(This is one of my multiple-thoughts-no-particular-conclusion posts)

• Đổi Mới in Vietnam seems successful. They have what they call the 'Socialist-oriented market economy' and have developed at a pace like China's

• New Economic Policy in the USSR seems successful

• Goulash Communism in Hungary seems successful. Hungary had less empty shelves than other Soviet Bloc countries. (Quote from the book 'Collective farms which work': "Hungary's success manifests itself in two rather less easily measurable ways. First, goods, and especially fresh meat and vegetables, simply are available in shops"). Hungary had A) the highest mix of market mechanisms in the Soviet Bloc B) the highest standard of living in the Soviet Bloc. On 7 May 1966, the Central Committee announced János Kádár's plans for the reform of the economy, known as the New Economic Mechanism. The reform is considered as "the most radical postwar change" of any Comecon country. [Granick, David. The Hungarian Economic Reform. World Politics, Vol. 25, No. 3. (Apr., 1973), pp. 414-429.] The plan, which became official 1 January 1968, was a major shift to decentralization in an attempt to overcome the inefficiencies of central planning. The reform gave producers the freedom to decide what and how much they produce and offer for sale and to establish commercial or co-operative relationships. Buyers were also given the freedom to choose between domestic goods and imports, firms were given greater autonomy in carrying out investments and hiring labor. As dictated by the Central Committee, success was to be measured by a firm's profitability. The New Economic Mechanism also aimed to create a more active role for prices [Hare, P.G. Industrial Prices in Hungary Part I: The New Economic Mechanism. Soviet Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2. (Apr., 1976), pp. 189-206]

• North Korea. This article on Pyongyang’s Views on Banking says, "There is an assumption sometimes expressed by outside observers that the North’s efforts in the banking sector have been primarily aimed at increasing control over funds accrued outside of central control. To the contrary, the bulk of the articles in the journals [political science journals within the DPRK] we studied focused on the opposite: how to increase “creativity” in banks, lessen rigid control from the center, and make space for bank officials—and the sector as a whole—to respond to conditions and developments at the local and enterprise levels without undue restrictions." and there's this one called 'Reports of North Korea’s Return to a Command Economy Have Been Exaggerated'. The constitution was changed in 2019 to replace the Taean Work System (party-centric method of managing the economy) with the Responsible Management System for Socialist Corporations (which increases the autonomy of managers at production sites and introduces market elements)

• And the big one, China.

Maybe some dogmatic leftists will be angry at what I've written. And the capitalist will say "Aha! This proves it! Only economic freedom is good for development" And indeed that is not 100% wrong. But the reasons it's some percent wrong –

• Markets working doesn't mean planning does not work. Gosplan worked fine for a lot of goods.

• Read theory. Marxism doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. It doesn't mean there are no markets. It does mean the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, and the proletariat decides how to command the productive forces to its benefit. Even if these examples proved "planning bad market good" (they don't - see below), would that debunk Marx's theory of exploitation? Would it debunk the need for a people's democratic dictatorship? No, it wouldn't debunk marxism: it just means the implementation of marxism involves markets.

• Read practice. The point of marxism isn't to follow some dogma, it's to do what works for the worker. If planning works, plan. If freeing markets works, free them. Both can be communism if they're under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Milton Friedman would say, "A state can't plan anything! And it shouldn't try!" Well that's obviously wrong: states plan transport infrastructure, water, post offices just fine. Gosplan planned a few strategic goods like steel just fine.

But sometimes the state CAN'T plan effectively. Some reasons for this: its computational resources are limited (less of an issue now, but very relevant in the 20th century), or the market is behaving too unpredictably, or Celine's 2nd Law prevents the state from getting accurate information.

I'm still studying and thinking about these topics, but here's one thing I can say with confidence: in cases where a state CAN'T plan, it shouldn't attempt to. That will lead to "communism is when no bread".

So what's the alternative to planning? Markets, I guess. (Is there a 3rd alternative I haven't thought of?)

Allowing markets doesn't mean allowing unregulated markets. The state can do dual-track pricing, can allow only co-operatives and not wage labour, can set price-controls (e.g. rent control). So freeing the market a bit doesn't mean going right-libertarian. (In fact, you could say that all countries are somewhere between total control and total freedom.)

Back to the Hungarian example: the New Economic Mechanism wasn't right-libertarian, it fixed the prices for material and basic intermediate goods, it limited prices for particular products or products in some product group for which there were no substitutes, such as bread. Free prices were assigned to goods that formed small parts of individual expenditures or were regarded as luxuries.

Then there's monetary methods of influence: the state could pass a law that markets should be done in non-recirculating labour-tokens rather than recirculating currency. Though to my knowledge, this has never been done in communist history. This would solve most of the problems in Cockshott's video "The limits of market socialism"

I want to read the 1936 book 'On the economic theory of socialism' by Oskar Lange to understand this better. It's a decent length and I've got a lot of theory to read.

The bit I find a little hard to swallow is the role of profitability, especially at the firm level. Only allowing profitable firms to exist sounds like a formula for exploitation. I concede that it bypasses the need for complex calculations; it collapses all those calculations onto the Bottom Line. So that's simpler and more foolproof. But it motivates firms to harm their customers with high prices and their employees with low wages.

I think some hexbearians are too optimistic about market socialism NOT being a capitalist road. It certainly has the potential to be. The class war is not won in China, and it's possible China's billionaires will influence policy.

If this is too close to sectarianism I get it, but I keep hearing about Marxist-Leninist-Maoists at the periphery of other discussions and all I know about them is:

• they seem to be distinct from other Maoist tendencies
• their name is often shortened to Maoist in conversation
• the tendency is at least nominally a synthesis of Mao's writings into prior ML theory, done by someone named Gonzalo
• their reputation among MLs seems to be deviant
• I think the rapper Power Struggle alludes to being one, which is my sole investment in this question

At the time of his death in 1927, he was lauded as “one of the most indicted and imprisoned workers” in the history of the American labor movement. Yet today, few know the name Charles Emil Ruthenberg. When he passed away suddenly at the age of 44, he cheated a Michigan prison of its next inmate and left a young Communist Party USA—then called the Workers (Communist) Party—in mourning for its first general secretary. Socialist agitator

Born the son of a Cleveland longshoreman in 1882, Ruthenberg’s formal education ended when he was 16, but he continued studying on his own, becoming part of the pool of “working-class intellectuals.” He worked a series of jobs, including in a picture frame factory, before eventually scoring a position in the business department of a book company. He developed his administrative and executive abilities there during the day and continued his self-education at night.

Seeing the class struggle play out on the job, he became more and more disillusioned with the social and economic system of capitalism. Initially preparing for a life as a minister, Ruthenberg traded the Bible for Capital, borrowed from his local library branch. When asked by a prosecutor years later how he had been converted to socialism, he answered: “Through the Cleveland Public Library.”

By 1909, when he was 27, Ruthenberg had officially joined the Socialist Party. A year later, he was the party’s candidate for Ohio state treasurer, running on a platform that called for unemployment insurance—several decades before that reform was eventually won. 60,000 people cast their ballots for him. Two years later, he was the candidate for Cleveland mayor, part of a wave of Socialist campaigns that made Ohio the country’s first “Red State,” although that designation meant something very different than it does today. He quickly became an outspoken figure on the Socialist Party’s left wing, known for his uncompromising attitude against the imperialist war looming in Europe. When the U.S. finally entered the conflict in 1917, Ruthenberg led the campaign for an anti-war resolution at the Socialist Party’s National Emergency Convention in St. Louis. He and other left-wingers were determined that their party not follow the example of the European socialist parties supporting the war.

In June, he was arrested, along with Alfred Wagenknecht and Ohio SP organizer Charles Baker, for obstructing the military draft. A swift conviction in November—the same month as the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia—sent them all to prison for a year. He and his comrades began serving their term in January 1918. From that time right up until his death, Ruthenberg was either in prison or facing imprisonment.

Emerging from the Canton workhouse just as the war was ending, Ruthenberg returned immediately to work. Support for the left wing of the party was consolidating among the membership, driven by dissatisfaction with the lukewarm way the party leadership had met the issue of imperialist war, its half-hearted embrace of the workers’ revolution in Russia, its refusal to join the new Communist International, and its failure to support efforts to build industrial labor unions.

The left wing, with Ruthenberg leading the charge, carried on an intense campaign to shift the party’s direction. In elections for the executive, they took 12 out of 15 seats. The old leadership refused to honor the results, however, and initiated a purge of all the left-led state parties and foreign language federations, which together represented the vast majority of the party membership. Through its bureaucratic maneuvers, the right-wing leadership effectively split the Socialist Party.

