Not at all, it had more to do with material conditions and policy changes of the time: previous wars, undeveloped productive forces leading to very low productivity, forced collectivization leading to peasants mass slaughtering livestock and destroying grain in protest, etc.
Blaming it strictly on the form of government is pretty much anarchist ideological nonsense. This quote sums it up quite well IMO:
Everything sinister evoked by the single word “Stalinism” in the minds of most of our contemporaries - the appalling misery of Russia after 1920; the draconian labour laws imposed on it; the reign of the police and the practice of political assassination erected to a principle; the agrarian revolution “from above” of the years 1927-28 and its terrible consequences; “the Soviet Famine” of 1932; the mass repressions; the sinister farce of show trials and the delusional self-accusations of the victims; and above all the odious and unchanging litany of the victorious march of the USSR towards a liberating communism under the leadership of its great party and its beloved leader – all this, absolutely everything could have a simple explanation, one of truly magical convenience: State management, of course, or even, which amounts to the same thing: the uncontrolled reign of the Stalinist bureaucracy. But then, what about the fact that the revolution took place after the war, the weight of the Russian peasantry, the numerical weakness of the proletariat aggravated by the bloodletting of the civil war and by its lack of education, the low level of culture in general, the weight and the inertia of feudal traditions and gross brutality, the isolation of the proletarian Marxist party, international conditions, the barbaric statist tradition of Asian despotism, the demands of the political counter-revolution? These are mere trifles in the eyes of the self-managed socialists, mere trifles that do not explain a thousandth of what their two magic words say: “State management” or “uncontrolled bureaucracy” thanks to the insidious influence that the age-old poppycock of Proudhon and Bakunin exercises on them! How else did they think that, in the absence of “State management”, the oppressed can control anything before the terrible steamroller of capitalist accumulation and bourgeois domination?
Blaming it strictly on the form of government is pretty much anarchist ideological nonsense.
It had more to do with material conditions and policy changes of the time
So… then… if the policies had an effect on the famine, it was the form of government? I’m confused, were the politicians drafting policy not part of said government? Curious.
Form of government = how political authority is structured, how power is organized and managed, etc. For instance, monarchism, presidential/parliamentary republic, single-party state, etc. In this case it was more about the state management aspect of it
Policy = Decisions/rules/strategies that the government adopts and executes. This means stuff like tax policy, healthcare, the forced collectivization, etc.
The types of policies that get implemented are determined by the form of government. Yes, they are separate things, but they are inextricably linked. The famine was the result of poor decision-making, and the form of government determines how decisions are made.
Yeah, it determines how decisions are made but not what decisions, as those are majorly determined by mode of production, class character of the state + it’s interests, material conditions of the time, etc.
Does a form of government have influence? Maybe, but at best it’s relatively minor compared to aforementioned factors. You can see this with bourgeois states of today, where many share the exact same form of government but have vastly different policies that are the result of historical conditions (i.e. compromises given to workers to avert revolutions for instance) and their level of wealth, but overall it’s all done to preserve the power of capital and to further its interests as that is its class character.
It’s one of the only currents that has read and follows the traditions of Marx/Engels/Lenin, and thus recognizes that the source of capitalism and its class relations, imperialism, exploitation, etc stem from generalized commodity production and puts emphasis on it, recognizes just how important internationalism is in taking down a global system and rejects the concept of AES (‘actually existing socialism’ so Stalinist and later USSR + all modern day ‘socialist’ states) as being fundamentally flawed, it’s relatively unique position towards tactics such as activism/terrorism/popular fronts/trade unionism and how revolution would be achieved compared to other currents and so on.
There’s many more reasons, but in short its because their positions and critiques are the most theoretically sound in my opinion.
Not at all, it had more to do with material conditions and policy changes of the time: previous wars, undeveloped productive forces leading to very low productivity, forced collectivization leading to peasants mass slaughtering livestock and destroying grain in protest, etc.
Blaming it strictly on the form of government is pretty much anarchist ideological nonsense. This quote sums it up quite well IMO:
From Revolution Summed Up, a good analysis of what exactly went wrong
So… then… if the policies had an effect on the famine, it was the form of government? I’m confused, were the politicians drafting policy not part of said government? Curious.
Form of government = how political authority is structured, how power is organized and managed, etc. For instance, monarchism, presidential/parliamentary republic, single-party state, etc. In this case it was more about the state management aspect of it
Policy = Decisions/rules/strategies that the government adopts and executes. This means stuff like tax policy, healthcare, the forced collectivization, etc.
Two different things
The types of policies that get implemented are determined by the form of government. Yes, they are separate things, but they are inextricably linked. The famine was the result of poor decision-making, and the form of government determines how decisions are made.
Yeah, it determines how decisions are made but not what decisions, as those are majorly determined by mode of production, class character of the state + it’s interests, material conditions of the time, etc.
Does a form of government have influence? Maybe, but at best it’s relatively minor compared to aforementioned factors. You can see this with bourgeois states of today, where many share the exact same form of government but have vastly different policies that are the result of historical conditions (i.e. compromises given to workers to avert revolutions for instance) and their level of wealth, but overall it’s all done to preserve the power of capital and to further its interests as that is its class character.
Are you more of a libertarian communist?
No, just a communist who’s most closely aligned with italian left communism
Can you explain why you support Italian left communism?
It’s one of the only currents that has read and follows the traditions of Marx/Engels/Lenin, and thus recognizes that the source of capitalism and its class relations, imperialism, exploitation, etc stem from generalized commodity production and puts emphasis on it, recognizes just how important internationalism is in taking down a global system and rejects the concept of AES (‘actually existing socialism’ so Stalinist and later USSR + all modern day ‘socialist’ states) as being fundamentally flawed, it’s relatively unique position towards tactics such as activism/terrorism/popular fronts/trade unionism and how revolution would be achieved compared to other currents and so on.
There’s many more reasons, but in short its because their positions and critiques are the most theoretically sound in my opinion.