Marx was not a "statist"
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- Опубликовано: 14 янв 2025
- Patreon: / cuck
Twitter: / philosophycuck
Thank you to Rad Shiba for help with the video and reading out quotes: / @radshiba3345
As well as Xexizy: / @xexizy
And Red Plateaus: / @redplateaus
Music by musou: musou.bandcamp...
Works quoted:
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - The Communist Manifesto - www.marxists.o...
Karl Marx - Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right - www.marxists.o...
Karl Marx - Critique of the Gotha Program - www.marxists.o...
Karl Marx - The Civil War in France - www.marxists.o...
Karl Marx - Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy - www.marxists.o...
Friedrich Engels - A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891 - marxists.catbu...
Vladimir Lenin - State and Revolution - www.marxists.o...
Vladimir Lenin - Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat - www.marxists.o...
Vladimir Lenin - Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers’, Soldiers’ And Peasants’ Deputies - www.marxists.o...
Vladimir Lenin - The Tax in Kind - www.marxists.o...
Friedrich Engels - The Principles of Communism - www.marxists.o...
Vladimir Lenin - Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.) - www.marxists.o...
Joseph Stalin - Foundations of Leninism - www.marxists.o...
Friedrich Engels - Anti-Dühring - www.marxists.o...
Recommended works:
Karl Marx - Critique of the Gotha Program - www.marxists.o...
Vladimir Lenin - State and Revolution - www.marxists.o...
Simon Pirani - The Russian Revolution in Retreat - libcom.org/files/[Simon_Pirani]_The_Russian_Revolution_in_Retreat,_(b-ok.org).pdf
Victor Serge - Memoirs of a Revolutionary - palmermethode....
On the Chinese revolution of 1925: libcom.org/his...
Note:
In some of his later writings, Lenin does start conflating the dictatorship of the proletariat, in contradiction with Marx and his own earlier writings. There are 3 reasons why this might be:
1. As his party becomes less revolutionary, he might already be in the process of legitimating the state as socialist, which culminates in Stalin.
2. He might be less careful with his terminology due to decreasing health.
3. He is using “socialism” in a different sense, as in the socialist tendency.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I should've been more careful when saying that "no money means no classes". It's true that pre-capitalism, it was possible for a society to have classes without money. I was referring to classes specifically as they exist in capitalism - the working class and the capitalist class, which is what the transitionary period of the dictatorship of the proletariat concerns itself with.
Yes, marxists never say what they mean, marxism is not science
great vid. but i have to ask: doesn't this all mean that true Communism as envisioned by Marx, is pretty much impossible? Class consciousness alone is near impossible to achieve in most societies of the world today, and "revolution" in any given politic struggle is merely to replace those who control the respective capitalist systems rather than actually to revamp the system entirely.
how can Marx's international workers' revolution realistically happen?
@Mike Rocker Since free association is the organizing principle of communism, forcing a society toward communism is the least communistic thing I can imagine. Needless to say (I hope), that's "free" as in speech, not as in beer.
No money means productive organization without efficient specialization and trade, so it means poverty for everyone including the working class. Demonizing money and profit was communism's greatest error. A few people say they want to return to pre-modern living standards, but most of these people also want to be among the one percent still living under the circumstances.
The thing I've never yet been able to understand is how it could ever be possible to prevent value-hierarchies, and thus some degree of class stratification from developing. Even if you make draconian laws about the exact fixed prices of goods and services, how do you for example prevent the best doctor in a town from being lavished with non-monetary goods while the worst doctor is shunned. This same effect would continue to spread throughout the whole society. The nicest city would attract the most people and the competition to live there would be fiercest, etc. The most talented people would overall be those able to secure living space there, and the organization of that community would continue to improve while worse places would continue to worsen and thus become less powerful. I guess that's not the same thing as full-on class stratification since no individual is allowed to own property. Relatedly in the end-goal vision of society as described in the video I also don't understand what prevents the local communal governments from basically becoming small feudal states and warring with their neighbors for resources, unless you have something equivalent to a shogunate that will march in with an army and break it up. Anyways, curious on your thoughts, Mr. Cuck.
Says Marx wasn't a statist.
Then Later in the video:
"Marx states that"
Smh my head
Lol
Whomp whomp! 😂
Facts and Logic! Great!
Cuck Philosophy DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC
As English is not my first language my first instinct was this is going to be a deep dive into how Marx didn't like statistics.
That's a mistake native readers will make too xD
Ugh his economic theory would have been so much better if he just left out the maths... 150 years after Das Kapital and people still haven't figured out how to predict shit in the economy.
i think statistics even has a root in state, so you might be dead on there
@Saddam Zimmerman oh cool, we also use "statista" for extras in serbian, then again we do have lots of german words incorporated in our language
@@maxha9082 Marx was horrible with math, and in fact his economic theory has very little base (at least as he developed it) in good mathematics, he was after all part of the classic economists branch.
POV: you’ve been ambushed by philosophy majors on your way to class and cannot escape into your lecture hall
Plot twist: the lecture you're going to is philosophy
i am the ambusher
Ben Shapiro's face flashing onto my screen out of nowhere is the stuff of nightmares.
where? timecode?
If I ever meet Ben Shapiro in real life I would kick his ass
@@elephant3109 roughly 23:50 its for a logic joke
@SandboxArrow the only word in a conservative's vocabulary
@SandboxArrow Hope this is a bit you're doing. Because if not... Yikes, dude.
I wish you talked about Marx' shitposting against Lassalle.
Too spicy for youtube
Yes, it's funny af
Marx was mocking Lassalle beliefs in (un)scientific racism. Another funny detail is that Marx was more dark-skinned than Lassalle, so much that his nickname among friends was " Moor"
The left knowing how to shitpost since its conception, what a beautiful thing to behold
@@TobyHonest420 Yeah and what about all the anti-semitic comments in letters about several of his colleagues/adversaries Marx was so fond of?
Not exactly on topic, but I urge everyone not to idolize any philosopher.
Also the concept of orthodoxy seems so bizarre to me when applied to leftist thought.
In my opinion we have to accept our admiration (every kind of) and understand it, criticize it, believe that you have gotten rid of the myth is the door open to the absolute myth. Didn't the biggest bureaucracy in the world, that of the country of "workers", spend 60 years shouting that it didn't exist , that the workers were in charge ?
Please read "What is Orthodox Marxism?" by György Lukács
@Krónika I definitely agree. Marx was not right about everything and I think it is so annoying when you try to argue with someone and their argument boils down to "Marx said so"
@@tm2727Sounds like a christian fundamentalist with the bible.
Yeah. And I think it's a bit silly to ignore 150+ years of Marxist scholarship that refined, developed, and disagreed with Marx. Although given that Marx is a challenging starting point for a lot of people it's not surprising that most don't get beyond that.
broke: Communism works in theory but not in practice
woke: Communism doesn't work in theory or practice
Bespoke: Communism doesn't work in theory but works in practice
lol!
"It just works" Todd Empowered
steinbuch.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/statements-to-remember-on-theory-practice/theorie-volgens-fokke-en-sukke-300x261/
Translation for you poor monolingual Anglophones and other uncivilized ilk:
"Very impressive, colleague...but does it also work in theory?"
If you put in perspective, Socialism has been working since it started. As an ideology it created many advances for the working classes and if you think in terms of Socialist nations, the USSR, despite all the problems it had, was the 2nd biggest economy of the last century and China is close to become the biggest economy in the world.
Capitalism is only nice and dandy in the 1st world countries because they benefit, directly or indirectly, from the exploitation of cheap raw materials and labor plus the brain drain and capital flight that goes from 3rd world countries to feed 1st world economies. Without recurring to this logic of global exploitation, the USSR became the 2nd biggest potency in terms of technology, military, industrial and economic development. Citizens of the USSR had a better quality of life than most capitalist countries with the exception of a handful of countries of the so-called '''1st world''. If it were not for the high cost of the Cold War, it wouldn't have had collapsed. And China is still a Socialist country, it is a planned economy with markets and not a free-market economy with some planning, being responsible for taking 800 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years.
@@brunopropheta Bruno went to college
Don't change, a lot of leftist youtubers I usually watch (e.g. thought slime) are not good at nuance/argument - they are very good at preaching to the choir. This is actually good even if you don't agree with your views.
Why in the world would you watch a dork like ThoughtSlime
What did TS did wrong in your view?
@@dezodroya he's a radlib nerd
@@dezodroya He has a tendency to not think through issues very well. He likes to rant about problems, but isn't very good about looking into why the problems arise, or how to deal with the problems. For example, his video on police does a good job about making you feel bad about police, but it doesn't really address why the system has the issue, nor does his solution (i.e. community watches) really make much sense - how would one deal with bias in the community?
I get it, he's a person, and he doesn't seem to like theory all that much, so his audience will be different, but it is a problem if you want to convince other people of what you are saying.
@@yungsouichi2317 "dork" "nerd" Is this highschool?
20:03 Oh no It's the Chad saying "YES" meme
I made it lol its on my instagram
Thank you for the inspiration
Bakunin: what, so we're just gonna have 40 million people in government?
Marx: *yes*
@@Callisto-161 thank you. I thought it was weird that the framing here seemed to suggest that bakunin was like "what?! No state?! Thats craaayzeee!"
Will we still have Friday nuggies & french fries in higher-form communism?