Communist founder

Ruthenberg was fresh out of jail once again after having charges against him in connection with Cleveland’s 1919 May Day parade dismissed when the break with the Socialist leadership was made official.

Though united in their opposition to what they saw as the “opportunism” of the Socialist Party executive committee, Ruthenberg and the other left-wingers were divided as to how they should proceed. The bulk of the left wing, with Ruthenberg and Fraina at their head, prepared for the founding of a new party—a communist party. They set Sept. 1 as the date to establish the new group.

But a group led by Reed and Wagenknecht insisted on staging a raid of the upcoming Socialist convention in Chicago, scheduled for the end of August, to take the seats they’d been elected to. It was a foregone conclusion that they’d be denied credentials, and so they rented a room downstairs from the official meeting, anticipating they’d need a place to set up their own party.

At noon the next day, the founding convention of the Communist Party of America opened on Chicago’s Blue Island Avenue at the headquarters of the Russian Socialist Federation. The meeting hall was decked out in red banners bearing revolutionary slogans. Portraits of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky hung above the stage. Just as the meeting was about to open, the Chicago Police Red Squad busted into the hall, and detectives immediately began tearing down and destroying all the flags and floral decorations. Photographers rushed in to take pictures of everybody. The delegates stared at the police, and then a brass band struck up the “Internationale” and everyone started to sing and cheer.

After the excitement died down a bit, Louis Fraina made the opening keynote with the following words: “We now end, once and for all, all factional disputes. We are at an end with bickering. We are at an end with controversy.”

Of course, with two separate communist parties founded just 18 hours apart, it was clear that the division and factionalism were not over.

For a united party of action

The government stepped up its repression of both communist parties almost immediately. Many Communist leaders were driven underground or deported in the infamous “Palmer Raids.” Just over a year after the founding conventions, Ruthenberg was again targeted. He was convicted in November 1920 for “criminal syndicalism” for signing the Socialist Party Left Wing Manifesto and sent away to Sing Sing prison. The recommended sentence was 5 to 10 years, but after 18 months, he was out after an appeals court said he never should have been found guilty.

The two communist parties during this time united into a single Communist Party, thanks largely to negotiations led by Ruthenberg and Wagenknecht. John Reed had died in October 1920 in Russia, and Fraina was under a cloud of espionage and, eventually, embezzlement of party funds.

The unified party emerged from the underground as the Workers (Communist) Party, with Ruthenberg as its leader. But six weeks after he won his appeal and release, he and 16 others were arrested at a party convention in Bridgman, Michigan. The charge, again, was criminal syndicalism. Seeing that Ruthenberg was one of the ablest organizers and leaders in the Communist Party, security agencies and the police were determined to keep him isolated behind bars.

A new conviction was handed down, and Ruthenberg once more entered prison in January 1925, expecting to serve up to ten years. An appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in an order for a retrial, and 20 days later he was free once more pending further proceedings. The threat of re-imprisonment hung over his head from then until the day he died.

At a meeting of the party’s political committee in February 1927, Ruthenberg was jotting down notes when William Z. Foster told him that he looked pale. His only response was that he was “kind of under the weather.” A couple of hours later, he collapsed and was taken to emergency appendectomy surgery. He died three days later of acute peritonitis. Thousands packed a memorial meeting at Chicago’s Ashland Auditorium—the same hall where Ruthenberg had spoken at the launch of the Daily Worker in 1924. In honor of his wishes and at the request of the Communist International, his ashes were conveyed to Moscow, where he was interred just behind Lenin’s final resting place.

Through all the years of factionalism, sectarianism, and repression, Ruthenberg maintained his stance in favor of a united, legal, and practical party. Though some, like Fraina, would fade into obscurity or ignominy, Ruthenberg remained dedicated to building a party of socialism in the United States.

He was a devoted Marxist but had little sympathy for those who, on the basis of protecting their supposedly revolutionary principles, would have made the party into little more than a debating society. “The knowledge gained in study classes,” he wrote in his last Daily Worker column, “must be carried into the actual class struggle.”

His political legacy was captured in an article he wrote during the worst days of the intra-party factional fights. The Communist Party, he said in 1920, must be “a party of action,” must participate “in the everyday struggles of the workers and by such participation, inject its principles and give a wider meaning, thus developing the Communist movement.”

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Hd version

posted mostly because i thought it was funny, the ML USA orgs map is propably big too but not as much i think

also im surprised how castroism is a big influence on some trot orgs, its probably the ones that are anti-embargo are also castro influenced

seized from here

I’m not sure if he is a meme or if people genuinely like Wolff. I haven’t read him extensively, but I’ve watched/read him enough times to get a sense. I have never been too impressed. While Marx and others leave me with clarity, Wolff consistently leaves me confused. It feels like he has a super narrow understanding of things but doesn’t reveal his own assumptions. It feels like a purely aesthetic Marxism to dress up his own ideas.

For example: https://youtu.be/flFyaguUqIo

The first 3 minutes is a correct summary of, basically, Marx’s letter to Kugelmann. After 3:00, his explanation falls apart. He bastardizes Marx when he says that labor in every society produces a surplus, and that in capitalism that surplus happens to take the form of a commodity. This is utterly wrong, surplus depends on the productivity of a society (I believe Marx wrote about this specific point in Grundrisse as well as Capital). No, the issue in capitalism is not that surplus is unfairly distributed, but that workers are compelled to work longer than necessary, precisely to produce a surplus.

He doesn’t make a clear distinction between surplus of use-value and surplus value.

The result is that he transform Marxism into a mere search for equitable distribution of goods, which is emphatically not what Marx himself believed as he wrote in his critique of the Gotha Program.

I’d love to be proven wrong here, or let in on the joke… thanks!

:RIchard-D-Wolff:

more or less

Seventy-eight years ago to this day, the People's flag was staked into the heart of most grevious reaction and the world celebrated victory over German fascism.

Seventy-eight years later, we stand on the shoulders of those heroes. We stand in the world of their victory, imperfect as it may be yet in contrast of what could have been it is a world in which we can still fight for a better tomorrow.

Let us not just spend the day honoring the sacrifice of the millions of men and women who have passed on the torch of humanity through nostalgic remembrance, but take onto us the legacy of their work to build the foundations of a better world and continue in their place so when the time comes for us to pass on the torch of humanity to the new generation we can say that out of the ruins of the old barbarism we have delivered to them a better future of peace and freedom and continue the great work towards the emancipation of the human race.

Forwards ever, backwards never.

A apocryphal story amongst the Bashkirs retells how Stalin sought the wisdom of a sufi master on winning WW2. The Sufi master revealed that the Soviets would win, but only if Stalin converted to Islam. Stalin declared “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His messenger."

The Sufi master's advice worked. Deeply in gratitude, Stalin asks him what he wanted as a reward. The man rejected any material prize and asked instead for religion to be strengthened in the USSR and for pilgrimages to Mecca to be permitted. Stalin assented, so the story goes.

While obviously fictional, the story is based on real events. In order to aid war mobilization, Stalin enlisted the help of religious leaders to agitate in their communities of worship--in exchange he liberalized religious policy, which persisted postwar

(Although this was interrupted by Khrushchev's ill-conceived anti-religious campaign) The Sufi Master from the story was also real--Gabdrahman Rasulev. He worked with Stalin personally and advised him on how to rally Soviet Muslims for war.

See:

"God Save the USSR: Soviet Muslims and the Second World" Jeff Eden

"Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia" by Tasar

Credit to After_History, a good channel to read through

https://twitter.com/After__History/status/1620122164170231810

Additional information:

“We are told that among the Daghestan peoples the Sharia is of great importance. We have also been informed that the enemies of Soviet power are spreading rumours that it has banned the Sharia. I have been authorized by the Government of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic to state here that these rumours are false. The Government of Russia gives every people the full right to govern itself on the basis of its laws and customs. The Soviet Government considers that the Sharia, as common law, is as fully authorized as that of any other of the peoples inhabiting Russia. If the Daghestan people desire to preserve their laws and customs, they should be preserved”

J. V. STALIN (1920)

Source: Congress of the Peoples of Daghestan (November 13, 1920), Works, Vol. 4.

“You [Albanians] are a separate people, just like the Persians and the Arabs, who have the same religion as the Turks. Your ancestors existed before the Romans and the Turks. Religion has nothing to do with nationality and statehood… Nevertheless, the question of religious beliefs must be kept well in mind, must be handled with great care, because the religious feelings of the people must not be offended. These feelings have been cultivated in the people for many centuries, and great patience is called for on this question, because the stand towards it is important for the compactness and unity of the people.”

