Fascism puts Left foot forward 5783

Rifty

You're conflating a couple of issues here.

1. The role of violence in social overturns 2. The legitimacy of the Bolshevik Regime

The Bolshevik Revolution was not itself 'violent. Two Bolsheviks were end. The attempt by the Whites to unseat them afterwards was extremely violent. Red Russia was invaded by 14 capitalist countries and had to fight the Cossack forces as well. They faced sabotage in the rear and famine in the cities, caused, primarily by the war and the consequent disruption to agriculture (most of the men at the front were conscripted peasants) and by Count Witte's action in flogging off Russia's food reserves on western markets to build up some hard currency for industrialisation. Why conscripting people to go kill and be end so that rich people can divide up the world the way they want doesn't qualify as "violence" is an interesting matter all on its own. The facts of the matter are that when the Bolsheviks took power it was to prevent the transfer of the Petrograd garrison back to the front. The Petrograd troops had made the revolution. They had struck down the Tsar's regime in February (Julian Calendar, March in the Gregorian Calendar). They had done so explicitly so the war could be ended, the land could be redivided, and they could avert famine. All of the legitimacy of the Kerensky government reflected this. The Kerensky government knew the atbreastude of the troops and knew full well that they could be forced back to the front only at the point of bayonets. Kornilov acted as a proxy and struck but the insurgent workers paralysed his Pinochet-style coup attempt. At the head of the resistance was the Bolsheviks and the hastily formed Military Revolutionary Committee set up to resist the coup. It was the MRC that took power in October (Julian, November Gregorian). They were legitimate.

Unlike most politicians, having got to power, they immediately began doing what they'd promised -- getting Russia out of the war, making plans to carry out a land reform and restarting agriculture. They published the secret treaties. They abolished child labour. In fact, somewhat more like politicians, they actually tried to restrain the sudden urge of the mbuttes to start nationalising everything because it was disorderly and disruptive and not conducive to an orderly transformation.

Naturally, the old ruling clbuttes resisted. Violently. Where the Whites went, there was no mercy at all for anyone seen as sympathising with Lenin or even neutral. Behind the lines they sabotaged and hoarded. The Mensheviks in the railway unions to their discredit, aided and abetted the Whites and the Bolsheviks in alliance with the Left SRs responded with very harsh repressive measures. Inevitably, innocents were hurt and the chaos allowed a fair bit of score settling that had nothing whatever to do with the conflict at hand to go on. What does this show? That while backward ruined countries are excellent places to start revolutions precisely because the opposition is by definition, in a shambles and the country's situation is dire, a bloody mess is likely to follow and the victory is likely to be very costly and painful. Lenin and his Bolsheviks had little time to debate how to respond to what was coming. It was a case of best guess, and regrettably, in their deire NOT to be a one party government, and to include ewveryone who wasn't against the overturn, they found that their bloc partners, the Left SRs, wanted to continue the war for better terms. So Lenin wanted an immediate agreement with Germany, the Left SRs buttasinated the German Ambbuttador in an attempt to torpedo that, and Trotsky wanted "no war no peace". While they dithered, Germany swallowed up some of the best food producing land in Russia.

Really, the Bolsheviks had very little choice. Had they sat on their hands until a parliament had voted them in, they'd all have been butchered, as was the case in the Paris Commune. They'd have had clean hands, attached to dead bodies. And they would have been utterly discredited. The other course, taking power, was a long shot, based on the hope that revolution in the west would take care of things and allow Lenin to make the deal he was willing to strike with Ludendorff moot.

It didn't happen of course. But it was always a long shot. And Lenin himself was shot by a Left SR outraged that he had signed a separate peace. He was out of politics from 1922 onwards.

None

No amount of prompting from me is going to change the minds of millions of workers. I post here in large part so that those who are interested in an alternative viewpoint know that there is one. Should millions of workers decide that their world is going to hell in a handbasket and want to know how marxists would respond, then they are free to look. Realistically though, until they come to this view, which is to say, when the ruling clbuttes of the world finally screw things up so badly that even the middle clbuttes feel like "normal services" aren't about to be resumed, they aren't going to be interested. That's regrettable, but that's the way it is. And I'm not about to start whispering sweet nothings into people's ears about the ALP as the lesser evil or "communist governments" just because I'd probably get a better hearing. That way lies treachery, and it's precisely what the ALP has done.

They have, and that's the problem. What they stand for is capitalism. Aussie capitalism. Laager capitalism. It's clear enough to me.

There is no "viable" alternative. And that's another problem.

No they haven't. The ALP tried to rort the senate to keep out the Greens and in the end, the policy partly succeeded, keeping out the Greens but putting in Fielding of Family First and Barnaby Joyce. Clbuttic. But somehow, apt.

Hmmm ... "tragedy" is a little strong. Regrettable, but in the end, educational. The ALP deserves to have its arse kicked from here to Sunday and back. I wish they hadn't been a bunch of conniving swine. I wish they were a principled socialist party. I wish lots of things, but if I can't have any of these, I wish for truth. And in a crazy way, what we have is truth. It's a horrible truth, because working people have been politically asleep for so long that socialism has become a dirty word and this has allowed the ALP to become the alternative party of capitalism. But if I can't have good policy, public education is the lesser evil.

It's not going to happen any time soon, I'm here to tell you. The small target policy will always win out in the end, (as perverse as it may be to use this description for Beazley) because, fundamentally, the ALP is no more a socialist party than the North Korean Workers party are a bunch of communists. The ALP is a party dominated by lawyers and conservative trade union officials who know only too well that the existing order is much better for them than anything that could be promised by the kinds of upheaval needed to establish an egalitarian one.

Rotten compromises

Who cares? Not me. The man's a buffoon.

Fran