Panopticon posted:why should the proletariat resolve the principle contradiction of production?
you're trying to prove that the marxist position (and consequentially any scientific position) is founded on a moral argument by presupposing a question that can only be answered by a moral argument. this doesn't actually demonstrate anything except the fact that you're asking the wrong question
blinkandwheeze posted:you're trying to prove that the marxist position (and consequentially any scientific position) is founded on a moral argument by presupposing a question that can only be answered by a moral argument. this doesn't actually demonstrate anything except the fact that you're asking the wrong question
you are saying my question has no answer? that you are a communist for no reason at all?
babyhueypnewton posted:When the Russian Revolution was still insecure, the Soviets attempted to implement a radical socialist system of law. This is often dredged up these days because homosexuality was technically legal. But what was significant was that, largely by necessity, a new kind of socialist rule of law was conceptualized. Lenin in the Draft Program of the R.C.P.B. says
Having repealed the laws of the deposed governments, the Party gives the judges elected by Soviet electors the slogan: enforce the will of the proletariat, apply its decrees, and in the absence of a suitable decree; or if the relevant decree is inadequate, take guidance from your socialist sense of justice, ignoring the laws of the deposed governments.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x02.htm
what exactly is a socialist sense of justice? Well, the Cultural Revolution took this idea even further
In order to simplify,
improve and transform the structure which was not suitable to a socialist economic
basis, and to simplify the procedure in the jurisdictional sphere for the convenience of
the masses", the functions and powers of the original public security organs and courts
were greatly contained, and the procuracy was even abolished with its functions and
its powers were transferred to the public security agency.98 In December 1968,
simultaneous with the dismantling of the procuracy, it was proposed that the other two
Central organs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (neiwubu) and the Office of Internal Affairs (neiwuban), be abolished as well, while the Ministry of Public Security and
the Supreme Court only kept very few staff.99 Mao and Xie Fuzhi strongly argued
that it was not a good method to arrest people; that the government, the public
security organs, and the army should arrest as few people as possible; and that arrests
should be done on the demands and with the aid of the masses. As for the few bad
people, it was better to have them arrested by the masses themselves, not by the state
organs of dictatorship.100 Mao called this principle the “dictatorship of the masses”
(qunzhong zhuanzheng).101 He explicitly said that: “the dictatorship should be the
dictatorship of the masses
To expound the efficiency of the dictatorship of the masses, Xu
Jingxian gave an example of a wrongdoer in a Shanghai unit who asked the public
security force to arrest him because he could not bear the all-around supervision of the
masses.104 Of course, for the wrongdoers who were willing to reform themselves, the
masses would be willing to help at any time. In such a way, the amount of money that
had been spent in the past on the police, procuracy, and courts was greatly reduced.
More importantly, the crime rate was dramatically reduced. During the CR, under the
guidance of the thought of the dictatorship of the masses, in many places, including in
Shanghai, a large number of prisons were abandoned and a large portion of the
inmates were released to their original units and subject to the masses' supervision...The informal
process of dispute resolution enjoyed its heyday under Mao when the societal model
of law overshadowed the jural model
http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/2356/D_Jiang_Hongsheng_a_201005.pdf?sequence=1
it's sort of obvious that the withering away of the state is the withering away of the law (and thus the rule of law) but what this means in a concrete form is the interesting part for communists today. is socialist law simply the humanistic impulse of a socialist sense of justice, presumably differentiating between proletarian law and bourgeois law? is it simply the dismantling of legal structures layer by layer until only the state of administration (as Pashukanis calls it) remains? is it an entirely new form of mass law that is radically democratic? is it the preservation of the best aspects of bourgeois law, like innocent until proven guilty and habeas corpus, while eliminating the bad parts?
Stalin went both ways, strengthening the rule of law in the early 30s before the purges abandoned it entirely. And since Stalin was great, whatever he did is correct. So I'm inclined to believe that the rule of law serves as a useful fiction for the socialist state, though subordinate to the needs of socialism, until it is radically attacked and replaced with some kind of law of the masses.
that's interesting.
