Left anti-Communism;Anarchism and Pseudo-Anarchism

[redstar2000]

ShineThePath wrote: The PLP does argue for a Vanguard to lead initial Revolution; however they, like you, also want to go straight to communism.

You can write this -- "like you" -- after I explained why PLP's "communism" is fake.

Thus leaving the reader with the impression that my communism is also fake without having to present any arguments or evidence for that.

Nice work!

ShineThePath wrote: I would argue that there is a need to look into why people are in prison, not just generally give people amnesty.

Well, it would take a lot of people and time and resources to do that; the euphoria that prevails in revolutionary times wants to see immediate action taken where possible.

I'm willing to concede that your position might actually be more sensible; but I predict that you will lose the vote in the soviets...assuming that you haven't already taken their vote away. (!)

ShineThePath wrote: Alone from the sickening barbaric nature of this whole process (it might as well be the revived Hammurabi code), once again there are no specifics, only guesses, thoughts, and effortless babble.

I might remind you that there are "specifics"...which you find to be "sickening" and "barbaric".

Prisons and labor camps and all that goes with that evidently strike you as "civilized".

Oddly enough, it is your formula that strikes me as truly sickening and barbaric...all you want to do is emulate the bourgeoisie, only more so.

ShineThePath wrote: Example "I think that in the long run forensic evidence". Marx fought Proudhon with the aid of the dialectical method and proved that since every thing in the world changes, "justice" must also change, and that, consequently, "immutable justice" is metaphysical nonsense. Your legal system, even at the barbaric nature now, will be outmoded quickly, so 3 pages of legality is not going to work. In fact it will be constantly changing in order to keep up with justice of the masses.

If my "babble" is "effortless", you clearly put a good deal of work into yours.

The use of forensic evidence to determine guilt or innocence of a crime is scientific.

The use of "dialectics" to prove anything is metaphysical nonsense.

As to a post-revolutionary legal code changing to reflect the justice of the masses...well, of course it would!

ShineThePath wrote: But apparently just murdering them is better, Instead of trying to bring them to terms with society. Although, apparently I want to be a chief cop, you have no problem murdering criminals in cold blood. Does this not sound like pure Beria to anyone?

"Bring them to terms with society"? How does caging someone like an animal for decades "bring them to terms" with a human society?

Indeed, the term "caging like an animal" has become obsolete; modern zoos are far more humane than modern prisons.

And speaking of contradictions...did anyone notice how we "pseudo-anarchists" are "unable" to deal with "internal and external sabotage" one minute -- and the next minute we are all "Beria" intent on "murder"?

ShineThePath wrote: The fact is as long as you're in a capitalist dominated world, as we are in, you are going to have to rely on centralization or "Siege Socialism"...

Which, in practice, turns out to be pretty much like what we have now...capitalism temporarily minus capitalists.

Your "siege socialism" is not only not worth a revolution, it ain't even worth a vote!

ShineThePath wrote: Also it just seems peculiar to me, how would Workers control every aspect of society without the help of "trained" labor. I do not think that Workers can systematically lead Medical, Chemical, and other scientific work in these spheres when they have yet to have experience with them. So there is bound to be a Bureaucracy, you can’t have "direct" worker control, it is just illogical.

Revolutions are "illogical"...that does not keep them from happening anyway.

I'm sure there will be many difficulties in the transition period.

I'm also confident that the working class can overcome those difficulties.

You, of course, are not...which is why you think you should run things instead of the working class.

I wouldn't bet on your chances with Confederate money. #nosmileys

[iskra]

rs2000 wrote:

And speaking of contradictions...did anyone notice how we "pseudo-anarchists" are "unable" to deal with "internal and external sabotage" one minute -- and the next minute we are all "Beria" intent on "murder"?

Yes!

[ShineThePath]

“I think that in the long run forensic evidence”
If you would read things and whole you can see this had nothing to do with dialectics, this was about your effortless assumptions that the great "Future" may hold. You assume everything in the future for some reason may become better when there is also capability for the worse, and that is the point. Revolution is not illogical, it is the most logical step that has to be taken at any point.

Yes like another "Beria", many de-centralized notations are going to lead to illogical murder. Pol Pot was the greatest example of how illogical thinking, He murdered a good number, yet he was not able to cope with external sabotage as well, obviously. However your system of brutal murder is pointless.

There has been many ways in which "prison", if you will, has reinstituted people into society with great effect, instead of lining them up infront of firing squads. Soviets had more than 2 million German soldiers imprisoned, and after the labor camp expierence, they were given the opportunity to go back to West or East Germany, many of which on arrival joined or activily participated with their Communist Parties. I have a question, what will happen to those who speak out against such Barbarism that your Judicial System is? How will inevitablly have to crush dissent of such atrocious acts?

