Bakuni and Marx Fight

[COMMUNALISM]

When Marx and Lenin say "dictatorship of the proletariat", the are not talking about a dictatorship OVER the people. They are saying the proletariat controls everything.

[LeftPolitiko]

Bakunin is extremely overrated. He is treated like a prophet who predicted the rise of Stalinism when, in reality, he was a sectarian demagogue who helped to break up the first international.

[ZYKLONBKILLSHITLER]

I wish they never fought I thought they were BFF

[Knoss]

If people understood Marx's views on this matter they Holocaust, Holdomor ect would not come as such a surprise. In 1975 the New York Times claimed Cambodia better without America, some blamed Pol Pot on Nixon's bombings. If people better understood the issue they would know that genocide is essential to class warfare and would have demanded military aid to the free nations of indochina.

[afthefragile]

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is the problem with a socialist state. One person can't be given that much power!

"Don't tell me how some power can corrupt a person, you haven't had enough to know what its like!"

[Ilikenuman]

a socialist state does not have a leader. all the people make the decisions for themselves

[afthefragile]

thats anarchy mate.

[Ilikenuman]

no it isnt seriously. read karl marxs texts. The state will gradually dissappear on its own and there will be no need.

[afthefragile]

And that will never happen.

Cuz as all animals are equal, some animals will always remain more equal than others.

No person will just give up their power to control the whole state that easily. And there will always be people looking to take advantage of situations looking to rule over or push over their ideals onto others.

The problem is not with the system but it lies within the human nature. For the system to work, the human nature needs to change first.

[Ilikenuman]

have you ever heard of the commun de paris?

[afthefragile]

It'll work in a small community, under certain special circumstances. Like say during war periods or periods of tension/oppression where strength belongs in numbers.

It won't work for a whole big state. It'll always end up producing a Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler or Mao.

[Solechnaya]

I have agreements with both of these men. At times, Marx was at fault and so was Bakunin.

[kvierekpo]

Bakunin (L)

[chilam8668]

this is why though I'm a radical I work with "progressive" non-profits because some stuff actually gets done. WHen I go to a meeting of a group of communists or anarchists all i get is a bunch of pretentious blowhards talking smack about other pretentious blowhards and talking about "the working class" like they were a part of it.

[sweetpotos]

Weren't you saying something earlier about "sarcastic elitism"? I bet that is something you understand quite well...

[figocooldude]

histoy proved you wrong dear Marx

[ironagetheatre]

The play actually supports your position. Zinn speaks through Marx but Marx is proven wrong through this very message. New video coming to show some of this.

[Solechnaya]

Yes, he was proven wrong, but he was also right about many things.

[Tougemaster06]

@figocooldude Not necessarily. It wasn't so much Marx's idea that directly caused the SOviet Union. It was Lenin's confabulation of Marx's work that led to dictatorship. Bakunin was right that Marx's work had an error but to say it was Marx's theory period that was the problem is stretching it some. You would have to a state remain in order for freedom to eventually come to pass. How would you keep people from murdering each other or stealing people's personal belongings?

[Azash123]

@figocooldude not entirely

[JagArKrig]

Furthermore, I love Bakunin. An exemplary of his true anarchism was the very fact that he was part of the Russian nobility but disavowed and repudiated the latter when he could have virtually had anything. Wish I could say the same about Marx or Lenin (who was raised in a petty bourgeois family). But I do love their ideas and incorporate theirs in my own.

[4296742]

Marx is not a marxist i'm a communist nothing else i'm not a (insert name here)-ist and will never be one i look only to my fellow man not just one

[Harpakhrad11]

Too bad Bakunin did not kill him.

[barril]

he did't because he was not like Marx! aahaha

[Harpakhrad11]

LOL!

[westphalianprinz]

I may be the only state socialist left in America.

[Harpakhrad11]

If only...

[sweetpotos]

If you are a state socialist you are not a Marxist. State power is only a temporary means utilized in order to prevent a bourgeois counter-revolution. Even then, the proletarian state, as exemplified in the Paris Commune, is not a state in the traditional sense, as Engels pointed out.

[westphalianprinz]

I'm a Marxist-Leninist, actually.

[sweetpotos]

So am I. But nothing in Marxism-Leninism implies "state socialism." Bakunin did not understand Marx, so he grouped him and Lassalle (who, by the way, is the one way promulgated "state socialism") together as espousing the same theory, which was a stupid thing to do.

