This rhetoric adds nothing of subtance to the political understanding of either contemporary Trumpism or the history of Stalinism. Sanders only serves to obscure the meaning of this critically important understanding. Fascism and Stalinism are not the same.
To be clear, Stalinism took hold in the Soviet Union as a result of its historic backwardness and international isolation. The failure of the revolution to take root in Europe (largely a result of the historic betrayal of Social Democracy in the Second International) created conditions for the consolidation of a nationalist clique and a bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state that formed from the victory of the October Revolution. That is Stalinism. This political form was responsible for mass murder of the old cadres of the revolution who opposed it, systematic betrayal of the workers movement internationally, collaboration with imperialism allowing for the restabilization of capitalism during its repeated periods of crisis, and ultimately the destruction of Soviet Union union and the restoration of capitalism in 1991. A detailed and correct historical understanding of this history is critically important for the working class as it enters into a new period of revolutionary struggle.
Sanders use of the term as a political slur wrongly directed at Trump confuses the issue, and ultimately gives capitalism a pass for its own crisis. Trump is not simply an evil individual responsible for wrecking America. He is the product of the terminal crisis of capitalism at the center of world imperialism. He represents a financial oligarchy whose wealth and influence has grown increasingly disconnected from social development and the process of production. The historic content of Trumpism has a stronger relationship to the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler than the national labor bureaucraticism of Stalin.
This is no small error by Sanders. This is a deliberate falsification that is calculated to confuse political consciousness and hinder the development of revolutionary conclusions. It should be clear to anyone who takes more than a second to think about it that the comparison to Stalinism is shallow. The historic content of Trumpism is its own.
The failure of the revolution to take root in Europe (largely a result of the historic betrayal of Social Democracy in the Second International) created conditions for the consolidation of a nationalist clique and a bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state that formed from the victory of the October Revolution.
What path should the USSR have taken instead? (genuine question)
The survival of the Soviet Union as a socialist state depended on the expansion of the revolution internationally. Stalin’s policy of building socialism in one country led to all manner of bureaucratic overreach with authoritarian methods and betrayal of the international working class. The correct policy would have been to spread the revolution throughout the world on the basis of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, as advanced by the Left Opposition.
The failures of the revolutions in Germany through 1923 were terrible tragedies, prepared largely by the betrayals of the Second International and the inexperiance of the new communist KPD of the Third International. This is not something you can really blame Stalin for, but it created the conditions for what followed.
The betrayal of the Chinese revolution of 1925–27 was the first great International betrayal of Stalinism. Stalin ordered an alliance with the bourgeouis Kuomantang that ended with the massacre of thousands of Chinese comminists at the hands of the nationalista. After that, he ordered a series of putsches that predictably ended in further defeats. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist party for his criticism of the line that led to this disaster.
The ultraleft line of the Comintern in its third period led to disaster and betrayal in Germany in the 1930s. Stalin divided the forces working class by refusing to allow a united front of the communists with German Social Democracy. The SPD still had significant influence in the working class, with over a million working class members who were trained in the revolutionary theories of Marxism. The KPD under the influence of Stalin denounced these workers as “social fascist” essentially no different than the Nazis, thus paving the way for Hitler to come to power (only to turn around later to make his infamous pact with Hitler). These events led Trotsky to conclude the Third International was dead for purposes of revolution, and to call for the founding on the Fourth International.
Fourth International called for political revolution in the USSR to restore democracy and defend the gains of the October Revolution and to expand the proletarian revolution internationally. Trotsky and large numbers of the cadre of the FI were murdered by Stalinist agents, who opposed this perspective. In the postwar period the role of the Stalinists was to use their influence to prop up bourgeois governments throughout the third world, and to effect its foreign policy objectives with respect to the imperialist countries. Stalin fell out of favor after Krushevs secret speech following his death, but the basic political methods remained the same.
The correct policy would have been to spread the revolution throughout the world on the basis of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, as advanced by the Left Opposition.
The failures of the revolutions in Germany through 1923 were terrible tragedies, prepared largely by the betrayals of the Second International and the inexperiance of the new communist KPD of the Third International. This is not something you can really blame Stalin for, but it created the conditions for what followed.
The ultraleft line of the Comintern in its third period led to disaster and betrayal in Germany in the 1930s. Stalin divided the forces working class by refusing to allow a united front of the communists with German Social Democracy.
What? These criticisms are all contradictory.
On the one hand, Stalin should’ve done more to spread the revolution to other countries, like Germany. On the other hand, he should’ve convinced the KPD to work together with the SDP instead of taking a more revolutionary approach. Were the SDP not the very people who were in the Second International and betrayed the revolution?
It seems kind of silly to blame the KPD-SDP split on Stalin considering that the social democrats both killed much of the KPD leadership (such as Rosa Luxembourg), and also continued using equivalent language about how the KPD were just as bad as the fascists. The SDP made the decision to align with the bourgeois parties and help them enact austerity policies during an economic crisis, and ultimately to back Hindenburg over Thälmann, who then appointed Hitler. The KPD felt that, in addition to the SDP being utterly uncooperative and uninterested in reconciliation, their association with crushing economic policy made them more of a liability than an asset - in hindsight, this was probably a miscalculation, but the blame is not entirely on them.
