I posted this on Quora in May 2019. I begin by quoting his objections to claims I made in an earlier reply to him:
“I’ll start by pointing out that a real Marxist would never say that Marxism and communism had parted company because socialist states collapsed, despite the fact that those nations were undoubtedly not communist, and the majority of human history was under primitive communism. To say communism is impossible is to reject the fundamental conclusions of Marxism. There is no point of analyzing the contradictions of capitalism if they have no negation. Let us not forget Marx was a communist (how one does that I have no idea).”
(1) That’s good since I never argued that “Marxism and communism had parted company because socialist states collapsed”. In fact I argued the obverse, that is was because Marxism and communism parted company that the entire communist block in E Europe and the former Soviet Union collapsed. I think you need to read more carefully.
(2) “despite the fact that those nations were undoubtedly not communist…”
Indeed, and that is because they abandoned Marxism.
(3) “and the majority of human history was under primitive communism”
Yes, that was long before the communist party of the former Soviet Union abandoned Marxism. So, what’s your point?
(4) “To say communism is impossible is to reject the fundamental conclusions of Marxism. “
Where did I say that communism is impossible?
Can we all make stuff up like you are doing?
(5) “There is no point of analyzing the contradictions of capitalism if they have no negation. “
There are no ‘contradictions’ in capitalism, or anywhere else for that matter. So there are no ‘negations’ either.
Proof here:
Engels’s Three ‘Laws’ Debunked
If Dialectical Materialism Were True, Change Would Be Impossible
Change Through ‘Internal Contradiction’ is Incoherent
Why Opposing Forces Can’t Be ‘Contradictions’
Dialectical ‘Logic’ and ‘Dialectical Contradictions’ are both Incoherent Doctrines
(6) “Let us not forget Marx was a communist (how one does that I have no idea).”
So? His ideas parted company with communism as it developed in Russia in the mid-1920s, as I showed. You have yet to address my arguments.
“You make another error by saying the Soviet Union collapsed, it did not. It was dismantled illegally against the democratic will of the people (google 1991 Soviet referendum). Also I think you forget that a “communist state” is a socialist state headed in the direction of Communism.”
(7) Use whatever words you like to describe what happened in 1991, that won't affect the fact that the proletariat didn’t rise to defend it when it fell apart in that year (but see below).
And the same thing happened right across Europe two years earlier. But, you appear not to want to talk about that…
Wonder why?
(8) A referendum, but no general strike, no mass demonstrations in 1991, no insurrection in 1991 in support of the Soviet Union. So, the support for the Soviet Union was passive at best. Can you imagine Lenin calling for a referendum in the middle of 1917? Workers then were prepared to fight for their socialism, but not in 1991. Why?
(9) But let us examine the question that was asked in that referendum:
“Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed?”
This wasn’t a question solely about their support for the Soviet Union but also about the preservation of the rights and freedoms in such a republic. As later events were to show, had the question been “Should the Soviet Union be disbanded or not?” the result would have been totally different.
(10) “Also I think you forget that a ‘communist state’ is a socialist state headed in the direction of Communism.
It would be had it not abandoned Marxism.
“The term abject failure, i don’t think, applies to a country like the Soviet Union, which doubled life expectancy, quadrupled literacy rights, guaranteed women’s and minority rights in a country that, not long prior was a backward illiterate autocracy which regularly massacred people for being Jewish, and industrialized at a rate never before or since seen despite the Nazis, a bloody civil war in which they were invaded by 14 capitalist countries, and countless attempts at sabotage, among countless other things.”
(11) Many capitalist countries have done even better.
(12) It was an abject failure, since, when it fell, the working class did not rise in its defence (but see below). Had the former Soviet Union [fSU] been a success, they would have done so.
(13) Yes, the Civil war was won because of Trotsky’s brilliant leadership of the Red Army. And then the Stalinists promptly ignored his warning that socialism couldn’t be built in one country, and history proved him right.
