Review of Emma Goldman's "My Disillusionment in Russia" (and Berkman's "The Bolshevik Myth")
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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Oh those petty little bourgeoise
Also known as gulag filler
Lmao except anarchism is a far more authentically proletarian ideology compared to ML vanguardism which actually states petty bourgeois intellectuals must lead on behalf of the idiot workers.
@@ryri51do you genuinely believe that to be what vanguardism advocates for? Because that's just not correct. I don't know if you're intentionally being dishonest, because some people do that, or if you've come to an incorrect understanding.
@@ryri51The workers form the vanguard and they are perfectly capable of being part of the vanguard if they study revolutionary theory and gain experience in class struggle. Minimizing revolutionary theory and trying to dumb things down is petit-bourgeois anti-intellectualism. The petit-bourgeois is isolated, individualistic, self-satisfied, conservative, doesn't want to learn or accept leadership, wants quick and easy solutions. The petit-bourgeois considers the workers such idiots that they must rely on spontaneity and not on revolutionary theory and revolutionary leadership of the vanguard. The more class conscious workers follow the vanguard more firmly and it is not a sign of stupidity, quite the contrary.
The petit-bourgeois is also pessimistic because they are a doomed class. I see you constantly saying how the revolution was doomed since the beginning. That is capitalist ideology. You accept the menshevik-bukharin view that the revolution cannot succeed in a poor country, but even Emma Goldman didn't accept that. Besides, the revolution had to happen where the front of imperialism was the weakest, which inevitably means a poor country. If you wait for a revolution to happen during prosperous conditions, you will end up waiting forever.
@@grumpfrog8602 no that is literally what vanguardism entails from the mouth of Lenin himself. Petite bourgeois socialist intellectuals leading the working class on its behalf until some unspecified future where the workers have been developed enough to rule on their own. There will be lip service about recruiting the most "advanced" workers but it is petite bourgeois intellectuals in the drivers seat and this is exactly how every AES country has operated.
I'd love to hear more about the anarchists who supported the Bolsheviks and who joined them.
There's a massive historical blind spot on this topic.
Thats because they didn't stay on their side through the entirety, and weren't as organized, or unified. Anarchism pushes for a very liberal form of individualism.
@@gwynbleidd1917 Call me a conspiracy theorist but sidelining the anarchists who supported the Bolsheviks serves a particular agenda of narrative control, just like how the majority of anarchists are oblivious to the Malhnovist Kontrrazvedka secret police and the massacre of Mennonites at Eichenfeld at the hands of the Black Army.
It's too convenient to not make me feel suspicious about it.
@@jessl1934 the bourgois class character of anarchism is not something that lends itself well to bolshevik values. it's only natural their place in the Russian revolution was that of parasitism by vast majority
They either became true Bolsheviks or went the same way as Makhno
Not a Russian, but Lucy Parsons is a great example. She also railed against Goldman for the rest of her life over this very text.
12 min over 100 views to possibly teach organizing comrades
Yes
This is the book that made me a marxist leninist. Nearing the end of the book i had one question in the back of my mind "how would she do it?" And a lot of her criticism fell apart.
🤣🤣🤣
how would you do it in present day USA?
@@Giantcrabz you don't. There won't be revolutionary potential until an economic crisis or fascist uprising.
@@Giantcrabzour current stage of revolution requires the Reconstitution of the CPUSA and the embedding of revolutionary forces in Strategic areas of the Proletariat.
After that is preparation for a Protracted Peoples War as analyzed by the RGA.
@@AutrevmlM what is the RGA?
New video 🎉🎉🎉
new video nice!
You should read the Irish socialist James Connolly on De Leon.
Connolly is great
"What we have done in Russia is accept the De Leon interpretation of Marxism, that is what the Bolsheviki adopted in 1917." - Lenin
Thank you for providing the script for the video.
Great stuff as always, comrade!
Even as an anarchist I have to give props to you for Celtic Kings: Rage of War lol
This is actually the sequel called "Punic wars". Can I ask why you are an anarchist?
