Communism or Fascism - which is the lesser of two evils?

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I stated that Marx failed in providing an effective path to attaining socialism, not that he was wrong in terms of interpretation of world events. (I would argue that he was, but that is a separate and much more complex debate) The fact that no socialist state has emerged in the 162 years since the publication of the Manifesto refutes Titus's claim that Marx laid out an effective means of reaching socialism. I think we both agree that we are no closer to socialism today than we were in the mid-1800s. If anything, we are farther away because there is much less class consciousness in modern industrialized states than there was then, and without that class consciousness you cannot expect the proletariat to rise up.

As to your comments on class antogonism... the notion of class conflict is very interesting, but I think Marxists over-emphasize it to the point of ignoring other factors. The idea has some merit, and we do see people divided along class interests to some extent, but it is a gross oversimplification to view it as such a central issue.

How exactly are leftists and social democrats betraying the working class? The working class is much better off than they were a century ago. Admittedly, they have suffered some setbacks in about the past decade or so in my country (not sure what the situation is internationally) but that is largely a result of right-wing/corporatist efforts. Social democrats have generally advanced the interests of the working class.

I do not agree, Marx has laid out the ONLY means of achieving a socialist state. That we have not achieved that goal is not the fault of Marxism, rather the fault of those who do not wish to follow his theory



This is exactly what I am referring to above. They betray the working class by attempting to reform capitalism instead of helping lead the working class into revolution, in fact they have done more than simply try to reform capitalism they have actively prevented revolution. To put it very simplistically, these groups have staved off revolt by wringing concessions from the financial elite or they have (as was the case with the SDP for example) actively taken part in the destruction of the revolution. Without the actions of these groups, I believe is highly likely that we would have seen the emergence of at least a European workers state. The joke is of course that as soon as is practicable these hard won conditions are systematically wound back.

Presently with the crisis engulfing capitalism we are seeing massive destruction of working and social conditions throughout the industrialized western nations. They have no choice but to do this as the massive bailout of the financial institutions needs to be paid for. In doing so they are risking the rise of socialist consciousness and the very real possibility of revolt. The Times recently devoted a double spread to this possibility,

NB: You talk about the improvement in the living standards of the working class as if it some great altruistic act of capitalism. But just how has this been achieved? I would submit that a great part of this has been brought about by the advent of debt. With the move of industrial production to less developed nations, capitalism has found another way to extract wealth from the working classes with the advent of easy, nay essential, credit and its accompanying interest payments. The improvement in the lifestyle of the working classes is being funded by debt, not increased wealth.

Well, if Marx is the best you've got, we're not going to get to a socialist state.

And again with the typical socialist cop-outs- oh, people just aren't doing things right. Marx viewed it as a historical process, and he saw the socialist revolution as inevitable. It seems clear now that that is not the case. Socialism has been defeated and discredited.


The social democrats are traitors because, instead of leading the working class into bloody revolutions that are doomeed to failure, they actually work to make serious improvements in conditions for the working class? Sorry Dent, I'm not buying it.


It's more of a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. Sometimes conditions worsen for the working class, but they never quite degenerate enough to be as bad as it was before.


Social welfare provisions are being expanded in many parts of the world (including the US) and more protections for the working class are likely to come into effect. In any case, the recent recession is hardly a "crisis engulfing capitalism." The economy exhibits periodic behavior, and we had a recession. Big deal, recovery follows.


Claims like this demonstrate quite clearly how far separated from reality you are. The working class in America at least is very easily led by the political right. They believe that Obama's "socialism" is the cause of the problems we've been having, and if there is any populist movement it will be in support of the right wing. I can guarantee you that the US will not see socialist revolution anytime in the foreseeable future.

Orwell, I know that already, am I supposed to be impressed into silence? Perhaps this is your varient of Shock and Awe?



The civil war was kind of a hinderance, you know?



representative democracy running/building a planned economy - these being the soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants deputies which first came about (to my knoweldege) in the failed 1905 Russian revolution and were set up again by the Russian workers and soldiers after the February revolution.



Dent has addressed this better than I could.



Entirely incorrect.
Evidence for this 'diagnosis' of psychosis or dogmatism?
The Mensheviks had a policy of opportunist class collaboration with the Russian bourgeoisie and their political representatives in the Kadet party, actively supported the imperialist war and set out to disarm the workers after governemnt troops had fired on them in the July Days. The Mensheviks ran to the whites because they completely discredited themselves in the eyes of the Russian workers and peasants. What is more, there were more than a few Mensheviks left to join the Bolshevik party (which grew from 8k to approx 220-250k members between Feb '17 and Oct '17) in the months after the July demonstrations/Kornilov affair and the October Revolution itself, Lenin even argued that theey should be ejected from the party because, well, many were opportunists who swung which ever way the wind was blowing - so either these people joined a psychotic party who were trying to slaughter them for little or no reason or your characterisation is.....laughably incorrect.
And, no, the SR's first split along left and right lines, the left forming an alliance with the Bolsheviks, then the Left SR leadership decided on a little adventure and got themselves arrested.



YAWN

sorry i get bored and drowsy when someone tries to tell me the October Revolution was a coup. If it was a coup then why was there not the response you got at every other coup attempt going around this period? that being a general strike and armed resisitance of the working class (e.g. the Kapp putsch, the Kornilov affair), they was plenty of chatter about the 'Bolsheviks seizing the power', it was hardly unexpected, the Kadet press were keen at their predictions on this....



Because there was no revolution in Germany at the time, nor did the Russians have anywhere near the kind of military force capable of such an operation. There was certainly a perspecitve for a revolution in germany, but an outside force cannot push this process forward - the question of using something like the Red Army to support a revolution in Germany is encapsulated by Trotsky in the metaphor of a pair of forceps used during child birth - too early and you kill the baby (that is you risk pushing the workers toward a nationalist response etc) too late is no use to anyone. The Left SR's had no basis for attempting a coup - their own rank and file hadn't a clue what was going on nor were they involved - what's more when Muravyov tried to march on Moscow his troops refused and he left the front open for the Whites to take Simbirsk.



It was also hated by the Bolsheviks, but, tell me, what would you do with an army that had entirely collasped, the Germans holding Riga and a naval force heading for Petrograd? The Bolsheviks could rely on the Red Guards, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet and the workers and peasants but had no weapons to give to the latter two. There was no way for the Soviet government to defend itself and had to accede to the treaty - which lasted all of 8 months when the German workers.......carried out a revolution!



'Pay' for a civil war? erm, no, I think they were a little more interested in the excess grain the Kulaks were hoarding which, you know, was pretty helpful in preventing the urban population from starving.



Yes, I'm defending the Cheka, I'm not saying I'd enjoy it or relish it, I'm saying I'm defending it.



If you intend to insult me you should ensure you can defend your own positions first.
The French revolution didn't fail because of the Jacobin terror - it wouldn't have stood a chance without it. Louis XVI had already plotted to drown France in blood to restore his power - without the Jacobins, Robespierre and the Terror the French revolution would have been beaten there and then. The Jacobins were chased out becasue they were going to far to the left in putting the right to the means of existence ahead of the right to property etc - the directory, and Napoleon after them - leaned on the bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeois and landed peasantry against Robepierre et al who leaned on the Commune, sans-culottes etc as their respective material bases, the latter (being weak and undeveloped historically speaking) were beaten. The Directory in small part and Napoleon in particular enforced the right to property above all others at the end of a peasants bayonet. In other words the proertied classes were quite happy to resort to a monarch to enforce their interests, not a few have more have accomodated themselves to the ruling classes since; the German bourgoisie with the Prussian (also Saxony, Wuttermburg etc) aristocracy, the Russian with the Tsars, The American....well, with themselves.
Had the Jacobins not carried out the terror in defence of freedom and the monarchy been restored in France, tell me how lenient you think an absolute monarch would have been with a people who had previously revolted against him? The reason the Jacobin terror (and the Red Terror after it) was so fierce was because it was not a game , defeat would come at the price of many tens of thousands more lives than were lost and we would not have an ounce of what democratic rights we have today.



there were groups who burned the homes of Loyalists, tarred and feathered them, seized their property etc - I'm not sure of what executions were carried out if any but this is how the Jacobin terror started - it intensified along with how the struggle in general instensified. The US revolution never quite saw the level of intensity seen in 1917 or in the 1790's on and the level of the terror flowed from this.



Totalitarianism - form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of the individual’s life to the authority of the government. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the term totalitario in the early 1920s to describe the new fascist state of Italy, which he further described as: “All within the state, none outside the state, none against the state."

also, would this censorship happen to have been the rstricitions placed on the printing of Menshevik and Kadet papers? kind of understandable wouldn't you say, given the brutal war they just fought.



so is that. it wasn't a coup, for crying out loud! for one thing there's the point i made above^^ and for another a coup comes from within the state, not one form of government (the soviet) arresting another that exists alongside it (the provisional government). pray do tell, where were all the people aching to defend the Prov Gov? and where were the people standing to defend the Soviets?
hell, the october rev. started because the provisional government abandoned Riga to the germans, had planned yet another dictatorship then tried to shut down the printing presses of the soviet parties - this being the final straw, the Military Revolutionary Committee, a body founded on a motion presented by the Mensheviks and elected to from a democratic body acted to defend the Soviets.

Not. A. Coup.

nor did anyone declare themselves supreme leader. funny if it weren't plain weird.



that's not much of a basis for advancing a discussion - i prefer counter or concede not 'i can't be bothered with discussing the issue i brought up any more'.



if they became more 'rigid' that may be something to do with, um, the brutal civil war they didn't start perhaps?? yeah, let's say the Republicans took up arms against a Democrat president and were captured preventing the coup - what would the Democrats do?



evidence?



No. They didn't. I honestly couldn't care less if you don't like the Cheka or war communism - it was a civil war, civil wars are brutal. hel you could at least be remotely balanced and condemn the White Army for the jewish pogroms. I have also adequately addressed the others - there's not mcuh of a basis for a discussion if you either don't respond to counterpoints or reject it by claiming that i haven't gone beyond what you predicted? how the hell is predictability the marker of something being correct or incorrect?

i think Fascism and communism are as good and bad as each other.

Titus, it is clear that you are incapable of taking an objective look at Soviet history. You are merely repeating Marxist propaganda, and it would be futile for me to attempt to reason with you further.

And they occurred, the conditions for the failures can also be explained by Marxist theory



No, instead as a result they have been railroaded into one of the bloodiest conflicts ever seen, followed by the bloodiest and a multitude of smaller ones.





BS, social welfare provisions are being pulled apart, go to Greece, Spain, the UK, in fact just about any European Country and see the effect the various austerity measures are having. Just how are Social welfare provisions being expanded in the US? please, please dont tell me that Obamas Health care reforms constitute this. If the co-ordinated bailout of the world financial system taking so many governments to the brink of financial ruin is not a 'crisis of capitalism' just what is.



Funnily enough there is a world outside of the US. How things travel in Europe, China, etc is yet to be seen, as it stands, no I dont think we are headed for revolution in the near future. However capitalism whether -you like it or not - is still in a major crisis and it will depend on how this pans out. Given the correct conditions political consciousness will rise at a rapid rate, again not enough for a revolt in the near future but we are entering a new phase of class struggle.

Are you referring to the two World Wars and the various relatively minor conflict since? Neither of world wars can accurately be labelled the bloodiest conflict ever seen. I can pull out that TED video if you want to see it again, or I can just point out specific historical wars that were much worse.


We're expanding unemployment insurance, for one thing. The "co-ordinated bail-out" is Keynesianism, and a part of modern capitalism. They were trying to avoid a more serious crash like the one that lead to the Great Depression- and in case you hadn't noticed, we haven't sunk into depression. Indeed, signs are the economic recovery is well underway.


Major crisis? We had a recession, get over it. You're old enough to have lived through several recessions, and none of them brought an end to the capitalist system. If the Great Depression wasn't enough to stir the masses to revolution, the recent recession won't either, especially given that we're already on the tail end of it. It's not a "major crisis." In a year or two the economy will be pretty much back to normal and you won't have any "crisis" to complain about.

@Titus: Yeah, real mature. Look, you're objectively wrong, but you're too stubborn to admit it, and you are completely incapable of viewing the events outside of your dogmatic Trotskyist perspective. You can worship the Cult of Lenin if you like, but don't expect me or anyone else to take you seriously when you do.

Both fascism and communism are nasty manifestations of collectivism, which puts the society, or the state, or the race or whatever the main collective entity is, ahead of the individual and his liberty. Individuals are are forced to supress themselves and serve or be sacrificed to the Greater Entity. It is not happy state to be in or live in.

Both forms of collectivism are evil and anti-human.

ruveyn

All conceivable forms of society are somewhat collectivist. Complete anarchism (and I don't mean David Friedman's kind, but complete all-out anarchy) is the only possible system that avoids collectivism, and I don't think anyone really wants such a system. Life in nature is nasty, brutish, and short.

