Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[tygrkhat40]

What's wrong with the Constitution of the USSR? On paper, nothing. In practice, however...

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Hi, I just listened to a French economist who told that the First constitution of the USSR was a fair constitution for the population

{snip}

According to you. What is wrong with this Constitution?
To give you my point of view... it seems to be more than fair.

1936? Do you know what was happening under this "fair Constitution"?

This is the Soviet Constitution at the time of the Great Purges, the Moscow show trials, Article 12 "In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."" is a particularly sick joke since roughly a million Ukrainians were being starved at the time.

There are a few nice "sentiments", but there's absolutely no functional restriction on State power. No rights of people to be secure, no independent judiciary, no independent legislature.

This is a totalitarian Constitution. Your rights are whatever the Party decides they are, which can be "none".

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

In practice, however...

They never seem to get that one through their heads

Originally Posted by deepsepia

This is a totalitarian Constitution. Your rights are whatever the Party decides they are, which can be "none".

Or that one

Quote as many theories, philosophers, professors, lecturers and so on as they like but just can't grasp one major major major and only real fact ...... It failed

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Right there, very first thing, seems like they want one to remain a peasant and no hope for higher, way I see it it's almost psychological telling you you will be a peasant and not much higher

Sorry, mate, but you got that a little wrong. This is an entirely different concept of social relations. A worker in socialism is not just a factory worker but everyone who works for a living and contributes to the whole of society, from a manual worker to a brain surgeon. Peasants are workers, too. We're talking about cooperatives of free people and not the kind of peasants that existed in the Middle Ages. This is agrarian economy on an industrial scale. If a citizen doesn't want to be an agrarian worker, he can choose another profession.

Look, I'm not a naive person who idealizes the USSR. But when you talk about becoming something more than a peasant, this is exactly what happened in the USSR. Remember that Russia was a backwater compared to the West and still stuck in the Middle Ages. The vast majority of its people were illiterate peasants. Well, the descendants of these illiterate peasants went on to become leading scientists, engineers, artists and athletes. The USSR gave birth to some of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. Most of them had a poor background.

If you take a look at the greatest minds in the West at the time, you'll realize that most of them come from wealthy families. Higher education was a privilege of the upper classes. Maybe not by law but who else could afford it?

Communism cannot be established in a single country, especially not in one that never made a proper transition from feudalism to capitalism and thus a major industrial revolution. Even the socialism practiced by the Soviet state had many flaws. But socialism remains a noble idea and its scientific basis has already been worked out. Read Marx and Engels and compare their theories to the reality of the USSR. You won't find many similarities but one has to take into consideration that putting theory into practice isn't just a matter of your own will. It's not easy to build something advanced as socialism in a very backward and underdeveloped country that just came out of a brutal war only to be pulled into another, the Russian Civil War. It was a country surrounded by enemies just like France in 1789.

Only the working class can establish socialism, not a party or an elite of professional revolutionaries. But they can help the working class articulate its aims by arming it intellectually. Bear in mind that times have changed. The working class is no longer confined to the old industrial proletariat. A worker is everyone who has to sell his labor for a wage. Everyone who's forced to work for a wage in order to survive is not free. Not even a brain surgeon, even if he makes a lot of money.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by rodak

Seems fair.. A text book socialist viewpoint!
This communist document was forged under the reign of Stalin was it not?
How many Millions of Russian citizens were enslaved, imprisoned or simply murdered to enforce this constitution or other Soviet policies?

I must confess that I do not know Stalin otherwise than by a Christian Capitalist propaganda. A Georgian who had a very hard childhood, who finally lost his faith in the Orthodox Seminary of Tiflis. He would have learned the repressive techniques with the Orthodox priests.
Stalin described them himself: "Surveillance, espionage, intrusion into the inner life, rape of feelings."
But also became a very literated guy, who read thousands of books and has a phenomenal memory.

Now my question is:

You have judged yourself this 1936 USSR Constitution as honest, even very honest.
So... according to you, who were (or are) the people who didn't (don't) want to follow it?

My first opinion is this one: Weren't they nothing else as profiteers, lazy arrogant persons,.... in fact human decay?

