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Traitorfish · Jun 26, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
The reason this seems less useful is that the further back you go the less you know what the entire effect actually would be if you removed x. If you think that Marx's contribution are worth Stalinism you are welcome to argue so.
Am really not sure on Locke. Am not comfortable to judge his entire legacy. I find it a lot easier with Marx. But yeah it of course always will have unforeseeable consequences remove x and the more time passes the harder it becomes to estimate those consequences and I of course can not say for sure that Marx was in the end bad for humanity. Still one can try to make a reasonable guess instead of - as you seem to argue - to just surrender to the ultimate uncertainty of it.
Hitler could also be the best thing that ever happened to humanity, in principle. If we think long-term enough. Still many would prevent his birth if possible. Just silly you say?

So what you're saying, trimmed down to something intelligible is, "causality exists"?

Which is fair enough.

But it doesn't tell us anything much about Marx.

Am not doing that. I see them as one rather than two distinct factors. Because they naturally will constantly interact all through the way. So any distinction is fictional. But moreover what makes ideology so especially relevant in the case of the Russian revolution is the utopian nature of it. Utopian in the sense of creating something entirely new, a place which does not exist, yet. If you venture into such territory - yes, the ideology is hugely relevant. That just seems painfully obvious on the face of it.

And yet it evades scholars, who spend whole careers studying the subject.

Certainly, yes, they'll examine ideology, but they examine it as something broad and contested and mutable, in terms of attitudes and aspirations, as something that differed between and within social groups even under the same political banner. They won't examine it as the monolithic "Ideology" you imagine, drafted by intellectuals and enforced through policy. You attribute Lenin & Co. superhuman powers, here, as if it was only their ideas that are of historical significance, and those of the other hundred million-plus Russians was just so much trivia. In the beginning, there was Lenin, and Lenin said, "Let there be soviets".

It's a perversely Stalinistic account of the Revolution.

I am. So for I haven't bothered with creating neat artificial categories but I simply make a rough assessment of the whole. Which in spite of its roughness is still fruitful due to the utopian nature of the Russian revolution and the clear implications this carries.

It's hard to read this as anything but an appeal to gut instinct.

Terxpahseyton · Jun 26, 2014

Traitorfish said:
So what you're saying, trimmed down to something intelligible is, "causality exists"?

Eh I don't think we argued about weather causality exists but weather it made any sense to speculate on alternative developments of history / alternative lines of causality.
To which I say: Yes, albeit admittedly (very) problematic.
To which you say: It seemed, no.

Traitorfish said:
But it doesn't tell us anything much about Marx.

We weren't discussing Marx in his own right, were we?

Traitorfish said:
They won't examine it as the monolithic "Ideology" you imagine, drafted by intellectuals and enforced through policy. You attribute Lenin & Co. superhuman powers, here, as if it was only their ideas that are of historical significance, and those of the other hundred million-plus Russians was just so much trivia. In the beginning, there was Lenin, and Lenin said, "Let there be soviets".

Certainly the Russian Revolution was a very complex affair with a great diversity on all fronts. But that gives little reason to believe that a movement fundamentally resting on the goal to seek utopia (in the sense I already defined it) was not heavily swayed by ideology. Likewise, I see no reason to assume that the nuanced actual reality of this ideology means that Marxian ideas weren't crucial to this reality.
On the other hand, the actual broad developments seem to support my impression.

Traitorfish · Jun 26, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
Eh I don't think we argued about weather causality exists but weather it made any sense to speculate on alternative developments of history / alternative lines of causality.
To which I say: Yes, albeit admittedly (very) problematic.
To which you say: It seemed, no.

I'm willing to speculate about alternate histories. I just think we need to get a handle on this one first, or it's just a lot of si-fi.

We weren't discussing Marx in his own right, were we?

Marx as an historical cause, I mean. Even establishing that he exists in this specific causal chain to the Gulag doesn't provide a rationale for Krajzen's assassination scheme. You'd have to argue that Marx was the single possible point of failure for this causal chain, which isn't in any way apparent.

Certainly the Russian Revolution was a very complex affair with a great diversity on all fronts. But that gives little reason to believe that a movement fundamentally resting on the goal to seek utopia (in the sense I already defined it) was heavily swayed by ideology. Likewise, I see no reason to assume that the nuanced actual reality of this ideology means that Marxian ideas weren't crucial to this reality.

