How long did it take the country to turn into a slave/police state?
Years? Decades? A Year?
After Lenin’s death there was a struggle between political leaders (particularily between Stalin and Trotsky), which Stalin won. In order to secure against any possible political discord he started prosecuting anyone who seemed to oppose him. As biggest repressions were in 30s , I think that answer is a little more than a decade.
From before day one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheka
Pretty much as soon as Lenin was in power.
For further information look up pretty much anything Rosa Luxemborg.
The Soviet union was a police state from the beginning. Lenin saw politics as a form of pest control, and indiscriminately murdered people to an extreme degree. The early Soviets were just economic ignoramuses who thought that abolishing the capitalist economy would magically produce a free lunch. When that scheme led to a complete unraveling of the economy, it paved the way for Stalin to take control. Contrary to popular belief, Stalin was not a betrayer of “true” Marxist ideology, but did what Marxist-Leninist theory suggested. Extreme depredation of the rural population was part of that.
Im no Marxist. But if you can produce one Marx quote that encourages such behavior, I’ll have to throw my underwear away, because I’ll poop my pants.
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
Poop away: https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/did-karl-marx-think-communism-was-a-good-thing/11722/15
Also the rest of that thread is full of his bloodlust.
I don’t know whether Marx directly encouraged depredation of the rural population, but it followed from his theories. Note that I wrote Marxist-Leninist theory, not Marxist theory. Marx had predicted that a capitalist country would become imperialist during it’s final demise. I think it was Lenin who developed the theory that capitalist nations would not allow a successful socialist country, so they would soon invade the Soviet union. Therefore, after Stalin took power the Soviet union faced the challenge of quickly having to build up it’s military capacity to defend against the imminent capitalist invasion (they believed). To do so they had to expropriate large shares of the resources from the rural population to quickly develop heavy industry. Of course the peasants wouldn’t be happy about that, so it was necessary to intimidate them. That’s why Stalin was so evil and essentially made lists of random people to be shot, the population had to be sufficiently intimidated to go along with ‘socialism in one country’. His actions were later declared a betrayal of the “true” socialism that was attempted by Lenin, but in reality Stalin acted to defend socialism according to what Marxist-Leninists believed at that time. He was later thrown under the bus by leftie historians, kind of like Hitler.
That’s why the left became ‘pacifist’ in the 60s, because it meant surrendering to communism. Prior to that the mainstream left were always the ones who favored rearmament and war.
Poop away: https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/did-karl-marx-think-communism-was-a-good-thing/11722/15
Also the rest of that thread is full of his bloodlust.
Lol, perhaps you should have looked up the context of this quote;
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Rheinische_Zeitung
This was not a promotion of terror. It was an attack on government terror and secrecy.
One of those quotes you produce is an outright falsehood that cannot be attributed to Marx, only to the same newspaper listed above which was edited by Marx. But this does not imply absolute agreement.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/marx-revolutionary-terror-t138707/index.html?t=138707
The rest of that thread is mostly Cain and the other poster having a good discussion on Marxism, and you jumping in to froth at the mouth and engage in sophistry.
I don’t know whether Marx directly encouraged depredation of the rural population, but it followed from his theories. Note that I wrote Marxist-Leninist theory, not Marxist theory. Marx had predicted that capitalism in it’s demise would become imperialist. I think it was Lenin who developed the theory that capitalist nations would not allow a successful socialist country, so they would soon invade the Soviet union. Therefore, after Stalin took power they believed that the Soviet union faced the challenge of quickly having to build up it’s military capacity to defend against the imminent capitalist invasion. To do that they had to expropriate resources from the rural population to develop heavy industry. Of course the peasants wouldn’t be happy about that, they would rebel, so it was necessary to intimidate them. That’s why Stalin was so evil and essentially made lists of random people to be shot, the rural population had to be sufficiently intimidated to go along with ‘socialism in one country’. His actions were later declared a betrayal of the “true” socialism that was attempted by Lenin, but in reality Stalin acted to defend socialism according to what Marxist-Leninists believed at that time. He was kind of thrown under the bus by leftie historians, kind of like Hitler
I have nothing to argue against this. Soviet style rule was really a product of its’ time and the material factors surrounding it.
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Of course it was a promotion of terror.
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That link you provide to revleft is chock full of quotes by Marx and his vampirish psychosis.
Funny how that unique time and those surrounding material factors turn up, by sheer coincidence, in every communist country.
Hayek’s book, Road to Serfdom, explains how it has nothing to do with unique times and surrounding material factors, but is the inevitable consequnces of socialism.
Listen to Vladimir Bukovsky speak about the commanalities between the EU and USSR.
Thought i would add another one, he has more videos on youtube if you search his name
Funny how that unique time and those surrounding material factors turn up, by sheer coincidence, in every communist country
Catalonia
Look, I don’t want to have to defend Marxism. But until you can produce something genuine to back up your charge, I’m just going to write you off as a sophist.
Of course we could go into long debates, though, about Stalin v Andrew Jackson and the USSR vs the early US… but again, I’m not here to defend Marxism, and especially not M-Lism.
So you consider Hayek’s book not genuine? What flaw have you found in it?
Please summarize his argument, and explain why you think it is wrong.
Stalin positioned himself as a centrist. Originally the Communists belived that either you would have Communism accross the whole world, or you would not have Communism anywhere. For this reason one part of the Bolsheviks (“the leftists”) was dead set on world revolution. Another set (“the right”) however deduced a world revolution was unrealistic and therefore concluded they had no choice but to give up on having Communism in the Soviet Union. Stalin, always the cautious one, took the middle road of “socialism in one country”. Against world revolution, but in favor of achieving Communism.
That is a good point. The world was a much darker place after 1918.
Dave,
In my “genuine” statemnt I was asking you to produce something genuine from Marx that promoted terrorism. You’ve yet to do that.
I think The Road to Serfdom is a good discussion on totalitarianism, and central planning. Other than a few fallacies and mischaracterization, I’m enjoying it. But I’ve yet to see anything in it that deals with real socialism; ie, worker control of the means of production.
My statemnent about “time and material circumstance” was in no way a defense of Marxist-leninism. I would prefer liberal capitalism to any leninist system (perhaps Cuba I could live with. It’s not as bad, from anything I can find, as exiles in Miami make it out to be.). I was agreeing with what Nero had to say. So if you have a problem with my statement, you can find something specific in his post that doesn’t sit well with you.