J. V. Stalin (1949)

Source: Enver Hoxha, Memoirs from my Meetings with Stalin, Second Meeting (March-April 1949), “8 Nentori” Publishing House, Tirana, Albania, 1981. Retrieved from MIA.

“…Stalin set up four Muslim religious boards (Dini İdare / Müftiyat / Dukhovniye Upravlenia) in 1942 for Central Asian, Transcausians, Northern Caucasian and Russian Muslims.

The Muslim Religious Boards guided theoretically by the Koran, the Hadith and the maslahat / the interests of the believers to resolve questions of religious dogma. The decision / fatwa of a religious board on any religious question were brought to the knowledge of all Muslims over signature of the mufti of the Religious Board.

After the Second World War the most important Islamic establishment in the USSR was the Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan where 75 per cent of the Soviet Muslim lived. The Soviet Government depended on the Mufti of Tashkent for propagation of its views among the Sunni Muslims of the Islamic World…”

Source: Seyfettin Erşahin (2005), No. 77. Journal für Religionskultur

Wark has been working on this Vectoralist concept starting back with A Hacker Manifesto

(Before I begin, let me specify that what I'm considering is two approaches to labour under communism. Assume all sides agree that the exploitation of labour for profit is a bad thing; what this specific post is discussing is two approaches to non-exploitative labour. Secondly, I'll mostly stick to laying out my own thoughts rather than using a tonne of references, though all this has been discussed in books. Thirdly, I'm trying to explore threads of thought here rather than argue for some conclusion.)

It's a truism that productivity increases over time, as labour-saving technologies and techniques are developed. An hour of labour now apparently produces what 4.4 hours of labour produced in 1950.

This increase in productivity has been significant since the invention of the steam engine and everything since. It could become quite extreme in the 21st century, with lights-out manufacturing, fully robotic warehouses, self-driving vehicles, aeroponic plant labs, etc. (Again, assume all this automation is happening under communism; a different set of issues are raised if it happens under private ownership.)

There are two things an economic planner could do when productivity increases: 1) keep labour hours the same but increase the amount of goods produced, 2) reduce labour hours, creating the same amount of goods with more holiday-time, 3) some combination of these two

Increasing production

Suppose that one man, working for one day, can produce enough food for ten men to eat for a year. Food will be very very cheap (by the labour-theory of value). That makes everybody more food-secure and is something to be celebrated. The challenge it brings is that we can't employ a large amount of our workforce in agriculture.

I chose food as an example deliberately because the demand isn't very elastic. We can't quintuple the amount of food produced to increase wage-labour (because I'm already stuffed man no thanks).

Similarly, construction demands can't be elastically increased. If everyone has an apartment, then what? Ok, so we can give them a bigger apartment, and build some nice opera houses and community halls, but that can maybe increase the amount of construction by 100%. The amount of construction can't be increased by 10,000% – you'd just have empty buildings. And technology will decrease the labour-time per unit of building by a greater factor: here's China building a 10-storey building in under 29 hours: https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=you-BV35B9Y

In short: if demand can't be increased elastically, neither can supply. Demand for goods puts a limit on this method of job-creation.

The elasticity of demand is different in different industries. The planner could respond to this abundance by increasing production quotas of:

• luxury goods

• Things never before seen, e.g. by space colonisation, or by employing large sectors of the workforce in research&development. There'll be a limit here too, as not everyone has the aptitude for R&D.

Stimulating supply is necessary if you have a position of pro-work communism. It preserves Marx's principle-of-equivalence, that everyone should be rewarded for the work they do, e.g. get one labour-token per hour they work. If we must view unemployment as a problem, we must find work for people.

But hol' up a minute. Even if we can increase consumption, do we want to? It's anti-efficiency. Capitalism conspires to increase consumption by doing things like Juicero and increasing private vehicle ownership. Do we want to do the same? Increasing production-consumption creates ecological harm under any economic system.

Economic planners should, in my opinion, increase consumption a bit, to the limits of human comfort, even human luxury. But it's a bad system that needs to increase consumption in order to increase production in order to pay wages. I'd rather give free money to non-workers.

Reducing labour

There are two ways to reduce labour: a) reduce the number of hours worked, b) reduce the number of people working, i.e. increase the number of people unemployed

As regards a) reducing working hours: working hours have been falling under capitalism – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_working_time_in_OECD.svg – but it's complex to disentangle the effects of technology, exploitation, and pressure from unions in causing this. Probably fair to say productivity-boosting technology is one contributing factor.

Reducing labour hours from 2200 per year to 1750 is fine. It brings no problems. Even bringing it down to around 1350 (the current average in Iceland) should be fine. As labour hours get very low (under 21st-century communism, remember), deskilling could become a problem. Could we reduce work to 800 hours a year, so every employed person is working what we would call a part-time job? Maybe not, because people like doctors wouldn't get enough work experience to get enough skills to be effective.

As regards b) reducing the workforce: this obviously brings problems to be solved. So much politics is about "More Jobs!", "The right to work!". One response to this is to be a pro-work communist. The Soviet Union created full employment (while reducing working hours), though that may not apply the same way in the 21st century with more advanced automation.

How can an economic planner respond to technology-induced increases in the number of unemployed people? There are four available responses: i) welfare, ii) universal welfare, iii) stimulating demand to increase work, iv) make-work in non-producing sectors

i) if unemployed people are given welfare by the government, this creates a division in society. Workers will feel (from valid self-interest) that they are supporting idlers. This happens under social democratic capitalism (grumbling about "welfare queens"), but the criticism would be more valid under a non-exploitative system.

ii) basic income would solve the problem in i). If workers and non-workers get the same welfare payments, the workers have no complaint. The problem it runs into is arithmetic: where does the money come from? This depends on what monetary system prevails: maybe the money could simply be printed, maybe labour-tokens would have to be taxed.

iii) See previous section

iv) As robotic automation eats most jobs in the means of producing, caring professions (childcare, elder care, etc.) could perhaps expand. This would be a communist version of the jobs guarantee proposed by Pavlina Tcherneva), providing automation-resistant government-issued jobs to everyone who wants them. I suspect there is a limit to this, for similar reasons to those explored above: there's a limit to the demand for care-professionals (though it's not yet been reached in reality), so there must be a limit to supply too. Maybe the state could even start paying mothers/parents for the work they do in "producing" productive members of society (second-wave feminists advocated for this.) E.F. Schumacher said that we shouldn't necessarily see work as a curse (as an economic 'bad'). Perhaps the economic planner shouldn't encourage fully automated plant labs. Instead he should plan community farms, which do require labour-input (and therefore make food more expensive, a bad thing to the labour-theory-of-value) but also have positive externalities of people working outdoors, preserving the soil, building community, laughing together, and the psychological benefits that come from being busy and productive. I'm talking about a situation where enough labour-saving technology is used to make it easy, decent work rather than a Dickensian grind.

The labour-theory-of-value says automate everything as much as possible to make everything as cheap/available as possible. That's correct as far as it goes. It should be done. It's the only way we can beat poverty. But when automation becomes extreme, you can't keep labour-theory-of-value and principle-of-equivalence (i.e. paying according to labour-input). You can compromise on labour-theory-of-value and create a medium-labour society of handicrafts, small farms, and other pleasant, fulfilling jobs; this is a sort of pro-work communism. You can compromise on principle-of-equivalence, and give people free money with which to buy the fruits of the robots; this is a sort of anti-work communism.

I was wondering if there's anything like what our :large-adult-son: did for DoE? I've been enjoying the book, but I'd love for more directed and structural turns than what Graeber gives. Not that arguments for "spiritual warfare" against capitalist hell aren't useful (they are, individually, I'm sure!) - but I'd love for interventions from the ML side on the argument. Especially because he also occasionally uses old 20th century AES as comparison and critique of neoliberalism.

Currently on Chapter 5, thinking it might be a good read for my undergrads in my rhetoric classes, but I want to pair it with some other material (gonna include some :citations-needed: pods, among other things).

Anyway, also just a general place for comrades to converse about it/Graeber. Personally, I like him more than :large-adult-son: did, but I definitely recognize the limits of his anarchist approach to things.

Let's try to be :left-unity-4: in this too - I'm not trying to start a struggle session! I just want to know how to incorporate Graeber's ideas into a more statist framework (because I'm a :sicko-pig: like that).

"My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was of this opinion long before I was. I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this my wife urged me to climb to the top post.

While I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and the USSR. Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries. My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.