I conclude with a question about the Redstar papers. "Marxism without the bullshit". It seems very abstract from Marx in many ways, All of dialectics is gone, there is no historical correlation. Also what happen to the "Dicatorship of the Proletariat", your transitional system to communism, how will that look like?

[RosaRL]

ShineThePath wrote: The fact is as long as you're in a capitalist dominated world, as we are in, you are going to have to rely on centralization or "Siege Socialism"...

What is this? I think I understand what you were trying to say, but I disagree with a long period of ... as Lenin called it 'war communism' and war communism was not necessary after a certain period of time EVEN in a world in which the Soviet Union was the only Socialist nation.

How do you view democratic centralism?

Also, is 'stealing' from the ruling class a crime? Is survival under capitalism 'a crime'? Is rising up to do in this system a 'crime'? ... I sure as hell dont think so.

This system makes us 'criminals'.

[redstar2000]

ShineThePath wrote: You assume everything in the future for some reason may become better when there is also capability for the worse, and that is the point.

If so, it's a rather obvious one that few would argue.

The whole point of a revolution is to make things "better", is it not?

Would the Bolsheviks have acted at all in 1917 if they thought that everything was going to get worse?

Sure, I assume that proletarian revolution will improve matters dramatically...with some rough spots at the outset.

No other assumption makes any sense at all.

"Arise ye prisoners of starvation...and go on a diet?" Is that what you want?

ShineThePath wrote: Yes like another "Beria", many de-centralized notations are going to lead to illogical murder. Pol Pot was the greatest example of how illogical thinking, He murdered a good number, yet he was not able to cope with external sabotage as well, obviously. However your system of brutal murder is pointless.

Another incoherent paragraph. Whatever you are attempting to say, Cambodia is clearly irrelevant to this discussion. I am discussing the steps to be taken following proletarian revolution in an advanced capitalist country. Cambodia was a backward peasant country that had been bombed into near-savagery by U.S. imperialism.

And there is nothing pointless about my "system of brutal murder"...it will not be undertaken by an elite of "state secret police" but by democratic vote of the working class on each defendant. If you engage in criminal violence (including counter-revolutionary violence) against the working class...expect the worst!

ShineThePath wrote: There has been many ways in which "prison", if you will, has reinstituted people into society with great effect, instead of lining them up in front of firing squads. Soviets had more than 2 million German soldiers imprisoned, and after the labor camp experience, they were given the opportunity to go back to West or East Germany, many of which on arrival joined or actively participated with their Communist Parties.

Really. And did this "labor camp experience" (isn't that a terrific euphemism?) save the GDR?

Um, no, it didn't, did it? When all those POWs (except the ones that died from the "experience") got back to Germany, what do you think their real opinions of "communism" were? What do you think they told their families, friends, anyone they thought they could trust?

Are you fluent in mid-20th century German profanity?

ShineThePath wrote: I have a question, what will happen to those who speak out against such Barbarism that your Judicial System is? How will inevitably have to crush dissent of such atrocious acts?

The range of "legitimate dissent" will be, as all things, decided by the working class itself.

So they may just laugh at you or they might, if you've upset them, decide to never trust you with anything of importance.

And you may not have any friends, either.

ShineThePath wrote: I conclude with a question about the Redstar papers. "Marxism without the bullshit". It seems very abstract from Marx in many ways, All of dialectics is gone, there is no historical correlation. Also what happen to the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", your transitional system to communism, how will that look like?

It will, most likely, look very different from anything that you can possibly imagine.

Real futures are like that.#nosmileys

[ShineThePath]

An journalist once wrote about the "ordeal" of German prisoners in their home coming to West Germany "..of communists, whether from Weimar-times or re-educated, was confrontated with at least ignorance, more often with open hostility. The new, Western hostile stance opposite the Soviet Union permitted the home-comers to legitimate, to gloss over or to ignore their own (active) role as a soldier in the Third Reich."
Many of the German Prisoners were treated very well in the camps, in which a few were actually allowed to leave and go into local towns near the Education and Labor Camps, that is why when many had the opportunity to leave to West Germany or East, Many choose East Germany, which East German Communist government praised as a gain "The official propaganda, which by accounts, talks and meetings draw a picture of German-Soviet friendship, was either to be tolerated by a great part of East-German home-comers or promoted pro-Soviet attitudes.."

Redstar had written that he thought the future would only get worse and that is why he promotes revolution. Reading his "papers", one gets the sense that the future is not that bad, and that technology would be so advanced, we would have to do nothing. In all the papers in which you describe the scoiety of "tomorrow", there is always vague thoughts on what it would look like and assumptions of the advancement of society in that time. For example you talk about forensic science in that time period, assuming that it has made great leaps foward, to be the only thing needed for trial. One would think with an 8 hour work WEEK, it can't be possibly that bad in capitalist society as well, especially in Imperialist Nations. Why would they risk revolution when they can just throw us even more scraps from their exploitative system. Why would they not just give more to the "aristocrats of labor" to avoid such situations.

