Why do you guys don't like Stalin?

The problem with the communist revolutions, they never seemed to evolve past the "safeguarding revolution" stage. They just freeze there and stagnate until they are nearly indistinguishable from totalitarian fascism, and they forget they were ever supposed to be anything else. Those with power will naturally hold unto it, unless they are truly committed to their cause. Perhaps Stalin was not even really a communist, but just another self-serving and paranoid warlord who took advantage of his situation. And now, due in large part to him, communism is a dirty world across much of the world. If I was a communist I'd fucking hate Stalin.

Either you know nothing about the history of Socialism, or you think too highly of fascism. Either way, read a fucking book.

Could you elaborate?
What are the differences?
Which book?

This may be true. And it only proves the necessity of worldwide revolution. We must cut the head off the snake–the United Snakes, that is.

Similarities:
Repression of dissent
Welfare State
Nationalized industries
Single party rule

Fascism is almost always fueled by extreme nationalism, or other racial/ethnic identities. There is no pretense that Fascism is a transitory period to a classless, stateless society.

Also, Fascism is at it's core opposed to internationalism. Socialism is the polar opposite (read: Marx & Engels. Really basic stuff.)

The goal of Socialism is to create a classless, stateless society. (read: Lenin - State and Revolution).

Read Das Kapital and some Sheila Fitzpatrick about life in the soviet union. Then read Mein Kampf and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Then tell me that the Soviet Union was fascist.

You need to abandon this liberal worldview that non-liberal democratic states are all "authoritarian dictatorships" equivalent to Fascism. Not only does this attitude downplay the horrors of Fascism, but it completely ignores the utility of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I'm not even a tankie

Because of Trotsky. Stalin wasn't even leader.
So, it's all because "INDUSTRY NOW". Am still right. Too much emphases on industry.
Well, Stalin swept it under the rug of Personality cult.

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What the hell is wrong with you ?
Stalin and Trotsky were the most reliable comrades of Lenin. They were basically the only ones who could see him without an appointment.
Stalin was against many of the decisions of Trotsky. Most of them were because of former Tsarist bastards as military officers. Stalin executed them, whereas Trotsky wanted them for their military expertise. Both of them had their reasons,
Stalin wasn't even a leader he says. He commanded troops in the battlefield you know..
Battle of Tsaritsyn was an important battle that fueled the Revolution.

Stalin was such a good commander, that Trotsky called him back.

Then in WW2 he also was such a good general, that had to get Zhukov to do it. And then got rid of him.

And then complained to Lenin that he was disobeying muh orders even though his "disobeying" brought victory rite?
OOOOH Marshal Zhukov, eh? He did well commanding troops in WWII, better than Stalin true, because Stalin was a general in times of non-mechanized warfare, whereas Zhukov was master of his craft in leading the mechanized troops to victory.
"The Unknown Stalin," 2003, p. 74:
And these actions were blamed on Stalin and the Red Army. Zhukov was sly cunt.

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What ?

The only person here who isn't completely cancerous is

Describes Stalin's USSR pretty well.

Yeah, let's just crack open Vol. 1 of Das Kapital and peruse it just for fun.

Holy shit, are you seriously recommending Das Kapital to someone who is ostensibly a novice in radical leftist thought? I was just memeing above. Das Kapital is an extremely dense theoretical work.

The Soviet Union was fascist (post-Lenin).

That post is utterly nonsensical. States can safeguard themselves without being undemocratic or unrestrained by law. Saying countries like the USSR were "frozen" in some stage is just a way for him to openly proclaim his ignorance of Soviet history.

Dude, you are completely bonkers. You're only showing that you have no understanding of the personalities of Stalin and his politburo associates, no understanding of Soviet politics at the time, and certainly no understanding of the attitude and opinions of the Soviet people towards the regime. I don't know what kind of nationalism you think dominated the country, but ultimately it's irrelevant. If nationalism was such a big factor in the USSR why did they even bother having a chamber of the Supreme Soviet to represent the nationalities? Hell, why did the party even bother educating people in internationalist Marxist theory at all? Your analysis of the Soviet state is a total dead end that is incapable of accurately explaining anything.