I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and Shevernadze, they all deserve to be thanked for the break-up of the USSR and the defeat of Communism.

World without communism is going to be much better. After year 2000 the world will be much better, because it shall develop and prosper. But there are countries which shall try to struggle against this. China for one. I was in Peking during the time of the protests on Tienanmen Square, where I really thought that Communism in China is going to crash. I sternly demanded of the Chinese leadership that I want to speak to the protesters, but they did not allow me to do so. If Communism would fall in China, all the world would be better off, and on the road to peace.

I wanted to save the USSR, but only under social democracy rule. This I could not do. Yeltsin wanted power, he did not know anything about democracy or what I intended to do. We wanted the democratic USSR to have rights and freedom.

Then Yeltsin broke up the USSR and at that time I was not in the Kremlin, all the newspaper reporters asked me whether I shall cry? I did not cry, because I really managed to destroy Communism in the USSR, and also in all other European Socialist countries. I did not cry, because I knew that I fulfilled my main aim, that was the defeat of communism in Europe. But you must also know, that communism must be defeated in Asia also, to make the transition quicker to democracy and freedom in the whole world.

The liquidation of the USSR is not beneficial to the USA, since they have now no mighty democratic country (the former USSR) which I wanted to call the Union of Independent Sovereign Republics. I could not accomplish all of this. All the small countries now are thanking the USA for the help. I wanted the USA and the former USSR to be partners without the scourge of Communism, these could have been the ruling countries of the world. The road towards democracy will be a long one, but it is coming very quickly. The whole world must now defeat the last remnants of communism!".

The above abstract is from an interview of Mikhail Gorbachev Ankara, Turkey where he was a guest at a seminar at the American University. According to some sources it was published in the 'Dialog' newspaper in the Czech Republic, as well as in the Bulgarian gazette "Zarya" (No. 24, 1999). The abstract had been reproduced by "Rizospastis" Greek daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Greece on October 8, 2000. The english version was published in "Northstar Compass" in February 2000.

He would have been 74 years old today had he not been assassinated

He shall never grow old as one of our martyred comrades.

Long live Comrade Chairman Hampton and long live the Black Panthers Party

Propaganda artwork is titled <Felix Dzerzhinsky, 1877-1926. "Be Vigilant and Alert!" >

To correct the misunderstanding of what a political purge is - which is a result of the peopagandized education America feeds its citizens from cradle to grave - I am here to post excerpts of varying books from varying professional authors, historians, and journalists of varying political backgrounds on what "purging the party" actually entailed in the Soviet Union. If I run out of space in the main post, I will continue it in the comments.

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The entire membership of the Communist Party was therefore subjected to what is called a “cleansing” or “purge” in the presence of large audiences of their non-Communist fellow workers. (This is the only connection in which the Soviet people use the term “purge.” Its application by Americans to all the Soviet treason trials and in general to Soviet criminal procedure is resented by the Soviet people.) Each Communist had to relate his life history and daily activities in the presence of people who were in a position to check them. It was a brutal experience for an unpopular president of a Moscow university to explain to an examining board in the presence of his students why he merited the nation’s trust. Or for a superintendent of the large plant to expose his life history and daily activities — even to his wife’s use of one of the factory automobiles for shopping — in the presence of the plants workers, any one of whom had the right to make remarks. This was done with every Communist throughout the country; it resulted in the expulsion of large numbers from the party, and in the arrest and trial of a few.

Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 136

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The purge–in Russian “chiska” (cleansing)–is a long-standing institution of the Russian Communist Party. The first one I encountered was in 1921, shortly after Lenin had introduced “NEP,” his new economic policy, which involved a temporary restoration of private trade and petty capitalism and caused much heart burning amongst his followers. In that purge nearly one-third of the total membership of the party was expelled or placed on probation. To the best of my recollection, the reasons then put forward for expulsion or probation were graft, greed, personal ambition, and “conduct unbecoming to communists,” which generally meant wine, women, and song.

Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 116

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Kirov’s murder brought a change, but even so the Purge that was held that winter was at first not strikingly different from earlier Purges.

Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 116

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The Central Committee organized a “purge” and expelled barely 170,000 members in order to improve the party quality. Stalin has frequently been held responsible for the “purge.” He was not its author. This party-cleansing was done under Lenin’s leadership. It is a process which is unique in the history of little parties. The Bolsheviks however, do not regard it as an extraordinary measure for use only in a time of crisis, but a normal feature of party procedure. It is the means of guaranteeing Bolshevik quality. To regard it as a desperate move on the part of leaders anxious to get rid of rivals is to misunderstand how profoundly the Bolshevik party differs from all others, even from the Communist Party’s of the rest of Europe.

Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 144

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Lenin initiated the first great “cleansing” of the Bolshevik party just as the transition had begun from “war communism” to the new economic policy. In 1922, when, as Lenin put it, “the party had rid itself of the rascals, bureaucrats, dishonest or waivering Communists, and of Mensheviks who have re-painted their facade but who remained Mensheviks at heart,” another Congress took place; and it was this Congress which advanced Stalin to the key position of Bolshevik power. It brought him into intimate contact with every functionary of the organization, enabling him to examine their work as well as their ideas.

Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 145

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The party maintains its quality by imposing a qualifying period before granting full membership, and by periodical ” cleanings” of those who fail to live up to the high standard set.

Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 169

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In all fairness I must add that no small proportion of the exiles were allowed to return home and resume their jobs after the Purge had ended.

Duranty, Walter. The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, p. 122

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Besides examining Communists against whom definite complaints are made, the Control Commission at long intervals resorts to wholesale “purges” of the Party. In 1929 it was decided to institute such a purge, with a view to checking up on the rapid numerical growth of the Party, which has been increasing at the rate of about 200,000 a year during the last few years, and eliminating undesirable elements. It was estimated in advance that about 150,000 Communists, or 10 percent of the total membership (including the candidates) would be expelled during this process. In a purge every party member, regardless of whether any charges have been preferred against him or not, must appear before representatives of the Control Commission and satisfy them that he is a sound Communist in thought and action. In the factories non-party workers are sometimes called on to participate in the purge by offering judgment on the Communists and pointing out those who are shkurniki or people who look after their own skins, a familiar Russian characterization for careerists .

Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 68

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From time to time the party “cleans out” its membership, and this is always done an open meetings to which all workers of the given institution are invited. Each communist in the institution must give before this public an extended account of his life activities, submit to and answer all criticism, and prove before the assembled workers his fitness to remain in the “leading Party.” Members may be cleaned out not only as “hostile elements, double-dealers, violators of discipline, deganerates, career-seekers, self-seekers, morally degraded persons” but even for being merely “passive,” for having failed to keep learning and growing in knowledge and authority among the masses.

Strong, Anna Louise. This Soviet World. New York, N. Y: H. Holt and company, c1936, p. 31

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I have in the course of 15 years in the Soviet Union met an occasional Communist who was a grafter, and many more who were stubborn bureaucrats and unenlightened fanatics. But I have also seen how the party throws out dead wood–not always accurately–and renews itself from the working class it leads.

Strong, Anna Louise. This Soviet World. New York, N. Y: H. Holt and company, c1936, p. 37

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It would be a mistake to regard the 1933 chistka as having been directed solely against members of the opposition. The largest single group expelled were “passive” party members: those carried on the roles but not participating in party work. Next came violators of party discipline, bureaucrats, corrupt officials, and those who had hidden past crimes. Members of dissident groups did not even figure in the final tallies. Stalin himself characterized the purge has a measure against bureaucratism, red tape, deganerates, and careerists, “to raise the level of organizational leadership.” The vast majority of those expelled were fresh recruits who had entered the party since 1929, rather than Old Bolshevik oppositionists. Nevertheless, the 1933 purge expelled about 18 percent of the party’s members and must be seen as a hard-line policy or signal from Moscow.

Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, c1999, p. 127

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“Not everyone who wishes can belong to the party,” said Stalin; “it is not given to everyone to brave its labors and its torments.”

Barbusse, Henri. Stalin. New York: The Macmillan company, 1935, p. 280

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Western students have applied the word “purge” to everything from political trials to police terror to nonpolitical expulsions from the party. The label “Great Purges,” which encompasses practically all party activities between 1933 and 1939, is an example of such broad usage. Yet the Communist Party defined and used the word quite specifically. > The term “purge” (chistka–a sweeping or cleaning) only applied to the periodic membership screenings of the ranks of the party. These membership operations were designed to weed the party of hangers-on, nonparticipants, drunken officials, and people with false identification papers, as well as ideological “enemies” or “aliens.” In the majority of purges, political crimes or deviations pertained to a minority of those expelled. No Soviet source or usage ever referred to the Ezhovshchina (the height of police arrests and terror in 1937) as a purge, and party leaders discussed that event and purges in entirely separate contexts. No political or nonpolitical trial was ever called a purge, and under no circumstances were operations, arrests, or terror involving nonparty citizens referred to as purges. A party member at the time would have been mystified by such a label.