@@thefinnishbolshevik2404 Oh nice, I always thought Punic Wars and the third installment were like ten times harder and I think I'm the only person who thinks that lol
I was a Marxist for a year or so, discovered anarchism by chance one day and was converted pretty quickly as it seemed like a better way to get to the general communist ideal of a classless, stateless, moneyless society. Obviously the tactics anarchists advocate vary widely, and the ideas on how to build revolutionary consciousness among the general population that I read about back then aren't the same tactics I would advocate now, but there was (and is) a lot more emphasis on getting to "full communism" more quickly, and without creating an authoritarian state structure as a "transitory period" of course. Even something as introductory as The Conquest of Bread describes the actual structure of the future communist society in more detail than all the little hints from Marx, let alone even more detailed modern ancom texts.
I'm a mutualist now though, not an ancom, and even though I now don't think any planned economy is viable (whether centralized or decentralized), the overarching themes are still the same, achieving a socialist society far more quickly with a far less authoritarian structure. Was an ancom for 2 years and a mutualist for the past 13 years.
@@Lleldorynix This like preferring religion to science because religion has an explanation for everything but science doesn't. Anarchism is basically just idealism with a hint of sincerity. Anarchists have always failed because they separate reality from their ideas about reality (including how they think the world "ought" to be). There is a state of affairs and a wanted state of affairs, but they don't unite them properly, so its just mindless guesswork combined with a wish for utopia and as a result has never succeeded in reality.
Anarchism only defines its "ideal" better because it has deluded itself about how the world works. The reason you can't locate Marxism's "ideal" is because Marxism does not make an ideal. It deals with reality. How you could not know this if you were a Marxist for a year is puzzling. We have to deal with reality if we want to make progress. Even that fucking idealist Hegel understood this back in the 1820s!:
"divorce between idea and reality [...] looks upon its own abstractions, dreams though they are, as something true and real, and prides itself on the imperative ‘ought’, which it takes especial pleasure in prescribing even on the field of politics. As if the world had waited on it to learn how it ought to be, and was not! For, if it were as it ought to be, what would come of the precocious wisdom of that ‘ought’? When understanding turns this ‘ought’ against [...] social regulations or conditions, which very likely possess a great relative importance for a certain time and special circles, it may often be right. In such a case the intelligent observer may meet much that fails to satisfy the general requirements of right; for who is not acute enough to see a great deal in his own surroundings which is really far from being as it ought to be? But such acuteness is mistaken in the conceit that, when it examines these objects and pronounces what they ought to be, it is dealing with questions of philosophic science." (Encyclopedia Logic, §6)
In short: Reality is under no obligation to conform to your opinion of how it 'ought' to be. That is the same problem with Anarchism. Anarchists are like children telling their parents "I want this" and "I want that". Why? Because "I think this" and "I think that". That's not how the world works lol. You have to unite theory and practice into revolution. That's what Marxism is and it works because it does it successfully.
Anarchism faded into nothing. Marxism built the greatest country in history and improved the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions. If anarchism or mutualism or whatever dead idea you're exhuming is good at "achieving a socialist society far more quickly with a far less authoritarian structure", where are the results to prove it?
@@doctoredler6193 Well there are frameworks anarchists have put forward in terms of actual strategy to spread anarchist ideas among the general population. Although I would agree that anarchists haven't spent nearly as much time on this issue as they should. You could look at the video Constructing the Revolution by the ancom UA-camr Anark. Obviously I'm going to be biased towards mutualist perspectives on this issue but I thought I'd at least mention one ancom source since they are the majority affiliation lol
In terms of mutualist perspectives, Kevin Carson's essay "A Political Program for Anarchists" lays out what I think the proper attitude towards electoral politics should be. There's also his essay "The Ethics of Labor Struggle", and the confusingly-named two essays "Labor Struggle: A Free Market Model" and "Labor Struggle in a Free Market", all of three of which focus on, obviously, labor struggle and union organization.