I'm going to have to ask: have you actually read anything about the Russian Revolution? You don't seem to have any sort of handle on the political or social dynamics of the period, no mention of the soviets or of the other non-Bolshevik groups or of the competing strains within the Bolshevik Party, just a vague notion that Bolsheviks Did Things and you're trying to puzzle out the rest from that limited knowledge-base. I don't mean to be presumptuous, it's just that you keep talking about things like the Bolshevik Party and Marxism and the Revolution like these are straightforward, unambiguous categories, when they really, really aren't, and pretty much all contemporary scholarship makes that clear.

Terxpahseyton · Jun 26, 2014

Traitorfish said:
Marx as an historical cause, I mean. Even establishing that he exists in this specific causal chain to the Gulag doesn't provide a rationale for Krajzen's assassination scheme. You'd have to argue that Marx was the single possible point of failure for this causal chain, which isn't in any way apparent.

See below

Traitorfish said:
I'm going to have to ask: have you actually read anything about the Russian Revolution? You don't seem to have any sort of handle on the political or social dynamics of the period, no mention of the soviets or of the other non-Bolshevik groups or of the competing strains within the Bolshevik Party, just a vague notion that Bolsheviks Did Things and you're trying to puzzle out the rest from that limited knowledge-base. I don't mean to be presumptuous, it's just that you keep talking about things like the Bolshevik Party and Marxism and the Revolution like these are straightforward, unambiguous categories, when they really, really aren't, and pretty much all contemporary scholarship makes that clear.

Oh you are absolutely right about my relative ignorance in that department.
But the reason I still feel like I have something to say is this: If we assume there was no Marx but still in broadly the same time a revolution in Russia - would there have been collectivization? Would there have been any of such profound social changes? It seems to me that they can all be traced back to Marx. That without Marx, Russia may still have been an authoritarian and brutal place after a Revolution (likely so I think), but one much more happier with the status quo and hence there would be much less reason / occasion for all the ugly parts the SU stands for. That reasoning is straight-forward enough IMO. Because the effort to so drastically break with the status-quo as Russia did doesn't just happen because of political or economic forces IMO. It needs ideology. It needs Marx.

Ajidica · Jun 26, 2014

Traitorfish said:
You attribute Lenin & Co. superhuman powers, here, as if it was only their ideas that are of historical significance, and those of the other hundred million-plus Russians was just so much trivia. In the beginning, there was Lenin, and Lenin said, "Let there be soviets".

It's a perversely Stalinistic account of the Revolution.

I couldn't find a youtube clip of it, but that just reminded me of this one scene from 1776.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Don't worry, John. The history books will clean it up.

John Adams: It doesn't matter. I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves.

[pause]

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: I like it.

On a more serious note I have noticed that many anti-Soviet authors (notably Robert Service) do have a habit of ascribing to Soviet leaders superhuman abilities of administration and oversight.

Hygro · Jun 26, 2014

My fantasy would be to study economics from various great and lesser known economists of the past. I don't know if I'd want to work forward or backward. I'm pretending I'd have no effect on the world in doing so.

But I'd also want to do a lot of empirical research and talk to the non theorists of all the different cultures around the world and see how they do their economies and feel about them, etc.

schlaufuchs · Jun 27, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
See below

Oh you are absolutely right about my relative ignorance in that department.
But the reason I still feel like I have something to say is this: If we assume there was no Marx but still in broadly the same time a revolution in Russia - would there have been collectivization? Would there have been any of such profound social changes? It seems to me that they can all be traced back to Marx. That without Marx, Russia may still have been an authoritarian and brutal place after a Revolution (likely so I think), but one much more happier with the status quo and hence there would be much less reason / occasion for all the ugly parts the SU stands for. That reasoning is straight-forward enough IMO. Because the effort to so drastically break with the status-quo as Russia did doesn't just happen because of political or economic forces IMO. It needs ideology. It needs Marx.

Why do we have to assume that the revolution was bloodier because of "Marxism"? Is it not possible to suppose that the Russian revolution and resulting government might have resulted in more deaths and it was only by the grace of "Marxism" that it did not?

Terxpahseyton said:
The reason this seems less useful is that the further back you go the less you know what the entire effect actually would be if you removed x. If you think that Marx's contribution are worth Stalinism you are welcome to argue so.

Why is it that 60 years is an acceptable distance from which to derive use other than that it benefits your argument? Who's not to say that 120 years is actually the cut-off date, or 30, perhaps?

Masada · Jun 27, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
I agree that Smith deserves blame for that. Still, there is greater individual responsibility than under a Communist regime.

I'm not sure if this is true.

Terxpahseyton · Jun 27, 2014

Owen Glyndwr said:
Why do we have to assume that the revolution was bloodier because of "Marxism"? Is it not possible to suppose that the Russian revolution and resulting government might have resulted in more deaths and it was only by the grace of "Marxism" that it did not?