Now, if your position was that the USSR should have taken a realpolitik perspective and backed the anticommunist SDP to stop Hitler, despite their attitude to the KPD, that would be a coherent criticism - except that you also criticize the USSR for making a very similar decision in China. The USSR policy viewed the CCP as too weak to win a revolution, and instead aimed to achieve a united front, regardless of ideological disagreements.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this estimation was an error, but I’m asking for a single coherent path. Either be willing to compromise and work together with anti-communists like the KMT and the SDP, or take a hard line and support revolution - even in the face looming threats from the Nazis in one case and the Japanese on the other. Or, I suppose, take it on a case-by-case basis, in which case your criticism would be less ideological and more personal, regarding Stalin’s ability to assess foreign situations - and that’s a bit of stretch because I don’t think most of the leftists in Germany and China foresaw what would happen in their respective countries either.
Aside from these contradictions, I don’t really agree with the Trotskyist demand for an aggressive foreign policy. Of course, Marx predicted a global revolution but Marx was not a prophet, and socialist movements in other countries were not sufficiently developed to follow suit (as evidenced by the failure of the Second International). Trying to create an insurgency within another country is an act of aggression, at least potentially of war, and it seems like you’re demanding that the USSR should’ve gone to war with every country on earth simultaneously to compensate for the failure of those countries’ own socialist movements. That would’ve obviously been suicidal.
The USSR’s (post-Stalin) policy of “peaceful coexistence” was based on the correct understanding that such aggression would (perhaps correctly) be seen as a nationalistic act of aggression. Indeed, to the extent that the USSR expanded militarily, for example under Stalin or in Afghanistan, I think it deserves criticism. It seems a lot more reasonable to consolidate their position and serve as a proof of concept for socialists worldwide to follow on their own initiative than to try to impose those conflicts from the outside.
It is wrong to lump the KMT and the SPD together. The KMT was a bourgeois nationalist party. The SPD, despite its well documented problems, was a workers party with enormous political significance. Absolutely not tbe same, hence the difference in policy toward the two.
I don’t agree with that assessment. The KMT at the time was led by Sun Yat-Sen, who was much more left-leaning than his successor Chiang Kai-Shek. The KMT was originally a revolutionary party that deposed the monarchy, and it had left-wing elements within the party (as well as cooperating with the CCP) before Chiang purged them. Also worth noting that as a pre-industrial, colonized society, the class distinctions were not precisely the same as in Western countries, as demonstrated by the fact that it was by mobilizing the peasants rather than the much smaller industrial proletariat that the Chinese revolution was eventually successful. As argued by Frantz Fanon, class collaboration with the bourgeoisie in poor countries is potentially viable because the primary conflict in those cases is with foreign colonizers.
If you ask me to choose between the early KMT under Sun that overthrew a monarchy and cooperated with communists, and the SDP who betrayed and murdered communists, denounced them as being as bad as fascists, and enacted austerity policies that contributed to the Nazis’ rise, I’m picking the early KMT every time.
It’s not “hostility to the working class,” it’s just objective facts. The CCP originally tried to follow the more orthodox approach of focusing on the industrial proletariat, with the exception of a particular member who had personal experience with the rural peasants and believed they had greater potential for radicalization. The CCP ignored him, and were promptly defeated, leading to the Long March. Among the survivors was that man I mentioned earlier, who was now able to implement his strategy of focusing on the peasants, and as a result of that strategy, even though the communists had been thoroughly defeated, hiding in the most remote regions of China, most of the party dead, the revolution caught on and spread like wildfire.
If othodox Marxist theory was objectively not suited to the conditions of China regarding which class had radicalization potential, because the lack of industrialization meant that the proletariat hadn’t really developed, then isn’t it reasonable to think that orthodox theory regarding the bourgeoisie was questionable as well?
And in Germany, the so-called “working class” party of the SDP actively fought against the potential of setting up a socialist government, set the freicorps against communists, and insisted on setting up a system where they would give the bourgeoisie power and then work with them to worsen the conditions of the working class. You yourself acknowledged their betrayal of the working class, it’s just when they take off their “Second International” hat and put on their “SDP” hat they’re absolved of everything, apparently.
Goes to show that the Trotskyist tendency towards blind contrarianism is as strong as ever. If Trotsky and Stalin had switched roles, you’d all be Stalinists, it doesn’t even matter what their ideological differences were, you just want to support the guy who lost so that you can imagine he would’ve done everything perfectly and you don’t have to engage with difficult practical decisions. Classic “support every revolution, except the ones that succeed.”
I have to wonder how much of it is driven by chauvinism towards developing countries too, as you seem actively hostile to considering their material conditions.
People who unironically support Stalinism in the modern day are red fascists. Whether they are technically the exact same thing or not isn’t a meaningful discussion considering the commentary that Sanders is offering here. He is specifically operating within the context of modern American politics. Something average academic/armchair/larpy leftists are often completely fucking incapable of. His main use of analogizing Stalinism with Trumpism is the Cult of Personality not that they are literally the exact same thing. It is exhausting that this needs to be explained.
Sanders use of the term as a political slur wrongly directed at Trump confuses the issue, and ultimately gives capitalism a pass for its own crisis.