Lumping everything that's anti-liberal together as "totalitarian" is pure Cold War propaganda that you've eaten up brainlessly. Absolute states unrestrained by law do exist, but this is never a defining trait on their own and even democratically organized countries could fall under the category. If you want to find real similarities you should be looking for the defining traits in every society today, capitalist production and oligarchy. You can claim both of those existed in the USSR too if you want, and that would certainly be a more advanced view than seeing it as, along with the Third Reich, a unique kind of horror. A view that plays right into the terms of historical debate set by the West.

I would also like an actual definition of fascism from you, so far you seem to just use it interchangeably with nationalism and Marxism.

Comrade please come to /Marx/
It's more active now and less shit. This board unfortunately is flooded with liberal and anarchobabby ideas

Except during Stalin's reign in particular, so-called "Soviet socialist patriotism" basically merged with remnants of Russian nationalism and Stalin actively promoted a Russian nationalist message, oftentimes with appeals to the Motherland or Mother Russia. Of course the USSR was antinationalist and internationalist under Lenin, but Stalin did not continue that policy and had no problem using nationalist sentiments during WWII and beyond.

I describe the Soviet Union under Stalin as fascist because it promoted nationalism, brought back traditional norms (especially regarding the family unit), was extremely reactionary when it came to women and gay rights, basically supported class collaboration between the Russian proletariat and the nomenklatura, was openly totalitarian, had a cult of personality, and a number of other traits similar to other fascist regimes. At the very least, Stalinist USSR was socially fascist even though its economic policies weren't particularly fascist (they were state capitalist).

My opinion of the Soviet Union isn't due to any "Cold War propaganda". Even when I flirted with fascism years ago, I had a certain admiration for Stalin precisely because he was fascistic. Simply looking at the basic tenets and characteristics of fascism, and assessing Stalinist USSR by those metrics, should yield a similar conclusion.

/marx/ is literally just a half-dozen or so tankies jerking each other off by rehashing and rehearsing old theoretical quibbles. It's hardly much better, if at all, than Holla Forums. I wish it was, since Holla Forums is shit, but a USSR nostalgist circlejerk isn't an improvement.

t. Anarchobabby

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I feel no guilt tbh because you just strawmanned a non tankie hard with generic liberal drivel simply because you disagree with him. And he actually had the decency to cite sources including ones who aren't Marxists by any description. So if you want to get asspained and strawman him then turn around and ridicule /Marx/ where you won't get jumped fpr advocating the GDR may have been a semi drcent place to live then fine

What sources did he cite? He just mentioned some basic books, some of which are extremely dense theoretical works unfit for a novice.

What did I say that was "generic liberal drivel"? Is disagreeing with Stalinist USSR now "liberal" and thus politically incorrect by Holla Forums's standards? None of what I said constituted a strawman. If you are going to make wild accusations, at least have the courage to explain them. Otherwise, I have no reason to take you seriously.

Here I'll give you two more easy reads: life and terror in Stalin's Russia by Robert Thurston and The Road to Terror by J Arch Getty

This shit is why I left Holla Forums. /marx/ is legitimately better and citing information and making coherent arguments not based on bourgeois propaganda even for the board owner who is AIDF bunkerfag. But I appreciate his detailed posts to yours based on "because I said so"

Liberals believe that the USSR was categorically fascist because fascism and communism are two sides of the same coin. I contended that the USSR under Stalin was fascist, at least socially, while maintaining that it wasn't so during Lenin (and did not comment on after Stalin). My accusation of fascism is strictly pertaining to the USSR under Stalin, and I briefly detailed how Stalin's USSR was characteristically fascistic.

I'm expressing my opinion, not repeating the contents of some source.

I was referring to Das Kapital and the works of Engels, which he referred to as "[r]eally basic stuff". Work on your reading comprehension.

If I were to go to /marx/, I'd basically be shouted down and ridiculed until I left because they aren't interested in dissenting thought. Likewise for Holla Forums, which is why I don't frequent here as much anymore, but at least an anarchist presence is maintained and tankies aren't taken as seriously here.

