Well Holla Forums, tell me why your flavor of socialism/leftism is better than the others

Ouch.

guess again

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Anarcho-syndicatism.

meanwhile every single state founded on left-wing principles has been based on marxism-leninism

makes you think huh

Vanilla "Leninism" is for people who like the idea of a vanguard party, but prefer to ignore Stalin and his contributions to Marxist theory because he makes them uncomfortable with his justified purges and soul-piercing eyes. "Marxism-Leninism" is for people who see the practical flaws with instantaneous global revolution, recognize that class struggle persists into socialism, and bravely uphold the legacy of Comrade Stalin.

Lel, way to narrow it down, mate.

Is this bait?

rude

Socdem?

Yes, a state. The thing that the vast majority of people in the world live in.

You sound like one of these "let's run off into the woods and eat berrys" type of people, essentially a glorified hippie.

National Socialism

Workers are respected. Everyone has access to work. Elements that harm the nation are acknowledged and dealt with. Increasing birth rates is encouraged. A fuck you to globalists who exploit slave labor in "communist" countries like China. Goods made by the nation for the nation.

The list goes on and on

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I'm taking the bait

What is "the nation"?

muh ethno-linguistic group, probably

Let me list a few non-ML leftist 'states':
Free Territory of Ukraine
Catalonia
Chiapas
Rojava
Titoist Yugoslavia

Of those, only one of them defined themselves as a state. The rest had no borders or centralised authority, which is usually what you have in a state.

You'd think a so-called communist would grasp the idea of a stateless society, considering that's what communism fucking is.

They will keep the sacred groves sacred. The rivers clean, the people healthy, if you strip away the IDpol (calling out JEWS who control western civilization) you will see they have a mix of left and right

Correct me if i am wrong but the CPC is the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of China?

The nation state. Boundaries are subject to change

Found your problem.

translation: invade neighboring nations and kill their citizens because they're "untermensch"

even other retards think you're retarded

What?

You get your garden variety center-left capitalist bullshit, with an added touch of police state and violent repression.

Hitler just wanted to retake lands that were Germany before the treaty. Every nation's story is different. It was Britain and France who decided to turn it into a world war. Personally if it were up to me i would have let the nations vote their way into the reich because the German people accepted it with open arms, similar to how Putin forced elections in Crimea

yeah, models of success all of them.

What fucking board am i on? It's only a bad thing when the people you dont like do it i guess

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No thanks.

And they are all shit.

Makes you think?

Yugoslavia under Tito thrived until his death
Catalonia also thrived, but lost the civil war, nothing new.
Ukraine also did great, before it was crushed by the Soviet Union (funny how that turned out).
The Zapatistas and Rojava are still going.

What models of success are there on your side? The Soviet Union, which regressed to basically-capitalism in a matter of decades and later collapsed entirely.

Not everyone on this board is a tankie.

DPRK :^)

What do you call a Marxist-Leninist that doesn't believe in all of that vanguard claptrap?

Because I am that unique snowflake, I don't believe the state is the focal point for overturning Capitalism, nor that a vanguard party is necessary to do it. However I still believe in taking over the state in order to succeed and using parties to gain power.

DemSoc?

That doesn't fucking answer my question you incoherent dipshit.

Anarcho-Syndicalist?

it's funny really, came to this board expecting actual leftists. in reality it is a bunch of liberals masturbating over irrelevant woodland hippy camps and ignoring the everyday evil carried out by imperialist powers - and the countries that actually resisted this and uplifted workers.

Tbh there's nothing wrong eith this if it's sterilization and not euthanasia

Forced sterilization isn't "genocide," but the Nazis didn't practice forced sterilization with the disabled, they practiced euthanasia.

tankies pls go

The Bolsheviks fucking cracked down on the worker cooperatives. They actively opposed any other socialist movement that didn't fit their little 'experiment'. You have to be neck deep in pure ideology to think they were the good guys,

That's nice kid. Go back to r/communism.

You're wrong. Under Stalin worker control reached heights never before achieved in the entire history of the human race.

newworker.org/ncpcentral/stalin50.htm

I don't understand the tankie mentality. Their violent ideology created sectarian separation in revolutionary places like Catalonia, Barcelona, and Revolutionary Spain. Their witch-hunts against Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and Ukraine resulted in the annihilation of worker-oriented, horizontalist militias and replaced them with impotent bureaucracies, the first of which was overtaken by Fascism, and the second subjected to massive famine.

I'm sure this is a completely reliable source.

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There were no other socialist movements in Russia, the urban proletariat selected the Bolshevik party as their representative for good reason. That is unless you think the SR/Menshevik liberals or Makhno's bandit state were going to bring socialism to Russia.

and guess which countries actually lasted more than a few years and brought real, lasting change to the workers of the world?

Oh yes, that's right, the Marxist-Leninist states that weren't corrupted by anarchists.

Ever heard of the peasants' and workers' soviets? They were doing their shit way before Lenin came into the picture.

"Makno's bandit state was going to bring socialism to Russia"

- me

The ones in your imaginary fairy land?

Lasting change meaning completely fucked the labour movement in America due to the Red Scare and completely tainting the word communism?

ANARKIDDIES BTFO

I know it's hard for people of your kind to understand what a nation state is. bing it i guess. That is the nation faggot.

No. but on

The worker of Germany had the best trade union known to man, the NSDAP.

Correction: it wasn't the soviets trying to stop Makhno, it was the Soviet Union.

Do you seriously not realize why that's not interesting or useful

yeah, this is the shit thing, right.

A bunch of privlieged american kids sitting around talking about anarchism, maaaaan. Not realising the realities of the worker's struggle and the ways in which marxist-leninist states uplifted them. Not understanding what effect the eradication of unemployment has on a population. Not understanding that people went from a borderline feudal state to a socialist one in decades. Not understanding the resultant massive improvement in quality of life.

Fuck you and your fucking shitty memes. there are people in the world right now who are actually oppressed - in slavery, poverty, war waged against them. They don't need the opinion of some snotty fucking american kid who is totally radical man, but, like, opposes all authority dude.

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Mate, the Russia would have turned socialist even if the bolsheviks hadn't entered the picture. The revolution didn't start with them. People were uplifting themselves way before the bolsheviks stepped in to 'help'.

tfw the entire eastern half of your country gets killed or raped

"uplifting" themselves into capitalism, which is clearly your preferred form of government

How the hell are workers' cooperatives capitalist?

Titoism would have worked had it not been for the imf and government corruption. Market socialism plus socialized capital is the way to go and feasible In the short term

Get real.

I M M O R T A L S C I E N C E

When they're run by workers, they're not. When they're run by a bourgeoisie (i.e., not actually cooperative), they are.

Tell me: were there people in the USSR that gained economic capital by coordinating work, rather than performing it?

Yes, they were called the bolsheviks.

What you fail to understand is that the Nazi economy was never built long-term for peace in the first place, that peace was the exact last thing that the leaders of the regime wanted, and that the only outcome from the very beginning was war. That wartime economy was inevitable from the very moment Hitler ascended to power.

Yes, part of the very organization that privatized everything in the run up to war; how very worker friendly……..

spooky m8. if you really want to go through with this and have other nations adopt this stance, what's to prevent worker's nations from destroying the world in a war?

this is a bad idea. climate and environment are getting worse, fresh water is harder to get. growth for the sake of growth is what capitalism and cancer do. just because technology allows humans to have increased population sizes than without it doesn't mean we should just ravage the planet for resources in the name of a nation

Yeah, that's what I mean. The Bolshevik Party was a totalitarian bourgeoisie.

Glad we agree.

I love you too.

I'm kinda confused if you are multiple people or just switching flags.

I'm just switching flags. I like the YPG one generally, but I use the Hungarian Revolution to trigger tankies and… I don't know why I used islamiggommunism.

ANARCHO
PAGANISM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD

he looks so weird colored

how exactly were his purges justified?!?!

class struggle intensifying under socialism is Mao m8

The Mensheviks were right

You can't have a classless stateless society in THAT little time, there is something called transition period.

Sounds like you're just a plain old marxist, dude. Demsoc would be the closest to you. Then there's other people across various other schools that hold once the social conditions are right we can abolish the state.

No, as is obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with the Soviet system is aware. There was no M-C-M at all. Such a thing is impossible in a society without the commodification of labor and the means of production. No matter how high the salaries of some managers were nothing will change that. Unless, of course, you simply want to claim capitalism existed by virtue of the USSR's totalitarianism. A useless term as the point when a state becomes total cannot be objectively defined.

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The fact of the matter is that the leadership of the Soviet Union did end up looking a lot like the Bourgeois elite they ousted. Read Animal Farm for an example.

I guess, we'll end up with 1984 being about USSR as well.

Either way, please support your statements with evidence. Sovet leaders had nice things (pretty minor stuff, compared to the Western capitalists), but only until they were on duty. Once they retired (or were forced to leave their post) - this nice summer house, access to special discount store and a car with personal driver went away.

Yeah, because they went to the Gulag.

Is it not about the USSR? Snowball is supposed to be Trotsky( if he's the one who is chased out)

Not the USSR. It was about overly simplistic (and naive) perception of USSR (and Marxism/Communism in general) by the Left of UK at the time of writing the book.

Mind you, everything explicitly happens in UK (English farm, anthem "Beasts of England", and so on).

