#john molyneux

[revolutionaryeye]

Does Leninism lead to Stalinism?

Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union as its absolute dictator from 1928 to his death in 1953. There can be no equivocation about this: the Stalinist regime was an utter nightmare. In terms of human rights it was, as everyone knows, an extreme tyranny. Democracy of any kind was non-existent; it was a one-party state in which all elections were ruthlessly rigged so that the ruling Communist Party candidates always won with close to 100% of the vote. No political, intellectual or cultural criticism or opposition was permitted. There were a series of purges and show trials in which past oppositionists or possible future oppositionists were accused of fantastic crimes and conspiracies, invariably convicted and either executed or sent to the gulag archipelago in Siberia – close to a death sentence. The whole social life of the country was held in an iron totalitarian grip by the party/state and the GPU and intellectual life in general assumed a Kafkaesque character in which history was continually being rewritten: a scientist could be required to endorse scientific theories he or she knew to be bogus and a composer could be condemned because their music was not in the approved style. Nor can it plausibly be claimed that even if life was intolerable for ‘intellectuals’ at least it was reasonably good for ordinary working people who kept their heads down. On the contrary, the living standards of the working class were forced down to fund industrialisation in the Five Year Plan and held at a low level. Housing conditions were appalling. Work discipline was intense and trade union rights and the right to strike were non-existent. Trade unions existed, of course, but they were completely controlled from above by the party/state which also constituted the management of industry. And it was ‘ordinary people’ – workers and peasants – who made up the vast majority of those sent to the camps and used as forced labour on a huge scale. In addition there was the scourge of famine, with several million people dying in the famine of 1932-3, mainly in the Ukraine but also in other parts of the USSR such as Kazakhstan and at least tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands in a smaller famine in 1946-7 which struck the Ukraine again and also Moldova.[1] The only serious counter to this indictment is to cite the prodigious economic development and growth achieved first in the thirties[2] and then in the fifties, which transformed backward Russia into a major industrial and military power. But there are three major objections to this defence: a) the growth and industrialisation was achieved at the expense of Russia’s working people; b) in historical perspective it was not greater than what was achieved at the same or other times by capitalist societies such as the USA, Japan and, in recent decades, China; c) in time the economic growth started to slow and then virtually ground to a halt thus precipitating the collapse of the regime in 1989-91.

Stalinism was also a reactionary disaster for women, LGBT+ people and for national minorities. The Revolution in Lenin’s time was hugely progressive in all these areas but Stalinism reversed ....

Read on:- http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.com.es/2017/05/ View also:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDGXGHJ1Nk&feature=share

[revolutionaryeye]

How They Speak to Us

by John Molyneux The 1% who run this society, the capitalist ruling class, speak to the rest of us i.e. the general public, a majority of whom are working class, mainly through the media, that is via a series of intermediaries – politicians, TV producers and presenters, news readers, newspaper editors, journalists and so on. It is true that not all ‘politicians’ are establishment lackeys and not all journalists are careerist hacks, but most are and they set the tone. What we see and hear on the media is mainly what our rulers want us to see and hear.

Some people react to this by dismissing the mainstream media as ‘all lies’. This is indeed the case at some fundamental level but, of course, it is not literally true: newspapers and TV News contain much factually accurate information and we all know this. More important than the actual ‘lies’ they tell is what media fail to report or barely report and especially the way they report things, the subtle spin they build into their reporting to ensure that events and the world are seen from the point of view of the ruling class. What follows are a few critical reflections on the language politicians and media use for this purpose. This is based mainly on current Irish practice but some of it will apply internationally Populism. One of the most important functions of the media is to discredit any opposition to the system. This is more important – for them – than actually trying to persuade people that all is well with the world..... Read on:- https://johnmolyneux.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/how-they-speak-to-us.html

[revolutionaryeye]

[katastrofe-vol]

the section on stalinism is v useful, a good analysis of how stalinism used marxism as ideological cover and why

John Molyneux: What is the real Marxist tradition? (July 1983)

[revolutionaryeye]

A tribute to John Berger - John Molyneux

[revolutionaryeye]

Revolutionary Eye- read also:- http://isj.org.uk/the-sense-of-art/

[books-and-barricades]

Marxism is not a dogma, but neither is it a content-less method, still less a series of unconnected ideas and propositions. […] The root of the problem, for both Mandel and Ticktin, is, nonetheless, a dogma: the fixed idea that ‘Capitalism = private property; state property = workers’ state’. In the nineteenth century these equations more or less reflected the reality of the class struggle. In the second half of the twentieth century they are completely inadequate. Mandel’s thinking begins and ends with them. Ticktin has broken with the second equation but not with the first. As a consequence Ticktin is, in one sense, less wrong than Mandel, but he is also less coherent.

John Molyneux, The Ambiguities of Hillel Ticktin (1987)

[revolutionaryeye]