Let me now address Rosa's comments and this moment. Yes I am for Democratic Centralism, that is what I am fighting for here. The situation however is we can not have a "pure socialist" society at any point in a fundamentally major capitalist world. We are under constant SIEGE, and there needs to be steps taken to stop such a siege for proceeding to destroy Socialism. Many De-Centralist and people who argue for Centralization, for example Parenti, have called Lenin and Stalin's Democratic Centralist policy, "Siege Socialism". That is why I used it in quotation marks.

Yes, this system has caused many to commit petty-crimes. I do so everyday, but there is a large gap from Petty Crimes such as theft, and "Criminal Crimes" such as Rape, Murder, Phedophilia, etc. Do you honsetly expect me to believe there is a need to let these men or women out of prison? I am find with letting the menial stuff go, but we need examine why the others are there from a good perspective.

Back to Redstar2000. What I was trying to reply on with the Pol Pot statement is after the post you made about people like Beria are able to put up with internal and external sabotage. "And speaking of contradictions...did anyone notice how we "pseudo-anarchists" are "unable" to deal with "internal and external sabotage" one minute -- and the next minute we are all "Beria" intent on "murder"?" Yes you are capable of both, and Pol Pot proved you can be an illogical brutal murderer as well as being unable to deal with internal or external sabotage. Your Judicial System has the intent of "Murder", It has already inclined that the guilty would just be murdered. It is a supersturcture that would shame Humanity. You have the unique probelm of analysing words into themselves and not looking at the whole meaning of what I was writting, it was obviously a reply to something you had written.

To your "democratic vote of the working class" statement
Yes because the Working Class in many ways are able to hold precedence without prejudice over a man. They clearly are the needed trained people at anytime to present such a case as well, to gather evidence and information. They can also gather the Forensic Evidence that you need, because miraculosly they suddenly, and mystically have the "power" to do so. Even though many have not been trained and it is not the realistic approach. I guess the working class as well, will have the power to form Viglantes and seek justice. As untrained viglante groups roam around their downs, surely there can be no problem with this.

And I end saying, Of course I can't imagine what it could look like. Because you have yet to state what it would look like, just implying it will be a "rough" era. Yet you can assume all you want about how your "Communism" will look like, but when it comes to the "rough" transitional era. There are less specifics, if any, as with your "communist" look into the future.

[RosaRL]

Shinethepath said: "but there is a large gap from Petty Crimes such as theft, and "Criminal Crimes" such as Rape, Murder, Phedophilia, etc"

Its a misconception that even most of the people in prision are there for non violent crimes. Getting a conviction on a rapist or child molester is almost impossible, yet when a woman left with no other choice takes out an abuser she'll almost certainly be convicted.

Is she guilty of killing someone? yup
Should she be in prision? Nope

Children are also being set to prision for life for taking out abusive parents that this system gave them no means of escape from. They are viewed as monsters.

The same goes for 'cop killers' while killer cops walk the streets.

And in the end, the vast majority of people in prision are from the oppressed while their oppresor who have committed much worse crimes walk free.

The prisions themselves are torture houses where our sisters and brothers, our sons and daughters, our freinds are constantly victimized. The justice that the masses crave is against the system that has done this.


However,looking at it another way, do you think there will honestly be the time in the middle of a revolution to sort through each case? And what about the actual resources it takes to maintain a prision?

Its possible the choice will be between letting them go and locking the doors forever and allowing them to starve to death.

The last of those two, is not an option and a far worse crime against the people.

[redstar2000]

ShineThePath wrote: A journalist once wrote about the "ordeal" of German prisoners in their home coming to West Germany...

Journalists write lots of things...occasionally, they are even true.

Most German soldiers were guilty only of the "crime" of being conscripted into an imperialist army. The correct response would have been to simply send them all home (except the officers...who should probably have been executed) after the German surrender.

Stalin was having none of that; his idea was that German slave-labor would "repay" the USSR for the damage caused by the Third Reich. He looted German factories from the same motivation.

It was criminal stupidity; the USSR gained little and permanently alienated a large section of the German working class.

ShineThePath wrote: Reading his "papers", one gets the sense that the future is not that bad, and that technology would be so advanced, we would have to do nothing.

As someone who likes to invoke "history", you seem remarkably ignorant of the last fifty years of technological development. Don't you recall Marx's words on this: capitalism constantly revolutionizes the means of production.

Can you imagine what things will be like in 50 or 100 years? I can't!