All you are doing is playing into the hands of the anarchists, who are simply confused children. Anarchists are too idealistic and simple-minded to rationally criticize modern society, instead they merely hurl reproaches at it.

[JagArKrig]

We want the same thing as Marxists, minus the prerequisite dictatorship. It was crude and uncalled for, for you to ad hominem a whole group, because of a few persons. Why can't we co-exist? We both espouse statelessness and classlessness, the extirpation of capitalism, and a symmetry in wealth.

[sweetpotos]

And who said that Marxists "want" the dictatorship? Don't you accept the class struggle as the motive force of history? Don't you see that every class must dictatorial impose its interests on others? Do you simply reject the dictatorship of the proletariat because you don't like dictatorships? If you have any real reason why you don't think it's necessary, not based on moral judgements but on a rational analysis I would love to hear it. I have never heard any anarchist even attempt to do that.

[JagArKrig]

Hello, swwetpotos. Thank you very much for the speedy response.

I believe you have a little too much hope vested into a particular partisan clique. Power corrupts a man, regardless of his political affiliation. Lenin's dialogues suggested a preliminary dictatorship to Marxist utopia, but he was a bona fide despot with no regards to the people. This has happened so many times, too. They're all the same, they spout their populist rhetoric, but when push comes to shove, nothing changes.

[JagArKrig]

Moreover, Lenin was just another dirty despot that undermined Marxist principles and fidelity.

Can you please give examples of communist dictatorships that ended up in accord with Marxist orthodoxy?

[JagArKrig]

And please, leave your pretension at the door. You're irrational by using nasty discourse.

[EnjoyOppression]

The question arises, if the proletariat is ruling, over whom will it rule? This means there will remain another proletariat which will be subordinated to this new domination, this new state.

- Mikhail Bakunin

[sweetpotos]

Herr Bakunin is absolutely right. And this "new Proletariat" is called the Bourgeoisie.

[chilam8668]

read z"the political mind" by george lakoff. Reason and morality go hand in hand and the old view of rationality is wrong according to the latest research from cognitive neuroscience. To ignore the immorality of a dictatorship, which goes against everything we value about freedom because it is "ratonal" is to allow such fuck-ups like Stalinism and Maoism to take hold.

[sweetpotos]

Oh so Stalinism is simply the consequence of a lax in morals? Is that right? Gosh, I thought some sort of Scientific analysis of objective historical factors was the answer, but clearly I was wrong. If only Stalin had had you guys to instruct him on proper morality, everything would've been just fine!

If you don't belief in using force to defend your ideals, then you have already forfeited your ideals to the enemy.

[chilam8668]

well, Stalinism was immoral, but what I was saying is that rationality and morality don't have to be opposing factors. If morality wasn't an issue, why would you believe that capitalism is unjust? Furthermore, it is the sarcastic elitism and "i know better than thou" attitude of dogmatic fools that also helps lead to the failures of communism. You love the smell of your own "scientific analytic" farts so much you can't begin to change your view on anything.

[sweetpotos]

No matter what I may think consciously, I am opposed to capitalism because it is against my material interests as a Proletarian, I certainly frame that in terms of ethical ideas but what is at the root of those ideas can only be my material being. The same goes for Stalinists, you won't learn anything from examining their moral attitudes alone, you also have to analyze their class interests; is that really such a hard thing to grasp? And by the way, I change my mind on things constantly.

[AestheticizeAnalog]

So, you are a nihilist effectively. If you can't show that capitalism is immoral, I really care not for your cause, because you have just ruled out non-instrumental rationality from having a place, and through so doing accepted nihilism.

[AestheticizeAnalog]

Any form of philosophizing about history cannot be scientific unless one presupposes knowledge in order to understand that history. Only with knowledge of politics,ethics, economics, and sociology can studying history lead to anything but arbitrary speculation, because you have to be able to see what is relevant in history, and that already presupposes an understanding of socially relevant factors.

[chrispollock]

@JagArKrig one calls for forced collectivism through dictatorship. one calls for voluntary association. they couldn't be different.

[westphalianprinz]

Marx was right. Bakunin was just spinning his wheels.

[anarchy4ever25]

bakunin's my favourite

[KentAllard]

Bakunin was right, what Marx formulated led to to the 'red bureaucracy'

[westphalianprinz]

I know what I say isn't popular. But I'm in the real world, and you guys aren't.

[KentAllard]

what has that got to do with what I said?