I'll just quote Orwell's preface to Animal Farm:

Why should I care what they looked like to you? That won't change the obvious fact that the Soviet state under Stalin experienced a change in it's mode of production. That this fact isn't even considered is a testament to the anarchist dominance of the board. People here don't even examine the production process at all, they simply see exploitation as a result of "centralization" or something similar and reject Soviet socialism on such grounds. This view is generally supported even by the "Marxists" here.

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Centralisation meaning tearing down the worker-controlled soviets? The Bolshevik Party was exactly like the bourgeoisie. They were the ones who controlled the means of production, not the workers. Whichever way you look at it, that is Capitalism, not Socialism.

Right, thanks for parroting the generic Holla Forums anti-communist line that I already addressed in my last two posts. I can only listen to you chumps repeat yourselves so many times before I start feeling queasy. You so-called socialists couldn't actually identify socialism if your lives depended on it. The scientific difference between feudalism and capitalism is unrelated to democracy or how politics is organized, and socialism is no different. You weenies won't shut up about how the USSR was a capitalist state, yet only one person ITT actually mentioned the process of capital accumulation/ownership and I already wrecked that argument. By failing to identify what the economic base of capitalism actually is this board falls flat in it's claims of being against it.

In Capitalism, the population is divided between the owning class (capitalists), who own the means of production, and the working class, who sell their labour to the owning class. The owning class then use the surplus value generated to expand the production.

In the USSR, the state controlled the means of production, and the people sold their labour to them.
The Bolshevik Party controlled the state.
Therefore, the Bolshevik Party controlled the means of production. They were capitalists.

Yeah, that would be nice and all if it wasn't completely wrong. No proletariat sold it's labor-power, that was directly allocated to enterprises without any exchange of commodities involved. In fact this often remained true long after the means of production began to be bought and sold in the USSR. Anti-communists sure do have a lot of opinions on the Soviet Union for people lacking even a modest knowledge of it's basic structure. Maybe I should spend more time trying to explain the Soviet economy to broken records, it can't possibly be any more repetitive than this. Congrats on recognizing the party administrated the economy though. However, you have yet to prove that makes it capitalist. So far you people have only defined capitalism as any economy not controlled democratically, a suggestion I have been at pains to debunk in my posts. Besides, even if we use the anti-Marxist definition of socialism which reduces it down to worker control then even here the USSR applies. The USSR did, after all, host elections. Sure, the central committee often switched around officials elected at the bottom and the higher officials went uncontested, but your democracy is right there. Not enough democracy for you of course, but where should the line be drawn? As I said above regarding totalitarianism, the answer is here too completely subjective. This is convenient for anarchists as it allows them to define anything they don't like as state-capitalism, but as far as weighing separate social orders against each other goes it's inferior to analyzing relations of production.

Market socialism is the most realistical option for socialist economy. And the state controlled by the masses with direct democracy is more realistic than anarchist fantasy about no state existing

… I have no fucking words. You just have to look at our modern representative democracies to see that though you may be able to vote, you sure as hell can't affect their policy. I doubt the farmers in Ukraine had any say in the Holodomor.
The fact of the matter is that the people had no direct control of the economy, not to even mention your fucking farcical idea that the elections in the Soviet Union were in any way fair. You even said yourself that the higher officials remained unchanged. This is your standard fucking fare for every totalitarian state: host rigged elections so idiots like you can go "look, they're democratic!" Fucking bullshit

Please read a book for once in your insufferable life.

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I would post another ideology meme, but I have run out.

It worked and we have practical knowledge. I.e. we don't have to go in blind and hope for the best. General pitfalls are known and we can attempt to avoid them, additionally, current experience and technologies allow us to solve many problems preemptively.

Specifics:
1) Left better than Right.
I'm not sure what is there to be said. If we intend to advance, we'll need reforms.

2) Socialism is the best Left
We are living in industrial society. Pretending otherwise is kinda dumb. Only Socialism addresses those issues.

3) Marxism is the best Socialism
Anarchists and Reformists (SocDem) proven themselves incapable of any meaningful contribution. Disorganized violence of Anarchists cannot create working society, while collaborationism of SocDem lacks courage to force changes through. Only organized force (ready for violent actions) can execute changes. Additionally, Marxism provides the best tools to date that allow us to understand and define our goals.

4) Marxism-Leninism (Stalinism) is the most reliable Marxism
While I'd like to claim it to be the best, so far we didn't actually test all the possible variations of Marxism for this claim to ring true.

However, we know that Lenin couldn't have been too wrong with his idea of "weak link", since USSR didn't vanish like Soviet Bavaria or other socialist states. Additionally, Stalin's Soviet Union proven capable of executing immense social and technological changes, greatly improve quality of life, and defend itself against both internal and external threats. Though overreliance on Party seems to be source of some problems.

I.e. it has proven itself much more capable than any other kinds of Marxism so far.

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Read Zizek.

What about that part when female workers were fired and were no longer included in statistics as unemployed?

