r/communism • u/Practical-Study8253 • 9d ago
Meta💡 Thoughts?
What do people in this subreddit think about the great purges carried out by Stalin? Or how Trotsky and Lenin turned on the Makhnovtchina?
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u/turning_the_wheels 9d ago edited 9d ago
A better question would be how one comes to identify, almost to the point of pathological obsession, with Makhno, an antisemitic bandit leader whose movement was rightly crushed by the Red Army. Is it because the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on "Makhnovshchina" states that its goal was to establish "anarchist communism"? Probably, but then you would need to understand why you came to identify with this rather than the Soviet people and the historical victory of Marxism-Leninism.
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u/bugzapper2k 6d ago
Can you please provide some sources for learning about Makhno's antisemitism? I tried looking it up and all I got were articles written by anarchists arguing the opposite, i.e. that he had pogromists executed. There's an old post on this sub that apparently detailed his banditry, but it's no longer up.
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u/The_Intellectual29 9d ago
"Great Purges" were essentially a prototype form of Cultural Revolution, against the bureaucracy, revisionism and bourgeoisie inside of the party and state apparatus, trying to strenghten the activity of the masses and of the young proletariat that became the new membership of the administration. The "purges" also involved self-criticism, ideological education and workplace democratization, as even the revisionist historians confirm. You can read this for more informations.
For the Makhnovtchina, a proto-fascist revolt and pogrom happened, that Bolsheviks had to crush. This is only natural that revolutionary moments involve this kind of situations. Why did you make these situation so far from us the main moments in your political education?
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u/TheRedBarbon 9d ago edited 9d ago
Not related to the question, but I see that you’re a moderator and frequent poster on [r/europeansocialists](r/europeansocialists) and [r/asiansocialists](r/asiansocialists) , both of which are vehemently anti-maoist subs where fascists used to post anti-PKP pro-Duterte junk. Why are you a maoist on this sub but a moderator of anticommunist subreddits?
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u/The_Intellectual29 9d ago edited 9d ago
I was offered the administration of these subreddits by a former moderator who wanted to retire. He did a deal with me: in short, I post their weird blog when they post something new but, in exchange, I can do whatever I want with their subreddits. So I have no link with the former moderation team who retired and are on their blog.
and just for a note: r/AmericasSocialists has even less links with me. This subreddit suffered a coup by an ACP leader (who was a former moderator of r/communism).
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9d ago
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u/Practical-Study8253 9d ago
What's wrong about that?
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9d ago
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u/PretentiousnPretty 9d ago
This is complete nonsense, the settlers in Northern Ireland still exist and the IRA still fights for national liberation. Although the wage differentials are not as present currently, you will need to explain how settler colonialism vanished unless you are asserting that it never happened.
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u/Soviettista 4d ago
Please identify a white Irish revolutionary subject. If anything, the weight of the national question now lies almost entirely on the shoulders of the migratory proletariat since only them have the movement of history in their hands. There was a poster some months ago pointing out how Irish nationalism is basically "acceptable" white supremacy. The onus is on you to prove that somehow Irish nationalism is still a revolutionary force when it's used to reproduce Irish Imperialism.
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u/chaos2002_ 9d ago
It's interesting that you lump these two events together because they are both worrying to the same types of people: the petit-bourgeois. Stalin's purges terrify the reactionary academic and bureaucratic petit-bourgeois whereas the repression of Makhno's rebellion terrifies the idealistic and adventurist petit-bourgeois/lumpen (who still form the base of support for anarchist ideologies today). Looking at things through this class lens, it is no wonder that these events continue to captivate the thoughts of people in the first world and people continue to find reasons to identify with Trotsky, Mahkno, etc. despite seemingly quite different historical context and material conditions.
As communists we are on the side of the proletariat and we have no qualms with them using revolutionary violence to suppress its enemies. We support Stalin and Lenin's decisions to that end. But remember, even though they were in leadership roles Trotsky and Lenin did not singlehandedly crush Makhno's rebellion for example, nor were their "decisions" even the decisive factor in that. Any other competent officer could've replaced Trotsky and the outcome would've been the same. Rather, it was the class struggle of the proletariat of Ukraine that ultimately sealed the fate of Makhno's rebellion. In this sense it was not a "betrayal" of one man by another - the class struggle against Makhno's adventurers was already a fact in Ukraine due to his armies' banditry, antisemitic pogroms, and so on. Trotsky only acted in accordance with the clear desires of the proletariat for an organized response.