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?
“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.
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.