Orwell, I'm trying to engage in a serious discussion with you, all you've done is throw slanders like 'psychotic' and 'dogmatic' and 'consumed by soviet propaganda' like a zoo chimp throwing crap - explain to me how I am objectively wrong. Is it simply because it contradicts how the period has been characterised by your education? I've put forward counterpoints to your points, if your position is so strong then why not continue?

I agree. Some social cohesion is necessary for the existence of humans as humans. But living in a society does not have to mean one's individuality is totally crushed and subordinated to the Greater Whole. In democratic societies there is a co-existence of individuality and social control. The degree of one with respect to the other is in a state of dynamic flux.

We have not yet gotten to the -1984- phase, I am happy to say. Also extremely communistic and fascistic societies are economically dysfunctional and they will not last very long. The Soviet Union lasted a little over 70 years before it went belly up. The West did not conquer or destroy the late and unlameinted Soviet Union. It croaked because of its internal contradictions. It turns out that centralized control of the economy is only possible in a society that produces few things, like pretty sea shells and smoked fish. The attempts at non-market controls over the economy is what doomed the Soviet Union. The other case is North Korea. They are on life support. Without inputs from the non-communist world they would starve to death.

Bottom line: extreme collectivism does not work.

ruveyn

Communism only directly affected me in one concrete way; those commie bastards make some damn fine cigars that I like to smoke, but I don't like supporting a dictatorship that expropriated not only the factories to make the cigars, but often even the names of the families that built the brands. I was quite conflicted about this until the Bush administration tightened up restrictions on Americans consuming Cuban products, even releasing a memo to the public stating that it was illegal for US citizens to consume Cuban products anywhere in the world, even if they were legal where we happened to be and used there... Now as angry as 1950's era Cuban kleptocracy makes me, current American administrations telling me what I'm not allowed to do in foreign countries and not involving children or animals makes me furious, obviously this could not be allowed to stand! Just to make it all the sweeter, I used my next tax refund to bankroll a little trip to Canada for the nearly sole purpose of defying those Yanqui imperialists back in DC, and contributed my government check to the cause of global communism. Take that, Norteamericanos! I've been enjoying guilt free Habanos ever since, not to mention Havana Club rum that's not only better than most anything domestically available, is cheaper too. This is my silver lining of the W administration, they helped me foster greater East-West cultural exchange by substituting a new and more personally loathsome villain for an old and mostly academic one, I knew there was a reason I voted for that guy...

Not that it really matters, but my assertian is correct ww2 according to most historical scholars was the worst mankind has seen. But a debate on this is to obfuscate the point. The betrayal of working class by their 'leadership' by supporting their various national governments with regard to WW1, then the betrayals of the SDP in Germany, by the stalinists in China, and the unions/ social democrats/stalinists in the UK allowed for this unfinished imperialist war to be completed with WW2, so your assertian that these forces were protecting the working classes from the danger of civil war is a nonsense


WOW how wonderfully humane of you, and just what would the result be if this bill had not been passed. This is something the administration HAD to do, not I hasten to add from an altruistic perpective rather in an attempt to hold back the growing disquiet amongst the rather large percentage of your population that is now unemployed.


HAD, Are YOU that far removed from reality that you cannot see how close the economic system upon which capitalism is based, came to collapse, it is still teetering on the brink. There are major concerns not only about the so called PIGS states ability to pay down their sovereign debt but also the UK , USA, Ireland etc. Also there is a real fear that the Euro will collapse. Do you really think this 'recession' is over. According to an analysis prepared by the Bank of England, state intervention in support of banks in the US, the UK and the eurozone has totaled $14 trillion. This sum represents a quarter of global gross domestic product. This is hardly a reaction to just another recession.

Titus, you've been upholding completely ridiculous stances. You've been defending the Red Terror and the Jacobin Reign of Terror (which, you should note, occurred mostly after the execution of Louis XIV). You've been excusing unambiguously totalitarian measures with claims that they were necessary, which, as I said, I view as irrelevant, largely because that is the same excuse Stalinists will give for his atrocities. The fact remains that Lenin's government was totalitarian. You have tried to justify such measures, but that doesn't suddenly make them untotalitarian.

And to the original point: Marx did not lay out an effective means of reaching socialism. If he had done so, we would have a socialist state at some point, but we do not observe this. Your claims are inconsistent with observable reality, thus I reject them. I could debate several of these points at length, but I don't really see the purpose in doing so.