The overarching principle that ancoms and mutualists hold in common in terms of strategy is the idea of counter-institutions/counter-power, creating alternative institutions that compete with and fill the void that the state has left in various communities when it comes to things like healthcare, education, the social safety net, etc. Although plenty of anarchists, both ancoms and mutualists, do spend a significant amount of time agitating for social-democratic reforms too, which I think is pretty counterproductive, but I'm in the minority there.
These counter-institutions would compete with the state peacefully for as long as possible, with the understanding that there would eventually come to be some kind of armed confrontation later on, as the Constructing the Revolution video elaborates on.
@@Lleldorynixbetter way?
How?
It's never worked.
Hello comrade, can you do a video on swcc, I've tried to look into it as much as I could and haven't been able to form a strong opinion. I believe you can do justice to this topic
LETS GO NEW VIDEO
What is that game?
Always with the wrecking
Anarchism has no depth or substance
True, a lot of the time they have to take and distort things from Marxist theory to fit into "anti statist" "anti hierarchy"
are there any viable ML groups in the United States? The PSL does decent work on Palestine, but besides that every significant group (DSA, SRA, CPA, RevComs, etc) seem horrible
@@Giantcrabz Honestly not to my knowledge(though not like it would affect me much as I'm studying MLM currently)
Also PSL is still horrible as:
1) They are/originate from Trotskyist Revisionism
2) they have reportedly held R*pists and hidden away SA claims and were attacked by the(dissolved) RGA(Red Guards Austin) for doing so
3) they have a very Liberal integrationist position on the Black Nation
Others I know of/you may mention:
DSA: Big tent of Liberals and Revisionists
RevComs: Supposed "Maoist" but actually a cult around the Revisionist Avakian
PCUSA: I know little except they held a Revisionist position on the Ukraine War and Sided with Russia and had splits.
@@Giantcrabz There are no large ones IMO. PSL is revisionist.
@AutrevmlM as for your number 2 point the SWP in Britain did the same and made the poor girl go face to face with the man she accused. In a four on one meeting!
Wow looks like Age of Empires but a WAY bigger map. Checking it out now, Celtics Ages, Punic Wars.
fantastic video
Listen to him, like a bratty child who has just been told off. Whether it is valid or not, these bolsheviks just cannot accept any criticism. Maybe this is one reason why there is no USSR today.
criticisms like:
-don't sign the peace treaty of 1918
-don't suppress the left-SR coup
-don't suppress the criminal gangs in anarchist clubs
-don't suppress the black market or the capitalists
-make the capitalists collaborate with the Soviet government without coercion and without monetary compensation
-magically make the conditions improve dramatically right away, despite the war which has already lasted 6 years, and the blockade
-magically eliminate all social ills right away, such as corruption and theft
-don't implement the NEP
Was there one reasonable criticism? Its ridiculous to say "whether it is valid or not". Why should anyone accept invalid criticisms (not only invalid, but blatantly unreasonable criticisms that would only cause problems)?
I accept that conditions were poor in the 1910s and even in the 20s only gradually improved. I also accept that the suppression of black markets and corruption caused problems, but these issues were only temporary and anarchy wouldn't have solved them.
critical support in ML land means something closer to unquestioning devotion to old theoreticians and punching left
If by "criticism" you mean fatuous ramblings from a bourgeois moron then I suppose yes, MLs don't generally accept that. Emma Goldman was just another Anarchist fool who achieved nothing in her lifetime. The fact that Lenin, Stalin, and all the Bolsheviks started with basically nothing, were illegal, banned, suppressed, etc., and freed half the fucking world from capitalism in half a century is a testament to the incredible theoretical accuracy of Marxism-Leninism. Anarchism has never even established a successful, tenable community.
The Bolsheviks were revolutionary actors, not idealists. This is why Anarchism was futile and always will be.
@@Giantcrabz do you call Goldman's behavior "critical support"???
@@harryflash5202 all of your posts reek of ultra leftism and liberalism.
Hello I have a few off-topic questions about Stalin ive been meaning to ask (not bad faith just what i heard):
1. Why Stalin supress ukranian self-determination, unlike Lenin who supported it?
2. Why russification
3. Why group punishment when deportations of minorities during Great Patriotic War (many died during and after deportations)
4. Was USSR imperialist towards its smaller republics in any way?
Thanks in advance
(Also TIK made a video about Lenin you might be interested in)
Just as a heads up, TiK is a pretty right wing youtuber who has an ideological agenda. His points are worth responding to, but he's not some sort of historical everyman. He's committed to spreading propaganda to further his ideological worldview, and is pretty extreme in his McCarthyism.
@unfairadvantagefilms Yeah I don't know how anyone could take Tik seriously after that thumbnail on the pre-revolution Lenin with Lenin portrayed as the devil lol . Like, super explicit level of delusion imo
Yeah TIK isn't a go to for USSR history
@@unfairadvantagefilmsI think he meant as a response, like the book Finbol is responding to, not that the OP
agrees with TIK
@@AutrevmlM is it that he misrepresents sources, or uses bad books or what? I dont really like TIK (only the military history) and Im a beginner Marxist, but what is wrong with his current latest video? Besides that I saw some clear bias and dishonesty in it.
I can imagine the conversation of that time in the ussr:
“Anarchists: Yay! The revolution happened by itself! Now, Bolsheviks, can u step aside and let the people decide how to build communism?
Bolsheviks: sorry, we cannot these people are literally illiterate. We need to send teachers everywhere to teach people, we need engineers, to build the country from the ground. We have to built schools and universities. And we have to show them how to govern in a social way!
A: no you can't do that! That's oppression! People must decide on their own what to do!
B: We cannot, we still catching up counterrevolutionaries, agitators, and so on, the country is not stable, we need time to let progression happen and let the people catch up with the most progressive ideas of our time!
A: You don’t understand Marxism! We condemn you! Traitors”
Anarkiddies cannot deal with the harshness of reality
Soviet democracy already existed in post-revolution Russia, and the Bolsheviks destroyed it
@@salj.5459 how can soviet democracy exist if there is still a capitalist government in power preventing the people from having peace, land and bread?
@@thefinnishbolshevik2404anarchists are dumb, they are all a bunch of reactionaries who don’t understand the mechanics of class societal structures
Lmao that's why a proletarian revolution is impossible in backwards peasant societies. All the Soviet union became was a bourgeois state with red flags, just like Bukharin said it was.
Comrades, keep in mind these are the people you are talking about uniting with when you talk of "Left Unity"
Mao formed a united front with nationalists at Stalin's advice, but you hate anarchists this much? Aren't there fascists to worry about a little more first? What's your beef with people that agree with most but not all of your ideology?
This sort of team-based mindset is what I saw growing up in a fundie creationist church. People spewing irrational hatred towards Catholics when Presbyterianism is just as flawed
@@Giantcrabz Again, Goldman started it. She was accepted to participate in the united front, yet she attacked it in the capitalist media. "Left unity" means formal unity, pretending like we don't disagree or pretending like it doesn't matter. A united front is good, but we still have disagreements. In my experience anarchists are way more intolerant than communists. There are some exceptions of course.
@@Giantcrabz The united front in China was an especially unique condition, if external invasion in the midst of civil war did end up happening once again then a united front with anarchists would not only be permitted but essential. That being said, there was no "Left Unity" under the united front in China, nor will there be in the future. Working toward common goals and defending from fascist takeover is a far cry from uniting with a group that has goals of destroying your revolutionary effort. Nobody is saying we shouldn't worry about fascists, you are making a logical fallacy when you say "You must either unite with the anarchists or not worry about fascists," this has never been the case, take the Chinese revolution for example. Also, my point still stands. The activities of Emma Goldman are a true example of how anarchists view the communist movement. Would it not be counterintuitive to unite with another enemy in an attempt to fight a different enemy? Goldman and most anarchists have shown they are not interested in building a united front, but in tearing down the front that has been built so far.
@Giantcrabz anarchists are just members of the petit bourgeoisie who pretend to be nice.
@@thefinnishbolshevik2404 Ancoms are way less intolerant than leninists like yourself, dont say BS
every anarchist is an anticommunist.
agree 100%
Yeah especially those anarcho communists. They HATE communism.
