What is to be done after Revolution?

Not do what Lenin did and repress democracy.

Because it did. Soviet Union is dead along with about 3 million people under Mr. Mustache mans rule.

It's called "revolutionary situation" and it does not have to be caused by Communists. As a rule it - isn't caused. October was incredibly non-violent - nobody was killed in Petrograd (the only victims were a few people who accidentally blew themselves up with grenade; and there was skirmish in Moscow, obviously, but it wasn't Russia's capital at the time).

He wasn't and I'm not in the mood to argue yet another bullshit claim ("Marx was against Revolution! Marx was against state-owned enterprises!" - what do those people smoke?).

We are talking about situation when it already is vulnerable, no? Government is collapsing. Tomorrow or the day after some Fascist junta is going to emerge - if it isn't emerging already.

The question is - what do you do next? You had won - police and army are disorganized and on the run, government is already enroute to Switzerland (or under arrest).

Where is leftcom poster when you need him?

He'll tell you to find some ML, ask him to suggest something, and then do the opposite.

I'm failing to see how the "Stalinist" regime (I mean the reforms primarily created by Stalin) was not repressive as fuck. Murdered more people than Nicholas could've ever hoped for in two years.

Go to >>>/marx/ if you want to have a serious discussion about Stalin. It might take some time, of course.

Set up a Supreme Court and a socialist constitution. Establish a parliament, armed forces, rights and freedoms, workers councils/syndicates/co-ops (whatever floats your boat). Make sure worker's democratic institutions have actual power (unlike in the USSR) to check that of the state. Don't create forced labour camps and secret police and go around murdering or imprisoning anybody who disagrees with or is critical of your regime.

Yes, constructing our state on the model of bourgeois democracy is certain to keep us from regressing to the barbarity of capitalism.

whats wrong with that?

Oh I'm sorry, a highly centralized top down unitary oligarchy and bureaucratic nightmare with no independent judiciary, guaranteed freedoms, or checks and balances is clearly the right way to do things.

There is nothing wrong with the actual structure of bourgeois democracy, constitutions and legelsative assemblies are a good idea. The issue isn't with such institutions themselves, but that they have been totally taken over by porkies.

This, all revolutions ultimately do is enable reforms to take place in other countries.
The French Revolution "failed", but it still inspires burgeois liberalism.
You need another serious threat to western capitalism in order to improve worrker rights, and maybe get to something market socialism. But I'm pessimistic about this happening.

Your food had run out, user.

On the dark streets (electricity is off too; someone had cut the power lines) torch-wielding hungry mob had crucified Anarchists and embraced Fascism. "Capitalism keeps people fed!" is the motto of the day.

Your failure is used as an example of what happens if general public tries to rule the state without Big People. Anarchist groups either disband in disgust or try to distance themselves from you as far as possible.

Who is to say that your Parliament scheme will be universally accepted? See above: everything you do is wrong for some people (who are not you). Several loud groups are not satisfied with you suggested Parliament - will they be ignored? Are you going to enforce your understanding of democracy on them?

Either way, this implies a distinct lack of Civil War or anything disturbing the peace for some time.

You need Constituent Assembly first (everybody gets a vote), then create Constitution (and hope like hell you will get a quorum in Assembly - Russians didn't get one, since Right and Centre politicians refused to cooperate with Bolsheviks and neither side had majority; => no legitimate government => Civil War), and only then proceed to your Parliament. It takes at least a month to assemble Assembly (I'm being awfully optimistic here), then at least a month to write and agree on Constitution, and a month to elect new Parliament.

Three months of peace.

Who is responsible for keeping order and solving problems until you build your SocDem paradise?

Assuming you have a bunch of armed workers (from the scenario above) how do you make sure they actually keep peace and do not devolve into gangsters? It's not even in their individual interest to fight for your democracy - "let someone else risk their life! If I get killed what will happen to my family?"

Some kind of reward has to be offered (and where do you get it from?).

Additionally, you need to provide guidelines for actual policing: someone has to decide on patrols, weapon distribution, supplies - before you get you Totally Legitimate Parliament that will make you blissfully irresponsible of consequences.

Yes, I've got it already. Better dead than Red.

What are you suggesting?
- How exactly do you ensure that worker institutions "have power"?
- Where do you put prisoners? Law-abiding citizens are already starving, you know.
- How your Totally Not Secret Police is organized and what rights does it have? Do you even have one?

First off, you really need to drop the "everybody who isn't a tankie is a liberal" meme considering you guys are basically crypto-Fascists.

Second you can set up these institutions within the labour unions themselves before you even topple the government, that's why they are such an important component. Unions which under my model would form the basis of the revolution would already have an democratic representative structure which would simply step in to replace the government. Hell you could even have a constitution drawn up beforehand. If people are unhappy with it then they are free to vote for whoever they want in an election and protest in the streets, because unlike you I wouldn't throw them in gulags or send the NKVD to their house at night.

Yeah you're right, the entire point is to avoid a civil war. Protracted bloody conflicts is a recipe to descend into dictatorship, it should be avoided at all costs.

Political power would be in their hands rather than the central government, like the original model of Soviet democracy was supposed to be.

Prisons are fine, just don't throw people in forced labour camps for disagreeing with you.

Law and order are kept by local militias rather than a central police force. Once the state is established a federal police force can be set up, but like any other federal police service it would only have the mandate to intervene in certain scenarios.

The wording of your question betrays your quasi-fascist thinking. Neither police nor any other organ of state power have any rights, the people do. The state has responsibilities and a mandate from the people.

Why not embrace accelerationism, as in, remove barriers to capitalism's development of the productive forces? The logical conclusion of this is that at some point the bourgeoisie will tire of paying to keep the proletariat, which has largely been removed from production, alive, and will try to eliminate them. There will be no other choice but to fight back. Assuming the proletariat wins, there is already a FALC apparatus waiting to be used.

I didn't call you Liberal.

I called your suggested structure SocDem - which is 100% justified (especially for supposed Anarchist), since you are the one who literally posted:

Socialists prefer to go for Direct Democracy - especially today, with (semi)educated population and easy communication. You didn't.

Wouldn't this be called Totalitarian Vanguard?

Your labour unions will hardly encompass the whole of society. At best you'll get ~5%. Probably, less. Is this okay with you?

So … Just like USSR?

Soviets were not Bourgeois Democracy. There was no "system of checks and balances": Dictatorship of the Proletariat all the way.

Let me get this straight: for the first three months (until you get your Parliament that will absolve you from any responsibility for consequences) you are going to rely on Totally Not Vanguard that will be structured without any checks and balances ("like the original model of Soviet democracy"), and will impose it's will on population in general by force.

Is this correct? Because I have to agree that this will work - history proves this, but this is also what Evil Stalinists Leninists did. And you are very adamant that you are not one of those filthy Fascist abominations.

I repeat: who is going to feed prisoners if they don't work?

Prisons are an immense money-waste and you will not have any excess resources to spend on already existing prisoners - and you are going to have to deal with lots and lots of criminals on top of those.

Are you going to let children starve so as to keep prisoners fed? Or are you going to let prisoners starve? Because if prisoners don't work, there isn't enough food for everyone - at least for half a year you are going to have problems with economy: food and supplies (I'm being generous here - Bolsheviks were having famines for decades, until they collectivized farms).

- if one of local militias refuses to go help the other group (the one that is being overwhelmed by counter-revolutionary Fascist gangs), what will happen?
- if one of local militia groups takes over their … locality and declares that they secede from you and want to do nothing with you (before you get your Parliament), what will happen?

I was asking how will your law-keeping, order-upholding, election-ensuring force of armed workers will function before you get your Parliament. I agree that your Totally Not Vanguard can manage things and keep militia function until then, but what is militia allowed to do?

What should they do with the marauders caught red-handed, for example? Or a right-wing death squad that is moving through the area? What if some crying girl comes to them and says "this guy raped me"?

Who is going to judge arrested (if the individuals are allowed to arrest)? Will everyone remotely suspicious stay in prison - without verdict - until you elect Parliament and it will appoint judges?

We abolish the state and give the MoP to the workers

I used to be a Stalinist, but after reading more about him (like the tankie approved sources, such as J. Arch Getty), he still comes off to me as a brutal guy who slaughtered Marxist en masse. Sure, I no longer accept the narrative that it was just "Stalin", but he was certainly the member with the most leverage out of that group. Brilliant theorist like Isaac Rubin were killed during the purges.

I think he means how "the vanguard" was originally conceived as being a natural part of the working class, and not necessarily a one party state but it later turned into that.

I've never gotten a valid answer for this from any leftist of whatever fashion that doesn't either align more or less with what Stalin has done or would ultimately result in a Nazi victory.

You keep making comparisons to Leninism like I said I have an issue with their praxis, which I really don't. I like Lenin, and I would follow a vanguard model, but it would be far less centralized and its constitution would prevent shit like a ban on factions. I would also make sure that the movement is a mass movement, a confederacy of as much of the labour movement as possible. If my syndicate/vanguard only included 5% of the population then I wouldn't be in favour of seizing power. Only when a majority of workers are on board would I think it's okay to act. The entire point of a revolution is that it has to be a mass movement of the people, not a movement of socialist intellectual elites.

Except without the single party police state.

Neither did the Soviets, but even with modern technology direct democracy for everything is far too inefficient, especially for a planned economy. Representative democracy is perfectly adequate.

Dictatorship of the proletariat does not entitle the state to do whatever it wants in the name of the people, it simple means the proles hold political power. Checks and balances are important to ensure that the state does not overstep its boundaries and become a state capitalist oppressor like in the USSR.