Asking the real questions
Yes you can, Marx didn't prohibit any individuals to indulge in such luxuries as long as they do not degrading the state of others by achieving the means of doing so.
Only if people want to make them and then give them to you.
Which since there are plenty of people who simply enjoy cooking good food and take pride in people eating it there almost certinly would be Friday night nuggets and fries. Probabbly really good ones too.
@@hshocker98 Oh no, for sure :) I was just being silly
ANDkan Do you want to talk about it?
Stalin’s been real quiet since this dropped
Stalin just waiting until this all blows over
He's dead.
Has anyone checked on Beria? He name searches
He's got no real arguments so now he's just stalin'
@@SorceressWitch ¨Yes, and..¨ my friend....
how can he make "statements" and "state" things if he's not a statist😒
Karl Marx is a Statist. This video: 'We need multi-parties existence within One Country' is the proper title.
@@cristianwaters2190 The "statist" part is in quotations because Marx and Engels were arguing over semantics with early Anarchists, which both had a nasty relationship thanks to Mikhail Bakunin, his celebrity, his terrible strawmans, taking those strawmans to be the truth, and anarchist theory having been yet to be expanded upon. If you read up about "Barracks Communism", he argues against Sergei Nechayev (who Bakunin viewed as his protegé) about the regimented lives that he purposed, and ironically, Lenin was influenced by Nechayev.
@@JohnDoe-mp1yn though let’s be clear that Bakunin did not advocate the barracks communism of Sergey. Ultimately Bakunin and Marx had a discussion and Marx said he agreed with Bakunin. Marx was also ambitious and wanted his ideals to predominate the International
@@blackflagsnroses6013 can i get a link to that? i gotta read about them more
@@cristianwaters2190 the opposite is true.
I advise people to read
Critical Notes on the Article:
“The King of Prussia and Social Reform."
It clearly shows Marx's non-statism and if it got mentioned in this video it would be a plus for the case you present in the video.
*advise. I am a grammar nazi for the money
@@benbrinkhurst8722 whose boot ya licking?
Your first mistake was assuming that reactionaries are going to read.
@@michaelsieger9133 and your mistake is believing Marx
@Krónika In the manifesto Marx supposes a state in the non-juridical sense.
Oh. I thought the title was "Marx wasn't a Satanist." My bad.
Well, Marx definitely wouldn't be down with the Church of Satan, as that was largely founded on Ayn Rand's 'philosophy'.
@@burnttoast111 ugh yeah i read the satanic bible as an edgelord teenager and it's basically just that. Get yours, oh but also it's kinda spiritual but also not really or like whatever. Dropped that right quick
@@Justin-ib2iz Fortunately, TST offers a much better alternative, if you want to engage in a similar aesthetic. It should also be compatible with Marxism, just thinking off the top of my head. I do really like that aesthetic, but not enough to do it.
@@burnttoast111 hmm never heard of them. My interest in the whole idea has waned a little, but i agree the aesthetic has powerful potential. I will check them out though!
I was really impressed with what zeal and ardor did with satanic imagery's potential as a language of resistance. They're this metal band heavily influenced by slave chants, and they basically write from a fictional perspective of slaves who don't adopt the christianity of their masters but are like "yknow what, if god is on your side and the devil is his enemy, I'll take my chances with that guy."
ruclips.net/video/jlGBer0VoF8/видео.html
Richard Wurmbrand, "Marx and Satan". I recommend.
I thank the Spinozist God for this channel every day. Bless you.
Blessed be thy substance of the universe that contains infinite attributes of which all contain an attribute of it!
Thanking yourself is a little egotistical, isn't it?
Cringe
@@alphamc4552 theism is for the small minded.
@@bigkarl6367 Pantheism is for the all-minded
This... is a weird comment section
Agreed.
No, this is Patrick
yeS
I was actually hoping for this topic to be discussed after watching Red Plateaus video yesterday
same bro
Left Communist: That's all very well and good, but what would Marx think of this?
Stalinist: That's an excellent question! Let's go back to the source. *cracks open Economic Problems of the USSR*
What interpretation did you expect a Leninist to have? Mao's? De Leon's?
That of a person who thinks advocating for a social system for which a period of dictatorship is necessary is anti-statist?
Lenin contradicts himself and that should be uncontroversial.
@@fruitylerlups530 there is a mistranslation in the English version of State and Rev because it is also present in the Marx section quoted. Lenin and Marx who were both fluent in German talked about there being 'state functions' under 'socialism' which is mistranslated as simply 'state' in English versions
Finally a video on marx from someone who did the reading
This.
Wtf based
@@kofi9212 oh hey
@@jackri7676 wassup🤝🤝
And still he claims that a voucher-based trade system could happen without the state... You guys are such sheep.
Thanks for the video. It shows of how much you studied the subject and the dedication you tribute it.
The only state I'm down with is my state of depression.
"Affective
disorders are forms of captured discontent; this disaffection can and must be channeled outwards, directed towards its real cause, Capital." - Mark Fisher.
"The 'methodological individualism' of the capitalist worldview presupposes the philosophy of Max Stirner in that it regards notions such as the public as 'spooks', phantom abstractions devoid of content. The symptoms of the failures of this worldview are everywhere what is required is that effect be connected to structural cause. " - ibid
But we should abolish this state as possible too.
Very timely intervention, thanks for getting it together comrades. As an old ex-anarchist who has come in recent years to describe himself as a Marxist after decades of study, struggle and, of course, changing material conditions, this topic is very close to my own heart.
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
@TheBmo4538 how so?
I assume that you are a libertarian Marxist. What made you a Marxist? Do you identify as such because you subscribe to a Marxist understanding of history?
Anarchists are merely unfinished Marxists.
@@DiscipleOfHeavyMeta1 shut you mouth profane :p
I thought Marx changed his mind about the need for a global revolution to establish socialism, or at least for Russia to establish socialism. He said this in one of his drafts of a letter he wrote in 1881...
"Does this mean, however, that the historical career of the agrarian commune is fated to end in this way? Not at all. Its innate dualism admits of an alternative: either its property element will gain the upper band over its collective element; or else the reverse will take place. Everything depends upon the historical context in which it is located.
Let us, for the moment, abstract from the evils bearing down upon the Russian commune and merely consider its evolutionary possibilities. It occupies a unique situation without any precedent in history. Alone in Europe, it is still the organic, predominant form of rural life in a vast empire. Communal land ownership offers it the natural basis for collective appropriation, and its historical context - the contemporaneity of capitalist production provides it with the ready-made material conditions for large-scale co-operative labour organised on a large scale. It may therefore incorporate the positive achievements developed by the capitalist system, without having to pass under its harsh tribute. It may gradually replace small-plot agriculture with a combined, machine assisted agriculture which the physical configuration of the Russian land invites. After normal conditions have been created for the commune in its present form, it may become the direct starting point of the economic system towards which modern. society .is tending; it may open a new chapter that does not begin with its own suicide."
Thanks, that clears stuff up for me.
@@diegobarrientos5144 In his later years, he did in fact consider agriculture and peasantry as playing a role in the development of a future communist state, not just a step to be overcome to a scientific communism. Marx in fact changed ideas a LOT during his life in a number of topics, and his thought was reframed by Engles own conceptions after Marx's death. You cannot say, Marx thought X because of quote Y, you have to take into account the evolution of his ideas over time.
@@diegobarrientos5144 Also he abandoned or at least grow disillusioned with the idea that the Communist state would come about through a revolution, and put more emphasis on capitalism collapsing through one of its many economic crisis, or something like that, I don't recall well
@@diegobarrientos5144
Well first of all Russian revolution was not even conceived by Marx until the end of his life at the time his work was popular in Russia, because as noted in the Critique of Political Economy he believed in a universal process of social development through which all countries would evolved. Russia, as a peasant agricultural society was viewed as primitive, and as such he had to reconcile a revolution through Russia with his ideas of stages in civilizations. That alone right there is a change of thought in his latest years as he wrote the russian preface to the manifesto. In fact for most of his life he thought that as a possibility that Western revolution would come about as a reaction to the much primitive Russia. It is precisely at this time where he started studying the rural society for the second volume of the Capital.
"Marx was wrestling with how to reconcile his long-held theories of social development with his growing interest in the revolutionary potential of rural society, and his desire to remain on good terms with the Russian revolutionaries. In the end, he was equivocal. Future Russian revolutionaries would treat Marx’s formulations as tea leaves to be read so as to make their country the central point of a global communist revolution"
In his interview with with R. Landor he even said:
"R.: It would seem that in this country the hoped-for solution, whatever it may be, will be attained without the violent means of revolution. The English system of agitating by platform and press, until minorities become converted into majorities, is a hopeful sign.
Dr. M.: I am not so sanguine on that point as you. The English middle class has always shown itself willing enough to accept the verdict of the majority, so long as it enjoyed the monopoly of the voting power. But, mark me, as soon as it finds itself outvoted on what it considers vital questions, we shall see here a new slaveowners's war."
And in some speeches he gave in some of those countries he considered more democratically advanced he mentions similar ideas.
It might be very well true the core of his ideas stayed the same, but not the details around them. As for the theory of crisis, yeah it seems that the non-revolution interpretation was more pushed forward by later marxists. I'm certainly no Marx expert anyway, but I would say learning Marx through Lenin's writings is not the best impartial intellectual approach.
ApplesPapples In a lot of ways, Marx is an early example of being careful of what you publish online, because it’ll come back to bite you years after you no longer believe in those things.