How does it give a pass to capitalism? Sanders himself would agree that capitalism contributed to Trumpism.
This is a deliberate falsification that is calculated to confuse political consciousness and hinder the development of revolutionary conclusions.
This is a level of paranoia suggesting actual brain damage, seek medical attention.
People who unironically support Stalinism in the modern day are red fascists.
No, they are not. And the only reason you say they are is because liberals understanding of politics is entirely through the Marvel comic lense of there are “Good guys” and “Bad Guys” and the bad guys are foreign coded
IDK where you got that I did not write “deliberately divorcing emotion from the decision process and just looking at the facts as best I am able to understand.” … are you mixing up different replies?
The irony here is that liberals call everybody to the left of them “tankies”. Take note; this is what projection actually looks like.
There is no irony, the words “Tankie” and “Liberal” are not equivalent. Tankie is always a pejorative in response to specific stated politics. Liberal is an ideological identity that sometimes is used as a pejorative by some leftists because its an accusation that they actually secretly support capitalism. Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely. Sort of like how actual liberals get called communists by fascists, nazis, and other far right conservatives.
If you wanted to say, call me a “Anarkiddy” or something that would at least be a little closer to the same thing as me calling you a Tankie. I’m not really strictly an anarchist anymore either, but still I’m infinitely closer to that than liberal.
The reason this matters is that specifically if I actually was a liberal, I wouldn’t be annoyed by Tankies and Campists using the word “liberal” as a pejorative against non-tankie/campist leftists. I’d just embrace the label.
I don’t embrace the label. I’m not a liberal. I just also don’t take the accusation from Tankies that I’m a liberal seriously anymore. I’m mostly just annoyed by the extremely boring and tiresome intellectual dishonesty.
I had the wrong text in my clip board; I meant to quote:
One can hate capitalism and also hate Stalinists.
Which is indeed a complete non-sequitor.
There is no irony, the words “Tankie” and “Liberal” are not equivalent. Tankie is always a pejorative in response to specific stated politics. Liberal is an ideological identity that sometimes is used as a pejorative by some leftists because its an accusation that they actually secretly support capitalism.
“They’re not the same because ‘tankie’ is a real ideology and ‘liberal’ is just a pejorative” is the most obviously brain-dead and stupid argument imaginable. You can’t seriously expect me to entertain in.
Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely.
Hey, asshole. You called me a tankie for the sole reason that I said that Fascism and Stalinism are distinct ideologies and not interchangeable terms. Not for defending Stalinism, not even for saying it’s not as bad as Fascism, just for saying it’s a different ideology. So you can take your " Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely" hypocritical bullshit, take a look in the mirror and stop projecting your own bad behavior on me.
And this is why are say your framing of the world is ultimately just Marvel ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’, because you see me say Stalinism and Fascism are different and just assume that I’m defending stalinism; because to you, they’re both just pejorative synonyms for “being a Bad Guy”, so saying Stalinism isn’t fascism is saying it isn’t “being a Bad Guy”.
If you wanted to say, call me a “Anarkiddy” or something that would at least be a little closer to the same thing as me calling you a Tankie.
In that it’s completely fucking baseless and inaccurate?
I’m not really strictly an anarchist anymore either, but still I’m infinitely closer to that than liberal.
Ok, so you’re a liberal.
I don’t embrace the label.
Don’t care, labels are descriptive, not a personal affectation.
I just also don’t take the accusation from Tankies that I’m a liberal seriously anymore.
You really need to work on the projection, hypocrite.
I’m mostly just annoyed by the extremely boring and tiresome intellectual dishonesty.
You called me a tankie for the sole reason that I said that Fascism and Stalinism are distinct ideologies and not interchangeable terms.
Maybe you aren’t a tankie, but if there was a verifiable test for the disease, I’d bet money you have it on that basis + the .ml yeah.
Not for defending Stalinism, not even for saying it’s not as bad as Fascism, just for saying it’s a different ideology.
because you see me say Stalinism and Fascism are different and just assume that I’m defending stalinism
Don’t play dumb. You are engaging in defensive apologia.
Don’t care, labels are descriptive, not a personal affectation.
No shit? I don’t embrace the label was listed as specific evidence that I wasn’t a liberal because liberals don’t care if they are called a liberal. I’d claim bad reading comprehension but that would imply you are capable of growth, its clear you have an ideological myopia and don’t want to engage in good faith.
Maybe you aren’t a tankie, but if there was a verifiable test for the disease, I’d bet money you have it on that basis + the .ml yeah.
Great, thanks for confirming it’s just a baseless pejorative you throw around based on absolutely fucking nothing. Moron
Don’t play dumb. You are engaging in defensive apologia
I literally am not, dipshit. Maybe learn to read rather than trying to tell other people what they need to say for your strawman argument to work. Moron. Keep this up and I’m just going to start claiming that you’re engaging in defensive of pedophilia. It would be just as reasonable.
Really not beating the accusation that you see everything through a “good guy, bad guy” lens.
I don’t embrace the label was listed
Don’t care if you embrace it or not.
liberals don’t care if they are called a liberal.
Some of them, do, like yourself, for example.
I’d claim bad reading comprehension but that would imply you are capable of growth
Why do reddit liberals have such dogshit attempts at dunks? You’d think, given that they immediately fall back on them whenever challenged on anything, they’d at least get good at them.
its clear you have an ideological myopia and don’t want to engage in good faith.
Once again, look in the mirror and stop projecting, dipshit. I have actually articulated a point, you have just slung personal attacks and some of the worst attempts at dunks imaginable.
I mean, there is nothing you could say when the ideology you cheerlead imploded on its own. Even China turned to capitalism after seeing USSR collapsed.
“Imploded on it’s own” lol confidently incorrect, the US put a lot of work into overthrowing the soviet union, and I’ve got plenty to say about it, what a moronic retort. And lol @ “china turned to capitalism” you mean the country that executes more billionaires than any other on earth? Do you think capitalism is when people trade currency for goods and services? Jesus fucking christ log off and read a book
This is a level of paranoia suggesting actual brain damage, seek medical attention.
I think you underestimate the class consciousness of the ruling class. Bernie has been faithfully playing his assigned role to keep increasingly radicalized sections of the working class and youth within the orbit of the Democratic Party. I do not think it is a stretch to assign consciously anti-revolutionary motives to his statements, especially this stupidly anti-communist statement.
Despite my therapist not agreeing with me on politics, she thinks I am mentally fine.
How does it give a pass to capitalism? Sanders himself would agree that capitalism contributed to Trumpism.
Stalinism was a degeneration of the workers state in the Soviet Union. Fascism is an extreme counterrevolutionary form of capitalism. Assigning one (Stalinism) to the other (Trump/MAGA) is a category error. Ahisotorical and unscientific (and likelh a conscious distortion given Sanders political history and experience).
People who unironically support Stalinism in the modern day are red fascists.
The Stalinist perspective is counterrevolutionary, but it is not fascist. Ironically, most actual Stalinists will have disavowed Stalin by now following his death and Krushev’s secret speech. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, international Stalinists are largely reduced to trade union organizing and activist pressure groups. In the third world they routinely enter into coalitions with bourgeois nationalist governments. Edgy teenagers on the internet are not serious Stalinists.
He is specifically operating within the context of modern American politics. Something average academic/armchair/larpy leftists are often completely fucking incapable of. His main use of analogizing Stalinism with Trumpism is the Cult of Personality not that they are literally the exact same thing.
In the contact of American politics, the role of anticommunism cannot be overstated. Sanders plays into this tradition because he supports it. He could have criticized Trump’s cult of personality by referencing the fascist Mussolini (or just made it a direct statement about Trump). He chose to use the word “Stalinism” despite it being clearly inappropriate because it serves his political function.
Bernie has been faithfully playing his assigned role to keep increasingly radicalized sections of the working class and youth within the orbit of the Democratic Party.
No. This is a delusional take.
Despite my therapist not agreeing with me on politics, she thinks I am mentally fine.
She’s wrong if you genuinely think the Sanders is a pro-capitalist plant. Either that or you don’t actually believe this and you are arguing in bad faith because you actually simply dislike Sander’s openly stated politics.
Or you have not actually paid any consistent attention to Sanders at all or read up on his history before he became politically relevant.
Stalinism was a degeneration of the workers state in the Soviet Union. Fascism is an extreme counterrevolutionary form of capitalism. Assigning one (Stalinism) to the other (Trump/MAGA) is a category error. Ahisotorical and unscientific
Even if you are technically correct, none of this matters in the current political context. You are being nitpicky at best, but more likely just engaging in irrelevant intellectual masturbation/showboating. Further, this doesn’t actually explain why Sanders gives a pass to capitalism, you are just repeating the same point. Being anti-Stalinism and being open about that doesn’t make you apologetic to capitalism unless you take a very “You are with us or against us” campist perspective.
(and likelh a conscious distortion given Sanders political history and experience).
Instead of ignoring now, you are misrepresenting the context of his statement. The left in the US is currently on the backfoot. (Even with a specific notable newsworthy exception in NYC) Sanders knows that liberals and conservatives alike in the US associate Stalin vaguely with very bad things and is using that cultural association. Now, do I think this is politically effective? IDK. I suspect the problem with Sanders is generally that he is not mean enough to his opposition, and this is indeed tactical but not for reasons you are laying out. Given his history the idea that hes secretly a pro-capitalism plant is actually completely flabbergastingly stupid. Like I can’t take you seriously for saying that and I only continue this conversation due to curiosity.
Ironically, most actual Stalinists will have disavowed Stalin by now following his death and Krushev’s secret speech. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, international Stalinists are largely reduced to trade union organizing and activist pressure groups. In the third world they routinely enter into coalitions with bourgeois nationalist governments. Edgy teenagers on the internet are not serious Stalinists.
OK, then it sounds like they’re red fascists to me. They are fascists who just want to not be associated with fascism.
Sanders plays into this tradition because he supports it (anti-communism).
No he doesn’t. He might not support authoritarianism but he’s not an anti-communist. A lazy example: he has defended Castro before.
He could have criticized Trump’s cult of personality by referencing the fascist Mussolini (or just made it a direct statement about Trump).
