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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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I disagree with the characterization of workers being treated as stupid by the Bolsheviks. In fact, Bolsheviks spent a lot of time on educating the workers and helping them develop politically. Bolshevik organization was fundamentally grassroots driven with party cells self organizing across Russia. What the Bolsheviks recognized however is that not everyone has the time to invest in developing deep understanding of politics, and that's why you need professional revolutionaries who make this their job.
Nobody is arguing that USSR was some utopia, and the reality is that any human society will have bad policies and other kinds of problems. What matters is the overall direction of travel and whether the society is able to learn from its mistakes.
I'm arguing that menshivisks wanted to create capitalist relations instead of a proletarian revolution. Claiming that Marx originally thought that capitalism would forge a proletariat that would turn against capitalism as the basis for introducing capitalism is nonsensical. Russian existing conditions already produced a proletariat that was revolutionary as was evidenced by the revolution that Bolsheviks carried out. Meanwhile, more advanced capitalist societies in the west failed to produce revolutionary proletariat of their own. The history shows that Marx was not correct in his initial assessment.
While there certainly were problematic aspects of Stalin's policies, they were clearly correct in the broad sense. The notion that the working class was more oppressed under Stalin than during tsarist times is absurd beyond belief.
The mensheviks were far more foundational to the soviets. After the revolution the bolsheviks immediately went to centralize the hierarchy and weaken the autonomy of soviets. But yeah even bolsheviks are marxists, so there is a level of respect for the worker. I simply dont believe that they would in future actually push for the policy of workers owning their means of production and being able to be autonomous.
Well with mensheviks they did not want to be the bourgeois though. I dont know how you mean that they would create the capitalist relations. I think they simply saw capitalism as a necessary middle step and opposed bolsheviks in thinking that industrialization should be carried out after the socialist revolution.
In the marxs case capitalism does forge the proletariat through exploitation. The function of capitalist is to produce workers separated from their means of production. He also attributes inevitable centralization to capitalism and, because hes humanist, he goes to imply that when the majority of exploited workers becomes large enough, the system must undergo a revolution. His argument in my view makes sense precisely as a critique of capitalism.
i still disagree with the broad correctness. Here i side with the bolsheviks, because i still prefer their ideas on industrialization to those of stalin. Yeah i take back the comparison to tsar, sorry. I could nitpick about how in specific locations in specific periods I would be right, but overall i still would be wrong. I take that back.
While you don't believe that Bolsheviks would push for workers owning the means of production, you have no problem believing that capitalism would magically turn into communism. Despite a century of evidence to the contrary.
That is the only way his argument make sense, and that's precisely why it's no logical for Marxists to pursue capitalism. However, now that we have more historical evidence, it's clear that Marx vastly underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, and the levels of exploitation the workers will put with under it.
Not magically i think unionization is paramount to the revolution. The evidence could be interpreted as you do. The european nations are indeed good counterexample to marx. Germany before nazis, france in the 1968, partially greece, but there us just invaded. That being said this does not discourage democratic unionization and strikes. They are still effective we just have to adapt so that they remain effective. I think that as the exploitation will increase like now in the us, workers will feel the class struggle and recognize that they cannot remain idle. The organizers then I would prefer to be revolutionary marxists instead of just revolutionaries. Maybe we use the word differently, by marxists here i mean that workers owning the means of prod. is their main goal.
Nobody is arguing against unionization and strikes though. What's being said is that these things alone are demonstrably insufficient to overthrow capitalism. The only approach that has been shown to work reliably is the one Bolsheviks pursued. By Marxists, I mean people who have genuine understanding of material dialectics and are able to apply this understanding to the current material conditions to produce the desired results. Marxism is a framework for understanding the world.
So you regard the situation in russia after 1905 or maybe even before as comparable to what either today capitalism is, or back then was? I think that first of all since russia back then was not even industrialized for any future revolutions we are essentially forced to accept marxs framework. We are not overthrowing monarchy. Also russia back then was so incredibly disorganized and non resilient that modern comparison in developed countries is very difficult. And when you say that bolshevism proved itself as good at overthrowing capitalism, my point is partially also that it wasnt exactly much capitalist like, what russia was back then. Otherwise there would be barely any difference between mensheviks and bolsheviks, since the bourgeois revolution wouldbt be needed.