1) The State is not abolished, it withers away once class antagonisms are done away with. Under Anarchism, the state is abolished. Might be a petty point, but its still true.
2) Capitalism is characterized by generalized commodity production, wage labour(A LABOUR MARKET), private ownership of the means of production. In the USSR, which you describe as capitalist, Labour power was no longer a commodity nor was commodity production generalized. Furthermore, Markets had been replaced by planning. It certainly was not a capitalist state.
3) It is all very well to state that Communism is a stateless classless moneyless society, but what about the detail? Under the free association of associated producers "(workers + capitalists no longer exist), planning replaces markets. As Marx states in 1872:
" There will be no longer any government or state power, distinct from society itself! Agriculture, mining, manufacture, in one word, all branches of production, will gradually be organised in the most adequate manner. National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan. Such is the humanitarian goal to which the great economic movement of the 19th century is tending"
So Marx believed that the economy would have to be in a democratic way in order to satisfy the needs of the population. Now i think that economic planning is an important aspect of Marxism, do you disagree?(it seems so TBH)
4) Finally, I think you are fundamentally correct, Marx was not a statist and it is silly to think so. But i don't recall any Leninist writer arguing that Marx was a statist. If this video was directed at conservatives, then well done...but if it dirrected at leninists...ehhh.
DemocraticSocialist0 In the USSR private property became state property and, like Engels says, this doesn’t constitute socialism.
1) That's true that generally in the Marxist tradition the state is said to wither away. However, I should point out that Marx himself spoke explicitly only of smashing the state, he never used the phrase "wither away". That phrasing actually comes from Saint-Simon via Anti-Dühring. That might be a minor point, but worth making.
2) I would say that under the USSR, labour power was definitely a commodity, because it was exchanged for a wage - that's exactly what makes labor power a commodity. Also, capital can exist without individual capitalists, with the state as "universal capitalist" as Marx put it. - “…the idea held by some socialists that we need capital but not the capitalists is altogether wrong. It is posited within the concept of capital that the objective conditions of labour - and these are its own product - take on a personality towards it, or, what is the same, that they are posited as the property of a personality alien to the worker."
3) I don't think I argued against any of the points made here. I agree that communist society would involve planning.
4) The video title here was a bit clickbait-y. I don't find "statist" a very useful term so I didn't use it in the video itself, but it does give people a general idea of what the video will be about.
@@jonasceikaCCK
1) "That's true that generally in the Marxist tradition the state is said to wither away. However, I should point out that Marx himself spoke explicitly only of smashing the state, he never used the phrase "wither away". That phrasing actually comes from Saint-Simon via Anti-Dühring. That might be a minor point, but worth making.
"
Interesting. However I do remember Engles explicitly stating that the state withers away in anti Durhing. Not sure if he was merely quoting Saint-Simon, who was a utopian.
2)" I would say that under the USSR, labour power was definitely a commodity, because it was exchanged for a wage - that's exactly what makes labor power a commodity.
"
Again, I disagree. In capital volume I, Marx writes
“" Otherwise with capital. The historical conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It can spring into life, only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free labourer selling his labour-power. And this one historical condition comprises a world’s history. Capital, therefore, announces from its first appearance a new epoch in the process of social production. "
So according to Marx in capital I, circulation of money and commodities predates capitalism. Capital springs to life when labour power is a commodity, aka- “the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free labourer selling his labour-power”. This did not happen in the USSR where there was a right to work(also see the Iron rice bowl in China) and labour power was not a commodity. As for the workers being paid in rubles, the soviet ruble did not have the same function as money in the capitalist west. I will explain this further below.
“Also, capital can exist without individual capitalists, with the state as "universal capitalist" as Marx put it. - “…the idea held by some socialists that we need capital but not the capitalists is altogether wrong. It is posited within the concept of capital that the objective conditions of labour - and these are its own product - take on a personality towards it, or, what is the same, that they are posited as the property of a personality alien to the worker."
I never denied that, in fact I have pointed that out many times myself. However, that argument falls flat when it comes to the USSR because commodity production was not generalized, it was not a profit driven economy….if it was, they would have been producing cheap consumer goods to sell internationally, the state keeping the profits. The USSR, being part of the world market, would have also suffered greatly in the depression, in reality they were hardly effected.
I agree with your other two points, so I will not be commenting on them.
DemocraticSocialist01 I like reading debates like these.
@@jonasceikaCCK I completely disagree on point 2 as well. Labour power was quite clearly not a commodity in the USSR at least not until the tevisionist period and capitalist restoration. There are better descriptions as to why above but it really does dampen some of your arguments in the video that you are wrong about this part.
What you get wrong about Anarchists vs Marxists is that in the Marxist view there is still representation. As you properly noted on Engels quote, so it's not a problem of "definition of the State" as you mentioned, but a fundamental question about the distribution of power in the community/commune.
I'd rather you stick to a voiceover done entirely by you. Somehow other voices break your signature monotonous flow. Excellent vid otherwise.
It's the "cool" thing to do on Leftube, but yeah it doesn't suit him.
agreeb
Well alright, be that way :'(
@@radshiba3345 nah, it was nice
A moneyless society can still have classes and a state: e.g. Old Kingdom Egypt, and the Inca Empire. The means of production can be controlled by an elite military caste who compel corvee-labour and extract surplus produce from the workers via a monopoly of violence; the elite then distributes the surplus to consumers using a rationing system, which is basically Marx's labour-vouchers but explicitly biased by aristocratic cronyism. The capital and goods aren't money because they're non-fungible and non-liquid, making market-exchange impossible, but it's still very much a class-rule state.
On the topic of the Russian revolution: Lenin abolished the police by crossing out the word "police" and writing the word "militia"; strike-breaking and forced dissolution of Soviets began even before the civil war was in full swing; Trotsky proudly declared that the workers' democracy has no right to disagree with the objectively-correct decisions of the Party; Kronstadt was a thing. Marx wasn't a statist, and Lenin in his writings showed a good understanding of the Marxian position - but his actions in government were 100% statist, enthusiastically placing his all-powerful centralising administration as the sole power, justified by the need for a strong united front against reaction. The retreat of the Bolsheviks from socialist revolution into self-indulgent state-building began in July 1917, when they decided that only terroristic statism is capable of achieving military victory.
So the key is to destroy any possibility of producing profit.
The state is behavior that is emergent out of conditions, like social and class antagonism.
@@ocnus1.61 the key is never stopping class warfare.
I think saying the USSR abandoned international communism is neglecting the material reality of the cold war and the threat of global nuclear annihilation. But the counter-revolution in china was definitely butts
"to be fair Shanghai Massacre wasnt in any part supported by USSR. It was deal-broker between KMT and USSR and wasnt even supported by most of Republicans. As i understand it from my readings supporting KMT-CCP deal was meant to move China from feudal, agrarian society to modern industrial one, one in which socialism can take place. Most of the socialist in China were in republican party after all"
quoting my comment. USSR did many mistakes, but in my belief they stance on China developed from constructive analysis of material conditions of East Asia
@@krzysiekgruda1433 thing is what many stalinists dont realize is that this is a menshevik talking point.
The soviets won the space race nxD
Thanks for making this video! These are debates we really need to start having better!
What for you are both wrong. Also when i provide academic sources that show you are wrong, you have a childish fit
Brilliant video. Thank you so much for making this. I learned a lot and have shown it to so many people already. Honestly my favorite political video I’ve ever watched.
Omg your profile pic is so pretty ^%^
I didn't know most of the things that are treated here... and what strikes me the most is the fact that a whole lot people more than a century ago really hated capitalism as much as I do now, to the extent that they went through all that theorizing, organization, and sacrifice... and everything went to waste, even the ideas and historical events got forgotten by the great majority of people nowadays.
People can't forget what they're explictely not taught.
It did not go to waste.
I just typed out, on my phone, two damm times, why I believe this only for the window to collapse and all my proletarian thoughts were deleted before I could even press the "enter" key.
Conspiracy! :)
Because you commies lost and will always lose. lol
Because it is truly the only direction we can progress as a human race. And if you knew the hell almost all these people went through being working class back then and exploited so terribly and so blatantly and the real horrible pain day to day life was like, it wouldn't be a surprise.
It's weird so many schools don't teach the most, if not one of the most important parts of human history, the workers revolution. That literally swept the entire world, and at the very least, put the fear of God into the capitalist system so to say, to not be so blatantly exploitive as well as directly releasing people from horribly abusive blatant wage slavery across the world. It was worse or just as bad as being a slave, the survival rate and condition and hours worked in basically all of these places were unimaginable and were even raped and abused like literal owned slaves. Children too. And they died horrible young deaths. Life expectancy actually shortened most places bc of it, It brought more pain than life before industrialization. It was, and still is on some level, some kind of exploitive hell. We need to rid the world of it. If anyone time traveled and saw how capitalism took its roots, and watched it grow and how it truly functions and operates, they'd despise it every time. It is truly a cancer. The only reason it's tolerable is not because capitalism has "matured", but controlled to some degree by revolution and socialist ideas and direct action itself. And it took over a hundred years of actual fighting, to just get here. That's our real story and I think a more proper perspective and narrative of modern history. It was a fight for every single inch paid in blood.
One of the best video essays I've ever listened too. Well done.
State control is deeply vague, bcs it doesn't specify what kind of state are you talking about.
[Edit]
Also, I think we need a distinction between what we understand about centralized and Lenin's Democratic Centralism.
[Edit 2]
I... Have to agree with Stalin.
It is true that socialism wouldn't survive in one country alone, that the socialist and communist goal is an international one, and at risk of been called a Tankie for "defending" Stalin, he understood that too, but having a semifeudal, destroyed country because of the civil war (wich was between Bolsheviks and the White Army, aimed by other 14 nations) with practically no industry, you cannot expect to do a worldwide, working class revolution and having a devastated country bcs of war; you need to, first, modernize and at least make your own country, in some level, self-suficient. That's why I think it is correct to start with one-country socialism theory and practice.
[Edit 3]
I really don't want to defend Stalin because I have nor simpathy nor apathy to him, but the help given by the USSR to the Koumitang started in 1923, in the context of making an alliance between the Koumitang and the Communist Party of China against Imperialist Japan, so it started with Lenin and it wasn't because of supporting nationalism, it was a fight againt imperialism, a topic that is one of the reasons Lenin is better known for.
Also, good video, I love it :D
@Mike Rocker There would never have been a coup if the provisional government wasn't adamant on participating in WW1.
The provisional government and the constitute assembly are two different animals. The Bolsheviks were in alignment with other left groups and workers soviets in breaking up the provisional government (it was the organization which would have been successful in ending the revolution if it had gone on). The constitute assembly however is more controversial, the Bolshevik argument was that the split between the left and right SRs invalidated the CA vote which on paper favored the right SR despite the alignment of left SRs with the Bolsheviks. However I personally think that move led to disastrous results, SR assassination attempt on Lenin which led to the highly violent empowerment of the checka which became the henchmen of the counterrevolution. Pularism in my view would have been more unifying, but the Bolsheviks where already in a siege mentality at that point. It's not a popular opinion amongst supporters of the Bolsheviks but I think that was a crucial mistake.
@Mike Rocker nope, that was the Social Democrat Party of Russia, and not a Revolutionay Party, and the Bolsheviks were a faction, as the Mensheviks, of that party. The thing is that the socialdemocrats guided by Kerensky controlled the Duma, a sort of congress with the pourpuse of maintain the Tzarist order? What kind of democracy is that?
twat
After looking back at the Critique of the Gotha Programme, it's clear that Marx describes the lower phase of communism as having:
Abolition of Private Property
Abolition of Production for Exchange
Labor is rewarded (to each according to his contribution)
He mentions nothing about the abolition of the state here under this lower phase, but does he elsewhere? I'm curious because it seems like Marx's ideas about how communism would look like changed over the course of his works, probably due to his growing expertise and the economic analysis which he undertook in London. At first in the Communist Manifesto, he merely states that communism is the abolition of private property. It's only later that he develops a stage-oriented view of communism, so I wonder if that conception also changed throughout time. Regardless of his own thoughts though, it's best to keep in mind that no one will truly be able to understand how communism will take shape until it does, and until then all we can do is make predictions based on past experiences and present trends. Likewise, communism is merely a negation of capitalism. As capitalism evolves and advances - so too must our conceptions of communism, and our strategy to get there.
Another thing I should mention is that money functions in a particular way under capitalism as opposed to previous modes of production. While money is always a medium between two separate exchange values, in capitalism money it is also raw, interchangeable, movable capital. It is used so that capital may accumulate through the M-C-M circuit as described in Capital Vol 1. What's more important is whether a currency is being used as capital or merely to appropriate a given amount of society's produce, regardless of whether that currency takes the shape of fiat money or labor vouchers.
Anyhow, it seems like Lenin holds an inconsistent view of what socialism is or the events of the October Revolution made him change his mind. In 1915, 4 years before the work which you quoted, -
"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organizing their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world-the capitalist world-attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states."
- Lenin, On the Slogan for a United States of Europe
Here, he more closely outlines the cold war as opposed to a socialism that is stateless.
Regardless of all of those thoughts, I think the USSR was ultimately incapable of shedding the state form due to the conditions it was placed under, perhaps even if international socialism had been achieved. It's true that the split between common proletarian and technical/administrative personnel was never completely abolished which paved the way to further degeneration and a bureaucratic counter-revolution by Khrushchev, which in turn paved the way for an outright capitalist counter-revolution by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. One of the reasons I appreciate Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is that it effectively answers like how to resist ideological revisionism and prevent a bureaucratization of the party, which standard MLs gesture at but never quite manage to solve.
Nevertheless, I would rather live in a world where the Bolshevik revolution succeeded, than one where it had not. It offers a wealth of experience for modern-day Marxists to learn from, proved that economic planning and worker's democracy could thrive on a national scale, and the existence of worker's states from Germany to China forced the European powers to decolonize, allowing the oppressed classes of other nations to wage their own revolutionary struggles. I only wish that we also lived in a world where the German Revolution had succeeded. We'd be in a far better situation today.
@O'Shay Muir Part of Marxism's strengths is that it's a framework/method of analysis rather than a concrete ideology. It's true that Marx's own conceptions were limited by the time and place they were conceived in, as evidenced by some of his more bigoted attitudes and the belief that proletarian revolution would originate in the most advanced, industrialized countries first. It's also true that the materialist conception of history is generally universally applicable and that we should focus more on that than the beliefs of any one individual.
@O'Shay Muir Yep I can agree with all of this. Several left-communists point to commodity production as veritable proof that the USSR wasn't socialist, without discussing the scale of commodity production in the economy, what separates capitalist, generalized commodity production from that of previous modes of production, and in what processes the production of commodities took place. (like the exchange of grain between kolkhozes and the state for instance) Now the whole "was x state socialist" argument has been flung around thousands of times on the internet so I'm not gonna get too far into it, but suffice it to say that you have to be more specific when analyzing economics from a materialist lens. Same thing with China today, I see many sweeping generalizations from it's detractors.
Might be in a better position if the Bolsheviks didn't betray everyone
@@jacobcarden814 Of what class is the ruling class in a society under state socialism or state capitalism?
This video is only four days old but I can tell it’s made a big impact on how online leftists talk about socialism and communism. I’ve noticed way more people talking about a transitionary State and specifying that socialism and communism were interchangeable to Marx.
Lol they are wrong. Actually read State and revolution. This video is blatant misinformation. All the Marx, Engels, Lenin quotes were cut off.
@@wabc2336 of course they're cut off. do you expect someone to quote an entire book at a time? You can't say a quote is misused unless you point out the specific context that invalidates the points made.
@@nuklearboysymbiote He literally cut them up specifically to exclude the parts that didn't suit his narrative
@@nuklearboysymbiote Specifically, 15:00-16:00, 33:00 and when he quotes Lenin 's State and Rev, which explicitly contradicts his leftcom ideas about socialism. I've already criticized this video extensively in another comment, multiple other comments even, so I wasn't willing to type all that out again when I commented here
@@wabc2336 you can find them and copy&paste
"If it's moneyless, it is also classless"
If only life were that simple.
I am moneyless, waiting for that second part to kick in haha :(
@@Jordan-wn7kf
Jokes on you, I have neither money NOR class
I mean, relation to capital was what distinguished the classes according to Marx?
Right?
States without money have existed in the past. Command economies are a thing.
@@sock2828 maybe without paper money but can u give me an example?
Lovely work. The nuance exemplified here is a rarity in any modern political or philosophical discourse. Your knowledge of both Lenin and Marx puts pretty much everyone else on the YT left to shame.
Really great video. Does right by Marx and Lenin in showing how their works understand and imagine communism, socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Another quote that could have been used to lay clear how Lenin distinguished between the class rule of the working class under the transitional period is this one from his Speech Delivered At The All-Russia Congress Of Transport Workers:
"Indeed, if the reign of the workers and peasants would last for ever, we should never have socialism, for it implies the abolition of classes; and as long as there are workers and peasants, there will be different classes and, therefore, no full socialism."
@Krónika Excellently put, the lower-phase of communist society still requires the state as a form of communist regulator of production and the distribution of products, as well as the safeguarding of the division of labor which inevitably exists under socialist society.
@Krónika I'm guessing that Cuck was strictly using the Marxist definition of state as instrument of class power, under which a state described by Lenin in your quote is not actually a state. So could be that he's simply ignorant/misunderstanding of any difference in conceptualisation of state by Marc and Lenin, which even looking at your quote seems like a pretty small difference.
Krónika Read other pieces by Lenin that he wrote later. He changed his position.
@@julyper Mind listing some?
Jensen OP quotes one for you from his last address.
Comrade! This is a fantastic essay!
Flawed essay.
Dear Cuck,
First off, great video. The effort you put into making these videos is very appreciated.
I write to ask you a little favour.
I am working in my master's degree Final Project on teaching in secondary education.
In my paper, I aim to challenge the common narrative that we receive during our mandatory education in Spain, on the liberal revolutions of the XIX century.
Currently, I need bibliography from Max Weber on the state. Specifically, "Politics as a vocation", which contains the quote you use in this video.
Unfortunately, due to the current situation, I am unable to access my local libraries, and I can't seem to find this piece anywhere online. Not even in the digital library provided by my uni.
I was wondering if you could direct me to a site which contains this piece.
Thanks for your time.
Best regards.
Seems like this is what you're looking for, good luck!