Panopticon posted:you are saying my question has no answer? that you are a communist for no reason at all?
you're presenting two incommensurable discourses. the questions of morality and the principles it presupposes are founded on the ideal, these can't be answered by science
i'm a communist because of its unique capacity for the production of knowledge
Edited by blinkandwheeze ()
Panopticon posted:how people ought to act has nothing to do with science and everything to do with morality.
yes
Panopticon posted:why should the proletariat resolve the principle contradiction of production?
marxism is scientific in composition. it does not provide an "ought" because this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
i thought i had said all this already
why should we abolish production for exchange? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we organise into communist parties and overthrow capitalism? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we shoot the chief economist of gosplan 5 years after he helped saved the ussr from fascism? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we execute hundreds of thousands of party cadres with no trial, jury or evidence? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
Panopticon posted:<- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
you're really asking one question here - why ought we, in the moral sense, rebel against the reactionaries. yes, this does have everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science. this is why the marxist position can't answer it - marxist though is scientific in composition and as such does not advance moral principles
the idea that any argument is ultimately moral in its vector, like you forwarded, necessarily presupposes an ideal to which material reality is beholden. without that principle then your questions can only be sharpened until they disappear into thin air
on the question of stalin, nobody is going to deny the presence of any black marks on his record, that he made any mistakes, whatever. considerations of moral virtue are entirely unrelated to the investigation and criticism of these black marks if you do so from a consistent and mature materialist perspective, though
Panopticon posted:why should the proletariat resolve the principle contradiction of production? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we abolish production for exchange? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we organise into communist parties and overthrow capitalism? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we shoot the chief economist of gosplan 5 years after he helped saved the ussr from fascism? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
why should we execute hundreds of thousands of party cadres with no trial, jury or evidence? <- this has everything to do with morality and nothing to do with science
you're basically asking one question there, bub. should we kill people to get things we want. yes. yes we should.
Panopticon posted:why should the proletariat resolve the principle contradiction of production?
The question isn't "why should they." They will do this, it is a historical inevitability.
swampman posted:Panopticon posted:
why should the proletariat resolve the principle contradiction of production?
The question isn't "why should they." They will do this, it is a historical inevitability. This is why you see enemies everywhere, because you are confused by the science part of marxist science. Marx predicts the course of history by a scientific, economic analysis that shows the contradictions of capitalism.
then why should i care about it? why should i advocate for it?
Panopticon posted:that was just a rhetorical question. of course i know why I'M a communist. knowledge, baby. lot of people say stuff like "ending exploitation, liberating humanity" but syllogisms and the dialectic really hits the spot for me.
hold on a sec there mate. of course it's reasonable to be a communist for ethical reasons, but this does not negate the need for a scientific approach to history, and that's what i contend is missing from your glib statements about stalin being a sociopath. it's extremely citation needed and those citations better not be western anticoms whose own citations, in turn, are most often emigres, traitors, and nazis.
Panopticon posted:Stalin himself had publicly warned that "in Hitler's camps there are no Russian prisoners of war, only Russian traitors and we shall do away with them when the war is over."
what did i say about citations needed. no doubt this quote is from western media of the day
Panopticon posted:Two years earlier, in August 1942, Churchill had visited Stalin in Moscow to discuss the delay of the second front. During their late-night conversation, Churchill asked if the strains of the Second World War were any worse than during the collectivisation period a decade earlier. "Oh no", Stalin replied. "The collective farm policy was a terrible struggle". Churchill then mentioned that Stalin had dealt with not just "a few score thousands of aristocrats or big landowners, but with millions of small men". At which point Stalin corrected him: "Ten million". When Churchill asked what had happened to this kulak class, Stalin confided, "Many of them agreed to come in with us. Some of them were given land of their own to cultivate in the province of Tomsk.... or further north, but the great bulk were very unpopular and were wiped out by their labourers". There was then a "considerable pause" while the British prime minister understood the significance of the destruction of approximately one eighth of the Russian population, judged to be part of this kulak class.
you are joking surely. what kind of ponderous flowery bullshit prose is this. also CITATION FUCKING NEEDED
revolutionary science progresses by comparing roughly similar situations and seeing what worked and what did not. for example, social-democracy has demonstrated that it tends to follow a certain path of accommodation which integrates it into the capitalist system and therefore tends to support imperialist wars. therefore marxists are cautious at best about reformist parties because of that experience. likewise the emergence of modern revisionism has shown that bureaucratic corruption of socialist states is possible in such a way that party leaders can begin to emulate the goals of social-democracy, inevitably accommodating to global capitalism. but making broad appeals about either does not solve the problem in itself. there are still many social-democratic parties around the world and there are large numbers of revisionist parties that support or lead capitalist countries. the question is how to intervene in that situation in a way that promotes socialist revolution.
