Yes it was a revolution against a preindustrial and mostly feudal monarchy. It baffles me how you want to infer something about how this would work against a late capitalist industrialized system.

The point of capitalist development is relevant to a historical materialist. I hope that we will agree that the hierarchy of owbership is radically different under feudal monarchy and developed industrialized capitalism. The means of production were in the hands of the state controlled by the party, controlled by the central committee or politburo. I would prefer if they were not only in the hands of the workers, but also in their control. I dont think that the workers appreciated under stalins decision for example that they had to give out more grain than they produced. Means of production were truly only in their hands, not control.

Well lets not forget western history. A materialist may expect this consciousness during crises and unions to rise in numbers. 1960s for example. In the us very large part of the population simply democratically and actively opposed in no small part their current material conditions and chose to not adhere to the capitalist line. Yes the fbi crushed many of these movements, but they very much emerged democrstically, from the material conditions. Assault the workforce, you will get dissent.

I partially agree, but this is common to all marxists, that this dissent needs to be organized, but in my view theres little need for the specific form of a vanguard party.

So you regard the situation in russia after 1905 or maybe even before as comparable to what either today capitalism is, or back then was? I think that first of all since russia back then was not even industrialized for any future revolutions we are essentially forced to accept marxs framework. We are not overthrowing monarchy. Also russia back then was so incredibly disorganized and non resilient that modern comparison in developed countries is very difficult. And when you say that bolshevism proved itself as good at overthrowing capitalism, my point is partially also that it wasnt exactly much capitalist like, what russia was back then. Otherwise there would be barely any difference between mensheviks and bolsheviks, since the bourgeois revolution wouldbt be needed.

Korea and vietnam would be simmilar, china as far as industrialization goes.

i dont think that we are going to be overthrowing weak poorly managed monarchies. I think that the revolution against capitalism in future will be more simmilar to marxs writing. But i also think that after that the framework of material conditions will be understood even by regular workers.

Not magically i think unionization is paramount to the revolution. The evidence could be interpreted as you do. The european nations are indeed good counterexample to marx. Germany before nazis, france in the 1968, partially greece, but there us just invaded. That being said this does not discourage democratic unionization and strikes. They are still effective we just have to adapt so that they remain effective. I think that as the exploitation will increase like now in the us, workers will feel the class struggle and recognize that they cannot remain idle. The organizers then I would prefer to be revolutionary marxists instead of just revolutionaries. Maybe we use the word differently, by marxists here i mean that workers owning the means of prod. is their main goal.

The mensheviks were far more foundational to the soviets. After the revolution the bolsheviks immediately went to centralize the hierarchy and weaken the autonomy of soviets. But yeah even bolsheviks are marxists, so there is a level of respect for the worker. I simply dont believe that they would in future actually push for the policy of workers owning their means of production and being able to be autonomous.

Well with mensheviks they did not want to be the bourgeois though. I dont know how you mean that they would create the capitalist relations. I think they simply saw capitalism as a necessary middle step and opposed bolsheviks in thinking that industrialization should be carried out after the socialist revolution.

In the marxs case capitalism does forge the proletariat through exploitation. The function of capitalist is to produce workers separated from their means of production. He also attributes inevitable centralization to capitalism and, because hes humanist, he goes to imply that when the majority of exploited workers becomes large enough, the system must undergo a revolution. His argument in my view makes sense precisely as a critique of capitalism.

i still disagree with the broad correctness. Here i side with the bolsheviks, because i still prefer their ideas on industrialization to those of stalin. Yeah i take back the comparison to tsar, sorry. I could nitpick about how in specific locations in specific periods I would be right, but overall i still would be wrong. I take that back.

Ok I think i mostly agree. We have deviated from initial topic. When marxists account for history of bolshevism, I still believe that its a certain proof of concept, and some inspiration, but I simply have big issues with how the workers are treated as stupid, i think that grassroot organization is more resilient.

Yeah but the conditions are not an excuse, there were successes and there were terrible policies. Pretending that one is without fault or not open to alternative interpretation is wrong. Mensheviks had issues so did bolsheviks.

Yes that being said its simply weird to call someome paraphrasing marx not marxist.

