The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was supposed to be proof that socialism cannot work. The tiny minority of multi-millionaires that run the world have been trying to drive home a “lesson” to young people and workers ever since – that there is no alternative to the inequality, poverty, and chaos of the market; that global capitalism is the only system that can work. They want us to believe that any attempt to get rid of capitalism would end in dictatorship, bread queues, and eventual collapse; just like what happened in Russia.
The system, however, that collapsed in Russia in 1991 was not socialist. Despite all the red flags, the red stars, and all the statues of Lenin, it was a million miles from socialism. By 1991, the rulers of the Soviet Union had trampled on every one of the principles of the socialist revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917.
The Soviet Union was not socialist; it was Stalinist.
What’s the difference? It’s hard to know where to start…
Read the rest of this entry »
“Old fashioned…violent…complicated…boring…nice in theory…nightmare in practice…waste of time…long words…mechanical…years in the library…abstract…Russia…failure…not that simple…time for something new…dead…beard.” Well, that just about sums up all you need to know about Karl Marx. Are you still with us? Then you have something in common with Karl Marx when he was a young student in Germany 150 years ago.
Read the rest of this entry »
Lenin outlines in The State and Revolution the Marxist position on the state, its origins, and what its purpose is. He then shows the need for revolution, and the need to replace the state with a workers’ democratic dictatorship – a workers’ state. The leader of the Russian revolution found time during 1917 to write a crucial text on the Marxist position on the state, and the tasks of the proletariat during and after the social revolution. He was driven by the practical needs of the revolution in Russia at the time: to show that the opportunists (i.e., the Social-Democrats, Kautskyian-centrists, etc) had distorted Marxism and to refute the anarchist claims that all states are reactionary.
Read the rest of this entry »
