gojkor@. said: It seems , in this group , there is no problem that in all those socialist countries, countries were run by dictators, as Stalin, Tito, Castro where any opposition or critique was not possible. Here I am talking of critique from the left position, from people who belonged to the same movement, but they were removed from their positions when they did not agree with their leader. No problem that Castro was replaced by his brother, because he did not trust to anybody else. The same was with Tito who was a leader for life because he did not trust anybody, as all other leaders in so-called socialist countries which could be replaced only when they died. There was no freedom of thoughts in any of those so-called socialist countries, and you can still call them socialist. As one Marxist from Yugoslavia said there was no S of socialism in any of those countries. Yes they have free education and free health care, but they did not have freedom of thoughts and in some of them one of the main feelings was fear to say something freely, which I witnessed that when I visited them. You believe that American workers will accept to replace their freedom, how much that is illusory, with free health care and free education and some parties apparatchiks will decide about their lives, as what happened in those so-called socialist countries you are taking as example from where we can learn something. Free education and free health care and many other basic services should be free . And that was possible and realistic to have now and was always part of socialist movement from Marx and before him and Cuba, Soviet Union have nothing to do with Marx. If you continue taking examples and role models as Castro or Lenin you will stay a marginal group as you are now, and any Mass party will not be inspired by you.
Ken Hiebert replies: I expect there is a range of opinion in this group. But more often than not, people refer to the Soviet Union simply as the Soviet Union without using words such as “socialist” or “state capitalist” to describe it. If you forced me to describe it I would use the concepts I learned decades ago in the Trotskyist movement. I would describe the Soviet Union as a “degenerated workers state” and Yugoslavia as a “deformed workers state.” Not many people on this list would use the word socialist to describe the Soviet Union without adding some other words to explain in which way they thought it was socialist. Some people might use the words post capitalist. But there is more to say about the Soviet Union. Even after the Stalinist counter-revolution Trotsky and some others thought there was something still worth defending in the Soviet Union. And when you look at the titanic fight of the Soviet people against Hitler, it seems that they, too, thought there was something they wanted to defend. I expect there are many books on this topic. One that I have read is The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich. I do agree with you that when people listen to us, they will ask themselves if what we are advocating will be like the Soviet Union or Cuba. We cannot escape the need to explain the ways in which we are similar to the Bolsheviks and the Cuban Communist Party and the ways in which we are different. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#6791): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/6791 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/80900386/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
