ruling by the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, propagated by fire and sword, practicing a theatrical ritual (as illustrated by the embalmed body of Lenin); a Marxism reduced to the status not only of a state religion but of a medieval or oriental faith? Such a Marxism may indeed be called doctrinaire fanaticism."
depends on your definition of failure did it, as an ideological backbone of some Real-Socialist states create a workers' paradise or establish globe-wide communism? no did it even create states that were truly worker-controlled or avoided the pitfalls of ideological rigidity and bureaucratism? no do the most notable leninist countries still exist as leninist? no but if we follow your thread topic, the exact same applies to social democracies, in fact the destruction of the leninist countries is a part of why social democracies fell too - no threat of communism meant that the bourgies were free'er to abuse the workers. in a way, social democracy's viability was reliant on the Soviet Union and Maoist China providing a threat and a reminder to the ruling class in the west all this while ignoring all the successes of Leninist states which would also be somewhat similar to what social democracies achieved, though both conditions and thus both successes and failures were more extreme
Asher Fisher
Socdem gang
John Cox
Marxists =/= MLs / Tankies
Just keep that in mind. Don't be secarian and dumb.
[pic] related and he is right about MLs/IS-3s not constituting the whole of Marxist left, hell they aren't even all of Leninist left due to some minor leninist tendencies like the Bordiga boys existing.
Wait a second… in your attached pic, is that… anime
Gabriel Gomez
Failure as in, it was dismantled by high-ranking members of the security services and of the labor aristocracy, and it was no accident that it happened, it was on a collision course to do so, from the moment that ordinary persons had no political involvement. And upon the dismantlement, the farce of support "despite everything" in the hope of future improvement was empirically over.
"Democracy is not merely a pathway to the Socialist goal. It is an integral part of that goal, which is not only economic welfare but also freedom and equality for all. At any rate, this integral part can be achieved much earlier than can the economic aspect of Socialist construction, i.e. its social economy.
In sharp contradiction to the belief that democracy is only a way to Socialism is another viewpoint which is also quite popular in Socialist ranks, namely, that true democracy is possible only in a Socialist society and that what we have now as democracy is an illusion and has only a formal character.
I maintain quite to the contrary that not only is Socialism impossible without democracy but that there is no other way to Socialism except through democracy, which must be attained, in some degree at least, before Socialism can be attempted."
So if socialism is only possible as an extension of democracy and political freedom, then the slavery and totalitarialism of bolshevism are its antithesis, and so the longer the bolshevist experiments ran the more they chipped away at socialism, until they collapsed.
Eli Wilson
sorry I should have said. Marxism =/= Dead Ideology (ML / Tankies).
Parker Miller
internet MLs is all that remains about the soviet fetishism. the last breaths of a dead ideology. with them gone finally read students of Marx are at the front now. MLs would love to claim exclusive knowledge of Marx but they know nothing lol. Learning Marx through Lenin is the worst way to learn Marx. People realized that and are moving on.
Chase Perry
its actually a photograph, here is another photo of a Japanese lady enjoying a cup of tea at her leisure
I agree that the SU's failure by that definition had structural reasons MLs often handwave away as some great-man-theory-tier idealist subversion, but I'm not so sure it's exactly the reason you put forth here. as for the masses' political involvement - there should be a return to the old socialist maxim of 'a man is an expert of their own lives' sprinkled with a technocratic abandonment of the liberal-bourgeois conception of the political man and political activity, where 'all matters pertaining to the state' fall under the political and everyone is expected to have a say in some way, usually through representation. in this conception the economic side of the society, both on the consumer and the producer-sides is fully techocratic and anti-democratic, even though these are the matters the generic person could claim expertise over and take much larger responsibility and control over. statecraft is a discipline and should be guided by expert opinion, many of the ills of bourgeois 'democracy' are the result of degeneration of public politics into popularity contests rather than contests of statecraft. Politicians compete on merits of electioneering, not the actual doing of politics. I'm going off-topic here but there needs to be a comprehensive analysis of competition, and I've been thinking a lot about that concept as of late.
that's Kautsky's view, and I'm sure MLs will argue with you about its relevance. though Maoists did adopt a lot of his thinking about 'autonomous, independent communes' being the cornerstone of a real socialist economy, which was realised in the Great Leap.
MLs biggest issue (among its more vocal adherents at least) is that it confuses the material reality of Soviet Union and the policies built around them for some kind of general plan or guide to action. Every revolution will have its unique course built off the material conditions it arises from. That said we should carefully study the successes and failures of the Soviet project rather than just scream about red fascism to maintain liberal respectability.
no sweety is truly dead as fuck with no USSR anywhere now.
Cooper Allen
very good post. especially agree with the part about studying the USSR's successes and failures.
Cockshott has a tendency to sidestep debates on the USSR by calling it socialism then giving a critique of what real socialism would be like (which does not resemble the USSR at all.)
Matthew Lewis
Haha, holy fucking shit guys… He name is fucking COCKshott..
Oliver Parker
Paul "Penis Pistol" Cockshott Paul "Dick Desert Eagle" Cockshott Paul "Boner Barrett" Cockshott Paul "Shlong Sniper" Cockshott Paul "Wiener Winchester" Cockshott Paul "Wang Walther" Cockshott Paul "King Dong Kalashnikov" Cockshott
Logan Lee
Kautsky is trash. I was going to say reformist trash, but then I remembered that late in life he actually renounced fighting for labor reforms in favor of laissez faire liberalism. On the eve of the bloodiest war in human history, and only 15 years after the last catastrophic world war, he obsequiously predicted that “The time has arrived where it is finally possible to do away with wars as a means of solving political conflicts between the states." - the magic of the market would magically find a way to world peace. Even when Hitler seized absolute power Kautsky was unworried, as he believed that democracy was the natural form of capitalism, and the Hitler regime would mystically fade away with time. This apologetic outlook was Kautsky's fatal flaw. Democracy isn't the natural form of capitalism, capitalism is inherently opposed to democracy, and any working class participation in its parliaments has only been won by means of class struggle. Of course, Kautsky rejects that as well: he "does not recognize class solidarity but only the solidarity of mankind" because socialism is a future that "non-proletarian layers of society become interested". Essentially, after enough decades of peaceful (laissez faire) capitalism, the ruling class would eventually be persuaded to overthrow itself.
So yeah, he's shit. And it's no wonder that his late work, especially Social Democracy vs. Communism was plastered everywhere in Cold War anticommunist propaganda.
Then why is it the PRC still exists, and the USSR stumbled onward clear to 1991, whereas the socdem system was ripped to shreds by neoliberals in the early 1970s (in no small part through the PRC's complicity!)?
