Marxism is a science, based upon a scientific method. It is also an ideology, but only until the ideology is rendered irrelevant by material conditions. Until now Marx's critique of capitalism has not been rendered irrelevant. Capitalist apologists have not been able to prove that the warnings in Kapital have not come true. Inequality, crisis and violence continue to be aspects of the capitalist mode of production. Ye, Marxism is all the more relevant today as Climate Crisis approaches a critical stage and the reactionaries continue to insist on a revisionist conceptualization of environmental science that does not rely upon empirical evidence. Clearly, green capitalism is not sufficient to rescue the planet from extremely corporeal global catastrophe. Of course, the reactionary profits will warn that any attempt at planned economy will result in totalitarian disaster. 'Just look at the Soviet Union under Stalin, or China under Mao!' Certainly, these individuals orchestrated what they knew would be disasters.
Those who would insist that these individuals knowingly created the conditions that would lead to famine and starvation give these individuals more credit as agents with the ability to steer the course of history than I would. Mao apologized for his role in the Great Famines in China. He said that his had about a 20% role in the famines through mismanagement of the economy and the rest was nature. Stalin of course, never made such an apology, but he was, of course, the "Man of Steel."
Admitting mistakes is a sign of political maturity. Castro apologized for jailing LGBT folk. A socialist leader sees themselves not as a god-king in the Egyptian sense, but as an agent of history, and perhaps even an experimental political scientist.
The WWII period was a politically experimental time. Industrial capitalism had reached a critical point, and there were variations in the way the major players reacted to it. In USSR they had a proletarian revolution, and the cult-of-personality of Stalinism prevailed. This was a mixed blessing. On one hand, USSR had an authoritarian leadership that suppressed counter-revolutionary activity. On the other, collectivization and the uplifting of the Soviet economy was a priority. In Germany, Italy and Japan these themes presented themselves as fascist appropriations of leftist-populist rhetoric combined with capitalist ruthlessness and insistence on efficiency and profit. In the capitalist Republics of UK and USA the pressure from the proletarian dictatorship of USSR manifested itself as a strengthened welfare state. For a time, these nations united against the common, fascist enemy, but not long after the war they became engaged in a ruthless cold war.
Much of the experimentation was done for us in this period. We found that fascism and welfare capitalism eventually devolve into disaster. The authoritarian socialism of Stalin may have been extreme. He may have tried to collectivize the economy to fast. Socialism in one country may have been an unrealistic insistence. But a successful revolution redeems all previous failed ones. Next time we won't make the same mistakes. The scientific method insists that we must revise our hypothesis for differing conditions (this is not, or course, an endorsement of Kruschevian revisionism). The USSR went from agrarian late-feudalism to industrial socialism in a very short period of time. This was a triumph for socialism and for the Russian people. For them to regress back to capitalism was a disaster, but it would not have been possible except for the proletarian revolution of 1917. Let us learn from the past and move forward with strategy in mind and with winning as the goal.
Those who would insist that these individuals knowingly created the conditions that would lead to famine and starvation give these individuals more credit as agents with the ability to steer the course of history than I would. Mao apologized for his role in the Great Famines in China. He said that his had about a 20% role in the famines through mismanagement of the economy and the rest was nature. Stalin of course, never made such an apology, but he was, of course, the "Man of Steel."
Admitting mistakes is a sign of political maturity. Castro apologized for jailing LGBT folk. A socialist leader sees themselves not as a god-king in the Egyptian sense, but as an agent of history, and perhaps even an experimental political scientist.
The WWII period was a politically experimental time. Industrial capitalism had reached a critical point, and there were variations in the way the major players reacted to it. In USSR they had a proletarian revolution, and the cult-of-personality of Stalinism prevailed. This was a mixed blessing. On one hand, USSR had an authoritarian leadership that suppressed counter-revolutionary activity. On the other, collectivization and the uplifting of the Soviet economy was a priority. In Germany, Italy and Japan these themes presented themselves as fascist appropriations of leftist-populist rhetoric combined with capitalist ruthlessness and insistence on efficiency and profit. In the capitalist Republics of UK and USA the pressure from the proletarian dictatorship of USSR manifested itself as a strengthened welfare state. For a time, these nations united against the common, fascist enemy, but not long after the war they became engaged in a ruthless cold war.
Much of the experimentation was done for us in this period. We found that fascism and welfare capitalism eventually devolve into disaster. The authoritarian socialism of Stalin may have been extreme. He may have tried to collectivize the economy to fast. Socialism in one country may have been an unrealistic insistence. But a successful revolution redeems all previous failed ones. Next time we won't make the same mistakes. The scientific method insists that we must revise our hypothesis for differing conditions (this is not, or course, an endorsement of Kruschevian revisionism). The USSR went from agrarian late-feudalism to industrial socialism in a very short period of time. This was a triumph for socialism and for the Russian people. For them to regress back to capitalism was a disaster, but it would not have been possible except for the proletarian revolution of 1917. Let us learn from the past and move forward with strategy in mind and with winning as the goal.
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