So an echo chamber for tired recycled tankie theory?

no thanks tbh

Thx for that tho bb

What the fuck do you mean when you say it was "socially fascist". Fascism != "things I don't like". It refers to a fairly specific ideological tendency that arose out of particular historical circumstances. Sure, being an authoritarian party dictatorship did result in a number of similarities between it and the Fascist states, but that doesn't make it Fascist. It's also worth noting that Russian nationalism is distinct from the Soviet nationalism promoted by Stalin. The USSR wasn't another Russian Empire, it was a multi-ethnic empire with its own distinct brand of nationalism.

This. Not to mention that the economic components to both ideologies are pretty fucking important and distinct in how they operated.

He purged the party so badly because he hated burocracy

Trotskij was, Stalin was a bolshevik

How many countries became socialist during Stalin's lifetime? Also USSR was isolated far before Stalin

That was spooky of him, okay

At the very least, the USSR under Stalin adopted similar social policies and culture that were promoted in other fascist regimes. State capitalism served as just as suitable an economic base for their fascistic culture where corporatism or some derivation thereof would otherwise be. Of course fascism is a form that capitalism takes and entails both economic and social policies that inform the fascist ideology; I'm not denying that, nor am I using "fascism" to basically mean "whatever I don't like". My point is that the Soviet Union under Stalin was fascist in all but its economic sense, though even economically it essentially promoted class collaboration.

If the USSR under Stalin was not strictly fascist, it was at least fascistic and attempted to emulate fascism through a state capitalist economy and bureaucratic collectivist political structure. That emulation manifested itself in its social policies and culture.

He is the reason why im more supportive to anarchism than marxism.

He's just pointing out that sources are generally provided there. Whereas whenever the USSR comes up on Holla Forums you just hear the same terms "fascism," "totalitarian," "genocidal," "dictatorship" repeated endlessly. No serious discussion can be had here as long as parroting Cold War propaganda is treated as the endgame of historical debate. Anti-communism in socialist circles is just as dogmatic as the kind you'll find in capitalistic ones, people here have never considered any alternative views to the ones they have and chances are they never will. It's plainly a religious doctrine.

kys

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Nothin.
Just arguing when we both are under pure ideology is pointless.

I am militantly pro-communist, hence (in part) my anarcho-communist flag. The USSR was never communist and it died as a remotely communist movement along with Lenin (if not before then). You seem to want to strawman any criticism of the USSR under Stalin as "liberalism" or "bourgeois propaganda", which is the same sort of intellectually bankrupt rhetorical tactics tankies use to silence dissent about their fundamentally counterrevolutionary ideas.

I like you comrade. Maybe we'll see each other in a commune one day.

It's cool bro, no matter what pure ideology, you're still my comrade

Wew lad

kys

Great argument anarchokiddie you sure convinced us with those hot opinions

soooo… What more you want? consumerism?

Come to /marx/ comrade if youre sick of this shit. We are revitalizing it now the font isn't eye burning gulag tier anymore

I will, thanks for the info

No problem we need quality posting there because here you just get any Catalonia lmao as a response to 90% of anything

We'll probably be dead long before that ever happens, but I hope I'm wrong.

Oh man, it feels so fucking good to see tankies and ML counterrevolutionaries fuck off to their own circlejerk board. Maybe now, they can stop shitting up this board with their pretend leftism and unwavering commitment to Marxist revisionism.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa we need our own safe space ==:'(==

bc he was a revisionist

kek

Don't worry, I'll keep coming here just for your pleasure. Maybe you're the one who needs his own containment board, just for yourself.

Have a webm, he's not "stalinist", you'll like him.

Yes, you tankies apparently do.

I don't bash the USSR per se, just the USSR under Stalin and the liberalization thereafter because both was a betrayal of the revolution.

/marx/ is precisely that: a containment board. Stay there. You aren't welcome here, nor anywhere in the radical left. Go and stay go.

Straight out of the FAQ. Looks like I'm staying, you fasc-cough- anarchokiddie. Btw,

Anarchokiddie logic, gentlemen.

There are also many reactionaries and literal Nazis here. You are closer to them than us.

I'm telling you to fuck off under no duress whatsoever. Nobody here is taking you seriously, especially when you engage in such flagrant strawmanning.