The vanguard will have checks and balances. The unions will before the revolution even begins, structure themselves like a state within a state. The parliament will be elected by the union before the revolution, and simply take the place of the previous government. So right from its inception, the new government will have a constitution and structure limiting its ability to abuse its power.

Once again, Lenin was fine. What's not fine is Stalinist totalitarianism that was made possible by Lenin's mistakes.

As for prisons, the key isn't in whether people engage in labour or not, the real issue is why people are sent there. If you deny that people were sent to gulags because their views (even socialist ones) were too different from Stalin's then you are delusional. The USSR was full of political prisoners.

The structure of the militias would already be established before the revolution as part of the broader structure of the syndicates. They wouldn't be hastily thrown together, unreliable amateurs. The risk of them not doing their job would be no greater than a regular army not doing their job.

The two main points you seem to be missing is the nature of the "vanguard". I could have made this clearer, but I'm not envisioning simply a political party or a system of unions. They have to have a fully functioning state apparatus BEFORE they replace the government, complete with democratic bodies, armed forces, and dedicated organs of administration and enforcement. These could be initially set up as mechanisms of internal government, but easily transferred to the entire country once power is seized. You also seem to be implying that mass repression of significant portions of the civilian population would be necessary. However I would never even think of seizing power without the overwelhming support of the population. If we didn't have that then the time isn't right for revolution.

Stalin was far from a military genius, Soviets took a tremendous amount of casualties every battle.

Anyway, I think reading this thread has just pushed me more and more to the leftcom critique of ML - that demcen and the vanguard will ultimately be used to suppress the working class (as they were - legitimate working class revolutions were suppressed). Revolution has to come from the vast majority of people or not at all, the problems in the OP are easy to deal with if the vast majority of people stand behind you.

This is what tankies actually believe.
Fuck off to /marx/ already. You're a fucking pox upon this board and the progress of the left as a whole.

How exactly are you going to abolish the state? I mean, in theory (very naive theory), simply telling workers "MoP belong to you now" somehow makes sense (at least, until police comes and tells them "don't listen to the crazy guy").

But how this abolition of state would look like?

Are you going to stand in the middle of the street and scream "The State is abolished!" at the top of your lungs? How are you going to prevent new State from forming after you "abolished" it?

Pull the other one. Getty is a rabid anti-Stalinist who believes in Cold War propaganda and has absolutely retarded ideas (even for non-Marxist). His only redeeming quality is that he occasionally uses actual primary sources - that's what was probably approved - rather than tall tales of CIA stooges.

The fact that Getty is even worth a notice speaks volumes not about him, but the rest - Western academia whored itself out so much, it lost all connection with reality.

So … if right-wingers overthrow government, be real unpopular, start murdering people left and right, you are not going to do a thing, until you confirm that you have personal support from 50% +1 population and everyone is perfectly organized and trained?

Did I get this right?

Direct democracy does not mean that you decide everything.

Clarification: elect one person to represent (how many people? 100.000?) for 4 years and have no option of recalling this person.

Is this correct?

No. Referendum not being hindered by existing laws and not requiring some special endorsement is a very big thing. For example, if people decide that somebody needs to be exiled (ostracism, yes) - this somebody gets exiled. You don't need to justify shit, follow laws or anything like that. There is no way you can weasel out.

Will you or will you not force prisoners to labour?

I'm asking if you think that it is acceptable for the sake of "keeping new society from regressing".

That's what happens IRL.

This is the most COINTELPRO thing I've read here all week.

How do you create a state? Ok now do it backwards

Is it voluntary? Does it coerce force on others? No? Then no reason to stop it

Yes, basically that, the worker owns his labour, therefore owns the subejct and object of labour

Maybe true but that's not really point. It was the fast industrialization and collectivization of resources that allowed the USSR to outpace Germany - WWII was won through material superiority and not because of the grandeur of one or the other commander. Not to mention the organisational talent of the Bolsheviks to build the tanks in the backland and then transporting them all the way to the front.

Sure, if you forget massive a!ounts of aid from the west

...

If there is a tyrannical government I will overthrow it, but if I don't have a mandate from the masses then I won't assume power. If you would then you are a shit socialist, because it means you don't really care about democracy. Seizing power without a critical mass of support is retarded on the face of it, because if you do that then you can't implement meaningful democracy of any kind. If you do then the population will immediately mobilize their democratic power to topple your regime, so your only hope of remaining in power is to become a repressive dictatorship. This would defeat the entire purpose of socialism.

So if a democratic referendum resulted in gassing all the Jews, enslaving all the blacks, and state issued GFs that would be okay with you?

If it's necessary to maintain the integrity of the revolution, but considering that it's literally slave labour I would avoid it if possible.

If it were necessary to use mass repression to maintain socialism then the society in question isn't ready for socialism. A society where people don't want socialism will inevitably regress into a shit state capitalist oligarchy.

I don't see what being a "rabid Anti-Stalinist" has to do with whether what Getty uncovers is factual or not - I did however use him as the example, for he is the historian cited in the "muh academia" meme that juxtaposes historians like Conquest with the deaths recorded in the Archives.

Anyway, I've seen Grover Furr deliberately lying before, so I trust Getty over him. He misrepresents the fuck out of Katyn.

Leftcom fag, where are you?

Got it.

,
You've told that Getty is "approved". I pointed out that he is biased as fuck.

That's not the point here, is it? The question is if you can rely on Getty to have an unbiased opinion. The answer is - no.

Saying "Evil Bolsheviks viciously murdered a million of innocent people" is not qualitatively better than "Evil Communists viciously murdered hundred gorillions of innocent people".

You can't overthrow government without filling power vacuum somehow.

Do you intend to overthrow governments you (personally) deem tyrannical, let someone assume the power - and keep overthrowing new governments, if you decide that they also do not have this "mandate from the masses"?

How does this mandate from the masses look like? As far I as I know, it's an euphemism for "legitimate government".

But your answer to the "how do you elect legitimate government?" boils down to "I do not elect legitimate govenment, because I already have legitimate government".

That's not exactly an answer.

Is it Dictatorship, if Proletariat decides to do it, but cannot?

Okay. Slave labour camps - check.

How much "repression" is too much?

Is repression of 1% (the richest) too much and we are not allowed to have Socialism until they acquiesce? What about 5% (1% plus 4% of the right-wing counter-revolutionary nutjobs)?

I don't think this thread should have been bump locked.

C O M M U N A L I S M

All I know is that I've had him recommended to me as an approved "bourgeois" historian by tankies.

I don't think any historical investigation is "unbiased", it is impossible to have our words (which are the presentation) void of emotion. So I'm not so concerned with "biased" so much as "correct or incorrect".

The answer is still - no.

No, you cannot make an informed choice if you rely on Getty. It doesn't matter even if you go full solipsist, your "used to be a Stalinist, but after reading more" is still bullshit (I'm not even going to ask how you "used to be a Stalinist").

Repeal the prohibition against religion, and let religious extremists assassinate against corrupt officials.

Build lots of big buildings, along with a few large houses of worship.

i never trust anyone that bases their arguments on anecdotes and personal experiences instead of facts and ideas

Fucking off yourself.

hes saying if you rely on a single source you are being a dumbfuck

If the proletariat is in charge, yes. That's kind of the entire point of socialism. But this concept is incomprehensible to someone who sees parliamentarianism as the very definition of democracy.

Everybody can vote on the most major national policy decisions, obviously. I love your how your phobia of democracy effectively contradicts every other point you've made.

For one, I don't even find it advisable for the Communist Party to have any role in shaping national policy at all. It should be restricted to directing minor organizations and organizing education. But even party-states can be perfectly democratic assuming the majority decides on this, a concept that no doubt makes you nervous.

As far as apologetics for bourgeois statism go this attempt was pretty lame. You should either seriously re-think your philosophy or just be more honest with yourself and stop pretending your anything but another imperialist mouthpiece.

I used to believe Stalin did nothing wrong. Obviously that's hyperbole, but I mean I was an ML and was particularly attracted to Stalin.

Vast majority of books on Stalin confirm his administration as being tyrannical. You have one offs like Grover Furr, but recent books that use the archives directly like Kotkin chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9780143127864-item.html?mkwid=sbjLnfvgO_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAv4jDBRCC1IvzqqDnkYYBEiQA89utoqS6fDj22KUcj9k6YhCZmzKm6lvlyagASOXLDa3KSl4aAn1a8P8HAQ, support what Getty purveys.

It's standard.

The very same logic was used from 19th century (Reformists - Bernstein) to 21st (Ukrainian pro-Nazi Anarchists).

See #2 in OP. That's what I was writing about.

Playing Soviets in Red Alert does not make you a Communist.

Vast majority of books on Stalin in English conform to the Cold War propaganda pamphlets. What were the odds of this, hmm?

And if you want to continue with your shilling, please answer the questions in OP: what would you do?

There certainly is some obvious solution to everything, yes?

Bump

-Actually appeal to the interests of farmers. This should prevent food hoarding. Also, America overproduces food.

-They do, most illiteracy was in the countryside. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a revolution. If in modern America, then skilled workers would be training unskilled workers as paid apprentices for around a year. Also, unions would have plenty of experience running parts of the workplace and thus workers would generally be able to manage factories. Not to mention that reindustrialization does require a lot of retraining anyways.

-Create a new currency and base it on something to keep it solid.

-Have a solid industrial policy executed and partially decided by the soviets, consisting of all enterprises. Have a market economy regulated by industrial soviets, which consist of cooperatives within a given industry. Mass reindustrialization in the case of America. (And no, agrarian collectivization doesn't help with this.)

-Coopt the "right-wing" militias, since they consisted of those farmers that were alienated under the Bolsheviks. The revolution was started by rogue soldiers, so rogue army elements would be easy to coopt. The police elements can be either unionized or shot. If we're talking about America, then there wouldn't even be a revolution when we coopt the "right-wing militias".

-Don't justify their bullshit by enacting autistic policies. Also, probably would be more likely accused of being a Nazi, a redneck racist, or fascist than being "kill all whites"

-Give the ones who actively rebel a whith of grapeshot or a quick visit from one of those "right-wing" militias. lynch them

-Get the populace on a grand lynch hunt for potential assassins

The issue is not terror, but the centralized nature of the terror. Decentralized, democratic terror is justified.

Left/pol/. Serious discussion.

If half this board doesn't believe in revolution, but also attack anything democratic as 'reformist shitters' then is it fair to say the vast majority of this board are contrarian memesters?

Absolutely no historian ever considered these aids to be even one the main reasons why the russian won the war. I don't even want to explain myself any further just read books niqqa instead of memeing your way out of conversations.

I don't mind if you rely an oddly specific situation to solve the problem, but there has to be some consistency.

For example, you use specific situation of late period Russian Civil War (not even first years) to pacify right-wing militias in America (circa 2017), which then are to be used against police.

Alternatively, you do not clarify what situation you refer to.
Is your solution specific to Russia-1917, specific to US-2017, or is it your own prerequisite?

I.e. do you think, Russian revolution was started by "rogue soldiers" (whatever that means), American revolution has to be started by "rogue soldiers" (deserters? PMC? regular army going revolutionary?), or revolution has to be started by "rogue soldiers" (similarly to Anarchist above that would support Revolution only if it had fully formed state and had won the elections)?

And how exactly do you intend to co-opt them? What will you offer, how will you control them?

Is your solution specific to Russia-1917, specific to US-2017, or is it your own prerequisite?

How exactly do you appeal? Can you name those interests?

But stores are empty. This happens today even without revolution (Atlanta 2014, for example).

The question is how will you handle the logistics. Will you tell everyone to drive to local farms and try to barter (hyperinflation) for food there?

Are you talking modern US situation or pre-October Russia?

Because I can tell you for a fact, that Russian workers in 1917 were unable to manage. They didn't know where (and what) supplies to buy, whom to sell to, how to oversee the whole process, what critical defects there were, and so on.

Similarly enough, most modern processes require specialists. While regular worker can tell "you take this grayish stuff and use it like that", he is incapable of telling where do you buy this stuff, how do you check if the stuff is up to specifications, or what do you do, if the grayish stuff is slightly different.

Look at the iPhone factory: regular workers can't explain to you how much dust in the air there should be. They know how to do one operation: "put this thingy into this slot".

Nuclear power station. Are unions "generally able to manage" it? Because if they can't, you still have the problem of needing highly trained specialists for things to work.

And what would that policy be?

How do they regulate it? Subsidies, taxes, planned economy?

I don't get this one at all. Reindustrialization is possible at least 5-10 years down the road, but whatever.

What collectivization has to do with anything? If it's US-2017, industrialization of farming happened decades ago. Pre-WWII, in fact (see Grapes of Wrath, for example).

On what exactly? Gold?

What do you do? You can't hide behind "Bolsheviks were stoooopid and I'm smart, so I magically solve every problem".

I specifically presented you example where Bolsheviks never enacted "state-issued girlfriends", never suggested it, never discussed it, nor even contemplated this nonsense. Nevertheless, since 1918 (to 1923, at least) they were plagued by this "commonly acknowledged fact". IIRC even American Congress considered this to be truth in 1922, with multiple witnesses confirming it and several internal Bolsheviks documents proving it.

I'll refrain from discussing this for now. I'm still not certain how exactly you intend to revolutionize and discipline counter-revolutionary gangs.

Back to the top

We need competent administrators, who can move goods and get them where they belong.

youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

How are you going to get them?
How are you going to keep them motivated?
… and where do they belong exactly?

It basically explains what happens without DotP.

Lets bump this.

Also, a relevant quote:

Another bump

Its funny, the people call other people "red" or other kinds of fascists are usually the people who actually support real fascism

Socialism is impossible for the foreseeable future; the collective psyche of 2017 is still firmly lodged in liberal ideology, especially in the United States. Today's economic synthesis is meant to be as stable as possible; there will have to be a major economic crisis wherein 75%+ of the population is severely disenfranchised and they're practically forced into a socialist state. Today's modern day western man is far more educated and skilled than a laborer in say, 1930's Catalonia, and I feel revolution would be far more successful nowadays IF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS FUCKING EXISTED

"Socialism" - as in Anarchist Socialism? Or does this include Soviet Socialism?

Bolsheviks relied on ~5% of the population.

dont worry everyone with a basic understanding of economics knows the next economic crash is coming. 2008 never went truly boom since we put bandaids on it, but those will come off and it will hurt. class consciousness will rise, i just fear it will lead to fascism.

Kek. Tiggered much?

Well this thread has certainly revealed Holla Forums's true political character.

When confronted with the realities of a revolution the majority of posters fall back on reformism, defense for the existing structure and defeatism.

Mensheviks, the lot of you.

Yes, I was referring more to an anarchist socialist society, but Soviet Socialism wouldn't be possible with the United States' current level of worker understanding, there would be hella resistance across the country from the centre-left all the way to the reactionary right.

And I'm pretty sure the 'severe disenfranchisement' was worse than just 5%, fuck loads were starving from what I recall. I could have caught the tailwind of some deceiving Soviet propaganda however, so correct me if I'm wrong

Socialism will happen, but not via some kind of Maoist rejection of all capitalist values, and not within our lifetimes I'm sad to say. It'll happen naturally, as current ways of thought have been striving farther and farther towards socialism for all of history. Liberalism has only been in practice for around ~250 years, feudalism and prior ways of societal structure existed for far longer times

there is less than a week of food in stores

why?

- workers don't know how to manage factories

Why?

- currency hyperinflation had reached 300% per day

why?

- Bourgeois states had embargoed the shit out of you

why?

- gangs, right-wing militia and rogue elements of police/army are active

why?

- Bourgeois agitators are spreading vile rumours about your intended policies (kill all whites, for example; Bolsheviks got the infamous "socialization of women"), causing riots

why?

- both moderate and ultra-left groups say that everything you do is wrong (regardless of what you do), and current government should re-elected (regardless of when or how the elections happened)

why?

- somebody had started assassination campaign against key members of your groups

why?

honestly we might see it in our lifetimes, its hard to predict since the rise of socialism is inherently tied to the technological advancements of humankind. lets say we essentially solve the energy problem in a couple decades, cure ageing maybe even death and our production becomes so efficient that every citizen of western nations could be guaranteed a comfortable life and perhaps the most important factor, communication evolves further and further and does not stop with the internet as to make it possible for humans from all places of life to share world views, ideas and empathy then yes we might very well see a socialist revolution in our lifetime. but all of this is a big if and even with all these technological advancements it might take a couple hundred years more since socialism does need mentally healthy and educated individuals to lead the initial struggle, which are hard to come by

Don't make it harder than it should be. Soviets weren't built in one day.

Step #1: All banks and major companies are nationalized.
Step #2: Income from banks and nationalized companies is distributed as basic income.

This should be enough to last for a decade and prepare for next phase. American NEP, if you wish.

Step #3: Form death squads Awareness Militia to suppress bad guys who want to steal your money.

Well, yes. But Bolsheviks weren't getting particularly consistent support from the rest. Even peasants started quite a lot of Vendee-style uprisings by 1921 (the famine; at least 5 times worse than Holodomor that is always touted).

Moreover, peasants didn't get full voting rights until 1936.

1916/17 - one of the reasons for February Revolution - wasn't proper famine. It's just food prices in cities skyrocketed (due to grain hoarding by kulaks). I.e. there was some starvation, but not on the level of 1921/22.

How do you think revolution looks like?

You removed the backbone of the whole economy. The skeleton of society is gone. What do you think happens next? Everything falls apart.

are you retarded user?

What, did you really think anybody was going to find this clever? You've effectively just repeated "communism is evil and inefficient" to us. As if capitalist drones don't bombard the board with this shit on a daily basis already.

Or more likely, in the neverending pursuit of short term profit capitalism will plow through all our renewable resources, turn artificial scarcity back into actual scarcity and we'll regress into some new pseudo-feudal society with socialism no longer being a possibility.

The funniest part about all of that is that the anarchists were actually even more oppressive (albeit on a much smaller scale) than the Soviets.

Soviet oppression is mostly a meme.

You can hardly get any less oppressive than Soviets. They didn't even execute anyone for the first seven months (or eight?), and even then it took Kaplan (who almost killed Lenin - technically, she did, since Lenin eventually died from the wound) for Red Terror to become a thing.

Two years of Civil War later and even Lenin begun threatening people bureaucrats with death, unless they get shit done.

marxists.catbull.com/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/16.htm
> Unless heroic measures are taken, I shall personally get a decision put through the Council of Defence and the C.C. not only for the arrest of all the persons responsible but for their execution. Inactivity and negligence cannot be tolerated.

Best post.

Just look at this fucking hellhole. Grey, depressing, a true wellspring of human suffering. Truly the Soviets were history's greatest monsters.

RIP USSR

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...

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False dichotomy. Next you'll show me some happy snaps of lovely downtown Pyongyang.

If it's a false dichotomy then why did you establish it idiot

Yes. And I addressed this here already:

That just gave me a fatal dose of idealism.

...

Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

Opinion irrelevant

no not at all this is great, keep it up !

...

go directly to gulag

Bump, just to be sure that everybody who wanted to reply - did.

Stalintrip, where are you from and how old are you?

pic related boils down to what actually happened multiple times in history lmao

Correction.

Picrelated is what you've been told by people who don't want Revolution.

I've been reading the rest of this debate with some degree of intellectual detachment and neutrality, but this is just a little too tankie to let slide:
Why do tankies talk shit about shit when they know they don't know shit? Pull your nose out from between the ass-cheeks of your dusty old Pravda pages, the only reason pre-revolutionary Russia had such terrible unionization rates was because it was a totalitarian monarchy where the legal status of labor unions fluctuated between total criminality and near-toothless symbolic gesture.

Over in the modern, civilized world, unionization percentages were and remain in the low double-digits at worst, in many cases reaching to well in excess of half. Moreso, prior to the reintroduction of gilded age colonial empireglobalized economy of neoliberalism, rates were even higher yet.

The key to a good revolution is preparing the ground before the rule of law disintegrates. If you've already achieved near-universal participation in unions and coops, that will probably lead to a successful bloodless coup. If you turn away from reformism while the workforce is full of classcucked rugged individualists, that's a recipe for drawn out apocalyptic warfare followed by state capitalism.

I always just took that image to mean "fuck swapping out authoritarian capitalism for authoritarian socialism"

Please read this again. We are talking about trade unions that will "form the basis of the revolution".

This is my theoretical estimate. If you want to challenge it, do so with arguments. My opinion is that government (with hysterical support from every Right/Centre force - and from opportunist Left politicians) will crack down on this kind of organization long before you get to 5%.

As for practical estimate - unless you want to choose some other nation or time (which you need to clarify first) - we are either talking pre-October Russia, or we are talking US of A right now.

How do you get this "~5%. Probably, less."? Original research! Groundbreaking discovery suggests that you need to divide the number of trade union members in US by population.

Assuming US population to be 310 million at the time - and assuming every single member of trade union in US of today becomes sufficiently revolutionary to "form the basis of the revolution" - we'll get 4.8% of US population. Which fits "about 5%. Probably, less."

Your graphs are talking about Civilian Labour force. It's is the about half of population (or less). Either learn math or learn how to read.

Which is a pipe dream.

It's called Revolution and transition state.

Are you blind!? Scandinavia is already well over 2/3rds.

Good god, this is literally the same methodology neocon thinktanks like AEI and the Heritage Foundation use to push welfare cuts and flat tax!

What about children? What about homemakers? What about retirees? What about cripples on disability? What about the unemployed?

Please constrain the range of your theories inside the realm of what you can already observe as confirmed fact.

You are. Read my post again.

Read the discussion again.

The question was if you are okay with ignoring them. With them not getting representation during Revolution.

10/10. Assuming for the sake of argument you're not trolling, I'll spell it out.

The overwhelming majority of those groups I ticked off are part of the same household as members of the labor force, or are retired members of the labor force. Thus, the same proportion are effectively part of the same economic unit as one or more active union members, and do not exist economically as individuals.

Separating the labor force from those outside it, especially when talking about relation to the MoP, is fundamentally dishonest.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, for emphasis:

Pre-revolutionary Russia was a backward shithole, other countries at the time were far more democratic, and their working class far more organized.

Attempting to industrialize, democratize, and socialize in one lurching motion, without the conditions (ESPECIALLY the overwhelming support of the masses) necessary, was retarded. Russian leftists should have attempted to form a stable, peaceful, free, lawful, democratic regime. Once this had happened, and once Russia had gone through the process of economic and political development necessary to spread class awareness, a successful revolution would have been possible.

The USA today is of course vastly superior in that regard, but we are still far from the level of class solidarity that would be needed for successful revolution, especially following the neoliberal program of the 1970s.

What about serfs of feudal lord? Are they part of the same economic unit as their lord and master since they do not exist economically as individuals?

Either way, what are you trying to prove? That you need to have everyone of note organized in a Socialist state before the Revolution happens? Or that non-Proletarian population does not deserve a vote?

Which is why their revolutions succeeded, unlike Russian.

Read some history, ffs.

They did exactly what you suggested. They attempted. Several times. Except their "stable" regimes were going nowhere and by the August (Kornilov attempt at junta) it was clear that dictatorship of one kind or another has to emerge. And Bolsheviks made yet another attempt with Constituent Assembly, to garner some legitimacy for the government. Except no side had quorum and anti-Bolsheviks refused to negotiate, so Assembly dissolved.

Guess what? Lawful leftists then went away "to form a stable, peaceful, free, lawful, democratic regime" without retarded Bolsheviks. Once this had happened they put Kolchack in charge. And he arrested and executed them before the year was over.

This is how "this had happened" IRL. Revolutionary Darwinism. Bolsheviks were the only survivors, because they knew their priorities.

You mean, like NEP?

Which is why I always say that October ended in 1934. Collectivisation was that "successful revolution" you speak of.

I'm going to repeat the question:

Do you intend to overthrow governments you (personally) deem tyrannical without confirmed and organized public support?
If you do, do you let someone else assume the power - and keep overthrowing new governments, if you decide that they also do not have this "mandate from the masses"?

Are you seriously comparing a child's parents to a tyrannical feudal warlord?

They failed because the 2nd Internationale caved in to WWI in virtually every belligerent nation instead of forcing the issue with a general strike. Less dramatic failures since then have simply been the result of political incompetence.

Look, I understand that the road to democracy for many nations was far from smooth, quick, or peaceful, Britain and France, for instance. But the point is that the eventual result was significantly better than what preceded it, and IMHO far more open to actual progress toward socialism.

The point of democracy is as a substitute for violence. If a government is undemocratic, I will fight and kill people who disagree with me, because they refuse to talk. If a government is democratic, I don't have to do that, because disagreements can be hashed out through free, open discussion and fair votes.

You know, the ballot or the bullet.

Let me get this straight: if government does not agree with you, you call it undemocratic and proceed to murder people who disagree with you?

I'm not accusing you of anything. I just don't think that all people can agree on everything, even it is the most democratic state. Unless you murder everyone who doesn't agree with you first.

Just feudal lord. And don't pretend that child abuse doesn't happen.

Also, it's not just children. You assigned everyone to the "economic unit" - that includes spouse and elderly parents.

Including Russia. If this was the reason, October would've been impossible.

And Bolsheviks weren't that unique in their anti-war stance. Look up Zimmerwald Left.

Which means what?

You begun by accusing me of not knowing anything (which was not the case in all three possible interpretations of my post), proceeded to claim that Russian Socialists didn't do "the right thing" (which was also provably wrong) and now you are posting some banalities. I don't follow.

My point is that you are not going to get to the "level of class solidarity" you want without having a Revolution first. Do you agree with this, or not?

exterminism

I've always wanted to see what would have happened if Stalin hadn't ended the NEP and put in the planned economy.

I think if the US nationalized Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, but let small programming businesses grow it would satisfy America's hatred of capitalism while not turning people off with the fedora tier hating of small businesses.

Love you Stalin-chan.

Ya'll niggers in this thread need to read some material on the USSR.

General works on the USSR:

* archive.org/details/AHistoryOfTheU.S.S.R. (be sure to add the dot at the end otherwise URL won't work)

* plp.org/books/ ("The Stalin Era" by Anna Louise Strong and "Fraud, Famine & Fascism" in that same link concerning the Ukrainian famine)

* archive.org/details/TheSovietsAlbertRhysWilliams

* archive.org/details/ThePatternOfSovietPower

* archive.org/details/MoscowCorrespondentRalphParker

* archive.org/details/RedVirtue

* archive.org/details/russiwithoutillu00sloarich

* archive.org/details/wedidntaskutopia00timbrich

* ciml.250x.com/archive/ussr/english/1940_october_1917_in_russia_mintz_1940.pdf

Soviet politics (elections and such):

* archive.org/details/TheSocialAndStateStructureOfTheUSSR

* archive.org/details/TheNewSovietConstitution

* archive.org/details/PoliticalPowerInTheUSSR

* unz.org/Pub/AmQSovietUnion-1938oct-00059

Soviet foreign policy:

* archive.org/details/SovietRussiaAndTheBalticRepublics

* catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006770560 ("The New Lithuania" by Anna Louise Strong)

* archive.org/details/PeacefulCoexistence

The Soviet economy:

* archive.org/details/SovietEconomicDevelopmentSince1917

* archive.org/details/ManAndPlanInSovietEconomy

* archive.org/details/IndustryUSSRLokshin

* archive.org/details/AVisitToRussiaReportOfDurhamMiners

How the USSR handled nationalities:

* archive.org/details/PeoplesOfTheSovietUnionLamont

* archive.org/details/APeopleRebornTheStoryOfNorthOssetia

* archive.org/details/SovietLightOnTheColonies

On the Moscow Trials:

* archive.org/details/SovietPolicyAndItsCritics (also of value on Trotskyism in general)

* archive.org/details/SovietJusticeAndTheTrialOfRadekAndOthers

Eastern Europe:

* archive.org/details/RevolutionInEasternEuropeWarriner

* archive.org/details/RumanianSummer

Undemocratic behavior isn't "government disagrees with me", it's "government (or those tolerated by it) responds to any mere disagreement with violence/criminal sanctions, and refuses to implement reforms supported by the majority".

Simply by making government democratic, eliminating the use of violence for political purposes, the opportunity for strongmen and oligarchs (whether in the establishment or outside it) to operate is taken off the table.

I began by accusing your obvious use of Russia's repressed and under-organized workforce to characterize unionization rates of all countries in all of history, followed by embarrassing statistical hair-splitting, as dishonest and inane.

