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Remember kids - if tankies fail, it was because of the CIA and 'wreckers', if other leftists fail, it's because They Were Destined To (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

No, Marx didn't live long enough to see the Russian Revolution, and Marx was certainly not adverse to violent revolution. Though he mused that some sufficiently democratic bourgeois societies might be capable of a peaceful transition to socialism, it was certainly not the focus of his writings. Funny enough, he did suggest that Russia was the least ready for socialism of all the major European nations.

Marx, however, believed that development into a bourgeois capitalist society was a necessary prerequisite for a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bolsheviks were a radical departure from this line of thinking, proposing both that the peasantry were a revolutionary class and that a capitalist mode of production was not necessary to transition to a socialist workers' state. In addition, the Bolsheviks, despite their claims, were quite anti-democratic, which goes strongly against the spirit and letter of Marx's writings.

[-] cqst 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The Bolsheviks were quite well aware that socialism would be impossible in just Russia because it was pre-capitalist, and were banking on the success of the German Revolution to establish socialist supply chains. This is why with the failure of the revolutionary in Germany, the NEP was considered a tactical retreat.

A 'tactical retreat' here meaning 'exactly what they overthrew the right-SRs and eliminated the Mensheviks for supporting', except now, conveniently, all in the control of the Bolsheviks. Hell, half the reason that the NEP was implemented was because the peasantry were resisting collectivization, and the other half was that the 'war communism' of the civil war period had been fucking ruinous; not a well-considered ideological decision. Not only that, but the NEP was extremely short-lived, far too short to build up industry to the standards of a capitalist mode of production, and if it was up to Lenin, it would've been even shorter-lived.

Considering the Bolsheviks literally invented Democratic Centralism and made the USSR into a democracy, its definitely not fair to call them “anti-democratic”.

Democratic centralism is not democratic, and the USSR definitely was not fucking democratic in any real sense.

[-] cqst 1 points 2 days ago

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Regardless of its merits, there’s no denying that war communism won the Bolsheviks the civil war.

In the sense that they had lost support of the people, that the economy had fallen apart, and only by plundering the peasantry with 'war communism' could they keep their effort going? Uh, sure.

Not really. The USSR just moved toward a state capitalist model, and Stalin managed a social democracy attempting to build just that, industry up to the standards of a capitalist mode of production.

"Stalin managed a social democracy"

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Democracy is not democratic”. The USSR had elections, representatives, an elected parliament, decisions were made by majoritarianism, it was pretty clearly democratic.

Oh, okay, so Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were democracies too, right? They had elections, representatives, an elected parliament...

Oh, wait, is the DPRK a democracy too?

[-] cqst 1 points 2 days ago

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Also uh, they were in a civil war. Do you know of a country that managed a good economy during a crisis level civil war?

Yes. The US. Mexico. Turkiye. Anarchist Catalonia.

The Bolsheveiks also won the civil war, which directly speaks to the success of war communism.

"We managed to squeeze the country so hard that an unprecedented number of literal millions died in famine, but at least we beat the aristocrats who were so incompetent that they couldn't drag their heads out of their asses for the full ten minutes needed to form a government"

Good job.

In some essence, sure, but definitely less than the USSR to the point it wouldn’t make much sense to call them democratic. I would argue that Nazi Germany was significantly less democratic than the USSR, as Nazi Germany did not have a functioning democratic system unlike the USSR, and the Reichstag really only convened to listen to Hitlers speeches. The Soviet Parliament convened somewhat frequently and did pass laws, regardless of its flaws or inadequacies.

Oh, yes, the Supreme Soviet unanimously ratifying everything placed in front of their noses was DEFINITELY a functioning democratic system. Literally what 'democratic centralism' meant. You DO realize this is an ANTI-tankie comm, right?

Yes the DPRK is a democracy, but it has a lot of problems (a lot the fault of the West)

Check, please!

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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025

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