93.174.95.29/main/C5181331FCC5F9208A91E4F75E2000C0
@@jonasceikaCCK much apreciated! looking forward for the next video. take care
Jaja hombre, un compatriota
Right after the comments written by Engels in 1885 that you cite at 15 minutes in, he clarifies that, “But no more than local and provincial self-government is in contradiction to political, national centralisation, is it necessarily bound up with that narrow-minded cantonal or communal self-seeking which strikes us as so repulsive in Switzerland, and which all the South German federal republicans wanted to make the rule in Germany in 1849.” I think it’s misleading to portray this as a shift in Marx from centralism to some localist vision, both due to the content of the passage and the fact that it was written by Engels after his death.
yeah, of course, there's a few things he cites but ignores the larger context and even highlights bits that support his argument but ignores bits below that don't. This video is great and all, but, let's not pretend there's no agenda here, as usual, and when there's an agenda, there's bias and forced ignorance.
Seems like Engels is saying simply that communism is incompatible with feudalist municipal isolation and would need to associate with the outside, as Jonas alludes to later.
Very good video. I think that a look at anarchist views of the state, beyond what you described in the video, would be a great complement to this topic. Although anarchist definitions of the State may seem really similar to Weber's definition, the are a lot of writings by anarchist authors elaborating on their specific views on it as a tool of class domination. For example, Kropotkin, in "The State: It's Historic Role":
"However, it seems to me that State and government are two concepts of a different order. The State idea means something quite different from the idea of government. It not only includes the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies. It implies some new relationships between members of society which did not exist before the formation of the State. A whole mechanism of legislation and of policing has to be developed in order to subject some classes to the domination of others."
This comes from a lecture given in 1896, more than a decade before Weber described his definition in Politics as A Vocation (although I'm not aware if he had described it in earlier works). So, there is a whole tradition of anarchist works on the state growing independently of the weberian definition you gave, and it could be interesting in discussions on this subject.
It's a terrible video and Marx hated anarchists docs.google.com/document/d/1xHEpBjB0NEZCocwHQuDZM6hVt6q4DDPg8Tb5MHvUW2U/edit?usp=drivesdk
Tbh I wasn't even surprised when Xexizy popped up during the video.
I’ve always been a left-leaning person, but my knowledge of post-modernism as well as marxism was spotty at best before i discovered you and the rest of the bread-tube gang. You’re really helping me and countless other people learn a lot of amazing things. Keep it up!!!
I second this. If my perception is to be believed and if anyone cares, 3 critical pillars in creating a coherent ideological framework for me personally were: Philosophytube's video on Antifa (which directly led me to check out Carl Schmitt and how bourgeoisie politics was pretty easily co-opted for implementing fascism), Peter Coffin's various "important documentaries" on how capital is able to weaponize identity politics to its own class interests and propagate various false consciousness narratives (exiting the vampire castle as outlined by Mark Fisher) in addition to the history of scientific racism, and of course Mr.Cuck here in his disambiguations of various thought-leader "neoliberalism is pretty cool/'the left' is iNsAnE" narratives from people like Sam Harris. The video deconstructing Jordan Peterson's uh..."arguments"...with Red Plateaus and Anarchopac is pretty bulletproof in my opinion, though this video is also an _extremely_ vital supplement it seems. It may have also helped that I read Marx in college and, being a dumbass libertarian at the time and expecting to _easily_ debunk him with *FACTS* and/or *REASON* , was pretty surprised to find a lot of sense, though I put that aside for quite a while after regardless.
Definitely plenty of other notable bread-tube people that were instrumental, like Contrapoints and NonCompete, but for whatever reason those specific instances stand out as being particularly notable ideological moments of clarity for me.
Mag 86 Breadtube is ass, their politics is just social democracy, ignore them and read non-liberal views.
@@Morgan_of_the_Maxilla like who
@@Morgan_of_the_Maxilla i follow several hundred channels that have been listed on BreadTube's main directory and/or been featured on the BreadTube Reddit forum. While what you're describing incudes many (they're basically socdem in the nordic-model vein/Tripartism, and some are even further right in the vein of social-market economics and welfare), even within the several hundred I follow there exists mostly actual anti-capitalists. Their just smaller channels. Some anti-capitalists are also only focused on what in this video called "dictatorship of the proletariat" or even -prerequisites to such a reversal of current class rule, so while they don't talk about socialism (because they realize we're far from it), they still push for the transitory period in their own way.
"BreadTube"(tm), as in only the most popular creators with the most subscribers and exposure, is like... three or four creators (Contrapoints, Philosophy Tube, Hbomberguy, Lindsay Ellis) and I'm pretty sure at least two of them are simply hiding their power level and focusing on shifting things to the transitionary period, but it's hard to tell (they may see the transitionary period as the END).
I think they're useful so long as they don't represent their aims as the be-all-end-all, and so far, at least on the BreadTube subreddit, any creator who **does** actively dismiss socialism wholesale is usually heavily criticised. Some creators just hold their radical cards pretty close to the vest so it's genuinely hard to tell.
The impression I get from this video is that Marx was not a statist, but not necessarily an anti-state either. In the 1872 Preface to the Manifesto he says "no *special* stress in laid on the revolutionary measures"; it's not a complete rejection of them. And the whole preface is pretty middle-voiced.
More and more am I realising that, when it comes to strategy, Marx is just like the rest of us: pretty much just spitballing. Revolutionary strategy is not a science like economics. There's even that quote where he says their goals can be achieved by peaceful means in some countries.
Ya, it's almost as if Marx intended his philosophy to grow and adapt to the material conditions of the time through some sort of thing maybe dialectics... hmm... why is this shit never mentioned but the argument always goes back to 'marx said this' and 'marx said that' and the more rare 'marx changed his mind because (reason)' but rarely the argument is made that 'marx wasn't infallible and made mistakes and his philosophy was created as a means by which people could draw from to develop their own, and if Marx made mistakes and changed his mind, does that mean he might do it again after everything we've seen throughout history?'
Sorry for bad sentence structure.
Another brick of truth to contain the avalanche of ignorance spouted by the reactionary forces
you guys really do believe a late 1800's theory is cutting edge. sad
@@LEARSIKCIGAM *Guy Debord intesnsifies*
@tiglath pileser the more neoliberalism - adopts socialist policies - the deeper the dissatisfaction those populations experience regarding neoliberalism - coincides are fascinating
@tiglath pileser I've always found political discourse to be fascinating. It's as far removed from my own area of expertise, biology, as one can be. My main question wouldn't be towards Marxist theory defining communism as a stateless, capital-less, classless society. This, in my opinion, would need a pretty big assumption. That assumption would be that entities, humans in this case, will avoid acquiring influence and power through non-capitalist means. I've always wondered what is the supposed self-regulatory system of a "perfect" communist society. This meaning, how would a communist society impede an aspiring dictator from rising to power?
@@hombreg1 They shoot them. Stalin and Mao would have their own officers killed every now and then. That way any new aspiring power hungry newbie will know the consequences of betrayal.
Excellent upload, thank you for clarifying many points and concepts which had been giving me some trouble.
For anyone scrolling down, beware. Some of the most critical comments and replies (particularly to Mr. CKK himself) appear to have been written by people who did not watch or listen to the video.
Awesome video, so clarifying. Also I kept thinking: ok, I get it and it makes sense but what about "..." And then you immediately answered it through the video lmao
Some disclaimers would need to be said.
1. Stalin admited that he was wrong about his support on the Chiang Kai-shek/Kuomintang situation, even because the soviets helped the Chineses Communist Party after the second war by arming them.
2. I'm really skeptical about the part that you said that Marx writings were censored in the Stalin's era, since alot of important text like Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts and German Ideology were released in that era, I don't have the link right now, but I remember seeing a paper showing that Marx and Engels texts had like a 300% of growing in reading in comparation with other times in Russia.
3. I think this video shows that a political theory can not be put on pratic without the material concditions in that era, I really think that this shows that if Marx original ideia of Socialism/Communism the Dictactorship of the Proletariant where put on pratic ignorim all the problems that the USSR was taking with the civil war, the failing of others revolutions in europe, the imperialism and so on, they would had not survive in the 20's and 30's to defeat the nazis.
But I really like the video, you are amazing even if I disagree with you in some stuff, don't stop making them haha
Fantastic reply
I always had the feeling that money are obsolete and unneeded in a communist world. I shouldve read communist literature.
Many thanks for the video!
Good! Really good. This is the one that wins me to patreon you. I feel like I can make these arguments all day, but having a full video to defer people to will be convenient af for me. Excellent work!
This video could also be called, “how we got from Marx to Stalin”
@Neon Noir saying that small nations are likely to be subsumed by larger bodies is not the same thing as advocating that Poland be invaded by Nazis. Not really seeing the contradiction here.
@Neon Noir can't believe Stalin saved all those Polish officers from the Nazis by hiding them in a forest.
@Neon Noir citations please.
@@adamplentl5588 Why need citations when you're an idealist in theory and a liberal i practce?
@Neon Noir So dishonest. The first quote you use is Marx describing the political philosophy of Capitalist economists.
Excellent video essay. Well done for putting this together.
You misquote the revised version of foundations of Leninism. At the end of the quote it says that socialist can only be achieved internationally. It's still correct that they changed it to be a lot more nationalist and less internationalist but it's a little more nuanced than how you make it seem
this was a really great video and helped me understand and better explain a lot of topics my friends often get confused on when discussing these kinds of things. thank you!!!
