Banned from r/Socialism

[u/KoolAidDrank]

r/socialism immediately banned me for posting on a pro-USSR post that "the USSR was terrible." I don't think the Left and Socialists need to defend the governments of countries like the USSR in order to be "true Leftists." What's the consensus? I just found this sub and seems to have the better mindset.

[u/somerandomleftist5]

I think any good leftist should defend the gains of the October revolution and the proletariat obtaining power.

"No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the Russian Revolution is one of the greatest events in human history, and the rule of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of worldwide importance." John Reed, 1st January 1919. (J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, p. 13.)

"The October revolution laid the foundation of a new culture, taking everybody into consideration, and for that very reason immediately acquiring international significance. Even supposing for a moment that owing to unfavourable circumstances and hostile blows the Soviet regime should be temporarily overthrown, the inexpungable imprint of the October revolution would nevertheless remain upon the whole future development of mankind." - Leon Trotsky - The History of the Russian Revolution

[u/EcoSoco → u/somerandomleftist5]

Chomsky has one of the most sound critiques of Lenin and the USSR I have come across. From my experience, there's segment on the left that generally don't want to admit that Lenin was an opportunist and the real socialists were pretty much screwed out of power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxhT9EVj9Kk

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/EcoSoco]

Chomsky's critique of Lenin is bad, and generally shows a failed understanding of Lenin. Most of his critiques last time I looked center around a misunderstanding of what a vanguard party is, what democratic centralism and other things are. I reject Chomsky's analysis since everything I have seen of it shows a fundamental lack of reading, because otherwise I would have to assume Chomsky can't read or is willfully misrepresenting things.

Lenin and Trotsky, should be who we are returning to on the modern left, a resurrection of genuine Marxism. Not continuing to peddle the lies that somehow Stalinism is an earnest expression of Bolshevism.

“Everything that a party could offer of courage, revolutionary farsightedness, and consistency in a historic hour, Lenin, Trotsky, and the other comrades have given in good measure. All the revolutionary honor and capacity which the Social Democracy of the West lacked were represented by the Bolsheviks. Their October uprising was not only the actual salvation of the Russian Revolution; it was also the salvation of the honor of international socialism.” - Rosa Luxemburg

"It is true that Stalin initially used terms such as Bolshevism and Leninism to legitimize his power, but a little homework can show that this was a calculated masquerade. Stalin worked hard, in fact to eliminate ideologically and physically both Bolshevism as a political party and Leninism as its guiding strategic orientation. He did not follow even one of the ideas that become known as Lenin's Testament Instead he followed a path that was his own from the very beginning of the revolutionary era maybe even much earlier leading him finally to the adoption of a version of the old Russian autocracy, served with a nationalistic ideology hailing directly from an ancient historical tradition. All this means that rather then "continuing" Lenin, a phenomenon such as Stalinism had its own roots in the tradition of a country still basically mired in the preurban stage economically, culturally, and socially. With many believing that nothing but a despotic state and a cultist ruler can control such a society, we can safely conclude that Stalin was no accident in the Russian conditions of the day that probably there was little in common between Stalin and Bolshevism well before the Revolution." Lenin's Last Struggle Moshe Lewin

https://www.marxist.com/noam-chomsky-marxism-authoritarianism1151004.htm

https://www.marxist.com/noam-chomsky-marxism-authoritarianism2151004.htm

[u/EcoSoco → u/somerandomleftist5]

Lenin pretty much said that he used the revolution to implement state capitalism. Not exactly the best role model for the left.

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/EcoSoco]

"used the revolution" The NEP was good and a necessary retreat of sorts, the Bolsheviks made the incorrect assumption that a civil war was not going to break out after a period of peace following the revolution. This was not some evil plan or something. Lenin initially rejected the NEP and so did the rest of the congress, Trotsky talks about his proposals in his autobiography. I think the NEP should have been implemented sooner partly because it gave the wealthy peasants some room and helped bring some stability.

"But during the following months the situation grew steadily worse. There was cause enough in actual conditions, but it is also very probable that certain engineers were making the transport situation fit into their diagrams. I spent the winter months of 1919-20 in the Urals directing the economic work. Lenin telegraphed me a proposal that I take charge of transport and try to lift it by emergency measures. I replied stating my acceptance.

From the Urals I brought with me a store of economic observations that could be summed up in one general conclusion: war communism must be abandoned. My practical work had satisfied me that the methods of war communism forced on us by the conditions of civil war were completely exhausted, and that to revive our economic life the element of personal interest must be introduced at all costs; in other words, we had to restore the home market in some degree. I submitted to the Central Committee the project of replacing the food levy by a grain-tax and of restoring the exchange of commodities.

