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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@math I mean a country where the state owns the means of production. But yes, it was a state capitalist dictatorship.
The USSR wasn't communist:
Their conclusion, sure to rile critics on both the left and the right, is that the 20th century's great ideological schism actually pitted the private capitalism of the West against the "state capitalism" of the USSR. "The struggle between communism and capitalism never happened," says Wolff. "The Soviets didn't establish communism. They thought about it, but never did it."
Under a true communist system, says Resnick, the workers would control all aspects of production and decide how any surpluses are used. But in the wake of the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks imposed a layer of state managers to operate industry in the name of the people. That system, which Resnick and Wolff call "state capitalism," actually ceded decisions about the use of profits to government officials.
If communism ever existed within the USSR, says Resnick, it was during a brief period following the revolution when the Bolsheviks redistributed land to the peasants, who formed farming collectives. Working at the local level, farmers reached consensus on how their surplus products would be used.
But as Wolff notes, those collective decisions didn't fit into the plans of the Soviet leaders and their state capitalism. By the mid-1930s, the Soviet state was having such a hard time getting enough food to feed the workers that Josef Stalin "decided that whole revolution was at risk because of the farmers," says Wolff. In response, the Soviet leader abolished the collectives in favor of "state farms run like factories."
Resnick and Wolff contend that state capitalism was originally seen by the Bolsheviks as a necessary step in the evolution towards a communist state. But after Lenin's death in 1923, says Wolff, Stalin short-circuited those plans by simply declaring the Soviet Union a communist-socialist state.
According to Wolff, it was a politically expedient solution intended to assuage the masses who had already suffered through the poverty of the czarist system and the bloodshed of World War I and the post-revolution civil war that brought US, British, French and Japanese troops onto Russian soil. '''Faced with the responsibilities of governing and preserving their power, the Soviet leaders found it easier simply to declare the revolution a success."
Communist Russia never really existed. The Cold War was between two capitalist powers where one pretended to be Communist and the other pretended that it was the Defender of Democracy.
Hopefully that was educational for anyone that didn't know.
edited 21st Apr '17 3:09:58 PM by MadSkillz
In history class last year, it bugged me to no end when my teacher said Russia was Communist. Just because they called themselves communist doesn't mean that they were actually communist, just like the Democratic Republic of the Congo was in no way democratic or a republic. (Granted I am not a Marxist by any means, but we should acknowledge what the word actually refers too, and what it doesn't.)
That last paragraph though. Isn't that the practice Karl Marx wanted to rally against in the first place?
edited 21st Apr '17 3:23:53 PM by megaeliz
This is a good thing.
edited 21st Apr '17 3:24:11 PM by DingoWalley1
Even if it didn't just even the action of going after them would be a step in the right direction.
Not sure I'd call myself a Marxist. But my critiques on capitalism are Marxist. Those points are the ones I completely agree with him.
California leaders blast Sessions' attempt to force the state's sanctuary cities to submit to him or lose federal funds.
He didn't prosecute them because they broke no laws. And even IF they did break laws, you have to prove there was criminal intent which with white collar crime, it's extremely difficult to do.
New Survey coming this weekend!
While retroactively prosecuting the people responsible for the 2008 crash might have not been possible, legal reform to make it easier to prosecute people for white collar crimes would have been welcome. Because without the prospect of facing personal consequences for their recklessness, there's every reason to expect something like this could happen again.
edited 21st Apr '17 3:59:51 PM by CaptainCapsase
Federal Court finds Texas guilty of Racial Gerrymandering, the third time in a month.
Texas's constant violations may force the state to get "Preclearance" from the Court before they can change voting laws.
"NARAL Pro-Choice America, an organization that endorsed Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, harshly criticized the DNC for what it called the party’s “embrace” of “an anti-choice candidate.”
The statement followed a report in The Wall Street Journal that Mello once supported legislation “requiring women to look at ultrasound image of their fetus before receiving an abortion.”
So the question is whether or not progressives can support a candidate who did something pro-life? Note that according to the article, not all pro-choice organizations have condemned Mello. But the discussion is worth having.
"So, why isn’t Sanders convinced Ossoff, a candidate backed by progressive organizations like Move On.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and who raked in millions of dollars in part because he has captivated grassroots Democrats looking to send a message to Trump, is progressive?
Sanders allies argue that Ossoff has not elevated, or embraced, core economic issues that the senator champions, like reducing income equality..."
So the question is whether progressives can support a candidate who may not help much in the fight against increasing wealth disparity? Another discussion worth having.
Can someone be considered progressive if they do not fully support all of the left's causes? Is there a minimum litmus test that they must pass? Or should we consider the net effect of all of a candidate's positions, if they would tend to push society toward greater social justice? What is a progressive anyway?
On the one side are team players who just want to win elections, and would support almost anyone as long as they were a democrat and voted against the Republicans. Others are more concerned with moving society forward than they are with supporting any one party or faction. They are perfectly willing to oppose a democrat if they appear too wishy washy to promote progressive policies. Who is right?