He’s compared him to Mussolini already. In 2020, “We have a president now who is a pathological liar. We have a president who is trying to undermine democracy. We have a president who admires authoritarian figures. I mean, it’s not an exaggeration to compare him to Mussolini.” Hes going to compare him to any historical figure views as authoritarian, because Sanders is anti-authoritarian.
I reject this analysis as unscientific and ahistoric. The similarities are entirely superficial. Its not a matter of different ideology, but different historic content of the regimes themselves.
I use my own brain for writing, thank you very much. There are clear mistakes in my OP, despite my best efforts, that all but prove the human origin or my writing.
Consider for a moment that people who use chatgpt to make content have already been adding prompt material to add in occasional human ‘mistakes’ for months now?
I made this mistake giving away my right wing forum slider detection tactics back in 2015-16, resulting in all the usual suspects changing their patterns within days and weeks.
So I’m not giving away anything other than there is a detectable pattern, and with time people can even usually identify Which AI generated it too. They have a certain tenor that’s recognizable over time.
And your post reeks of it
For what end? The usual, muddying forum discussion, wasting people’s times, souring sentiment.
It’s really shocking how quickly it’s spread here, I at least assumed we’d get a few years.
This rhetoric adds nothing of subtance to the political understanding of either contemporary Trumpism or the history of Stalinism. Sanders only serves to obscure the meaning of this critically important understanding. Fascism and Stalinism are not the same.
To be clear, Stalinism took hold in the Soviet Union as a result of its historic backwardness and international isolation. The failure of the revolution to take root in Europe (largely a result of the historic betrayal of Social Democracy in the Second International) created conditions for the consolidation of a nationalist clique and a bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state that formed from the victory of the October Revolution. That is Stalinism. This political form was responsible for mass murder of the old cadres of the revolution who opposed it, systematic betrayal of the workers movement internationally, collaboration with imperialism allowing for the restabilization of capitalism during its repeated periods of crisis, and ultimately the destruction of Soviet Union union and the restoration of capitalism in 1991. A detailed and correct historical understanding of this history is critically important for the working class as it enters into a new period of revolutionary struggle.
Sanders use of the term as a political slur wrongly directed at Trump confuses the issue, and ultimately gives capitalism a pass for its own crisis. Trump is not simply an evil individual responsible for wrecking America. He is the product of the terminal crisis of capitalism at the center of world imperialism. He represents a financial oligarchy whose wealth and influence has grown increasingly disconnected from social development and the process of production. The historic content of Trumpism has a stronger relationship to the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler than the national labor bureaucraticism of Stalin.
This is no small error by Sanders. This is a deliberate falsification that is calculated to confuse political consciousness and hinder the development of revolutionary conclusions. It should be clear to anyone who takes more than a second to think about it that the comparison to Stalinism is shallow. The historic content of Trumpism is its own.
What path should the USSR have taken instead? (genuine question)
The survival of the Soviet Union as a socialist state depended on the expansion of the revolution internationally. Stalin’s policy of building socialism in one country led to all manner of bureaucratic overreach with authoritarian methods and betrayal of the international working class. The correct policy would have been to spread the revolution throughout the world on the basis of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, as advanced by the Left Opposition.
The failures of the revolutions in Germany through 1923 were terrible tragedies, prepared largely by the betrayals of the Second International and the inexperiance of the new communist KPD of the Third International. This is not something you can really blame Stalin for, but it created the conditions for what followed.
The betrayal of the Chinese revolution of 1925–27 was the first great International betrayal of Stalinism. Stalin ordered an alliance with the bourgeouis Kuomantang that ended with the massacre of thousands of Chinese comminists at the hands of the nationalista. After that, he ordered a series of putsches that predictably ended in further defeats. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist party for his criticism of the line that led to this disaster.
The ultraleft line of the Comintern in its third period led to disaster and betrayal in Germany in the 1930s. Stalin divided the forces working class by refusing to allow a united front of the communists with German Social Democracy. The SPD still had significant influence in the working class, with over a million working class members who were trained in the revolutionary theories of Marxism. The KPD under the influence of Stalin denounced these workers as “social fascist” essentially no different than the Nazis, thus paving the way for Hitler to come to power (only to turn around later to make his infamous pact with Hitler). These events led Trotsky to conclude the Third International was dead for purposes of revolution, and to call for the founding on the Fourth International.
Fourth International called for political revolution in the USSR to restore democracy and defend the gains of the October Revolution and to expand the proletarian revolution internationally. Trotsky and large numbers of the cadre of the FI were murdered by Stalinist agents, who opposed this perspective. In the postwar period the role of the Stalinists was to use their influence to prop up bourgeois governments throughout the third world, and to effect its foreign policy objectives with respect to the imperialist countries. Stalin fell out of favor after Krushevs secret speech following his death, but the basic political methods remained the same.
What? These criticisms are all contradictory.
On the one hand, Stalin should’ve done more to spread the revolution to other countries, like Germany. On the other hand, he should’ve convinced the KPD to work together with the SDP instead of taking a more revolutionary approach. Were the SDP not the very people who were in the Second International and betrayed the revolution?
