they neither achieved or even attempted to implement communism?
They did try to implement it, though. Or rather they started a transformation (i.e. collectivization, de-kulakization, etc) of society that they thought was necessary for communism. Say what you want about Lenin, Stalin and co. (and there’s a lot to be said), they were true believers in the stuff they were selling. It’s absolutely fair to call them communist.
They did try to implement it, though. Or rather they started a transformation (i.e. collectivization, de-kulakization, etc) of society that they thought was necessary for communism.
… yet it’s “generous” to describe the provisional government which was dominated by socialist parties as socialist leaning?
Say what you want about Lenin, Stalin and co. (and there’s a lot to be said), they were true believers in the stuff they were selling. It’s absolutely fair to call them communist.
Stalin’s position as a true believer is dubious at best.
Lenin there could be an argument for, although I think he was just a very clever manipulator that used the guise of being on the side of the people to gain power. But there’s at least a debate to be had there.
I talked about Stalin in my reply to Pug so I’ll stick to Lenin here: Your framing is only possible in hindsight. Remember that Lenin was a Bolshevik back when it was the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, a full 20 years before the revolution. He was expelled from university for getting into radical student politics before Nicholas II even took the throne. Same as Stalin—but even more so due to being from a wealthy and prestigious family with lots of opportunity for social advancement—if he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve done literally anything with his life. Painting evil mass murderers as fakes is appealing, but in this case it doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny; both had already been committed radicals for way too long by the time of the revolution.
No, plenty of people at the time condemned Lenin as a hypocrite without any real principles and a tyrant-in-waiting.
if he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve done literally anything with his life. Painting evil mass murderers as fakes is appealing, but in this case it doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny; both had already been committed radicals for way too long by the time of the revolution.
Are there any major mass murderers who came to power, rather than inheriting it (literally or effectively) who weren’t true believers by your criteria?
No, plenty of people at the time condemned Lenin as a hypocrite without any real principles and a tyrant-in-waiting.
Which is just the sort of intra-socialist mudslinging that would’ve been a dime a dozen in the decades leading up to the revolution. Nobody goes to prison for principles they don’t have.
Are there any major mass murderers who came to power, rather than inheriting it (literally or effectively) who weren’t true believers by your criteria?
I mean any mass murderer has to be a true believer in something, at least so they can sleep at night; the question is whether they’re true believers in the thing they’re espousing in public, and in that case my example would be Hitler. He believed in the bigotry and genocide to be sure, but the “socialism” part of “national socialism” was obviously bogus. That said, most mass murderers do at least vaguely believe in the reasons they espouse for the mass murder; it’s hard to be a mass murderer otherwise.
Which is just the sort of intra-socialist mudslinging that would’ve been a dime a dozen in the decades leading up to the revolution.
Okay, but it clearly demonstrates that the framing of Lenin as the fascist scumsucking mass-murderer-in-waiting that he was does not require hindsight, as numerous socialists at the time, by your own admission, recognized that fact.
Nobody goes to prison for principles they don’t have.
That is an incredibly naive position to take. People willingly suffer for all sorts of fucking reasons, and principles are pretty far down the list.
I mean any mass murderer has to be a true believer in something,
… “their grip on power” comes to mind.
at least so they can sleep at night;
… I don’t even know where to begin on this one.
the question is whether they’re true believers in the thing they’re espousing in public, and in that case my example would be Hitler. He believed in the bigotry and genocide to be sure, but the “socialism” part of “national socialism” was obviously bogus.
He also didn’t espouse socialism in public.
That said, most mass murderers do at least vaguely believe in the reasons they espouse for the mass murder; it’s hard to be a mass murderer otherwise.
So your answer to the question is ‘no’.
Chiang Kai-Shek? A true believer (in what, God only fucking knows). Pierre Laval? A true believer. Jean-Bédel Bokassa? A true believer. Blaise Compaoré? A true believer.
