Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Once more, I am not a communist, so you can stop throwing this at me.

you want communism without communism, coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, sex without contact. degeneracy, pure degeneracy. *throws u in teh Trot bin*

Crow posted:

Here we see the principles of Maoist insurgency working in the Rhizzone: the enemy is drawn into the sea of the people and demonstrated irrelevant

tpaine posted:

what is that anyway

a complementizer/subordinating conjunction

tpaine posted:

why does he not post here yet

One further point. Lih comments:

The activist writers also talk as if they knew Lenin’s beliefs better than he did himself. John Molyneux writes, for example, that ‘Lenin at this stage was not aware that he diverged in any fundamental way from social democratic orthodoxy’ and therefore incorrectly identified himself with SPD luminaries such as Karl Kautsky and August Bebel. We are left with the following picture. There was probably no one in Russia who had read in Kautsky’s voluminous writings so attentively, extensively and admiringly as Lenin, yet he remained completely unaware that he diverged in fundamental ways from Kautsky. I am not sure whether we are supposed to explain this by Kautsky’s deceitfulness, Lenin’s inability to understand what he read, or Lenin’s unawareness of his own beliefs. (Lih p.25)

The answer is, of course, none of the above and certainly not that I think I’m cleverer than Lenin (chance would be a fine thing!). But I do not think that Lih, because of his exclusive focus on 1901-04, understands the problem.

this is terrible! or earlier on in the review:

According to Lih, ‘Tony Cliff is a great admirer of Lenin and yet his picture of Lenin from 1895 to 1905 is not an attractive one.’(p.25) This is because it shows Lenin changing his mind, or at least his formulations, on the relationship between political consciousness and economic struggle and thus makes Lenin ‘look like a rather incompetent and incoherent leader’.(p.25) I disagree. What Cliff shows is a developing leader, whose fundamental commitment to Marxism, socialism and revolution remains unshakeable, but who responds to events and learns in and from the struggle. This not a weakness either in Lenin, or in Cliff’s presentation of Lenin. On the contrary for a revolutionary leader it is an essential attribute.

What is unique about Cliff’s portrait of Lenin, especially Volume 1:Building the Party, is not the quantity of research (though that was considerable) and certainly not Cliff’s linguistic facility, but the fact that Cliff was engaged, albeit in very different circumstances, in the same activity as Lenin, namely trying to build a revolutionary party rooted in the working class.(7) Of course this element of identification carries the danger of subjective factors distorting the historical perspective, but it also generates numerous insights unavailable to the academic historian or theorist.

so because allegedly cliff was engaged in the same task as lenin (never mind the wildly different political, historical, and economic contexts!) he gains Magic Insight into the Secret Knowledge of marxism. this kind of shamanic, magical thinking characterises trotskyist history across the board, and makes any historical insights incidental at best. historiography is easily trotskyism's weakest point - other areas of theory are often well-served by trotskyists (mandel was a good political economist, and hal draper engaged in excellent organisational exegesis of marx and marxism) - but this historical failing infects absolutely every area of trotskyist theory, for it is the starting point for any marxist. it seems trotskyists and trotskyism regard themselves as this fixed point, this rock in history from which all interpretation must flow, instead of the correct approach - they are no more important historically than the people and events they are interpreting.

deadken posted:

if trotsky had succeeded lenin all the Super Sensitive Socialist Teens would be calling themselves stalinists. stalin enacted most of trotsky's policies, trotskyism is pure cult of personality, profoundly anti-materialist and totally gross

Is this supposed to be a class analysis? Or just sour grapes?

If Trotsky had have done what you say then I'd be the first to condemn him. Can you say the same about Mao and Stalin?

Edited by Rosa_Lichtenstein (Nov. 16, 2012 22:49:13)

libelous_slander posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

libelous_slander posted:

so what is trotskyism?

This will give you some idea:

http://www.marxisme.dk/arkiv/molyneux/realmarx/index.htm

" The situation was extremely complex and the participants did not see it in these clear terms"

got it. so... what is it?

Read it again, only more carefully this time.

AmericanNazbro posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

communism failed miserably, killing millions

And capitalism kills millions every year...

Good job I'm not advocating communism, but a workers' state...

i'm advocating gulags and firing squads for the bourgeois.

There is no need to copy the inhuman actions of our enemies.

Since they have to intimidate the vast majority, they have to act brutally. On the other hand, if the majority are in control, they do not have to intimidate the majority.

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

AmericanNazbro posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

communism failed miserably, killing millions

And capitalism kills millions every year...

Good job I'm not advocating communism, but a workers' state...

i'm advocating gulags and firing squads for the bourgeois.

There is no need to copy the inhuman actions of our enemies.

Since they have to intimidate the vast majority, they have to act brutally. On the other hand, if the majority are in control, they do not have to intimidate the majority.

pure theology.

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

deadken posted:

if trotsky had succeeded lenin all the Super Sensitive Socialist Teens would be calling themselves stalinists. stalin enacted most of trotsky's policies, trotskyism is pure cult of personality, profoundly anti-materialist and totally gross

stalin killed 20 million people.

