Charles Brown wrote: >> Brezhnev was to the left of the Bonapartes , FDR, and Krugman.<
my response: > the words "right" and "left" have different meanings (if they have > any) under the old Soviet mode of production than they do under > capitalism. Brezhnev was just as interested in protecting class > privilege as FDR, but it was a different kind of class privilege than > under capitalism. CB: > Well , I was joking a little, but, no, this is not a good understanding of the Soviet system or the Soviet Union in the whole world political context, world political "left" and "right". The Soviet Union was not a new "class" system ( pace: Dijlas), http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdjilas.htm and the Soviet bureaucracy was not a third class.< I didn't say I agreed with Djilas (especially since I've never read his stuff). It doesn't matter to me what kind of class system the old USSR had. The Soviet elite prevented strikes, stomped on independent labor unions, and squashed independent countries (e.g., Hungary, Czechoslovakia). Somewhere Lenin said that classes define themselves in struggle; they sure seem to have done so in the case of the old USSR. It's true they had a welfare state, but they also restricted rights to free speech, assembly, & religion in a big way. That makes the normal paternalism of a welfare state even more paternalistic. Their elections were even more of a joke than the US ones. One thing I wonder about is if the USSR was such a wonderful place with so few contradictions, why did it snap like a dead twig at the cusp of the 1990s? > With all its faults , failures, missteps, "crimes of Stalinists" et al, > ultimate "collapse", the Soviet Union, and its leader Brezhnev ( at the time > he was its leader) were to the left of Krugman's ideology of "verbal" Social > Democracy. < The USSR's leadership was also very good at purely verbal social democracy (hey, they supported "people's democracies" like Bulgaria and Romania!), especially when advocating for the rights of people outside of their sphere of influence. In fact, outside that sphere, they sometimes actually helped people (e.g., helping the Cuban revolution). But the elite of the other contending superpower (the US) provided some support for people outside _their_ sphere of interest. The two superpowers resembled each other in a lot of ways... > So, it was definitely to the left , i.e. acting more in the interest of the > workers of the world, even if not "perfectly", than even the best politicians > and economists in the imperialists belly of the beast.< the term "left" typically means fighting for (or at least supporting) the poor against the powerful and privileged. Since the USSR's leadership fought tooth and nail to protect its own power and privilege, it's hard for them to fit that definition. [The Wikipedia says: "In politics, left-wing, leftist, and the Left are terms applied to various political positions associated with progressive [??] causes. The term has had different meanings in different countries and time periods. Originally, during the French Revolution, left-wing referred to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the left opposed the monarchy and supported radical reform. Later, the term became associated with socialism, communism, anarchism and social liberalism. Today, in most of Europe, the Left refers to socialist parties, while in the United States, the Left usually refers to modern [New Deal] liberalism."] -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
