dramaturgy: ([History] Lessons of Vietnam)
dramaturgy ([personal profile] dramaturgy) wrote2008-11-05 04:32 pm

Grr.

This has always bothered me, but for obvious reasons it's become more prominent in recent weeks. And after my dad fell for the crap and I finally had to say this out loud to him, I thought I'd just FYI. (This is a general you, by the way.)

Because you're an American and probably don't know better, you think socialism ---> Soviet communism (Stalinism). You are, however, missing a lot of steps in there.

It looks something more like this:
Socialism ---> Karl Marx ---> Communism ---> Marxism-Leninism ---> Soviet communism (Stalinism).

I know it's hard, but learn about all these terms and retrain the way your brain thinks about economic systems outside of capitalism. You don't have to agree with them -- as for me, I'm not sure I do, but I think we could all do a little more sharing in general -- but being able to tell the difference is a good thing. I promise.

[identity profile] ladylisse.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly where and how you connect Stalinism to other varieties of Soviet communism is a huge nasty debate among different historians. At the very least, Stalinism is a branch of 1920s/1930s Soviet communism as defined by Lenin and other members of the Bolsheviks (many of whom Stalin later killed, but whatever), which is in turn a split/offshoot of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (which also had soon to be purged Mensheviks running around), which in turn came from the Group for the Emancipation of Labor. How closely Stalinism - or even Lenin's variety of communism - can really be compared to Marx's theories are the sort of things that make Soviet social history buffs beat each other over the head with giant thousand-page primary source documents.

There were other factions around the Russian Revolution too, but they're all over the map and probably not close enough to Bolshevik ideology to be considered communism as a lot of people define it.

Er. /history major

[identity profile] thinkatory.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the Bolsheviks were the faction that created the Red Army and overthrew Kerensky's provisional government in what is probably one of the closest examples we have of an actual revolution along the lines of Marx. The others could claim communism, most claimed socialism, but when it came to getting the job done...

[identity profile] ladylisse.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, there's no question that the Bolsheviks were the ones who got things going. I just think it's worth noting that there were factions pre-1917 - the Bolsheviks didn't start out being synonymous with Russian socialism or communism.

[identity profile] thinkatory.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
*cough* Might want to reverse Marx and Communism and make it Communism ---> Marxism since not all Communists agree with Marx.

That said, a-friggin'-men.

[identity profile] dramaturgy.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I was mostly looking at it in terms of "X sprouted Y," but duly noted. D:

[identity profile] thinkatory.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah but Marx didn't create communism, he just articulated it in the way that later sprouted Leninism, Stalinism, etc >_>

OH HELL I'm the only person who cares, it doesn't matter. XD

[identity profile] kaesa.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't be silly. Anything that isn't laissez-faire capitalism is pinko commie un-Americanism, and exactly what Hitler, Stalin, and Sauron would have wanted!

[identity profile] thinkatory.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
EVEN SAURON'S EYE IS RED.

[identity profile] dramaturgy.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Proof: we have it.

[identity profile] kaesa.livejournal.com 2008-11-06 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
There's a Visine for that.

[identity profile] dramaturgy.livejournal.com 2008-11-05 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Not to mention Sylar and the Daleks. :ooo

[identity profile] dramaturgy.livejournal.com 2008-11-06 01:41 am (UTC)(link)
And that big thing from Jason and the Argonauts!

[identity profile] kaesa.livejournal.com 2008-11-06 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
What, the giant robot?

[identity profile] kaesa.livejournal.com 2008-11-06 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
I dunno. It didn't seem to be all that into redistribution of wealth when the Argonauts tried it.