Soviet Imperialism

STALINIST BUREAUCRACY, demorphed workers' states, other idiocy

none of which is capitalism [insult deleted]

Come on Mabool, there's no call for insults. -s78

Mabool you have to realize that Cliffite, or at least his conception of state captalism, has become the dominant Trotskyist analysis of the USSR. So-called "Orthodox" trots are marginalized and are even referred to as tankies by many mainstream trots.

Trotskyism, as a movement, is critically flawed in some fundamental way.

Mabool wrote:

Come on Mabool, there's no call for insults. -s78

But calling my views "idiocy" is not an insult? I think that's actually worse than "stupid".

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Mabool you have to realize that Cliffite, or at least his conception of state captalism, has become the dominant Trotskyist analysis of the USSR.

I dunno about the USA, but I don't even know any cliffite groups in German-speaking countries. The IMT and CWI are absolutely dominant here. I've never even met a cliffite.

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Trotskyism, as a movement, is critically flawed in some fundamental way.

Probably because it's not "a" (as in "one") movement.

Yes the trend of Trotskyist splitting is well known and documented. There must be a material cause for this.

Although I hope you're right and this is purely an American trait. That said nobody calls themselves a Cliffite, really, it's more often people using his analysis without knowing where it came from.

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Yes the trend of Trotskyist splitting is well known and documented. There must be a material cause for this.

As is the trend of splitting of all other communist trends. No two stalinists can agree about the time their so-called "revisionism" began, either.

So what do you think the material cause is?

Fair enough but they don't split as much (at least anymore). And I can't say why this is, and in fact I think this needs real academic attention.

Also what do you think of Sam Marcy? He basically is the Trotskyist who made me a Stalinist.

I hardly know anything about him. I believe he belonged to the crackpot faction that applauded Mao for his "unconscious Trotskyism" like Mandel, is that correct? Tell me more about him and I'll tell you what I think.

His writings do more than I can tell:
http://www.workers.org/marcy/books.html

You can call it a crackpot or you can call it Marxist analysis. Either or.

soviet78 wrote:

and I have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the USSR engendering bourgeois nationalism in Eastern Europe.

Khrushchev rehabilitated Tito, and subsequent Soviet leaders heaped praises on him. Khrushchev had no problems with Nagy (who was pro-Tito and who opposed the "Stalinist" Rákosi) until Nagy's policies began to conflict with the interests of the Soviet revisionists in keeping Hungary in their sphere. Khrushchev endorsed the rise of Kádár, a former Nagy associate whose "Goulash communism" made Hungary one of the most market-friendly regimes in Eastern Europe. Khrushchev likewise supported the Gomułka regime in Poland; he was not only a former "victim" of "Stalinism" like Kádár, but in the 50s he sided with the PCI under Togliatti, who was criticizing Soviet revisionism from the right, saying that 20th Party Congress did not go far enough.

Brezhnev had no problems with Dubček until, as with Nagy, his policies began to endanger Soviet social-imperialist interests in Czechoslovakia. The bourgeois nationalism of Dej and Ceaușescu annoyed the revisionists, but they understood that for all the boasts about the "independence" of Romania, these two leaders remained loyal to Soviet social-imperialism.

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You seem to accept that Mao, while a brilliant revolutionary, was a crackpot in power, who had deviated from Marxism-Leninism even while Stalin was still alive. Why then do you choose to accept and use theoretical constructs and insults created by Maoists to slander the USSR?

I never said he was a "brilliant revolutionary." He was, as Hoxha noted, an overall progressive figure in the bourgeois-democratic mold, and his revisionist "Marxism" was indicative of this fact.

