Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
In 1917, there were 2 governments, the Worker and Peasant supported Soviet Government, and the Bourgeoisie and Petite Bourgeoisie supported liberal Provisional Government. Lenin was elected via the Soviet system, and the Socialist Revolutionaries were elected in the bourgeois controlled Provisional Government. After the election, the Soviet Government disbanded the Provisional Government via revolution, the same measures proposed by Marx the entire time.
Secondly, Lenin never once wrote about how dictators are essential to Communism. Lenin fully believed in Soviet Democracy, ie workers councils, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a term coined by Karl Marx to describe a Socialist State that had not fully absorbed all Capital into the Public Sector, and thus had to suppress the still existing Bourgeoisie. The reason for this is that Capital can only be wrested by the degree to which it develops! Per Engels:
Dictators are indeed antithetical to Communism, but you've entirely misframed Marx, Lenin, the USSR, and the October Revolution. The Soviet Republic in control of a largely Publicly Owned, Centrally Planned economy is in no way comparable to feudalism, but is actually existing Socialism.
Funilly enough, Lenin described exactly what you're now doing in The State and Revolution:
It's funny that you describe Communism as a "dream," it accurately depicts your idealistic understanding of it, along with your "reminder."
That's an interesting reading of history... I'm sure.
But the truth is that Lenin lost the 1917 election, threw a hissy fit and demanded that the newly elected assembly cede all power to him, or else.
The Bolsheviks seized power and banned all opposition parties, and then Lenin justified his coup by claiming that "Vanguard Parties" are part of communism, when all they actually are is a dictatorship.
Stalin wasn't the first Soviet Dictator. He was just more honest about being a monster. Well, to himself, anyway.
It isn't an "interesting reading of history," it's what literally happened. The fact that you're placing such importance on the vestigial Provisional Government's election when the Workers had already embraced the Soviet Government and used it for all intents and purposes as their only government is liberalism, and anti-revolutionary.
Secondly, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as envisioned by Marx is fully compatible with a One-Party system. Multi-party systems are not more democratic, just more divided. Within the Soviet system, there was more democratic control than in the liberal Provisional Government system.
Finally, the idea that a mass worker party can be a dictatorship, as in the modern, single-person autocracy, is absurd. Vanguard Parties, moreover, are a proven method to establish Socialism. They aren't unaccountable cabals, but large worker parties made up of the most politically experienced of the Proletariat, which has been successfully replicated in countries like Cuba and the PRC in establishing Socialism.
You seriously need to read Marx, it's desparately obvious that you are working off of Wikipedia definitions and not actual Marxist theory. I suggest my intro to Marxism list.
Lenin was a monster. He just had slightly better PR after his death because Stalin was so much worse.
Because one party bullshit dictatorships are not the proletariat.
They are the new feudal lords, who then need the guillotine.
The Bolsheviks were a minority party overall, if they hadn't been they would have won Russia's only free and fair election. But they lost and launched a coup.
Then the tankies come in and pretend the new lords are still part of the people.
One Party democratic systems are not dictatorships. I don't know how else to explain this in clearer and more simple terms, moreover the Bolsheviks were made up of the Proletariat, and countless workers joined their ranks.
Further, the economic system of the USSR was based on Public Ownership and Central Planning, not agrarian feudalism. You keep using words that have specific meanings to elicit an emotional response despite having no actual bearing in reality.
Finally, the Bolsheviks were the majority, that's what the name "Bolshevik" stems from. Why is it that you rely on the muddy results of a vestigial illegitimate government that had already been abandoned by the Workers, and not the Soviet Government that existed alongside it and had already elected Lenin and the Bolsheviks prior to the disbanding of the Constituent Assembly? You are calling liberal dictatorships of the bourgeoisie "free and fair elections," this is the level you stoop to in order to piss on Marx's grave one last time.
Additionally, it was a revolution, not a coup, as the majority of people supported the Soviet Government over the liberal Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks enjoyed the power they had because they were real representatives of the Working Class, even Kropotkin recognized this.
Your idea of "Marxism" doesn't follow any strain of Marxism historically, it's so confused and self-contradictory that you end up praising liberalism and calling Socialism "feudalism." Again, read Marx.
Keep telling yourself that.
But no, the truth is single party "communism" is just a new form of nobility and peasants. How many millions did Stalin and Mao kill? All because they had totalitarian control.
If Leninism worked, the Soviet Union wouldn't have fallen. But no, Leninism led directly to Stalinism. There were no guardrails, no protections, because Lenin had already banned opposition, Which is dictator 101.
One Party Communism is the Communism of Marx, Lenin didn't invent that. Lenin's contributions to Marxism were more with respect to analysis of Capitalism as it reaches Imperialism, the Soviet method of democracy, the concept of Democratic Centralism, the role of the peasantry in revolution, and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.
Moreover, the collapse of the USSR was multifaceted. If you want an honest critique of the USSR, my reading list includes Blackshirts and Reds in the very first section, and you'd do well to read it. My point isn't that the USSR was a utopia, but that it was real, and authentically Socialist, and thus the problems it faced are real and need to be learned from for any Socialist movement going forward.
Marxism-Leninism is still the guiding ideology of Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, China, and more, and all have managed to learn from the experiences of the USSR, and its downfall. The fact that you think Marxism-Leninism does not work implies you believe all of these states will inevitably fall for the same reasons the USSR did, despite having entirely different circumstances and learning from it.
Finally, Lenin banned factionalism. Open discussion was allowed, not wrecking or going against the Socialist system entirely. The Soviet system was still democratic.
Do you consider yourself a Marxist?