Meanwhile like 60% of bolshies are just wannabe bullies dreaming themselves in positions of power. This comment section's full of wannabe commissars, secretary generals and secret police.
There is no need for reductive universalisms.
@@johndread1724 they might say they like communism, but if they still work against communists, what is the difference? I guess the difference is that some anarchists have the capacity to become communists. Its completely silly to imagine communists are all bullies, its pure cope. You simply don't see most communists even trying to gain positions of power.
I wonder, if those who criticize Stalin, from reading Trotckiy's book ever read Stalin’s book🤔
They read it and declared it all a lie without actually verifying both of them.
@@aahwansinghchauhan8210 these kind of universal, sweeping claims remind me of Christian dogmatists
@@Giantcrabz Anti communists have more in common with Christian dogmatists than us.
I wasn't always a communist. I was just open minded enough to look at evidence. Not unlike J. Arch Getty or Robert Thurston.
The only difference is, the above two didn't go far enough and didn't follow upon the logical conclusion of their arguments. I did one thing more than they. I compared Stalinist USSR as they described it with accurate stats of capitalist countries going through similar circumstances. THAT is the difference.
Trotskyists are anti communists pretending to be communists. I would argue openly anti communist historians like Getty, Thurston, Fitzpatrick, Lomb, Tauger and Davies are more reliable than fake leftists like Trotsky, Orwell, Goldman, and Deutscher. Of course, I am not supporting frauds like Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev, Snyder, Kotkin and Conquest.
Tbh I criticize Trotsky and never read his books. 😂
@@foxinthesnow1917 I believe reading him will make you even firm on your opinions if your opinions are informed that is.
Trotsky had idealist deviations. And he was somewhat ego-centric. You should read him while keeping in mind what he did.
Good analysis
❤
She was an anarchist who lived a completely anarchic and crazy life, so loved by feminists today. Then lived off the bourgeois profits from her scandalous autobiography. Like all anarchists and Trotskyists she hated an actual real revolutionary state. Fits perfectly with modern "critical" and "feminist" scholars.
nice
My Disillusionment, Part 3: You Would Not Believe What These Bolsheviks are Up To Now!
My dissolutionment Part 4: The Bolshevik Menace and how Lenin is Coarse and Rough and irritating and drives you everywhere!!
I don't know about you but anarchists sound like redditors to me. The best we can do is ignore these people until they show something of use.
Anarchists entire shtick is “I hate everything that works because it doesn’t fit my romantic notion of a revolution, and I support everything that hasn’t worked because I romanticize it.”
Lmao we are in the leadership of almost every social movement while your micro sects do nothing but complain.
we would love it if vanguardists merely ignored us. Please do that instead of things like bashing a hundred year old book (at best) while the world burns
@cz19856 that's a great way to describe them.
@Giantcrabz you need it though. Utopian nonsense is the anarchists thing.
It’s a fact regardless of the source! No illusions & no entitlement!!
Thank you Finbol for another educational video. The De Leonists in the US hold a similar view to Goldman's concept of what should have happened in Russia. Even though De Leonists are Marxists, with a bit of anarchism included, they believe that a backwards country should not have had a revolution lacking the infrastructure of capitalism and having a low number of proletariats. They also believe the workers were to emancipate themselves from the capitalist system with the help of a political party and once established, the political government would be adjourned and the workers take over. Overall, they are anti-communists and claim that the Soviet Union was not socialist country. They also believe they have the "true" socialism. Moreover, their efforts to establish socialism never panned out. They began in the late 19th century and today few De Leonists exist. However, that does not mean we cannot learn from them since they are the oldest socialist political party in the US.