So essentially, between the Russian Civil War devastating the Russian working classes and the failure of revolutions in countries like Germany, the USSR stalled in what was supposed to be a temporary, transitionary state of affairs.
Correct. It could not move beyond because of imperialism and revisionism that later set in.
However, personally, I still uphold it, since it was the first, real threat to global capitalism
"So what's happening with your Revolution?"
"Civil War! Isolation! Starvation! Reaction! And now everywhere you look, it's Stalin!"
"Stalling?"
"... Yes!"
Yes. Then it was reverted and succumbed to reactionary elements
Kinda. The leadership of the Bolshevik Revolution also had a strong current of authoritarianism. There was large involvement of anarchists during the Revolution as well, but they were crushed and vilified after a time in order to subvert the worker movements that extensively the Bolsheviks wanted to create. It's a complicated matter, but the transition to a communistic society was essentially undermined through the realities of fighting a war, authoritarian tendencies of the leaders, and a flawed ideology which insisted on a Vanguard party to lead the Revolution (among other issues). If you want to see an example of what a proper revolution would have looked like, learn about Anarchist Spain, during the Spanish Revolution. We don't hear about it often, but I believe it showed what could have been possible if the problems of the Russian Revolution had been overcome.
@@tangentialreasoning5438 Anarchist Spain had a hierarchy, state, and labor camps. But go off, I guess.
This is the first video of yours that I have seen and it has fundamentally changed the way I will look at leftist discourse moving forward. Thank you!
Why you post this when I'm studying? It's your fault if I fail at the exams.
Bugseph Bunnin then you're taking the wrong exams
"GaDdAmN LeFtIsT mArXiSt SoCiAlIsTs AlWaYs BlAmInG eVeRyBoDy ElSe FoR tHeIr OwN fUcK uPs!!11!1!"
-Some Boomer, probably
An exam on marxism seems so wrong on so many levels
@@gamerbro7721 But exam in market analytics is fine? ... disgusting...
Ultra Nyan Feels just as wrong.
I don't see how taxes necessarily presuppose money, you still can have taxes in the labor voucher economy to pay for public infrastructure, healthcare, pensions and the like.
There are plenty of historic states that only did taxes in kind, and some taxes are still payed in kind in a few parts of the world. Also the first states on earth predate currency and market economies. So you defintely don't need money to collect taxes. It does make it easier though.
You cant really collect labor vouches in a tax system, because they are not interchangeable. Its not a currency. A labor voucher is completely useless to anyone who is not the specific person that has earned it.
Taxing labor vouchers also wouldn't really make sense because presumably the state or organization taxing them would also be the ones giving them out. It doesn't need to collect labor vouchers to build a road when it, itself is the one creating the labor vouchers to give to the workers. The point of labor vouchers is just as a way to distribute resources and encourage work not anything else. They're just a stop gap measure until society doesn't have scarcity of products anymore. That would arguably also mean that today they'd be obsolete since we don't have scarcity of any actually important resources anymore.
@@hedgehog3180 To pay the people that don't directly produce goods that can be exchanged for labor vouchers and still have enough good for everyone you either have to give people less vouchers than the actual time they worked or make the goods cost more labor than they worth, i.e. income or consumption tax.
@Benjamin Figgins yea thats basically MMT
Very clear description of the Marxist & Leninist view of the state and the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism. Well done.
Mike Rocker, "Lassallian state capitalism"???
There was no capital in the Marxist sense of the term so I don't see how it could have been "state capitalism", Lassallian or otherwise. Unless "Lassallian state capitalism" represents a distinct mode of production...
Hey there, I'm a new subscriber and I just wanted to thank you for making such high quality philosophical videos. I thought your video on the German revolution was excellent. Great job!
of course hes not a statist, he theorized about how to destroy the state using a workers state
Which ironically is the equivelant to creating a dictatorship.
@@rappakalja5295 yes, of the proleteriat
@@PowersOfDarkness Dictatorship of the proletariat equals to dictatorship of the state. Regardless of the term you use, it's still nothing but pure totalitarianism.
@@rappakalja5295 yes? of course it is a dictatorship of the state, there can be no society in which there is a state that is somehow not a dictatorship of the state, thats what a state is, its a regional monopoly on power, the important part is which social class wields the state apparatus
@@rappakalja5295 bro who cares about that?
Hi Cuck Philosophy! Thank you so much for making this video, it taught me new and valuable information. I especially liked the clear explanation of how Marx defined these modes of production and political power:
Capitalism --> "dictatorship of the proletariat" (an unfortunate term IMO) --> Lower phase communism --> Higher phase communism
I thought that Marx believed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" coincided with the lower phase of communism. I didn't realize he viewed these as separate phases.
On the other hand, I thought you were too soft on Lenin and the Bolshevik leaders during Lenin's rule. Yes, the historical circumstances were a nightmare. But Lenin and the party leaders certainly did their part to help crush working class power. Many of the things you mention Stalin doing against the workers were also done in Lenin's rule.
I think you make a convincing case that Marx was not a statist, but it leaves one question for me: Why, then, was there such a bitter split between Marx (and those who agreed with him) vs. anarchists in the 1st International?
Anyways, I really appreciate what this video taught me, it will definitely be very useful. I'm looking forward to your future videos. :)
Anarchists want to abolish the state in one go, no?
@@Mikey-dh7qx Yes. Doesn't mean we think it can be destroyed in one day, it may take time. But the difference between anarchists and, say, Leninists, is that anarchists don't think workers should take state power in any way, or create a so-called "workers state", because any attempt to do so will end up becoming a force of oppression against workers.
This was the prediction of anarchists ever since the 19th century, and anarchists of the 20th and 21st century argue that history has proven anarchist theory correct.
@@LuckyBlackCat Right, ty for clearing it up.
Yes, some people may say that history has shown us the right path to communism but I would not dismiss the DOTP as easily
@@Mikey-dh7qx I can agree on the importance of the DOTP, so long as we remember that DOTP is when workers are in power (i.e. the entire working class via organs of self-management and direct democracy), not a party that claims to represent the workers.
I'm not a too well read on the period of the 1st international, but going off of Zoe Baker's telling it sounds like the split had moreso to do with personal problems that Marx had with Proudhon and Bakunin. Marx thought the anarchists were trying to take over the first international and preemptively divided the organization. I would say most anarchism today does not reject Marxism because Marxism does not inherently imply statism.
It is so refreshing to see someone dive into Marxist theory with such respect for the original texts. Have you thought of making a full set of crash course videos for Marxist theory?
22:49 Nope, you are wrong. Lenin is not at all separating transitional period from the first phase of communist society. Chapter 5 subdivisions 3 and 4 are the detailed elaboration of the transition and the higher phase of communist society.
Was Karl Marx a statist ?
YES and NO
1.YES state for the lower phase of the communist society (however, no longer a state in the proper sense of the word; this time it is for the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority)
2. NO in the higher phase of the communist society. The expression "the state withers away" is very well-chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process.
"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that, the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule" - Marx
Great video buddy, commenting for the algorithm! 👍🏼
I am going to rock my high school social studies teacher's entire world when I mention the critique of the goethe program in my paragraph about Robert Owens' rejection of classical liberalism.
I hate to be that guy, but you should at least call it the Gotha program. Goethe was a poet. Gotha is a City.
Lol out of curiosity I would love to hear the reaction to this when received. I feel like another historically important rejector of liberalism is Carl Schmitt. Seems like he's dismissed cuz of the whole being a huge nazi thing, but that seems to be why fascism remains to be so unclear through that liberal lens...that unwillingness to actually understand others (merely tolerate them) and complete willingness to capitulate to power so long as it is aesthetically/materially less disrupting to _them_ personally. Or something. Heidegger is another interesting example.
Anyway, continue the thoughtful rocking of worlds because it seems to be the only force that can open up the possibility for actual positive change.
John Sinclair
No Gotham is a city
William Lillevik Yes William, Gotham is also a City. Very good. You can sit down now.
I was listenning to a Miley Cyrus song, and this appeared in my recommends
This is more fourth or fifth watch of this video. Excellent work.
a video on Philip Mainlander?
Seems quite unusual for a political philosophy centered channel, but I guess I'm interested in seeing what it'll be.
A large part of the 2nd volume of Der Philosophie der Erlösung is dedicated to Socialism and Communism, but he does not-directly-political philosophy videos as well.
It isn't really just polphil, lots of cucks videoes are on cultural theory and continental philosophy in general.
"between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" - 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' written by Marx in 1875
Right on Jason. Let them know
Do you think that quote refutes the video? Because if you do you clearly didn't watch it.
9:22 Jason.
@@sock2828 He probably did not. He must've watched one minute and then typed this shit as some way to refute Cuck Philosophy.
Jason Unhue is a bad faith actor, that uses his channel to promote "anti-imperialism" (idolizing fascist anti-american governments) and promoting "maoism" (Dengism, actually, he loves modern day China).
Tiago Doutrelepont How is anti-imperialism fascism lmao
Very interesting and beautifully explained video. What it signifies for me is that we are still lacking detailed ideas and models of how to transfer out of capitalism before abundance becomes possible.
Damn, dude, this video was so clear. Great job.
Stirnerite market anarchist here and I have to say this video made me a lot more sympathetic to Marx. I had not adequately considered how the huge practical struggles the communists faced would affect the overall perception history had on them. I now consider it less the case that there was something inherently wrong in Marxist philosophy that lead to derivative horrific state expressions of it and more the case that they failed at the practical political games that when lost lead to co-opting.
