>It is in the working class‘ interest to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism
is actually a normative statement disguised as a descriptive statement. It arrogantly elevates a Marxist attitude to a matter of fact. The working class has through their behavior regularly shown that they are fine with capitalism as long as there are enough goodies for them (hence why Westerners at best want social democracy while a desire for socialism has been a tiny outlier). Even in times of crisis this is the case. The rise in socialism is therefore an anomaly and not the class interest of the working class that is somehow innate to these particular class relations.
>Oh, but socialism affords worker control, and worker democracy, and guarantees everyone‘s base needs are met!
And again, who says every worker wants that? Not everyone wants to partake in the mental labor of organizing the economy, perhaps not even a business, not everyone wants every schmuck to have a say in organizing either, and not everyone believes that everyone is entitled to base needs, as cruel as that may sound. This isn‘t my opinion, but many people don‘t think that way and at some point you have to take overwhelming historic precedent into account and acknowledging that what you’ve claimed doesn‘t line up with observations. So the question becomes, will you adjust to observations that have repeatedly contradicted your theory (science) or stick to your guns (ideology)?
81 posts and 2 image replies omitted.>>2439131>the vanguard simply being the most class conscious, educated, organized, militant section of the working class.again:
fourier, saint-simon, owen, marx, engels, kautsky, lenin, stalin, trotsky, mao, etc.
none of these men were members of the working class. you are a deluded dogmatist.
>>2439150right, so the bourgeois intellectuals create communist movements, then use workers as pawns to save them from themselves, as the other anon wrote.
>>2439153this whole site is a circlejerk of marx; im not the one infected with great man syndrome.
>>2439161lets break it down incrimentally:
lets say the average hours people work is 40 hours
if the average was recuced to 32 hours, what would happen?
if it was reduced to 20 hours, what would happen?
>>2439168but he is right; workers are not revolutionary
>>2439166okay, so only 50% of the site worship marx, then.
>>2439163Yes idiot there is a difference.
If you have a car where 50% of the torque of each cycle goes to cycling the engine, and half pushes the car forward. It is an engine with 100% surplus.
If you cut the fuel input by half, the engine will have no surplus.
That doesn't make us suddenly sensible to make clear cut distinctions been which gas molecule impacts do which except in abstract modeling sense
>>2439182>there is a differenceright, and what is the difference?
if a new law was passed that limited working hours but fixed salaries at the same rate, would things be better or worse?
>>2439183>His class analysis was too local to Europe and Englandelaborate
>>2439196what do you think the implications of this are on historical materialism? i know in a letter he wrote to a russian woman he said that the myopic view of progress is expressly eurocentric and for this reason the russian commune may be an alternative model for progress. this then particularises historical development of course, which i think is critical, especially against the irresponsibility of what engels writes here:
>Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science, without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without the basis laid by Hellenism and the Roman Empire, also no modern Europe. We should never forget that our whole economic, political and intellectual development presupposes a state of things in which slavery was as necessary as it was universally recognised. In this sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity no modern socialism.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch16.htm>>2439199i havent promoted any ideology, but only criticised the false notion that the working class is revolutionary. its intellectuals who are revolutionary, which is why they come to dominate political spaces.
>>2439203>i havent promoted any ideologynonsense
>its intellectuals who are revolutionary, which is why they come to dominate political spaces.this is your ideology. now criticize it to prove you aren't a dogmatist. isn't this a fun game? come on. i already played it for you. it's your turn.
>>2439898During October 1899, he worked as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory (Deutscher 1966, p. 54; Conquest 1991, p. 27; Service 2004, pp. 43–44; Montefiore 2007, p. 76; Kotkin 2014, pp. 47–48.)
Rothschild refinery storehouse, where he co-organised two workers' strikes. (Montefiore 2007, pp. 90–93; Kotkin 2014, p. 51; Khlevniuk 2015, pp. 22–23.)
These are anti-Stalin sources btw who would be highly motivated to say he wasn't working class, yet even they say he was working class. So if that does not satisfy you, I do not know what will.
The idea stated in this post
>>2439893 that Stalin went from seminary school to robbing banks is completely ludicrous. He left seminary in 1899 and only partook in one bank robbery that we know of in 1907, the Tiflis bank robbery, where he played a mostly auxiliary role, standing off to the side and phoning Lenin when the job was complete. It was his friend Kamo who actually partook in the direct action of the robbery.
>>2439907he was an intellectual, not a prole
>>2439904>anti-stalin sources would be motivated to say he wasnt working classwhy? what is virtuous about being a wage slave?
>meteorologist<In this position, he worked during the night for a wage of twenty roubles a month.[80] The position entailed little work, and allowed him to read while on duty.[81] According to Robert Service, this was Stalin's "only period of sustained employment until after the October Revolution".https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin>>2439903>Beso insisted that Josef should become a cobbler like himself, but young Stalin was more interested in reading. His mother Ekaterine saw young Josef’s potential and tried to do everything she could to make sure that Josef would be well-educated, hoping that one day her beloved son would become a priest.he was an intellectual, not a labourer. God even intervenes on this occasion:
>When Stalin entered an Orthodox seminary in Tbilisi, his father tried to kidnap him from school to train him as a cobbler by force, but his mother was always there to help her son.and he only organised a strike, but never worked there:
>They met for the last time in May 1901, when Stalin was organizing a strike in the Adelkhanov shoe factory where his father worked. He was furious that his son was organizing strikes instead of learning a trade as he wished.his father still lamenting.
Unique IPs: 19