How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

Do you fucking people hear yourselves?

3. Global socialism has not fragmented nor isolated, but rather grown stronger and more confident as links between the PRC, the SRV, and the DPRK are strengthened and the power of the US to threaten them and play them against one another has declined dramatically in the past 10 years. Global socialism is healthier and stronger now than it has ever been in history.

3. this is so absurd idek what to say to it. doesnt even warrant a response

And yes, socialism is stronger now than it has been in a long while. The fact that this socialism doesn't fit within your narrow definition of socialism doesn't make it any less socialist. As far as you're concerned, socialism doesn't exist, and that's fine. That's your interpretation of reality. We're not obliged to be beholden to it or entertain it.

and it has nothing to do with my “narrow definition of socialism”, i could accept that all those examples listed are socialism par excellence, they would still be islands in an overwhelmingly non-socialist landscape globally as compared to the peak of socialist activity half a century ago. one very large and strong socialist state =/ strong global socialist movement

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

Do you fucking people hear yourselves?

3. Global socialism has not fragmented nor isolated, but rather grown stronger and more confident as links between the PRC, the SRV, and the DPRK are strengthened and the power of the US to threaten them and play them against one another has declined dramatically in the past 10 years. Global socialism is healthier and stronger now than it has ever been in history.

3. this is so absurd idek what to say to it. doesnt even warrant a response

What You’ve Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us

And this is really true of any futuristic apocalypse scenario. If you can terraform Mars to have a thick oxygen atmosphere, why not just do that to Earth? Even if you smash an ice comet into Earth and destroy basically everything, Earth will still be more habitable than Mars! It'll still have roughly the right atmospheric pressure, and magnetic field, and heat balance, and it'll still have whatever life the comet didn't kill... Same with a starshade to cool Venus. Same with excavating asteroids into city-stations. Same with abandoning Sol System entirely and heading to another star. If an ark-ship arrived in a new star system and found Earth-but-choked-by-climate-change, the crew would be ecstatic. They would never have thought to get that lucky. So why bother with the trip? Just stay and fix the damn Earth.

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

All of this is before we even get to the issue of what socialism is, who it’s by, and what it’s for. Those are immediate, everyday questions for anyone in the movement. That isn’t impatience so much as a question of who’s going things, what they’re doing, and what they’re doing it for in the here and now. These occur to any normal person we try to convince to participate in the movement. To think about this isn’t narrow workerism or reductionism but trying to bring their actual questions into the theory of the movement. I don’t see why that would smother their growing political consciousness in a way that wouldn’t be much more true about having a script about how we need to wait until Chinese infrastructure projects make it easier to act. The CPC has failed to take the lead in the case of Israel, when they had plenty of room to act on that front if they took a hit in their short term interests in Israeli industries (doomed to decline from war and isolation at this point anyways) and prioritized their partners who promise long term growth and ascendancy. I was willing to be open to them until they made this choice

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

Do you fucking people hear yourselves?

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.

How can you presume to lead a nation toward communism if you're constantly capitulating to the narrow demands of individual workers' unions and their already relatively privileged members compared to the rural population? It's not "un-Marxist" to prevent independent labor unions from forming. Quite the contrary: from this standpoint, allowing autonomous unions to develop competing centers of political and economic power risks ultimately subordinating long-term socialist development to sectional interests.

this post is so awesome

The actual problem that developed within the Soviet trade unions over time is they only represented the interests of the union representatives and their contractual relations with the public bureaucrats. That was little different than the problem of American unions like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which agreed to the no-strike pledge during WWII in exchange for union recognition and full employment while its rank-and-file resisted the peace treaty with corporate management and organized wildcat strikes over the control of the production process throughout the 1940s. That period of rank-and-file revolt against work and over the nature or course of development seems much more promising to me than an imaginary developmentalist state cracking down on unions so that they don’t get in the way of the accumulation of national capital

Lewin became a Zionist for basically the same reason he had been a Sovietist, this was pretty common for the postwar generation of Israeli settlers (David Ben-Gurion was an explicit admirer of Lenin and Stalin until the ‘50s). The problems with his work on the Soviet Union are for the most part the same as the problems with any nationalist, which is where a historian critical of nationalism like Ronald Grigor Suny can be brought in but then that’s 500+ total pages of reading recommendation for an off handed reference that’s meant to direct to a relevant context

As I see it, creating highly favorable conditions for workers, meeting the demands of survival under a hostile world system, and achieving developmental goals in a timely and adequate fashion can create mutually contradictory demands. These are problems Lenin grappled with, of course, but he never lived to oversee their solutions to completion; he died only a few years into the process.

Socialism that’s only better conditions, competition with other states, and achieving development goals could describe anything from the U.S. New Deal to Francois Spain. The latter even had public ownership of railways, aviation, communications, energy, and manufacturing. What made the Russian Revolution and revolutions like it distinct was the mass revolution driven by everyday workers’ desire to control the production process, peasants’ desire for freedom from serfdom or indenture, and colonized people for self-determination. All of these bring up not only problems of a single development process in completing itself but the question of what development is, for whom it is, what it should be, and how it is attempting to develop its goal

Meanwhile, a narrower project focused primarily on improving workers’ living conditions might, at best, produce a self-contained workers’ paradise that, by failing to prioritize rapid development and strategic autonomy, leaves itself vulnerable to being crushed and resubordinated into the existing world system. Revolutionary Burkina Faso was, in many ways, an example of this.

also “develop first, transform later” is bifurcating the issue, development along capitalist lines creates certain productive relations, its not simply a question of ownership. how do you ‘transform’ a funko pop factory? what about an international supply chain? its not as simple as a change in hands.