Andrei Suslenkou, director for ideological work at the Minsk Tractor Factory, is proudly showing off the benefits his company offers, at low or no cost, to more than 30,000 workers and retirees. At the plant’s health clinic, 560 doctors and staff use sleek Western equipment to provide care from routine checkups to surgery, including laser eyesight correction. A Palace of Culture opposite the factory’s ornate, Stalin-era gates includes a plush theater wired for light and sound. It just hosted a concert in honor of the “Day of Machine Builders.” Outside the capital, a woodland sanatorium provides cures, vacations, and summer camps for 300 employees’ kids at a time. “They were smart professionals back then who set up these social services,” says Suslenkou, adding that he audited the system Soviet planners made for the factory and found little “excess” to cut.
Basically shows how good Belarus has had it compared to every other ex-Soviet state up to now. Just look at this graph.
And how is that ever going to happen with capitalists being free as well to exert their power and influence?
Who is going to keep that and outside interventions in check?
No, implying thats a situation where there needs to be a fucking state
Or is your utopia just going to spring into existence? Global wokeness over night?
I guess not, so who will protect you against the inevitable? There is a very obvious need for some form of organised state.
And on the matter of dictatorship, maybe read up on the marxist definition of dictatorship of the proletariat vs dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
IMO: If you cannot accept that there needs to be a state to fend off internal and external counterrevolutionaries, then whatever you want as an utopia is a pipedream.
But maybe so we can understand each other's thoughts better, I'm genuinely interested, what your idea of transforming society from our capitalist hellworld to a communist society could/should look like?
i dunno i see the easiest way for the workers to gain power is through an organized revolutionary union movement (control of industry and trade) where there arent any ways for strong qlicues that have strong motives to only work for themselves to gain power
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not attacking you or your ideas, I actually quite like them.
But my problem, how are you going to manage those who do not want what you want(internally and externally) but have a lot of power and/or resources to fuck up everything you do, either until your people lose hope and turn against the revolution or they might just roll you over, maybe even literally?
For a very recent example of exactly this happening: Look at Bolivia, Evo basically tried to establish a social democracy, but capital interests couldn't even accept that.
Socialdemocracy isnt an armed revolution. from my understanding evo was just a socialdemocratic electoral politician and he wasnt trying to trying to organize the workers militantly. Just like Marxist-Leninnist i dont know how to change this relationship betyween the workers and the poeple "leading the vanguard" but isnt the whole concept around unions just what should bring everyone on the same page?
I'm not debating your idea of revolution through basically workers empowering themselves, but who manages that? Isn't there already an organization present that will then after existing means of social organization falls away defacto take the position of a state?
Or do you mean this should happen on a per company/union basis within existing capitalist nations while leaving capitalism intact?
On Bolivia: I was just pointing out how little will be tolerated by the capitalist class, so your revolution will be under siege from day one.
That is why IMO you need some form of central organization that can command the combined forces of your workers to defend against those that do not support what you do. They wil be there and they won't give up easily. Even if we assume your capitalist class just fucks off, when has the US or any other capitalist power ever let any form of revolution or overthrow of capitalism happen without intervening in some form?
Even if we assume the US just fucks off too, who manages things like education or healthcare or legal disputes?
The question is how do we make the "central organiztion" accountable and actually fucking democratic and non corrupt. I think the proble m is with the unavoidable byroucracy int the party system that the lenist followed. the ussr was copletely inefficient and fucked after stalin took over. They could have given out political power t othe vast amounts of land and industrial and agricultural powers but they instead somehow frucking lost to the imperialists while being the number 2 super power why did they lose? obviously it was their political system somewhere after ww2 they completely lost the poeple and no one hd any fucking power to defend their institutions (they did try) and ussr was dismanteled and all land and industry was sold off to thre fucking pigs
I mostly actually agree with you here. This is where all Soviet nations IMO went at least somewhat wrong, because power structures became immovable.
Thereby they themselves created the disillusionment within their citizens which in the end contributed in many ways towards the downfall of the USSR.
Although I still wouldn't completely condemn them because of this either. I think Parenti gives the USSR a fair shake, so to say, in Blackshirts and Reds, when it comes to problems they had further developing society.
As a side note: I do think the USSR had forms of recalling representatives and shit and other forms of power delegation, which might not seem familiar to us, but if IIRC they unfortunately became more of a formality than much else.(pls don't nail me on this, bit shaky on my history when it comes to the details)
My main point: I was just stating that there is just a need for some form of central organization to firstly immediately defend your revolution and if successful to further your classes interests and develop society.
But how we organize this so that the whole of society stays engaged and is held accountable to each other is probably one of the biggest questions that I think is very hard to answer and maybe each revolution needs to answer somewhat on its own as well.
unfortunately without one your [whatever you want to call your project besides a state] won't be able to defend against the remaining states and the project ends
The "whatever you want to call your project besides a state" dig betrays the fact that you don't even understand the most basic concept of ML ideology--the idea that the dictatorship of the proletariat will "wither away" when true, stateless communism is achieved. If you can't even conceive of and don't want to strive for a stateless society, you're not a communist.
