A very brief history of Soviet Communism

by refiners fire 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  refiners fire

  To have a cult, and have a reason to fabricate history (my own personal special interest) first of all you need a totalistic belief to create your cult around. Soviet Communism was built around a doctrine called "Marxism". A Utopian doctrine which came to be applied in a Totalistic manner. Marx came to be viewed as a prophet by those who followed after his teachings, his writings viewed as Infallible. As is so often the case with Totalisms, it is in the realm of predictions, those things which are "expected" to occur, those things which appear to be stated WILL occur, that problems in Marxism arose and justifications and deception came to be practised and "acceptable" behaviour. Deceptive behaviour aimed at reconciling the contradictions between theory as espoused in Marx, and Practise, as experienced in Russia when Lenin tried to initiate Marx into reality.

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  Part 1- MARXISM AS A UTOPIAN DOCTRINE

  Some evidences of Utopianism in Marx and some explanations as to Marxist theory:

  As R N Carew Hunt says in his "Theory and Practise of Communism" (1959):

  "For its devotees, Communism has the value of a religion in so far as it is felt to provide a complete explanation of reality and of man as part of reality, and at the same time to give to life, as does religion, a sense of purpose...communism maintains that its central dogmas are guaranteed by science... the fundamental doctrines upon which it rests are held to be of irresistible cogency to any properly instructed mind, and discussion of the fundamental doctrines is only permissible within their frame of reference" (page 29)

  Page 30 continues: "The Communist believes he is living in a doomed world, one which is shot to pieces by internal contradictions. Yet out of it a better world is being born in accordance with Laws which are irresistible in their operation and can be scientifically demonstrated."

  Communists (as they came to be called) taught, and doubtless believed, that the world in the early 1900s, was about to collapse into an Apocalypse of change. After the Apocalypse a time of peace and prosperity unlike any in History would be ushered in . All would be united. All men would be equal. This expectation was supposedly demonstrated scientifically as an inevitability in the writings of Karl Marx and Marx "sidekick" Friedrich Engels.

  Marx and Engels taught that the age of Capitalism was due to end and the world would go into a new state of things called "socialism" . Under Socialism, men would no longer be compelled by economic necessity to work under a boss, under Socialism men would work willingly in a new era of cooperation. All would have the same standard of living. No more rich, no more poor, Just a uniform level of relative bounty. Greed would disappear. As Marx Said in a very famous quote:

  "In the higher phase of Communist society, after the enslaving subordination of individuals under division of labour ....has vanished, after labour has become not merely a means to live, but has become itself the primary necessity of life... and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois rights be left behind and society inscribe on its banners " FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS" "...

  Now the period of changeover from this wicked Capitalist world to the perfect Socialist world was likened, in analogy, to the changing of water to ice. The water gets colder and colder, until, suddenly, a crisis point is reached and the water changes, rapidly, to ice. These crisis point in Marxism are called "transformations" and "revolutions".

  Marx predicted a couple of things about the "transformation" (revolution) that are needed to be known.

  The first is that he expected, and stated, that the revolutionary change to Socialism would occur in the INDUSTRIALIZED WEST. He expected that the industrial workforce, as a class, world wide, would unite and overthrow the capitalist order of things. Marx theory was developed around research of industrial Capital/ Labour relations in Europe. This created problems later when "the Socialist Revolution" commenced in Russia. A nation with very little industry, A backward country. The fact that the revolution commenced in Russia was, in fact, in contradiction with Marx Divine Theory. Something that had to be dealt with in due course.

  Another thing important to know is that Marx and Engels writings stated that, after the revolutionary overthrow of Capital occured, it would not instantly be a Utopia. There was predicted a period of change and struggle called the "dictatorship of the Proletariat". During this phase the control of things would pass into the workers hands. Former rulers removed. Fat cat business men stripped of their assets. And Former government Beaurocrats given shovels and told to work for a living like everyone else. The workers, new rulers of the world, would be fairer than their former masters and in time even the government of state would cease to exist.