Okay, but it clearly demonstrates that the framing of Lenin as the fascist scumsucking mass-murderer-in-waiting that he was does not require hindsight, as numerous socialists at the time, by your own admission, recognized that fact.
That’s… not what I was saying though? Whether Lenin had the makings of a tyrant or not, he had to have believed in the revolution or he wouldn’t have dedicated his life to it (which, love him or hate it, that’s exactly what he did). Lenin had been a professional revolutionary for more than 20 years by 1917, and the idea that this was all an act so he could eventually seize ultimate power is frankly ridiculous without some hard evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That is an incredibly naive position to take. People willingly suffer for all sorts of fucking reasons, and principles are pretty far down the list.
I mean unless he got himself expelled from university and derailed his career for material gain, it’d have to be principle.
He also didn’t espouse socialism in public.
“Why,” I asked Hitler, “do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party program is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?” “Socialism,” he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, “is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution […] We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.”
No? The answer to my question is “Hitler,” but also of these the one I know is Kai-shek, and that guy was absolutely a true believer… in radical conservatism, rule by the ultra-rich and somehow also Georgism??? Either way current or future tyrants craft their ideologies at least in part to justify their rule, making them essentially rationalizations, in which case yeah mass murdering dictators had ways to rationalize their atrocities. It’s impossible not to kill thousands or millions of people and not feel something about it; that’s just not how people are built.
Whether Lenin had the makings of a tyrant or not, he had to have believed in the revolution or he wouldn’t have dedicated his life to it (which, love him or hate it, that’s exactly what he did). Lenin had been a professional revolutionary for more than 20 years by 1917, and the idea that this was all an act so he could eventually seize ultimate power is frankly ridiculous without some hard evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
“The idea that people would work towards power all their lives is ridiculous” is really the position you’re taking.
… come the fuck on.
I mean unless he got himself expelled from university and derailed his career for material gain, it’d have to be principle.
This may be a shock, so I invite you to sit if you aren’t sitting already, but there are more things in life than just material gain and principles.
“Why,” I asked Hitler, “do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party program is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?” “Socialism,” he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, “is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution […] We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.”
Which has about all the validity of redefining democracy as autocracy, and then claiming to be a believer in democracy.
But furthermore, and contrary to your claims, this would establish Hitler as a ‘true believer’ in the socialism he espoused in public.
No? The answer to my question is “Hitler,”
… but you already explicitly said that you considered Hitler a true believer in his core causes.
but also of these the one I know is Kai-shek, and that guy was absolutely a true believer… in radical conservatism, rule by the ultra-rich and somehow also Georgism???
Radical conservatism, except for the part where the KMT was anti-conservative in both rhetoric and, when it suited Kai-shek et co’s power-seeking to be so, action. Rule by the ultra-rich, except for the part where the ultra-rich took a backseat to the military and any-fucking-one-else that Kai-shek felt he needed at the time.
Either way current or future tyrants craft their ideologies at least in part to justify their rule, making them essentially rationalizations, in which case yeah mass murdering dictators had ways to rationalize their atrocities.
So in what way is being a true believer different than being a venal opportunist?
It’s impossible not to kill thousands or millions of people and not feel something about it; that’s just not how people are built.
It’s incredibly easy. You probably kill people all the time, man. I kill people all the time. All you have to do is reduce it from seeing someone face-to-face (and some people can do even that, though they’re generally exceptional and often sick fucks) to a distant, bureaucratic process.
We’re both probably relatively normal human beings. Actually, fuck that - we’re both probably above-average in conscientiousness. You heap moral opprobrium on the consciences major political actors all the time for their murders - not without cause. Do you want to take a guess at how easily they would sign away millions of lives and sleep easy for the least cause of staying in power?
Stalin’s position as a true believer is dubious at best.
I mean he certainly didn’t believe in democracy, but the way the economy of the USSR was run was the most communist thing the world had ever seen by that point (that lasted longer than three years). The communism s mixed with Stalin’s authoritarianism, bigotry and paranoia, but there’s no way collectivization and the five year plans were anything but (preparation for) communism. Besides, Stalin was a Bolshevik from when they were robbing banks to fund their activities, so it’s not like he joined for the upward mobility. If he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve been doing literally anything else with his life.