Nice
"Stirnerite market Anarchism" is just a fancy way of saying " socialism with Right Libertarianism Characteristics".
Also, you weren't originally wrong. Marxism was doomed to such a path, and it still is doomed to that path. Ideals aren't suppose to represent "reality", but I guess they replace reality. They are the Hyper real.
@tiglath pileser well, there is this simple thing called the lack of research. People suddenly see labels, and they immediately identify with them.it is a rampant disease among the Far-Left.
@@neo-jacobin6170 that's not a fancy name. There is a thing called market anarchism since 19th century
Excellent presentation, thank you. Would *love* to hear y’all’s take on Nestor Makhno. Thanks again.
great video man, i knew most of this, but you pulled some great quotes i hadnt seen yet. thisll prove alot to people who wanna listen. you should make one running down the beef between bakunin and marx, thatd give people alot more info on anarchist ideas of the state and why marx was labeled authoritarian by bakunin, even tho he believed in direct democracy. im gonna add 2 quotes i think are great regarding this subject:
"But, the transformation - either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership - does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine - the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers - proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution." -Friedrich Engels, 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Part III
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
"The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds himself in a dilemma. What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in this awkward position is irrevocably lost." -Friedrich Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, Chapter 6
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/ch06.htm
| "The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution." -Friedrich Engels, 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Part III
How is that supposed to work? What does it mean that "the capitalist relation is ... brought to a head"? How does it then "topple over"?
Wow that was probably the most informative video I watched in months. Thank you!
Really? Damn, I feel sad for because this was shit.
I find it interesting that you didn't define "statist" or "state" in this video. Normally statist is used to refer to a leftist who holds that socialism should make use of the state after the revolution, as opposed to the anarchist view that the revolution should abolish the state. I think you would find it hard to argue that, especially without referencing the vast body of Marx's work that critiques anarchism. It almost seems like your definition of a statist is somebody who supports money instead of labour vouchers, which is patently ridiculous. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, but given your lack of specificity it is actually quite difficult to understand what you are trying to claim in this video.
He did define the state, it is the ultimate expression of class rule. The abolition of classes and class dictatorship implies the end of class rule, thus the end of the state. His definition of a statist as such is someone who believes the working class can use the state to establish communism.
@Krónika what is the context of this quote? Marx opinions changed a lot by the years.
@Krónika Did you watch this video? This is from before Engels and Marx changed their minds following the Paris Commune.
@@firedragonosis Hold on, the video claimed to be representative of Marx's views, not Marx's views pre-1870.
@@firedragonosis Also, I don't think that definition of statist necessarily follows from that definition of state. Coopting the state sounds like parliamentarism, which is very much not what Marx or Lenin advocated for, but rather building a workers state. If you think that Marx held the state as some transcendental unchanging entity that exists regardless of which class is in power, then you need to go back to basics and learn dialectical materialism.
Outstanding to see so many voices in the chat. The Age of the Internet indeed. Thanks CCKP. Just what I needed. Keep on :)
*edited for clarity
maybe dont use an acronym for that lol
@@jefekeefsosa4998 Fixed the acronym. Thanks.
Tbh your reading is equivalent to my reading when I read the first volume of Capital since I wasn't preconditioned by the Manifesto or anything. This is also a really timely topic so thanks for this.
I also self-identified as a Hegelian (lol) so there was some preconditioning there. Marx's positive articulation of communism seems to me essentially the same thing as the enlightenment notion of freedom but actually materially and socially realized, or not being consigned to a kind of idle 'idealism', which is obviously why the bourgeois would have a problem with it lol.
Great video! But I think there's some misunderstanding about "Socialism in One Country." While the advent of this theory did see a regression into more nationalist, chauvinist currents within the USSR, it was also a recognition of the historical conditions of the time. This wasn't so much suggesting that "Yes Socialism/Communism in one country is possible," but rather that "Given that international revolutions failed, we need to secure our 'Socialist' state and industrialize, while supporting Communist revolution abroad wherever feasible." You can't support revolution internationally if your nation under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is agrarian and wracked by internal counter-revolutionaries.
Great video, but I have a question. If the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a monopoly of force over a given territory , how could Lenin reconcile the reality of his state with what he said to believe?
EDIT: Nevermind. Saw the Twitter discussion. I'm not buying the Poor Lenin argument.
I'm interested, what was the Twitter discussion about ?
god it pains me to think there could’ve been a real international socialist movement, free of bureaucracy and the state.
That would be something every single anarcho-socialist would agree with.
@@bqpahdoesstuff5123 i am a marxist what does that label even mean
@@jackri7676 Not possible. Marxism has adored and worshiped the state from day 1. Still does.
@@arkology_city You didn't even watch the video. You're trying to equate all marxism with Marxism-Lenininsm. Marxism-Lenininsm is an ideology created by Stalin. Many Marxists disagree with the Stalinist interpretations of Marxism. The uploader disagrees with the Stalinist definition.
There are many different types of Marxism which are for the state to either away and not to maintain the state. Stalinist state did the opposite of what Marxists want. It grew more stronger, instead of being in a state of dying away, as Marx had been in favour of.
If Marx had lived in the time the USSR was around, he would be against it and would criticise it. In fact, many Marxists did criticise the USSR. You cannot really bunch all Marxists up with Stalinists and act like they're all the same.
This sounds like a conservative interpretation of Marx, claiming he just wanted the state to rule over people. It's really insulting. Please watch the actual video, because it explains how Marx was not a statist as people believe. It's arguing against the right-wing and ML misunderstandings of Marxism.
@@SorceressWitch No, this video equates a voucher based system with an statless society as it's fundamental premise, which is intellectually dishonest at best and maliciously deceitful at worse. Now, could you explain how would you force a voucher based system without the use of the state?
Marxist ultimate goal is an stateless society, yes, but they're aware that a period of "dictatorship of the proletariat" in other words, a period of fully centralized government is required... a fundamental contradiction, regression in order to achieve progress (For me an stateless society doesn't represent progress though, people organically went from absolute freedom to organized hierachichal societies and even if we go back to an stataless world, it is inevitable that new power hierachies emerge organically)
Just think about this idea: Ok, I'm a pacifist, I don't endorse war; however, I believe that in order to achieve world peace a period of massive world wars is required. Remember, I'm not pro-war, trust me, I firmly believe that you need to set the conditions for this massive world war to happen and that you need to lead people into it, but I am, in fact, a pacifist...... No, it doesn't work like that.
This video alone is the ML annihilator. So good I have this in one clean video instead of dashing from book to book.
How ? The video only shows that marxism-leninism isn't marxism, but that doesn't mean the doctrine isn't true : modern biology is by no mean pure darwinism, that doesn't mean it isn't relevant
@@lucrece4563 I mean in the context that certain MLs try to claim they are like “the true marxists” or something. I’m exaggerating.
Noting a small correction to this excellent video: The passage at 15:16 is not as stated from The Communist Manifesto, but from M+E’s Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.
What do you think about Mao's Communes. I heard that he modelled it based on what Lenin said in the State and Revolution and in the Shanghai Commune for example they were able to create a cure for malaria and the Chinese Space program advanced a lot in said commune, basically the closest we got to communism. Of course I heard so I havent read the source materials yet
hey i study social sciences and as minor econ so this was super interesting. i have to give you props for your research, correct citations etc.
a video on the marxs sociological/economic theories would be nice to know about the background of his political theory (what led to this videos topic basically).
This is my first video of your channel and it's fucking dope.
"Lenin conceives socialism - equated with the first phase of communism (contrary to Marx) - not in terms of new (real) social relations of production, as a free association of producers based on the “associated mode of production,” but in terms of specific ownership (that is juridical) form, in terms of “social ownership” of the means of production, which is reduced to the ownership of the means of production by the “working class state.” While Lenin apparently excludes commodity production from socialism, he envisages “equality of labour and wage” for all citizens, now transformed into the “hired employees of the state” - in other words, the existence of wage labour and its employment by the (socialist) state. On the other hand, reading his own ideas into Marx’s text, Lenin envisages the existence of “bourgeois state” to enforce what Marx calls the (remaining) “bourgeois right” in distribution in the first phase of communism. This seems to be a strange logic - absolutely unwarranted by Marx’s text - which stands Marx on his head. In Marx the first phase of the new society is inaugurated after the disappearance of the proletarian rule (along with the proletariat) - that is, all class rule. If Lenin is correct, the workers themselves - no longer proletarians - would have to recreate a bourgeois state to enforce “bourgeois right.” On the other hand, according to Marx, the existence of state itself - bourgeois or proletarian - ends along with the classes at the end of the “revolutionary transformation period” and the beginning of the new society. Whatever “bourgeois right” remains in the sphere of distribution, it does not require a particular political apparatus - a state (least of all a bourgeois state) - to enforce it. Quite logically Marx envisages society itself distributing not only the labour tokens among its members, but also the total (social) labour time among the different branches of production. Indeed, Lenin’s socialism - particularly if we take his other writings into consideration as well - turns out to be much closer to Lassalle-Kautsky state owned-and-planned economy than to Marx’s emancipatory project of the “union of free individuals.” Let us add that Lenin’s inability to break altogether with the heritage of the Second International on the state appears also in his (mis)reading of Marx’s discourse on the commune (1871). About a month before the Bolshevik seizure of power (1917), Lenin wrote: “Marx taught ... that the proletariat must smash the ready-made state machine and substitute a new one for it ... This new machine was created by the Paris Commune.” We earlier saw how Marx spoke admiringly about the Parisian Revolution aiming to destroy the state as such, not simply a particular kind of state. In fact, ‘substituting the existing state machine by a new state machine (as Lenin would have it) was precisely considered by Marx to be the hallmark of all earlier revolutions, not of the proletarian revolution whose aim a contrario is to “throw off this deadening “incubus” altogether in course of the revolution. In Marx’s view, the Paris Commune, far from ‘creating a new state machine,’ aimed to destroy the machine itself." - Paresh Chattopadhyay
Further...
"Marx's communism incorporates Hegel's principle of the state as an ethical agency, a source of moral identity and unity, the actuality of concrete freedom. Though abandoning the organisational character of Hegel's constitutional theory as a curb upon democracy, Marx retained the implicit moral character of Hegel's ethical state as 'true moral association’. This association *does not* assert the species over the individual, imposing some homogeneous species essence over individual will but, rather, unites individual and species.
[...]
By rooting the state in human reason, the state as moral community is based upon the rational law that human beings impose upon themselves to establish their natural freedom. Rational freedom, therefore, refers to the state as the ethical community constituted by individuals as moral agents and rooted in the rational faculty of human beings. The rational law of the state is one that corresponds with human freedom; it is a law which human beings have imposed upon themselves and is integral to their freedom. Rational freedom is a lawful freedom. The state is the perfect organisation of the community and embodies and organises the natural rights of individuals in such away as to realise the moral autonomy and dignity of each individual." - Peter Critchley
Jemando Ondame from what book/text
@@autumn4142 Paresh Chattopadhyay's short "A Manifesto of Emancipation"
Peter Critchley's The German Tradition of Rational Freedom in Philosophy
If these things are interesting to you I recommend you to read the following texts too.
Peter Critchley - Marx's Gemeinwesen - Communism as Moral Community
Michael Heinrich "Marx’s State Theory after “Grundrisse” and “Capital”"
There is also a part in "Marx, Market Socialism and Participatory Planning" from Critchley responding to accusations of Marx being a "centralist".
Great analysis. BTW the speech audio quality especially the quotes being read sound tinny or bassy, perhaps you should check your audio settings, turn off auto gain etc
I am very happy the algorithm fed me this video. These are some great points and distinctions you make all should hear.
I would take exception with a few things though.
1. In the initial phase of communism, it is not necessarily, nay even unlikely moneyless. Marx begins his analysis of capitalism by analyzing commodities, but he then penetrates to class processes involved. The revolutionary transformation from the capitalist mode of production to a communist mode of production is entirely in eliminating class distinctions. Only with that revolution by the dictatorship of the proletariat, into the initial phase of communism, is the mystical veil of capitalism and commodity fetishism lifted so that the science of allocation can then find new and superior modes of allocating scarce resources.
2. Not only is the dictatorship of the proletariat a distinct phase from initial phase communism, but it is a brief or quick phase. Lenin perhaps understood much of this well, but he failed to understand the vital importance of placing the workers in control of their own Soviets so as to make a communist mode of production pervasive as quickly as possible. This would then expropriate the expropriators along with other quick measures to smash the State machinery. Within weeks or months (not years or decades), the dictatorship of the proletariat, the State, and class distinctions should have been eliminated.
3. The _Critique of the Gotha Programme_ must be understood as directed at a very specific context and conjuncture of Germany in the late Nineteenth Century. There was no genuine democratic republic as in England, Switzerland, and the United States, as Marx there differentiates. The Lasalleans were either protecting themselves from State retribution by pretending the Prusso-German Empire was a genuine republic or were hoodwinking the working class. Their obsequiousness was understandable, says Marx, but the accommodating subterfuge was the wrong approach to the State suppression of socialism/communism.
4. While I think you accurately depict the updates to the planks of the _Manifesto_ by Marx and Engels, I think they gave away too much. In the Gothakritik, Marx argues that with the State machinery smashed, there still remains functions analogous to the State. Engels suggested the term socialty for this governmental form, in a letter. Kautsky uses a better term, the communist Commonwealth. So merely changing the term State to communist Commonwealth provides a more precise nomenclature for these planks. They are then not only measures for the transitionary dictatorship, but enduring measures in communism (perhaps superseded by scientific innovations, but nevertheless important for communist society in the here and now). Taxes and rents (and credit and finance) do not imply money, since just as feudal rents and taxes could be paid with money, in-kind, or corvée, so too can progressive taxes and rents and finance (the Amish barn-raising) within communism be ‘paid’ without necessarily money and commodities existing. (I know Marx himself makes this same mistakes point in the Gothakritik, but these were notes to himself and he would have likely corrected it if he prepared it for publication himself).
Centralization too does not preclude nested Commonwealths. A residential commune and an enterprise can centralized the means of production, while the global common credit pool can be centralized in a global communist Commonwealth. Decentralization is thus possible through this nesting, while ‘centralizing’ the relevant functions at each nested level.
33:35 Well yeah, in the same regard as to why it was called the United Soviet Socialist Republics in the first place; the USSR government knew it did not achieve the Socialist mode of production, but they very much were a Socialist state in the sense of seeking to diminish the scope of the state, abolish class, etc. However, one gigantic issue I think you've overlooked is the fact that failure in international revolution necessitated drastically different circumstances and actions; a fledgling DotP cannot fund every revolutionary movement it finds abroad while also defending itself sufficiently, especially should such a state find itself in a situation like the USSR did, with European Fascists and Capitalists to their West, and Japanese Fascists from the East.
The support of Nationalist China by the USSR largely was for the purpose of organizing China more effectively to deal with larger dialectical contradictions, most especially that of Japan and that of unifying the Chinese working class. Of course horrible sacrifices were made that nobody wanted or desired, but what we saw as a result of this policy from the USSR was China surviving the war w/ Japan, and then the Chinese Communists succeeding in their civil war. This very clearly was supporting an international Communist movement, just as the USSR did in Spain against Franco, in Vietnam against France, Japan and the US, and so on.
Further, from the Communist Manifesto itself we read:
"Of course, in the beginning, [the proletariat organizing itself as the ruling class] cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the
rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries"
Note that final sentence there; while Marx advocates for the breaking down of nationalities and national differences, and stresses that the international proletariat is more unified with each other than any nationalistic elements, what we find here is the fact that Marx also recognizes different countries have different conditions necessitating different approaches. In the case of the USSR, faced with the rapid rise of Fascism and Imperialist Capitalism, it had to make itself into a bulwark of Socialism (ideological, not in terms of mode of production). Socialism in one country was the conclusion arrived at through the dialectical contradiction of a Socialist movement finding itself without an international series of Socialist revolutions to establish mutual aid with. Consequently, what we find in the USSR and the amazing advances they made were in spite of their conditions.
I wonder why you didn’t mention this quote 🤔:
“For socialism is merely the next step forward
from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.”
Lenin - Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance Towards Socialism? - (The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It)
Because it's not about Lenin I guess
@@zigoter2185 But Lenin is featured as a Marxist thinker who wasn’t statist. He clearly was
@@gabriell7640 yes, I just didn't get to that section at the time I was writing the comment, you are totally right.
5:40 None of this is at all incompatible with "Statism"
1. This particular interpretation of Marx only implies Marx himself didn't see himself as a Statist
But this particular definition of "State" isnt' the one widely accepted by Society.
According to most dictionaries, encyclopedias and Anthropologists, a "State" is just a nationality sharing a gov't.
2. History is filled with Statist autoritarianisms dating back far before the invention of Money. Most theocracies could be considered Statist.
In Communism, it's not really hard to imagine a police state driven by common values and tradition alone; considering the lack of money and formal hierarchies as units of cohesion, I'd venture to claim Statism would actually the rule:
Most Cultist communes work like that.
3. This society isn't "Money-less", it's just "Profitless". It doesn't have "Surplus Value".
Theoretically, a free market economy on Perfect competition would also have no Surplus Value.
And, although in Economy 101 we are warned it's impossible to find "true" perfect competition in the real world, the same could be said about Socialism and Communism.
Considering Marx was an Economist, this would mean Perfect Competition is just Socialism by the back-door.
The only interesting or unique comment on this video lol.
2. Within the pages of 'The Communist Manifesto', the state entity was recognized through the utility of state capital in point 5: "5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly". (Last paragraphs of section 2 'Proletarians and Communists'). This passage recognizes the importance of state capitalism under the control of the vanguard for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
@jonasceikaCCK The note of the communist manifesto that you cite from 15:10 ends with this phrase: "But no more than local and provincial self-government is in contradiction to political, national centralisation, is it necessarily bound up with that narrow-minded cantonal or communal self-seeking which strikes us as so repulsive in Switzerland, and which all the South German federal republicans wanted to make the rule in Germany in 1849." The national centralisation cited here wouldn't be the state? Or is something else that I ignore?
Great video!
learning that the reason anarchists and (self-described) marxists are constantly arguing is over two different definitions of a "state" has made SO MANY THINGS finally make sense. i have a feeling the more i learn about what marx and other leftist philosophers actually believed, the more i'm going to encounter these crystallizations of realization for the absolute worst and dumbest discourse i've ever seen in my life.