  Engels especially wrote about the disappearance of State and national government under the rulership of the workers. Paraphrasing Engles "Anti Duhring" manuscript R N Carew Hunt writes: " It is not a naturtal institution, it only arises when society is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to repel. It is simply the product of the class struggle, it will disappear, "wither away" to quote Engels, when the classless society is established".

  In Marxist doctrine there comes to be a crisis point between Capital and Labour whence a "revolution" is carried out by the forces of Labour. Marx theory proves this (scientifically) to be inevitable. After the overthrow of the capitalist order there is a brief "dictatorship of the workers" where the workers dismantle the old order and build the new.A new order where all love to work because it pleases them, where all get the same wages, where there are no bosses, where all are happy and united.

  A millennium of plenty.

  Why the reality of the application of this doctrine turned into the most ghastly regime of terror this century, will be discussed later.

  Edited by - refiners fire on 24 November 2002 2:13:43
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  Kingpawn

  A new order where all love to work because it pleases them, where all get the same wages, where there are no bosses, where all are happy and united.

  Where pigs fly and cows sing.

  Marx, Engels, and Lenin didn't factor human nature into the equation. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, for one.
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  plmkrzy

  During this phase the control of things would pass into the workers hands. Former rulers removed. Fat cat business men stripped of their assets. And Former government Beaurocrats given shovels and told to work for a living like everyone else. The workers, new rulers of the world, would be fairer than their former masters and in time even the government of state would cease to exist.

  That sounds simple enough. So who gets to take the blame for not being ontime? Or do we find out later in part two? It almost sounds like a Beaurocrats plan to keep poor people happy and in check. It sure does sound familure in many ways.
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  refiners fire

  Amazing! Someone actually read it.Many thanks. Actually this is a pet subject of mine and I just want to post a brief resume of my undferstanding of Soviet History just to see if I can render it coherently.

  Hey Plum, if you think its "familiar" now just wait a while. It Gets HORRIBLY FAMILIAR.
• 

  Satanus

  Communism

  Invented by jews

  Brought into power by jews. It has killed more people in this century than anything else has. In attempting to apply marxism, many countries have self destructed, not just in europe, but also in africa.

  The richest people in russia are still jews. Here is a little essay:

  Jews Favored in Russia:

  William Safire, New York Times columnist and former Reagan administration insider, reported in his national column that, "Russian Jews have nothing to hide." Safire, himself a Jew, explains that being Jewish in Russia brings great advantages--the richest multi-millionaires and billionaires in that country are Jews. So, too, are most of the powerful politicians. For example, the real name of Yevgeny Primakov, former foreign minister, is Finkelstien--he's Jewish. Safire adds that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a presidential hopeful, recently put on a skullcap and attended synagogue services. He's a Jew. The Governor of Nizhny Navgorad, Boris Nemtsov, is Jewish. Media mogul Vladimir Gosinsky, who controls an empire equivalent in Russia to the U.S. combination of NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN all put together, is Jewish; and Boris Borezovsky, the Russian auto and oil tycoon, is a Jew. Borezovsky is said to be one of the richest men on earth. Americans like Pat Boone and others who send out fund raising letters pleading for Christians to send money to help pay for the resettlement of persecuted Jews out of Russia, are either misinformed, or they are lying. Russian Jews are not being persecuted, regardless of all the hype by con-men like psuedo-rock star Boone. Indeed, as Safire notes, today in Russia, Jews are a much-favored minority, just as they were in the early days of Soviet Communism under Vladimir Lenin.

  Not my essay. SS

  Edited by - saintsatan on 24 November 2002 21:6:0
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  Satanus

  JJ

  They call it bolshevick, because it means the majority. The other group, the one that lost out was called menchevick, the minority. If i remember right.

  SS
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  Satanus

  Refiner

  I agree that communism is quite interesting. Sometimes i feel like a thread killer.