Everything is possible if we can't say for certain what would have happened. Which we obviously can't. But that just not only seems extremely pessimistic, but to me also unlikely for another reason, because I speculate that the "friction" created by the utopian agenda of the revolution means more violence and would have been naturally lower if things are less utopian and more status-quo-orientated. The more trajectory towards something new, the more turmoil and potential for bad things happening.

Owen Glyndwr said:
Why is it that 60 years is an acceptable distance from which to derive use other than that it benefits your argument? Who's not to say that 120 years is actually the cut-off date, or 30, perhaps?

Who's to say there is any cut-off date? I don't. But I need to work with something if I want to make a call. So I did. No higher logic about it. Just seemed fruitful in this instance for the IMO clear connection and clear implications if we remove x.

Traitorfish · Jun 27, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
The more trajectory towards something new, the more turmoil and potential for bad things happening.

During the Russian Civil War, the conservative Whites killed something like a quarter of a million Jewish civilians, and displaced more than a million.

But thank god they stuck to their traditional anti-Semitism, or things would have been much worse...?

Wrymouth3 · Jun 27, 2014

Traitorfish said:
During the Russian Civil War, the conservative Whites killed something like a quarter of a million Jewish civilians, and displaced more than a million.

But thank god they stuck to their traditional anti-Semitism, or things would have been much worse...?

Well you know it was either them or the NO FUN Bolsheviks:
http://rlv.zcache.com/reprint_of_an...16a92461a8e28ce8dddb64d31_wz7sl_8byvr_512.jpg

Terxpahseyton · Jun 27, 2014

Traitorfish said:
During the Russian Civil War, the conservative Whites killed something like a quarter of a million Jewish civilians, and displaced more than a million.

As said I imagine it would still have been brutal.

Perfection · Jun 27, 2014

I'd piss on the big bang

Terxpahseyton · Jun 27, 2014

Personally I wouldn't get my wang anywhere near something called "big bang".

Perfection · Jun 27, 2014

Wuss!

ParkCungHee · Jun 27, 2014

Here's what I don't get. Following this logic through, you don't /have/ to kill Marx. You gotta kill those French upstarts. Clearly they, more than Marx are responsible for those Communists, AND the Fascists, AND the Baathists, AND the Irish Republicans, AND the Koumintang, AND the Neo-cons and so on, and so on, and so on.

Terxpahseyton · Jun 27, 2014

Good point. I personally would kill Marx not for deaths / hardships in Soviet Russia but for his general unfortunate historical and intellectual legacy. Which in the end is the perhaps most strongest defense of the status-quo.

Hygro · Jun 27, 2014

Terxpahseyton said:
Good point. I personally would kill Marx not for deaths / hardships in Soviet Russia but for his general unfortunate historical and intellectual legacy. Which in the end is the perhaps most strongest defense of the status-quo.

Marx's intellectual legacy is awesome.

Terxpahseyton · Jun 27, 2014

Yeah you know what scrap intellectual legacy and replace it with cultural legacy.

Domen · Jun 27, 2014

Traitorfish said:
During the Russian Civil War, the conservative Whites killed something like a quarter of a million Jewish civilians, and displaced more than a million.

But thank god they stuck to their traditional anti-Semitism, or things would have been much worse...?

The "liberal Reds" killed for example half a million of Cossacks, sticking to their traditional anti-Cossackism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War#Casualties

During the Red Terror, the Cheka carried out at least 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people" with estimates reaching above a million.[53][54][55][56]

Some 300,000–500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during decossackization, out of a population of around three million.[57] An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine, mostly by the White Army.[58] Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.[59] Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.[60]

At the end of the Civil War, the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the 1921 famine, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 street children in Russia as a result of nearly 10 years of devastation from the Great War and the civil war.[61]
Refugees on flatcars.

Another one to two million people, known as the White émigrés, fled Russia – many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population of Russia.

==================================================

But thank god they stuck to their traditional anti-Semitism, or things would have been much worse...?

When murderers target only specific groups (like Cossacks or Jews) things tend to be better than when they target entire society.

Example of what happenes when they target entire society can be observed during Khmer Rouge Regime's rules in Cambodia.

Red Khmers were Communists, so they added another brick to the wall of Communist "achievements" for humanity.

"But Khmers had noble intentions" - one can say - "they only expelled everyone from cities to camps in jungles, in order to achieve equality."

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The Tighnahulish Kid

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Break My Heart

Koi-san!

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Misico dux Vandalorum

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