You make a very interesting point: is it possible to understand Marxism, lead a party, and make a deliberate choice towards revisionism on purpose?
I think the answer is no. Liberalism is self-defeating. It destroys itself. The entire European project is self-destructive. If one doesn't understand that, it's possible to say "I choose to be rich through revisionism", but it is, fundamentally, a mistake. The USSR proved it. The leaders wanted liberalism and most of them lost their shirts or their lives. Only a few made it out rich, and they've been dealing with the fall out for a long time. It's all coming to a head for them now, and they will end up in a situation within the next generation where the choice will be socialism or barbarism.
I think it's possible that the Chinese Marxist education requirements are based on this belief. There is no way to choose liberalism without it being a mistake, and educating people on this is critical. Anyone who chooses to maliciously pursue liberalism is doing it for some motivation - usually "a better life for me and mine" - and the education can and should correctly show that liberalism will guarantee the opposite to occur.
I really think the SU was condemned before Stalin even died. There was a grand window for selling out and dying comfortably, and every head of state after Stalin took it and did just that, all the way up to Yeltsin. Of course, it's very likely that you know things I don't. Did Yeltsin butcher the political class to a degree exceeding even the Ezovshchina? That would make a good case for questioning the small fries knowing the terms of the game.
But honestly, I think your line of reasoning is Enlightenment-style idealism that assumes people are rational actors. Even if there was substantial risk and a strong likelihood of that risk being realized, would there not still be a good number of takers? Everything I know about humanity says that a meaningful segment of the population is easily enticed by great rewards at great risk, especially if it's not a very difficult risk to take (however dangerous it might be). Perhaps I don't know anything, in which case I would appreciate you returning me to Socratic ignorance by telling me so.
Fairly solid lines of exploration. I agree that the death of the USSR was set in motion before Stalin took office. In fact, some regard him taking office as the sign that the death was inevitable. Lenin knew Stalin couldn't take the union to sustainability but there was no one else that could do what was needed. Likely no one other than Stalin at the time could have so successfully defeated the Third Reich. But the union needed to build the socialist experiment beyond the threat of revisionism and Stalin couldn't do that. I often use Stalin's purges as evidence that things were terrible. He purged so many people and was still surrounded by revisionists.
However, I agree that people aren't necessarily rational actors and that educating them isn't enough. That's why the CPC doesn't solely rely on education. Under Xi we have major anti corruption efforts and we have the death sentences of billionaires. There are millions of grassroots organizations of communists. There is a huge domestic propaganda machine. There is a significant effort to link Chinese history with a Marxist future culturally. There are significant counterintelligence efforts up to and including prosecuting and banning cults and their leaders.
The reeducation of Xinjiang is a good example of how effective it is to use education plus propaganda plus material conditions plus physical presence plus cultural autonomy and a few other factors. Terrorist attacks in the region plummeted and the region is safely going through an internal reintegration process that maintains its cultural and political autonomy.
Anyone who would act to move towards revisionism irrationally would need other structures, like a social milieu that agreed with them, a cultural context that allowed them to operate and recruit and organize, etc. The CPC appears to understand this and has established a comprehensive set of systems including language, tradition, culture, medicine, politics, education, voluntarism, employment, and so much more that has made it very difficult for revisionists who are making mistakes to make those mistakes all the way to the point where they have organized a bunch of other people making the same mistake and gotten them into position to steer the systems.
The best evidence we have is history. Stalin was elected only 7 years after the October revolution and, as we've both said, the death of the union was already being written.
Compare that to China which is now in its 75th year. By this time, USSR was well into Gorbachev. There is no evidence that China has even reached the point of equivalence with late Kruschev. China has simply done a significantly better job at managing reaction and revisionism than the USSR did.
Is there still risk? Sure! But for my money, if I were to try and answer what it would like to build the first successful socialist state, complete with resisting North Atlantic imperialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism, climate change, the advent of Internet, etc - I would be hard pressed to describe something better than what China is doing.
Lenin knew Stalin couldn't take the union to sustainability
Are you referring to something more substantial than the supposed Will?
I often use Stalin's purges as evidence that things were terrible. He purged so many people and was still surrounded by revisionists.
I mean, considering we know that Yagoda was part of an opposition bloc, how implausible is it that the guy who replaced him also was some kind of conspiracist? I've never heard of the Yezhochina doing anything good, and it was quite unlike what happened before and after it. Granted, I think Stalin acted with wild negligence, but the hard pivot in policy lining up precisely with there being a new dude overseeing it from an office that was just infiltrated, then pivoting back with his death? Especially since it didn't seem to really answer the revisionism problem?
Idk, the very same testimony implicitly denies that Yezhov was part of their intelligence network, but how many conspiracies were there under Stalin? This sort of thing is very difficult for me to parse. Did Stalin just decide to turn over a new leaf, but accomplish that by framing someone as being another enemy of the state? Was Yezhov really just a fall guy when the former supposed fall guy really was a compradore? Was Yezhov just a personally fucked up and incompetent guy with no (further) conspiracy involved that Stalin and co just let have power he seriously shouldn't have? (along with the aforementioned negligence)
idk, I guess maybe it was the last one
This is really off-topic, but it's an issue that really bugs me. In any case, I guess my original point is that I don't think the Yezhovshchina was really purging all that many revisionists except by incident of killing huge swaths of people. I doubt the veracity of the will, but this certainly makes the case Stalin wasn't really the best leader for "sustainability," at least.
Wait a second, doesn't Trotsky work as a great example of someone well-educated in Marxism who chose to be some bullshit compradore instead, even if he only had mixed success at it?
Anyway, I've seen people argue that the PRC was set down the wrong path by the conciliatory foreign policy of late Mao -- which mirrors Khrushchev's -- and persists in some form to this day. I don't know enough to talk about something like that, and maybe they were just ultras who even dislike Mao.