Getty, A. Origins of the Great Purges. Cambridge, N. Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 38

[Continued below]

one of many great paragraphs:

The prevailing populist narrative grants the People (of the West) moral innocence by attributing to them utter stupidity and naivety; I invert the equation and demand a Marxist narrative instead: Westerners are willingly complicit in crimes because they instinctively and correctly understand that they benefit as a class (as a global bourgeois proletariat) from the exploitation enabled by their military and their propaganda (in Gramscian: organs of coercion and consent). We’re not as stupid as we’re made out to be. This means that we can be reasoned with, that there is a way out.

article source

Even among many contemporary Communists, the nature of Marxism-Leninism is not adequately understood. Some treat it as a label of affiliation, a way to identify that one aligns with the larger movement of Communism. Others treat it as a mere philosophical position, an immature idea in its own right that can only develop when positioned against a different, more matured school of science. However, Marxism-Leninism is a mature and developed scientific school of study, it is the scientific structure by which we can study and develop economic, political, and social relations, as well as the science of applying revolutionary change.

Marx himself treated the development of his ideas as a scientific one, as shown in the 1867 Preface to the first German edition of Das Kapital: “In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains … Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: ‘Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.’ [Follow your own course, and let people talk – paraphrased from Dante]”1

In reading Das Kapital, we don’t see a simple adaptation of positions based on idealistic dogmatism, we don’t see a mechanistic refutation of opposing ideas based on nothing as when anticommunists will rely on “common knowledge” arguments; we see a methodological, scientific deconstruction of political economy, we see a continuation of the scientific laws established by the original philosophers applied to the analysis of the development of economy and society as a whole.

This misconception results in several fundamental errors, which I will explain here.

The first is the error of approaching Marxist education through the rote memorization of ideas and concepts. Self-professed Communists will attempt to learn our phraseology and slogans without ever understanding our principles, will champion the rallying cry of class struggle while never understanding its practice and development. In doing so, they become dogmatists, rigidly adhering to the concepts of Marxism as they learn them, rather than learning the principles of Marxism behind those concepts and actively applying them to developing situations.

The second is the error of believing that their individual understanding of Marxist concepts holds equal, or even greater, weight when measured against the collective school of Marxist theory. People will join the Party who believe that they are the purist Marxist, that they are the true revolutionary who understands the theory better than anyone, that those who oppose their existing understanding of Marxist concepts are revisionists and opportunists. They will claim to attempt to learn our ideas while professing an already existing expertise. If you already know our theory, and singularly hold the knowledge necessary to build a revolutionary Communist Party, then what use are we to you? And if you claim to know our theory, independently, better than we do, collectively, then what use are you to us?

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong on a given issue, this individualist approach is decidedly anti-Bolshevik. To be a Bolshevik is to submit oneself to the Majority within the Party, and to apply the principles of democratic centralism in all things related to the Party. If everyone was to attempt to impose their will on the Party when they believed themselves to be right, rather than subjecting themselves to the will of the Party, we would be anarchists. If an aspect of the Party line is incorrect, this is something which can be resolved through the framework of democratic centralism. And make no mistake, comrades, the damage done from breaking democratic centralism is far greater than the damage done from temporarily having an incorrect line.

The third error is those who approach being a Communist as part-time, or hobbyists, rather than treating it with the gravity it deserves:

“Such workers, average people of the masses, are capable of displaying enormous energy and selfsacrifice [sic] in strikes and in street, battles with the police and the troops, and are capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the outcome of our entire movement — but the struggle against the political police requires special qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must see to it, not only that the masses “advance” concrete demands, but that the masses of the workers “advance” an increasing number of such professional revolutionaries.”2

This passage from “What Is to Be Done?” by V.I. Lenin demonstrates the necessity of refining ourselves as Communists to the highest caliber, the transformation of working-class consciousness into professional revolutionary organization. This conception of Marxist theory which reduces it to a simple intellectual exercise, to a mere point on a larger grid of political philosophy rather than the scientific development of that philosophy itself, results in a non-serious approach totally devoid of dedication and discipline, with a total disregard for the scientific rigor demanded by revolutionary Marxism.

The fourth error is the development of ideological eclecticism. If Marxism-Leninism becomes reduced to a mere list of ideas which can be adopted and discarded on a whim, rather than a school of science rooted in dialectical materialism and historical materialism where ideas are accepted on the basis of scientific rigor and concrete analysis, this allows for revisionists and opportunists to manipulate Marxism to their own ends, to dilute both its revolutionary and its scientific nature, ultimately defanging Marxism and rendering it powerless.

As Communists, we cannot accept or reject ideas based on who said them or based on our preconceived ideas of how things should be. That is the approach adopted by Anarchists and Trotskyists. We accept or reject ideas based on whether or not they align with objective reality and hold up to scrutiny and analysis. In “Dialectical and Historical Materialism” J.V. Stalin puts it succinctly:

“Contrary to idealism, which denies the possibility of knowing the world and its laws, which does not believe in the authenticity of our knowledge, does not recognize objective truth, and holds that the world is full of “things-in-themselves” that can never be known to science, Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which are as yet not known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of science and practice.”3

We cannot allow these unserious, idealistic elements to take hold any more than they have, and we must actively combat the tendency that lays claim to Marxism while rejecting its scientific nature and approach. That which does not conform to objective reality gets corrected by reality, viciously so, and if our theory and methodology is rooted in idealistic misconceptions about Marxism-Leninism rather than in a strict application of the science, the same will be true for us.

References https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p1.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

Remaking the one from six months ago. Now with the primary cited books in my hands that the old post cited. The first book being This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong, and Russian Justice by Mary Stevenson Callcott. The previous post is here for your perusal.

This post, however, shall be hand-typed excerpts from their respective books that are relevant to the topic.

This Soviet World

Chapter XIV

When the All-Union Song and Dance Olympiad was held in the summer of 1935 in Moscow, the first prize for dance groups was won by the troupe who would be classified in the capitalist world as convicts. They were sentenced criminals who were still living in the Labor Commune Number Two, to which they had been sent for reformation. Their performance of an Ukrainian folk-dance "The Snowstorm" took first place against fifty thousand entrants. To anyone unfamiliar with the Soviet technique for handling criminals, the dancing of the group was less amazing than their free association with other groups of artists in all the local and provincial dance festivals, which brought them at last to Moscow.

The remaking of criminals is only one specialized form of the process of remaking human beings which goes on consciously today in the Soviet Union. Unlike those who justify ancient abuses with the formula, "You can't change human nature," the Marxist knows that human nature is constantly changing. The serf of the Middle Ages was a different human being from the highly skilled industrial worker of today, not only in methods of work but in mental outlook, nervous reactions, and even physical motions. Today a remaking of people in greater of less degree takes place across the entire Soviet Union. Illiterate, slow-moving peasants become attuned to rapid work in a collective-labor process. Scientists, artists, engineers, doctors, once accustomed to depend upon capitalists for their living, adjust themselves to the new controls of a socialist state as an employer. Some welcome the change, others resent it, but in all men the habits derived from the past are at war with the demands imposed by the present, and this struggle changes both the human beings and their environment.

To some the process of change is only half conscious and therefore bewildering and painful. To the happiest it is a consciously welcomed process. For all men in all ages have desired to change, to become in some direction "better." Moral teachers have urged them to effect this by an emotional decision to be good, honest, industrious. But this is a struggle in the dark with forces which the human being does not understand. His emotional conversion lasts as long as he can focus will and attention. But if the old environment continues, the old habits reassert themselves. To a limited extent a human being may change himself under any social system, not by efforts of will but by calmly analyzing himself and his environment and placing himself under the impact of other forces which will change him. So much free will man has. But these individual efforts are limited by the social possibilities. Can a prostitute change her environment so that street-walking will become unnecessary? Only if an honest job is somewhere accessible. Can gangsters reform? Only if honestly is really the best policy; for him who would prosper under capitalism there is a time to be honest and a time to steal, and the criminal is the unlucky or stupid person who stole at the wrong time and in the unaccepted manner. Only a social system which insures to ordinary honest labor greater rewards can be obtained by even the luckiest dishonesty will produce instinctively honest men.

