Marxism and Stalinism

Marxist assessments of Stalinism. What was the class nature of the Stalin-Khrushchev-Brezhnev USSR? And of other countries modelled on it? What has been the legacy of Stalinism for the left?

Third period tankie CPGB upset

Unwilling to debate the AWL in public, the so-called CPGB continues its snipping at us from the safe distance of its paper. In the latest WW (748) Lawrence Parker, apparently a “writer on the revolutionary oppositions within the post-war Communist Party” takes up our political characterisation of...

Cliff as critic of bureaucratic collectivism (1).

In Cliff's state capitalism in perspective, Sean Matgamna examined the record of Tony Cliff's theory of state capitalism by way of explanation for the SWP's collapse into Serb chauvinism. In this short piece, he looks at Cliff's writings in response to those who argued against state capitalism that the soviet union was a new form of exploiting society. In early 1968 Tony Cliff published in the journal International Socialism an article called The theory of bureaucratic collectivism — a critique. It was presented together with a curious note explaining that it dated from 1948, but that no...

I DREAMT I WALKED WITH HISTORY

I DREAMT I WALKED WITH HISTORY A. I dreamt I walked with History Along sure paths already set and mapped; I marched with confidence and courage, critical But loyal and dependable B. I followed my sweet mist-enshrouded mirage Until it stopped, And there beneath its shimmering heat I found A dark nocturnal cavern, deep and wide, Filled up top high with human bones and skulls, Beneath the foetal, foetid sky. A. I, who dreamed I walked down known, sure paths With History, Travelling triumphantly, Inexorably, The reservations made, Down payments paid, Safe-conducts guaranteed, The destination sure...

SYPHILIS

SYPHILIS (After reading Isaac Babel's story "Guy De Maupassant") De Maupassaunt died at forty three Crawling on hands and knees, Eating his own shit, His syphyllitic brain raddled, shrunk; Allready dead, and gabbling His fear of death, He died. Stumbling and falling Sentient human beast, Zek at haulage, In artic temperatures, On scraps and cabbage soup, Issac Babel , the unhorsed Cossac Jew, Died at forty five. Past master of the 'Genre of silence", He was destroyed by Stalin, Whom Trotsky called The syphyllis of the revolution. He knew, Disease made conscious of itself, He knew That to be...

KARL MARX IN AUGUST (The Fall of Russian Stalinism)

KARL MARX IN AUGUST (To the tune of "Joe Hill") I dreamt I saw Karl Marx last night, I saw him standing there, His hair jet black, no longer white, Fierce eyes, with a bold young stare: His eyes had a young man's stare. I saw Marx youthful, angry there, I said in my surprise: "But you grew old, white beard and hair…" And then Marx cried: "All lies!" And then Marx cried: " - Damn lies!" "A ghost to comfort those who'd lost Their spark, themselves half dead: They made me old, grey with disgust - I'm young again!" he said, "I'm young again," he said. "Alive again! You see I'm back, My spirit...

STALIN'S LEGACY

Utopia strait science had become: Blind capital itself carved out our way, Trained our army; happily was dumb:— No chance they'd win sweet History's delay Or Nature's pardon! We would gain sure sway, Sweep Gold aside: the workers could assume Control of social property, loom Red nemesis; avert bourgeois decay. And now? Old labour movements fall apart, And Socialism consists of sects, some mad, And some hail feudal Islam's crazy jihad; Reactionaries: poor as at the start. From science to Utopia once more? Utopia lies dead there on the floor! S. O.

Stop the War Coalition bends to ultra-Stalinist pressure on Tibet

The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist) is an ultra-Stalinist group connected to the Stalin Society, which actively supports the Chinese regime as well as lauding Robert Mugabe's "workers' state" and its fight against the "quisling" opposition. A couple of months ago the group wrote to the Stop the War Coalition complaining about their (qualified) criticism of the Chinese regime's attacks on Tibet... and the Stop the War Coalition said sorry. Letter sent by CPGB-ML to Stop The War Coalition By email on 11 April 2008 Dear Officers The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) Newsletter No...

After the Dictatorship of the Lie

After the Dictatorship of the Lie “The lies dished up and spread by the powerful machinery of government [] can reach everyone, everywhere... We are... in [an] era of the absolute lie, the complete and totalitarian lie spread by the monopolies of press and radio to imprison social consciousness." - Leon Trotsky, 1937. I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name." -William Morris...

Cuba after Fidel: what next?

The Chinese road? Samuel Farber, Cuban “Third Camp” Marxist and author of The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered, was interviewed about the book in US socialist journal Against the Current (November 2006) . Here we reprint an extract with his predictions for Cuba without Castro. More on this site about Cuba . There are many indications of Raúl Castro’s outright support for China’s direction. Visiting Shanghai in April 2005, Raúl said: "There are people who are worried about the Chinese model — I’m not; China today proves another world is possible". I find this comment obscene, in...

Stalinism and Bolshevism, by Leon Trotsky

By Leon Trotsky (August 1937) Reactionary epochs like ours not only disintegrate and weaken the working class and isolate its vanguard but also lower the general ideological level of the movement and throw political thinking back to stages long since passed through. In these conditions the task of the vanguard is, above all, not to let itself be carried along by the backward flow: it must swim against the current. If an unfavourable relation of forces prevents it from holding political positions it has won, it must at least retain its ideological positions, because in them is expressed the...

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