The two things that we can reasonably assume are: (1) technology will be significantly in advance of what exists at present; and (2) while scientific discoveries will continue to be made, the implementation of new technology will slow down drastically a decade or two prior to the proletarian revolution itself ("the relations of production have become a fetter on the means of production").

"Dialectics" sure doesn't seem to help you much.

Does that mean that "all" manual labor will have completely disappeared by the time of proletarian revolution? Probably not. Does it mean that there will be a lot less manual labor than there is now? Almost certainly!

ShineThePath wrote: For example you talk about forensic science in that time period, assuming that it has made great leaps forward, to be the only thing needed for trial.

I didn't suggest that it would be "the only thing" needed for trial. But, it's actually advanced quite a bit in the last couple of decades...and it is far superior to, for example, "eye-witness accounts" -- which are notoriously unreliable.

An unknown but possibly substantial number of people are in prison today for violent crimes they did not commit...convicted by "eye-witness" testimony that was coached by the police.

ShineThePath wrote: One would think with an 8 hour work WEEK, it can't possibly be that bad in capitalist society as well, especially in Imperialist Nations.

Well, at least you caught the detail...even if you completely missed its significance.

The report that I remember reading suggested that by 2020, all the wealth that is produced today could be produced if everyone had a job and worked an eight-hour WEEK.

Under capitalism, that will not happen, of course. Some workers will still be working 40, 50, even 60 hour weeks. Many others will be part of the "reserve army of the unemployed"...and "live" in increasing misery.

Pretty "bad", eh?

ShineThePath wrote: Why would they risk revolution when they can just throw us even more scraps from their exploitative system. Why would they not just give more to the "aristocrats of labor" to avoid such situations.

The days when capitalists "threw scraps" to the workers appear to be coming to an end; all the "public welfare" programs are being gutted or dismantled. Trade union contracts are being "re-negotiated" to -- in one sense or another -- actually reduce workers' wages and worsen their conditions. (The only real "autocrats of labor" -- the professional leadership of the trade unions -- are cooperating in this outrage.)

As to the reason that this is happening, the logical suspect is "the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time". When profits decline, capitalists are under tremendous psychological and financial pressures to raise them back up to their former levels or even higher...and the only way they've ever been able to do that is by reducing labor costs.

Continued long enough, this process does indeed "risk revolution" and, if Marx was right, even makes it inevitable...but the capitalists no longer have a choice.

I'm not sure that even imperialism will "help" them much longer...the costs of conquest and occupation may exceed the "return on investment". Private corporations can still make profits from imperialism...but the imperial venture is a loser for the capitalist system as a whole.

ShineThePath wrote: Pol Pot proved you can be an illogical brutal murderer as well as being unable to deal with internal or external sabotage.

At this, I simply shake my head in disbelief. You want to compare Cambodia to proletarian revolution in advanced capitalist countries.

Utterly bizarre.

ShineThePath wrote: Your judicial system has the intent of "murder". It has already inclined [indicated?] that the guilty would just be murdered. It is a superstructure that would shame Humanity.

And your prisons and labor camps? Something for "humanity" to really be proud of?

ShineThePath wrote: [The working class] can also gather the forensic evidence that you need, because miraculously they suddenly and mystically have the "power" to do so.

Curiously enough, a good deal of present-day forensic evidence is contaminated...many police are not properly trained to secure and protect a crime scene and while there are privately-produced "kits" to aid the novice, they are widely admitted to be inadequate. There was a story about the "rape kit" used by the New York Police Department not long ago...it (the kit) is pretty pathetic.

If better training is needed, the working class can do that...it's not "impossible". The same goes for the kits.

The interpretation of forensic evidence is a highly-skilled profession and not something that "any worker" can do. People who go into that line of work do so because they enjoy it...not for the money.

ShineThePath wrote: I guess the working class as well will have the power to form vigilantes and seek justice. As untrained vigilante groups roam around their towns surely there can be no problem with this.

Yes, I think this will be very common in the first few years after the revolution.

You have a problem with that?

ShineThePath wrote: Of course I can't imagine what it could look like. Because you have yet to state what it would look like, just implying it will be a "rough" era. Yet you can assume all you want about how your "Communism" will look like, but when it comes to the "rough" transitional era. There are less specifics, if any, as with your "communist" look into the future.

The "rough sense" of your statement here appears to be a complaint about "lack of details" both for the transitional period and for communism itself.

Yet you do not complain to Bob Avakian; his picture of the era of the vanguard party is even "fuzzier" than mine. He speaks a great deal about overcoming this "contradiction" and that "contradiction", etc., etc....but he never deals with specifics about how he plans to do those things.

He just promises to "do them".