A remarkable tale of the change in social standards is written by a newspaper correspondent from the Ural gold fields. Formerly, according to the writer, everybody admired clever miners who were able to steal nuggets which legally belonged to the private owners of the fields. This attitude persisted long after the mines were owned by the government. But recently at a party given to celebrate a betrothal, the young man in the heat of the dancing pulled out his handkerchief and with it a gold nugget which fell to the floor. There was a sudden silence and the party broke up without comment, even the girl turning away from the man thus revealed. "Everybody knew him for an enemy," wrote the correspondent.

The sharpest test of the conscience remaking of human character is found in the Soviet policy for handling law-breakers. The Soviet criminologist holds neither of the theories on which the prevalent systems of prison regime in capitalist countries are based. He does not believe in the existence of “born criminals” whose will must be broken by brutal suppression nor does he rely on emotional appeals to the “better nature” of the criminal, for he knows that this better nature exists as yet only in rudimentary form. “We don’t assume that a man of anti-social habits will be at once reclaimed by gifts of chocolate, nice bathrooms, and soft words,” a leading Soviet penologist told me. “Men are made over by a new social environment and especially by their work done collectively.” Soviet law aims to make over social misfits while protecting society from their attacks. Punishment as vengeance has no place in such an aim: revenge merely incites revenge in return. To make prisoners sit in solitude and think of their sins produces a fixation on crime. To “break a man’s will” or lessen his human dignity in any way injures him as material for a creative socialist society.

Soviet justice therefore aims to give the criminal a new environment in which he will begin to act in a normal way as a responsible Soviet citizen. The less confinement the better; the less he feels himself in prison the better. Soviet Justice began to fight crime under the harsh conditions of civil war, replying with ruthless measures to counter-revolutionary plots. “We have a double approach,” said Attorney-General Vyshinsky in an interview. “Active, confirmed enemies of our Soviet power who stick at nothing to injure us must be ruthlessly crushed. But even among these alien elements, among nobles, landlords, tsarist officers, capitalists, whom we had robbed of their private property, we had to be able even there to find those individuals who could be made over into useful workers. We cannot begin with clean hands and fresh bricks to build socialism; But if we had tried to apply the idea of absolute humanitarianism to bitter enemies we wouldn’t be here today.” [Alaskaball note: remember private property specifically refers to Capital Goods, aka The Means of Production.]

Many social offenses are handled without bringing them into ordinary courts at all. A whole series of "comradely courts," in which factories and apartment houses, try informally people who disturb their neighbors. These courts have the right to fix small fines for the benefit of the local club or library; they refer cases which even they cannot handle to the public courts. There are even "children's courts" in which children judge each other in the presence of interested adults. One such children's court in an apartment house tried a boy for cruelty in killing a cat, and came finally to the conclusion that the real culprit was the superintendent of the apartment house who persistently failed to provide a place to play. The superintendent who was present, accepted the decision, and organized with the children a committee to make good the shortcoming.

"Not only in the court but out of the court my job is social protection," a rural judge told me. "I must prevent court cases when I can." He told me how he had prevented crime at a recent saints' festival. "Men always drink hard on such occasions, they fight and knife each other. So I called together the presidents of collective farms and the Party members, and we went through the crowd before drinking begand and took away the knifes and canes. They got drunk later, but nobody was badly hurt."

[The Anna-Louise Strong chapter is continued in the comments below]

“Confessions” were semi-jocular questionaires that were very popular in Victorian England, and filling them out a common passtime in many families, including Marx's, where friends and relatives particpated. A number of versions of Confessions belonging to Marx have been preserved.

In the Spring of 1865 Marx stayed with his uncle, Lion Philips in Zalt Bommel (Holland), and his answers to the Confession he completed here is shown in the middle column below. His daughter Jenny kept an album, an image of which is shown, and the answers shown in the right hand column are in Laura Marx's hand. Where the answers are the same, it is shown only once.

Netchen, or Nannette, was Antoinette Philips, aged 28 at the time, Marx's cousin and a member of the Dutch section of the Internatrional. Martin Tupper was an English poet who penned trivial moralistic verses. Gretchen is the tragic heroine of Goethe’s Faust. “Keppler” refers to the great German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, and Spartacus was the leader of the slaves’ revolt in ancient Rome.

The formatting is as follows: Question - Answer in 1865 - Answer in Jenny’s album (if available.)

The Quality you like best - Simplicity

 In man - Strength :arm-L::marx-goth::arm-R: 

In Woman - Weakness	:shrug-outta-hecks: 

Your chief characteristic - Singleness of purpose

Your favourite occupation - Glancing at Netchen - Bookworming :read-theory:

The vice you hate most - Servility :soviet-bottom:

The vice you excuse most - Gullibility :kitty-cri-screm:

Your idea of happiness - To fight :stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2:

Your idea of misery - To submit :bottom-speak:

Your aversion - Martin Tupper - Martin Tupper, violet powder

Your hero - Spartacus, Keppler

Your heroine - Gretchen

The poet you like best - Aeschylus, Shakespeare - Dante, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Goethe

The prose writer you like best - Diderot - Diderot, Lessing, Hegel, Balsac

Your favourite flower - Daphne - Laurel

Your favourite dish - Fish

Your Maxim - Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]

Your motto - De omnibus dubitandum [doubt everything]

Your favourite colour - Red :ussr-cry:

Your favourite Colour of eyes & hair - Black :anarchists:

Your favourite Names - N/A - Jenny, Laura

The character in history you most dislike - N/A - N/A

Karl Marx :marx:

http://www.comunistas-mexicanos.org/partido-comunista-de-mexico/2292-declaracion-del-bp-del-pcm

The Communist Party of Mexico calls on the Mexican workers to oppose the imperialist war that has its formal beginning in the conflict being waged between Russia versus the US and the European Union in Ukraine, after years of diplomatic, economic and commercial tensions, maneuvers and the constant accumulation of "explosive material".

The special military operation, the attack on Ukrainian targets by the Russian Federation is inadmissible, as the real goal is to secure the interests of its monopolies. Just as the US and the European Union through NATO seek to secure the interests and profits of their monopolies. And no matter how many costumes both parties to the conflict put on, no matter how much they allude to the "defense of democracy", "sovereignty", "human rights" or even the fight against "fascism", the only certainty is that it is the logic of profit, of advancing in capitalist competition and having a better position in the imperialist system that moves them. The conflict is based on the acute competition in the imperialist system between the pole of the USA and the European Union against Russia and China.

Thus, in order to justify themselves, they resort to lies, demagogy and historical misrepresentation. While Biden, co-responsible for the crimes against Yugoslavia, Libya and the aggressive expansion of NATO, as well as for a fierce anti-immigrant policy, hypocritically presents himself as the world champion of freedom, Putin distorts history by attacking Lenin, Bolshevism and the socialist construction in the USSR as if they were at the basis of these contemporary problems. Both anti-communists fail to obscure the fact that during 70 years of socialism and the Soviet Union the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, and those of other nationalities, lived together in harmony, worked for common goals, fought together against Nazi-fascism, progressed socially, confronted the Great-Russian chauvinism of Tsarism; and it is precisely the overthrow of socialism that leads to this tragic point of bringing them into confrontation.

It should also be clear that since 1991, when the USSR ceased to participate, the UN is no longer an instrument for settling conflicts, where the oppressed peoples can have a tribune or count on allies to stop aggressions, but an instrument that serves the interests of a group of imperialist countries that justifies interventions against the peoples, or as in this case, sides with the US/EU in the current conflict. Therefore there should be no illusion about the role played by the UN, since it is as useless as the League of Nations was in the run-up to the Second World War.

Having clear the imperialist character of the conflict, the Communist Party of Mexico insists that both sides defend the interests of their own monopolies and that these are antagonistic to the working class of all countries. In no way should the working class, the peoples, place themselves behind interests that are not their own, that are antagonistic to them, that lead them to barbarism, to death.

We express our solidarity with the workers and peoples of Russia and Ukraine who are suffering at this moment the consequences of the inter-imperialist dispute. Their living conditions will be aggravated, new sacrifices are underway such as forced displacement, famine and living under constant terror. We condemn the outlawing of communists in Ukraine by a reactionary and pro-war government, and we also condemn the criminalization in Russia of those who oppose the imperialist war.

We condemn the sanctions announced by Biden, and the determination of the U.S. and the EU to move towards a generalized military confrontation.