Those who earn income (whether through compensation or pension), or are directly attached to such, encompass essentially the entire population. Obviously workers themselves have the greatest say in labor unions, but dependents have also typically been included to some extent in both the internal process and services provided by unions. Also obviously, there are parallel voluntary organizations other than labor unions, such as consumer unions, parent-teacher associations, homeowners' associations, charitable societies, and the like. All of those would likely become conduits of political power under socialism, though labor unions would probably be the most influential due to labor's uniquely crucial economic role.

I was thinking more that a paralyzing general strike against the mad folly that was WWI would have confirmed for the overwhelming plurality of citizens the total incompetence of capitalist governments to rule, initiating constitutional crises all over Europe.

It means the first democratic regime an authoritarian country's people install may not be the one that ends up enduring, that many cycles of failed democracy and democratic revolution may be necessary before totalitarianism is banished with any permanence.

A socialist revolution, rather than a merely democratic one? I absolutely disagree.

Especially since many democratic societies have already achieved sufficiently universal labor mobilization for what I think would produce a successful socialist revolution.

Not sure yet but definitely not whatever you're thinking of doing, my dude :)

I was asking if you intend to go on a murder spree until someone else builds a state you are satisfied with. You know, clarifying the question from the OP.

You are answering that you don't have to go on a murder spree if you have a proper democracy. I don't think this answers the question.

On a less important note, defining this "proper democracy" as the one in which you don't have to go on a murder spree is rather circular.

What does it have to do with October Revolution?

2nd International "caving in to WWI" doesn't explain failure of the Revolution in other nations, since SocDem also caved in in Russian Empire. Similarly enough, every other nation also had some sort of anti-SocDem radical Left going.

Therefore, neither "democracy" of the state, nor organization of the workforce, nor "development" of the nation, nor presence and influence of reformist SocDem parties can be used as an excuse for failing at Revolution.

Which was out of context.

Recognizing unionised population as the members of trade union would be "dishonest and inane" only if your definition of "being unionised" as being dependent on union memeber was commonly accepted.

It isn't.

Now, back to our feudal lords.
As was the case with peasants under feudal lords. Do you really intend to carry on claims that dependants are somehow "obviously" members of trade unions and, therefore, do not deserve to vote?

Your arrival was predicted two weeks ago:

What were you doing all this time?

...

Stop bumping your shitty thread

Does collectivisation happen?

If it does, see Paraguay war (1864-1870). That's what would've happened to USSR once Reich rolled in. Without industrial backbone, Soviets would've been doomed.

If collectivization doesn't happen, chances USSR would've had Civil War of some kind before WWII. And - I'm relatively certain - Reich would've invaded together with Allies, due to Soviets not having their government sufficiently united to pull off Non-Aggression Pact in 1939.

What hating of small business would that be? Communists intend to nationalize big companies.

Autist much? I was signing my comment, since my trip fell off for some reason.

I only have to go on a murder spree if it is the only option. This isn't some sort of fuzzy "proper" versus "improper" democracy thing. By definition, if voicing disagreement is a crime, it isn't a democracy. If votes are unfair, their results are ignored, or votes simply aren't held on issues of popular concern, it isn't a democracy.

Not having to go on a murder spree is a direct result of there being superior alternatives for resolving disagreements, which is the sole function of democracy.

This is precisely why I brought up the examples of Britain and France, because their earlier attempts at democratic government repeatedly failed and lapsed back into totalitarianism, requiring yet more violent revolutions. The democracy both countries now enjoy came only after many failures (some of which bear a great resemblance to Bolshevism) were deposed.

Nothing, I brought it up in response to your suggestion that backward Russia had succeeded where more developed Europe failed, as an example of what could have been a successful revolution.

The October Revolution was a failure, because it was executed against the will of the masses, and the repression needed to accomplish this conflicted with all of its original aims, resulting in something vastly inferior even to a capitalist democracy.

I claim that they form a socioeconomic bloc, as compared with those who are supported by anything other than union labor, and that ideological dedication to the political cause of labor unions is uniform between both active union members and those supported by them.

Regarding the function of unions in emerging and mature socialism though? Even leaving aside the numerous institutions parallel to labor unions I mentioned, which would participate alongside them under socialist government in theory (and in fact did so in essentially every real world example, such as the early Russian soviets and Spanish syndicates), labor unions would by necessity expand their franchise as their responsibilities to society grew beyond mere labor organization.

The point isn't that labor unions would simply assume the mantle of governance unaltered, but that they offer a robust model and infrastructure through which a functional socialist alternative to existing government could be formed and installed.

Do you keep posting this and all the other baits just to avoid answering the question?

so are you admitting it was a failure?

The question in your OP is kind of loaded, insofar as it resembles "You decide to have children. How do you successfully raise the children when you aren't married, neither of you have jobs, both of you are still teenagers, your families are both flat broke, and an ongoing war is likely to draft the prospective father?". If the time isn't right for socialism, aim a little lower and prepare the right conditions.

Perhaps the most amusingly straightforward betrayal of your mindset's silliness is:
Any normal person would recognize that if whatever you're planning would require imprisoning such a large segment of your population that removing them from the labor force would deal a crippling blow to your economy, you have already failed, and whatever you'd end up with won't be socialism. That's it, pack it in, draw up new plans, try something else.

I figured I had to fulfill the prophecy tbh.

It simply assumes that you will not have perfect conditions for Revolution.

It is perfectly reasonable assumption. Even if you ignore explanation of Marxists, not a single revolution ever happened in perfect circumstances. I.e. both practice and theory suggest that you will not have an easy ride.

What if perfect conditions (your "right time for Socialism") will never happen?

You know, if Basis (Capitalism) will keep influencing Superstructure (Mindset) - i.e. if population will remain predominantly "class-cucked" due to Capitalist propaganda? What then?

Any intelligent person would recognize that there are situations when you don't have spare resources to feed even one prisoner.

Goes here

Well. Can't argue against that. Not with you, at least.

...

Keep the NEP.
Don't betray Makhno.
Unite with Makhno to easily crush the Whites.
Don't kill party members over ideological differences.
Don't kill your top military officers in a general purge you paranoid fuck
Just cool it with killing people in general after the civil war.
Don't come up with the stupid theory of social fascism.
Allow the Church to continue its function separate from the state.

GG situation completely stabilised.

Did you read OP? Please, read OP.

Yes. What delusions?

Tankies are priceless.

I pretty much am

I don't actually identify with any leftist philosophies because I don't have any faith in any of their viabilities

But I also hate reformism because it's so ineffectual

Basically I don't even know why I wake up in the morning

Don't worry, Reddit scum, you'll soon see the viability of meta-left nth-positionism.

Then answer OP. What would you do?

Stuff that someone else might've done decades after is not relevant to anything.

When leftists fail in their 🍀🍀🍀revolutions🍀🍀🍀, they should reflect upon, and accept that, their failed ideologies are a waste of time. Only then will you find universal truths.

Wew

/lefypol/ ( ( ( censorship ) ) ) is hilarious

But I'm comfortable with my "failed" ideology.

Your baits have no power here.

The default war communism is acceptable. Just don't randomly go around killing nuns and priests for no reason and keep the alliance with Makhno. Quickly repeal war communism after the civil war and allow NEP to take place.

Still a "No".

Please, say specifically what you suggest. For the purpose of this thread I have no idea what is this "War Communism" you speak of.

I'm not baiting Stalin I promise. I just thought you were talking about Russia. The OP doesn't really work otherwise. I mean just look at the first one:

- there is less than a week of food in stores

Why is that? The material conditions aren't explained and if this is truly the case and you are in say a food import dependent country you are already *#&% screwed and no revolutionary will be able to handle that. You basically just tossed all the worst possible things that could happen to """guide""" towards your solution but your solution wouldn't even work according to the insane parameters you've structured for your hypothetical.

1) Historically, revolutions are often started by food shortages.
2) Present-day examples (Venezuela being current) also confirm this trend: Bourgeoisie is perfectly aware of the impact of food and will use it as a tool against Revolution.
3) Moreover, any significant civil disturbance by itself can and will cause problems in logistics. Even "snowmageddons" that happen regularly in US lead to stores with empty shelves.

As for practice, can you say how much food is there in your city stores at the moment? Assuming problems with infrastructure (blocked roads), with payment (hyperinflation), with structure (revolution), you can have a week or a month of undersupplying of stores with food.

I'm not even saying that you are already in the middle of famine. You have some food left to figure things out. It might just be a problem of logistics and you might simply need to negotiate with farmers.

You can say what you need.

I'm objecting to people demanding Socialist state before the Revolution happens mostly because people started claiming that it's the only way True Revolution happens and I got baited into derailing thread.

Wrong. Bolsheviks handled that.

Russian Empire produced less food per capita than any European state, making it effectively "import dependent". On top of that Bolsheviks had lost their primary food source - Ukraine - by the mid-1918 and didn't recover it until the end of Civl War. And - on top of all this - Russia already have been suffering from food riots as early as 1916.

And 1921 was even worse.

That's what always happens, no?

As I said, I was describing common post-revolution problems Socialists have to face.

How often do we have a "civilized" Revolution?

wew
do you guys check?
also this board needs id's

Every day, for only one ninety nine.

Perfect conditions!? It assumes you're in a pre-democratic, possibly even pre-capitalist backwater. If things are that bad, BABY STEPS, once you prove your population can handle free representative government without lapsing into sectarian violence and totalitarianism, then go ahead and try another swing at revolution. Well trodden path of socdem first, uncharted waters of socialism after.

IMHO, they already have, repeatedly. The apex of the 2nd Internationale on the eve of WWI, the height of the post-WWII 1st-world boom prior to 1970s neoliberalism, and arguably even the current state of Scandinavian social democracy.

