/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>good
foreign policy
>bad
everything else

>>2766879
Reasonable take.
>>2766856
>Is the Trotskyist take right?
More or less but the funny part is that the Trotskyists and anti-revisionist MLs ultimately have the same take on the fate of the USSR. They agree that it ultimately degenerated from a worker's state into one dominated by an undemocratic, complacent, and corrupt bureaucracy. They just disagree over who was in charge when this happened and laid its foundations. Trotskyists accuse Stalin and MLs accuse Khruschev. I think it's a moot point for two reasons. First, Khruschev couldn't have done what he did without the foundation built by Stalin, both in terms of the ultimate source of the bureaucracy itself (a social strata that would necessarily have taken shape during the Stalin years) and the repressive apparatus used to cement their power. Second, despite this issue the USSR still remained the most vigorous and steadfast defender of progressive forces globally until the genuine counter revolution took place under Gorbachev. So I think trying to pin everything on Khruschev is silly, he was neither the sole architect of the problems plaguing the USSR nor was he in power when they came to ultimate fruition.

I think his denunciation of Stalin created ideological confusion with Soviet society and the movement at large. The Sino-Soviet split was kind of the death knell of a lot of Communist parties in the western world.

Me and the beastie :)

>>2766879
Lenin > Trotsky > Kruschev > Stalin > Brezhnev > Senile leaders of late USSR > Pizza Hut commercial dude

Khruschev represented a retvrn from stalinism to marxism in the ussr. Anyone saying otherwise is just assblasted by the success of the cornman. If he didn't get couped by stalinists, Gorbachev would have never come to power.

Womp Womp…

>>2767110
This is exactly the moment when the parasitic bureaucrat class took over.

Khrushchev was a hero who saved the USSR from Stalin's ZOG.

He was Lion but the lion… he's retarded

>>2766856
if he haden't began destalinzination he would be universally beloved by mls

>>2767070
doomed yaoi

He could've been better if his economic policies were implemented with support from the rest of the party.

But they weren't.

>>2766879
the liberalization of the arts was actually pretty good too, we got a ton of shit including what is probably prokofiev's best work and a shitload of jazz music

>>2767037
>or less but the funny part is that the Trotskyists and anti-revisionist MLs ultimately have the same take on the fate of the USSR

Nah, there's a difference between the Marxist Leninist theory of bureaucratic counter-revolution, and the Trotskyist view

Everything bellow is sourced in this article written by Richard Kosolapov https://kvistrel.com/news/kak_khrushhev_razrushal_sssr_i_nakonec_gorbachjovskij_termidor/2025-10-26-6238

>Readers of Trotsky's "The Revolution Betrayed" find many accurate observations and criticisms of the Soviet political system and its ruling class, and even fall prey to the author's logic. However, this is precisely what our adversary needs! In the 1990s, Trotsky appeared to be right about the evolution of the Soviet system, but not in relation to the first third to mid-20th century, but to its end. Not in relation to the practices of Stalin, whom he attacks, but to those of Khrushchev and Gorbachev, with whom he would perhaps have been in solidarity. – Richard Kosolapov

>The evidence of this "misguided mind" is clear. Trotsky aptly traces the manifestations of what Lenin had already called the "bureaucratic perversion" of the workers' state. He rightly points out that the party must vigilantly ensure that "its boundaries always remain strictly defined," that "freedom of criticism and ideological struggle" is preserved, and that "concern for protecting the Bolshevik ranks from the vices associated with power" is constantly demonstrated. Yet, in The Revolution Betrayed, there is virtually not a single critical warning that was not previously contained in Lenin's works and not repeated in Stalin's publications.

>What's the difference? Well, here it is—and it's qualitative. Firstly, this is a violation of proportion. Trotsky shamelessly exaggerates. He portrays isolated negative phenomena as tendencies, declares these tendencies to be laws, and interprets the prevalence and recurrence of such phenomena as a change in essence.

>Second, Trotsky brings much that is personal and incidental to his analysis. While Hegel distinguished two aspects of his philosophy of history—idea and human passions—it can be said that in Lenin, both were in rare harmony. In Stalin, idea prevailed over passions, while in Trotsky, passions held idea in thrall.

