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> Speaking of which (and continuing to troll)-- anyone know why the lower-case "other leftists" in Barcelona boxed up the photographic evidence of their existen

by adg001 5y ago

> Speaking of which (and continuing to troll)-- anyone know why the lower-case "other leftists" in Barcelona boxed up the photographic evidence of their existence and sent it to the UK instead of the USSR for safekeeping[2]? I mean if the forces against fascism were "Communists, Etcetera" why not send them there? You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country [3]. The Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel argues in "From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: The Bitter Fruits of 'Socialism in One Country'" that when Soviet Union in 1924 abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world lead to development of what later was called Eurocommunism [4], with their democratic way to social reforms. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_one_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_one_country [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
> You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country They really aren't. The Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War -- the ones who put their boot down on Orwell's beloved POUM and other Trotskyists -- were honest-to-god Soviets. But yes, more democratic "Communist" parties did exist in Western Europe later, and there is a large space of "third way" Socialisms and Communisms that are not Stalinist hell.
- jimnotgym 5y ago
  I don't have my copy of Homage to hand, but I seem to remember Orwell being in the POUM militia was more or less an accident of how he arrived in Spain and nothing to do with it being 'beloved'. As an aside, I once met a Spanish Civil War veteran from South Wales. I got the impression that he went to fight the fascists because it was the right thing to do ('If you tolerate this then your children will be next' was a famous slogan that made it into a song), not because of ideological indoctrination. He was a socialist in the British sense, but that should not suggest the slightest parallel with Stalinism
csee 5y ago
Stalin's doctrine wasn't only to establish communism in Russia. He just realized it was impractical to export communism immediately. His intentional long-term play was to stoke war across the world between capitalist countries so that that war would create the desperate conditions for revolution within those countries similar to the role that WW1 played in creating the conditions for revolution within Russia. That's why he blocked reform to the Versailles Treaty, among other actions.
- adg001 5y ago
  You failed to understand what I wrote - notwithstanding the reference I provided, and which you haven't.
  - csee 5y ago
    I don't believe I misunderstood. You said the USSR abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world in 1924. They (Stalin, in the 1930s, at least) didn't do that exactly. They just temporarily abandoned it as a direct goal based on their own direct intervention, knowing it wouldn't work. They wanted to achieve it firstly indirectly by creating the conditions for revolution in capitalist countries. They also knew that Russia needed to transform into an industrial power before it was possible to expand communism. https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Stalinism#ref539199 https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Stalinism#ref5391... > "A third feature of Stalinism was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. To this end, Stalin rescinded the NEP, began the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, and embarked on a national program of rapid, forced industrialization. > In foreign policy, socialism in one country meant putting the interests of the Soviet Union ahead of the interests of the international communist movement. After World War II, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, an Iron Curtain descended across Europe as Stalin installed communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Soviet-occupied East Germany as a buffer zone against an invasion from western Europe. > Beyond Europe, the Soviet Union supported anticolonial “wars of national liberation” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and gave economic and military support to communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba."

by adg001 5y ago

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

> You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country They really aren't. The Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War -- the ones who put their boot down on Orwell's beloved POUM and other Trotskyists -- were honest-to-god Soviets. But yes, more democratic "Communist" parties did exist in Western Europe later, and there is a large space of "third way" Socialisms and Communisms that are not Stalinist hell.

jimnotgym 5y ago
I don't have my copy of Homage to hand, but I seem to remember Orwell being in the POUM militia was more or less an accident of how he arrived in Spain and nothing to do with it being 'beloved'. As an aside, I once met a Spanish Civil War veteran from South Wales. I got the impression that he went to fight the fascists because it was the right thing to do ('If you tolerate this then your children will be next' was a famous slogan that made it into a song), not because of ideological indoctrination. He was a socialist in the British sense, but that should not suggest the slightest parallel with Stalinism

csee 5y ago

Stalin's doctrine wasn't only to establish communism in Russia. He just realized it was impractical to export communism immediately. His intentional long-term play was to stoke war across the world between capitalist countries so that that war would create the desperate conditions for revolution within those countries similar to the role that WW1 played in creating the conditions for revolution within Russia. That's why he blocked reform to the Versailles Treaty, among other actions.

adg001 5y ago
You failed to understand what I wrote - notwithstanding the reference I provided, and which you haven't.
- csee 5y ago
  I don't believe I misunderstood. You said the USSR abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world in 1924. They (Stalin, in the 1930s, at least) didn't do that exactly. They just temporarily abandoned it as a direct goal based on their own direct intervention, knowing it wouldn't work. They wanted to achieve it firstly indirectly by creating the conditions for revolution in capitalist countries. They also knew that Russia needed to transform into an industrial power before it was possible to expand communism. https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Stalinism#ref539199 https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Stalinism#ref5391... > "A third feature of Stalinism was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. To this end, Stalin rescinded the NEP, began the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, and embarked on a national program of rapid, forced industrialization. > In foreign policy, socialism in one country meant putting the interests of the Soviet Union ahead of the interests of the international communist movement. After World War II, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, an Iron Curtain descended across Europe as Stalin installed communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Soviet-occupied East Germany as a buffer zone against an invasion from western Europe. > Beyond Europe, the Soviet Union supported anticolonial “wars of national liberation” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and gave economic and military support to communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba."