Marxism

the whole "withering away" of the state in Marxism isn't really explained in that well. historically it didn't "wither away" it became a superstate.
explain please.

the state is meant to wither away after the revolution. no wonder the state didn't wither away if the revolution failed.

All "withering away" was ever intended to mean was that after all the bourgies are dealt with society's administrative institutions lose their repressive character. This is an optimistic but entirely plausible view of postrevolutionary communist society.


No fucking shit. It's almost like 90% of the world was united against the SU or something.

The state is, at it's simplest, an armed band. The idea of the state withering away is that as the armed proletarians gradually triumph over their enemies, they will disband until there is no institution capable of wielding force on a large scale. Of course, if territories somewhere remain under bourgeois control, it is essential to retain a military apparatus of some sort and it is very easy for a centralized party in control of a hierarchical armed forces to impose itself as a new order no less repressive than the old.

how are you supposed to disband the state when other countries with militaries exist?

yeah it's almost as if the full militarization of society is bad, because militaries are regimented, taught to have no will of their own and dehumanize whatever enemy they're ordered to. especially so if command's ideology is patterned on literal double-think.

This is why ML exists

Wow so much for the state "withering away" huh guys ML BTFO

The Trotskyist response to this criticism is that this won't be a problem so long as the revolution is global, ceaseless until it's ultimate success, and that reactionaries are kept out of revolutionary structures. The Bordigist position is that this shows that the working class must rise up spontaneously, any party trying to organize the working class ultimately just becoming a new set of oppressors. Anarchists would rather try their luck with militias controlling scattered territories and gradually advancing than risk submitting to a new ruling class that merely swaps out the symbols and language of the deposed bourgeoisie.

the leaders of the USSR werent a new bourgeoisie, this is orwell tier trot bullshit. They weren't gaining enormous personal profits, the pay difference between a politician and an average worker was a gazillion times less than in any capitalist country

thats literally not how you define bourgie/prole you worthless scunt

It wasn't for lack of warning, I can tell you that much.

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The state will wither away only when there's global socialism.
There won't be global socialism tho.

"scunt." That's pretty good actually. I'm gonna use that.

Told you about them states man.
In retrospect this one was so obvious.
Why wither away? It's like maggots voluntarily leaving the bacon.

That's basically what Stalin believed iirc. Socialism only had a chance of developing if it wasn't in danger of being toppled by a powerful Capitalist power. So everything he did was to do whatever it took (in his mind) to strengthen the international Socialist movement, asnd he was willing to do whatever that took. Hindsight is 20/20, but ti kinda sucks that all that authoritarianism was basically for naught, since global revolution was never achieved. Of course it was as much a failing of the USSR as it was a success of the West in crushing it.

Lmao what a terrible fucking excuse.

You people need to look at yourselves in a mirror some time.

The state is an instrument of class domination in the Marxist view so if you get rid of classes the state won't have anything to do. Of course this ignores that the specialization of power is the oldest form of specialization and won't just disappear because you think it somehow became obsolete.

whenever i pick their brain it gives them a splitting headache
nah he was a nearly lenin-tier circle thinker on this iirc but i only read a few texts to refute leftcom memers. class party was just democratic centralism tweaked and rebranded organic centralism for PR because democracy assblasted him with its bourgeois overtones. also the front line had to be even more fanatical than the bolshys because otherwise they might start using reason instead of letting the material conditions directly dictate or something. bakunin on the other hand…

Stop that.

How is it a terrible excuse? Let's say the Soviet Union had dissolved, then what?

quality jej here m9

do ml's even read stalin?
pic

wew

If Stalin weren't a faggot and SU and China could unite they literally would have won.

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NEP for me, KMT for you!

If you qualify that for him the good of Soviet Union was synonymous to the good of 'the international Socialist movement'. The international side of it was always subservient to Soviet needs - usually playing the traditional Russian part in the great power game.

socialism and communism are the same.
The thesis that under socialism there will be a state is a leninist one.

The theory is that the state arose due to the rise of class societies and with each new class society, the dominant class dominates the state. In a socialist revolution, this dominant class is the proletariat, with the whole point of communism being the complete dissolution of classes, both proletarian and bourgeoisie, and without class, the need for a state disappears, hence the withering away

It can only wither away if there are no more capitalist and imperialist nations on Earth