Did material conditions cause Soviet society partly why it ended up so repressive? Russia was a pre industrial nation with low class consciousness and low possibility of revolution. There was immediate invasion into Russia right after October Revolution, it needed heavy self defense against capitalist states conspiring against it. Thus forming the conditions for an elite of vanguards to take over the state and rule it by force, fueling paranoia and causing them to feel justified in putting bullets into heads of dissenters, because there was very real chance of conspiring against it to take it down. Communism is painted as inherently oppressive but I disagree. Capitalists helped create perfect conditions to turn Soviets into a totalitarian state. Capitalists did tons of unethical stuff in history, but that doesn't get taught in the history books, leading people to get skewed ideas of how history happened. Capitalism was also adaptable enough to stop being so nakedly oppressive, but the system still has huge problems to this day. Especially in 2025, where a capitalist president running America is singlehandedly running the world into the ground.
We can debate on whether communism actually works. People know that there's class antagonism oftentimes and that upper people have economic control of lower. But capitalists went so far to support fascism to stop communism, tried to institute fascism in many nations, and did bunch of worst stuff to expand their power. This is showing just how far elite capitalists will go to preserve their power. Soviet system wouldn't have worked even without the extreme odds against it surviving and stuff working against it. We know this because of basic economics. But the reality is that the same class and same nations that did that are still similar today, and will gladly side with fascists on the whole or fight for inegalitarianism hard. Capitalism isn't a total failure economically unlike communism, but it has serious issues and contradictions.
>>2267692well theres gonna be a vanguard either way. its just the most advanced section of the working class, meaning the most class conscious, which in turn makes them the most likely to actually do the thing
is it really paranoia if they are actually out to get you? 7 nations army invade USSR after the rev but they never really stopped, capitalist saboteurs kept going into the 30s and then after 1945 the CIA and NATO kept dropping ex-SS paratroopers into russia to kill random civilians and blow up factories all the way into 1956 when they switch to doing psychotic james bond stuff when put into correct perspective is more like a fascist and monarchist spy working against peoples democracy. wouldn't be surprised if they did chernobyl too
>>2267846state and rev is honestly a better point on this.
On Authority actually kind of de-emphasizes class struggle at some rather key points and devolves into mechanistic vulgarization.
>Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the
<authority of the steam,
>which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception.
taken seriously this line functionally suggests that the only way out of capitalism is a technical development in the means of production and the only reason to engage in class struggle is to make your labor more expensive so as to force ever greater investiture into fixed capital (and somehow not get it blown up in wars).
Since we now have a great deal of understanding of the forces of nature, and exploit many different mechanisms by which energy can be transferred and highly flexible machinery, i have to kind of question what is supposed to get us out of capitalism now.
cybernetic - Borrowed from Ancient Greek κυβερνητικός (kubernētikós, “good at steering, good pilot”), from κυβερνητική τέχνη (kubernētikḗ tékhnē, “the pilot’s art”), from Ancient Greek κυβερνισμός (kubernismós), κυβέρνησις (kubérnēsis, “steering, pilotage, guiding”), from κυβερνάω (kubernáō, “to steer, to drive, to guide, to act as a pilot”) (which is also ultimately the root of govern).
>>2267692> Did material conditions cause Soviet society partly why it ended up so repressive?Yes but probably not for reasons MLs believe, the main reason was that the entire system was based on extracting surplus value from wage laborers through the political machinery rather than through the private economic relation while telling the workers that this new system of wage labor and exploitation was, in fact, the socialism of Marx and Engels
> Russia was a pre industrial nation with low class consciousness and low possibility of revolution. There was immediate invasion into Russia right after October Revolution, it needed heavy self defense against capitalist states conspiring against it. Thus forming the conditions for an elite of vanguards to take over the state and rule it by force, fueling paranoia and causing them to feel justified in putting bullets into heads of dissenters, because there was very real chance of conspiring against it to take it down.That’s just the basic argument that the revolution was doomed unless it was an international revolution, which is accurate
> Communism is painted as inherently oppressive but I disagree. Capitalists helped create perfect conditions to turn Soviets into a totalitarian state. Capitalists did tons of unethical stuff in history, but that doesn't get taught in the history books, leading people to get skewed ideas of how history happened. Capitalism was also adaptable enough to stop being so nakedly oppressive, but the system still has huge problems to this day. Especially in 2025, where a capitalist president running America is singlehandedly running the world into the ground.This is also true, capitalism is one of the most brutal systems in all of human history, this brutality is hidden behind the economic mechanisms of coercion inherent in it, but the actual mode of relation to the world, its peoples, and its various living things and geographic features is that of a general war against all life and the planet itself, made most evident through its world historical global conflicts with no real prior precedent, or the contemporary capacity for global annihilation in event of a new world war, or perhaps the epoch of warfare against all previous modes of life when indigenous societies, European medieval feudalism, ancient Asian empires, ancient African empires, God, Romance, and the like were annihilated by Capital’s advance; or perhaps the ongoing general war against all life that is expressed as the Sixth Mass Extinction and global ecological crisis; or perhaps the unending ideological and political warfare against the proletariat as Capital eternally staves off its revolutionary collapse yet longer, yet longer
> We can debate on whether communism actually works. People know that there's class antagonism oftentimes and that upper people have economic control of lowerThe last time communism properly existed was many thousands of years ago, the Soviet States did not call themselves communist, they redefined socialism as something separate from communism and then called themselves socialist. Communism refers to a classless, moneyless, and stateless form of society.