Perhaps Avakian and I do have one thing in common...a reluctance to spell out in great detail what we would do in a future where almost all of the relevant circumstances are still unknown.

From a theoretical standpoint, I think there are certain things we should not do...but as to what we should do, that's much more difficult because we don't know what conditions we will find ourselves in.

If you find that unsatisfactory, fair enough. But while you're roasting me, don't forget to turn up the heat under Chairman Bob.

And finally this...

RosaRL wrote: ...yet when a woman left with no other choice takes out an abuser she'll almost certainly be convicted.

Is she guilty of killing someone? yup

Should she be in prison? Nope

Children are also being set to prison for life for taking out abusive parents that this system gave them no means of escape from. They are viewed as monsters.

In communist society, women who kill rapists or abusive partners and children who kill abusive parents will not only not go to prison or even be tried...they'll get a medal and we'll throw a big parade to honor them.

Communism takes the liberation of women and children very seriously.#nosmileys

[RosaRL]

rs2000 said: In communist society, women who kill rapists or abusive partners and children who kill abusive parents will not only not go to prison or even be tried...they'll get a medal and we'll throw a big parade to honor them.
Communism takes the liberation of women and children very seriously.

While I agree that communism takes liberation very seriously, this approach you are putting forward is just wrong.

First, if such conditions still existed in society where women were driven to see no other way out than to kill their abusers, you just dont have communism. For these conditions to continue to exist, the enequalities between men and women in society must also still exist -- if that is the case you aint there.

Even under socialism, the acts that come out of such horrible conditions would not be something to celebrate although they would warnent close attention as they are a sighn that something is deeply wrong in society (just as a sudden rise in or reapearnce of prostitution should also tip you off that something is going very wrong)

Finally, my point was that the system that creates and gives rise to these conditions is the enemy, not those that are to some extent or another forced to acts that are defined as crimes under this system --often simply to survive -- be it armed robery, petti theft, or killing an abuser.

[redstar2000]

RosaRL wrote: While I agree that communism takes liberation very seriously, this approach you are putting forward is just wrong...Finally, my point was that the system that creates and gives rise to these conditions is the enemy, not those that are to some extent or another forced to acts that are defined as crimes under this system --often simply to survive -- be it armed robbery, petty theft, or killing an abuser.

What would you have us do? In a post-revolutionary society, some people will still commit violent crimes. Is it sufficient to simply observe "well, that's just a remnant of class society...someday that won't happen any more."?

I think the revolutionary proletariat will demand personal security from violent crime...and will take matters into their own hands to make that actually happen. That is what happened in both revolutionary Russia after 1917 and in revolutionary Spain after 1936.

For reasons that we don't understand, there is a small percentage of humans who actually enjoy hurting people...and I see no reason why that would not always be the case, even in communist society.

You cannot tell the vast majority of people to "just tolerate" that. They won't do it...nor should they.

I will grant you that when there are no longer economic pressures that force women and children to live with abusers, the number of murdered abusers will likely decline sharply. On the other hand, abusers don't necessarily limit their violence to their families -- such bastards are likely to be nailed for violent assaults against others. Their life-spans are likely to be drastically shortened anyway.

Which, in my view, is a very good thing.

[ShineThePath]

Nor only is that no true about Stalin, you literally made that up with a guess. The German prisoners were more of a burden than “cheap labor”. Also Stalin did no such tinge, as you claim he robbed the German people. How is this when he fed the whole German people, even when his nation was suffering from shortage because of the German Destruction? I expressed this before with Stalin, the simple claims labeled by the Western Media are simply untrue, and have no informal evidence behind them. Certainly your way off, German people paid no reparations besides the land appropriation to Poland.

The last fifty years of technological development is true, but as always you must analyze things in its entirety now, than the possible “future”. When the Roman Empire fell the technological gains all seemed to stop in Europe and digression came about, moving things into a spiral backward. As well with a fall of another large Empire, the US, there is the same possibility as well to come in the future. This is certainly a possibility. Dialectics teaches everything moves, but it can move forward and back, acknowledging that we can only look at trends and the historical experience of other prior to determine what the future would look like, not assumptions, but relevant facts. The new “communist” US would certainly be isolated as well, and would not have the same participation and activity in the Global Scale of Capitalist development. This would certainly effect the Technological Development flow. Also, the “trained” professional work force would not certainly take kind to your fast approach to what Marx remarked upon. He makes the point, in his writings on political economy, that there are different kinds of labor in society. There's what he calls "simple" labor and "compound" labor--in other words. In other words what many here have considered the Mental/Labor Contradiction. With your fast paced solution to it, it is most likely technicians, medical personnel, and scientists have the high possibility of leaving the nation to protect their “bourgeois right.”
You need to solve this your “transition government”. Simply forced artist movement to make sculptures of Workers will not do much, Art is something that progresses with society, if art is remaining the same with the status quo, that is evident of something wrong within society. In the terms of technology, yes it does help develop the productive forces MAINLY in the Imperialist nations; however with the Third World, they are purposely retarded. Their productive forces would remain far more backward to Imperial productive forces, so how can there be Communism in such a inequitable productivity amongst different nations?