Nope. Economical clusterfuck continued unabated even in 1943. Read up on Reich's economy. It's was a complete mess.

I'd say the main elements that harmed Germany (even if we do not include Nazi gangs) were still very active all those years.

Yeah. Turning female population of Germany into serfs might've worked as an encouragement. But I wouldn't really consider it such a great thing.

That's very cute. Reich was a bitch of English banks through the whole WWII, until the May of 1945. Basically, millions of Germans died in the attempt to rob USSR and pay back the loans they took from them.

Totally not exploited by global capital.

Stop

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Hipster. Trotskyist.

Two words: Soviet Union.

The only kind "Socialist" it was turning into was SocDem. Provisionary government fell apart twice in less than a year and almost became a military junta by August. It was an utter clusterfuck capable only of corruption.

"Socialist" government was literally issuing nobility certificates until the October, despite formally abolishing it. Not to mention their most unimpressive attempts at creating Constituent Assembly. It took Bolsheviks only two months to arrange things.

If you don't believe in vanguardism you can't be a Leninist. Most strains of Marxism acknowledge the necessity of a vanguard (like Marx did), although a lot of left coms and otherwise don't for whatever reason

Would you also say that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was democratic?
As for it turning into a social democracy, it may have been in the government, but it sure as hell wasn't among the actual populace. The workers began forming soviets months before the October revolution happened (soviets which the "Soviet Union" later cracked down on). The government itself had no control on the situation, and the workers and farmers were happily ignoring them, instead forming their own communes. The fucking illiterate peasants in buttfuck-nowherestan came closer to achieving full communism than the Soviet Union ever did.

Trotskyists believe in a vanguard what are you on about

Got a source on that? Because I have one that says the exact opposite, from someone who was actually there.

It's a joke. Mostly. They have so many revisionist denominations, someone might as well be believing they don't need vanguard.

That's not the point, is it?

Are you mentally challenged? This is not ad hominem, I'm trying to gauge the necessary level of argumentation.

And before February Revolution happened. In fact, February was a reaction to the Soviets. And it was April Theses of Lenin that (partially) kept Soviets going when new government said to them that Revolution is over and everyone should go home.

Specifics, please.

That's not how it works.

That's not how it works.

Let me make a wild guess. Was this someone Stalin's political opponent and was later exiled?

No, it was Alexander Berkman, an American anarchist who was exiled to Russia and who among other things witnessed the Kronstadt rebellion. He wrote at length about the Russian revolution, including how the bolsheviks cracked down on the soviets. You can read his books for free on the interwebs.

Quite simple: Berkman writes that the Bolsheviks believed that achieving communism was only possible through mass industrialisation, which they believed could only happen if they had total control of the means of production. Worker-controlled communes were antithetical to that goal, because they would never accept such extreme measures that the Soviet Union was willing to take to achieve it; so they shut them down, ostensibly so they could later give the control back once they had achieved the industry needed for full-auto communism (which we both know never happened).

That's what they did. I don't care what your theory says, or what those high minds in the bolshevik party thought was the right way, the fact of the matter was that the people in the farms and factories were forming their own socialist society with what they had, and it fucking worked, until the bolsheviks shut them down to realise their own faulty attempt at communism.

Obviously the bolshevik government cracked down on independent communes. I think a large portion of this discussion is being lost in translation. When I say soviet I don't mean a Makhnovchina style independent commune, I mean a workers council. The 1936 Constitution removed restrictions on voting and made all members of the soviets directly elected and allowed for them to be immediately recalled. The soviets in the Soviet Union were the only law-making force. The USSR's style of government was based heavily in the Paris Commune's government.

ARTICLE 134. Members of all Soviets of Working People's Deputies–of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics, the Soviets of Working People's Deputies of the Territories and Regions, the Supreme Soviets of the Autonomous Republics, and Soviets of Working People's Deputies of Autonomous Regions, area, district, city and rural (station, village, hamlet, kishlak, aul) Soviets of Working People's Deputies–are chosen by the electors on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot.

And how was them cracking down on these independent communes acceptable?

Let me get this straight.

Some former Czarist officers attempt to establish a military junta (because it was newly recruited military sailors that was doing the rebellion, not workers) and blackmail Soviets with famine (main port city) in the middle of Civil War and some American anarkiddie thinks that Bolsheviks (well, Trotsky) overreacted?

Can we read actual Bolsheviks? You might not believe it, but they are also accessable on the interwebs.

And - no. I'm not going to comment on either your or Berkman's misinterpretation of Bolshevik program.

I'm not going to believe stories of Alexander "Totally not Porky Shill" Berkman, even if you do. There is more than enough evidence of the actual events of 1917, even if you don't want to read any.