We oppose any participation of the workers of Mexico in this imperialist war, and therefore we condemn the position of the social-democratic government of López Obrador that places itself without hesitation alongside the U.S. and the European Union, and that declares through Foreign Minister Ebrard that Mexico and Biden are principal allies in defense of the UN, that is, in defense of everything that protects and sustains one of the aggressive imperialist poles. All flirtation by the Mexican government with NATO must cease, and in no way should it participate in joint exercises with that aggressive instrument of imperialism or any kind of UN mission. We call on the workers to rebel against any decision by the Obrador government to engage in that imperialist war, to sabotage any attempt in that direction. No one to war, no penny to war, not a drop of oil for war, no piece of territory for war. Our struggle against imperialism and imperialist war begins in the struggle against the Mexican monopolies, against the Mexican government which is their mouthpiece and their firm alliance with the U.S. with the T-MEC. Furthermore, the government of López Obrador acts in defense of the interests of the Mexican monopolies with investments in Ukraine, like Bimbo (the main monopoly of the bakery industry in Mexico and Spain) or Gruma.

We call on Mexican youth to refuse any attempt by the Mexican government to get involved in the war. We call on trade unionism to be vigilant against any attempt to curtail labor rights, such as the right to strike in so-called strategic enterprises or those involving "national security."

As part of the international communist movement we call to keep the red flag of proletarian internationalism high, developing the class struggle independently of the interests of the imperialist countries in conflict. It is not easy, history gives us lessons of the nefarious role of opportunism, for example during the First World War.

Down with imperialist war!

Down with the Mexican bourgeoisie!

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The transcript of the testimony was reenacted by James Earl Jones.

Written: 20 August, 1918. First Published: Pravda No. 178 August 22, 1918

Comrades! A Russian Bolshevik who took part in the 1905 Revolution, and who lived in your country for many years afterwards, has offered to convey my letter to you. I have accepted his proposal all the more gladly because just at the present time the American revolutionary workers have to play an exceptionally important role as uncompromising enemies of American imperialism—the freshest, strongest and latest in joining in the world-wide slaughter of nations for the division of capitalist profits. At this very moment, the American multimillionaires, these modern slaveowners have turned an exceptionally tragic page in the bloody history of bloody imperialism by giving their approval—whether direct or indirect, open or hypocritically concealed, makes no difference—to the armed expedition launched by the brutal Anglo-Japanese imperialists for the purpose of throttling the first socialist republic.

The history of modern, civilised America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest which, like the present imperialist war, were caused by squabbles among kings, landowners or capitalists over the division of usurped lands or ill-gotten gains. That was the war the American people waged against the British robbers who oppressed America and held her in colonial slavery, in the same way as these “civilised” bloodsuckers are still oppressing and holding in colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt, and all parts of the world.

About 150 years have passed since then. Bourgeois civilisation has borne all its luxurious fruits. America has taken first place among the free and educated nations in level of development of the productive forces of collective human endeavour, in the utilisation of machinery and of all the wonders of modern engineering. At the same time, America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism. The American people, who set the world an example in waging a revolutionary war against feudal slavery, now find themselves in the latest, capitalist stage of wage-slavery to a handful of multimillionaires, and find themselves playing the role of hired thugs who, for the benefit of wealthy scoundrels, throttled the Philippines in 1898 on the pretext of “liberating” them, and are throttling the Russian Socialist Republic in 1918 on the pretext of “protecting” it from the Germans.

The four years of the imperialist slaughter of nations, however, have not passed in vain. The deception of the people by the scoundrels of both robber groups, the British and the German, has been utterly exposed by indisputable and obvious facts. The results of the four years of war have revealed the general law of capitalism as applied to war between robbers for the division of spoils: the richest and strongest profited and grabbed most, while the weakest were utterly robbed, tormented, crushed and strangled.

The British imperialist robbers were the strongest in number of “colonial slaves”. The British capitalists have not lost an inch of “their” territory (i.e., territory they have grabbed over the centuries), but they have grabbed all the German colonies in Africa, they have grabbed Mesopotamia and Palestine, they have throttled Greece, and have begun to plunder Russia.

The German imperialist robbers were the strongest in organisation and discipline of “their” armies, but weaker in regard to colonies. They have lost all their colonies, but plundered half of Europe and throttled the largest number of small countries and weak nations. What a great war of “liberation” on both sides! How well the robbers of both groups, the Anglo-French and the German capitalists, together with their lackeys, the social-chauvinists, i.e., the socialists who went over to the side of “their own ” bourgeoisie, have “defended their country”!

The American multimillionaires were, perhaps, richest of all, and geographically the most secure. They have profited more than all the rest. They have converted all, even the richest, countries into their tributaries. They have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars. And every dollar is sullied with filth: the filth of the secret treaties between Britain and her “allies”, between Germany and her vassals, treaties for the division of the spoils, treaties of mutual “aid” for oppressing the workers and persecuting the internationalist socialists. Every dollar is sullied with the filth of “profitable” war contracts, which in every country made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And every dollar is stained with blood—from that ocean of blood that has been shed by the ten million killed and twenty million maimed in the great, noble, liberating and holy war to decide whether the British or the German robbers are to get most of the spoils, whether the British or the German thugs are to be foremost in throttling the weak nations all over the world.

While the German robbers broke all records in war atrocities, the British have broken all records not only in the number of colonies they have grabbed, but also in the subtlety of their disgusting hypocrisy. This very day, the Anglo-French and American bourgeois newspapers are spreading, in millions and millions of copies, lies and slander about Russia, and are hypocritically justifying their predatory expedition against her on the plea that they want to “protect” Russia from the Germans!

It does not require many words to refute this despicable and hideous lie; it is sufficient to point to one well-known fact. In October 1917, after the Russian workers had overthrown their imperialist government, the Soviet government, the government of the revolutionary workers and peasants, openly proposed a just peace, a peace without annexations or indemnities, a peace that fully guaranteed equal rights to all nations—and it proposed such a peace to all the belligerent countries.

It was the Anglo-French and the American bourgeoisie who refused to accept our proposal; it was they who even refused to talk to us about a general peace! It was they who betrayed the interests of all nations; it was they who prolonged the imperialist slaughter!

It was they who, banking on the possibility of dragging Russia back into the imperialist war, refused to take part in the peace negotiations and thereby gave a free hand to the no less predatory German capitalists who imposed the annexationist and harsh Brest Peace upon Russia!

It is difficult to imagine anything more disgusting than the hypocrisy with which the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie are now “blaming” us for the Brest Peace Treaty. The very capitalists of those countries which could have turned the Brest negotiations into general negotiations for a general peace are now our “accusers”! The Anglo-French imperialist vultures, who have profited from the plunder of colonies and the slaughter of nations, have prolonged the war for nearly a whole year after Brest, and yet they “accuse” us, the Bolsheviks, who proposed a just peace to all countries, they accuse us, who tore up, published and exposed to public disgrace the secret, criminal treaties concluded between the ex-tsar and the Anglo-French capitalists.

The workers of the whole world, no matter in what country they live, greet us, sympathise with us, applaud us for breaking the iron ring of imperialist ties, of sordid imperialist treaties, of imperialist chains—for breaking through to freedom, and making the heaviest sacrifices in doing so—for, as a socialist republic, although torn and plundered by the imperialists, keeping out of the imperialist war and raising the banner of peace, the banner of socialism for the whole world to see.

Small wonder that the international imperialist gang hates us for this, that it “accuses” us, that all the lackeys of the imperialists, including our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, also “accuse” us. The hatred these watchdogs of imperialism express for the Bolsheviks, and the sympathy of the class-conscious workers of the world, convince us more than ever of the justice of our cause.

A real socialist would not fail to understand that for the sake of achieving victory over the bourgeoisie, for the sake of power passing to the workers, for the sake of starting the world proletarian revolution, we cannot and must not hesitate to make the heaviest sacrifices, including the sacrifice of part of our territory, the sacrifice of heavy defeats at the hands of imperialism. A real socialist would have proved by deeds his willingness for “his” country to make the greatest sacrifice to give a real push forward to the cause of the socialist revolution.