I mean he certainly didn’t believe in democracy, but the way the economy of the USSR was run was the most communist thing the world had ever seen by that point (that lasted longer than three years).
What the ever-loving fuck.
This… this is the same ‘communist’ economy which openly declared that one-man direction in the workplace was the founding principle of socialism?
The communism s mixed with Stalin’s authoritarianism, bigotry and paranoia, but there’s no way collectivization and the five year plans were anything but (preparation for) communism.
Because they… reduced peasants and proletariat into the position of effective serfdom under a bureaucratic despotism not dissimilar to pre-modern regimes like Confucian China…?
That’s… that’s what preparation for communism looks like to you?
“It’s not capitalist so it must be on the way to communism” is not a very good lens with which to view economics.
Besides, Stalin was a Bolshevik from when they were robbing banks to fund their activities, so it’s not like he joined for the upward mobility. If he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve been doing literally anything else with his life.
This… this is the same ‘communist’ economy which openly declared that one-man direction in the workplace was the founding principle of socialism?
Yep, exactly those guys. Again he was authoritarian as fuck, but it’s not like the USSR Communists invented authoritarian socialism; that was already a thing by that point. One can be a socialist without believing in democracy.
Because they… reduced peasants and proletariat into the position of effective serfdom under a bureaucratic despotism not dissimilar to pre-modern regimes like Confucian China…?
Premodern China had private property, though, which is the crux of the thing here. Political systems and economic systems influence each other, but in terms of categorization they’re more or less orthogonal.
That’s… that’s what preparation for communism looks like to you?
I mean it’s not my idea of preparation for communism, but it’s an idea of preparation for communism. Industrialization and modernization as prerequisites wouldn’t have been particularly controversial. From there the only logical leap needed is “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs” and “if we don’t hurry they’ll fucking kill us” (which is basically what happened). Again I don’t agree with the logic, but it does exist and doesn’t outwardly contradict socialist ideas if you’re willing to take a far-more-than-healthy dose of “the ends justify the means.”
Yep, exactly those guys. Again he was authoritarian as fuck, but it’s not like the USSR Communists invented authoritarian socialism; that was already a thing by that point. One can be a socialist without believing in democracy.
…
Please note that I cited one-man direction in the workplace.
In what world is managerial control by bureaucrats in an undemocratic system socialism?
Premodern China had private property, though, which is the crux of the thing here.
Technically so did the Stalinist-era Soviet Union. In both cases, to varying degrees, it was marginalized in favor of state control.
Political systems and economic systems influence each other, but in terms of categorization they’re more or less orthogonal.
what
I mean it’s not my idea of preparation for communism, but it’s an idea of preparation for communism. Industrialization and modernization as prerequisites wouldn’t have been particularly controversial.
… “Democracy is a prerequisite for socialism” gets you to call the architects indistinguishable from liberals, and therefore unworthy of being called even ‘socialist-leaning’, but “Genocide and suppression of the proletariat is a prerequisite for socialism” means that it’s unfair to call them anything but true-believer communists?
From there the only logical leap needed is “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs” and “if we don’t hurry they’ll fucking kill us” (which is basically what happened).
fucking what
…why?
… because people use fringe organizations to climb the ladder all the time without being true believers?
“Every Old Bolshevik, bottom-to-top, was a true believer!” is a fucking insane position to take, and what your claim necessarily implies. Not only that, but it also necessarily suggests many of the socialists you’ve derided are, likewise, true believers and thus ‘deserving’ of being called socialists - yet in contradiction to this necessary implication, you parrot the Bolshevik line of them just being liberals painted red (ironic, considering Bolsheviks are fascists painted red, but there’s no power like projection). Furthermore, your position suggests that few, if any, major mass murderers were anything but true believers, not opportunists, which is dubious at best.