Korea and vietnam would be simmilar, china as far as industrialization goes.
i dont think that we are going to be overthrowing weak poorly managed monarchies. I think that the revolution against capitalism in future will be more simmilar to marxs writing. But i also think that after that the framework of material conditions will be understood even by regular workers.
I'm pointing out the historical fact that the labor in Russia was sufficiently class conscious to carry out the revolution which disproves your thesis that further capitalist development was necessary.
I don't even know what point you're attempting to make here. What stage of capitalist development Russia was at is utterly irrelevant. The actual problem was that the means of production were privately owned, and the goal of a socialist revolution is to put the ownership in the hands of the working majority. That's precisely what Bolsheviks did.
The workers in the west are far more educated today than they were a century ago. The levels of literacy are far high, access to information is much more readily available, and so on. Yet, despite that, the revolutionary potential in the west is entirely absent. It's quite clear that the framework for understanding material conditions doesn't just spontaneously appear among the workers. As Bolsheviks correctly understood, a socialist revolution requires a professional vanguard of revolutionaries to organize the workers.
Yes it was a revolution against a preindustrial and mostly feudal monarchy. It baffles me how you want to infer something about how this would work against a late capitalist industrialized system.
The point of capitalist development is relevant to a historical materialist. I hope that we will agree that the hierarchy of owbership is radically different under feudal monarchy and developed industrialized capitalism. The means of production were in the hands of the state controlled by the party, controlled by the central committee or politburo. I would prefer if they were not only in the hands of the workers, but also in their control. I dont think that the workers appreciated under stalins decision for example that they had to give out more grain than they produced. Means of production were truly only in their hands, not control.
Well lets not forget western history. A materialist may expect this consciousness during crises and unions to rise in numbers. 1960s for example. In the us very large part of the population simply democratically and actively opposed in no small part their current material conditions and chose to not adhere to the capitalist line. Yes the fbi crushed many of these movements, but they very much emerged democrstically, from the material conditions. Assault the workforce, you will get dissent.
I partially agree, but this is common to all marxists, that this dissent needs to be organized, but in my view theres little need for the specific form of a vanguard party.
It baffles me how you can't understand how the exact same principles apply to a late stage capitalist system.
Do elaborate on that because what people are realizing is the exact opposite, hence people like Varoufakis now using terms such as technofeudalism.
The party represents the working majority, and it's clear primitive organization simply does not scale. It is not possible for large numbers of people to coordinate effectively without central planning organs. There's a reason these structures evolve in every human society as it scale. Not only that, but we see the same thing happening in nature as well with complex organisms evolving things like the nervous system and the brain. It's an efficient solution to the problem of coordination.
I don't think you appreciate that redistribution of resources at scale avoided local hoarding and prevented famines. In fact, the famine in the 30s was in large parts caused by kulaks hoarding cattle and grain.
And the movement FBI had to crush were very much organized along Bolshevik principles which proves my point. Black Panthers were explicitly a Marxist Leninist movement.
And this sort of view is precisely where there are no serious movements in the west.
Well again you provide no historical proof against a industrialized capitalist system. Trying to argue that it will work the same is the opposite of mhistorical materialism.
Ok here I dont know where to begin. Well lets beginwoth capitalism. Why was the bourgeois revolution so violent precisely against feudal lords. If the structure is the same why were their estates privatized in sich a manner? Why did feudalist system not develop industries? Why is marxs critique not applied to feudalism also, when they could be used interchangebly. You use some wording that yannis has used and try to claim that pretty much all marxists and even most economists dont understand what they talk about.
i agree with the scaling argument. Thats why the soviets and factory committees were founded, so that they could be what controlls the production as informed and effective as possible. Yes these hierarchies evolve in ant colonies for example. You know the workers do what they must and will die if the colony chooses so. I must admit that i fail to see the relevancy. A worst social darwinist could use such an argument.
Yet weirdly enough, despite the scapegoat of kulaks, the worst year of the famine coincided with the worst yield. And the famine was most pronounced in the argricultural regions. Note that this would not have happened if the regional soviets were in control, because they would know the yield. Centralization is effective, just not when it comes to knowing information that is decentralized. Then it becomes incredibly uninformed. Again note that this has nothing to do with workers controlling their production. Giving away more grain than you produce was an example of how marxist these policies and organization were.