Following the “communist” revolution, the situation would be that of Isolation from the Capitalist world that is still intact, will be inevitable. It is an understatement that the beginning of “transaction” would be rough under a de-centralized state undergoing “communist” transition. It would be the greatest hardship any people would have to undergo for Liberation, the fact is that the capitalists are not going down easily, the other Capitalists states will try to sabotage the Nation, and they will make it a brutal struggle for victory. The work slate of the Masses would most certainly more than 8 hours as long. Suggestions from “reports” that you have come over though seem to be more reliable than my reports, so I won’t question the authenticity of the reporting.

I question how forensic evidence would be gathered without the a “police” or some other type of authority as such, how would general procedure run in collection of evidence and so forth? There must be some way to collect evidence like this, without a “police” kind of a authority. Also there has been Police misconduct with forensic evidence as much as with eye witness evidence as well, how would Forensic evidence be more secure? There must be an order of how and where the Guilty would be held in, but in can’t be a prison with you. Also you have to go with it, in a sort of way that avoids “official” involvement. It seems if the working class has “direct involvement” there would be just more than an 8 hour work day, worker’s participation would have to also consume time more than 8 hours. Also I must say, I do have a problem with “Vigilantes”, because they are just usually as brutal, inhumane in more cases than “police”, and are just simply unjustifiable. This is just a new Police Force, it is the same thing. Unless you have eradicated racial tension and other prejudices, I can only see a more brutal manner from this. I have yet to see a “justifiable” Vigilante that is more humane than a Police Force. Is it not the majority of Police Forces comprised of people who have come from the working class anyway, I don’t see many bourgeoisie in the police force in NY. Many are almost the exact same as most Union workers, and have many of the same concerns. How would a vigilante be any different?

It is funny you would say Avakian is more “fuzzier”, when perhaps in the whole “communist” party identity games. His position is the most specific, but obviously you have yet to read “What is to Be Done”, “Democracy: Can’t we Do Better”, “Horrible End or End to a Horror”, and the numerous books, essays, and speeches on such subjects on how Socialism and the superstructure will be. To say his unspecified in his account of Revolution is a dubious statement. It brings me to the point again, as you have yet to describe your “transitional period” and how it would deal with the Contradictions I had mention before, Bourgeois Right, Surplus Value, and The Law of Value. Also there has been almost nothing said about the wage system being abolished without having disastrous consequences on the Economy.

I will continue by just simply summing up with my Pol Pot comment, which was not an attack on you. It was a reply, once again to the comment that was made, if I may paraphrase, “all of sudden I am Beria and than I can’t handle Internal and External decision”. I merely said both are possible, and Pol Pot was the perfect example of that. Also I never said anything about prison time for women, and children who have faced abusive relations with their fellow man. Obviously they are innocent, and that is the need for such a system to find them otherwise. Imagine a male dominated “vigilante” were to come, who do you think they will side with? Also another certain aspect has come to mind about judicial process and that is concern of mental capability or sickness.

Peopel are not just simply "bastards". There is reason for this crime other than they "like it". Your not looking deeper into the issue and are just asscoiating all this crime to just simplistic core terms.Pronouncing "it is just Evil, and the people that do it are Evil" is simple and it solves nothing. You have to look and search deeper intot he core of the problem, which could well as be psychological. If it is so, it is not the person that you should be attacking and demonizing, but the conditions that made him or her so. People don't inherit genetics making them "violent", and anyone who says so is practicing a false science. The problems are obviously coming from a position that these invididuals were in, what was the situation, all this msot be questioned. And that is why I see this illogical judical system of yours as brutal, because it is digressive not progressive.

[redstar2000]

ShineThePath wrote: Not only is that not true about Stalin, you literally made that up with a guess. The German prisoners were more of a burden than "cheap labor".

If so, that merely confirms my point. The USSR gained little or nothing by insisting that German POWs enjoy "the labor camp experience".

ShineThePath wrote: Also Stalin did no such thing, as you claim he robbed the German people.

The dismantling and removal of entire factories from Russian-occupied Germany to the USSR is well-documented...as is the fact that much of the high-tech equipment was left in railroad cars to rust into scrap metal.

ShineThePath wrote: Certainly you're way off; German people paid no reparations besides the land appropriation to Poland.

I don't know if there were ever any formal reparations paid or not...but surely the absence of several million POWs and the lost factories did little to "help" the GDR.