I'm not telling anyone to fuck off, m8. Looks like you're closer to them than me.

W E W, here we go again

Trying to portray Stalin as some kind of anti-socialist is just plain bonkers. If he wanted to he could've easily pushed the country down the Deng route, but he didn't.

Why did the CPSU educate people in Marxist theory?

Why didn't it set up a market economy?

Apparently because it was capitalistic, that makes sense. Saying the Soviet Union under Stalin was not a Marxist or socialist institution just because it wasn't democratic is only a way to openly announce how out of touch you are with Soviet politics at the time. If you want to see what a real red capitalist state looks like look no further than the modern PRC. Most people in China today have no understanding of communism and the party only occasionally mentions it as a formality. It cannot even be compared to the widespread feelings of socialist patriotism within the USSR and the open discussion of Marxist and communist topics within the political leadership. If people here don't recognize the USSR as a legitimate form of socialism you're not going to be able to learn any lessons from the Soviet experience.

Why, because we don't openly work to undermine every worker's revolution that doesn't perfectly resemble our ideal?

This is how ridiculous your position is.

Was it Marxist theory, or their counterrevolutionary interpretation thereof?

I wouldn't have wanted the USSR to establish a market economy, which is exactly why I opposed the liberalization that occurred in the later part of the USSR. I would have preferred the USSR to socialize the means of production by giving the workers direct control and ownership of the enterprises. This could have easily fit into the soviet model of the USSR, only it would be actual workers and their delegates in the councils rather than bureaucrats whose function was virtually identical to that of the capitalists whose place they took.

Why didn't the USSR socialize the means of production? Why did it only nationalize them and pretend that was adequate? If the CPSU was so keen on educating their people on Marxist theory, surely they could have educated those people on how to run a business and perform the role of worker-owner in a cooperative enterprise?

No, because your goals precisely aren't to achieve communism per a proletarian revolution. Every single ML state has established, or degenerated and deformed into, a state capitalist economy, bureaucratic collectivist political structure, and fascistic social policies. The historical evidence is overwhelming that ML are nothing more than counterrevolutionaries in red clothing on par with Nazbol, Useful Idiotism, and Falangism.

It was an often pretty shitty interpretation (historical materialism is the absolute truth etc.) but it was still socialist theory that no sane bourgeoisie would bother upholding at all. They could've easily ignored it all while only nominally upholding it, but they didn't.

This isn't a reply to what I said. If the Stalin government were really just closet capitalists then why didn't they just build a market economy and pretend that's socialism like the PRC does? The Chinese experience should tell you how easy it is to pull off even with a radicalized population. As for the Soviet experience, there were elements within the party pushing openly for the interests of agrarian capitalists as well as "market socialism" and multi-party "democracy" so why did they have Bukharin shot instead of supporting him?

They did, there was no commodification of labor or capital goods in the USSR. There were market relations over consumer goods, but this is entirely compatible with a post-capitalist system. The for-profit production that existed took on the practical role of for-use production, it existed only to help planners achieve set targets, not to serve capital. But relations of private property against social property are never considered in any of the state-capitalist theories. When people claim Soviet society was capitalist they never actually analyze the workings of it's economy, they just state the obvious fact that the USSR was not democratic (like every other society in human history) without actually bothering to examine the production process. But the form of worker rule is not the determining factor in capitalist vs socialist property relations. Every system requires representation. Autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy are just three different methods for groups of people to represent their interests. Even if the third is generally by far most efficient for communists, it is hardly the only means.

The point is this, that even in a truly democratic and socialistic society all the evils that plagued the Soviet system would still be possible, just on a smaller scale. Bureaucratic mismanagement, corruption, and faulty resource allocation always has and will plague every society. What makes socialist society different is just that it is not inherently exploitative or abusive. The Soviet system was hardly perfect, but it was a form of socialism. This is still worth debating today because most of those who still call themselves socialists have not come to terms with this.