They did try to implement it, though. Or rather they started a transformation (i.e. collectivization, de-kulakization, etc) of society that they thought was necessary for communism. Say what you want about Lenin, Stalin and co. (and there’s a lot to be said), they were true believers in the stuff they were selling. It’s absolutely fair to call them communist.
… yet it’s “generous” to describe the provisional government which was dominated by socialist parties as socialist leaning?
Stalin’s position as a true believer is dubious at best.
Stalin’s position as a true believer is bonkers!
Lenin there could be an argument for, although I think he was just a very clever manipulator that used the guise of being on the side of the people to gain power. But there’s at least a debate to be had there.
But Stalin?! Aye, that’s bollocks.
I talked about Stalin in my reply to Pug so I’ll stick to Lenin here: Your framing is only possible in hindsight. Remember that Lenin was a Bolshevik back when it was the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, a full 20 years before the revolution. He was expelled from university for getting into radical student politics before Nicholas II even took the throne. Same as Stalin—but even more so due to being from a wealthy and prestigious family with lots of opportunity for social advancement—if he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve done literally anything with his life. Painting evil mass murderers as fakes is appealing, but in this case it doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny; both had already been committed radicals for way too long by the time of the revolution.
No, plenty of people at the time condemned Lenin as a hypocrite without any real principles and a tyrant-in-waiting.
Are there any major mass murderers who came to power, rather than inheriting it (literally or effectively) who weren’t true believers by your criteria?
Which is just the sort of intra-socialist mudslinging that would’ve been a dime a dozen in the decades leading up to the revolution. Nobody goes to prison for principles they don’t have.
I mean any mass murderer has to be a true believer in something, at least so they can sleep at night; the question is whether they’re true believers in the thing they’re espousing in public, and in that case my example would be Hitler. He believed in the bigotry and genocide to be sure, but the “socialism” part of “national socialism” was obviously bogus. That said, most mass murderers do at least vaguely believe in the reasons they espouse for the mass murder; it’s hard to be a mass murderer otherwise.
Okay, but it clearly demonstrates that the framing of Lenin as the fascist scumsucking mass-murderer-in-waiting that he was does not require hindsight, as numerous socialists at the time, by your own admission, recognized that fact.
That is an incredibly naive position to take. People willingly suffer for all sorts of fucking reasons, and principles are pretty far down the list.
… “their grip on power” comes to mind.
… I don’t even know where to begin on this one.
He also didn’t espouse socialism in public.
So your answer to the question is ‘no’.
Chiang Kai-Shek? A true believer (in what, God only fucking knows). Pierre Laval? A true believer. Jean-Bédel Bokassa? A true believer. Blaise Compaoré? A true believer.
That’s… not what I was saying though? Whether Lenin had the makings of a tyrant or not, he had to have believed in the revolution or he wouldn’t have dedicated his life to it (which, love him or hate it, that’s exactly what he did). Lenin had been a professional revolutionary for more than 20 years by 1917, and the idea that this was all an act so he could eventually seize ultimate power is frankly ridiculous without some hard evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I mean unless he got himself expelled from university and derailed his career for material gain, it’d have to be principle.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
No? The answer to my question is “Hitler,” but also of these the one I know is Kai-shek, and that guy was absolutely a true believer… in radical conservatism, rule by the ultra-rich and somehow also Georgism??? Either way current or future tyrants craft their ideologies at least in part to justify their rule, making them essentially rationalizations, in which case yeah mass murdering dictators had ways to rationalize their atrocities. It’s impossible not to kill thousands or millions of people and not feel something about it; that’s just not how people are built.
“The idea that people would work towards power all their lives is ridiculous” is really the position you’re taking.
… come the fuck on.
This may be a shock, so I invite you to sit if you aren’t sitting already, but there are more things in life than just material gain and principles.
Which has about all the validity of redefining democracy as autocracy, and then claiming to be a believer in democracy.
