Difference between revisions of "Marxism"

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'''Marxism''' is an revolutionary movement developed by the German historian/economist [[Karl Marx]] and by the German political scientist [[Friedrich Engels]].  Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that [[capitalism]], like previous socioeconomic systems, would produce internal tensions which would lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced [[feudalism]], capitalism itself will be displaced by [[communism]], a classless society which would emerge after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.  
+
'''Marxism''' is an revolutionary movement developed by the German scholar and activist [[Karl Marx]] and his collaborator [[Friedrich Engels]].  Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that [[capitalism]], like previous socioeconomic systems, would produce internal tensions which would lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced [[feudalism]], capitalism itself will be displaced by [[communism]], a classless society which would emerge after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the [[proletariat]]. Marxist are said to await "the revolution" with a religious fervor reminiscent of [[Christian]]s awaiting the [[Rapture]].
  
[[Communism]], in a broad sense, is the political manifestation of Marxist philosophy.  Communism was never firmly defined outside of the communist manifesto, allowing leaders such as [[Lenin]] and [[Mao]] to specifically tailor it to their expediant political needs. Communism grew in popularity in the late 19th century western industrial democracies before taking revolutionary root in Russia.  However, rising working standards coupled with a growing middle class severely stunted the communist movement in Western Europe and North America. A world communist state like Marx envisioned was never realized.
+
see [[Socialism]]
  
 +
==Communism==
 +
[[Communism]], as it emerged around 1918-20, was a late political manifestation of Marxist philosophy.  [[Lenin]] in [[Russia]] and later [[Mao Zedong]] in [[China]] tailored Marx's ideas it to their expedient political needs.
  
 
+
===Soviet experience===
==Soviet experience==
+
According to the formal ideology of Marxism, [[private property|private ownership]] in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.  
 
+
According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the [[Bolshevik]] revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.  
+
  
 
This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories.  It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.
 
This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories.  It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of [[economic planning]] effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.
  
Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state.  The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labour conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of co-ordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labour conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.  
+
Hence workers' control was replaced by [[Lenin]], [[Trotsky]], and [[Stalin]] by the ''de facto'' managerial control in a new kind of state.  The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a [[veto]] power over the managers and jurisdiction over labor conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of coordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labor conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the [[Great Purge]] of 1938.  
  
==Nomenkatura==
+
==Nomenklatura==
  
The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labour]] battalion.  
+
The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the [[nomenklatura]]. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]], [[concentration camp]] or [[slavery|forced labor]] battalion.  
  
 
Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.  
 
Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.  
  
Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers', popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.".  Favourable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>
+
Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers' popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" <ref>[http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html V. I. Lenin, ''"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder''] (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.</ref> who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.".  Favorable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. <ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref>
  
 
The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.
 
The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in [[Loyalist]] territories during the [[Spanish Civil War]], above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the ''de facto'' power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of [[Franco]] who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.
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== Ideology ==
 
== Ideology ==
  
A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry.  However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories, as well as many practical limitations.  Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor.  Again, this tennant of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.
+
A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' Marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry.  However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories, as well as many practical limitations.  Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor.  Again, this tenet of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.
 +
 
 +
==Quotes on Marxism==
 +
Comparative quotes are given from the top [[Left-wing]] - [[Socialist]] - [[National Socialist]] (a.k.a. [[Nazi]]) - [[Marxist]] - [[Communist]] leaders and their critics in order to better understand the commonality of the end result of their philosophy taken to its fruition by the [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]]-[[Nanny state]]-[[Police state]] by [[leftist]] [[Globalist]]-[[Statist]]-Socialist-Communists. From these quotes one can see little difference between Socialists, Nazis, Communists.
 +
Communist regimes killed 60 million in the 20th century through [[genocide]], according to [[Le Monde]] and more than 100 million people according to ''The Black Book of Communism''.
 +
 
 +
== Quotes from National Socialist's Heinrich Himmler ==
 +
From the Nazi party ([[National Socialism]]) leader [[Heinrich Himmler]]:
 +
 