The characterization of the Soviet Union as a social-imperialist power under revisionist leadership, and as a place where capitalism had ben restored, was the line of the Albanian leadership both before and after the unmasking of Chinese revisionism. See for example: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/a ... avrev.html

Another example of Soviet imperialism was the treaty imposed on Finland which ceded to Russia the province of Petsamo and leased “territory and waters for the establishment of a Soviet naval base in the area of Porkkala-Udd.”
During the lifetime of the League of Nations the Soviet Government never failed to point out that the so-called League of Nation’s mandates were only another name for the old avowed annexations of colonial territory. Yet at the end of WWII the UN took over from the league. the Italian colonies came up for disposal, the Soviet Government promptly made a proposal “for international control of two parts of Libya, with a Russian administration in Tripolitania and a British or U.S. one in Cyrenacia.
Forgetting the early Bolshevik arguments against the stupidities and dangers of reparations, Stalin demanded 10,000 million dollars as reparations from Germany.
As for Eastern Europe. The argument goes “Is it to be wondered that the Soviet Union, in its desire to safeguard itself in future, is making an effort to secure in these countries governments loyal to the Soviet Union? How can one, unless one is mad, qualify these steps and aspirations of the Soviet Union as expansionist tendencies in our State?” - Stalin
Ah! The age old argument, we are only protecting our borders! How many times has that been used by an expanding Empire?

In 1948, the American Government published German documents, captured in 1945, which purported to disclose the secret agreement between Russia and Germany after the pact of 1939 was signed by the two Governments. these secret agreements “divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, gave the Baltic Republics to Russia and provided for the partition of Poland … Russia’s claim to naval and military bases on the Dardannelles as part of the ‘carve up’ is recorded.”
In 1918 in a somewhat similar situation the Bolshevik Government was able to make the most devastating of all answers, it answered the secret treaties of the Czar’s Government by renouncing them. It showed the sincerity of its protestations against imperialism by giving up all claims and by evacuating all territories seized against the wishes of inhabitants. The Bolshevik regime was held in high esteem by workers in all countries because it could show clean hands to contrast with the loot-laden talons of all the governments powerful enough to enforce their claim of spoils.
But by 1948 the soviets had shown what they really were, just another band of brigands out to grab as much as they can. Now either Lenin was wrong to denounce secret treaties and land grab in 1918 or Stalin was right to make these agreements and annex Eastern Europe. Comrades, they cannot both the right!

Yami wrote:

Another example of Soviet imperialism was the treaty imposed on Finland which ceded to Russia the province of Petsamo and leased “territory and waters for the establishment of a Soviet naval base in the area of Porkkala-Udd.”

Petsamo had been given to Finland in 1920 because of military conflict between the White regime in Finland and the Bolsheviks in Russia, which had ended in negotiations.

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During the lifetime of the League of Nations the Soviet Government never failed to point out that the so-called League of Nation’s mandates were only another name for the old avowed annexations of colonial territory. Yet at the end of WWII the UN took over from the league. the Italian colonies came up for disposal, the Soviet Government promptly made a proposal “for international control of two parts of Libya, with a Russian administration in Tripolitania and a British or U.S. one in Cyrenacia.

I fail to see how this makes the USSR imperialist. Wherever the Soviets had control over an area that wasn't independent they encouraged the formation of governments and national unification, as in Germany, Austria and Korea. They also didn't support the maintenance of prewar comprador economies, unlike the West which tolerated former collaborators and boosted feudal forces (of which the monarchy was an example in Libya.)

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Ah! The age old argument, we are only protecting our borders! How many times has that been used by an expanding Empire?

Considering that Finland was used as a base against the nascent soviets 20 years earlier, and the Soviets justly feared that the Finnish Government would allow the Nazis to use their country as a base...

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In 1948, the American Government published German documents, captured in 1945, which purported to disclose the secret agreement between Russia and Germany after the pact of 1939 was signed by the two Governments. these secret agreements “divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, gave the Baltic Republics to Russia and provided for the partition of Poland … Russia’s claim to naval and military bases on the Dardannelles as part of the ‘carve up’ is recorded.”

Grover Furr wrote an article on the subject of Poland in 1939, he points out that the Soviets neither partitioned the country nor invaded it, and that this was hardly "secret": http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/rese ... oland.html

I also find it hypocritical of you to denounce the Bolsheviks over Kronstadt (and most anything else) and yet extol them whenever you try to draw a contrast between the policies of Lenin and those of Stalin. Then again you're probably just copy-pasting this stuff from other places.