The broad popular support for socialism and opposition to capitalism is there. All that's needed is a firm push, either from the growing strength of forces like unions and coops, or against a capitalist crisis like bubbles or wars. Just that, and the balance of power could swing irrevocably to the working class.

Based tripfag Stalin poster

Holy fucking capitalist-post-scarcity-corporatist-dystopia

I'm sorry, are you implying that people may not be able to "handle democracy" and therefore do not deserve one? I need to know the answer to this.

Bourgeois "democracy" is not democratic. So - yeah. Pre-democratic is a fitting description.

What is rationale of BABY STEPS?

You lost me.

Except WWI conclusively proved that 2nd International was bullshit.

If only this neo-liberalism thingie didn't happen. Makes this "height" seem awfully suspicious.

How would it look like? Electing Communist Party to Parliament, getting majority, and nationalizing MoP?

I'm not entirely sure of the answer, but looking at the fate of many African and Asian countries (some others as well, like Tito's death in Yugoslavia) when the iron grip of totalitarianism slackens, I've begun to despair that a period of harsh secular indoctrination may be necessary in some excessively spooky cultures.

I still have hope that this is mainly the result of domestic porkies, foreign meddling, and sheer incompetence on the part of honestly well-meaning democratic reformers in those countries, but I am currently on the fence with this issue.

If the conditions for revolution do not exist, create them before the revolution, not after.

Capitalism is rightist relative to us, but was once relatively leftist in an era of monarchies, theocracies, dictatorships, and empires.

Just like the USSR proved that the 3rd Internationale was bullshit, things could've gone differently in both cases.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, porky is always out there.

Capitalist firms in crisis might spark a wave of nationalization and/or severely regulation, an overreaching law enforcement action might cause the government to be dissolved and constitution rewritten by a completely new government, cooperatives might gradually displace capitalist firms and government from the provision of services, an alternative currency such as labor vouchers might starve the capitalists out…

Numerous scenarios are and have been possible, many simultaneously in the same places and times.

"You are golden" (c)

I mean, as a Marxist I do not fetishize democracy. But it is this willingness to compromise in the name of Revolution, of Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that has been the crux of Anarchist problems with Marxists. With our "authoritarianism".

You, on the other hand - while being a self-confessed AnCom - not only do not consider democracy Ultima Ratio (as Anarchist should), but also do not accept compromising it in the name of Dictatorship of the Proletariat (as Communists do). No. You demand from people to stay under Capitalism and do "Baby Steps" under Social Democracy, until they can overthrow Capitalists in a civilized manner.

Are you sure, you got your ideology right? It's neither Anarchist, nor Communist.

But not Socialist Revolution. It's too harsh.

You surely understand, we have different definitions of those conditions. My request is to explain the necessity of Baby Steps

No, it wasn't. Liberals were a temporary ally of Left (not Capitalism, FFS). Just like anyone could be, given circumstances. Even Monarchists.

This is a rationale that requests Left to support North Korea, btw. Nobody considers them particularly Left, but (when they were anti-capitalist) they were useful.

Either way, we are not talking French Revolution. Even in 1917 Capitalism was the basis of Right. There was - and could be - no actual democracy under Capitalism.

When?

Yeah. Except we aren't talking vigilance. We are talking about supposed height of revolutionary fervor in the West.

Who exactly is going to nationalize anything?

So … Police dissolves government and abolishes constitution? Is that correct?

Ah. Owning 1% of wealth you are going to outcompete firms with 99% of wealth. Firms that also have extralegal support from government.

Got it.

Okay. This one takes the proverbial cake.

But only one scenario ever worked IRL. Funny that.

I sincerely hope you've been messing with me, btw.

Because nobody has the answers to the questions you asked in the OP

Menshevism

The "socialism" of MLs is mostly indistinguishable in practice from any other form of totalitarianism, hardly worth going through a revolution for more of the same.

Achieving any desirable objectives whatsoever, as opposed to the abject red porky failure that has occurred in every single ML revolution.

>Liberals were a temporary ally of Left (not Capitalism, FFS).
Arguably one and the same back then, in many areas.

I'm not referring to arbitrary labels, but to functional differences. The rise of urban mercantile classes over the old aristocracy/priesthood was responsible in large part for the imposition of constitutionalism. Not to say other forces like peasant/slave revolts didn't play a part, of course.

It was in a state of continual exultation from WWII to when a political coup occurred, it was "the height" only because it's been downward since then. The unions could've struck effectively against the first waves of offshoring and immigration, but they didn't, and with the only real force against porky broken it's been a full rout.

Current government, instead of the usual restructuring and bailouts when faced with economic collapse.
General public disregard for certain laws, perhaps combined with sympathetic police, would cause the government to be rendered ineffective and be deposed.
Without access to the real economy of labor, the airy economy of high finance would evaporate like a soap bubble. Also, as economic contact between labor and capital decreases, so does capital's practical leverage.

For very liberal definitions of "worked"

Wow, an anarchist whose entire worldview is founded on liberal values and the bourgeois authoritarian-libertarian dichotomy, what a fucking shocker. It isn't surprising that the one thing you've taken from Marx is his apologetics for capital as a supposedly progressive force and zealous pro-imperialist sentiment.

Capitalism has never done anything but establish dictatorships of capital, Catholic theocracy has merely been superseded by the cult of money. You have been foolishly deceived by the decentralist nature of parliamentarianism. If anything were to seriously undermine the ruling class's position they would put aside their grievances and adopt a centralist line in a heartbeat. Your safety and prosperity depends entirely on their whims. Constitutionalism isn't saving you from the omnipotent state, every state is omnipotent. It is almost laughable to see self-proclaimed socialists engage in shameless worship of the status quo.

For all the history of human civilization until the rise of organized labor, government has been run by something varying from absolute dictatorship to very rare near-oligarchally tiny franchise of "democracy", the overwhelming majority of people have been property varying from subhuman slavery to debt bondage, and the ability to think (let alone write) one's thoughts has been harshly restricted by everything from zealous cultural superstition to draconian legal oppression.

Social democracy isn't "the status quo", it is the only fruit ever borne from millennia of struggle, and a crucial stepping stone to all further victories.

Life sucks now, but it sucks a whole lot less than it used to. If we're to throw it away, it should be on something that's likely to work under our own supervision, not yet another flavor of the totalitarianism we fought, killed and died against to get where we already are.

This is highly variable. Russia has had numerous droughts every other decade or so as part of its natural history. It just so happened that one of those droughts was late 1910's - early 1920's. A fertile country like the United States is not going to have severe issues with food resources even in the event of revolution.

Are they not supposed to be organized in soviets or equivalent structures?

- currency hyperinflation had reached 300% per day

Welcome to violent transition of government. Restrict the monetary supply.

- Bourgeois states had embargoed the shit out of you

Like you weren't expecting this in any case anyway.

- gangs, right-wing militia and rogue elements of police/army are active

Put them down.

Put them down.

Disregard them since moderates have no balls and ultra-leftists are too busy schisming on tendency lines to really ever organize a united front against you and repression would only give them more ammo to fire at your regime.

Put them down.

It doesn't even take a lenin for this babby shit

Well, yes. But I have to give benefit of the doubt.

Yep. That's the very same kind of "Anarchism" that not only justified Fascism, but joined it.

Constitutionalism isn't worth anything, if doesn't limit exploitation. Slave owners can have constitution too.

Which is my point. It wasn't the time when Revolution could've occurred.

Bailouts will always be paid with money of the workers, because it's not the workers who lobby politicians.

We have a thing called Martial Law.

Except you still don't control MoP and you'll literally starve to death without converting your "labour vouchers" into Capitalist money.
Except government support - which is not yours - is enough to force real economy to support high finance.

It doesn't decrease due to your suggestions.

But I'm glad you are no longer explaining how penniless workers are going to compete with the factories, where each workplace has 2 million dollars worth of equipment.

You are literally 100% undiluted SocDem. Why do you pretend otherwise?

>not only justified Fascism, but joined it.
Like Molotov-Ribbentrop slicing up Poland, or going all the way past Franco to backstab Spanish leftists.
Sorry, that was a little too easy

The shift from lawless, arbitrary absolutism was an extremely important one. Even just porkies squabbling among each other and setting limits laid the groundwork for their downfall.

Eh, matter of opinion. Going the opposite direction, even ML isn't necessarily revolutionary, as in Hungary's election.

Which becomes harder to deploy under more democratic regimes.

Why not? Parallel economies exist, like the massive network of credit unions that the majority of depositors bank at in the US and most other developed countries, the powerful coops that exist around the world, and even forcefully "reclaimed" ex-capitalist businesses such as Argentina's.

Capital is rarely able to unilaterally quash organs of labor power at the first sight of incipient formation anymore. The only path open to them is subversion, and that relies mainly on the gullibility of labor itself to take root.

I'm sceptical of this plan because it was tried, in essence, in Britain in the 1970s and 80s, with disastrous effects. People blamed the unions when militancy caused disruption, and the Labour Party performed terribly when it took a pro-union stance, allowing Thatcher to crush unionism and roll back the welfare state.

Capitalism has an inbuilt advantage in elections because people tend to look at wealthy bourgeois and think 'I want to be like that'. Even after 70 years of Marxist education, people in the USSR still fell into the trap of thinking they could all live like the rich do in the West.

I'm pretty sure the USSR did not allow free elections.

Let's not have Holla Forums turn into a shill-baiting shithole like Holla Forums.

I used two answers per question. One for Revolutionary Russia and another for modern America.

Both. Probably the one thing that both revolutions would have in common. Now, America's case would be more veterans and the National Guard going revolutionary as well as deserters and low-level officers in the regular army having sympathies towards the revolutionary movement. (Russian officers would be a big no-no due to their aristocratic nature.)