Well this cuts both ways, both mensheviks and bolsheviks and later stalin were responding to the conditions. Im arguing for a certain specific branch of that response.

no it is absolutely not clear, bukharin very much had plans for the industrialization and his were more consistent with bolsheviks. Stalin definetly called himself marxist. His reign was probably the lowest point of soviet communism. From eliminating any marxist dissent within the party and throrought the society, many times dissent was not even needed for elimination, to the catastrophic effects of the collectivization, which have no equally disastrous soviet policy and lets not forget how the working class, which was the one which threatened world capitalism initially, was completely brought to its knees, being oppressed in the literal sense more than even during the last tzar. True cautionary tale and most of the marxist movements today, at least that i know of, luckily for future of the working class interpret is as such.

That being said we have departed far from the topic of menshevism.

I agree and the fictional system of Lenin would be dysfunctional when mensheviks were predominant by your logic. If we want to use the historical argument we can also claim that stalin completely disregarded main bolshevik ideas during his collectivization. Does this mean that Lenin failed? Because his theory was abandoned in this case?

indeed we partially agree. It is a failure of the movement not the ideas of the individual which from certain point were disregarded. Who the organizers doesnt matter in the exact way you use, their idea which leads the organizing matters. I agree.

he as a hegelian did believe that the contradictions would arise in a capitalist society, socialism would be a reaction to it. The timing of the formation of such movement he did put at the moment when the capitalists lost their purpose. In his words it was something like the capital is increasingly centralized, one capitalist exploits the other. Then he goes on to describe how when the sole purpose of centralization of capital was met, capitalism can die. The collectivization is simply not something put forward by marx. Neither was it a particulalry bolshevist policy. They liked policies like NEP, bukharin was even more capitalist. But I agree that stalins policy was different, it was also different from typical bolshevism.

Well yeah i base this equivalence on marxs capital where he sees centralization of capital as the sole purpose of capitalism as a whole. and no when regarding bolsheviks i do mean capitalist like nep for example. Now i get that the policies are still better than pure capitalism, but they are not marxist.

the argument about stalin is a common one. The first 2 5 year plans indeed brought great successes and benefits to the population. And collectivization like stalins was never a bolshevik policy. Bukharin was far more liked in the party and seen as likely to lead after lenin. I dont know what to say about stalins policies. There are undeniable benefits, costs and we simply dont know what would bukharin bring. Probably not the purges, since his policies would be market bases probably some economic benefits. Sorry for long reply.

We speak of systems not societies. Unless you meant to say that its fiction to think that russians perhaps were able to govern themselves. That in reality the proletariat was so stupid that such thing is only fiction. Very marxist of you.

They abandoned her because they were reformists. She was not. Not her fault. Also mensheviks were the initial organizers not bolsheviks.

yeah and they “failed” in one case, very consistent. By this method trotskys and bukharis also failed

no it was not them doing that part though, thats not even the argument

yeah i suppose i just agree too much with marx and majority of marxists. You know he seems to think that capitalism is necessary to centralise capital and the extreme exploitation of labor at that point gives rise to some socialist movement. See bolsheviks somewhat implicitly agreed and intended to use quite capitalist policies to transform the society into one thats more centralized. Thats in part why they were a rightist deviation from the marxist movement. The way in which stalin then proceeded with the collectivization was not whay was popular between bolsheviks during lenin.

When compared to most other marxist they were far less democratic. I cannot speak to their hidden cares. But they very much upheld the idea of stupid mass of workers that needs to be told what to do.

The point is that the commities only became centralized after they were attacked. I dont know how else to say this. They were not like the bolsheviks initially.

Well I have only adopted your methods. Its almost as insane as trying to argue that its was a failure of Luxemburgs ideas and not the abandonment of the party which caused the failure of revolution. That would be absurdly infantile.

Again this is just crazy. It was the party that failed not Luxemburg. If the party adopted her methods who knows what would have happened. Thats like saying that trotsky or bukharin failed because their ideas were just worse than stalins. Pure insanity.

Ok but if we then try to say that ones method was correct simply because thats what prevailed then this gives no extra value, we dont know what the system would look like if the party would not abandon Luxemburg, or if bukharin replaced stalin. By the same argument germans were correct because thats what happened.

again with mensheviks you seem to maybe not know their ideology. A communist which revolts against a capitalist system is still revolutionary. It doesnt need to be against a tzarist one.

alright then we shall disagree on this, i do believe that its a capitalist society which gives rise to the necessary contradictions.

Yeah she cared far more for the democratic organization. The bolshevik model tried to justify itself as only transitional and so directing the mass of proletariat which is too stupid to understand its own needs was sold as somehow getting closer to the model where they own means of their production and all of a sudden know exactly what they need.

Again the historical argument is so weird. Literally the countries like Vietnam and Korea had solid democratic organisation by commities not dissimilar to initial soviets. They only moved to centralization after being attacked by us. They were not like bolsheviks before.

