Was socialism in one country a revisionist mistake?
Was socialism in one country a revisionist mistake?
Lincoln Perry
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Logan Anderson
It's not a question whether or not it was ideal, there was no choice but to do it since international revolution failed. Also, I don't see why it couldn't work as long as you have the natural resources, which Russia did.
Isaiah Phillips
But the USSR continued socialism in one country after WWII. The comecon didn't integrate their economies through a central plan across the entire bloc.
Ryan Wilson
Socialism in one country was the biggest counter-revolutionary blow the international communist movement has seen. The signal of 'socialism' in one country was the signal of the end of any hope for the international revolution and solidified the transition to Russian capitalism.
Angel Hughes
They still heavily collaborated under the COMECON on a mutual basis, as opposed to capitalist imperialism in the West. There was no state that was "left behind" or anything, besides the individual policies pursued by the national government which might have led to different results. The unification of all countries into one was neither desirable nor possible. First off, it's not desirable because the nations would have perceived this act as oppression, and it's not possible because managing the USSR alone as the biggest country in the world is already a tremendous task, which is why the USSR consisted of different republics as well, merging everything into one block would be insane. Maybe it's possible now, with computers, I don't know.
You are being obviously disingenuous here as you put the cart before the horse. It's not the Russians to blame for the failed world revolutions. The USSR can't conquer the world, the working class of the respective countries have to carry it out. The USSR still supported revolutions whenever they occurred, and helped painting half the world in red, so I'm not sure how you thay they've abandoned internationalism.
I mean, there will still be nations under communism, at least for a while. Nations are a transhistorical concept, and as long as we can't suspend from having a state there will be nation states, I'd imagine there being nations under a global communist society as well.
Nathan Johnson
something something national self determination something something that would break the agreement with the USA that poland would be left independent.
Isaiah Lee
It wasn't a mistake so much as it was coming to terms with the reality of the situation. France had a bourgeois revolution which caused the rest of Europe to take measures to ensure there wouldn't be another in their own territory. The same happened with the Russian Revolution, the international bourgeoisie took measures to oppress their own populations and isolate the USSR to make sure their position was secure.
tl;dr It was a reaction to threats and isolation, see the DPRK for the most extreme version of it
Noah Diaz
Nation-states are part of the capitalist stage of development. They were made by local bourgeoisie who centralized power and created the domestic market. Nation-states, at least how they exist now, will cease to exist when global communism is achieve. Lower stage communism (or in this case we can call it socialism) will see the erosion of nation-states while communism is outright a classless and stateless society. If the capitalist mode of production ceases to exist then there would be no need for nation-states since society will cease to be top-down. Borders are managed by property owners and that won't happen when property is distributed equitably among the world according to the needs of society. The only way I could things like borders and nations exist in a communist society is if it is fore purely an administrative purpose to determine needs among certain geographic regions, but the hierarchical power of nations and borders will likely be non-existent.
Unironically, read Bordiga.
Owen Rivera
I never blamed "the Russians" for failed world revolutions. I blamed building "socialism in one country" for abandoning the international proletariat. I'm not under the illusion had things played out differently that we would all be living under world communism right now, but I do believe that the new Russian state should have kept its goal of being a springboard for other revolutions keeping that their number one goal.
Logan Anderson
The unification of the global economy is the goal of communism. National economies can only go so far, even with OGAS you'd want to plug all of Comecon into OGAS then all of Earth and all of our solar system as we colonize space.
Austin Sanders
It isn't about conquering the world, it's about showing the superiority of socialism and inciting the world to overthrow its capitalist masters.
The plan with the space program almost worked but motherfucking Corn Man couldn't do anything right.
Levi Adams
Please read me correctly. I said nations, not "nation-states". Nations existed since ancient times, the entire history of the Roman Empire was them conquering other nations and integrating them into the empire, nationes as they would call them, whereas state as world only attained it's meaning much later - originally referring to status. The argument is that in socialism, you can abolish the state because that would be suicide as long as capitalist superpowers exist - therefore, nation states still exist, although there is nothing to be said against more cosmopolitan federations like the USSR. Sure, the term of the nation changed over the time, as Benedict Anderson points out, but nation as an actual existing community of people is transhistorical. Stalin provides a succinct definition:
>marxists.org
Ad hoc reasoning which has no basis in history. Socialism must be become global first for this to happen.