The main thing would be to actually address the concerns of the "right-wing" militias, which mainly arise from the anti-gun, cosmopolitan, and idpol/anti-working class nature of the modern "Left". They would be on our side from day one.

Mostly for Russia 1917. America has way fewer farmers, and they overproduce food with their already modernized agriculture.

Basically, don't have forced grain requisitions and actually allow the farmers to participate in the marketplace. Focus the revolution on redistributing land from the large landowners to small self-employed farmers. (With village communes just being local governments consisting of these freeholding farmers.) This is important due to the majority of the population being those farmers.

You do realize that not all industry is Chinese sweatshops or 19th century British sweatshops? 1917 Russia's workers were far more educated than their peasant counterparts, especially since the working-class wasn't inflated by peasant migration to the cities like in the rest of Europe. There were fewer workers and they were more skilled.

Additionally, with the exception of America and Britain, most of the West industrialized with skilled workers who were unionized, especially France. And yes, unions CAN manage those workplaces. You do realize that most trade schools are run by unions and unions used to provide job-training for most professions. They share this in common with guilds. Basically, most workplaces RELY on moderately-trained specialists and complex workplaces like power plants rely entirely on highly-trained specialists. This is why highly-skilled industries tend to be the most unionized.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_policy

Basically, different industries would have different tariffs, import/export quotas. And, the industries themselves, comprised of the worker-run workplaces organized into unions/guilds, and the government would negotiate these policies. So yes, for 1917 Russia, have these industrial soviets run pro-industrial policies like these, involving subsidies and taxes. For modern America, it will be part of the reindustrialization process.

Partially true. I meant that we shouldn't force more industrialization and if anything subdivide farmland into smaller farms, run by small farmers who would confederate into cooperatives that provide modern farming equipment and coordinate these yeoman farmers. Additionally, these farmers would be organized into granges, which would be the agricultural equivalent of the guilds. And, all the immigrants should be deported and the agricultural companies elminated, the land being redistributed to American citizens, who would be trained by the government in modern agricultural techniques and be given similarly modern farm equipment to allow for efficient farming of larger (but still relatively small) lots by freeholding farmers, without the need for wage labor.

I am actually somewhat unsure on this. I was thinking of either bimetalism (to allow for some inflation) or basing the currency off labor, as in labor notes.

You mean the grain requisitions, considering the entire peasantry to be a second wheel, eliminating worker's self-management, employing Tsarist, aristocratic officers to replaced elected officers, wanting the workers and peasants to fight a "World Revolution" cause of muh autistic internationalism, not allowing the surrounding nations to leave Russia, and yes, not letting the people throw pogroms whenever they want.

It's not the lack of "niceness" in the schmaltzy liberal definition that alienated the people from the Bolsheviks. It's not that they didn't work. It's that people wanted to have democratic control over the state and their own lives, hoped the Bolsheviks would allow them this, and saw themselves as the rulers of this new society. Instead, they get a regime run by the intelligentsia and loser bureaucrats who treat the people, especially the peasants, like morons.

It's no wonder that they seceded to form "counter-revolutionary" gangs. People don't want to be ruled by a clique of well-intentioned autistic losers.

Let the people take control and run society. If that means letting them commit terror, then so be it. If that means Russia remains a land of peasants, that is fine as long as the peasants are free and control their own destiny. (Market forces would've pushed for a softer and slower industrialization anyways.)

The main concern of the Russian Revolution should be freeing the narod, not creating an ideal society.

As for America and the possibility of rumors, you're going to have the same thing with the "Left" in America and even worse. At least the Bolsheviks are good at pretending that they're for workers and have good-intentions for them. The modern "Left" is firmly anti-worker in every sense of the word. I have made plenty of posts about this.

Also, there are more people are in unions than 5%, even in America. And, if you want a WORKER'S revolution, then you need an organized workplace. Otherwise, the workers don't have the skills to run those workplaces, as I explained before. Unions create skilled workers who can run the factories. (And, the workplaces are an important political and economic battleground. There's a reason why we don't just copy classical direct democracy to modern industrial societies. You need industrial organization as well as geographic and military organization.)

Partially true. I meant that we shouldn't force more industrialization and if anything subdivide farmland into smaller farms, run by small farmers who would confederate into cooperatives that provide modern farming equipment and coordinate these yeoman farmers. Additionally, these farmers would be organized into granges, which would be the agricultural equivalent of the guilds. And, all the immigrants should be deported and the agricultural companies elminated, the land being redistributed to American citizens, who would be trained by the government in modern agricultural techniques and be given similarly modern farm equipment to allow for efficient farming of larger (but still relatively small) lots by freeholding farmers, without the need for wage labor.

I am actually somewhat unsure on this. I was thinking of either bimetalism (to allow for some inflation) or basing the currency off labor, as in labor notes.

You mean the grain requisitions, considering the entire peasantry to be a second wheel, eliminating worker's self-management, employing Tsarist, aristocratic officers to replaced elected officers, wanting the workers and peasants to fight a "World Revolution" cause of muh autistic internationalism, not allowing the surrounding nations to leave Russia, and yes, not letting the people throw pogroms whenever they want.

It's not the lack of "niceness" in the schmaltzy liberal definition that alienated the people from the Bolsheviks. It's not that they didn't work. It's that people wanted to have democratic control over the state and their own lives, hoped the Bolsheviks would allow them this, and saw themselves as the rulers of this new society. Instead, they get a regime run by the intelligentsia and loser bureaucrats who treat the people, especially the peasants, like morons.

It's no wonder that they seceded to form "counter-revolutionary" gangs. People don't want to be ruled by a clique of well-intentioned autistic losers.

Let the people take control and run society. If that means letting them commit terror, then so be it. If that means Russia remains a land of peasants, that is fine as long as the peasants are free and control their own destiny. (Market forces would've pushed for a softer and slower industrialization anyways.)

The main concern of the Russian Revolution should be freeing the narod, not creating an ideal society.

As for America and the possibility of rumors, you're going to have the same thing with the "Left" in America and even worse. At least the Bolsheviks are good at pretending that they're for workers and have good-intentions for them. The modern "Left" is firmly anti-worker in every sense of the word. I have made plenty of posts about this.

Also, there are more people are in unions than 5%, even in America. And, if you want a WORKER'S revolution, then you need an organized workplace. Otherwise, the workers don't have the skills to run those workplaces, as I explained before. Unions create skilled workers who can run the factories. (And, the workplaces are an important political and economic battleground. There's a reason why we don't just copy classical direct democracy to modern industrial societies. You need industrial organization as well as geographic and military organization.)

Sorry for the double-posting. Holla Forums is fucking up.

Can't you delete it?

When it rains, it pours. I might not answer everything today.

Bolshevik North was cut off from the fertile (and White) South. Nothing to do with droughts. And before that kulaks were hoarding grain.

Droughts happened in 1921.

As I already mentioned several times in the thread: just because someone has food, it doesn't mean that you have it. See here, for example:

Only in theory things are homogeneous. IRL situation can vary a lot from factory to factory. Some factories only need for police to go away to switch to Socialist mode of production, while others can dodder to it for weeks, if not months after revolution.

Also here:

Yes, people here are claiming that all factories could be run without any specialists, by existing trade unions, but I'm not that sure about that.

How? This one doesn't make any practical sense, tbh.

Yes, but what do you do?

There are two problems: who is deciding and how are you going to organize people who'll be doing the "putting down"?

Moderates attempt a coup half-a-year later. One year later ultra-leftists bombs your HQ, killing 12 people and wounding 55.

Technically, Lenin was killed (wounded, as it eventually proved to be - mortally) by either moderates or ultra-lefitists. Officially, it was Social-Revolutionaries (SocDem), but I strongly suspect Kaplan was Anarchist.

Top kek faggot

It's always easy. You have a century of the most rabid propaganda in human history helping you. But it's hard to rewrite recent events, isn't it?

Elaborate.

That doesn't make constitution revolutionary. Laws of slave owners are for slave owners. They concern us not.

And I forgot to remind you that Liberal is a political position, while Capitalist - economic role.

It is your opinion. And it changes.

My opinion was - and still is - that your "right time for Socialism" can not and will not ever happen; that "heights" of Western labour movements in 70s are imaginary and mostly consist out of Bourgeoisie bribing workers to make them listen to SocDem, rather than support Revolution. This kind of "height" has nothing to do with actual threat of Revolution by those workers - and everything with USSR looming on horizon.

Which means regime becomes significantly less democratic. Not that Martial Law will not happen. Capitalists know their priorities.

You do not get parallel economy. Workers are humans. They need stuff. They want stuff. But most of daily necessities cannot be produced without Capital (not for affordable price). Unless you go Amish, you cannot become independent from Capital.

Is this what Wolff tells people?

Where do you even live? Is it the land of magical horses that shit rainbows? Subversion is simply more efficient. Once it stops working and you throw away your Capitalist-approved ballot - you get bullets.

I'm pretty sure it did.

Cultural "Marxism".

Look at the material conditions: you need money for election campaign. Poor do not have money. Rich do.

I don't even know where to begin.
a) no, living like rich do in the West is possible, and it is possible for the whole population. It's the question of development of productive forces.
b) no, people of USSR did not fall into the trap of Bourgeois propaganda. They "forgot the face of their father" - Vanguard. Organized force of organized Communists, capable of organized violence. When the time came, majority still wanted USSR, but was powerless to enforce their will.

Indeed

Anarchists were vigorously shat on by both sides throughout the last century, whereas the Bolsheviks had 75-odd years of state propaganda organs and child organizations beyond that, cranking out apologia.