  SS
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  refiners fire

  Every cult needs, not only a Utopian doctrine that offers hope of eternal bliss to the followers. It also needs a Divine Truth. Followers will not follow blindly after fantasy visions of Utopia. They consider themselves "Rational thinking beings" and so, there must be a truth that can be examined, scruitinized, the figures added up and balancing. It must appear demonstrable as factually correct. So correct and perfect appears the divine reasoning and math of the "truth" that those who wield it invariably fall into the trap of "prediction" based upon it.

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  Part 2 - Marxism / Communisms Divine "Truth"

  The divine truth of Marxism/ Communism is called "The Dialectic". The Dialectic was not created by Karl Marx, or Engels, it was formed by a philosopher called Hegel. Marx borrowed Hegels concept of the Dialectic and applied it to his own opinions.

  Essentially, in its simplest form, the Dialectic is a "step process" . The steps are called THESIS/ ANTI THESIS / SYNTHESIS. Thesis and antithesis are called CONTRADICTIONS. The reconciliation of the contradictions is called NEGATION.

  The dialectic is regarded ( by communists) as a scientific theory of the unification of opposites.

  As R N Carew Hunt puts it in " The Theory and Practise of Communism" :

  " The law of the unity of opposites asserts the essentially contradictory nature of reality, but also that the contradictions thus revealed exist in unity. Positive and negative for example, so far from being opposites, express no absolute difference just as the road to the East is also the road to the West.....every unity contains within itself polar opposites such as the positive and negative poles of the electron".....

  To explain it another way, a position is taken, there is a contradictory position taken in reaction to the first position, and then the two positions "synthesize" or reach a compromise. Creating a new way of doing things that is SUPERIOR to the old way. The dialectic is a positive doctrine. It holds that things are steadily climbing, always improving, on a road to perfection.

  As said earlier, Marx did his research based upon European Capital/ Labour studies and he used the dialectic to demonstrate "mathematically" and "logically" that the industrialized world was on the threshold of transformation into a new state of human relations and work, a state called Socialism or Communism. But Communists believed that the Dialectic and theory of the union of opposites explained existance itself. It could be applied with equal force ( in their opinion) to analysis of labour relations, marital relations, health and vegetable farming. It was a complete truth explaining everything.

  Friedrich Engels in "Anti Duhring" applied the dialectic to nature in a famous analogy:

  .... " A grain of barley germinates and dies, and from it there arises a plant which is the negation of the grain. This plant grows a stalk at the end of which there are further grains of barley. As soon as these are ripened the stalk dies and is negated. As a result of this negation of the negation, the barley is increased tenfold"....

  Mark used Dialectical reasoning to explain the history of mankind. As Carew Hunt paraphrases the last 3 step in human development: .....

  " The internal contradictions of fuedalism led to its negation in capitalism, which represents an advance upon the former stage, but the contradictions of capitalism then lead to Socialism.... yet, just as capitalism has taken up all that was worth preserving in fuedalism, so will Socialism take up all that is worth preserving in capitalism- its technology.....All developments take place in a spiral and the reconciliation of every conflict results in a higher formulation"....

  That the dialectic and union of opposites was regarded as equivalent to a truth is apparent from the conclusion of the official " Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" which declared regarding the Dialectic:

  ." The power of which lies in the fact that it enables the party to find the right orientation to any situation, to understand the interconnection of current events, to foresee their course, and to percieve not only how and in what direction they are developing at present, but how and in what direction they are bound to develop in the future".

  The dialectic and Marxism were thus viewed as a divine revelation able to predict the future.

  There was just one problem. They didnt work.

  In the next instalment we will look at how the "party" dealt with Marx doctrines and the dialectical "truth" when they failed in application into reality.

  Edited by - refiners fire on 25 November 2002 3:55:10
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  plmkrzy

  The dialectic and Marxism were thus viewed as a divine revelation able to predict the future.

  There was just one problem. They didnt work.

  As I read your above post, this nagging little detail kept coming to mind, they keep forgetting to figure freewill into the formula.
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  refiners fire

  ..."As I read your above post'...

  Hey plum if you have read both my posts on this subject you are a glutton for punishment!

  Hahaha.(Lol to you sis.) ((And to all who have commented))

  Edited by - refiners fire on 25 November 2002 5:43:45