It seems kind of silly to blame the KPD-SDP split on Stalin considering that the social democrats both killed much of the KPD leadership (such as Rosa Luxembourg), and also continued using equivalent language about how the KPD were just as bad as the fascists. The SDP made the decision to align with the bourgeois parties and help them enact austerity policies during an economic crisis, and ultimately to back Hindenburg over Thälmann, who then appointed Hitler. The KPD felt that, in addition to the SDP being utterly uncooperative and uninterested in reconciliation, their association with crushing economic policy made them more of a liability than an asset - in hindsight, this was probably a miscalculation, but the blame is not entirely on them.
Now, if your position was that the USSR should have taken a realpolitik perspective and backed the anticommunist SDP to stop Hitler, despite their attitude to the KPD, that would be a coherent criticism - except that you also criticize the USSR for making a very similar decision in China. The USSR policy viewed the CCP as too weak to win a revolution, and instead aimed to achieve a united front, regardless of ideological disagreements.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this estimation was an error, but I’m asking for a single coherent path. Either be willing to compromise and work together with anti-communists like the KMT and the SDP, or take a hard line and support revolution - even in the face looming threats from the Nazis in one case and the Japanese on the other. Or, I suppose, take it on a case-by-case basis, in which case your criticism would be less ideological and more personal, regarding Stalin’s ability to assess foreign situations - and that’s a bit of stretch because I don’t think most of the leftists in Germany and China foresaw what would happen in their respective countries either.
Aside from these contradictions, I don’t really agree with the Trotskyist demand for an aggressive foreign policy. Of course, Marx predicted a global revolution but Marx was not a prophet, and socialist movements in other countries were not sufficiently developed to follow suit (as evidenced by the failure of the Second International). Trying to create an insurgency within another country is an act of aggression, at least potentially of war, and it seems like you’re demanding that the USSR should’ve gone to war with every country on earth simultaneously to compensate for the failure of those countries’ own socialist movements. That would’ve obviously been suicidal.
The USSR’s (post-Stalin) policy of “peaceful coexistence” was based on the correct understanding that such aggression would (perhaps correctly) be seen as a nationalistic act of aggression. Indeed, to the extent that the USSR expanded militarily, for example under Stalin or in Afghanistan, I think it deserves criticism. It seems a lot more reasonable to consolidate their position and serve as a proof of concept for socialists worldwide to follow on their own initiative than to try to impose those conflicts from the outside.
It is wrong to lump the KMT and the SPD together. The KMT was a bourgeois nationalist party. The SPD, despite its well documented problems, was a workers party with enormous political significance. Absolutely not tbe same, hence the difference in policy toward the two.
I don’t agree with that assessment. The KMT at the time was led by Sun Yat-Sen, who was much more left-leaning than his successor Chiang Kai-Shek. The KMT was originally a revolutionary party that deposed the monarchy, and it had left-wing elements within the party (as well as cooperating with the CCP) before Chiang purged them. Also worth noting that as a pre-industrial, colonized society, the class distinctions were not precisely the same as in Western countries, as demonstrated by the fact that it was by mobilizing the peasants rather than the much smaller industrial proletariat that the Chinese revolution was eventually successful. As argued by Frantz Fanon, class collaboration with the bourgeoisie in poor countries is potentially viable because the primary conflict in those cases is with foreign colonizers.
If you ask me to choose between the early KMT under Sun that overthrew a monarchy and cooperated with communists, and the SDP who betrayed and murdered communists, denounced them as being as bad as fascists, and enacted austerity policies that contributed to the Nazis’ rise, I’m picking the early KMT every time.
Alright. Goes to show the Stalinist hostility to the revolutionary working class and their affinity for bourgeois nationalism is as strong as ever.
It’s not “hostility to the working class,” it’s just objective facts. The CCP originally tried to follow the more orthodox approach of focusing on the industrial proletariat, with the exception of a particular member who had personal experience with the rural peasants and believed they had greater potential for radicalization. The CCP ignored him, and were promptly defeated, leading to the Long March. Among the survivors was that man I mentioned earlier, who was now able to implement his strategy of focusing on the peasants, and as a result of that strategy, even though the communists had been thoroughly defeated, hiding in the most remote regions of China, most of the party dead, the revolution caught on and spread like wildfire.
If othodox Marxist theory was objectively not suited to the conditions of China regarding which class had radicalization potential, because the lack of industrialization meant that the proletariat hadn’t really developed, then isn’t it reasonable to think that orthodox theory regarding the bourgeoisie was questionable as well?
And in Germany, the so-called “working class” party of the SDP actively fought against the potential of setting up a socialist government, set the freicorps against communists, and insisted on setting up a system where they would give the bourgeoisie power and then work with them to worsen the conditions of the working class. You yourself acknowledged their betrayal of the working class, it’s just when they take off their “Second International” hat and put on their “SDP” hat they’re absolved of everything, apparently.
Goes to show that the Trotskyist tendency towards blind contrarianism is as strong as ever. If Trotsky and Stalin had switched roles, you’d all be Stalinists, it doesn’t even matter what their ideological differences were, you just want to support the guy who lost so that you can imagine he would’ve done everything perfectly and you don’t have to engage with difficult practical decisions. Classic “support every revolution, except the ones that succeed.”
I have to wonder how much of it is driven by chauvinism towards developing countries too, as you seem actively hostile to considering their material conditions.
