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Kropotkin escapes from prison

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Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#31

Post by Avshalom »

jltsiren wrote: post #18
sudosysgen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are overstating the opposition. Kropotkin was generally friendly with Lenin and met with him shortly before their deaths where they were quite cordial though they disagreed, and he did return to the Russia while it was ruled by the bolsheviks. While he did think the Bolsheviks would not achieve communism because of the over-centralization of their rule, he still supported their goals and thought the October revol…

I think we are dealing with multiple meanings of word "communism" here. Anarchists are opposed to communism in the commonly understood sense: a centralized state ruled by the communist party. Kropotkin was friendly with the Bolsheviks, who had not become communists in that sense yet. He supported the October Revolution, but he quickly became critical of Bolshevik rule afterwards. He believed it would not lead into co…

No I suspect Sudosysgen and I are working off sufficiently similar meanings of communism. I just made a very simple counter-post to what I felt was a bit of inflammatory nonsense and Sudo felt it was over-simple. On my part I meant "generally" in a philosophic sense rather than "stridently and consistently" and should have been clearer that the wars/battles fought between anarchists and communists weren't, like, at the behest of Kropotkin or anything.

Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#33

Post by hispaman »

design-material wrote: post #28
sudosysgen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A centralized state ruled by a party is not the commonly understood sense, or people would think that all dictatorships are communist, which they don't. In either case, it is bizarre to try to correct the record with something that is in and of itself a misunderstanding. The Bolsheviks were very forthcoming. They professed from even before the revolution that they were aiming for a pretty centralized state ruled by a…

What are the varying/conflicting definitions of Communism here, and which one is the 'correct' one?

Well, this is a dead thread but I thought I'd help out anyway.

What Russia did in the 20th century was called a workers dictatorship, and was meant to be a transition into communism, which is defined as a stateless and classless society. So, calling what Russia did 'communism' is a bit like calling what the fascists did 'capitalism', and then saying that because it didn't work, therefore capitalism doesn't work. Anarchists have generally stood against workers dictatorships because they seem to be an ineffective way of achieving communism, but they do want communism.

Soviet rule was at best state-capitalism, with the government creating market quotas, trading with other countries, annexing other countries for their resources, and ultimately still doing everything capitalist countries do, but with more state-intervention.

Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#34

Post by sudosysgen »

jltsiren wrote: post #26
sudosysgen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A centralized state ruled by a party is not the commonly understood sense, or people would think that all dictatorships are communist, which they don't. In either case, it is bizarre to try to correct the record with something that is in and of itself a misunderstanding. The Bolsheviks were very forthcoming. They professed from even before the revolution that they were aiming for a pretty centralized state ruled by a…

A centralized state ruled by the communist party is the commonly understood meaning. You almost certainly understood the intent before you mistook the explanation for a definition, dropped the word "communist", and argued against a literal interpretation of the words. Pre-revolution Bolsheviks argued that a centralized socialist state was a necessary step before achieving "true" communism. Kropotkin disagreed (one me…

Kropotkin was equally as opposed to war communism as a centrally planned economy and as opposed as he would have been to the NEP.

I don't think that, after thinking for a few seconds, the regular person would arrive to the conclusion that the USSR was only communist because of the name of the ruling party.

I also don't agree that, if people were introduced to society like the USSR with the only exception that they had decentralized planning, would conclude that it wasn't communist anymore.

Similarly a lot of people in the US have called the economic system of the AANES communist despite being neither centralized nor run by a communist party. All the people that called Bernie Sanders a communist despite him not being a member of the communist party also don't agree. Largely from, you know, collectivizing agriculture and seizing a third of the productive capital to then put it under the control of soviets.

In summary I don't think that people commonly understand communism as being dependent on the name of the ruling party.

Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#36

Post by pcthrowaway »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #23
ashtonkem wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those wondering, Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist philosopher. He’s most famous for “The Conquest of Bread”.

Yes and I also find the term “libertarian communist” useful to describe him (and myself).

Those two things seem at odds to me.. how do you consider yourself both libertarian and communist?

Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#37

Post by guerrilla »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #36
SequoiaHope wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and I also find the term “libertarian communist” useful to describe him (and myself).

Those two things seem at odds to me.. how do you consider yourself both libertarian and communist?

Here's an introduction to the term [1]. For the slightly more general concept of anarcho-communism, i.e. the main strain of anarchism in the world, [2]. For the even broader concept of libertarian socialism, see here [3].

1. https://libcom.org/library/libertarian-communism-introductio...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communism

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

Re: Kropotkin escapes from prison

#40

Post by balsam »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #36
SequoiaHope wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and I also find the term “libertarian communist” useful to describe him (and myself).

Those two things seem at odds to me.. how do you consider yourself both libertarian and communist?

Then you might be delighted to find out that the aristocrat Oscar Wilde took that one step further and even considered himself both hedonist and (libertarian-)socialist. Much odds!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialis...

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