What you should do is to take this crazy bullshit about imaginary peasant Soviets creating government that controlled all the Russia from Vladivostok to Warsaw in 1917 and shove it up your ass. Are we clear on this?

You mean you want me to read the party propaganda instead of literature from a third party eyewitness?

How about no. You have done absolutely nothing to convince me that the Soviet Union was a failed attempt at achieving communism that actively harmed the socialist movement. You tankies are fucking unbelievable.

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Reality check: you are talking about what Bolsheviks believed.

Why would Alexander "Totally not Porky Shill" Berkman be a better source on this than the Bolsheviks themselves? Was there some grand Bolshevik conspiracy (among tens of thousands of Party members)?

Was this Anarchist guy not only unbiased, but also a mindreader?

I feel Twilight Zone approaching.

Shoudn't that be me saying this? Because you have done absolutely nothing to convince me that the Soviet Union was a failed attempt at achieving communism that actively harmed the socialist movement.

Also, >totally not Porky shill
The guy was literally arrested for assassinating a porky, he was exiled because he fought against capitalism. How the fuck can you think he was a shill?

You tankies are all the same. You are so fucking certain in the superiority of your ideology that you cannot comprehend another way of doing things, and when you're confronted with the faults of your ideology, your brains shut down and you fall back to ye olde 30's propaganda and start spouting idiotic bullshit like that. It really sums up your beliefs: ML is the only way, and everyone else is a counterrevolutionary and a petit bourgeoisie.

I don't know, because he's less biased? Because he was practically the equivalent of a foreign observer? The guy had no axe to grind against the bolsheviks, he had no initial bias, he came to the country excited at what the bolsheviks were doing, and then he left in disgust when he saw what they were actually doing.

You don't have to be a fucking mind reader to see what they were doing. He was doing an analysis of what had happened after the fact, partially based on his own experiences and his own discourse with the leaders.

Is this a joke? Anarchists and Bolsheviks been at each other throats for over a decade at this point. Anarchists refused to do anything during Revolution of 1905 simply because it might help Bolsheviks.

What are you talking about? Makhno the Anarchist was literally waging war against Bolsheviks in 1920-1921, when Berkman was in USSR.

Furthermore, almost all books this Berkman guy wrote were against Soviet Union.
- My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)
- My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924)
- The Bolshevik Myth (1925)

How the hell is he unbiased? Are we talking Ayn Rand "unbiased", when anything positive about USSR is considered biased Soviet propaganda? Because this is only way it could work.

The "faults" I've been confronted with so far has been limited to:
a) your incoherent rants
b) second-hand opinion of some Anarchist that contradicts practically everything written by everyone of note

Apologies for being sceptical about "faults". Oh, wait. You didn't even name one. I mean, except "Bolsheviks wished to industrialize Russia" IN THE FUCKING 1921.

Are you out of your mind? Until 1924 Bolsheviks were officially expecting revolutions in Europe. Nobody even considered anything along the lines of industrialization. The industrializatoin (in a mild, agrarian form) gets discussed only in 1925, while the "mass-industrialization" gets accepted as necessary by the Party only in 1928.

Yes. I don't believe in time machine.

Do we have any evidence?

Because I refuse to discuss your idiotical interpretation of the events. Mythical government of Russia, time-travelling Bolsheviks, unbiased Anarchist mindreaders, what else will your feverish imagination uncover? Give me facts.

Based Stalinstache once again BTFO of an anarkiddie

Why arnt you on /r/socialism with the rest of the autists?

Berkman was initially enthusiastic about the bolshevik revolution, till he experienced it for himself. He even had an audience with Lenin.

Why would i expect a tankie to know anything though.

you're autism is showing

/r/socialism is getting surprisingly anti-tankie, nowadays. Some leftcom BTFO'd "Soviet Union was socialist" without even going down that weird "lol socialism and communism are the same thing" line that leftcoms do. It was pretty well-received, and the tankies who did reply got rekt.

That must be why we are seeing such a steep rise in autism in the last week.

Also the constant, pointless Holla Forums raids.

not much of a government if it doesn't have jurisdiction, no?

Let me give you a quote from the summary of his memoirs:
So yeah, he had a pretty high view of the bolsheviks.

Also, those first two books weren't written by him, but by Emma Goldman. Get your fucking facts straight. The guy wrote 3 books:
- Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
- The Bolshevik Myth
- The ABC of Anarchism
The Bolshevik myth was written after his experiences in the Soviet Union. Let me give you more quotes:'
Sure sounds like a brilliant place to live. The workers sure own that means of production.
cue you saying they were counter-revolutionaries

… You're actually right. I was going by memory and got things mixed up. Here's what he wrote:
Marx), the Bolsheviki did not agree with the Mensheviki in their attitude to the great up-
heaval. They scorned the idea that Russia could not have a proletarian revolution because capitalist industry had not developed there to its fullest possibilities
He later goes on to explain how the bolsheviks used the ongoing revolution to seize power, first supporting the workers' communes in order to win the people to their side, and then sowing paranoia against counterrevolutionaries in order to eliminate their political opponents and gather more power for themselves, eventually abolishing the soviets and putting all the power in the hands of the state, as per their original party line.