it's true that the incredible destruction (which no one really disputes) under stalin had terrible consequences. the question is what lessons for individual behaviour within a revolutionary context does this hold, not trying to tease apart who has what ethical guilt or whatever. would anyone do collectivization the same way if they knew the peasants would kill all their animals? probably not. does delivering enormous powers to autonomous police forces produce positive results? no. (but notice how much of the system of camps essentially disappeared after the soviets witnessed the results.) does the autonomy of a bureaucratic strata tend to create the conditions for revisionist overthrow? yes. these are much more important questions than debating human rights in abstract or whatever, especially because they don't imply simply reverting to failed prior forms (like social-democracy)
blinkandwheeze posted:on the question of stalin, nobody is going to deny the presence of any black marks on his record, that he made any mistakes, whatever. considerations of moral virtue are entirely unrelated to the investigation and criticism of these black marks if you do so from a consistent and mature materialist perspective, though
upon which i would elaborate - it is counterproductive to approach the assessment of stalin's record in terms of whether he was a good or bad man. in fact, to ask this question plays directly into the hands of the anticommunist approach, not simply because there are an overwhelming number of anticoms ready to explain exactly how bad they think he was, but because you are buying into an individualist 'great man of history' idea antithetical to communism. likewise, and as i have said before, rejecting these smears is not about defending stalin, it is about defending the record of actually existing communism, and about trying to learn from history, which is only possible if we are not viewing it through some capitalist funhouse mirror.
there is much to be learned from the actual mistakes made in the purges, in aspects of collectivization and so, but only if we decouple these events from hysterical hand-wringing about stalin's supposed sociopathy, outrageously overblown death counts, etc
Panopticon posted:"ending exploitation, liberating humanity"
you dolt, do you really think this hasn't also been implicitly suggested by every argument that has been forwarded to you?
i care deeply about the end of exploitation and liberation of man, but no matter how much romance or poetry i expressed such a sentiment with, it wouldn't actually answer any of your questions
advocacy of the end of exploitation or the liberation of man are not necessarily moral propositions. they can be, providing they are reasoned for on a moral basis. "man should be liberated" or "exploitation should be ended" are only moral propositions insofar as the reasoning provided for these statements presupposes an "ought"
a consistent and thoroughgoing materialism can reason such a "should" in a fashion contrary to moral inquiry but, yes, this is going to end up in syllogism and dialectical reasoning
getfiscal posted:but notice how much of the system of camps essentially disappeared after the soviets witnessed the results
Within the camps, the American survivors clung on, preoccupied with survival and waiting for a new turn of events. In theory, at least, all prisoners remained subject to the laws of the Soviet judicial system, which retained an arbitrary quality described by one survivor as "like playing chess with an orang-utan". In September 1946, eight and a half years into his five year sentence, Thomas Sgovio was unexpectedly fingerprinted and asked to sign a warrant. As an "overtimer" he was informed that although he was not allowed to leave the Kolyma region, he could seek work among the free settlers shipped in to colonise the empty space of the North.
blinkandwheeze posted:you dolt, do you really think this hasn't also been implicitly suggested by every argument that has been forwarded to you?
this argument is fundamentally duplicitous.
panopticon: *non-sequitur quote from poorly written anticommunist book*
Petrol posted:every other poster itt: *thoughtful well reasoned post*
panopticon: *non-sequitur quote from poorly written anticommunist book*
everyone in the world who doesn't love stalin seems to be an anti-communist
Panopticon posted:this argument is fundamentally duplicitous.
how do you miss the point here so completely? i argued that moral arguments toward communism are fundamentally duplicitous to the extent that rely on idealist presuppositions. however i spent several paragraphs just now explaining that the end of exploitation or the liberation of man are not necessarily moral propositions. that's the entire basis of what i'm saying
Panopticon posted:Petrol posted:every other poster itt: *thoughtful well reasoned post*
panopticon: *non-sequitur quote from poorly written anticommunist book*everyone in the world who doesn't love stalin seems to be an anti-communist
You're quoting exclusively from a single book written by an anticommunist
blinkandwheeze posted:Panopticon posted:this argument is fundamentally duplicitous.
how do you miss the point here so completely? i argued that moral arguments toward communism are fundamentally duplicitous to the extent that rely on idealist presuppositions. however i spent several paragraphs just now explaining that the end of exploitation or the liberation of man are not necessarily moral propositions. that's the entire basis of what i'm saying
i suppose one can also end exploitation and liberate mankind accidentally while pursuing knowledge like "how many polish officers can one soviet major-general shoot in a month"
Petrol posted:You're quoting exclusively from a single book written by an anticommunist
i could quote some noam chomsky
Panopticon posted:i suppose one can also end exploitation and liberate mankind accidentally while pursuing knowledge like "how many polish officers can one soviet major-general shoot in a month"
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furr_katyn_2013.pdf
Panopticon posted:Petrol posted:You're quoting exclusively from a single book written by an anticommunist
i could quote some noam chomsky
lmao.
Petrol posted:Panopticon posted:i suppose one can also end exploitation and liberate mankind accidentally while pursuing knowledge like "how many polish officers can one soviet major-general shoot in a month"
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furr_katyn_2013.pdf
But even researchers who contend that
the Germans shot the Poles whose bodies were disinterred by the
Germans at Katyn in April–June 1943 do not claim that the Soviets
shot no Poles at all.
uh huh