 +
* "In the course of history periods of [[capitalism]] and [[socialism]] alternate with one another; capitalism is the unnatural, socialism the natural [[economic system]]...The [[Nazi|National Socialists]] and the [[Communists|Red Front]] have the same aspirations. The [[Jew]]s falsified the Revolution in the form of [[Marxism]] and that failed to bring fulfillment." -- Speech in [[Potsdam]] (13 October 1926), quoted in Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 92-93.
 +
 
 +
* "The best political weapon is the [[terrorism|weapon of terror]]. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear." -- Quoted in "Visions of Reality - A Study of Abnormal Perception and Behavior" - by Alberto Rivas - Psychology - 2007 - Page 162
 +
 
 +
== Quotes from Lenin ==
 +
 
 +
* “The way to crush the [[middle class]] is to grind them between the millstones of [[taxation]] and [[inflation]].”
 +
 
 +
* "The best revolutionary is youth devoid of [[moral]]s."
 +
 
 +
* "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
 +
 
 +
* "The goal of [[socialism]] is [[communism]]."
 +
 
 +
* "There are no morals in [[politics]] there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."
 +
 
 +
* "Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a [[Bolshevik]] forever." (see [[Public school values]] and [[Professor values]])
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Quotes from Stalin==
 +
 
 +
The '''Darwin-Stalin connection''' describes the brutal [[Soviet]] dictator [[Josef Stalin]] who [[mass murderer|murdered millions]] of people, giving credit to [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s book for his outlook in life:
 +
 
 +
* "The death of one man is a tragedy, the [[mass murderer|death of millions]] is a statistic." ~ to [[Churchill]], 1945.
 +
 
 +
* "Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem"
 +
 
 +
* "Ideas are more powerful than [[guns]]. We would [[gun control|not let our enemies have guns]], why should we let them have ideas?"
 +
 
 +
* "It is enough that the people know there was an [[election]]. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
 +
 
 +
* "The only real power comes out of a long [[rifle]]."
 +
 
 +
* "When we hang the [[capitalist]]s they will sell us the rope we use."
 +
 
 +
==Quotes from Leon Trotsky==
 +
* "Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist [[dictatorship]]."
 +
** [[Leon Trotsky]] in ''Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky'' (1920; 1975), p. 153
 +
* "The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state … Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction...
 +
** ''Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky'' (1920; 1975), p. 177
 +
* "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life."
 +
** Leon Trotsky in his book The [[Russian Revolution]], 1930
 +
* "Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service."
 +
** Statement of 1918, as quoted in ''Trotsky : The Eternal Revolutionary'' (1996) by Dmitri Volkogonov, p. 213
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Quotes from Mao==
 +
* "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a [[gun]]." -- The Little Red Book, 1964
 +
* "Our principle is that the [[Communist Party|Party]] commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."
 +
 
 +
==Quotes on Kim Il-sung==
 +
[[Kim Il-sung]] took the communist [[cult of personality]] to a new level.<ref>Barbara Demick (2010) ''Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea'', Granta, page 45, ISBN 9781847081414</ref>
 +
"In Korea, the Americans have far exceed the Hitlerites!" -- by Kim Il-sung<ref>**Kim Il-sung to the [[Swedish]] communist leader [[Frank Baude]] in 1993.</ref>
 +
* "When it comes to the orchestration of terror, Kim Jong-il is a natural born genius."
 +
**[[Kim Duk Hong]] quoted in ''[[BBC News]]'' (21 July 2003) "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/3065101.stm Inside the mind of Kim Jong-il]"
 +
 
 +
==Quotes from Pol Pot==
 +
As ruler of [[Cambodia]] Pol Pot was responsible for exterminating 2 million people by [[genocide]]. That's a quarter of the country's population:
 +
* "Exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese... and purify the masses of the [Cambodian] people."
 +
** Phnom Penh radio broadcast by [[Pol Pot]] of the [[Khmer Rouge]] (May 10, 1978) ([[http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/khmer-rouge]])
 +
 
 +
==Related Quotes from Others==
 +
 
 +
* "[[Socialist|Socialists]] ignore the side of man that is of the spirit.  They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you are ill, all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave.  They don't understand that we dream - yes, even of some time owning a yacht."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ut8fnmwVkwC&pg=PA91#v=onepage&q&f=false|last1=Skinner|first1=Kiron K.|last2=Anderson|first2=Annelise A.|title=Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan ; Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, Martin Anderson ; Foreword by George P. Shultz|date=2001|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781416584506}}</ref> -- [[President]] [[Ronald Reagan]]
 +
 
 +
* "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the [[income redistribution|equal sharing]] of misery." -- [[Winston Churchill]]
 +
 
 +
* "I've always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually" -- [[Friedrich Hayek]]
 +
 
 +
* "The trouble is with socialism, which resembles a form of [[mental illness]] more than it does a philosophy" -- [[L. Neil Smith]]
 +
 
 +
* "Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean — [[Nanny state|power over people]], [[Police state|power to the State]]." -- [[Margaret Thatcher]]
 +
 
 +
* "All socialism involves [[slavery]]" -- [[Herbert Spencer]]
 +
 
 +
* "Socialism is based on [[envy]] and eventually always creates a very powerful [[big government]] controlled by very mediocre people who envy any success and destroy it." -- [[Vlad]]
 +
 
 +
== See Also ==
 +
* [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]]
 +
* [[List of atheist and agnostic pseudosciences]]
 +
* [[Barack Obama]]
 +
* [[Marxism and mysticism]]
 +
* [[Joseph Stalin]]
 +
* [[Dictatorship]]
 +
** [[Dictator]]
 +
** [[List of dictators]]
 +
** [[Friendly dictator]]
 +
** [[Adolf Hitler]] - [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Vladimir Lenin]] - [[Leon Trotsky]] - [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Mao Zedong]] - [[Ho Chi Minh]] - [[Kim Jong-Il]] - [[Pol Pot]], [[Fidel Castro]] - [[Che Guevara]]
 +
** [[Dictatorship of the proletariat]]
 +
** [[List of Communist States]]
 +
** [[List of Socialist States]]
 +
** [[Death toll of communism]] via [[mass murder]] - [[genocide]] - [[concentration camp]] [[forced labor]] - [[extermination camp]] - [[firing squad]]
 +
** [[Coup d'etat]]
 +
* [[Cult of personality]]
 +
* [[Single-party state]]
 +
* [[Mobocracy]], [[Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution]], [[Anti-Semitism]], [[Communist Racism]], [[Genocide]], [[Holocaust]]
 +
* [[National Socialist German Workers Party]] ([[Nazi]])
 +
* [[National Socialism]] - the Nazis were elitist [[Police state]] [[liberals]] not [[conservative]]s
 +
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[Nanny state]], leads to [[Police state]]: [[Globalist]]-[[Statist]]-[[Socialist]]-[[Communist]]
 +
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]
 +
 
 +
----
 +
'''Contrast with:'''
 +
* [[Libertarianism]]
 +
* [[Conservative]]
 +
* [[American values]] and [[Conservative values]]
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
<references/>
+
{{reflist|2}}
  
[[Category:politics]]
 
 
[[Category:Sociology]]
 
[[Category:Sociology]]
 
[[Category:Communism]]
 
[[Category:Communism]]
 
[[Category:Worldviews]]
 
[[Category:Worldviews]]
 +
[[Category:Marxism]]
 +
[[Category:Liberalism]]
 +
[[Category:Socialism]]
 +
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
 +
[[Category:Oppression]]
 +
[[Category:Anti-American]]
 +
[[Category:Communism]]
 +
[[Category:Gun control]]
 +
[[Category:Anti Second Amendment]]
 +
[[Category:Forms of Government]]
 +
[[Category:Political Ideologies]]
 +
[[Category:Politics]]
 +
[[Category:Liberals]]
 +
[[Category:Welfare State]]
 +
[[Category:Police State]]
 +
[[Category:Government]]