>>2267692>Did material conditions cause Soviet society partly why it ended up so repressive?Answering firstly against
whom and
why was soviet society repressive would be a good start, and not lapsing into general
phrases about repressivnes.
>Russia was a pre industrial nation with low class consciousness and low possibility of revolutionRussia was
industrializing and was
sufficiently industrialized that there
was an industrial proletariat. The fact that there
was a revolution in Russia contradicts your statement the probability of revolution was
low.
>Thus forming the conditions for an elite of vanguards to take over the state and rule it by force, fueling paranoia and causing them to feel justified in putting bullets into heads of dissenters, because there was very real chance of conspiring against it to take it down.You're completely ignorant about what vanguardism
is and how soviet society was organized, which steers you towards petty bourgeois psychologizing about the nature of
individual leaders rather than the social forces existing.
I don't care to reply further. Read before posting.
>>2268084>Answering firstly against whomThe class of wage laborers and communists for the majority of its history when it wasn’t actively at war
> and why was soviet society repressive would be a good startTo extract surplus value and reinvest it into growing its industries, manufactures, and military capabilities
> and not lapsing into general phrases about repressivnes. Very few people mean the leninist states were repressive to rich people when they call them repressive, this much is obvious. It’s on MLs to continually justify why the class of wage laborers was maintain, constantly reaffirmed, reified in a supposedly socialist society hypothetically aiming to abolish wage labor and the employer-employee relation (that is, the relation of coercion and domination of the immediate producers) and why political repression and mass censorship was necessary for the class the state supposedly upheld
> Russia was industrializing and was sufficiently industrialized that there was an industrial proletariat. The fact that there was a revolution in Russia contradicts your statement the probability of revolution was low.Trotsky actually explained the conditions of Russia very well, it had a small proletariat and was a poor candidate from which an international revolution could be maintained, though what’s likeliest is that without international revolution socialism is inherently doomed, whether the one country model is applied to a small impoverished nation or a large underdeveloped nation or even the USA itself; should the USA end up isolated rather than a node in a global confrontation.
> You're completely ignorant about what vanguardism is and how soviet society was organized, which steers you towards petty bourgeois psychologizing about the nature of individual leaders rather than the social forces existing. I would agree OP has an overemphasis on the individual leading political clique, the problem with “Soviet” society wasn’t corruption, it was the rule of Capital
>>2268098>Trotsky actually explained the conditions of Russia very well, it had a small proletariat and was a poor candidate from which an international revolution could be maintained, though what’s likeliest is that without international revolution socialism is inherently doomed, whether the one country model is applied to a small impoverished nation or a large Stop peddling this Trot nonsense immediately. Lenin clearly argues that
because Russia was the weak link of imperialism (not a colony, but also not independent of foreign capital, somewhere in between) the socialist revolution was more likely to occur there. The political leaders of the western proletariat were bribed by imperialism. Trotsky's idea of a permanent revolution was proven incorrect by history. Every idea Trotsky held was WRONG. Lenin is the man behind socialism in one country.
>>2268104> Stop peddling this Trot nonsense immediatelyDo you have a coherent critique of uneven and combined development as concepts or the mindless theism of ML thought?
> Lenin clearly argues that because Russia was the weak link of imperialism (not a colony, but also not independent of foreign capital, somewhere in between) the socialist revolution was more likely to occur there. That also has nothing to do with my actual statements, which, if you reread them, say nothing about where a socialist revolution might start, but rather the conditions for success
The rest of what you’re writing is mostly anti-intellectual nonsense, so I’m assuming what you really took was moral and sentimental offense to what I wrote, as is typical of MLs (being anti-communists that are nevertheless emotionally attached to “Marxism” and all)
>Lenin is the man behind socialism in one countryLol
>>2268112You do realize you’re pedaling the same infantile rhetoric invented by a Nazi collaborator right? The lengths western leftists will go to slander communism never ceases to amaze me
>>2268113China is currently the most powerful nation in the world, how’s CHAZ doing? Or your precious Kurdistan?
>>2268121>You do realize you’re pedaling the same infantile rhetoric invented by a Nazi collaborator right<Implying a communist Jew who was an open bolshevik for half his life was a Nazi collaborator Ignoring how retarded that in itself is, this is the “Hitler brushed his teeth too” fallacy
What was the specific “slander” in that post exactly?
I’m guessing you don’t know what uneven and combined development even refer to? Because I’d be very shocked if a “Marxist” would reject such concepts.
> China is currently the most powerful nation in the world, how’s CHAZ doing? Or your precious KurdistanWhat does China succeeding at capitalism have to do with proletarian revolution and the abolition OF capitalism?
Why are ML arguments so deeply incoherent and dependent on people feeling sentimental to dead people or governments?
>>2268164You mean emphasis on
>Lifelong communist, jew, and known bolshevik who once organized the Red ArmyPlease get your facts straight, maybe put the crack pipe down
>>2268167no no, emphasis on "jew" right here:
>communist Jewit's even capitalized, a bit bizarre if you ask me
>>2268242This is an empty pejorative
Stalinists will always be a laughingstock because of how heavily they lean on appealing to authority and closing themselves off into circlejerks where everyone thinks the same, which leads very few stalinists to be able to actually theoretically justify or defend anything they believe
Unique IPs: 19