For the sake of “their” cause, that is, for the sake of winning world hegemony, the imperialists of Britain and Germany have not hesitated to utterly ruin and throttle a whole number of countries, from Belgium and Serbia to Palestine and Mesopotamia. But must socialists wait with “their” cause, the cause of liberating the working people of the whole world from the yoke of capital, of winning universal and lasting peace, until a path without sacrifice is found? Must they fear to open the battle until an easy victory is “guaranteed”? Must they place the integrity and security of “their” bourgeois-created “fatherland” above the interests of the world socialist revolution? The scoundrels in the international socialist movement who think this way, those lackeys who grovel to bourgeois morality, thrice stand condemned. [Continued in comments]

The general understanding of the United States in Marx's historiographic vision is fairly straightforward, however. The American Revolution was, like its counterpart in France, a bourgeois revolution, which had the social aim of overthrowing the feudal-aristocratic order and imposing the rule of the capitalist middle classes, or in Marxist terminology the bourgeoisie. What made the American Revolution special for Marx, however, was that feudalism had no real roots in America in the first place, it was "subordinate to bourgeois society" from the very beginning; this, combined with the fact that America was a whole new continent available for exploitation, allowed the bourgeoisie to "develop to hitherto unheard-of dimensions". [1]

As he makes clear in On the Jewish Question, this is also reflected in the United States' commodification of religion. In the US, "the relation of religion to the state" is crystallised in its pure form. "The preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade, and the bankrupt trader deals in the Gospel just as the Gospel preacher who has become rich goes in for business deals". [2] The bourgeois revolution in the United States has subjugated and commodified religion to an extent not seen anywhere else.

In 1846, in fact, Marx described America as the "most progressive nation" on the planet. [3] Now, this is a rather ambiguous quote because he is actually describing what he thinks Proudhon says about America, but if you read the passage as a whole it seems clear he agrees on that point, just not the idea he ascribes to Proudhon, namely that racial slavery is well and good because it sustains American economic life.

Marx supported the intensification of bourgeois relations, as in the United States, as a prelude to proletarian revolution: "In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." [4]

Interestingly, later on, Marx actually put his name to a letter to Abraham Lincoln, which was submitted by the International Working Men's Association in 1864 and received by the American government. The text of this letter is reproduced here, and is worth a read since it's very short. Of particular interest is the final paragraph:

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War [i.e., the Civil War] will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

Also of interest is that Ambassador Adams' reply on behalf of Lincoln is cordial and seems to accept the sentiments of the letter in full!

Sources:

[1] In Bruce Cumings, 'Revising Post-Revisionism, Or, The Poverty of Theory in Diplomatic History', in America in the World: The Historiography of US Foreign Relations Since 1941, p. 48.

[2] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/

[3] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.htm

[4] http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/09ft.htm#marx

It was at this period, however, that Lenin drafted his famous “Testament,” which undoubtedly reflects his forebodings with regard to Stalin’s brusqueness but says not one word in criticism of his policy…. Nor did Stalin challenge him on his return to activity in the latter part of the year. On the contrary, it appeared they were in complete accord…. Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 146

There is no criticism in a [A OR THE] document–Lenin’s testament–of Stalin’s policy, but only this delineation of personal qualities, That Stalin deeply felt Lenin’s personal criticism is certain. For more than 20 years Lenin had been his teacher and he a faithful disciple. But he could “take it.” He has many of the qualities of the master. He is no yes-man. He has deep convictions, tremendous will-power and determination, and–could Lenin have lived long enough to see it–a patience which at times seems inexhaustible. Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 151

…although subsequent events proved that he [Lenin] had over-estimated Trotsky and underestimated his “wonderful Georgian.” When he [Stalin] read it [Lenin’s Testament] to the 13th Congress of the Party and commented, “Yes, I [Stalin] am rude to those who would destroy Lenin’s party, etc..,” he shifted the issue from one of good manners to the larger battle — ground of the principles, aims and role of the Party as the leader of the Revolution. Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 154

There began already at that time, though not openly, the struggle between Trotsky and Zinoviev for the succession to Lenin. But there was discussion also as to what was going on at Lenin’s house at Gorky, in other words about Stalin. Thus it was almost a sensation when Kamenev brought the news that Lenin had broken with Stalin, and had written to Stalin dismissing him. Before long, however, the sensation shrank to its true proportions. It turned out that the actual personal difference had nothing to do with politics: Lenin had charged Stalin with rudeness and tactlessness toward his wife Krupskaya. It is easy to imagine that. It appears that Stalin never had any great opinion of Lenin’s wife. Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 106

Lenin’s “testament” is, of course, favorable for the most part to Stalin; compared with the assessments given the others, the one of Stalin was the most positive…. But Lenin had for the entire preceding period given many descriptions of Trotsky, and they were entirely negative…. Stalin was, of course, distinguished by rudeness. He was a very blunt person. But if not for his harshness I don’t know how much good would have been accomplished. I think harshness was necessary, otherwise there would have been even greater vacillation and irresolution. Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 213

This addendum to Lenin’s testament was read after his death to a plenary meeting of the Central Committee. Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 108

Khrushchev’s treatment of the relations between Stalin and Lenin concentrates on Lenin’s growing apprehension of Stalin’s bureaucratic methods in 1923. He omits Lenin’s earlier admiration for Stalin and his forwarding of Stalin’s career in the Party dating back at least to 1912. Nor does he note that Lenin’s later attacks on Stalin were made when Lenin was ill and cut off from Party activity, and that even then, in his “testament,” he considered Stalin to be one of the outstanding Party leaders, his faults not those of “non-Bolshevism”–as with Trotsky–but of an over-bureaucratic method of work and personal “rudeness.” The fact that people who had “worked with Lenin” were executed means little unless we know who the people were and why they were executed. The fact that people worked with Lenin does not mean they were pro-socialist, as witness Kamenev & Zinoviev, both of whom Lenin condemned in his “testament.” Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 124

[In the Testament] neither his [Stalin] orthodoxy as a party man nor his loyalty to Lenin were called to question. Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 90

Another strange thing: of all those mentioned in the letter Stalin appears in the most favorable light. He is the one Lenin accuses of rudeness and intolerance, but that was never regarded as a fault in the proletarian party. Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 208

STALIN VOLUNTEERS TO RESIGN AFTER LENIN’S CRITICISM

So young Joseph — Soso, they called him…. Lenin criticized Stalin. Stalin told this himself three years ago in open Congress of the Communist Party, and said quietly: “I told you then and I repeated now, that I am ready to retire if you wish.” Duranty, Walter. Duranty Reports Russia. New York: The Viking Press, 1934, p. 168

When Stalin came to speak [before the Central Committee in October 1927] he declared that he had twice offered his resignation as General Secretary, but that the Party had rejected it on both occasions. Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 96

When Lenin’s testament became public property through having been spread furtively by word-of-mouth, Stalin submitted his resignation,… Ludwig, Emil, Stalin. New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1942, p. 95

For nearly a year while he lived Lenin did nothing with his statement and it was only after his death that it was presented to the Party. When it was presented, Stalin offered his resignation but the Party, including Trotsky, would not accept it. Davis, Jerome. Behind Soviet Power. New York, N. Y.: The Readers’ Press, Inc., c1946, p. 25

Stalin consequently offered to resign but the Central Committee refused to accept his resignation. Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 49

It must have come as a relief for him [Stalin] when it was decided that the Congress would be bypassed and the notes would not be published. Nevertheless, when the newly elected Central Committee met, he offered his resignation. He was probably confident that those he had carefully selected for election would not accept it. In any event the committee, including Trotsky, voted unanimously not to accept his resignation. Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 197

Right from the first session of the Central Committee, after the 13th Congress, I asked to be released from the obligations of the General Secretaryship. The Congress itself examined the question. Each delegation examined the question, and every delegation, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, voted unanimously in favor of Stalin remaining at his post. What could I do then? Abandon my post? Such a thing is not in my character…. At the end of one year I again asked to be set free and I was again forced to remain at my post. What could I do then? Stalin, Joseph. Stalin’s Kampf. New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, c1940, p. 244

[In 1927 Stalin stated], I asked the first plenary session of the Central Committee right after the Thirteenth Congress to relieve me of my duties as secretary-general. The congress discussed the question. Each delegation discussed the question. And unanimously they all, including Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev, made it binding upon Stalin to remain in his post. What could I do? Run away from the post? This is not in my character. I never ran away from any post and I have no right to run away. That would be desertion. I do not regard myself as a free man, and I obey party orders. A year later I again submitted my resignation, but again I was bound to remain. What could I do? Levine, Isaac Don. Stalin. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, c1931, p. 281

It is said that in that “will” Comrade Lenin suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin’s “rudeness” it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin’s place as General Secretary. That is quite true. Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that. At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the 13th Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress itself discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain at his post. What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey. A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do? As regards publishing the “will,” the congress decided not to publish it, since it was addressed to the congress and was not intended for publication…. Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 10, p. 180-181

After the congress [May 1924], when the leading bodies of the party were being constituted, Stalin, referring to Lenin’s testament, demonstratively declined to accept the post of general secretary. But Zinoviev and Kamenev, and after them the majority of the central committee members, persuaded him to withdraw his resignation…. Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 85

[Continued in comments]