That's his take on it. Take it or leave it. We're accomplishing nothing with this argument.

kek

Why are anarchists so autistic?

No. No. No. Not all states are nation states. few sates as a matter of fact are nation states. The US sure as hell isnt, its a multinational union or an empire depending on how its phrased

You realize the leaders of the vanguard party today will be the tyrants of tomorrow right?

The only good vanguardist is a dead vanguardist.

I hate to agree with a Nazi but it is rather hypocritical for communists to speak of police states and violent repression. Who knows? Perhaps he believes in the "general thrust" of Not Socialism but not the "erroneous specifics" of yesterdays?

China and the U.S.S.R did worse.

kek

that kids is why he invaded all poland not just former prussia, if you own someoff it you own alll of it

Yes, Einstein. They are being cut. Because food actualy IS scarce. You know, objectively scarce. As in "there is no food" scarce. Not "Bolsheviks are hoarding it somewhere because they are timetravellers or just crazy" scarce.

Context:
1) Rationing (prodrazverstka; forced requisition of grain from peasants to be distributed in cities) was introduced in 1916.
Ergo: Russia clearly started starving before February 1917, October 1917 or March 1921.

2) Rationing was used by all governments (Imperial and three Provisionary) before Bolsheviks
Ergo: Bolsheviks did not invent rationing as a part of some evil and/or time-travelling scheme to be used against Soviets.

And if you are no longer thinking that it was some scheme against Soviets, then I don't understand what your problem with rationing is.

In fact, rationing was what kept Soviets (urban workers) alive, since it provided minimum sustenance. Yes, food was taken semi-forcibly from peasants, and it was not particularly nice, but it was temporary measure and peasants got land in exchange ("land is ours, bread is yours"), not to mention, they got rid of the Whites who were much worse.

3) When Civil War started, the Whites took over the grain-producing South, and tried to starve the Bolshevik North into submission (this was literally written in memoirs of Whites, there is no way to spin it as Soviet propaganda)
Ergo: problems with food were exacerbated in the Bolshevik North (that's where Petrograd was) during Civil War (the one that was still going on in 1921).

Just so that we are clear on things, when I say problems with food I'm talking about things like Petrograd population dropping from 2.5 mil to 0.7 mil during Civil War (in case there is any doubt: they didn't all actually die from hunger, but moved to villages/south/emigrated/got conscripted).

Yes. But I can't see it as an evil scheme or a fault of Bolshevik Party. Not without some evidence. You see, my ideology prevents it.

Context again.
At the time (winter of 1919-1920), average worker ration (Petrograd/Moscow) looked something like this: 0.2-0.4 kg of bread, ~0.1 kg of meat OR fish, 10-20 grams of sugar.

Not sure what you meant by union autonomy, btw.

As for Red Fleet sailor (i.e. sailor/soldier from Kronstadt), he was getting: 0.6-0.8 kg bread, 0.1 kg meat AND 0.1 kg fish, 0.1 kg of cereals (oats or buckwheat, usually) and 60-80 grams of sugar. I.e. twice as much food as worker did.

Now that we have this pinned down, let's proceed further.

How exactly did the military sailors support workers?

They basically threatened to cut the most important supply route: blockade Petrograd (and, effectively, all the Russia) from the sea, unless their demands were met. They demanded to cease all rationing (the one that was keeping cities somewhat alive) and disband (democratically elected) Soviets, as well as ban Bolsheviks from participating in new Soviets. There were some other barking mad demands, but those two were main offenders.

Personally, I don't see any support here. It's "let plunge Russia into famine-driven anarchy and have a few more years of Civil War just to give Anarchists another chance at taking over". But that's just me. When I get confronted with the faults of my ideology, my brain shuts down and I fall back to ye olde 30's propaganda.

You are welcome to explain, how exactly abolished rationing will work out.

I'm certain, it will be very enlightening. For everyone.

That's not how it happened.

Demands of workers were satisfied: emergency food supplies were used, but worker ration got increased (sailors later complained that workers betrayed them for half-a-pound of meat). By March 3rd most strikes were over and factories started working again.

It might seem like a happy ending, but Betrayal of the Revolution was in progress: there was no increase of rations for the valiant soldiers of Kronstadt! Blinded by their ideology Bolsheviks thought that since soldiers of Kronstadt are already getting twice as much as workers, they don't need more.

March 4th - Bolsheviks demand from Kronstadt to cease this nonsense immediately (fancy pamphlets dropped from the airplane). Kronstadt refuses.