<while in Trotsky, passions held idea in thrall [Kosolapov sounds like a freakin Jedi. Trotsky is a Sith lord in thralled by passion. Stalin is a orthodox Jedi, Lenin is a "rare" balanced force user. Lol]

>Lacking the space in the newspaper to further explore this fascinating subject, I will note that Trotsky miscalculated his prediction by a full half-century, and only under the unfortunate circumstance that the clear Leninist-Stalinist line of succession in the leadership of Soviet society had already been replaced by a well-disguised, creeping revisionism since the mid-1950s. Paradoxically, its father, who began to realize all of Trotsky's worst predictions, was Khrushchev, himself a former Trotskyist. Had the personnel selection and balance of power in the CPSU Central Committee at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s been different, given the course set by the 19th Party Congress, these predictions would never have come true.

>On the surface, everything was presented as if Khrushchev was attacking and debunking Stalin's "personality cult" in the name of supposedly restoring the norms and traditions of Leninism and socialist democracy. Indeed, a great deal of confusion had accumulated here. In reality—and this became clear five years later—the main target of the attack was the dictatorship of the working class—a Marxist formula replaced at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU by the unscientific, fantastical cliché of a "state of the whole people.

>Everyone knew that non-class states do not exist. Everyone had memorized the axiom that in the 20th century there were only two types of class rule: the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat. And yet, platoon by platoon, company by company, social scientists rushed to prove this "new" phrase "from Khrushchev," long since refuted by Marx in his "Critique of the Gotha Program" and Lenin in "State and Revolution." According to Lenin, this meant "a direct increase in the danger of the overthrow of the power of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, which will exploit for counterrevolution tomorrow what short-sighted people see as merely a 'theoretical disagreement' today.

>People of the older generation had heard plenty about the complete (and, according to Khrushchev, "final") victory of socialism and the "monolithic unity" of the CPSU. The acknowledgement of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois tendencies of either the right or the left was not only not tolerated but also harshly persecuted. Shortly before perestroika, one "vigilant" Pravda reader called me a CIA agent for even hinting at the existence of such phenomena in Soviet society.

He committed the only revisionism that ever mattered in the grand scheme of things. Promoting Communism as merely an alternative system to Capitalism, that the USSR has to compete with in order to exist concurrently with it. On top of that, he placed the USSR as behind the US on every metric and tried to catchup in the most unimaginative way, copying.
>The US mass produced nukes, so the USSR will mass produce nukes
>The US MIC nevertheless also produced a massive conventional army also, so the USSR produced a massive conventional army
>NASA rushes into space, the USSR also rushes into space
>The US consumes mainly corn, the USSR mainly consumed wheat and grains but now they will consume mainly corn as well
Etc, etc

Ultimately he turned the USSR into just “the other global superpower” rather than a developing socialist project like its Eastern neighbours, resulting in counter-revolutionaries being welcomed into the CPSU and eventually restoring Capitalism because (amongst other obvious reasons) the communist policies of the Soviet Union are outdated, Stalin-era red tape in the way of Russia continuing its quest to merely be the other global superpower.

>>2766879
This,
Although space travel was good domestic policy

>>2769651
You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with Richie, m8

>>2766879
basically this

>>2769742
>You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with Richie
Richard Kosolapov was a proper Marxist Leninist theoretician. Also was in a high level position of influence in the CPSU in times past.

He is for this reason, a good representative of Marxist-Leninist viewpoints.

>>2769651
I'll be honest even from that description I don't see much of a difference. You can call Trotsky premature but this could easily be spun as arguing that he was already spotting a malaise that Stalin was failing to contain. As I said, if Khruschev was a representative of bureaucratic counterrevolution, then Stalin necessarily bears much responsibility since this bureaucratic stratum must have taken shape while he was in power. This is exactly what Trotsky accused him of was it not? I disagree with Trotsky on a lot of things, but it seems impossible to deny that he correctly diagnosed the tumor in the Soviet system that would ultimately prove fatal. Even if Stalin was not knowingly encouraging this, even if he was actively fighting against it, he at least merits criticism for failing to stop it.

>>2769811
Bureaucracy existing in the party is not Trotskyism. Even Lenin decried bureaucracy in the party. Trotskyism is about reasoning, chalking it up to how Russia could never establish socialism since SioC is an absurdity.

>>2770148
I'm not talking about "Trotskyism" I'm talking about Trotsky's diagnoses of the most pressing danger to socialism in the USSR.
>Even Lenin decried bureaucracy in the party.
All that shows is that Trotsky's critiques were in line with Lenin's own concerns on this issue. To clarify I'm not a Trotskyist. I consider myself an ML and agree more with the take that Stalin was (or at least considered himself) an enemy of the bureaucratic stratum, and that they emerged in spite of him and his best efforts. What I find silly however is the dogmatic refusal to accept that Trotsky had a point in his critiques, even while effectively agreeing with them. Even Kosolapov doesn't really dispute that Trotsky's critique was correct, he just comes up with reasons why we shouldn't credit him for it, and these are frankly not very convincing. E.g.,
<Yet, in The Revolution Betrayed, there is virtually not a single critical warning that was not previously contained in Lenin's works and not repeated in Stalin's publications.
I don't understand how it's a criticism to say that Trotsky was echoing Lenin here. If anything it lends more legitimacy to what he said since Lenin and Stalin apparently agreed with him that this was a serious issue.
<Trotsky appeared to be right about the evolution of the Soviet system, but not in relation to the first third to mid-20th century, but to its end. Not in relation to the practices of Stalin, whom he attacks, but to those of Khrushchev and Gorbachev, with whom he would perhaps have been in solidarity
I also don't understand how this is a critique. Should Trotsky be criticized for having the foresight to recognize that the emerging bureaucracy could one day prove fatal to the USSR? Again if anything this lends additional weight to his critique, since he apparently recognized the seriousness of this problem before most MLs. I don't think you can fault somebody for being correct too soon. The whole statement that Trotsky "may have been in solidarity" with Khruschev is also silly. It's baseless speculation that's impossible to prove, but the claim is undermined by the fact that Trotsky's followers at the time regarded Khruschev as a continuation of the tendencies he critiqued, not a reversal of them. By the time you get to Gorbachev "Trotskyism" had also fragmented considerably to the point where its hard to call it a single tendency.
<Trotsky shamelessly exaggerates. He portrays isolated negative phenomena as tendencies, declares these tendencies to be laws, and interprets the prevalence and recurrence of such phenomena as a change in essence.
Clearly he wasn't exaggerating if the problem eventually proved fatal to Soviet socialism as it did. Rather he recognized the problem in its embryonic form before others did, correctly predicted where it would lead if not decisively defeated, and correctly determined that Stalin was failing to do so.

The whole framing to me just smacks of baseless sectarianism, with people not wanting to admit that Trotsky was correct on this particular issue because they dont like his other takes (valid since most of them were bad) or dislike him personally (also valid since he was by all accounts an asshole). I don't understand why anybody would do this for principled reasons, and it smacks of bizarre historical cheerleading more than sober Marxist analysis.

>>2769651
A continuation

>We were mesmerized by the statement of the 19th Congress, which abandoned the name "All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)," that "the Menshevik Party in the USSR had long since disappeared," and forgot that Russia's still-living petty bourgeois nature nonetheless constantly and spontaneously breeds political, ideological, and moral Menshevism. It was precisely this bacillus, with its various mutations—reformist and extremist, Trotskyist and Bukharinist, cosmopolitan and nationalist, feudal-parochial and Eurocommunist—that, when allowed to spread, gave rise to the famous "Gorbachev CPSU effect" by the late 1980s.

>In "The Revolution Betrayed," Trotsky depicted two insightful scenarios for the possible development of events in the USSR. The first option was the overthrow of the Soviet bureaucracy by "a revolutionary party that possesses all the qualities of the old Bolshevism and at the same time is enriched by the world experience of the recent period."

>The second option is the overthrow of the "ruling Soviet caste" by a bourgeois party. Obviously, this methodology, although based on real foundations, can only be accepted conditionally. What Trotsky called the Soviet bureaucracy was Stalin's enemy first and foremost, but he failed to completely extricate the party from the inertia imposed on it by the harsh conditions of armed conflict, especially the colossal losses (the party perished on the battlefield twice) that were the price of victory. Read Stalin's work "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics" with fresh eyes, and you will sense a living protest against stagnation and dogmatism in science, against the rigidity of thought and the absolutization of authority. "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" leads the country to new, creatively understood and realistically weighed frontiers for the creation of a communist society, and the Charter of the CPSU, adopted by the 19th Congress, represents a code of conduct imbued with the demand for truthfulness and honesty in everything.