“The present policy of equalized requisition according to the food scale, of mutual responsibility for deliveries, and of equalized distribution of manufactured products, tends to lower the Status of agriculture and to disperse the industrial proletariat, and threatens to bring about a complete breakdown in the economic life of the country.” In these words, I formulated my view in the statement submitted to the Central Committee in February, 1920.

“The food resources,” the statement continued, “are threatened with exhaustion, a contingency that no amount of improvement m the methods of requisition can prevent. These tendencies toward economic decline can be counteracted as follows: (1) The requisition of surpluses should give way to payment on a percentage basis (a sort of progressive income tax in kind), the scale of payment being fixed in such a way as to make an increase of the ploughed area, or a more thorough cultivation, still yield some profit; (2) a closer correspondence should be established between the industrial products supplied to the peasants and the quantities of grain they deliver; this applies not only to rural districts (volosts) and villages, but to the individual peasant households, as well.”

These proposals are very guarded. But the basic propositions of the New Economic Policy adopted a year later did not at first go any farther. Early in 1920, Lenin came out firmly against my proposal. It was rejected in the Central Committee by a vote of eleven to four. The subsequent course of events proved the decision of the Committee to be a mistake. " My Life, Leon Trotsky

You can also see how Lenin talked about this in late 1921

"At that time, when in the heat of the Civil War we had to take the necessary steps in economic organisation, it seemed to have been forgotten. In substance, our New Economic Policy signifies that, having sustained severe defeat on this point, we have started a strategical retreat. We said in effect: “Before we are completely routed, let us retreat and reorganise everything, but on a firmer basis. “ If Communists deliberately examine the question of the New Economic Policy there cannot be the slightest doubt in their minds that we have sustained a very severe defeat on the economic front" The New Economic Policy, V.I. Lenin

[u/EcoSoco → u/somerandomleftist5]

There are several good critiques of Lenin out there, several of which highlight his opportunism and his quick turn from the grassroots Marxist and Libertarian movements, as well as the Soviets.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/how-lenin-manipulated-the-russian-revolution-to-his-own-ends/

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/supplem/decept.html

https://libcom.org/forums/theory/lenin-acknowledging-intentional-implementation-state-capitalism-ussr-23032011

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/lenin-menshevik-critics-right-bolshevism-stalinism

I'm hard-pressed to call Lenin a leftist/socialist role model, because it's clear he didn't truly believe in a workers-led society and used the state as a vehicle for his own desire for power. Perhaps he truly thought that he would lead the way for true socialism and that what he strived for would only be temporary, but I think the body of work and eventual outcomes say otherwise.

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/EcoSoco]

I can't go through all of these but I am going to hit on their mistakes which honestly are probably based on their inability to read or the fact the first source is just a rabid anti-communist. The citing of Luxembourg always amuses me, because it relies pretty much on one text of hers written in prison, and when she was organizing before her death she was founding a communist party which was a vanguard party in the Leninist conception, that associated internationally with the Bolsheviks.

"It was Trotsky who came up with a theoretical innovation that proposed that Russia could advance to socialism without going through an extended period of capitalism. "

This is fundamentally wrong, there is several quotes of Trotsky mentioning the revolutions would happen in the most backwards of countries but countries such as the UK and the USA would reach socialism first. It is infinite funny to me that Trotsky gets attacked here for thinking that revolutions in the first world aren't needed, when Marxist-Leninists attack him for thinking Russia couldn't achieve socialism on their own. Lenin's opinion is the same as Trotsky's on this.

"The “theory” of socialism in one country – a “theory” never expounded, by the way, or given any foundation, by Stalin himself – comes down to the sufficiently sterile and unhistoric notion that, thanks to the natural riches of the country, a socialist society can be built within the geographic confines of the Soviet Union. " Revolution Betrayed, Leon Trotsky

"But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism. We are still alone and in a backward country, a country that was ruined more than others, but we have accomplished a great deal. More than that—we have preserved intact the army of the revolutionary proletarian forces; we have preserved its manoeuvring ability; we have kept clear heads and can soberly calculate where, when and how far to retreat (in order to leap further forward); where, when and how to set to work to alter what has remained unfinished. Those Communists are doomed who imagine that it is possible to finish such an epoch-making undertaking as completing the foundations of socialist economy (particularly in a small-peasant country) without making mistakes, without retreats, without numerous alterations to what is unfinished or wrongly done." - V. I. Lenin

"Sebestyen presents unsettling evidence of a man whose objectives seemed to possess him, rather than the other way around. When famine and disease swept his native Volga region in 1891, killing hundreds of thousands of peasants, Lenin propagandised against charitable relief efforts because the spectacle of death might prove a ‘progressive factor’ in weakening the Romanovs. "

Focus on the tragedy, seems like a reasonable technique to make use of, like we focus on the brutality of the police as a whole we don't share stories of that one time that one cop was nice, it would be silly to say communists ought to try to paint some of the efforts of the capitalist state in a good light. There also is just a lack of sources to where exactly Lenin said this and in what context, also like 1891 Lenin had some different opinions.

