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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Communists, rather than criticize us for not understanding communism, could you describe its essential features in a few paragraphs? We could then confine ourselves to a debate over what you define communism to be. |
Again, which forms?
A few essential features, as I understand them, of Marxism:
1. man is an economic animal- man's identity is based on his class conciousness: class conciousness is built by ones daily economic activities (what you do to live). This one I disgaree with personally.
2. a Hegelian conception of history-hsitory as a synthesis, antithesis, synthesis. Marx sees a historical prograssion through different economic forms- each form creates the seeds of its own distruction: communism is the final stage-capitalism preceeds it.
3. IN capitalism, man is alienated from his work, or specifically the producst of his work. A man may be able to make a tool, machine, or device that they would never be able to afford, or participate in the excercise of making such tools. The beneficiary of the work is the owner of the means of production, who does not actually produce anything but draws all the benefits. The working class is left selling themselves-ie, their time and labor.
now, this one is certainly a mid-19th century critique. Changes in production and labor laws make this less viable- anyone who makes computers can afford to buy one-most car workers make enough to own a car.
4. A few romantic elements that grate with his Scientific approach to history: for example, the notion that each man should be able to do anything they want at any time without having to fear for thier ability to survive....
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Then why did your co-thinkers excercise due caution before there were any examples in the world? Why was the Paris Commune drowned in blood? Why was the Russian Revolution invaded by 14 different countries? Why were Red Hungary and Finland by outsiders? If you beat puppy from birth, it will become a cruel beast.
BTW, Ned, when most people go off about Communism, they generally are referring to the USSR. So even if I don't accept the USSR as actual communism (and they never claimed to be anything more than socialist, btw), I can still defend the USSR ion certain areas. Just because it was monstrous in some capacities doesn't make it monstrous in all. Otherwise the U.S. would be nothing but a genocidal land grabbing country, England would be no more than African and Indian butchering pirates, etc.
It is the nature of all things to have multiple facets, so good, some bad, some irrelevent to your point. Recognition of this does not mean universal approval or condemnation. |
You could say the same think about Napoleon's Europe - it was beset on all sides by opponents.
I don't know the details on the Paris Commune.
I don't think communist China was oppressed by anyone. Allegedly, though, the ChiComs killed 35 million landlords. Why?
Why was it necessary to kill so many Russian and Ukrainian peasants? Surely they were not the enemy.
I don't understand your beaten dog analogy unless you mean that Stalin was not a true communist, and neither was Mao, or Ho, or Fidel.
Who was a real communist then. What does communism stand for in reality?
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Communists, rather than criticize us for not understanding communism, could you describe its essential features in a few paragraphs? We could then confine ourselves to a debate over what you define communism to be. |
According to Marx, communism is the extention of democracy from the political sphere to the economic and social spheres as well. Work, school, church, neighborhoods, relationships, etc., would all be democratic. Now, consider that at the time the 1840s, the idea of a democratic relationship with your wife, family, or church was a very revolutionary idea indeed. Now many families make decisions together, rather than being the property of the father/husband. Now many congregations decide who their pastor is, rather than having him/her handed down from higher authorities, etc.
Later, in the 1870s, Marx elaborated further. Communism is that stage of society when the state has whithered away and when all society can live by the ideal, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." By this Marx was saying that when we reach the point where we can produce so much that there's no point in even charging for it, we will then have reached communism. With property being essentially worthless, there will no longer be a need for a state to protect it. (But that's really a semantic thing, since a state, by definition, exist to protect property rights. We'd still need a government and police, etc.)
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Communism relies on a fundamentally optimistic view of human nature. I don't share that view.
-Arrian |
That's a mistaken view of our view. We believe two things are essential to human nature. One, humans are social creatures. In other words, we exist as ourselves only through our relationships with other human beings. We learn from each other, we need each other to fullfill psychological needs, and has society gets more developed, we depend increasingly more on each other for our own survival. Alone in the world, we are little match for the elements, preditors, and other groups of humans. We don't even have any instincts beyond infancy.