In fact, we do not know how many were killed by the Stalinist regime. Estimates vary from one million to seventy five, but most are just 'educated' guesses by the political enemies of the USSR.

moshe lewin is a political enemy of the ussr?

jools posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

deadken posted:

if trotsky had succeeded lenin all the Super Sensitive Socialist Teens would be calling themselves stalinists. stalin enacted most of trotsky's policies, trotskyism is pure cult of personality, profoundly anti-materialist and totally gross

stalin killed 20 million people.

In fact, we do not know how many were killed by the Stalinist regime. Estimates vary from one million to seventy five, but most are just 'educated' guesses by the political enemies of the USSR.

moshe lewin is a political enemy of the ussr?

I presume you do not know what 'most' means...

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

jools posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

deadken posted:

if trotsky had succeeded lenin all the Super Sensitive Socialist Teens would be calling themselves stalinists. stalin enacted most of trotsky's policies, trotskyism is pure cult of personality, profoundly anti-materialist and totally gross

stalin killed 20 million people.

In fact, we do not know how many were killed by the Stalinist regime. Estimates vary from one million to seventy five, but most are just 'educated' guesses by the political enemies of the USSR.

moshe lewin is a political enemy of the ussr?

I presume you do not know what 'most' means...

yeah but any seriously historical assessment of the USSR draws from the revisionist historians, or from sensible economic history (allen, ellman, etc)

jools posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

jools posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

AmericanNazbro posted:

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

Goethestein posted:

communism failed miserably, killing millions

And capitalism kills millions every year...

Good job I'm not advocating communism, but a workers' state...

i'm advocating gulags and firing squads for the bourgeois.

There is no need to copy the inhuman actions of our enemies.

Since they have to intimidate the vast majority, they have to act brutally. On the other hand, if the majority are in control, they do not have to intimidate the majority.

pure theology.

Well, do you deny that the boss-class has to intimidate the vast majority, and that a democratic workers' state does not (since they are the vast majority)?

Or are you just going to post snide remarks?

actually i posted several substantial comments on your posts and the general trotskyist approach, i believe i earned some snide remarks.

anyway, this comes across like socialist millenialism or something, that after the Revolution the Power of the Bourgeois Melts Away Unto Nothing, That The Struggle Is Finished, The Glorious Proletariat Marches Into The Golden Kingdom Of Heaven etc etc instead of the historically demonstrated truth that after any revolution you will have a continued struggle - albeit one from a greater position of strength - against, to use the maoist terminology, "capitalist roaders" - enemies within.

Well I have merely responded in kind to yours. You have posted little other than snide remarks.

Where did I say that the bourgeoisie should not be supressed? But the comrade to whom I was replying went a little too far.

But, it is not up to me, or you, or him, to decide. Workers can make their own minds up about this.

jools posted:

im sorry rosa. i have to say it. im sorry.


but this all comes from an extremely undialectical reading of history, wherein you can somehow junk all of the stuff that (from your first world, labour aristocratic perspective) provokes a negative moral response (the purges, the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, the lack of - bourgeois - democracy, and so on) and think that there is somehow a "pure", unsullied "marxism" at the core that has none of bad, and all of the good, and that this Eternal Flame was carried through the 20th century by such successful revolutionaries as hal draper and john molyneux. this is just bad history! it betrays an atomised, methodologically individualist reading of events that is essentially unscientific.

Well, since dialectics makes no sense (certainly you have yet to explain it), I am glad my reading is 'undialectical'.

I also note that you use this word -- 'dialectical' -- as a sort of talisman to justify anti-Marxist, and counter-rovolutionary policies inflicted on the people of the USSR and China.

And yet, Orthodox Trotskyists (with whom I disagree) also appeal to a 'dialectical' view of history to condemn the Stalinist and Maoist regimes.

As I have pointed out several times, because dialectics glories in contradiction, it can be used to 'justify' anything you like and its opposite.

jools posted:

also i was quoting molyneux himself??

I'd avoid doing so after how much he lied about fable

Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:

jools posted:

im sorry rosa. i have to say it. im sorry.


but this all comes from an extremely undialectical reading of history, wherein you can somehow junk all of the stuff that (from your first world, labour aristocratic perspective) provokes a negative moral response (the purges, the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, the lack of - bourgeois - democracy, and so on) and think that there is somehow a "pure", unsullied "marxism" at the core that has none of bad, and all of the good, and that this Eternal Flame was carried through the 20th century by such successful revolutionaries as hal draper and john molyneux. this is just bad history! it betrays an atomised, methodologically individualist reading of events that is essentially unscientific.

Well, since dialectics makes no sense (certainly you have yet to explain it), I am glad my reading is 'undialectical'.

I also note that you use this word -- 'dialectical' -- as a sort of talisman to justify anti-Marxist, and counter-rovolutionary policies inflicted on the people of the USSR and China.

And yet, Orthodox Trotskyists (with whom I disagree) also appeal to a 'dialectical' view of history to condemn the Stalinist and Maoist regimes.

As I have pointed out several times, because dialectics glories in contradiction, it can be used to 'justify' anything you like and its opposite.

the point is the things you like and their apparent opposites are inherent in the same unified historical process!!!!