Some more context: the bay is still covered by ice, but it's spring and in a few weeks it will thaw, turning Kronstadt in a badass island fortress that could easily be supplied from the sea by anyone (read: West) and will easily prevent all sea traffic from going in or out of Petrograd (and, by extention, Russia) until the next winter, at the very least. Possible consequences are hard to quantify.

March 5th - now that's the day when the evil Bolsheviks decide what to do with those lunatics how to stab Revolution in the back and the decision is "military response". Actual fighting will not even begin that day. It'll be March 7th when the shooting starts.

As you might've noticed, quite a few events happened, while Berkman was doing his time-travel.

Not sure about "workers". Not even all sailors of Kronstadt supported the rebellion. For refusal to cooperate, some even got imprisoned and sentenced to death (but none got actually executed, IIRC).

Additional context of the heroic struggle against Bolshevism:
- France was jubilant (in fact, Bolshevik memoires claim that news about Kronstadt started appearing in French newspapers before the actual rebellion - in mid-February, which lead paranoid Bolsheviks to suspect involvement of French agents in the whole affair)
- White emigrees in Vienna were collecting money for the Kronstadt
- Finland was supplying Kronstadt with food

International Porky Socialist movement united against the Bolsheviks, eh?

Of course, by March 17th Kronstadt falls and leaders of rebellion escape to Finland, where they live happily ever after. Well, until the Winter War was over and Bolsheviks finally got to them. Some things cannot be forgiven, after all. Happy End.

Now, if my brain actually shuts down when I get confronted with the faults of my ideology, I'd like you to explain to me, how the fuck Alexander "Totally not Porky Shill" Berkman was unbiased in his interpretation of Kronstadt rebellion?

Because I don't see any "crackdown against Soviets" here. I can add a few more details (unsurprisingly, I consider Trotsky and his flunkies to be the ones responsible for things getting out of hand), but as an example of "crackdown on Soviets", Kronstadt is unconvincing, to say the least.

As for the "unlawfully imprisoned" Anarchists:
First and foremost, "no charges" doesn't mean "for their innocent beliefs". It's Civil War and it is Dictatorship of Proletariat. Not US Justice System of Proletariat. Yes. Freedom ain't free and all that. But it just doesn't work any other way during Civil War. Nothing to do with faulty ideology.

Anarchists were supporting "Third Revolution" since 1918 and did not hesitate to act upon this idea. For example, in the same May 1920 Makhno's Anarchists set fire to the village (Rozhdestvenskoe) and shot villagers with machine gun.

That's not even murders of Bolsheviks, of Soviet militia memebers or of Soviet deputees (those would be too many to list). This happened simply because there were no volunteers to join Makhno's anti-Bolshevik crusade (in April 1920 southern Anarchists declared war on Soviets for the second time).

I understand, that you believe that Bolsheviks are incapable of imprisoning people for good reasons and that Totally not Porky Shill cannot lie, because he is Unbiased Anarchist (he said so himself, right?), but faults of my ideology prevent me from unconditionally trusting people. Even if they are Unbiased Anarchists.

Moreover, I don't see how this has to do anythin with ideology. If you don't like the idea of revolutionary tribunals, then say it straight. Or does it only matter when it happens to Anarchists?

Poorest and least developed nation in Europe, devastated by 7 years of non-stop war (WWI-Civil War), the war that is still going on, invaded and embargoed by most of civilized world?

Yep. It's definitely a grand conspiracy of crazy evil and/or time-travelling Bolsheviks, brilliantly uncovered via unbiased mindreading. This proves it people: Communism doesn't work. Everyone who disagrees simply "can't see past the faults of their ideologies" (c).

When I told you to shove this nonsense up your ass, I didn't mean that you should start talking out of it.

How about no. You have done absolutely nothing to convince me that the Soviet Union was a failed attempt at achieving communism that actively harmed the socialist movement. You tankies are fucking unbelievable.

Oh, wait. That was your quote. Either way, the point stands. And you are unbelievable. If ML problems are so obvious, why can't you just enunciate them?

Well, I presented my point of view and found Totally not Porky Shill lacking.

Look mate, at this point we're just arguing based on our own sources, and we're both adamant that ours are more reliable. We're getting nowhere with this.

So let's look past "totally-not-porky-shill" and "totally-not-bolshevik-propaganda" and look from the lens of 2016:
The Soviet Union fell, and unlike every other leftist nation, it fell on its own accord. Over the course of decades it went from ML to Stalinism to "totally-not-Capitalism" and then it keeled over and died. Later in its life, they had to build a wall to keep people from fleeing to the west.
I don't know about you, but I'm not especially keen to repeat that.
And today, ML is basically dead. It lives only in fringe parties and third-world nations with a less than stellar reputation. All the popular leftist movements of today are based around other brands of leftism, or don't even have a specific ideological basis at all.

