The justice of transactions which go on between agents of production rests on the fact that these transactions arise out of the production relations as their natural consequences. The juristic forms in which these economic transactions appear as voluntary actions of the participants, as expressions of their common will or as contracts that may be enforced by the state against a single party, cannot, being mere forms, determine this content. They only express it. This content is just whenever it corresponds to the mode of production, is adequate to it. It is unjust whenever it contradicts it.

-Capital Vol 3

Communism now no longer meant the concoction, by means of the imagination, of an ideal society as perfect as possible, but insight into the nature, the conditions and the consequent general aims of the struggle waged by the proletariat.

-Engels, On the History of the Communist League

Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

- Engels, Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx

Just some of the countless quotes which make this pretty clear imo

Panopticon posted:

a better analogy would be bush arresting cheney after the invasion and then carrying on with operation iraqi slaughter anyway.

Between 1937-38 there were roughly 750,000 official executions in the soviet union

Between 1939-40 there were roughly 4,000 official executions in the soviet union 1


1"life and terror in stalin's russia 1934-1941' the tables on pages 63 & 119 sourced to GARF f. 9401, o. 1, d. 4157,1. 201. (a very reputable source i've been told)

Edited by Scrree (March 2, 2016 11:03:47)

blinkandwheeze posted:

also huey your understanding of dialectical and historical materialism is overtly crude and mechanistic. Counterpoint: reality.

third worldism is basically the solution to criticisms of Marx's 'determinism' or 'crude' understanding of base and superstructure. instead of a bunch of bullshit about codetermination or rhizomes it's just like "yeah material reality determines consciousness we just had an incomplete understanding of material reality before because capitalism had not fully developed as a world system. once you fully integrate imperialism into the capitalist production model class consciousness pretty much completely explains everything." If this is crude or deterministic than I am guilty of looking for straightforward and clear explanations for indisputable historical facts.

From the bourgeois point of view, it is easy to declare that such a social order is "sheer utopia" and to sneer at the socialists for promising everyone the right to receive from society, without any control over the labor of the individual citizen, any quantity of truffles, cars, pianos, etc. Even to this day, most bourgeois “savants” confine themselves to sneering in this way, thereby betraying both their ignorance and their selfish defence of capitalism.

Ignorance--for it has never entered the head of any socialist to “promise” that the higher phase of the development of communism will arrive; as for the greatest socialists' forecast that it will arrive, it presupposes not the present ordinary run of people, who, like the seminary students in Pomyalovsky's stories, are capable of damaging the stocks of public wealth "just for fun", and of demanding the impossible.

Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers.

The selfish defence of capitalism by the bourgeois ideologists (and their hangers-on, like the Tseretelis, Chernovs, and Co.) consists in that they substitute arguing and talk about the distant future for the vital and burning question of present-day politics, namely, the expropriation of the capitalists, the conversion of all citizens into workers and other employees of one huge “syndicate”--the whole state--and the complete subordination of the entire work of this syndicate to a genuinely democratic state, the state of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

In fact, when a learned professor, followed by the philistine, followed in turn by the Tseretelis and Chernovs, talks of wild utopias, of the demagogic promises of the Bolsheviks, of the impossibility of “introducing” socialism, it is the higher stage, or phase, of communism he has in mind, which no one has ever promised or even thought to “introduce”, because, generally speaking, it cannot be “introduced”.

Panopticon posted:

over a question of administrative structure

blinkandwheeze posted:

drwhat i think this is an argument that's in very bad faith. i thought i was pretty clear that none of us are perfectly rational. i'm pretty sure every individual that has ever lived intuitively engages in moral reasoning (even saint max!). i probably take moral stands constantly. marx or engels or lenin undoubtedly did

it seems very strange to level at marxism's appeals to science as implying that its thinkers have overcome ideology through strength of will. marxist thinkers have spilt more ink describing how ideology permeates the thought of any individual than any other school of thought ever has

but there's a distinction between "marxism" as a system school of thought and method of inquiry, and say, marx the man. while marx the individual undoubtedly engaged in intuitive moral reasoning to some extent, the question we need to ask in response to this are things like "to what degree would this reasoning be reflective in his body of writings? what presence does it have in relation to his philosophical system?"

those are the questions i'm trying to broach. suggesting that this is me presenting myself as a perfectly rational being or whatever isn't really productive for anyone

you're right, it was in bad faith, it was late and I made a stupid post. I think I am starting to understand and agree with what you're saying finally. even to the point where getfiscal's last quote just seems to lend strength to your argument.

gf I think you are just agreeing with bnw now actually. just because human labour is the sublimation of imagination into physical forms doesn't mean those imagined forms have some inherent morality to them, does it? whether those forms are of a bridge or of a social relation.

this idea that evolution towards socialism and communism is inevitable and scientific makes me uncomfortable though. I understand the point now, but on a visceral level it feels like religious belief. surely to this and to all sciences there is some underlying first assertion that has no basis, that is a leap of faith - like, for example, "social relations are rational and analysable" and "this analysis is correct". maybe those aren't the bases and someone else can come up with better ones, but whatever they are, they exist and isn't the act of accepting an unverifiable assertion always a moral act?