Same old story. Western Imperialism = bad and evil. Soviet Imperialism = benign and good.

Yami wrote:

Same old story. Western Imperialism = bad and evil. Soviet Imperialism = benign and good.

You're using a cartoonish definition of imperialism though, one which basically says "X country moves into Y" constitutes imperialism, and not actual economic relationships between states let alone questions of national oppression. Explain to me how Soviet moves in-re Finland weren't of a defensive nature. One good read on the subject can be found here: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague ... WAR90.html

[quote="Ismail"]You're using a cartoonish definition of imperialism though, one which basically says "X country moves into Y" constitutes imperialism, and not actual economic relationships between states.
Come on. Can I give you one economic relationship accross your mouth? I mean, you're justifying the attack as being of "economic" nature and then you claim it was defensive? I'm sure the nazis had all the right to go into "economic relationship" with the USSR in June 1941?

EdvardK wrote:

You're using a cartoonish definition of imperialism though, one which basically says "X country moves into Y" constitutes imperialism, and not actual economic relationships between states.
Come on. Can I give you one economic relationship accross your mouth? I mean, you're justifying the attack as being of "economic" nature and then you claim it was defensive? I'm sure the nazis had all the right to go into "economic relationship" with the USSR in June 1941?

One moot point is, they say Soviet expansionism cannot be labelled imperalism ifthe economic costs outweigh the economic benefits. Fine, but what happens when that point is reached within a capitalist empire? Answer comes there none.

Yami wrote:

One moot point is, they say Soviet expansionism cannot be labelled imperalism ifthe economic costs outweigh the economic benefits. Fine, but what happens when that point is reached within a capitalist empire? Answer comes there none.

Those who apologize for Soviet revisionism make that claim in regards to the post-Stalin period. I'm not talking about "economic costs" or whatever, I'm flat-out saying that you cannot demonstrate an imperialist relationship in regards to Petsamo or anything of the sort under Stalin.

EdvardK wrote:

I mean, you're justifying the attack as being of "economic" nature and then you claim it was defensive? I'm sure the nazis had all the right to go into "economic relationship" with the USSR in June 1941?

The Nazis marched eastward because, in the first place, it was seen by the Nazi leadership as necessary for the preservation of German capitalism, hence the concept of Lebensraum and the war economy built up to carry it out. Second, it was to crush the world's first socialist state.

The Soviets, by contrast, knew that the Nazis wanted to conquer the USSR, and they acted accordingly to neutralize the threat from any country likely to work with the Nazis towards this end.

Definition of imperalism:

"an unequal human and territorial relationship, usually in the form of an empire, based on ideas of superiority and practices of dominance, and involving the extension of authority and control of one state or people over another"

Sounds about right for Eastern bloc.

As for evidence I’ll just mention two years, 1956 and 1968. We all know what happened then.

Ismail wrote:

The Soviets, by contrast, knew that the Nazis wanted to conquer the USSR, and they acted accordingly to neutralize the threat from any country likely to work with the Nazis towards this end.

hahaha... Where do you get your history lessons? The Muppet Show?
Stalin abandoned the thesis about world socialism and propagated the theory of single-state socialism. How do you fit that into your grand scheme of events?
Please, keep on writing, you are becoming amusing now.

EdvardK wrote:

Stalin abandoned the thesis about world socialism and propagated the theory of single-state socialism. How do you fit that into your grand scheme of events?

What does your post have to do with my post?

Yami wrote:

Definition of imperalism:

"an unequal human and territorial relationship, usually in the form of an empire, based on ideas of superiority and practices of dominance, and involving the extension of authority and control of one state or people over another"

That's not the Marxist definition, which was given by Lenin. Nor is it the definition given by other Marxists such as Luxemburg. It's a bourgeois definition of the term.

And yes, we know what happened in 1956 and 1968, both the result of Soviet revisionism and the influence of Titoism.