Nonsensical slander. I'd love for you to explain what you find in my beliefs, of which you know little, to be counter-revolutionary. Even if we accept the state-capitalist thesis it's hardly like I see Soviet-type political/economic organization as the endgame. It was just a practical response to what the communists where given. The problems with the Soviet and Chinese systems were natural results of their environment. The revolutions began in backwards regions, surrounded by enemies on every side and facing bourgeois infiltration at the highest levels of government. The contradiction was that only an unchecked, absolute central authority could've maintained the revolution, yet at the same time it was supposed to represent working people. This was never supposed to be the perfect system, it was just the only one available.

Granted, these systems were created in the middle of civil war. And at a certain point when the overwhelming majority of people saw socialism as a noble ideal democracy would've been more efficient for preserving it. But, in the Soviet Union at least, there were moves towards this. This was politically difficult however in the face of powerful political elites and the best that could be boasted of was the 1936 constitution, which had to be modified from multi-candidate to single-candidate elections to the legislature. Political degeneration was an inevitability that had to be constantly fought against. And, as we know, the struggle was lost. Really I agree with the anarchist view more than you think. I only disagree with most here in that I think revolution was still being continued under the governments led by Stalin and Mao. I don't deny that Marxism-Leninism was a failure, I just think they would've failed decades sooner with anti-Leninist measures in place. That's a ludicrous statement though because every left-com and anarchist here would do the same things Lenin, Stalin, and Mao did in their shoes. They only criticize their actions from the comfort of an armchair.

Fits right into the fact that tankies are basically reactionary: knowyourmeme.com/memes/counter-signal-memes

Their revisionist interpretation of Marxism served their interests just fine, since according to their interpretation a state capitalist regime under totalitarian rule by the nomenklatura was completely consistent with the goal of "communism" as defined by that interpretation. Their promotion of that Marxist–Leninist interpretation was likely with utmost sincerity; the problem is that Marxism–Leninism is itself counterrevolutionary, reactionary, and upholds capitalism in an extreme form.

I don't think that Marxist–Leninists are, or were, "closet capitalists"; they were likely very committed to, and utterly intoxicated by, Marxist–Leninist ideology. The problem is with the ideology itself, not how sincere they were in their commitment to it. The PRC today is simply what the USSR would have eventually became had it not collapsed: the state ideology would be promoted less and less sincerely by its officials and increasingly used as a front to promote liberalization and privatization due to the pressures of liberal market economies like the United States. Even near the end of the Soviet Union, it was increasingly resembling what the PRC is today through its insincere bureaucratic elites using state ideology as a front for promoting liberalization and privatization. The fact that the PRC is now only nominally Marxist–Leninist–Maoist doesn't mean that the USSR's bureaucratic elite wouldn't have similarly grown insincere toward their Marxist–Leninist ideology.

Because the interests of the Marxist–Leninists, and later of the nomenklatura, was to maintain the new form of economic and political organization that they established which had provided them with a muh privileged position therein: state capitalism and bureaucratic collectivism. They were not interested in market socialism or liberal "democracy"; they were interested in a new form of politics and capitalism that originated out of a deviant interpretation of Marxist thought. It's for those same interests that Trotsky was assassinated. (Even though I am highly skeptical of whether Trotsky would have been much different, if at all, from Stalin had he succeeded Lenin, at least—through his hatred of Stalin—Trotsky was able to identify what had occurred in the USSR and the new organizational structure that had formed.)

How was labor and capital goods not commodified in the USSR? The commodification of labor and capital goods under the USSR did certainly occur, only it was the state which served the role as the capitalist rather than a plurality of capitalists.

Only nominally, and that too eroded as the nomenklatura saw how for-profit production could be used for personal aggrandizement. Just because the state is now the capitalist, that doesn't mean for-profit production is no longer preferable, especially when the state is still competing in an international market of global capitalism which entails the same pressures on the state as basically a megacorporation as does capitalism in a particular country on the corporate actors within its market economy.

In what way was the Soviet production process in the USSR fundamentally different from the production process in any capitalist corporation in the United States?

When the division of productive relations dissolves, both bureaucratic mismanagement and corruption almost completely dissolve because there is no longer antagonism between class interests. Faulty resource allocation is simply a problem with economic planning, particularly large-scale economic planning, which is completely eliminated by contemporary advancements in technology. So no, I completely disagree that a fully democratic socialist society would have the same problems as the USSR did, both microeconomically and macroeconomically, and not only because the USSR was neither democratic nor socialist.