After having described these people who didn't want to follow a fair Constitution.
Now if you are at the place of Stalin, what would you do?
You are not in front of pacific people, but in front of greedy, vicious and brutal people.
Maybe Stalin had no choice but to kill or imprison all those evils?
What if our anti-Communist propaganda was nothing more than a propaganda orchestrated by evil profiteers to submit us to their will?

Endoctrinated Capitalists always said: Communism killed millions of people.
Yep, that's true.

But how many people are killed each year by the actual Neoliberal Capitalism?

According to a French editorial writer, we can estimate that each year at least 8 millions people are killed all around the world because of Neoliberal Capitalism (wars, coups d'Etat, contribution to horrible dictatorship, non helping exploited third-world populations, etc...).
So since the Ronald in 1980... how many millions of people died because of Neoliberalism?
Ok... let's say 6 millions per year, so 6x37=222 millions.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I saw a book placed in publishers' overstock section and wish now that I had bought it. It was a selection of letters written to the Soviet Government in the 1930s by its citizens. It seems that our view of the Russian masses being a cowed and terrorized lot was mistaken. The dust jacket stated that the masses were not shy about calling their government to task for its failures. I'll have to see if I can find a copy. It should be an interesting read.

About one month ago, I watched a French documentary on the Third National French TV channel about Charles de Gaulle travelling in USSR in 1966.

When I watched the film, I was ... surprised.
Russian people didn't look miserable, women were elegant, men too and several of their comments were incredibly free.


Did you know that in December 1944 De Gaulle had to secretly travel to Moscow and asked Stalin to help him, because England and USA wanted to impose their point of view to the French people.
It was a difficult negociation, but finally Stalin helped France not to become a country submitted under the American and English desires.

Originally Posted by haroldeye

Keep them poor and stupid and they'll vote for you.

Russian (even Soviets) mathematicians and physicians always were as good as the Occidental ones.
After his diploma of the Zürich engineering school, one of my friends spent 2 years in Russia (just after the end of USSR) to work in nuclear theory. He told me that he met scientists of the highest level.
No.... that's fat food and sugar abuse that keep people stupid.

Originally Posted by Estreeter

And as long as you're in Military uniform with lots and lots and lots of shiny medals

He's surely a clown... but actually he's mocking at the Republicans.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

There are a few nice "sentiments", but there's absolutely no functional restriction on State power. No rights of people to be secure, no independent judiciary, no independent legislature.

Please... don't tell me that our judiciary and legislature are really independent! That's a pure lie.
Our laws always are written by the "elite" for the "elite".
46 millions poor people must be illegal in the wealthiest country in the world.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I must confess that I do not know Stalin otherwise than by a Christian Capitalist propaganda. A Georgian who had a very hard childhood, who finally rebelled against religion and who committed attacks. But also a very educated guy, who read thousands of books and has a phenomenal memory.

You might read further. He was a brutal, murderous monster. Unlike Hitler, there was no consistent direction to his hatred. But brutal, a killer, cruel and to use Lenin's word, crude.

Since I think your native language is French, I commend to you Le Livre noir du communisme . . . you're really missing something important if you're not aware just how many mass graves Stalin filled

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Now my question is:

You have judged yourself this 1936 USSR Constitution as honest, even very honest.
So... according to you, who were (or are) the people who didn't (don't) want to follow it?

You have misunderstood then.

The 1936 Constitution is "honest" insofar as it effectively says "the Party can have you killed whenever it pleases". That's exactly what the Party did. There were class enemies, rich peasants, Ukrainians, Jews, Tatars, Cossacks, Germans, Mensheviks from Georgia, Stalin was an equal opportunity murderer. And above all, Stalin waged war on Old Bolsheviks like Bukharin and Trotsky his sometime colleagues, and anyone associated with them.

Killed because one man controlled a machine that enabled him to have folks liquidated for any reason or no reason at all.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

You might read further. He was a brutal, murderous monster. Unlike Hitler, there was no consistent direction to his hatred. But brutal, a killer, cruel and to use Lenin's word, crude.

Since I think your native language is French, I commend to you Le Livre noir du communisme . . . you're really missing something important if you're not aware just how many mass graves Stalin filled

I also learned, read and watched documentaries telling that Stalin was a monster, a tyrant....
But as you probably read it here... when he died, Palo5 and his family cried. A lot of Soviets appreciated him too. Were they all criminals?

As Guy Debord wrote in the "Société du spectacle"
Capitalist propaganda that seems to be true is wrong and Capitalist propaganda that seems to be wrong is true.

I will never forget the false proof shown by Powell in the UN.
Since that day... I am more circumspect about monsters.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

The 1936 Constitution is "honest" insofar as it effectively says "the Party can have you killed whenever it pleases".

Hmmm. Where is it written?

Originally Posted by Brecht

Read Marx and Engels and compare their theories to the reality of the USSR. You won't find many similarities but one has to take into consideration that putting theory into practice isn't just a matter of your own will.

It seems to me that Social Anarchists are more representative than USSR communists.
Social Anarchists are more free and tolerant.

In fact every time that the working class tried to be free and to manage its life, the "elite" through the fascists or the establishment never let them in peace.

Spanish, French and Italian "communists" were brutally oppressed.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

I also learned, read and watched documentaries telling that Stalin was a monster, a tyrant....
But as you probably read it here... when he died, Palo5 and his family cried. A lot of Soviets appreciated him too. Were they all criminals?

No, they weren't criminals.

Stalin's crimes were his, not the powerless Soviet citizens he'd terrorized. He had accomplices, and people who "just followed orders", true-- but the power was all in his hands. He'd terrified a nation for a generation. What else did they know? Whoever was alive in 1953 to mourn Stalin was luckier than the millions who he'd had killed or starved.

Go read the accounts of Stalin's purges-- the _friends_ of his who he had tortured and killed. Men like Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin. If you're a fan of communism, you'll note that Stalin killed a lot of good Communists. . .

This man was a monster, and the Constitution which you seem to admire was part of his system of tyranny.

You don't have to believe me . . . check what Nikita Krushchev had to say

Originally Posted by Nikita Krushchev

Stalin originated the concept enemy of the people. This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. This concept, enemy of the people, actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one’s views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, confessions were acquired through physical pressures against the accused.

{snip}

The Commission [of Inquiry] has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archive and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality -- which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many Party, Soviet and economic activists who were branded in 1937-1938 as enemies were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmatized, and often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes. . . .

[Roubignol]

So... after debating with Deepsepia who (if I understood him well) says that this Constitution is a tool of tyranny. Let me show you the Chapter X.

(Remember that I read this constitution after listening to a humanist professor of economics, named Etienne Chouard, who analysed the French democracy, which he considers "dishonest" because the people are removed from their power.
According to him, in the French Constitution, the "elites" have nothing to fear if they behave badly.)



CHAPTER X
Hammer & Sickle
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS

ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.

ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.


ARTICLE 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.

ARTICLE 122. Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
reedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

ARTICLE 126. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to develop the organizational initiative and political activity of the masses of the people, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations--trade unions, cooperative associations, youth organizations,' sport and defense organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.

ARTICLE 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

ARTICLE 129. The U.S.S.R. affords the right of asylum to foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of the working people, or for their scientific activities, or for their struggle for national liberation.

ARTICLE 130. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to abide by the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to observe the laws, to maintain labor discipline, honestly to perform public duties, and to respect the rules of socialist intercourse.

ARTICLE 131. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to safeguard and strengthen public, socialist property as the sacred and inviolable foundation of the Soviet system, as the source of the wealth and might of the country, as the source of the rosperous and cultured life of all the working people.
Persons committing offenses against public, socialist property are enemies of the people.

ARTICLE 132. Universal military service is law. Military service in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is an honorable duty of the citizens of the U.S.S.R.

ARTICLE 133. To defend the fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. Treason to the country--violation of the oath of allegiance, desertion to the enemy, impairing the military power of the state, espionage is punishable with all the severity of the law as the most heinous of crimes.



You can observe that women are considered equal to men (article 122), no more unemployment (article 118), antiracist (article 123) freedom of religion (article 124) and speech (article 125).

Personally I can tell you that I don't like the chapter 132. I made my military service and thought it was a waste of time, a lowering of human intelligence...

[tygrkhat40]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

...Stalin was an equal opportunity murderer.

Back at Buff State, I had a history professor, Dr. Donald Leopard (yes, that was his name), who called Stalin "an equal opportunity meat grinder."