If you go back and read accounts of the immediate post-war period, Stalin wanted $10 billion in reparations from Germany.

ShineThePath wrote: When the Roman Empire fell, the technological gains all seemed to stop in Europe and digression [?] came about, moving things into a spiral backward.

Well, yes and no. Europe in the "dark ages" (400-1100CE) was a less complex social order than the elaborate despotism of the Roman Empire. In that sense, things "went backwards".

But technology continued to advance in several important respects: (1) the invention of the iron plow; (2) the adoption of the stirrup; (3) the invention of the modern harness for horses; and (4) advances in windmill technology. All of these things contributed to the "flowering of feudalism" in the "High Middle Ages".

To this one might also add the spread of the modern "hard-cover book"...scrolls went out of use during this period.

ShineThePath wrote: As well with a fall of another large Empire, the US, there is the same possibility as well to come in the future. This is certainly a possibility.

Well, we can't know that one way or the other until we actually reach that point in time, can we?

Sure, "it's a possibility". There are lots of "possibilities". If you think that Leninist despotism is an appropriate remedy for a society collapsed into low-tech barbarism...hell, I won't even bother to dispute that.

It would be an even shittier world than we have now...and that's really saying something.

It's just not saying anything about communism.

ShineThePath wrote: Dialectics teaches everything moves, but it can move forward and back, acknowledging that we can only look at trends and the historical experiences of others prior [to us] to determine what the future would look like, not assumptions, but relevant facts.

To assume that the future will "look like" the past is an error known as "the French Generals' Fallacy" -- from the observation that French generals were always well-prepared to fight the last war.

The assumption that "all we have to do" is "imitate Lenin" or "imitate Mao" and the road to victory is clear...is simply foolishness.

Most of the lessons of past revolutions are negative -- they tell us plainly "don't do what we did or, like us, you will lose!"

ShineThePath wrote: . The new "communist" US would certainly be isolated as well, and would not have the same participation and activity in the global scale of capitalist development. This would certainly effect the technological development flow. Also, the "trained" professional work force would certainly not take kindly to your fast approach...With your fast paced solution to it, it is most likely technicians, medical personnel, and scientists have the high possibility of leaving the nation to protect their "bourgeois right."

You think they wouldn't be just as quick to depart your Leninist socialist despotism? Or perhaps that more of them would stay with you because you promised to preserve their privileges indefinitely?

Ok, you might be right. So what?

Many "middle-level" and "low level" technical workers would find, I think, a communist society much more appealing than your alternative.

For one thing, all their stupid fucking bosses would have gone into exile.

ShineThePath wrote: Simply forced artist movement to make sculptures of workers will not do much...

Who the hell said anything about "force" in this context? Can't you imagine anything happening without someone pointing a gun at people to make them do it?

We would invite sculptors and painters to make art that would promote communist ideas. They'd be perfectly free to decline the invitation.

Good grief!

ShineThePath wrote: ...so how can there be communism in such a inequitable productivity amongst different nations?

How is it that there have always been great differences in the productivity of nations...and the world didn't come to an end?

Yes, there will be communism in some places and capitalism in other places and semi-feudalism in still other places.

If you say there "can't be communism" until "the whole world is equal", you've just postponed communism indefinitely.

ShineThePath wrote: ...the other capitalist states will try to sabotage the nation, and they will make it a brutal struggle for victory.

You are simply generalizing the Soviet experience...elevating that specific historical sequence of events into a "universal" -- true for all revolutions at all times.

That's dumb!

What makes you think that the remaining capitalist states, regardless of their desires, will be in any position to sabotage anybody? In what way is a capitalist China, India, Arabia, Indonesia, etc. going to "sabotage" a communist Europe, a communist North America or a communist Japan? How are these capitalist states going to do anything to us when class struggle is undoubtedly raging in their own homelands?

You're still living in 1917...try to imagine 2077, instead!

ShineThePath wrote: Also I must say, I do have a problem with "vigilantes", because they are just usually as brutal, inhumane in more cases than "police", and are just simply unjustifiable.

No, they are not "just" as brutal or inhumane as the police...in the age of proletarian revolution.

Police have a "sub-culture" that is essentially fascist. They are "pro-actively" violent and repressive -- which is why they summarily murder so many unarmed suspects.

The Social Role of the Police

I have a cynical suspicion that your preference for professional police derives from the fact that cops will obey your orders and vigilantes might not.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

ShineThePath wrote: It brings me to the point again, as you have yet to describe your "transitional period" and how it would deal with the contradictions I had mentioned before: Bourgeois Right, Surplus Value, and The Law of Value. Also there has been almost nothing said about the wage system being abolished without having disastrous consequences on the economy.