From this we can infer that those human activities that aid the survival of the group are more likely to insure the survival of the individual, and so are more likely to have been selected via the evolutionary process. Those activities which strengthen bonds between people give us chemical rewards which we call feeling good. Humor, touching, sex, even the simple act of a smile (which is a universal gesture among humans, though it can be used deceiptfully).
The second aspect of human nature which we Marxists assert is essential is that we create our own reality. Consider that the world in which you exist is not one that occurs naturally, but it is one that was made by other humans. No other animal can do this, especially not consciously. We also create the relationships in which we find ourselves. So, such as the one we have with family are forced upon us, but even then, through our actions we create the nature and shape of our reality. It is not dictated by nature. Our laws are created by us. Our history was created by us. The market is our creation. All of these things are relationships and are part of the world in which we operate. And since we create them, we can also change them.
There lies the fundimental difference between Marxists and those who hold that capitalism is the best system ever. We say that people can change themselves, they say we can't. They say people are naturally greedy, we say, yes but we are also naturally giving. They say we are essentially evil, we say we are neither good nor evil but both at the same and have the capicity to choose.
Is that optimistic?
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
You could say the same think about Napoleon's Europe - it was beset on all sides by opponents. |
In some ways, Napoleon was progressive, even if he was a war-monger and replaced the revolution with an emperor. His armies spread bourgeois ideals throughout Europe, sweeping away the millenai old cruft of feudalism and seeding the ground for capitalism. Nappy was the father of the 19th Century in all its glory and evil.
quote:
I don't know the details on the Paris Commune. |
In 1871, after Emperor Napoleon III was captured by the Prussians, France had no real government. The bourgeoisie atempted (and succeeded) in setting up a government outside Paris (the forts of which had been occupied by the Prussians). The people of Paris weren't so ready to accept them as the rulers, and when the would be government attempted to sneak the cannon of Paris out, they were discovered (by the morning milk-maids) and the city threw them out and proclaimed a commune.
It was the first time workers had ever seized the reigns of government in history. The passed laws making night classes possible for workers, made theater free, outlawed night bakery work, etc. All things that would make the life of working people easier. Soon the revolt spread to other cities throughout France. Had the commune struck and tried to capture the provisional government, France might have been the first socialist state. But they did not want to start a fight and rather negotiated with the provisional government. The government used this time to gather strength, and Bismark knowing a dangerous thing when he saw it, allowed the French to gather troops from the POW camps (and IIRC allowed them to occupy the Paris forts).
Around France, the French government attacked various cities and brought them back under control. Then after 71 days, the French invaded Paris, destroying whole working class neighborhoods and slaughtering tens of thousands. The fires burned for days. So ended our first attempt.
quote:
I don't think communist China was oppressed by anyone. |
The US did. Before WWII, we had volunteers over there fighting for Chaing Kai-Shek (The Flying Tigers among others). Chennault was an strident anti-commie. Much of the war materials we gave to China were used against the Red Army, even as Mao was fighting the Japanese. After the war, when it looked like Shang-hai would be occupied by the Reds, the US used its transports to move nationalist armies from the South to the North. We tried to supply war matierals to the Nationalists after the war, but apparently the Merchant Marine was having none of it and mutinied. We also trained and funed ChiNat terrorists/guerilas until the early 60s.
quote:
Allegedly, though, the ChiComs killed 35 million landlords. Why? |
Don't know. This is the first I've heard of it.
quote:
Why was it necessary to kill so many Russian and Ukrainian peasants? Surely they were not the enemy. |
It was "necessary" to preserve Stalin and the bureaucracy which had put him in power. It is certainly not something that wuold have happened had my faction won, the Trotskyists.
quote:
I don't understand your beaten dog analogy unless you mean that Stalin was not a true communist, and neither was Mao, or Ho, or Fidel. |
What I mean is, if you constantly invade a country and send terrorists and guerallia and spies in to make trouble, that country is going to become very defensieve, very paranoid, and very repressive.
quote:
Who was a real communist then. What does communism stand for in reality? |
That really depends on who you ask. I would say that people like Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, etc. were real communists. Even Stalin and Mao were at first, although I would say their level of theoretical understanding was somewhat lacking. But Stalin based his power on the bureaucracy, and convoluted the revolution and communism to fit his needs.