If lenins goal was to have workers who own their means of production, in the marxist sense, he failed. The vanguard party never went away, ideal was not accomplished. In this same sense that you use Stalin was proved right, Khruschev, Brezhnev Gorbachev just because during their administration bolshevism existed. Luxemburg being proved wrong I also dont understand, how is it that if the party cowardly abandons its cause it somehow disproves that cause?

This also makes it seem like you actually want some level of dogmatism. Assuming that Lenins idea of revolution is the correct one.

yes you said that mensheviks are not revolutionary, and the only argument is that they want first a bourgeois revolution to happen before a socialist one.

so we dont agree that historical materialism necessitates contradictions of capitalist society to give rise to socialist revolution?

Armed uprising was not the initial response, but because palestinians were denied basic human rights and have exhausted all peaceful methods like during the 2018 attacks by israel on civilians, they only then turned to armed struggle. This will provide them with leverage they did not have before. They could use this to get support internationally like in the South Africa case. It will mostly end when palestinians are given basic human and also civil rights back and are allowed selfdetermination as mandated by UN and the illegal ocupation and settlements end.

ok sure, that does again not mean that Luxemburg was wrong.

See i tried to show that the historical argument that something ended, does not really mean much.

Yes I continued from the point of how deeply marxist the menshevik point was. It was direct historical materialism. Thats also why most marxists agreed with them on this. Also if you consider this a strawman then the cases of China and Vietnam which you mentioned hold no water since we agree on the necessity of contradictions arising in capitalism which are part of historical materialism.

So just so I understand if there was any succesful organised revolution based on general strikes she would be right? It would have worked? Same stupid argument which you made could be made about anything that ended.

Her approach failed, so did bolshevism. I dont actually mean this, I want to show the stupidity of the claim.

Yes they advocated for bourgeois revolution before the socialist one.

Vietnam and Korea are good counter examples. The commities and democratic organization of the communists was very cool and developed during colonial periods. That does not mean that the idea of historical materialism is not deeply marxist. The contradictions which arise in a capitalist society between the classes give rise to the revolution.

Well this is just ahistorical, what do you mean by proved to be unworkable? She was abandonded by the reformists who abandoned the movement as a whole. That does not mean that she was somehow wrong, she was abandoned. Mensheviks were marxists, social democrats today are not. Furthermore a bolshevik may consider a menshevik to be reformist, bolsheviks wanted the revolution before the industrialization. I dont understand why you believe that mensheviks opposed socialism after the industrialization.

edit: I should also point out how deeply marxist, in the sense that it was idea of marx, is the point that bourgeois revolution is necessary before the socialist one. Pure historical materialism.

It generally means an attack on the speaker, instead of showing fallacy in the argument. As you may have noticed I made no claim of ad hominem in the other reply chain. Just here.

Yes it was blatantly false, so false in fact that you proceed to argue pretty much the point that in Luxemburgs view the role of the party is to organise the spontaneous strikes or workers into eventually general strikes, unlike Lenins idea where the party leaders whip the population into doing what they want. Simply put again Luxemburg and mensheviks argued for gradual revolution. Difference being that menshevisk also thought that russia needed to industrialize before that. both were far more democratic than lenin and bolshevism

Ad hominem is not absurd?

Ok, I havent considered that argument. How to even respond to such ad hominem?

Social democrats are organizing commities like the soviets and unions? Where?

The Luxemburg point was about the preindustrialised consensus. The point that only industrialized country should become socialist. She was also against the bolshevik centralized power structure. Like the mensheviks

This is true, there was a consensus among marxists that a country which is not industrialized will have tremendous trouble if it became socialist. But it misrepresents the mensheviks to assume that they would cooperate with the bourgeois society, they organized the proletariat through unionization. Not to say that proletariat is typically meant in an industrialized society, where there are capitalists. Under your logic people like Rosa Luxemberg would also not be socialist.

Ok, in that case bolsheviks were just overt capitalists. On serious side, Lenin was a right deviation from marxist movement. Some of his texts like state and revolution are indeed marxist. Mensheviks were the ones who historically organized the soviets and were more prominent and useful to the movement in the beginnigng. On the other hand when bolsheviks took over they immediately weakened the soviet commities and tried to institute more centrally controlled hierarchy. Now I dont want to be dismissive of bolsheviks, their rightist approach to socialism set an ideological precedent. I just prefer different branch of socialism, the more marxist one.