In 1919, Hungarian Bolsheviks formed a government by winning a democratic election. Both its initial popularity and downfall later that year were tied to Hungary's military fortunes against its neighbors following the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It doesn't have to happen all at once, or even be complete. Capital just has to be marginalized sufficiently where it whithers away.

That's a two-way street, and capital knows it. Start shit, get hit.

>>> so rogue army elements would be easy to co-opt.
You still don't explain how this "co-option" would look like. The problem with the counter-revolutionary elements is that they are the ones who were not persuaded and went on to actively resist Revolution. Or are you trying to say that there will be no discontent and everyone will support your program?

Okay. If right-wingers would be on "our" side, this "our" side needs to be explained better.

I strongly suspect "nationalize the shit of out everything" kind of program would not garner much of a support among right-wingers. Industrialization (even to simply reduce dependence on the rest of the world) would also require some measures that will elicit knee-jerk reactions.

Of course, right-wing militia will support "kill Commies and Muslims; put Chinks, Latinos, and Niggers into work camps" kind of program, and it would be relatively easy to get support from them, but I'm not sure if that counts as Revolution. Either way, in this situation you still get discontent and left-wing militias.

Let's call SJWs New Right - for clarity's sake.

>>> Farmers
How are you going to pay farmers? Also, you basically advocate stealing land from most of "farmers".

You do realize this means famine? American agriculture is efficient specifically because it relies on industrialized large-scale farming since before WWII.

Was your computer made in those Chinese sweatshops?

I'm not sure what you are talking about (translation: you are talking nonsense, but I don't have the time to write a book about it).

If you are trying to say workers of Russia-1917 were sufficiently educated to run the factories, the answer would be "no, they weren't".

Nope. I do not realize this. There are some workplaces that could be run by average Joes, yes. But hardly all. Is there any way you can convince me?

If we are talking about the same thing, then those specialists are also well-paid and don't give a fuck about Revolution.

What would happen if there is one factory - that belongs to workers now - with expensive state-of-the-art equipment, while the other is a sweatshop?

Worker of the first enterprise can work 4 hours a day - in a comfortable environment, mostly overseeing automated processes - to produce 5 time more than the sweatshop worker makes in unventilated room during 12 hours.

Do they engage in honest competition?

Test

You're a true hero; never quit posting comrade.

Also your pic is unironically correct :^)

Stalinist faggot doesnt reply

As expected from the cherrypicking faaggot

What non-English books would you recommend I read on Stalin?

dear god how is this thread still fucking going? I posted the pic OP used like a month ago when i was arguing with some tankie

If you want attention, ask a proper question.

Source.

How does that contradict what I said?

I never said it wasn't. The point is that this was never achieved in the USSR. People blamed socialism for the fact that they were poorer than the West suggested they ought to be.

You're going to need to give sources, because everything I've read suggests that the Soviet people mostly welcomed perestroika and glasnost. They may not have wanted the USSR to collapse, but they bought into the reforms that inevitably caused the collapse.

That's what I fucking said in 2009 when I was a 19 year old liberal with socdem leanings. The bubble's just growing man.

Source of what? CIA admitting that Soviets have democracy?

You said it was perception that shapes opinion of people. That they voluntarily choosing Bourgeois regime.

IRL they do not have an option to choose anything. It is unknown (even unlikely) that they will support Bourgeoisie, however glamorous it is.

How do you know this? Is that personal opinion of some specific individuals? Because they can't speak for all the people, can they?

1991 referendum.

Majority wanted USSR, despite obvious clusterfuck that was going on for over 5 years, immense anti-Soviet propaganda, and the whole of USSR being in the middle of coup.

Perestroika (1986-1991) was not a "Socialism sucks, we are going back to Capitalism" type of thing. Market economy was presented as a properly Socialist concept. The official position was that it was return to the roots of Communism, to Lenin. Even Bukharin got rehabilitated to justify market economy as a new NEP, as a preparation for the new Industrialization.

For example, Gorbachev in 1988 (mid-late Perestroika):

astro.temple.edu/~rimmerma/gorbachev_speech_to_UN.htm
> We completed the first stage of the process of political reform with the recent decisions by the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet on amendments to the Constitution and the adoption of the Law on Elections. Without stopping, we embarked upon the second stage of this. At which the most important task will be working on the interaction between the central government and the republics, settling relations between nationalities on the principles of Leninist internationalism bequeathed to us by the great revolution and, at the same time, reorganizing the power of the Soviets locally. We are faced with immense work. At the same time we must resolve major problems.

soviethistory.msu.edu/1985-2/perestroika-and-glasnost/perestroika-and-glasnost-texts/gorbachev-speech-to-the-supreme-soviet/

Your point being? Is this yet another pre-Popper retardation a-la "True Socialism is magically invulnerable to anything"?

Please. Both Bakunin and Proudhon were recognized among the greatest Socialist thinkers by Bolsheviks (Kropotkin would've been put in the list too, but he was alive at the time). Even during 1930s Bakunin got metro station named in his honour. Streets and even cities were named too.

Yeah. They had a complete control over Hollywood.

First and foremost, "Hungarian Bolsheviks" make no sense. Communists, maybe? Because Bolsheviks are specifically Russian Communists (Bolshevik faction within Labour Party of Russia - RSDLP).

Secondly - you don't explain how it's "not revolutionary".

Capital does not wither away when faced with pre-Capitalist economy. It is more efficient than the agrarian bullshit you are suggesting. It outcompetes agrarian bullshit and it is agrarian bullshit that will wither away.

Except Capitalists have police, three-letter mafia, PMCs, and army. While you have some handguns and a Molotov cocktail. Guess who is going to get hit harder?

So - no. Subversion is not the only path for Capitalists.

get out

No, source on the USSR having free elections. To my knowledge voters were presented with a highly vetted selection of Communist candidates; this is not a free election.

But its actual effect is to destroy socialism. If people can be deceived into thinking you can have the benefits of free markets without losing the benefits of planned economy, socialism is very vulnerable to elections.

That they couldn't be trusted to know what was good for them.

I think a fairer analysis would be that they couldn't have known that turning back the dial on state capitalist dictatorship would mean inviting The Chicago Boys in to loot everything that wasn't nailed down as economic "shock therapy."

Stop LARPing

Son, you would have to see a socialist revolution in some relevant country with great power potential in order to scare the bourgeoisie back into accepting real social democracy.

Otherwise, you're just a spectator in the back of the cuck shack beating off to Blair, Holland, and the Clintons taking big veiny porky cocks.

Okay, since it was me first mentioning USSR in this case, you are getting a reply.

On the subject of elections in USSR.

It is worthwhile to put things into perspective first. Get some context.

1) What is a "free election"?
Was the choice between Hillary and Trump a "free election"? Were those two individuals the best America could offer?

2) Can a "free election" exist without informed choice?
Representative of the 200-1000 people could represent them, but if we are talking about 100.000 people, electors opinion will be inevitably based on the information they get from mass-media. On the fake image that is being presented to them by whoever controls mass-media.

People cannot choose among the candidates they know nothing about. It is no longer a "choice". It's a semi-educated guess at best.

3) Does a "free election" have any meaning, if electors cannot influence their representative after elections?
Does it not become a competition between con artists, if representatives cannot be recalled by the population at any moment?

__________

Now, on to the actual procedure of elections in USSR.

No. Soviet election procedure was quite different from Western. The voting procedure you refer to was a confirmation of integrity of decision-making process. Final step in the election process, not the whole of it.

First, population (worker collectives) made their choice. Potential candidates talked with the collectives and persuaded them to vote for them. Actual decision was made during those discussions. Long before voting.

Obviously, Party - being highly political entity - exercised it's influence to ensure that candidates were actually pro-Soviet and pro-Communist. Background checks were made, questions were asked, etc. But it is hardly anything unusual, isn't it? Unless one is going to claim that freedom of choice was compromised because workers were forced to listen to some propaganda or did not get a chance to unwittingly elect some criminal, of course.

Then and only then - after the choice was made - Party was called in to present chosen candidate for the voting - not election. At this point election already happened and agreement was reached.

Procedure of voting existed to confirm that people truly chose the candidate, that their decision-making process was not compromised in any way, that they actually wanted the candidate (as they claimed publicly), that Party properly presented their interests and did not strongarm people into choosing someone nobody cared about.

Which is why there was only one candidate and votes "for" often exceeded 95%. And which is why it was an extraordinary situation - the one that required immediate intervention if support for the candidate was below 80% - for this was a sign that election was somehow compromised and significant amount of people were not happy with the events.

Moreover, unlike "free" elections of Bourgeois "Democracies", electors had the right and the means to recall their candidate later, at any point of time, if he was proven to be inappropriate.

So - yes. While it is possible to imagine some Utopia with (arguably) better election system, within given parameters, Soviets had one of - if not the - freest election systems.

Source: General description of the Soviet elections (not without anti-Soviet bias, but mostly correct) could be found in "Political Power in the USSR" (some kind user already posted link to), pages 187-208.

Yes, it is. Which is why education of the people is of paramount importance. Successful Dictatorship of the Proletariat requires said Dictators to be somewhat competent.

Nobody could be trusted. But Proletariat has the right to be wrong.

Well, with all the recent reports of 8 people working "harder" than 3.5 billion people, I'm pretty certain we have a very definite answer to this.

Man this thread really is fucking cancer

Yes, and that answer is "no." The fact that you can publish such a statistic and no one really bats an eyelash should demonstrate just how eager the people are to revolt.

How should this "batting of an eyelash" look like?

It is the First World that is still hoping for things to work out. It's not desperate enough. The rest of the world is slowly boiling.

Thanks for the detailed response.

...