The Soviet Union was categorically not socialist in any capacity and you would be hard-pressed to find a tenable argument supporting such a claim which isn't ultimately predicated on Marxist–Leninist ideology. Even if I were to accept that the commodification of labor and capital goods did not exist in the USSR, it nevertheless had a division of productive relations and a state which upheld the interests of the nomenklatura. Its claims that it served the interests of the workers wer as sincere as those made by the contemporary PRC or the Democratic and Republican parties here in the United States.

Rather, it is counterrevolutionaries like Marxist–Leninists who have still not come to terms with the fact that the USSR was never socialist, could never achieve socialism,completely failed at implementing any semblance of socialism or communism, and actively suppressed attempts to do so. Defending the Soviet Union as an example of socialism is as ridiculous as those who claim that Nazi Germany was socialist. The majority of the communist movement, with the help of anarchist critiques, have already recognized this. The only people who still refuse to do so are ML and their MLM kin.

You are defending the Soviet Union as "a form of socialism", including the Soviet Union under Stalin, and you appear to promote Marxism–Leninism or some deviation thereof. That alone is fundamentally counterrevolutionary and everyone but ML and other such USSR apologists would agree with that assessment.

Yes, just like Lenin ostensibly did not, yet he had no problem whatsoever establishing a self-perpetuating system that was fundamentally capitalist and appointing a mentally unstable narcissist to succeed him. At the very least, he could have appointed Trotsky to succeed him, which would have made a bit more sense since Trotsky appeared to have still been interested in moving beyond state capitalism. Stalin did not and had no issue with declaring that the USSR had achieved communism, which was perhaps the single greatest blow to the global communist movement that could have been done at that time.

If you are sincere about communism as the "endgame", then it would do you well to realize that Marxism–Leninism is not the path to communism, as has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. Even if Marxism–Leninism could theoretically achieve socialism and communism, it simply takes far too long—and requires the maintenance of state capitalism guided by bureaucratic collectivism for too much time—for any revolutionary vanguard party to remain committed the entire time. Due to the fundamental nature of hierarchical class-based systems, any such vanguard party will always degenerate and deform into a party which seeks to uphold the class interests of the new class which forms, thereby precluding the actualization of global communism. In a bit of historical irony, Marxism–Leninism has proved to be as much social fascist as the social democracies its adherents criticized and like all social fascism, Marxism–Leninism is fundamentally counterrevolutionary.

I don't deny that the actions of the Soviet Union or other ML states were practical given the historical and material conditions of their time. The problem is with the system upon which those practical decisions are being made, not the practicality of those decisions. Marxist–Leninist ideology established the material conditions upon which those decisions were practical; if the Soviet Union was not Marxist–Leninist, the "practical" decisions it made would likely have not been very practical anymore.

The Soviet Union had many alternatives. Instead of the NEP, Lenin could have implemented a plan that began training the Russian people to operate and coordinate in a decentralized manner that more fully utilized the soviet structure that was established. Then, either he or is successor could have begun socializing the means of production and dismantling the centralized state entirely, leaving only a decentralized federation of councils that cooperated and coordinated in achieving its goals of spreading communism throughout the world. At the very least, Lenin and his successor could have applied delegative democratic principles to its councils, so that the delegates (rather than bureaucrats) could have been directly democratically accountable all the way up to the heads of state.

Even if the Soviet Union as it historically became was the only viable option at the time, that nevertheless does not justify the promotion of Marxism–Leninism or its variants among contemporary radical leftists. The historical and material conditions are vastly different now and such a system as Marxism–Leninism is no longer the only option we have (if it ever was). There is simply no excuse to promote Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, or its variants in contemporary society even if one defends the Soviet Union as an unfortunate product of its historical and material conditions.