Revision as of 05:21, July 28, 2015

Marxism is an revolutionary movement developed by the German scholar and activist Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels. Marx's approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx believed that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would produce internal tensions which would lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a classless society which would emerge after a transitional period in which the state would be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxist are said to await "the revolution" with a religious fervor reminiscent of Christians awaiting the Rapture.

see Socialism

Communism

Communism, as it emerged around 1918-20, was a late political manifestation of Marxist philosophy. Lenin in Russia and later Mao Zedong in China tailored Marx's ideas it to their expedient political needs.

Soviet experience

According to the formal ideology of Marxism, private ownership in industry is to be eliminated--control is to be wrested by the masses as a whole. The crucial revolutionary act, therefore, would presumably be the actual taking of control in industry by the workers themselves. In the course of the Bolshevik revolution the workers ousted not only the owners but all the directing staff and supervisors. The workers thought, in their own way, that the revolution was designed to rid them of all rulers and exploiters. They recognized that the managers as well as the owners were among the rulers and exploiters both of the past and, above all, of the future. The workers set about running the factories themselves.

This state of affairs did not, however, last long. Two issues were at stake. In the first place, the separate factories and other instruments of production were not run very well under workers' control; and there were even greater difficulties in the co-ordination of the efforts of various factories. It was even harder for them to collaborate in the theory of economic planning effectively to direct entire branches of industry. Workers' control would also mean the elimination of all privilege, or a 'classless society". The drive for class power needed to get rid of workers' control, and found justification in the inefficiency of workers' control.

Hence workers' control was replaced by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin by the de facto managerial control in a new kind of state. The technical direction of factory operations was turned over to "specialists", or managers, with the Factory Committees remaining in existence and still exercising substantial control through a veto power over the managers and jurisdiction over labor conditions. Meanwhile, bureaus and commissions and individuals appointed from above by the Soviet regime were beginning to take over the job of coordinating the efforts of various factories and branches of industry. The powers of the managers and technicians increased at the expense of "workers' control" and the Factory Committees. The Factory Committee lost their veto powers. Their prerogative, labor conditions, became more and more narrowly interpreted. The Committee composition was changed to include one state representative, one managerial representative, and one man nominally representing the workers. Finally, even these Committees lost all their real power and remained as mere formalities, to be dropped altogether in during the Great Purge of 1938.

Nomenklatura

The freedom and end of privilege, which the oppressed thought the revolution was to bring, was giving way to a new form of class rule by the nomenklatura. At each decisive step, the "workers' socialist state" under Lenin and Stalin, backed not the workers but the managers. A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by firing squad, concentration camp or forced labor battalion.

Lenin and Trotsky, both, in the early years of the revolution, wrote pamphlets and speeches arguing the case of the specialists, the technicians, the managers. Lenin, in his forceful way, used to declare that the manager had to be a dictator in the factory. "Workers' democracy" in the state, Lenin said in effect, was to be founded upon a managerial dictatorship in the factory.

Lenin as the head of the state, helped to smash workers' popular, control over those instruments and to substitute for it control by the managers. And, of course, the managers of individual plants became subordinate to the big managers, to the boards and bureaus directing entire sectors of industry and governing industry as a whole. The managers under the new state included many who had been managers under the old "capitalist rule". Lenin and Trotsky poured scorn on "infantile leftists" [1] who were against making use of the "services" of the "bourgeois specialists.". Favorable terms were given to foreign "bourgeois specialists" who were willing to come to work under the new regime. [2]

The control, and the social rule which goes with it, when it leaves the hands of the capitalists, goes not to the workers, the people, but to the managers, the new ruling class. A parallel of the Russian process can be observed with particular clarity in connection with the events in Loyalist territories during the Spanish Civil War, above all in Catalonia. There, just as in Russia, the workers and peasants began taking over direct control of the factories and railroads and firms. There too, not at once, but during the course of the first two years of the Civil War, the de facto power slipped from the workers' hands, sometimes voluntarily given up at the persuasion of a political party, sometimes smashed by arms and prison. It was not the troops of Franco who took control away from the people of Catalonia; they had lost control well before Franco's army conquered.

