• FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I’m old, I’m not going to reread all of the things I read in my youth. The usage of bourgeoisie has changed colloquially and I don’t really care either, it’s irrelevant to the USSR having worker control after Lenin.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      The usage of Bourgeoisie has not changed colloquially, that’s a deliberate copout. If you are okay to continue misunderstanding Marxism then that’s your choice, but please don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about as it relates to Marxism if you’re going to actively reject reading Marx.

      • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        As I have said I have read enough Marx in my youth and usage of one word does not change a single part of my argument or any point which was that post Lenin in the USSR workers did not own the means of production.

        Also you earlier said that your opinion is supported by historians and I missed that comment then so let me address that: It’s supported by one dissenting opinion on the Wikipedia article. The rest of the article agrees with my statement.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Misusing such a basic term such as Bourgeoisie reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of both Capitalism and Socialism, and makes everything else you say suspicious. You have repeatedly stated that Workers did not own the Means of Production without backing any of that up.

          It’s backed up by multiple sources, hence why I told you to read the Thurston quote, not just the Sloan quote. The USSR continued to have elections and the workers had control according to historical documents, none of the documents listed stated otherwise.

          Please provide a source, all you’ve revealed thus far is a lack of understanding of Marxism on your part.

          • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            You provided one source which also lists the Thurston and Sloan quotes as a dissenting opinions to the rest of the article. The Wikipedia article itself states that worker councils lost both their power and ability to vote followed by protests by workers which were violently put down.

            Why do I need to provide more sources when the one you provided almost fully agrees with my statement with the exception of one dissenting historian?

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              The dissent was about efficacy, not the actual presense of a democratic system. Reread the article, lol. Opposition parties were banned, not elections.

              It does not agree with you, you misread the article. Both modern historians and opened soviet archives back me up. Since when is “Pat Sloan” and “Robert Thurston” a single historian?

              You’re deeply unserious.

              • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                You know the anarchist group I’m part of had people like you join from time to time that seem more interested in reading, purity testing and just calling other members “bad lefties” instead of taking part in local politics which is our main goal. Calling me unserious while complaining about definitions takes the cake though.

                You seem to have misread it more. Yes, parties were banned but so were factions in the bolshevik party, elected city soviets and pretty much all groups outside the party. Meaningful elections happened only inside the party, the elections everyone took part in were for show, they gave no control to the workers. It’s all in that source.

                If you are interested in how elections were run in the USSR this is pretty much how I remember: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union From what I remember the candidates you could actually vote for were party picks that would do the same thing anyways so your vote was merely symbolic. Over time people cought on to that and voter turnout crashed so hard the party started handing out exotic fruit to people who show up, I got my first orange that way.

                If you want to know what happened to the worker councils in the USSR read it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_council

                Pat Sloan probably took part in an election before Stalin, as I previously said, the election process after Lenin was very different. So, yea one dissenting historian.

                • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  I’m not purity testing, knowledge of the Bourgeoisie is the basic fundamental of Socialism. If you’re rejecting reading and saying it doesn’t matter, you probably are a bad leftist.

                  So now you agree with me, there were elections, and many sources support their efficacy.

                  You have no evidence about Pat Sloan, and given that his work was published in 1937, it’s likely he was talking about the present day for him.

                  You are indeed deeply unserious.

                  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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                    6 months ago

                    What I wrote was that workers did not control the means of production, the party did. Having symbolic elections does not give workers any control.

                    You should find a local political group that actually takes part in local politics, that actually has a chance of bringing about socialist policy. Political book clubs are largely useless and only good for mutual mental masturbation.