Mao tried to adapt Marxism to the circumstance in which he found himself, which was basically most of the top leadership slaughtered, the Communists driven from the cities, the only force capable of fighting the nationalsist being the peasantry. (It should be noted that not all of the Communist leadership was erradicated, and they continued to toil secretly in the cities, eventually having to escape to Hong Kong after Mao took over the country.)
Castro I don't think was any kind of commie at first, but I think he's become one (albeit not a very good one). He, like many others (Ho, Pot, Kim, etc.) , simply adopted Marxism to suit his nationalism. At first he said he was a Marxist to stick it to the U.S. who had tried to kill him, but came to believe it.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Marx apparently never dealt with the practical consequences of imposing communism on a realtively poor society. Or did he? |
He said it was not possible. He did make an exception for Russia because in Russia, at the time, there was still a communal form of property among the peasantry which Marx felt could serve as the basis of socialism if a revolution in Russia was the spark which caused Western capitalist nations to become workers states. It would only be through the aid of advance industrial societies that Russia could then advance to socialism and communism. For Marxists, socialism and communism presuppose a high degree of industrial capacity.
Lenin knew this and said, "We do not make the revolution for Russia, but for Germany." His hope, his elusive dream, was that the workers of Germany would overthrown the junkers and capitalists and join the workers and peasants of Russia, and together they could build socialism. Theoertically, either the Germans should have had a revolution or the Russians should have been crushed. There wasn't supposed to be a stalemate.
At this point, our side really didn't know what to do. Socialism/Communism isn't supposed to come to power in a non-industrial society. This was totally new ground, and I'm sorry to say, we screwed up (though it wasn't entirely our fault).
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 16-01-2004 at 05:08
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Castro I don't think was any kind of commie at first, but I think he's become one (albeit not a very good one). He, like many others (Ho, Pot, Kim, etc.) , simply adopted Marxism to suit his nationalism. At first he said he was a Marxist to stick it to the U.S. who had tried to kill him, but came to believe it. |
This is true. He was converted by Ernesto Guevara. In essence Fidel is a pretty good guy in a terrible situation. He was immediately forced to prostitute Cuba to the USSR which he didn't want to do, and has been under embargo and attack from the US ever since. Despite that he's done a lot of good things.
For example, unlike other similar Latin American countries, Cuban children go to (very good) schools instead of sewing baseballs for 2 cents a day. The general health of the Cuban population is exemplary and they have for years been renowned as having the best teeth in the world due to socialised dental care.
Guevara's version of Marxism is very compelling since it tends to deal with political reality. On his view the elites of wealthy countries are basically at war with the third world which they exploit the hell out of, often under the guise of "doing good". There can be no hope of real democracy in these countries until the dominant powers are thrown out by armed struggle and reduced in capacity so that they cannot blockade or otherwise isolate the renegades.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Agathon, why does one have to descirbe communism in terms of a critique of capitalism? |
Because communism is at one and the same time, the opposite of capitalism and the natural outgrowth of capitalism. Without capitalism, there can be no possibiity of socialism.
quote:
If I understand the goal, communism requires near infinite productivity so that property and goods are essentially free. The holy grail of a communist would then be to increase productivity, because as productivity increases, property decreases in value, and democracy results naturally.
No so? |
Essentially. The democracy should be there to begin with, but with the withering away of property, democracy should become a good deal safer from those who would bend it (or break it) to increase their property.
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16-01-2004 03:43
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