But furthermore, and contrary to your claims, this would establish Hitler as a ‘true believer’ in the socialism he espoused in public.
… but you already explicitly said that you considered Hitler a true believer in his core causes.
Radical conservatism, except for the part where the KMT was anti-conservative in both rhetoric and, when it suited Kai-shek et co’s power-seeking to be so, action. Rule by the ultra-rich, except for the part where the ultra-rich took a backseat to the military and any-fucking-one-else that Kai-shek felt he needed at the time.
So in what way is being a true believer different than being a venal opportunist?
It’s incredibly easy. You probably kill people all the time, man. I kill people all the time. All you have to do is reduce it from seeing someone face-to-face (and some people can do even that, though they’re generally exceptional and often sick fucks) to a distant, bureaucratic process.
We’re both probably relatively normal human beings. Actually, fuck that - we’re both probably above-average in conscientiousness. You heap moral opprobrium on the consciences major political actors all the time for their murders - not without cause. Do you want to take a guess at how easily they would sign away millions of lives and sleep easy for the least cause of staying in power?
I mean he certainly didn’t believe in democracy, but the way the economy of the USSR was run was the most communist thing the world had ever seen by that point (that lasted longer than three years). The communism s mixed with Stalin’s authoritarianism, bigotry and paranoia, but there’s no way collectivization and the five year plans were anything but (preparation for) communism. Besides, Stalin was a Bolshevik from when they were robbing banks to fund their activities, so it’s not like he joined for the upward mobility. If he wasn’t a true believer he could’ve been doing literally anything else with his life.
What the ever-loving fuck.
This… this is the same ‘communist’ economy which openly declared that one-man direction in the workplace was the founding principle of socialism?
Because they… reduced peasants and proletariat into the position of effective serfdom under a bureaucratic despotism not dissimilar to pre-modern regimes like Confucian China…?
That’s… that’s what preparation for communism looks like to you?
“It’s not capitalist so it must be on the way to communism” is not a very good lens with which to view economics.
This can’t be fucking serious.
Yep, exactly those guys. Again he was authoritarian as fuck, but it’s not like the USSR Communists invented authoritarian socialism; that was already a thing by that point. One can be a socialist without believing in democracy.
Premodern China had private property, though, which is the crux of the thing here. Political systems and economic systems influence each other, but in terms of categorization they’re more or less orthogonal.
I mean it’s not my idea of preparation for communism, but it’s an idea of preparation for communism. Industrialization and modernization as prerequisites wouldn’t have been particularly controversial. From there the only logical leap needed is “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs” and “if we don’t hurry they’ll fucking kill us” (which is basically what happened). Again I don’t agree with the logic, but it does exist and doesn’t outwardly contradict socialist ideas if you’re willing to take a far-more-than-healthy dose of “the ends justify the means.”
…why?
…
Please note that I cited one-man direction in the workplace.
In what world is managerial control by bureaucrats in an undemocratic system socialism?
Technically so did the Stalinist-era Soviet Union. In both cases, to varying degrees, it was marginalized in favor of state control.
what
… “Democracy is a prerequisite for socialism” gets you to call the architects indistinguishable from liberals, and therefore unworthy of being called even ‘socialist-leaning’, but “Genocide and suppression of the proletariat is a prerequisite for socialism” means that it’s unfair to call them anything but true-believer communists?
fucking what
… because people use fringe organizations to climb the ladder all the time without being true believers?
“Every Old Bolshevik, bottom-to-top, was a true believer!” is a fucking insane position to take, and what your claim necessarily implies. Not only that, but it also necessarily suggests many of the socialists you’ve derided are, likewise, true believers and thus ‘deserving’ of being called socialists - yet in contradiction to this necessary implication, you parrot the Bolshevik line of them just being liberals painted red (ironic, considering Bolsheviks are fascists painted red, but there’s no power like projection). Furthermore, your position suggests that few, if any, major mass murderers were anything but true believers, not opportunists, which is dubious at best.