Ideology

A Marxist society does not allow an individual to gain wealth; instead, that wealth belongs to the people as a collective. In a 'pure' Marxist society, the state is a democratic system that manages all aspects of production--essentially making the state the head of all industry. However, this was never realized due to power grabs by the eventual managers of the factories, as well as many practical limitations. Marx dreamed of a society where a man could be "A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening"--essentially, a world without specialization and stark divisions of labor. Again, this tenet of his philosophy was never realized, mostly due to practical reasons.

Quotes on Marxism

Comparative quotes are given from the top Left-wing - Socialist - National Socialist (a.k.a. Nazi) - Marxist - Communist leaders and their critics in order to better understand the commonality of the end result of their philosophy taken to its fruition by the Big government Welfare state-Nanny state-Police state by leftist Globalist-Statist-Socialist-Communists. From these quotes one can see little difference between Socialists, Nazis, Communists. Communist regimes killed 60 million in the 20th century through genocide, according to Le Monde and more than 100 million people according to The Black Book of Communism.

Quotes from National Socialist's Heinrich Himmler

From the Nazi party (National Socialism) leader Heinrich Himmler:

  • "In the course of history periods of capitalism and socialism alternate with one another; capitalism is the unnatural, socialism the natural economic system...The National Socialists and the Red Front have the same aspirations. The Jews falsified the Revolution in the form of Marxism and that failed to bring fulfillment." -- Speech in Potsdam (13 October 1926), quoted in Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 92-93.
  • "The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear." -- Quoted in "Visions of Reality - A Study of Abnormal Perception and Behavior" - by Alberto Rivas - Psychology - 2007 - Page 162

Quotes from Lenin

  • "The best revolutionary is youth devoid of morals."
  • "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
  • "There are no morals in politics there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."


Quotes from Stalin

The Darwin-Stalin connection describes the brutal Soviet dictator Josef Stalin who murdered millions of people, giving credit to Darwin's book for his outlook in life:

  • "Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem"
  • "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
  • "The only real power comes out of a long rifle."
  • "When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use."

Quotes from Leon Trotsky

  • "Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship."
    • Leon Trotsky in Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky (1920; 1975), p. 153
  • "The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state … Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction...
    • Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky (1920; 1975), p. 177
  • "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life."
  • "Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service."
    • Statement of 1918, as quoted in Trotsky : The Eternal Revolutionary (1996) by Dmitri Volkogonov, p. 213


Quotes from Mao

  • "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." -- The Little Red Book, 1964
  • "Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."

Quotes on Kim Il-sung

Kim Il-sung took the communist cult of personality to a new level.[3] "In Korea, the Americans have far exceed the Hitlerites!" -- by Kim Il-sung[4]

Quotes from Pol Pot

As ruler of Cambodia Pol Pot was responsible for exterminating 2 million people by genocide. That's a quarter of the country's population:

  • "Exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese... and purify the masses of the [Cambodian] people."

Related Quotes from Others

  • "Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the spirit. They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you are ill, all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we dream - yes, even of some time owning a yacht."[5] -- President Ronald Reagan
  • "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." -- Winston Churchill
  • "I've always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually" -- Friedrich Hayek
  • "Socialism is based on envy and eventually always creates a very powerful big government controlled by very mediocre people who envy any success and destroy it." -- Vlad

See Also


Contrast with:

References

  1. V. I. Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.
  2. James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution, Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.
  3. Barbara Demick (2010) Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, Granta, page 45, ISBN 9781847081414
  4. **Kim Il-sung to the Swedish communist leader Frank Baude in 1993.
  5. (2001) Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan ; Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, Martin Anderson ; Foreword by George P. Shultz. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781416584506.