No, you have not mentioned any of these things before...except the last, abolition of the wage-labor, to which I did respond.

redstar2000 wrote: Obviously the abolition of wages would go "hand-in-hand" with the provision of goods to people "according to need".

"Bourgeois Right" would obviously be abolished in the process of the revolution itself. No one would "issue a decree"...people would just do it.

"Surplus value" and the "law of value" would have less and less meaning as wage-labor was phased out. Within a decade or so, those concepts would have no meaning at all.

ShineThePath wrote: People are not just simply "bastards".

This may or may not be scientifically true. Nevertheless, you cannot deny that there are people who act as if they were bastards despite lack of obvious provocation.

Now, what are you going to do about that? Borrow my "famous armchair" and ponder the question: "Gee, what caused that guy to rape and murder that little girl?"

Or, are you going to take steps to keep him from ever doing that again?

[RosaRL]

Couple things stand out to me in RS2000's post:

1) he is mushing together things and time periods in which the conditions are radically different.

His whole discussion of crime does not really distinguish between the condition pre-revolution, during the revolution, post revolution and during the transition to communism and communism. All these situations are treated as identical by RS2000 making for one big fuzzy confused mess. (to put it nice)

Heads up RS2000, this mushiness is not something Chairman Avakian does

2) RS2000, despite everything he has said has now presented us with a human nature argument! he would have us believe that it is impossible to ever reach a point in society where men do not abuse and rape women! This is like arguing that slavery is natural and will always be with us and certainly during the times of slavery many people saw slavery as part of 'human nature'.

[flyby]

rs2000 said: "In communist society, women who kill rapists or abusive partners and children who kill abusive parents will not only not go to prison or even be tried...they'll get a medal and we'll throw a big parade to honor them."

I have some question:

How do you know if the killing was justified or unjustified if you don't have a hearing or a trial of some kind?

I think that even in revolutions we have to have ways of making sure that we don't (out of the best intentions) carry out our own injustices.

That is why the RCP draft programme (in a place I can't put my finger on at the moment) calls for procedures and evidence when verdicts are made on people.

Second question: Do we simply uphold summary execution for reactionary acts in general?

I don't think so.

On one level, i think that rape is a crime that can requiree the ulimate punishment, ESPECIALLY in cases where it involves representatives of the revolution. (I.e. it is especially necessary to take clear public stands is someone within the ranks of the revolution commit such atrocities.)

However, there too it is important to take great care -- to have evidence, hearings, to explore the actual facts and events -- and to consider appropriate measures. All-American frontier justice of "hang 'em high" has a long history -- and it is not a good one, or one that we want to imitate.

Third, are all crimes the same?

Is it really true that "abusive partners or parents" should get the same treatment as rapists, and that we should applaud people simply killing parents or partners who are "abusive"?

This is a society where wife beating is intolerable and widespread. But is it correct (or revolutionary) to simply suggest that women open fire on those who beat them, and that this be celebrated by the revolution and the society?

Is there no element of publicly criticizing, warning and transforming abusive men?

This view that redstar proposes seems rife with potential for miscarriages of "justice" -- and it also seems like a recipe for "pointing the spearhead down" (i.e. treating backward sections ofthe people as if they are the main target of the revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat). It is not a view based in a class understanding, or a correct view of resolving "contradictions among the people" (including in cases where those contradictions involve real and intolerable oppression.)

It is similar to RS's view that anyone who made a serious revisionist error should be permanently stripped of their posts, or any standing in society or the revolution.

(In fact, in my view, RS repeatedly makes revisionist ideological and political errors -- and i think we should work patiently to help him see why this is wrong, to transform, and play a positive role in coming events.)

[flyby]

I am not in agreement with accepting the implications of the concept of "seige socialism."

Parenti (for example) is a notorious revisionist (supporter of the CPUSA and Soviet Social Imperialists) who has used such arguments to defend truly oppressive and reactionary societies.

And if our sights are lowered in such ways, we will never get or deserve a hearing from the masses of people.

We need to set our sights on having a society that people will truly find a joy, a place they would want to live, where life is truly different and better in a broad array of ways from capitalism. And where the ongoing process of revolution deepens that.

And, in line with that, I think we need to uphold those places where there actually was a genuinely socialist transformation going on (i.e. the early Soviet Union and Maoist China) -- without feeling like we need to defend and uphold every detail, policy, assumption, and event that happened in those periods.

The history of socialist revolutoin is full of things we should celebrate, but also of things we should grieve.

In many ways, the post-world war 2 events in eastern euripe contain many things we should not /can not uphold. The soivet policy toward german was heavily influenced by revisionism and bourgeois nationalism. The approach to German soldiers (by the comintern generally) was not proletarian internationalism and fraternalism -- but often colored by raw nationalism. etc.