“Then in that final paragraph you say that ‘not a single proletarian hand was raised in their defense’ which is objectively false”
Not so, not one single proletarian hand was raided in its defence in 1991. Why is that important? Here is what I have written about this elsewhere:
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The alleged ruling class of the former Communist Block (i.e., the workers!) were remarkably passive when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 and when the ‘People’s Democracies’ did likewise two years earlier, having raised not one finger in their defence. Contrast that with the way workers, for example, have fought in defence even of limited forms of bourgeois democracy in Nepal in 2006, Lebanon, Serbia, France, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Burma, Bolivia, Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria , Hong Kong, and the rest of the Middle East (January 2011-November 2016), to name but a few….
Compare that passivity between 1989 and 1991 with the way Bolshevik workers responded to the white army counter-revolution in Russia, 1918-22.
Indeed, this is all the more remarkable given the additional fact that the Soviet working class and the Soviet State were supposed to be the most powerful in history, as even Stalin opined:
"At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state power -- such is the Marxist formula…." [Political Report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), June 27, 1930. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at my site.]
Add to this the extra fact that the working class of the fSU was supposedly in control not only of one of the most powerful military forces on the planet, but also the unions, the police, the party, the state bureaucracy, the courts, and the media. Considering the overwhelming force available to them (far in excess of any available to workers at any point in human history), workers could easily have crushed any attempt to undermine the fSU (or, indeed, attempts to compromise 'socialism' after Stalin died), had they chosen to do so. More-or-less the same can be said of the 'People's Democracies' in Eastern Europe, as well as the 'socialist' states of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia..., and now China and Cuba….
In response to this, Stalinophiles often point to opinion polls or even referendum results that seem to suggest that a large proportion of the population of Russia would prefer to go back to the old system or wanted it to continue. However, as we know, the results of such polls can be skewed by the options on offer or the questions posed. Had they been asked instead the following: "Do you prefer to return to a system dominated by mass incarceration, oppression and lack of democratic control, governed by a self-selecting and self-perpetuating elite that lines its pockets at your expense?" I rather think the results would have been different. Of course, that question is itself prejudicial and politically-motivated, so the real test of opinion here isn't simply for the Russian population to express passive opinions about the future or the past, but what they were then or are now prepared to do to fight to restore the old Soviet system, and what they did in defence of that system when they supposedly had their hands on the levers of so much power.
The answer, of course, is: absolutely nothing.
In fact, other than during WW2, the only time that workers have fought for anything in the fSU, E Europe and China was against the system -- for instance, East Germany 1953, Hungary and Poland 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Poland again in the early 1980s, E Europe in general in the late 1980s, China in 1989, Hong Kong in 2014, again, to mention just a few examples. [On this, see Haynes (2002) and Kozlov (2002).]
Stalinists, of course, dismiss these incidents as revolts and riots inspired by fascists, the CIA, or 'capitalist roaders' (etc.) -- in short, they disparage them by (what is in effect) the equivalent of the ubiquitous "external agitator" excuse, a rationalisation used the world over by ruling elites of every stripe. We can see this happening again in 2018 as any attempt to criticise or oppose the warmongering moves of the USA and UK are accused of being financed or promoted by Russia (or Russian 'troll farms')! But, again, other than during WW2, can Maoists or Stalinists point to a single example where workers in the former Communist Block fought in the opposite direction, in support of 'their state'? The question answers itself -- no they can't.
[In fact, if workers were prepared to defend the fSU during WW2 from fascist invaders, why weren't they prepared to defend 'their state' against internal 'anti-socialist' forces in 1953 (i.e., after Stalin died there was supposed to have been a 'coup' of sorts against the Soviet State -- or so we are told by hardcore Stalinophiles), 1956 (when Khrushchev exposed the 'crimes of Stalin') or 1991 (when the entire regime collapsed)?]
I have raised this with Stalinophiles (on the Internet) for many years; their only response so far is either to (i) Quote a few opinion polls, (ii) Deflect attention by changing the subject (a familiar tactic often accompanied by good old-fashioned abuse or personal attacks), or (iii) Quote and cite irrelevant ‘evidence’.
The only two conclusions possible here are the following:
(a) Russian workers, despite (supposedly) being the strongest and most well-organised working class in human history, allegedly in control not only of one of the mightiest military forces on the planet, but of the unions, the police, the party, the state bureaucracy, the courts, and the media (etc., etc.), were in fact the most cowardly and pusillanimous working class ever, or,
(b) The fSU wasn't socialist and workers were glad to see the back of it. The same can be said about the rest of the ‘Communist Block’.