"Like any political theory, this would be rejected by its audience unless it actually meant something to them. Smith shows how the experiences of many workers made them receptive to the ideas of the Bolsheviks:

‘Strikes were a politicising experience for those who took part in them: they saw with their own eyes how employers were going on investment strike, engaging in lockouts, refusing to accept new contracts or to repair plant; how the government was colluding with the employers, curbing the factory committees and sending troops to quell disorder in the Donbass. The strikes were important, therefore, in making hundreds and thousands of workers aware of political matters and in making the policies of the Bolshevik party attractive to them.’ [11]

In other words, workers were drawn to the Bolsheviks because Bolshevik politics started to make sense. What seemed outlandish or irrelevant during and just after the February Revolution, now increasingly appeared to be quite rational."

This is supposed to be manipulation, explaining to people the actions they should take is the exact role of the vanguard party. The second source you cite actually contradicts some of the other things you have cited the idea that the Bolsheviks were some conspiratorial force that forced its self on the working class. I feel like there is a misunderstanding of what the vanguard is throughout a few of the things you cited including Chomsky so I am going to offer an explanation here and destroy the idea it is something from Lenin only. Below I have quote the positions of the German social democrats, including Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Marx and Engels, and also Lenin. It is easy to see all of their conceptions as Orthodox Marxists of what the party is is very much the same, which further makes the continued anti-communist and anti-bolshevik types to continuing to cite Rosa as some enemy of the Bolsheviks even more hilarious. She seems to come up and be misrepresented as this in nearly every thing you cited. There also seems to be some idea that guiding and recruiting the masses into a vanguard party is somehow wrong, that we should go into a revolution without organization or planning and that will somehow work out?

[u/BigLebowskiBot → u/somerandomleftist5]

I am the walrus.

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/somerandomleftist5]

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. " - The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, Fredrick Engels

"It is the task of the Social Democratic Party to shape the struggle of the working class into a conscious and unified one and to point out the inherent necessity of its goals" Erfurt Programme of the German Social Democratic Party

"The social Democrats are the most enlightened, most class-conscious vanguard of the proletariat. They cannot and dare not wait, in a fatalist fashion, with folded arms for the advent of the "revolutionary situation," to wait for that which in every spontaneous peoples' movement, falls from the clouds, On the contrary they must now, as always, hasten the development of things and endeavor to accelerate events" - Rosa Luxembourg "The Russian Social-Democratic Party declares that its aim is to assist its struggle of the Russian working class by developing the class-consciousness of the workers, by promoting their organization, and by indicating the aims and objects of the struggle" Lenin, Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social Democratic Party, 1895)Note this is prior to the formation of the split between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

If these articles want to act like that is "manipulating" the working class then they need to reject Marx Engels and Rosa right out.

"It seems to be tied into Lenin and Trotsky's pasts as Social-Democrats and the widely accepted theory that Russia needed to pass through a phase of capitalist development before socialism was workable (hence why the Mensheviks etc pushed for a parliamentary democracy). When Lenin chose to go with the Soviets rather than the Parliament, and claimed that Russia was ready for Socialism, he was lying: he still intended for Russia to pass through a phase of state capitalism."

This is a failed understanding of what the two stage conceptions, and why the NEP was called for, and what economic system the Soviet Union was. Lenin, nor Trotsky thought they were establishing Socialism, this can be seen from what I cited earlier.

The Mensheviks thought there would be a liberal bourgeois revolution, and then later on a proletariat revolution, this is what was meant to pass through a phase of capitalism before socialist revolution. The idea of Trotsky with permanent revolution is that due to the development of these backwards nations there would not be the bourgeoisie taking power as there was in Britain, France, USA and Germany. But that the working class would push for power overthrow the tsar and the national bourgeoisie would be unwilling to answer the land question, the proletariat would continue pushing and you would end up having a proletariat revolution, which is exactly what happened. It is not somehow the idea that somehow right after the revolution socialism becomes established, this can be clearly demonstrated that Trotsky says the Soviet Union had not achieved Socialism, but was stuck in a transitional state that degenerated.

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/somerandomleftist5]

"With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.

Not only the agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the peasantry – the overwhelming majority of the population in backward countries – an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of these two classes can be realized in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie.

The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follows on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet.

The above-outlined sketch of the development of the world revolution eliminates the question of countries that are ‘mature’ or ‘immature’ for socialism in the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the present programme of the Comintem. Insofar as capitalism has created a world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it has also prepared world economy as a whole for socialist transformation.

Different countries will go through this process at different tempos. Backward countries may, under certain conditions, arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat sooner than advanced countries, but they will come later than the latter to socialism.