Furthermore, the anarchists don't actually like the De Leonists since the De Leonists want a Socialist Industrial Union which all industries, trades and services would be under a workers organization of labor (edit) and having a political party working in their interests. This is a Marxist concept. Unlike the anarchists who believe one group of workers would own one factory while another group of workers would own another and do whatever they wanted to in each factory. The Socialist Industrial Union is the collective ownership of production and distribution organized by the rank and file. This would also involve central planning of the economy. This is the best feature of De Leonism that I like personally. What I don't like I gave the reasons above. I am a Marxist Leninist and this was an opinion piece of my own making.
this is a wild mischaracterization of anarchism. We generally believe in federated syndicates, not "every factory does whatever they feel like"
@@Giantcrabz Yeah, I did tend to over exaggerate with that sentence using a broad brush. I should have been a bit more careful when writing a long comment like that. You're right, anarchists can come together with an organization like the IWW But, in my opinion, they have no idea on societal issues which also includes threats from without and within by the angry hornets of big and small capitalist who have lost their private property after the revolution. I use the metaphor of angry hornets to describe the attack on the societal body in order to kill it. The capitalists are not going to do clashes in the streets. They are going to use the resources of other capitalist countries and well trained mercenary forces to reclaim what they have lost.
The capitalist class are organized to protect their interests and use governments to look after their interests which we call "The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. From history we see that the US government did their job well on putting the kibosh on the IWW and trade unions and then proceeded with the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism. Then, years later, along comes a socdem and socialism is no longer scary and people are taking an interest with it.
Marxist Leninism understands the need for a political government to look after the interests of the working class and ordinary people of society. I am not saying it won't be without its problems with opportunists and revisionists. That is why we study the Soviet Union to learn and not to repeat the mistakes that were made. Nor to we want to copy and paste what was done in the Soviet Union. We also know that socialism is a transition period that could take centuries before communism is realized. Communism actually means the planetary cooperative commonwealth where political government is no longer needed, capitalism no longer exist, war is a thing of the past and people around the globe only concern themselves with economics and trade.
Roman Empire lol
what kind of Age of Empires is this?
its a game called Punic wars
But he was subsequently declared innocent of trumped up charges in 1938. The State was found guilty of his murder. He was “rehabilitated” under the policy of “Glasnost & Perestroika” by M. S. Gorbachev after fifty years in 1988!!!
You dont have twitter anymore? Berry based you can say bad words now. And or be shadow banned
Do a video about military treaty of Finland and US
bro can u make a video on mitrokhin archive
Great video, very thorough. I'd forgotten how orthodox you are on all this. Can I ask, have you studied the international movement post-1953?
This is UA-cam communism, the world post-1938 doesn't exist /s
Socialism gang
New videooooooo.....
My double further disillusionment with Finbol 😅 continues.
This video is the shit 💩 please make more similar criticizing other left wing people who are incompatible with communists/socialists.
I would like to hear more about pressing issues like climate change. Hating on dead women whose biggest sin is disagreeing with you seems like a colossal waste of energy
@@Giantcrabz sure, but since I read these books as part of my research of Soviet history, I thought I'd talk about them since they are used by anti-communists. You can't complain that I criticized Goldman, because she herself first criticized communism - and in a very unfair, uncomradely way.
Thank you for your excellent work!
If Lenins communism was international, why did Stalin dismantle the Comintern?
It looks like that was a compromise. It is otherwise difficult to explain the later Cominform.
because the comintern had served its initial purpose (to help create parties with a real communist program and not a left-socdem program), because those parties were no longer as reliant on Soviet guidance in the same way, and to fight the capitalist claim that communists are nothing but "agents of Moscow". The communist parties still continued to support internationalism in the Stalin era, and the European parties even formed the Cominform.
Its silly to focus so much on an individual organizational question.
@@thefinnishbolshevik2404Was it a good idea to " fight the capitalist claims" about the Comintern and the communists involved in it, "being agents of Moscow" by dissolving it? Seems like giving into capitalist propaganda to me.
33:25 Really!? What HENTAI Anarchist they were! Moreover, on what season the robbery incident happened?
If on winter, he would die by Moroz.
14:00 - “the soldiers drink alcohol and buy sex.” Well God forbid.
I think UA-cam deleted my comment as I can't see it at all
@@AutrevmlMmine get yoinked a lot too. Shady things are afoot on YT
@@xuaevorpnitsuj buying sex is disgusting and degrading.
@AutrevmlM welcome to the naughty list my friend.