People who unironically support Stalinism in the modern day are red fascists. Whether they are technically the exact same thing or not isn’t a meaningful discussion considering the commentary that Sanders is offering here. He is specifically operating within the context of modern American politics. Something average academic/armchair/larpy leftists are often completely fucking incapable of. His main use of analogizing Stalinism with Trumpism is the Cult of Personality not that they are literally the exact same thing. It is exhausting that this needs to be explained.
How does it give a pass to capitalism? Sanders himself would agree that capitalism contributed to Trumpism.
This is a level of paranoia suggesting actual brain damage, seek medical attention.
No, they are not. And the only reason you say they are is because liberals understanding of politics is entirely through the Marvel comic lense of there are “Good guys” and “Bad Guys” and the bad guys are foreign coded
Yes they are.
One can hate capitalism and also hate Stalinists. The “good vs bad guy” ideology is just projection on your part.
I could nitpick and state I’m not a liberal as well but whatever tankies call every other non-tankie leftist a liberal so who fucking cares.
No, they are not.
OK. Non-sequitor.
Nope; learn what projection means.
The irony here is that liberals call everybody to the left of them “tankies”. Take note; this is what projection actually looks like.
IDK where you got that I did not write “deliberately divorcing emotion from the decision process and just looking at the facts as best I am able to understand.” … are you mixing up different replies?
There is no irony, the words “Tankie” and “Liberal” are not equivalent. Tankie is always a pejorative in response to specific stated politics. Liberal is an ideological identity that sometimes is used as a pejorative by some leftists because its an accusation that they actually secretly support capitalism. Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely. Sort of like how actual liberals get called communists by fascists, nazis, and other far right conservatives.
If you wanted to say, call me a “Anarkiddy” or something that would at least be a little closer to the same thing as me calling you a Tankie. I’m not really strictly an anarchist anymore either, but still I’m infinitely closer to that than liberal.
The reason this matters is that specifically if I actually was a liberal, I wouldn’t be annoyed by Tankies and Campists using the word “liberal” as a pejorative against non-tankie/campist leftists. I’d just embrace the label.
I don’t embrace the label. I’m not a liberal. I just also don’t take the accusation from Tankies that I’m a liberal seriously anymore. I’m mostly just annoyed by the extremely boring and tiresome intellectual dishonesty.
I had the wrong text in my clip board; I meant to quote:
Which is indeed a complete non-sequitor.
“They’re not the same because ‘tankie’ is a real ideology and ‘liberal’ is just a pejorative” is the most obviously brain-dead and stupid argument imaginable. You can’t seriously expect me to entertain in.
Hey, asshole. You called me a tankie for the sole reason that I said that Fascism and Stalinism are distinct ideologies and not interchangeable terms. Not for defending Stalinism, not even for saying it’s not as bad as Fascism, just for saying it’s a different ideology. So you can take your " Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely" hypocritical bullshit, take a look in the mirror and stop projecting your own bad behavior on me.
And this is why are say your framing of the world is ultimately just Marvel ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’, because you see me say Stalinism and Fascism are different and just assume that I’m defending stalinism; because to you, they’re both just pejorative synonyms for “being a Bad Guy”, so saying Stalinism isn’t fascism is saying it isn’t “being a Bad Guy”.
In that it’s completely fucking baseless and inaccurate?
Ok, so you’re a liberal.
Don’t care, labels are descriptive, not a personal affectation.
You really need to work on the projection, hypocrite.
Then you should stop engaging in it, liberal.
Maybe you aren’t a tankie, but if there was a verifiable test for the disease, I’d bet money you have it on that basis + the .ml yeah.
Don’t play dumb. You are engaging in defensive apologia.
No shit? I don’t embrace the label was listed as specific evidence that I wasn’t a liberal because liberals don’t care if they are called a liberal. I’d claim bad reading comprehension but that would imply you are capable of growth, its clear you have an ideological myopia and don’t want to engage in good faith.
Great, thanks for confirming it’s just a baseless pejorative you throw around based on absolutely fucking nothing. Moron
I literally am not, dipshit. Maybe learn to read rather than trying to tell other people what they need to say for your strawman argument to work. Moron. Keep this up and I’m just going to start claiming that you’re engaging in defensive of pedophilia. It would be just as reasonable.
Really not beating the accusation that you see everything through a “good guy, bad guy” lens.
Don’t care if you embrace it or not.
Some of them, do, like yourself, for example.
Why do reddit liberals have such dogshit attempts at dunks? You’d think, given that they immediately fall back on them whenever challenged on anything, they’d at least get good at them.
Once again, look in the mirror and stop projecting, dipshit. I have actually articulated a point, you have just slung personal attacks and some of the worst attempts at dunks imaginable.
Log off and read a book
Says the terminally online tankie troll.
Go touch grass and meet some friends irl. Oh wait…
Liberals really have nothing except endlessly spewing the same dozen insults at anyone who disagrees with them.
Tankies really have nothing except endlessly cheerlead a dead ideology.
Wait, so you don’t have any friends irl.
Yup, more of the same rote insults. With some incoherent “no, u!” thrown in.
Go make some friends in real life, if you can.
And now you’ve exhausted the short list of insults and have to repeat the same ones over and over.
Lol @ “dead ideology” from the folks who lost to Trump twice
I mean, there is nothing you could say when the ideology you cheerlead imploded on its own. Even China turned to capitalism after seeing USSR collapsed.
