- Capitalism and Alternatives -

No thank you, I've had my fill.

Posted by: Dr. Cruel on November 24, 1999 at 00:44:35:

In Reply to: Lies, distortion, and ignorance posted by Stoller on November 23, 1999 at 10:24:11:


: Your ignorance of Lenin is matched only by...your ignorance.

DC: Amusing insight from you, Mr. Stoller. Thank you for that vote of confidence; I must be hitting close to home.

: Lenin proclaimed the program of revolutionary defeatism the MINUTE the war started.

DC: Yes, and for some time before. This did not stop him from engaging his forces in quick border fights on occasion (to strengthen his negotiating position), or from invading Poland in a program to link up with the Sparticus uprising in Germany. All based on opportunities of the moment.

: One step back, two steps forward, written in 1904, had NOTHING to do with the war.

This 'rhetoric' was invoked to explain away the terrible deal that Lenin negotiated with his German sponsors. The idea was that they'd get the lost territory back, once the Revolution was successful and the German government was in a post-war collapse. Very sensible, in a Machiavellian sort of way.

: The N.E.P. was not dismantled until Lenin DIED.

The NEP, in the sense of experimenting with loosening restrictions on ownership and trade, ended in 1921. Certainly, the resulting private ownership allowed in NEP continued well into the 1920's, right up to the Stalinist purge of the kulaks (his way of 'ending' NEP). In this forced taking and judicious killing, Stalin was actually being true to Marxism and Bolshevism - since, in truth, Lenin actually had betrayed his own theories by implementing NEP in the first place! Like all communist revolutions, the party leechdom found that a dead host wasn't particularly profitable. The life of a nation is trade and business, and to be able to rob capitalists, one had to allow them to conduct exactly the sorts of 'criminal activities' prohibited in a socialist paradise, i.e. capitalism.

: Your paragraph contained at least THREE conspicuous errors.

Only after you commented.

"Doc" Cruel

P.S. Don't forget Lenin's use of "terror". Terribly useful to the Revolution, according to this clever little fellow. Care to comment?




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