Tag Archives: communism

Presentation at the International Conference «Soviet Union: An Alternative of the Past, or a Strategic Project for the Future?», National Library of Russia, Plekhanov House, Association for Marxist Social Sciences, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 12-13/11/2021 https://www.academia.edu/61630009/Soviet_Union_Socio_economic_Type_Collapse_and_Lessons_for_the_Future https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356186393_SOVIET_UNION_SOCIO-ECONOMIC_TYPE_COLLAPSE_AND_LESSONS_FOR_THE_FUTURE...

The image below summarizes Marx's works in a nutshell: his societal development model goes through several stages, from some early societies (e.g. slavery) to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and finally to communism. At a very high level, this model is correct. Two "communists", Lenin and Mao, capitalized on this model more than anybody else. Both eventually failed for the same reason: They jumped from feudalism to socialism via a violent revolution that destroyed capitalism,...

In a letter sent to the organizers of the event, Kontonis explained that such an initiative revives the climate of the Cold War, contradicts the values of the EU and equates Communism with Nazism, which is unacceptable. "History can not be faked. Historical data and events declare the Soviet Army as the liberator of Europe and of the Nazi concentration camps, as a savior from the horrors of the Holocaust. In our thoughts and in our minds, the Nazi regime is a political system whose...

That is, what is the case against the actual theory presented by Karl Marx in volume 1 of Capital? This was the only volume of Capital that Marx published in his lifetime, and volume 3 contradicts volume 1 in important respects.First, we need to know what Marx actually argued in volume 1 of Capital.The essence of Marx’s theory and his conception of the historical tendency of capitalism is as follows:(1) Marx had an elaborate labour theory of value on which he founded volume 1 of Capital (see...

Keynes visited the Soviet Union in the summer of 1925. He evidently tried hard to take a fair-minded view of Soviet Communism to please other people on the left, but just couldn’t do it.From his essay “A Short View of Russia” (1925): “Like other new religions, Leninism derives its power not from the multitude but from a small minority of enthusiastic converts whose zeal and intolerance make each one the equal in strength of a hundred indifferentists. .... Like other new religions, it...

The cry that “Marx was not responsible for the crimes of Soviet communism” is Marxist apologetics at its worst: an attempt to completely exonerate Marx from the horrors of 20th century communism.It is also curious that many Marxists claim that Soviet communism was some “betrayal” of Marx and Engel’s vision of communism, but then at the same time go on to engage in the most disgraceful apologetics for Soviet communism.However, that is not my purpose here. The question is: to what extent was...