You make a very interesting point: is it possible to understand Marxism, lead a party, and make a deliberate choice towards revisionism on purpose?
I think the answer is no. Liberalism is self-defeating. It destroys itself. The entire European project is self-destructive. If one doesn't understand that, it's possible to say "I choose to be rich through revisionism", but it is, fundamentally, a mistake. The USSR proved it. The leaders wanted liberalism and most of them lost their shirts or their lives. Only a few made it out rich, and they've been dealing with the fall out for a long time. It's all coming to a head for them now, and they will end up in a situation within the next generation where the choice will be socialism or barbarism.
I think it's possible that the Chinese Marxist education requirements are based on this belief. There is no way to choose liberalism without it being a mistake, and educating people on this is critical. Anyone who chooses to maliciously pursue liberalism is doing it for some motivation - usually "a better life for me and mine" - and the education can and should correctly show that liberalism will guarantee the opposite to occur.
I really think the SU was condemned before Stalin even died. There was a grand window for selling out and dying comfortably, and every head of state after Stalin took it and did just that, all the way up to Yeltsin. Of course, it's very likely that you know things I don't. Did Yeltsin butcher the political class to a degree exceeding even the Ezovshchina? That would make a good case for questioning the small fries knowing the terms of the game.
But honestly, I think your line of reasoning is Enlightenment-style idealism that assumes people are rational actors. Even if there was substantial risk and a strong likelihood of that risk being realized, would there not still be a good number of takers? Everything I know about humanity says that a meaningful segment of the population is easily enticed by great rewards at great risk, especially if it's not a very difficult risk to take (however dangerous it might be). Perhaps I don't know anything, in which case I would appreciate you returning me to Socratic ignorance by telling me so.
Fairly solid lines of exploration. I agree that the death of the USSR was set in motion before Stalin took office. In fact, some regard him taking office as the sign that the death was inevitable. Lenin knew Stalin couldn't take the union to sustainability but there was no one else that could do what was needed. Likely no one other than Stalin at the time could have so successfully defeated the Third Reich. But the union needed to build the socialist experiment beyond the threat of revisionism and Stalin couldn't do that. I often use Stalin's purges as evidence that things were terrible. He purged so many people and was still surrounded by revisionists.
However, I agree that people aren't necessarily rational actors and that educating them isn't enough. That's why the CPC doesn't solely rely on education. Under Xi we have major anti corruption efforts and we have the death sentences of billionaires. There are millions of grassroots organizations of communists. There is a huge domestic propaganda machine. There is a significant effort to link Chinese history with a Marxist future culturally. There are significant counterintelligence efforts up to and including prosecuting and banning cults and their leaders.
The reeducation of Xinjiang is a good example of how effective it is to use education plus propaganda plus material conditions plus physical presence plus cultural autonomy and a few other factors. Terrorist attacks in the region plummeted and the region is safely going through an internal reintegration process that maintains its cultural and political autonomy.
Anyone who would act to move towards revisionism irrationally would need other structures, like a social milieu that agreed with them, a cultural context that allowed them to operate and recruit and organize, etc. The CPC appears to understand this and has established a comprehensive set of systems including language, tradition, culture, medicine, politics, education, voluntarism, employment, and so much more that has made it very difficult for revisionists who are making mistakes to make those mistakes all the way to the point where they have organized a bunch of other people making the same mistake and gotten them into position to steer the systems.
The best evidence we have is history. Stalin was elected only 7 years after the October revolution and, as we've both said, the death of the union was already being written.
Compare that to China which is now in its 75th year. By this time, USSR was well into Gorbachev. There is no evidence that China has even reached the point of equivalence with late Kruschev. China has simply done a significantly better job at managing reaction and revisionism than the USSR did.
Is there still risk? Sure! But for my money, if I were to try and answer what it would like to build the first successful socialist state, complete with resisting North Atlantic imperialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism, climate change, the advent of Internet, etc - I would be hard pressed to describe something better than what China is doing.
Are you referring to something more substantial than the supposed Will?
I mean, considering we know that Yagoda was part of an opposition bloc, how implausible is it that the guy who replaced him also was some kind of conspiracist? I've never heard of the Yezhochina doing anything good, and it was quite unlike what happened before and after it. Granted, I think Stalin acted with wild negligence, but the hard pivot in policy lining up precisely with there being a new dude overseeing it from an office that was just infiltrated, then pivoting back with his death? Especially since it didn't seem to really answer the revisionism problem?
Idk, the very same testimony implicitly denies that Yezhov was part of their intelligence network, but how many conspiracies were there under Stalin? This sort of thing is very difficult for me to parse. Did Stalin just decide to turn over a new leaf, but accomplish that by framing someone as being another enemy of the state? Was Yezhov really just a fall guy when the former supposed fall guy really was a compradore? Was Yezhov just a personally fucked up and incompetent guy with no (further) conspiracy involved that Stalin and co just let have power he seriously shouldn't have? (along with the aforementioned negligence)
idk, I guess maybe it was the last one
This is really off-topic, but it's an issue that really bugs me. In any case, I guess my original point is that I don't think the Yezhovshchina was really purging all that many revisionists except by incident of killing huge swaths of people. I doubt the veracity of the will, but this certainly makes the case Stalin wasn't really the best leader for "sustainability," at least.
Wait a second, doesn't Trotsky work as a great example of someone well-educated in Marxism who chose to be some bullshit compradore instead, even if he only had mixed success at it?
Anyway, I've seen people argue that the PRC was set down the wrong path by the conciliatory foreign policy of late Mao -- which mirrors Khrushchev's -- and persists in some form to this day. I don't know enough to talk about something like that, and maybe they were just ultras who even dislike Mao.