It oppressive to borgs

I'm sorry, it's really hard to hear you over one billion Chinese.

You were saying if it's not US/EU, it's not real Socialism?

No, mate.

You have a source. A heavily edited account of events with a biased interpretation. I, on the other hand, do not even have to specifically interpret events in any way. Facts (actual facts, recognized by everyone) are enough to point out holes in the reasoning of Totally not Porky Shill.

The idea was that you would present some kind of evidence of abolishing Soviets by Bolsheviks, but this did not happen and not a shred of "my ideology" was involved, despite Kronstadt clearly being Trotsky's fuck-up and a perfect example of counter-revolutionary elements in action.

Now you are basically trying to say that physics and creationism is the same thing and should be treated equally.

Faults of my ideology do not let me accept this.

Either present a case for Bolsheviks not being real Socialists or admit that your belief in the faults of ML is a conjecture influenced by a very specific interpretation of postfactum events (basically Fukuyama's fallacy), rather than an actual analysis supported by factual evidence.

Is it good or is it bad? Is this an actual argument or just an unconscious reflexive response?

This disjoined reasoning of yours is annoying.

Until 1991 Soviets were accused of being pseudo-Communist because it was obvious that Soviet Union will not disband peacefully. Now that it happened, Soviets are clearly pseudo-Communist because they did not drown everything in blood.

Is strongly suspect this reasoning of yours (when fully developed by people with cognitive skills) looks something like this:

Communism doesn't work, because any state that uses it will inevitably fall apart. And the reason for this inevitable falling apart is that Communist doctrine believes in inevitable things.

Don't get me wrong, but if it's this reasoning, then I'm not impressed with it.

You are missing approximately 30 years of anti-ML reforms between Stalinism and "totally-not-Capitalism".

Additionally, minor point of this is that "keeling over" suspiciously coincided with introduction of Capitalism. USSR wasn't particularly Left at this point: not only economy, but even democractic centralism of Lenin was demolished (for the first time in history USSR became authoritarian, with a single leader - Gorbachev). I.e. hardly "leftist nation".

No.

Either way, Berlin wall had nothing to do with ML. Stop travelling in time and get your dates right.

Well, so far you've had problems proving you competence in regard to ML. Apologies for not being impressed with your evaluation.

Which is why we constantly get Bеrniе Sаndеrs'es and other reactionary pseudo-socialists that do nothing, except talk. Do you even know what reactionary means?

P.s. I'm impressed that we got to the point when "it's not widely recognized" is used as an argument on politically incorrect board, and then position gets bashed for having ideology in a thread dedicated to ideologies.

Social democracy is the only form of socialism that works.

That is until we reach post-scarcity transhumanist technosocialism.

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Top kek.

And I guess you obtained them through divine inspiration. If you are so sure of your facts, show me where you got them.

You know mate, you could turn that one around. One is based on evidence, another on belief, and last I checked I'm the only one who has presented a source to back up my arguments. Not to mention how this comparison is absolutely ridiculous considering we are arguing about history here, and a particularly divisive subject in it. There are no hard facts. All we have are sources, which can be more or less reliable, and it's pointless arguing about them if neither of us trusts the others' source.

When did I say that communism doesn't work? I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe communism could work. What I mean by what I said is that ML is the only attempt at Communism that has actively regressed into Capitalism or a dictatorship (hello China, hello North Korea), which indicates that there may be a pretty serious flaw with the ideology, considering it couldn't achieve what it set out to do even without some capitalist nation stomping them down.

And funnily enough, those reforms happen repeatedly! It happened with the USSR, and it happened with China. Wouldn't you say that the way Social Democracy usually regresses into bourgie Capitalism is a sign that Social Democracy doesn't work? How is ML different?

I said "later in its life". If you want to look at the consequences of ML, you kinda have to look at the things that happened later.

Maybe because you're thick. You don't have to be a fucking genius to look at what happened to the Soviet Union and decide that maybe it's not a good idea to do exactly what they did.

Do you? Last I checked, being a reactionary meant advocating for a previous status quo; like a neo-con wanting a return to a pre-civil rights era, or a nazi wanting the Reich back, or a tankie wanting another Soviet Union. Sander may not be a revolutionary, but he did cause a massive resurgence in leftist though in a country where leftism was basically dead.

Newsflash: Movements don't start in the minds of some great thinker, they start with the people. The ideas behind Socialism existed long before Marx penned them down, and I'll bet that most of those farmers and soldiers who created the soviets hadn't read Marx.

Really guys?

Kulaks and NKVD officials deserved it tbf but Holodomor was a bit of a dick move

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The idea of USSR being 'transitional' died with Stalin or even Lenin.

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Why did West Ukraine had it too? It was part of Poland at the time.

And then there was Holodomor in the US of A.