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From here:
Practice and History Refute Dialectical Marxism
Haynes, M. (2002), Russia. Class And Power 1917-2000 (Bookmarks).
Kozlov, V. (2002), Mass Uprisings In The USSR: Protest And Rebellion In The Post-Stalin Years (M. E. Sharpe).
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But you have a video (which I have seen before). [Added on edit: this video shows a large demonstration in Moscow in 1993.]
What does it show? It shows tens of thousands of demonstrators challenging the Yeltsin regime — in 1991? No, two years later in 1993!
(14) So, where is the evidence that the Russian proletariat, which numbered not in the tens of thousands but the tens of millions, lifted a finger in defence of ‘their state’ in 1991 when they had their hands on the levers of power (as I argued above)? Nowhere, that’s where. So, my allegation that they raised not one finger in defence of the fSU (or the ‘People’s Democracies’) between 1989 and 1991 was correct.
(15) The communist party, which still existed, managed to organise a large demonstration two years too late, involving at least 0.025% of the Russian working population (I have estimated 20,000 on that demonstration — if you think it was larger, let me have the accurate figure — and the working population of the fSU at about 80,000,000). But, no strikes were organised, and no more demonstrations of any note were held. The vast bulk of the mightiest working class in history sat on their hands, even in 1993, never mind 1991!
So, that was a pathetic response, two years too late.
Then you refer us to the 1991 coup attempt, when a insignificantly tiny fraction of the Red Army attempted to re-established the old Soviet order.
(15) Well, I raised questions about the Russian proletariat, not a tiny faction of the Red Army. So, you have yet to provide evidence that a single worker raised his or her hand in support of the old Soviet system when it fell in 1991. Then, two years later you have an almost insignificant fraction of the Russian population (were they even workers — you failed to say — perhaps they were communist party hacks!) on the street — once! And that’s it!
I note that you completely ignored the fact that the working class of the E European ‘People’s Democracies’ also failed to lift a finger in the defence of ‘their state’ in 1989. You haven’t even got a referendum or a demonstration (two years too late or bang on time) to appeal to in Poland, E Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, or Albania.
“And then you use the phrase ‘Marxist States’ which doesn’t make any sense, and goes to show you don’t know what Marxism is. Clearly you just repeat Pro capitalist rhetoric, going so far as to call communism a failure, but for some reason still call yourself a Marxist. Truly, it boggles the mind.”
(16) In fact I rejected the attribution “Marxist state”:
“And when all those failed states fell between 1989 and 1991, not one single proletarian hand was raised in their defence. From that we can perhaps conclude that Russian and E European workers were of the same opinion as me — they weren’t Marxist states to begin with.” [Bold added.]
(17) “Clearly you just repeat Pro capitalist rhetoric, going so far as to call communism a failure, but for some reason still call yourself a Marxist. Truly, it boggles the mind.”
What ‘pro-Capitalist rhetoric’ have I ‘repeated’? The fact that you can’t quote any such ‘rhetoric’ suggests you made this smear up too.
And the communism I called an abject failure wasn’t Marx’s version of communism.
(18) Your case being so weak, you resort yet again to personal attacks on me.
(19) Finally, you talk about ‘pro-Capitalist rhetoric’, but as I pointed out, the only thing you Stalinists have been good at is creating more capitalist economies (or economies rapidly moving, not toward communism, but toward some form of ‘free market’ capitalism) — Russia (including all the republics that have broken away from the fSU, which are now also capitalist states), Poland, E Germany, Hungary (which is turning increasingly fascist), Czechoslovakia (I include in this Slovakia and the Czech Republic, both capitalist), Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the former Yugoslavia (and that includes all the states that Yugoslavia broke up into), Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, and Cuba.
Other than N Korea, not one of the former ‘communist’ states have remained faithful to the Stalinist/Maoist (etc.) creed. All have reverted to capitalism or are well on the way there.
Conclusion?
History has roundly refuted your brand of ‘Marxism’.