Isaac Long
Can't abolish the state*
Connor Lopez
How is building socialism in one country "abandoning the international proletariat"? Where did they fail to facilitate a revolution when there was a chance? Lots of rethoric, small substance.
Jose Taylor
Wasn't Brezhnev a mistake?
Oliver Stewart
Sure he made some policies I disagree with, but I don't see how this is relevant to the topic at hand. I'm anti-revisionist but I don't buy at all in the "social imperialist" or "state capitalist" bullshit Hoxhaists and Maoists pander arround.
The USSR wasn't a one-man-show and it would be absurd to think you change the entire character of a mode of production by replacing a single guy.
Jace Mitchell
The foreign policy of the USSR was very much decided by the central administration wasn't it? The character of its citizenry and its adherence to Marxism-Leninism didn't really have a say in what the bureaucrats were lording over them.
Dominic Thompson
It wasnt a mistake, it was the most intelligent thing to do
Its not like half the world was socialist after that or anything
Wyatt Thomas
There's literally nothing wrong with the concept of 'socialism in one country'. There's no contradiction between socialism in one country and internationalism. All it means is that a) it's possible to have socialism in one country, and b) if a socialist revolution succeeds in only one country, that revolutionary state should start constructing socialism immediately (while supporting potential other revolutions) and not wait around for the rest of the world.
People who have a problem with 'socialism in one country', based on my experience, rarely offer a practical alternative strategy to building socialism in one country (those who do are pretty ridiculous though), in the case of the Soviet Union for example. It's not about pointing out what the USSR actually should have done differently. It's about coming to the predetermined conclusion that it wasn't muh real socialism because socialism in one country is literally impossible based on their interpretation of Marx.
Justin Flores
To be fair, Bordiga brought up all those points under the Stalinist and Linguistics chapter. Roman statecraft merely used nations as administrative borders then went into decline once Rome broke apart the material conditions led to the feudal era. The changes from the modes of production eventually brought back the nation state because of mercantiles establishing domestic markets.
Cooper Fisher
Uhm, yes, but what does that matter? Romans spoke at lengths about gentes, attributed them traditions, languages and even economic systems. Admittedlly, there was still somewhat a conflation between gens and natio, due to the tribal nature of smaller nations at that time. The Romans were universalists, but nations continued to exist under the Roman empire. Simarily, nations would continue to exist in a communist world for quite some time.
It entire centuries for that. Feudalism wasn't born out of the downfall of the Roman empire directly. Feudalism is also universalistic, but there were still nations in the middle ages. English kings used proto-nationalism to deter foreign invaders all the time. Even in the late middle ages, students at universities were categorized after a concept of nationality, some of these student organizations still exist today. Not even talking about Korea and Japan and other Asian nations at that time.
Anthony Taylor
No, they didn't. The very concept of nation is a recent development and so are associated concepts such as nation-states or nationality.
Jackson Anderson
?
Brandon Lopez
Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.
marxists.org
Benjamin Murphy
State-capitalism, state-capitalism, state-capitalism.
None of you are free from state-capitalism.
Ethan Cox
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Christian Ross
it saved the soviet union
had they gone on a trotskyist rampage, they almost certainly would've either been left on their own vs hitler or preemptively invaded by the entente powers
Jack Cook
Read Dunayevskaya
Ryder Bennett
read a book, period
Jose Price
GG EZ
Oliver Allen
1/10 attempt was made yada yada
Hunter Phillips
????
thanks for the (yous) I guess
Brandon Diaz
no question there
you are plain and simple retarded
Chase Campbell
Absolute illiteracy on display here. Go read any ancient text, read the fucking Bello Gallico for god's sake. Again, last time:
Charles King
I did bring forth an argument: that you should read Dunayevskaya. The fact that you have repeatedly demonstrated your unwillingness to do so in favor of tossing around insults like they win you an argument exposes how truly petty the ML mindset is.
Luis Lewis
The "nations" mentioned in these sorts of text have nothing to do with what we refer to as "nations" today.
Are you joking, mate?
Ethan Carter
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