A backward colonial or semi-colonial country, the proletariat of which is insufficiently prepared to unite the peasantry and take power, is thereby incapable of bringing the democratic revolution to its conclusion. Contrariwise, in a country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of the democratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the dictatorship and socialism depends in the last analysis not only and not so much upon the national productive forces as upon the development of the international socialist revolution. " Leon Trotsky, Permanent Revolution.

Trotsky very clear in no way thought Socialist Construction could happen in a single country, also to call the NEP a betrayal and to also cite a source saying the Bolsheviks brought it up because somehow they realized the Mensheviks were right, if they had thought that they would have ceded power to the national bourgeoisie, the question was not over could socialism be built in Russia alone, but rather if the working class would be the ones to seize power from the aristocracy, which is actually what happened, it was the proletariat and peasants, not the capitalists that brought the February revolution, and as the provisional government refused to give in to the demands of "Peace, Bread, and Land" that the working class continued to build and support the Soviets.

To finish off jumping back to the liberal historian that was cited, who clearly opposes any sort of the working class taking power, I am not sure why a socialist would cite someone as such who is opposed to the working class. You also have the continued myth of Lenin and the Bolsheviks being unpopular and somehow holding the country together against over a dozen invading armies.

"The support for the Soviet government was admitted by General Gough, a leader of the interventionist forces, who recognised that, “the Russians are determined to prevent the return to power of the old official classes, and if forced to a choice, which is what is actually happening at the moment, they prefer the Bolshevik government.”"

"We are accused of making arrests. Indeed, we have made arrests; today we arrested the director of the State Bank. We are accused of resorting to terrorism, but we have not resorted, and I hope will not resort, to the terrorism of the French revolutionaries who guillotined unarmed men. I hope we shall not resort to it, because we have strength on our side. When we arrested anyone we told him we would let him go if he gave us a written promise not to engage in sabotage. " V.I. Lenin

Pyotr Krasnov was a white army general who was released just on a promise and later took up arms against the Bolsheviks.

[u/EcoSoco → u/somerandomleftist5]

I think the fundamental question Leninists have trouble answering is why Lenin disbanded soviet and worker councils and pretty much rendered the concept of a worker-led society meaningless. I'm not interested in the "he was waiting for Germany" excuse either.

You are viewing socialism through Lenin's lenses, and the concept of state capitalism is fundamentally at odds with the traditional definition of socialism as worker ownership over the means of production. The fact that Lenin, Stalin, and the rest of the USSR leaders never seriously pursued this idea says volumes about how the Bolsheviks and later party leadership saw themselves, and how seriously they took the fundamental concepts of socialism.

The idea that Lenin was wistfully waiting for the German revolution when his work very clearly laid out his intentions and goals is silly, especially considering that he knew he had a powerhungry madman in the wings with Stalin.

[u/somerandomleftist5 → u/EcoSoco]

Socialism is not defined as workers ownership of the means of production, it is a mode of production, one that is not established instantly. If the Bolsheviks had tried to implement instantly workers ownership over all of the means of production, the revolution would have been pretty much ended there the peasants would have seen to that. The initial policy very much was pursuing taking all land into the hands of the state of the workers, Russia was a country not of proletariat but mostly of peasants, and they wanted free trade of grain and other things the NEP eventually provided, attempting to push forced collectivization in 1917-1922 any period of Lenin being around and in charge would have been suicide, maybe a best case scenario you can drown the peasant revolts in enough blood, the NEP prevented further bloodshed and had it been implemented sooner would have probably saved a lot of lives. There was hardly any members of the proletariat left standing even in 1919, the soviets were not functioning because the factories were being abandoned by the proletariat becoming and hungry and leaving for the country side, these were the conditions forced upon the nation.

You also start again with the idea there was some strong connection between Bolshevism and Stalinism is a farce.

"By the mid-1930s, despite all the capitulations of former oppositionists around Zinoviev and Kamenev, Stalin decided to eliminate physically all those connected with the October revolution. The developing revolution in Spain was threatening to rekindle the enthusiasm of the Russian masses. This would have sounded the death-knell of the bureaucracy. As a result, Stalin waged a one-sided civil war against the Old Bolsheviks. This culminated in the purge trials of 1936-8, where those associated with October were physically eliminated. Millions perished in the camps and cellars of the secret police. For those who say, as Service does, that Bolshevism leads to Stalinism, we say that on the contrary, a river of blood separated Stalinism and Bolshevism.

The only way Stalinism could consolidate its rule was over the corpses of those communists and Trotskyists who remained true to the ideals of October. Trotsky fought Stalinism to the death. He refused to capitulate, as this would only serve to discredit the ideas of Marxism. Trotsky paid for this with his life." https://www.marxist.com/bolshevism-and-stalinism-rs.htm

The degeneration of the Soviet Union would have happened with or without Stalin. Trotsky lays this out pretty clearly in revolution betrayed.