Myself, I think that fighting over the definition of progressive probably weakens us more than it helps. But it may be a necessary step to take.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I see we've had an episode of "the Soviet Union wasn't really Communist". I used to make that claim. When I was Grade 9, identified as a Communist, and didn't want anyone to think Communism had been entirely discredited by the likes of Stalin and Mao.
Bad news folks—Communism has been discredited. There's never been a Communist state that worked. And before someone tries to again claim that "well that wasn't really Communism" they are ironically making my case for me—because if every attempt to implement Communism fails and results in a brutal dictatorship, then Communism has been discredited, regardless of whether the dictatorship is itself Communist.
Identifying as a Communist isn't far removed from identifying as fascist when it comes to "embracing dead ideologies". And given the bodycount racked up by the East Bloc and its clients, it's about as tactful.
Mello voted for a bill that required women to have images taken of the fetus before they could have an abortion. That's beyond what I think is acceptable for someone Sanders is touting as a great example of progressivism in action.
edited 21st Apr '17 5:20:57 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
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It's worth pointing out how the only current countries with surviving communist governments are both equatorial: Vietnam and Cuba. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's really hard to have an millions-killing famine where food crops can easily grow all year round.
edited 21st Apr '17 5:33:21 PM by FluffyMcChicken
And thousands of them are starving to death anyway, both because of legitimate supply problems and deliberate government activity. Because well, that's what Communist governments do: they deliberately starve their populace.
That's the problem. If we have to run a Blue Dog, we run a Blue Dog. But you don't get to claim he's ultraprogressive (in fact, if you're trying to win in Nebraska, where "progressive" is a bad word, you should be claiming he's anything but). And you certainly don't get to call him a progressive while turning on guys like Ossof. As Lightysnake said a few pages back, any progressive test that Ossof fails and Mello passes is a bad test.
edited 21st Apr '17 5:40:15 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
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Yeah, but they're both still "surviving" communist governments.
It it a bad test if there's an actual test rather than Sanders just being sent to actively campaign for Mello and other Midwestern candidates and not being viewed as very useful in Georgia. The same issue of "progressive" being an unpopular label would probably also apply in Georgia, perhaps to an even greater extent given we're talking a red suburb rather a red midwestern state
edited 21st Apr '17 5:47:52 PM by CaptainCapsase
Progressive's not a bad word even in red states.
Liberal, yes.
I mean even some Republicans have used used progressive to describe themselves never liberal.
@Ambar Heath's not s Blue Dog. A Blue Dog is a very specific type of Democrat that even Bernie wouldn't endorse unless there were no other Democrats around. Blue Dogs are DIN Os whereas Heath has one social issue where he stands Republican as far as we know.
edited 21st Apr '17 5:46:13 PM by MadSkillz
The blue dog connotation implies a lawmaker stands with the GOP on their economic policies, and Mello doesn't appear to do so, but I somehow doubt it's just abortion he's behind the curve on. He would be a new breed of blue dog (in fact I think we have a term for this already, namely dixiecrat), and potentially quite useful to the party were he elected, though you have to be careful that those kind of democrats aren't allowed to become numerous enough to take over the party.
edited 21st Apr '17 5:56:10 PM by CaptainCapsase
North Korea officially abandoned communism and adopted its own ideology of juche.
China is a weird beast: the PRC's economy actually has a lot more in common with the Gilded Age US with all the rampant unregulated capitalism in the "special economic zones" that makes most of the country's money. Private businesses and enterprises are essentially allowed so long as they don't arouse the ire of whatever ruling faction of the CCP is in power, after which then they become marked for nationalization and an organizational purge for being "corrupt".
edited 21st Apr '17 6:00:48 PM by FluffyMcChicken
I'm aware of how China is run, hence why I called it nominally communist.
Any definition of "progressive" that allows for anti-abortion aka anti-choice views (and rather strong ones from all appearances) is not a definition I can support.
Supporting the guy's campaign is fine, especially if he's the best if not only candidate with a good chance of winning. But don't call him a progressive while refusing to call Ossof one.
edited 21st Apr '17 6:36:46 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedVietnam has also moved heavily in the "nominal Communist" direction in the past decade and change. It is still a command economy but they have opened up to private ownership and foreign investment. (I'm unsure about the current authortarian level of their government but they are relatively stable.)
Cuba has at least been moving toward something like glasnost if not full liberalization since Fidel stopped running the government actively. Whether the US will continue the process of normalizing relations that started under Obama is an open question.
On the subject of abortion and progressivisim, any would-be economic progressive ought to read Freakanomics. The legalization of abortion and birth control has a huge correlation with decreases in overall crime and poverty.
edited 21st Apr '17 8:07:30 PM by Elle

In my mind B would be contingent on A, not familiar with financial law enough to gauge A.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman