Two giants exchange arguments :-(

Their both douche bags.

Asking which side I am on is like asking whether I want to be the second or the third person in a human centipede.

This is a little old (last year I think) but the first wave of socialist revolutions were failures, especially Mao's China. The "weakness" was, especially in Mao's case, he ignored historical materialism. There's no debate. It's not communism's job to take this

and turn it into this:

Deng figured that out and here we are.

could you elaborate? im sure the peasants of aragon and the ukraine would have constructed an unimaginably beautiful society if they had the chance

my utopia would be to live semi medievaly with good healthcare

With the help of whom? Under what system? There's a reason humanity didn't see industrialization until large swaths of people were dispossessed and forced into laboring for bosses under the up and coming property based market system - which set the stage for industrialization. Take an island like pre 1780's Hawaii. Build a time machine and send 10,000 communists there. What do you think will happen? How would they use "communism" to advance the island to an industrial powerhouse? What sort of communism could arise in an isolated island with a "backwards" population? They'd have to employ Bolshevik like methods that we saw in Russia in order to industrialize. They'd have to do capitalism's job under the name of communism. They'd also need access to a lot more resources. Access that capitalists would be seeking to limit at every turn.

Usually Marxist-Leninists are the ones who defend the idea that communism could arise in isolated undeveloped regions, because, well, that's pretty much what they were all about post 1917. Marx and especially Engels were pretty firm on the idea that communism must arise from the most advanced capitalist societies. Over the years I've noticed some anarchists also seem to think communism can industrialize and continue to exist in undeveloped nations- in isolated pockets of "communism in one country". I'm of the opinion communism must arise from within the most advanced capitalist nations with workers in the more advanced nations helping to bring the less advanced regions around the globe up to speed so to speak. This is usually an argument I have with Stalinists and Maoists.

Anyway good healthcare requires industry. Sorry. Ah...and nukes to fend off outright invasion from capitalist forces and if no nukes the complete overthrow of capitalist states world wide. Throw a large army into the mix. If Mexico had a communist revolution tomorrow what do you think the USA's reaction would be?

Bring on the RCP! Who needs Zizek. I'll debate Bobs henchmen

"dispossessed and forced into laboring for bosses under the up and coming property based market system - which set the stage for industrialization"

are you sure about that? technology can only arise from destroying peoples lives??? peasants cant develop similar , even better technology slowly and harmlessly???

"Take an island like pre 1780's Hawaii. Build a time machine and send 10,000 communists there. What do you think will happen? How would they use "communism" to advance the island to an industrial powerhouse?"

were talking past each other.... anyways i would certainly prefer to live in that hawaii than current china. in a communist hawaain society where you wouldnt need to manafacture clothes and widgets either, just go surfing naked everyday and smoke weed!

but to be realistic a revolution has to happen in either the EU , China or the US for it to be successful as they have heavily industrial weaponary to defend themseves

you are an inverse maoist , have you thought of joining these guys ?

http://libcom.org/news/nepal-a-nice-little-earner-maoist-ruling-class-lenins-footsteps-12052008

they also agree that private capitalists are the best dispossessors

It'll be a relief to know that I'll be dying from worker's radiation - imagine how bad it would be if it was capitalist!

I was expecting to see giants

If Mexico had a communist revolution the rest of America would catch on fire too, why does the revolution have to originate at the apex of the international production system? The uprising itself is the primary meat of the revolution, its course afterwards depends on the rest of the world just as much as the locale where it breaks out. Especially in this scenario where 'Mexico' is a transnational organism right in the bowels and organs of US society!

Well, yes. To go from a rural peasant economy to a industrial economy history has shown a labor force needs to be created and people haven't entered this labor force voluntarily. Theoretically you could probably, maybe, slowly convince a rural population to abandon their way of life in favor of somehow voluntarily and collectively transforming society but history has shown, in many many cases (not just in Soviet Russia or China) people don't just voluntarily give up their way of life to fit some new model.

Ya, I probably would too but a global communist system needs to provide general abundance of necessities- medical, clothing, food, housing, leisure and transportation for everyone and this would require industry.

Ya well, I don't think a "communist" revolution would work out in some isolated rural island even if capital left them alone militarily.

Exactly my point (in bold). The only thing that kept Cuba from complete and total US occupation was Russia with its nukes. If Mexico, tomorrow, had a communist revolution the US would immediately cut off all global trade to Mexico. If that didn't starve them to death they would begin tactical strikes against infrastructure- factories, roads, bridges etc. So trade would be cut off and the ability to produce within the country would be destroyed then troops would be sent in to slaughter whatever remnants of a communist society that was left standing.

The sanctions themselves would make communism impossible in Mexico and deform any sort of economic plan. People would become miserable and blame communism for it. Anyhow, you're right, a global revolution is necessary and that's what Lenin knew going into Russia. So what do Mexicans do if Mexico isn't the spark for a global revolution?

Totally. Thats me.

But no I'm saying that Mexican labor essentially extends the terrain of revolution deep into US territory, at least, a thorough communist revolution would reverberate throughout the southwest, upsetting US production. Also I am having trouble imagining how the US military would be able to contain such a revolution and also its hegemony within the current historical situation, but anyways this is all hypothetical so I'm going to go away and have a glass of lemonade.

Mike, I agree with you that national revolutions are pretty easy for major powers to suppress, but I don't agree with the implication that revolutions have to happen on a national basis. I think that labour unrest can, and has, been manifested on an international basis, and this is more fruitful than an insurgent national working class struggling for governmental power with a national ruling class. I think that the claim that any revolution must be international is not best expressed by the idea that lots of 'nations' take part in it, but by the notion that the dynamics of revolt and seizure of power will defy the borders of nation states, and in that process dismantle them.

Mike S., if you are not the poster Crud on red-marx, you could perhaps read this thread where S.Artesian deals with them. http://www.red-marx.com/socialism-in-one-country-before-stalin-german-origins-t65.html

I dont think revolutions have to happen on a national basis I think they'll fail if they do. Labor unrest has happened across borders but have revolutions? We're specifically talking about China here and why Mao failed (well, kinda). There has never been, yet, a global work force with enough class consciousness and solidarity to facilitate a global revolution and without such we're left with revolutions on a national basis and in what has been nations not even prepared for communism. In China there wasn't even really a proletarian class. There was in Russia but Russia was mostly peasants who pretty much had to have their harvests taken and had to subsequently be dispossessed and prolitarianized. I guess the question is, could this have happened naturally, voluntarily, via cooperation? I don't think it could've or can. I think what Mao and the Bolsheviks did was attempt capitalism's function under the name of communism. The Bolsheviks obviously did a better job at it. Mao was, well, until Deng stepped in things were a mess in China.

Another question is, after it became apparent Russia didn't spark a global revolution what should the Bolsheviks have done? Let the peasants go on being peasants? Fail to industrialize and form a vast army which defended them in WW2? Could anarchists have industrialized and defended counterrevolution and subsequent war without coercion?

KHM: I'm not interested. Sorry. I'm interested in making Raymond Lotta look silly which shouldn't be too hard.

I don't get it? Think if Germany had nukes and it's army and Russia only had it's army. What do you think the outcome would've been? The Russians would've been (mostly dead) and speaking German. I'm not even sure some speed up revolution is possible. A global revolution within 5, 10, even 20 years. If we look to history when the various modes of production changed it was usually a slow long process. I sincerely have no idea how communism will come about if ever. How long will it take? What will the material conditions be? Will it be a faster global revolution or a slow nation by nation process (if that's even possible). I have no idea really, all i do know is Mao and the Bolsheviks warped communism in order to facilitate revolutions in nations that weren't prepared for communism. Maybe I'm wrong? What does it matter at this point? I don't think any of us are advocating revolution in the Congo....oh wait....someone already has. Marxist-Leninists

Gee... and I thought we were advocating revolution everywhere including the Congo.

The "argument" between Zizek and the Maoists is just clowns squirting each other with seltzer bottles.

I don't really understand what this dispute in this thread is about. That socialism requires a certain degree of the development of the means of production, an advance in the productivity of labor, a highly productive agricultural basis is not news, is it? It's kind of the distinction Marx and Engels made between "utopian" and "scientific" socialisms.

The proletariat became the negation of the capitalists, and in that process negates itself, the material conditions of its reproduction as wage laborers. It's kind of inherent that you have to have wage laborers first.

However, there is that point when capitalism due to its inherent limitations, its property cannot overcome the limitations in which it finds itself, into which it is embedded. It cannot reorganize relations of landed labor; it runs up against the limits of the valuation process. That makes, and means, a distinction between the actual seizure of power; the elimination of the agents, agency of capital, and the triumph of socialism.

The issue is to find the mediation, those forms, that organization which links the struggle for power with the emancipation of labor. The mediation is first and foremost international or it is nothing, and, it cannot be the "property" of a single party controlling a state apparatus that separates "economic development" from that emancipation of labor from value, or analogues, to value production.

It was a joke. It reminded me of sparts defending the 'worker's bomb' which you appear to be doing.

The credibility of 'historical materialism' was demolished by Rocker in the introduction to 'Nationalism and Culture'. (Rocker was not alone)

According to Marx, successful socialist revolutions would most likely occur in advanced capitalist countries, which is why he moved to England.

Lenin saw the great inertia of Russian society would not be overcome without 'shooting lots of people'.

The dictatorship of the proletarian became the dictatorship of the party became the dictatorship of the dictator. Marxist-Leninists love national liberation as it represents the quickest path to power.

Marxists in general, and Marxist-Leninists in particular, are on about the capture of state power and not 'communism' as communism will be free or not at all.

Occasionally, by means of an extended, moistened finger, they detect the wind blowing in a libertarian direction and come on all anarchic-like and refer to themselves as 'left communists', 'autonomists' even anarcho-communists' hedging their bets in the event an opportunity presents itself to demonstrate their magic leadership abilities. Uni students love this shit.

The revolution will no longer be confined to a single country or state entity. It will not conform to some smooth progress narrative like a straight line on a graph. The revolution will be uneven, messy and misshapen with lots of knobbly bits, first here, now there - wherever next? It's time-frame will not be linear nor even cyclical, but expand along any number of trajectories - it may even appear a bit like Brownian motion.

Marx's mechanistic view of history was wrong, the universe is not a clock with levers, ratchets, gears and spockets.

We take from Marx what is found to be useful and reject the remainder along with all the rest of the other smart-arses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAE0C86OrP0

The workers bomb. It's kinda like the peoples mic. You should've seen Zizek spaz out on the peoples mic.

Ugh. No?

He warned against people using historical materialism as such but if you think you can create an advanced communist society in a non advanced isolated region have at it. All we have to do, as anarchists, is all move to one place! Count me in, it will suck and we'll fail but I'll bring some popcorn and watch. Socialism in one city!

Rejecting historical materialism would be silly. If one is to consider ones self a materialist but all too often anarchists have embraced idealism. Which you seem to be doing. If you could just create that idea in your head without any material conditions which make it possible! Reminds me of anarcho capitalists. Have you read the German Ideology or Thesis on Feuerbach?

And sorry, I downed your post. I dont do that often if at all but I feel compelled to tell you because it's just the right thing to do. The Christian thing to do. The idealist thing to do. Penance.

Ya, what he said!

(basic stuff)

Ray Lotta seems to be mad because Zizek leveled some criticisms at Mao's China. All I'm really saying is

Shouldn't be controversial. Unless one is an idealist and utopian. Or Mao, or the Bolsheviks after it became apparent Russia didn't kick off a global revolution.

What're you talking about? It's insulting and baseless enough to imply that left communists and autonomists are just power-hungry opportunists rather than genuinely left communists and autonomists, but anarcho-communists too? Kropotkin, Malatesta, Goldman, Makhno, and countless others who described themselves as anarcho-communists were all actually masking their intention to seize control of the state?

No, thanks. For general sleeping disorders I prefer Temazepam.

Idealism is imagining that material conditions alone determine historical outcomes. Have you read E.P. Thompson's 'the Making of the English Working-Class'? 'anarcho-capitalism' is a contradiction in terms as 'libertarian communism' is rendered superfluous by anarchism.

Idealism is imagining that the workers will put their heads down and rush forward to break their master's house as a direct consequence of their aching bellies alone. It is entirely idealistic to imagine the worker as responding to economic stimuli by itself.

Advanced? Implies linear motion from point A to point B. I would contend this particular teleological view of history has failed as the application of historical determinism which seeks to make the people fit the theory rather than the theory fit the people. Communist? You appear to be using the term interchangeably with Anarchist or, at least, conflating the two together. At the racetrack, it's known as a bet each way.

I reject the term communist as it is far too redolent of the State. To use the term libertarian communist or anarchist-communist only serves to legitimate the user of the term anarcho-capitalism and as such forms part of the propaganda against anarchism.

Why not just call the eight of diamonds the Eight of Diamonds?

Anarchy. Anarchy now.

There is no such thing as isolated regions. Not any more, neighbour.

So what if they did? I'm talking about now - that is, in reference to the intervening historical events that have occurred since they were around. Anarchist makes Anarcho-Communist or Anarchist Communist superfluous. It is no longer necessary. It only serves to legitimate other hyphenated anarchisms - something uni students love because it gives them an excuse to sit around in coffee bars arguing about the fine distinctions they make up. Look at Peter Marshall or his predecessor George Woodcock. It gives credibility to the notion that anarchism is anything that, not only what anyone thinks it is, but anything the press, the commentariat or any other self-appointed smartarse says it is. Taken all together, anarchism can mean everything and anything and therefore nothing.

Tempted as you may be, please spare me the lecture about what may appear to you as an endeavour on my part to 'purify' anarchist thought. I'm not trying to purify anarchism but more to give it definition, as a means of answering the question that may be put; Define your terms?

Where did Kropotkin use the term? And Malatesta? I don't recall the term being used in his 'Anarchy'.

Well, I'm sure I can find a few articles summarizing what it (historical materialism) is if you aren't already aware.

Hugh? Vulgar or base materialism is imagining that material conditions alone determine historical outcomes. I'll edit this later and post some short simple language articles on historical materialism that wont put you to sleep.

Hugh?

Hugh? All anarchists are against private property, wage labor, rent blah blah hugh?

Hugh?

I deserved some trolling. Thank you.

I am Lugius not Hugh. Who's Hugh? I starting to think we are talking at cross purposes.

I am trying to make two points; Materialism is inadequate, call it anarchism if that's what you mean, not communism.