>As contemporaries of Trotsky's second scenario, we must fundamentally reject any attempt to blame this turn of events on Stalin. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. The Soviet system of the 1950s and the Soviet system of the 1980s are two related organisms, shared in their fundamental parameters, yet distinct.

>I'll cite just two crucial facts. To this day, voices are being raised among communists who are terrified of the dictatorship of the working class, or, to translate this formula into modern language, of a system of universal labor power—as opposed to capital power. "Dictatorship" is a cruel word, these would-be theorists "quote" Lenin and fall silent mid-sentence. It's as if they haven't realized that the main thing in a workers' dictatorship isn't the suppression, in extreme cases, of an exploitative minority, or terror, but the democratic self-organization of the working majority in the name of a humane, collectivist organization of production and the organization of social life. So, according to the views of such pseudo-communists, the dictates of finance capital, both international and hastily cobbled together, are a no-no, while self-government by united labor is a no-no. Their "communism" is worthless!

>"Nothing hidden, nothing secret, no regulations, no formalities," Lenin wrote in his article "On the History of the Dictatorship." "Are you a working man? Do you want to fight to rid Russia of a handful of police tyrants? You are our comrade. Elect your deputy, now, immediately; choose as you see fit—we will gladly and joyfully accept him as a full member of our Council of Workers' Deputies, the Peasants' Committee, the Council of Soldiers' Deputies, and so on and so forth. This is a power open to all, doing everything in full view of the masses, accessible to the masses, emanating directly from the masses, a direct and immediate organ of the masses and their will."

>Replacing the formula "working-class state" with the formula "state of the whole people" was flawed in that it created the illusion of the complete disappearance of both class distinctions and the bourgeois elements that had meanwhile been accumulating under the watchful eye of the Brezhnev bureaucracy. That, firstly. Secondly, it provided a "roof" for these elements, disguising them in every possible way, equating their interests with those of working people, and distorting the system of sound socialist values. In this regard, Khrushchev even attempted to talk about the partial withering away of the state, while in reality he was doing the opposite—facilitating the return of the workers' state to a state of private property.

>Another crucial fact worth noting today was that, beginning in the mid-1960s, profit became established as the primary indicator of production efficiency. This was clearly at odds with Marxist-Leninist methodology and the experience of the Stalin period, when managers were asked to provide data on reducing production costs and were pressed to lower wholesale and retail prices. A powerful state-capitalist trend emerged, which, with the unchecked bureaucratization of management and the removal of the party from economic and personnel matters, led to the conversion of power into property, that is, to the restoration of capitalism.

<Regarding the 1980s and 1990s, Trotsky was right in that the Gorbachev-Yakovlev clique found "many willing servants among today's bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries, and, in general, the privileged upper crust." "A purge of the state apparatus," he wrote, "would, of course, have been necessary in this case as well; but a bourgeois restoration would probably have to purge fewer people than a revolutionary party. The main task of the new government, however, would be to restore private ownership of the means of production. Above all, it would be necessary to create conditions for the emergence of strong farmers from weak collective farms and for the transformation of strong collective farms into bourgeois-type production cooperatives, into agricultural joint-stock companies. In the industrial sector, denationalization would begin with enterprises in the light and food industries. The planned beginning would have turned into a transitional period of compromise between state power and individual "corporations"—that is, potential owners among Soviet captains of industry, former émigré property owners, and foreign capitalists. Despite the fact that the Soviet bureaucracy had prepared much for a bourgeois restoration, in the area of property forms and economic methods, the new regime would have had to effect not a reform, but a social revolution.

So, for the previous paragraph, the Marxist Leninist Kosolapov, concedes Trotsky was right about something.

>It's absolutely clear that Gorbachev and Yeltsin carried out Trotsky's prediction almost literally, as if they were following a directive. And this has nothing to do with their "well-reading" or adherence to some doctrine. It's about the extensive training of their mentors abroad, the pragmatic ability of these gentlemen to harness the entire world's experience, regardless of its origin, to serve their own selfish interests. It's about the ironclad logic of the historical process, which, with the replacement of even one key component, dramatically alters its algorithm.

>By the 19th Party Conference, the hunchbacks had built up a solid foundation for restoration. Having toyed with the idea of scientific and technological progress as a trump card in 1985, proposing and failing to implement a program to boost mechanical engineering, they had discredited it. Two "models of business accounting" and the introduction of bourgeois-style cooperatives, along with the undermining of the scientific-centralized planning system, paved the way for the disintegration and collapse of the integrated national economy. The indoctrination of millions of people with the idea that public property was "nobody's property" and its supposed inefficiency was combined with the deliberate organization of shortages of everyday goods, which had been in abundance even after the abolition of wartime rationing in 1947. Remember the ditty: "Bitter is by the ration card, sweet is by the ration card. What have you done, patched head?"

>In doing so, the restorers killed two birds with one stone: they dealt a blow to domestic consumer goods production and shaped public opinion in favor of ceding the domestic market to Western suppliers. A unique experiment was being undertaken: whether they realized it or not, the Gorbachevites were ensuring the resolution of their capitalist partners' overproduction crisis by orchestrating a national catastrophe in their own country.

>>2766856
>leftypol claims to oppose liberal "authoritarian" framing
>glazes liberal who framed Stalin as a dictator
When did this place fall to liberals?

They were always here, it's just that when Bernie and Corbyn shat the bed they (with base relationship to the middle classes and ideological bias towards left wing of bourgeois ideology) has to shift to a Belief in revisionist China, in order to legitimate their personal petty-bourgeois goals and not having to dispense with their "progressive" posturing. In fact these people will continue to be overtly incentivized towards this socdem -> modern revisionist, as
· western imperialist countries brace for war (making reformism a foreclosed path with clearly diminishing returns)
· Chinese imperialism penetrating world markets to a greater degree, including in the ideological sphere, the latter which increased early this decade.
Literate communists who don't think praxis is simply spectating a far-off Savior nation, and are instead engaged with scientific socialist theory and national context practice of revolutionary party building, organizing the working classes and agitating among the masses have always been a minority for as far as I can remember, unfortunately. There's also some structural disincentivization for the site itself, being largely anglophone and anonymous social media. That predisposes it to a lot of stratification bias towards the soft, unserious middle classes, as well as adverse disinfo/derailing/raiding/bots/spam. The lack of control, discipline and structure necessary to weld a userbase in a scientific socialist direction, then.
A significant % of the mods have also been revisionists for a long time, which also reflects in the moderation, so the shaping "from above", so to speak.
A backup has been created, but do to network effect and name recognition the "traffic" still defaults to here. For now. Nukechan.net has a more sober and real technique for a future exodus, or when shit really hits the fan and the mod's unserious BS ends up with blow back, or a lot of people getting v&, because we're so detatched and communism merely is an aesthetic to scare mom, dad (and a bourgeois state heightening repression…)

no

>>2769651
>Kosolapov sounds like a freakin Jedi. Trotsky is a Sith lord in thralled by passion. Stalin is a orthodox Jedi, Lenin is a "rare" balanced force user
Apparently the Sith system is a social Darwinist fascistic ideology of "there can only be one", with the younger apprentices inevitably stabbing their master in the back to assume their ambitious control. Trot behavior???
And there is no balance when it comes to the dark side of force, that's like calling Pete Hegseth a functional alcoholic

>>2767110
Well the period following his ousting was dubbed "era of stagnation", so whatever you think about him, he was a lot better than what came after. Plus he attempted to confront imperialist powers and reduce wage differentials between common workers and managerial/specialist/bureaucrat class. I would argue the only post Lenin leader of CCCP that was a true believer in the cause of communism.

>>2766856
Brezhnev was better, Brezhnev was probably the greatest communist of all time.

>>2767110
That picture is falsely titled btw. It's the vote to elect Khruschev as premier in 1958, not to remove him in 1964. Neither Voroshilov nor Bulganin were part of the Central Committee in 1964

>>2771874
Brezhnev was a lion but his biggest L was Afghanistan

>>2771841
>And there is no balance when it comes to the dark side of force
I know this is a star lore thing, but this really depends on the writer, and to some extent George Luca's current thought process. Because Lucas has said very different conceptions of what this dark side is. Either it's part of the force's yin and yang. Or it's a cancer to the force.

Read grover furr to learn the truth