Jesus, how bad is history education these days?
“Imploded on it’s own” lol confidently incorrect, the US put a lot of work into overthrowing the soviet union, and I’ve got plenty to say about it, what a moronic retort. And lol @ “china turned to capitalism” you mean the country that executes more billionaires than any other on earth? Do you think capitalism is when people trade currency for goods and services? Jesus fucking christ log off and read a book
I think you underestimate the class consciousness of the ruling class. Bernie has been faithfully playing his assigned role to keep increasingly radicalized sections of the working class and youth within the orbit of the Democratic Party. I do not think it is a stretch to assign consciously anti-revolutionary motives to his statements, especially this stupidly anti-communist statement.
Despite my therapist not agreeing with me on politics, she thinks I am mentally fine.
Stalinism was a degeneration of the workers state in the Soviet Union. Fascism is an extreme counterrevolutionary form of capitalism. Assigning one (Stalinism) to the other (Trump/MAGA) is a category error. Ahisotorical and unscientific (and likelh a conscious distortion given Sanders political history and experience).
The Stalinist perspective is counterrevolutionary, but it is not fascist. Ironically, most actual Stalinists will have disavowed Stalin by now following his death and Krushev’s secret speech. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, international Stalinists are largely reduced to trade union organizing and activist pressure groups. In the third world they routinely enter into coalitions with bourgeois nationalist governments. Edgy teenagers on the internet are not serious Stalinists.
In the contact of American politics, the role of anticommunism cannot be overstated. Sanders plays into this tradition because he supports it. He could have criticized Trump’s cult of personality by referencing the fascist Mussolini (or just made it a direct statement about Trump). He chose to use the word “Stalinism” despite it being clearly inappropriate because it serves his political function.
No. This is a delusional take.
She’s wrong if you genuinely think the Sanders is a pro-capitalist plant. Either that or you don’t actually believe this and you are arguing in bad faith because you actually simply dislike Sander’s openly stated politics.
Or you have not actually paid any consistent attention to Sanders at all or read up on his history before he became politically relevant.
Even if you are technically correct, none of this matters in the current political context. You are being nitpicky at best, but more likely just engaging in irrelevant intellectual masturbation/showboating. Further, this doesn’t actually explain why Sanders gives a pass to capitalism, you are just repeating the same point. Being anti-Stalinism and being open about that doesn’t make you apologetic to capitalism unless you take a very “You are with us or against us” campist perspective.
Instead of ignoring now, you are misrepresenting the context of his statement. The left in the US is currently on the backfoot. (Even with a specific notable newsworthy exception in NYC) Sanders knows that liberals and conservatives alike in the US associate Stalin vaguely with very bad things and is using that cultural association. Now, do I think this is politically effective? IDK. I suspect the problem with Sanders is generally that he is not mean enough to his opposition, and this is indeed tactical but not for reasons you are laying out. Given his history the idea that hes secretly a pro-capitalism plant is actually completely flabbergastingly stupid. Like I can’t take you seriously for saying that and I only continue this conversation due to curiosity.
OK, then it sounds like they’re red fascists to me. They are fascists who just want to not be associated with fascism.
No he doesn’t. He might not support authoritarianism but he’s not an anti-communist. A lazy example: he has defended Castro before.
He’s compared him to Mussolini already. In 2020, “We have a president now who is a pathological liar. We have a president who is trying to undermine democracy. We have a president who admires authoritarian figures. I mean, it’s not an exaggeration to compare him to Mussolini.” Hes going to compare him to any historical figure views as authoritarian, because Sanders is anti-authoritarian.
One is fascism, the other is red fascism. Different ideologies but same cheeks from the same arse as one might put it.
I reject this analysis as unscientific and ahistoric. The similarities are entirely superficial. Its not a matter of different ideology, but different historic content of the regimes themselves.
You may reject, but the empirical basis is there. Different cheeks from the same authoritarian arse.
That’s the opposite of an emperical basis: that’s a purely vibes based statement
They might, if they were a teenager who got all of their political understanding from Marvel movies
No atrocities here, comrade.
Thanks for that lazy non-sequitor
the vote ratio on this chatgpt bullshit tells you all you need to know about how cooked lemmy already is in just 2 years…
I use my own brain for writing, thank you very much. There are clear mistakes in my OP, despite my best efforts, that all but prove the human origin or my writing.
Consider for a moment that people who use chatgpt to make content have already been adding prompt material to add in occasional human ‘mistakes’ for months now?
Ah, makes sense, I guess, since “flawless” writing is a known hallmark. I assure you that I do my own writing.
What about my writing suggests that it is AI generated? And to what end?
I made this mistake giving away my right wing forum slider detection tactics back in 2015-16, resulting in all the usual suspects changing their patterns within days and weeks.
So I’m not giving away anything other than there is a detectable pattern, and with time people can even usually identify Which AI generated it too. They have a certain tenor that’s recognizable over time.
And your post reeks of it
For what end? The usual, muddying forum discussion, wasting people’s times, souring sentiment.
It’s really shocking how quickly it’s spread here, I at least assumed we’d get a few years.
You must be the only real person on the internet!
Get a grip lmao.