"Whatever you want to call your project besides a state..." It's called communism. That's what communism is. I'm not even an anarchist, but this is not how you engage with anarchism as an ML.
"Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state... ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom". Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state."
I guess i dont want a state then
And how is that ever going to happen with capitalists being free as well to exert their power and influence?
Who is going to keep that and outside interventions in check?
Inmlpying thats a situation where therer needs to be a fucking dictatorship
No, implying thats a situation where there needs to be a fucking state
Or is your utopia just going to spring into existence? Global wokeness over night?
I guess not, so who will protect you against the inevitable? There is a very obvious need for some form of organised state.
And on the matter of dictatorship, maybe read up on the marxist definition of dictatorship of the proletariat vs dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Sorry i dont want dictarors to have any fucking chance to gain power
IMO: If you cannot accept that there needs to be a state to fend off internal and external counterrevolutionaries, then whatever you want as an utopia is a pipedream.
But maybe so we can understand each other's thoughts better, I'm genuinely interested, what your idea of transforming society from our capitalist hellworld to a communist society could/should look like?
i dunno i see the easiest way for the workers to gain power is through an organized revolutionary union movement (control of industry and trade) where there arent any ways for strong qlicues that have strong motives to only work for themselves to gain power
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not attacking you or your ideas, I actually quite like them.
But my problem, how are you going to manage those who do not want what you want(internally and externally) but have a lot of power and/or resources to fuck up everything you do, either until your people lose hope and turn against the revolution or they might just roll you over, maybe even literally?
For a very recent example of exactly this happening: Look at Bolivia, Evo basically tried to establish a social democracy, but capital interests couldn't even accept that.
Socialdemocracy isnt an armed revolution. from my understanding evo was just a socialdemocratic electoral politician and he wasnt trying to trying to organize the workers militantly. Just like Marxist-Leninnist i dont know how to change this relationship betyween the workers and the poeple "leading the vanguard" but isnt the whole concept around unions just what should bring everyone on the same page?
I'm not debating your idea of revolution through basically workers empowering themselves, but who manages that? Isn't there already an organization present that will then after existing means of social organization falls away defacto take the position of a state?
Or do you mean this should happen on a per company/union basis within existing capitalist nations while leaving capitalism intact?
On Bolivia: I was just pointing out how little will be tolerated by the capitalist class, so your revolution will be under siege from day one.
That is why IMO you need some form of central organization that can command the combined forces of your workers to defend against those that do not support what you do. They wil be there and they won't give up easily. Even if we assume your capitalist class just fucks off, when has the US or any other capitalist power ever let any form of revolution or overthrow of capitalism happen without intervening in some form?
Even if we assume the US just fucks off too, who manages things like education or healthcare or legal disputes?
Btw what do you think of Cuba?
The question is how do we make the "central organiztion" accountable and actually fucking democratic and non corrupt. I think the proble m is with the unavoidable byroucracy int the party system that the lenist followed. the ussr was copletely inefficient and fucked after stalin took over. They could have given out political power t othe vast amounts of land and industrial and agricultural powers but they instead somehow frucking lost to the imperialists while being the number 2 super power why did they lose? obviously it was their political system somewhere after ww2 they completely lost the poeple and no one hd any fucking power to defend their institutions (they did try) and ussr was dismanteled and all land and industry was sold off to thre fucking pigs
I mostly actually agree with you here. This is where all Soviet nations IMO went at least somewhat wrong, because power structures became immovable.
Thereby they themselves created the disillusionment within their citizens which in the end contributed in many ways towards the downfall of the USSR.
Although I still wouldn't completely condemn them because of this either. I think Parenti gives the USSR a fair shake, so to say, in Blackshirts and Reds, when it comes to problems they had further developing society.
As a side note: I do think the USSR had forms of recalling representatives and shit and other forms of power delegation, which might not seem familiar to us, but if IIRC they unfortunately became more of a formality than much else.(pls don't nail me on this, bit shaky on my history when it comes to the details)
My main point: I was just stating that there is just a need for some form of central organization to firstly immediately defend your revolution and if successful to further your classes interests and develop society.
But how we organize this so that the whole of society stays engaged and is held accountable to each other is probably one of the biggest questions that I think is very hard to answer and maybe each revolution needs to answer somewhat on its own as well.
Btw I didn't downvote you. :sankara-salute:
Then don't leave them a nice, undefended non-state to invade.
unfortunately without one your [whatever you want to call your project besides a state] won't be able to defend against the remaining states and the project ends
The "whatever you want to call your project besides a state" dig betrays the fact that you don't even understand the most basic concept of ML ideology--the idea that the dictatorship of the proletariat will "wither away" when true, stateless communism is achieved. If you can't even conceive of and don't want to strive for a stateless society, you're not a communist.
"Whatever you want to call your project besides a state..." It's called communism. That's what communism is. I'm not even an anarchist, but this is not how you engage with anarchism as an ML.
"Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state... ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom". Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state."
-Lenin
I see you repeating those words but I do not understand the significance