@@JohnKobaRuddy yep, Prost will be done away with in order to destroy the oppression of women by Man and Capital(of course not by harming the women themselves but giving them the means to not have to Prost). But it's hard to do much against women's oppression during f*ing Civil War.
Why do Leninists accept that Lenin modified Marx and said you can skip capitalism and build socialism directly from feudalism...yet we can't move towards the supposed Communist goal of a STATELESS SOCIETY (i.e. anarchy) without seizing the bourgeois state?
When have Leninists said you can skip capitalism when socialism isn't global?
What was the NEP in the USSR or New Democracy in China for?
You need capitalism in order to gain the Capital necessary to build the Productive forces(but you don't need capitalism to build them, ex. NEP->Stalins 5 year plans) and develop the productive relations.
@@AutrevmlM OK I'm sure you agree it is widely known that Russia was a backwards, feudal state (Tsardom) that only recently had abolished serfdom. The capitalist stratum in Russia was tiny relative to the rest of Europe. The NEP was NOT the original plan of the Bolsheviks, it was in (IIRC) Trotsky's conception, a "strategic retreat on the economic front", the analogy being that of a military front with "labor armies", made necessary by the devastation of foreign and civil war and their inexperience with managing the new and chaotic state of affairs in Russia. So overall, yes, the Communists under Lenin in both his writing and praxis seemed to believe it was possible to transition directly from feudalism to socialism without an intermediate period of rule by the liberal capitalist Karensky provisional government. This was not the orthodox Marxist position at the time. Not to say he was wrong, that's just what the theory was. Russia was feudal, and Lenin thought the workers themselves could do the capitalist phase via a proletarian state and not a bourgeois one.
As for New Democracy, I admit I don't know as much about China (I am working through some books at the moment) but I don't find arguments for New Democracy compelling, especially given that it's 2024 and they are STILL " developing the productive forces", supposedly, while in reality the CCP recently announced they plan to liberalize the energy sector and have a pretty blatantly capitalist element in their economy and Party.
Also your third paragraph doesn't make sense, it seems to contradict itself the way it's worded.
@@Giantcrabz Lenin advocated a transition stage of state capitalism before the October Revolution and immediately after it
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm#v25zz99h-360
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm
New Democracy in China lasted 7 years (from 1949 to 1956) while the land reform took 3 years (1949 to 1952). The fact that in the 80s China restored capitalism has nothing to do with it.
The state cannot wither away until classes disappear. Abolishing the exploiting classes takes years. However, the state is also needed for managing the economy and protecting the country from foreign powers, until the country is strong enough. Stalin said it is possible to build economic communism within one country, and even to largely abolish the state as a result, but the problem of defense from foreign attackers remains. Even with the strong state the USSR was roughly equal to its capitalist enemies in terms of military power. It wasn't so much stronger that it could simply start dismantling its own state without putting itself at a huge risk.
@@Giantcrabz you use the bourgeois term CCP. when it's CPC. You're deeply disingenuous.
The communist goal is a classless society. Statelessness is what we Marxists believe to naturally follow from classless conditions (in a gradual disappearance) due to it becoming obsolete in the absence of social antagonisms caused by class. But there are conditions by which the state can continue to exist even in socialism depending on the internal and international situation. But even in the absence of any militant threat to a socialist society, the transition from the lower phase to the high phase communism will involve the state transforming from a government of persons that engages in repression of class enemies into a mere economic administration of production. It's in higher phase communism that even this role becomes obsolete as the whole of society engages in the management of production, eliminating the need for a specialized body to do it.
I love when people who dont understand anarchism critic anarchism
care to elaborate?
Why does anyone need to critique anarchism if anarchism is pretty much useless? We communists need to critique social democrats, postmodern ideologies and other anti communist liberals. But anarchists are pretty much an internet only thing. Let them be happy in their queer non binary Reddit cave.
Boohoo, nobody cares about your terminally online and historically irrelevant ideology.
Replying because if you do have some criticisms from an anarchist perspective I would genuinely like to read it
kinda sad to see leftists expending so much time playing video games and ranting about long deceased writers, I fail to see how this is productive at all