this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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The bolshivek revolution made it certain that any communist nation is a dictatorship. The menshiveks would have achieved better results.
The Mensheviks wouldn't have been much more different than German and French socialdemocrats who accepted capitalism. But there were other relevant left-leaning political forces during the Russian Revolution that were neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks - I wonder what happened with them?
Gulag happened to them.
Wait until you learn whatt the SPD did to the Spartactus League.
"Accepting capitalism" is a bit like like "accepting crime."
It's a natural byproduct of a series of extremely complex systems which exist in every society, and you either need to understand the right way to respond to it and restrain it, or you will become a dystopian hellscape trying to eliminate it entirely. This is pretty much the lesson we have learned from every ML experiment this far. They always seem to end up with an even worse form of capitalism, just like "tough on crime" societies always end up with an even worse form of crime.
Eliminating capitalism requires conditions which we should work towards, but will likely never exist in our lifetime. But in the meantime, there is a lot of good we can do to diminish the social ills we have now, within that context, without being otherwise distracted by something which is effectively impossible in the short term.
That's the problem though. When you study revolutions you overwhelmingly find there is a group doing reforms in a civilized way after the previous government is removed. And they almost always get lined up against a wall by a power hungry asshole.
You have to remember that your slow and patient reforms can drag their feet to the point it becomes indistinguishable from malice. That's what happened to e.g. the "socialists" who allied with the Russian provisional government and kept supporting the war against the will of the people.
Well that's what the Bolsheviks claim at any rate. It's always what the dictator claims.
The masses supported the Bolsheviks in the summer and fall of 1917 because they were the most radically and consistently antiwar party, regardless of their other faults. It was the most urgent issue in politics at the time for reasons that should be obvious. This is a pretty widely accepted narrative even among right wing historians.
I agree with that but it's still just one issue that could have been solved with actual representation.
That's also why I think people are too quick to reject pax America. It's a locally stable region in which we can build. Reverting back to a revolutionary stance has a very real possibility of going quite far in the wrong direction before we can advance over the status quo.
Unless, of course, the path to post scarcity communism is just "21st century tech, 17th century population." Which I suppose is probably valid.
Toussant would've been better for Haiti than Dessalines. But him being a tyrant doesnt make me not an abolitionist.