chickeon posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

blinkandwheeze posted:

also huey your understanding of dialectical and historical materialism is overtly crude and mechanistic. Counterpoint: reality.

third worldism is basically the solution to criticisms of Marx's 'determinism' or 'crude' understanding of base and superstructure. instead of a bunch of bullshit about codetermination or rhizomes it's just like "yeah material reality determines consciousness we just had an incomplete understanding of material reality before because capitalism had not fully developed as a world system. once you fully integrate imperialism into the capitalist production model class consciousness pretty much completely explains everything." If this is crude or deterministic than I am guilty of looking for straightforward and clear explanations for indisputable historical facts.

you're pretty straightforwardly describing/advocating for a non-dialectical and vulgar materialism in this thread, which is pretty common and not in itself remarkable, but amazes me in how much you contradict other things you've posted like your own thread on dialectics and science with stuff like this

Not only does ideology affect how we conceive of the world, and not only does this interaction between society and ideology act in a dialectical way (in the example, the changing history of Russia through the Bolshevik revolution both eliminated the conditions of ‘name worship’ religion and developed the scientific conditions that allowed it to turn to secular questions of mathematics), but ideology itself dialectically affects the objective world.

you're obviously a smart and well read man who's made many great contributions, but you seem to be of two minds on this matter; one a diehard zealot of dialectical thought and the other a borderline autistic rejection of dialectics in favour of a kind of vulgar materialism that marx actively distanced himself from but that some people insist on projecting onto him regardless

like how do you reconcile "what is important is to banish empiricism from science philosophically" with "looking for straightforward and clear explanations for indisputable historical facts" when the latter is surely predicated on at least a minimal amount of empiricism?

I think of it as a Nietzschean question. Like "Suppose we want truth: why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance?" The point of the question is not to think of its correctness. Rather it's meant both to uncover the assumptions we make/the 'bad reading' we do when picking and choosing our knowledge and it reveals the will to power behind the question itself. I think there is serious power in crude materialism which has been lost since postmodernism has made any kind of materialism unfashionable whereas any kind of anti-materialist post-Marxism like deconstruction, deterritorialization, simulacrum, etc is unquestioned, largely because it's so removed from actually explaining anything. I guess I'm trying to provoke a revaluation of the foundation of the discussion since otherwise everyone agrees with each other on 99% of everything but I agree I'm not doing a great job.

Scrree posted:

Oh yeah it's absolutely impossible for me to judge the actions of individuals that took place seventy years ago, in an unintelligible social context, where all of the records and primary source documents are written in a language I can't even read, and pretty dumb to even try.

do you read russian? do all the other stalin pals read russian? why is the burden of proof on me to show the mass executions were unjust? the soviet state did fuck all to prove they were just, the burden should be on you.

Scrree posted:

according to this journal article i just spent six bucks on to read

rather than do this in future please PM me as i probably have access as a uni student, this invitation goes for all posters

Panopticon posted:

i see that you don't though

Well, no, this is an internet forum. The quote I posted was from Stalins conxluding remarks at the Feb 1937 Plenum of the Central Committee if you're legitimately interested and not just "trolling," but I doubt it.

Panopticon posted:

EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

Puig, Furr, and Grundlesworthy all cite original Russian texts and provide translations.

i see that you don't though

the problem is that this is a kind of infinite regression. not only will we never have enough information to talk about the things we want to (for example talking about socialism would require spanish, chinese, russian, vietnamese, etc) but even if we did the historical record is incomplete and the propaganda filter it goes through is impenetrable. but the alternative of just spouting bullshit isn't better. eventually you have to make a pre-empirical theoretical judgement of who you are going to trust, what theories and evidence makes the most sense based on a broad understanding, and what positions are negotiable and which are paradigmatic.

and the only way to do that is to form a community in which you trust other people and you have broadly the same theory but are motivated to discuss within that paradigm. that's why something like the rhizzone (and lf) is so important and why something like facebook or reddit doesnt actually build knowledge it just circulates it. so if you dont trust the community to have informed, principled, and honest ideas about communism and Stalin there's not much we can do. But I get the feeling you'll think about your posts (as will we) and eventually come to a higher understanding.

Edited by babyhueypnewton (March 3, 2016 15:56:34)

babyhueypnewton posted:

the problem is that this is a kind of infinite regression. not only will we never have enough information to talk about the things we want to (for example talking about socialism would require spanish, chinese, russian, vietnamese, etc) but even if we did the historical record is incomplete and the propaganda filter it goes through is impenetrable. but the alternative of just spouting bullshit isn't better. eventually you have to make a pre-empirical theoretical judgement of who you are going to trust, what theories and evidence makes the most sense based on a broad understanding, and what positions are negotiable and which are paradigmatic.

and the only way to do that is to form a community in which you trust other people and you have broadly the same theory but are motivated to discuss within that paradigm. that's why something like the rhizzone (and lf) is so important and why something like facebook or reddit doesnt actually build knowledge it just circulates it. so if you dont trust the community to have informed, principled, and honest ideas about communism and Stalin there's not much we can do. But I get the feeling you'll think about your posts (as will we) and eventually come to a higher understanding.

so you're saying everything will click once i see the bigger picture