Hardly, and it's not a serious argument to suggest that every leftcom and anarchist would have done the same in those historical and material conditions. I know I certainly wouldn't, since I would consider such policies to be a threat to the goal of global communism. Events like the Kronstadt rebellion and the Free Territory of Ukraine were consequences of Lenin's increasingly statist and counterrevolutionary policies, and the NEP was a poor attempt at addressing the grievances that the corpses at Kronstadt had fought to have addressed. Unless you're contending that if we were Lenin himself we would have done the same as Lenin did, in which case that would be a meaningless point, it is grossly inaccurate to claim that we would have all done the same in Lenin's position.

What a load of utter nonsense. The majority of your three posts can be easily summed up as "the USSR was evil" without losing any substance. I'm sure you'll forgive me for skimming over your senseless rants so we can get straight to the few real arguments you presented.

Are you denying the Stalin-era USSR established a planned economy? A few Western firms were allowed to temporarily operate on Soviet soil, but it can hardly be said there was any large-scale marketing from the state enterprises. The plans were largely carried out, so who was the state, supposedly a giant capitalist company, selling it's labor and means of production off to? It could hardly sell it to itself. There were collective farms I suppose, so you could argue that private property at least existed there (accurately after some "reforms" in the late 50's) but these were not competing entities, only separate custodians of social property.

As said above, the USSR was not competing on any markets. The only changes in ownership to be found were in consumer goods. But because foreign non-socialist entities were not selling to the population as well this form of commodification did not serve as a foundation for capitalist production and value extraction.

Yeah, that was kind of my point. I was pointing out the problems the USSR suffered from it's lack of democracy will always exist on some scale. So even if it was not socialist we cannot accept that on the grounds of how democratic it was alone. However, this fact hasn't stopped anarchists from using terms like "totalitarian" as a synonym for anti-socialist.

Wait, what? Lenin never appointed anybody as a successor. And it's know it's convenient for you to see Soviet history as a series of autocrats, but he had no authority to do so either. I was going to add this to my first post as this is just another "USSR=bad" segment but I figured an error of this magnitude ought to be pointed out.

As much as I appreciate you sharing the content of your wet dreams with me I regrettably have to inform you of how utterly fantastical this proposal is. Lenin could have done nothing without the support of the party, and the party was obviously not sympathetic to anarchism. So from the start this whole program is politically impossible. Even if we assume the absence of a Bolshevik party altogether this would not give any advantages to anarchists. Anarchism was never at any point an option on the table for Russia, those who participated in the party politics of the provisional government obviously had a huge advantage over those who wished to bypass it. The absence of the Bolsheviks would simply allow the SR's and others to take over and found a bourgeois Russia.

Furthermore, even if we assume the entire Bolshevik party were to abandon the NEP and convert to anarchism overnight that would still be an unthinkable way forward. Without the leading role of the party defending socialism would have been as impossible throughout the 30's as it was earlier. The most fatal flaw of anarchists is how they underestimate the ease with which capitalist elements infiltrate socialist organizations. This was especially true in a country like Russia with a backwards population coming from a landlord-infested countryside, and it was that countryside the party had to recruit from. Common criminals and open apologists for the bourgeoisie wormed their way into positions as high as regional administrations with no hassle. Without an unchecked central authority there could have been none of the anti-bureaucratic purges that occurred annually in the USSR, where tens of thousands lost their positions ever year.

Under anarchism there is no reason to believe bureaucratization and political degeneration would have been any less severe of a problem. Anarchism is not a guarantee of democracy, even in the great kekalonia had similar issues, understandable when their greatest claim to democracy was choosing managers at the occasional general assembly. Without direct control over policy by popular vote there is no democracy, elections in Spain were about as meaningful as they were in the USSR.

ML doesn't mean creating an exact replica of the Soviet system.

As for the rest of your post, you basically just wrote up a few extra sentences to explain how Lenin was a meanie again. You mentioned the anarchists but I basically already went over that. Their proposals were counter-revolutionary for the same reasons yours are above. The only thing you've proven here is that anti-communist sentiment is just as dogmatic within socialist circles as openly capitalistic ones. You've never considered an opposing viewpoint to the USSR and never will. It's people like you that drove me away from Libertarian Marxism and sympathy to anarchists.

because they don't like trotsky

holy fuck why are there so many shit threads. it's like summerfag city in here.

n 

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