Some were, many werent. Actually the most populous ones, the largest ones, were definitely not.
Again without proof. Counterexamples: during the 1930s crisis the unions in us were incredibly strong, 1960s and i guess crises in general.
The historical proof is that industrial capitalism transitions into financial capitalism as we see happening in the west.
See, this is why you need to spend a bit of time to actually understand what dialectical materialism is before debating it. Capitalism arose from the technological advancements that occurred under feudalism. Capitalism stemmed from changing dynamics within society that shifted power into the hands of the merchant class.
No, I actually understand how capitalism evolved and the material conditions that drove it. I also understand how capitalism itself evolves and why the industrial stage transitioned into financialized stage. These are things any Marxist should be able to comprehend.
You fail to see the relevancy because you're once again failing to apply dialectical thinking to the problem. Hierarchies are a tool for solving the problem of coordination. Similar problems occur both in societies and in nature, and similar solutions evolve in both contexts. Furthermore, hierarchies do not imply that workers don't have no power or that there is strict top down management. The brain doesn't micromanage how your body functions, it sets the general goals and delegates their execution. Similarly, we can look at China as a modern example where there is bottom up organization at the local level that works in harmony with large scale planning at high level.
No that's pure nonsense. What would've happened was that the famine would've been worse in other regions. We can look at actual research on the subjet here. The reality is that during the 1932 Famine, the USSR sent aid to affected regions in an attempt to alleviate the famine. According to Mark Tauger in his article, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933:
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
According to Tauger, the reason why more aid was not provided was because of the low harvest
Tauger is not a communist, and yet even he is forced to admit that the Soviets really did try to alleviate the famine as best as they could.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2500600
The proof was referring to trying to apply same means of revolution to a different system. Revolution agains preindustrialized feudalism doesnt prove the methods success agains developed capitalism.
The history of capitalism was not attacked by me though, i pointed out hoe insane drawing equality between the hierarchies and organization of production between feudalism and caputalism is.
yes and again capitalisn is not feudalism.
I agree the nature tells us lots of different things. And when one starts to pick seemingly related concepts he will find whatever he wants. Did you know that fascist believe that they are just intepreting biology? Same with colonialists. Thats why they are not a serious argument. Unless we talk of something innate to humans that would prevent certain specific behavior.
Yeah no. Basic logic here. When was the other famine there? After tsar before stalin? Any proof? There have been years with bad yields, but because the feudal system was still not completely destroyed, it was quite adapted to the conditions. This one is on the collectivization. Yeah i know about the aid. Im not implying thay they wanted people to starve. im showing how efficient central planning can be. I also found taugers work and debate. The aid is pragmatic, and is unrelated to the point of efficiency of central planing vs decentralized system. Im not just talking about ukraine, also volga region for example.
Yet, you're unable to put in concrete terms how these differences matter in terms of organizing a revolution. You're just making hand wavy statements that lack substance here.
This addresses nothing of what I actually said.
Yeah there's plenty of proof, and maybe go spend a bit of time learning about the subject instead of wasting other people's time with inane claims. This whole discussion started with me pointing out that you're speaking out of ignorance here, and everything you've said in this thread has further reinforced that fact. You keep acting like things you're attempting to debate are just abstract ideas while there is very clear history and facts at play here.
In any case, it's pretty clear that this discussion isn't going anywhere. We're obviously not going to agree on anything or convince each other of anything. So, I'm going to stop here and let you have the last word.
The burden of proof lies with the claim. Why would a movement work if presented with different material conditions? If we depart on the claim that bolsheviks faced different material conditions than movements today and back then in germany for example, which is what i think, then we disagree on premise.
it addresses the comparison to brain, which in any sense of an argument is very weak.
"go find the proof" is not an argument. The famines of tsar were not repeated by bolshevik policies until stalin took over. Theres my proof.
we agreed on many matters. We deviated from the topic which i would sum up as: you do not see mensheviks as marxists because they wanted bourgeois revolution before a socialist one. I have no issue with that, since i see it as making them even more marxist.