The Communist Manifesto

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
True, Che, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, a dictatorship complete with a special class available only to senior party members and selected Government officials was not what Marx had in mind.

Except that wasn't clear until later. Hell, it didn't even happen until later. It wasn't until the late twenties that the state bureaucracy held firm control of the party, and through the party, the government.

By the end of the 1930s, almost the entire generation of the Bolsheviks that led the revolution had been killed (or died of natural causes). Two thirds of the delegates to the 1932 Communist Party Congress (the one where Kirov was elected to head the party, but the votes were counted until Stalin won) were later killed.

Regardless of what Marx had in mind, we have to play the cards we're dealt. The Russian Civil War and Allied intervention, despite BeBro's assertions to the contrary, nearly overthrew the revolution, and completely wrecked the country. It was the Allies who started the counter revolution, and who supplied the White armies. Without the Imperialists, at the very least, the Civil War would have been considerably less damaging to Russia. It might not even have happened, but that's just speculation.

We can't know what the Russian Revolution would have looked like if the Civil War hadn't necessitated crack downs on those politically supporting the counter-revolution or the complete nationalization of industry overnight. But to ignore the effects of that war completely, as you are wont to do, is just as much a fallacy as asserting what might have happened if only. . . .

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It was the servants' choice to get shot. The orders were only to take the family, to prevent them from falling in to the hands of the Whites so they couldn't be used as a rallying point. The servants refused to be separated from the Tsar and his family, so they got shot.

Ahh, they had the power to shoot them, but couldn't manage to get them away from the tsar. Why didn't the tsar simply refuse to get shot in the same way....

Given that NINE MILLION people perished in the Russian Civil War, I don't really care to terribly much about one specific family that sent millions to their deaths in WWI.

And the Bolsheviks have their fair share in that. And if it were only about the tsar etc I'd accept it as a result of the turmoil the country was in. But soon it turned out that extermination was a common and consciously choosen way to deal with political enemies, real or constructed.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Communist Manifesto

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Marx imagined a system not to share out the existing cake more equitably, as social democracy seeks to do, but to make a bigger cake.

Whilst the appalling conditions of the 19th century working class helped persuade him that revolutionary change was inevitable, this to him was a by-product of a system he thought to be damaged by its internal contradictions. He believed that a planned, rational economy would be more productive, more efficient, and capable of advancing humanity beyond the limits of capitalism.

That's right. He claimed that population would grow faster and that there would be no unemployment and war. Also there would not be inefficiencies like you see today like homeless shelters bulging at the seems and home vacancy rates extremely high and growing.

The earliest roots of green politics lie not in a reaction to contemporary patterns of production and consumption, but in an early aristocratic reaction to industrialism, when land-owners who had become accustomed to land-based wealth from an agrarian, peasant-economy became threatened both by the new, vulgar, upstart industrial capitalist class and by the army of newly-organised workers that came with them.

I don't think the history of green politics has anything to do with the reality today. My point really is that resources have to be managed. Marx was right about that. What he was wrong about was that there would be no scarcity in the future. Well, actually maybe in some time in the future there won't be, but today there certainly is, and that's an issue that needs consideration.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Marx was wrong about the effectiveness and efficiency of central planning. I say this as someone who has read the Manifesto and admired its sympathies and historical understanding. Market economies do a better job with a thousand threads of supply and demand to make sense of the economy than any set of geniuses and computers can do with central planning.

The problem with capitalism is that people always want to rely on markets and private ownership to solve problems. The result is that we end up with a bunch of problems that don't get solved. I'm not saying everything should be planned centrally all at once, but eventually there will be no need for markets if we would just not resist solving problems that we have right now by doing more planning by the government and even nationalizing some companies. Unfortunately the movement is still towards more privatization and deregulation. But that will change as it continues to fail more and more.

Marx also showed his own middle-class upbringing in expressing the belief that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was going to make sense in ANY economic order.

Hmmm. That's kind of funny that you should say that. I've always thought that that was a particularly insightfull thing for him to say considering that he came from a middle-class unbringing, because in a capitalist system most people don't contribute nearly as much as they are able to because they have the resources and power to avoid contribution. Also, obviously people who do have to contribute everything that there are able to end up not having their needs met. But communism would certainly change that and make for a much more just and beneficial system.

Lastly, a naivety shows clearly in the belief that the government would "slowly fade away." Real humans don't seek power only to give it up.

Without the ability to make people fight wars and protect themselves from others in society governments power is very limited. Conflict is the source of governments power. Government will always be large and strong in a capitalist system.

[rmsharpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Let's assume that you have developed a new method of creating energy, so cheaply and efficiently, that it will put the world's energy producers out of business.

Do you have any idea how many industrial concerns, banks, and governments would support such an endeavor? It'd be bigger than the Manhattan Project.

The USSR's idea of a revolutionary new power source was to have people work themselves to death. Is it any wonder that nobody invested in them?

[Kidlicious]

A lot of people work themselves to death in the USA.

[rmsharpe]

Originally posted by Kidicious
A lot of people work themselves to death in the USA.

Do you have any figures to back that up with? Or are you just bull****ting?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by rmsharpe

Do you have any figures to back that up with? Or are you just bull****ting?

Do you have any figure?

[rmsharpe]

Yes. R.J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii has calculated that approximately 55 million Soviet citizens were killed during the years 1917 to 1991.

If you're looking at just political massacres, etc., the number is close to 8.3 million, with another 4.3 million killed in deportations. So that's 12.6 million.

If we look at another example, 2 million were killed in Cambodia in what could only be defined as a state-sponsored act of genocide against its own people.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Marx was wrong about the effectiveness and efficiency of central planning. I say this as someone who has read the Manifesto and admired its sympathies and historical understanding. Market economies do a better job with a thousand threads of supply and demand to make sense of the economy than any set of geniuses and computers can do with central planning.

Wal Mart

[Agathon]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
Yes. R.J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii has calculated that approximately 55 million Soviet citizens were killed during the years 1917 to 1991.

Dude's a ******. He believes in the democratic peace theory, and he's a libertarian. He's just one of those right wing cranks who slipped through the cracks.

If you're looking at just political massacres, etc., the number is close to 8.3 million, with another 4.3 million killed in deportations. So that's 12.6 million.

If we look at another example, 2 million were killed in Cambodia in what could only be defined as a state-sponsored act of genocide against its own people.

Looks like you are counting the wars there.

Count those, and you should count colonialism. The Soviets will come off looking pretty good in comparison.

[BeBMan]

Yeah, Hitler wasn't that bad, colonialism was worse

Actually if you look at the timeframe when Stalin's rule was on, the only comparisons that somehow make sense would be Hitler's and Mao's, so their regimes, not a process like colonialization that lasted over several centuries with lots of players.

[fed1943]

The communist manifest is not guilty of any massacre.
It's just wrong. Period.
If it was right, the communist Nations would be the developed
capitalist USA and UK, not the poor, agrarian, Russia and China.
Best regards,

[Imran Siddiqui]

There are plenty of folks in IR who believe in some version of the democratic peace theory. Doesn't make one crazy.

[BeBMan]

it's all because of this mad Kant guy