/marx/ - Marxism

The actual October Revolution resulted in barely any deaths. It was the attempted counter-revolution which carried out acts of assassination, sabotage and external invasion.

As Lenin said: "The British bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1649, the French bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1793. Terror was just and legitimate when the bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit against feudalism. Terror became monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dared to use it against the bourgeoisie! Terror was just and legitimate when used for the purpose of substituting one exploiting minority for another exploiting minority. Terror became monstrous and criminal when it began to be used for the purpose of overthrowing every exploiting minority, to be used in the interests of the vast actual majority, in the interests of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the working class and the poor peasants!"

No one argues (at least not Marx, Engels, Lenin or Stalin) that terror in itself leads to "social transformation," it simply defends the dictatorship of the new ruling class (in the case of 1917 the proletariat) against the class that has just been overthrown.

>>1576

>Actually can we get a definition of terror for the purposes of this thread?
Revolutionary violence, usually done by the organ of class dictatorship, state or otherwise.
I'm just looking for other peoples' opinions; I'm all in favor of it. If anyone wants to join in a debate or just say their opinion on the matter, that would be great.

>>1575
Yes, Red October itself was relatively peaceful, and the Red Terror only began, then escalated, when the counter-revolutionary forces used force to try to force the Bolsheviks out of power, but the conquest of power by the toiling masses; the establishment of soviet power and the people's dictatorship, in of itself does not signify a social revolution. Without the overturning of all existing social antagonisms through class struggle, and the restructuring of the foundations of current society through violence, there will be no progress towards a truly communist society.

If Terror exists as a coercive force to protect the class dictatorship, than what seperates the fierce and harsh violence of the Terror during times of revolutionary turmoil, ala the Great Terror of the Jacobins and the Red Terror of the Bolsheviks, to the "soft" violence that exists to reaffirm the class dictatorship of say, the police, capitalist or socialist?

>>1582
>Without the overturning of all existing social antagonisms through class struggle, and the restructuring of the foundations of current society through violence, there will be no progress towards a truly communist society.
Yes, but revolutionary terror and class struggle aren't synonymous. The former is a manifestation of the latter. The struggle to collectivize Soviet agriculture wasn't referred to as a revolutionary terror, even though class struggle against the kulaks was obviously a vital part of said struggle.

>If Terror exists as a coercive force to protect the class dictatorship, than what seperates the fierce and harsh violence of the Terror during times of revolutionary turmoil, ala the Great Terror of the Jacobins and the Red Terror of the Bolsheviks, to the "soft" violence that exists to reaffirm the class dictatorship of say, the police, capitalist or socialist?
From what I understand, revolutionary terror is generally confined to the period when the proletariat has just seized state power and has to defend itself from the overthrown classes which are attempting to regain said power by force. In such cases summary executions among other things are common and accepted throughout its duration.

>>1591
Yes I am Ismail.

Two good reads on the Great Purges from a bourgeois perspective are "Origins of the Great Purges" by J. Arch Getty and "Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia" by Robert Thurston. You can find the first one here: http://bookzz.org/book/989260/2309c7

In short, it was a combination of fear of the fact that anti-Soviet conspiracies did exist among the déclassé elements, armed forces and party members, and the fact that local party bosses often sought to sabotage policies encouraged by "Moscow" (aka central party and state organs) in order to keep themselves entrenched in power.

As both books show, workers were an active participant in the purges, denouncing corrupt and self-serving party officials as well as managers in enterprises. "Moscow" promoted greater democracy and open criticism in order to achieve its objectives of getting rid of potentially hostile elements. NKVD heads Yagoda and Yezhov had their own interests and tried to direct events in accordance with them.

In other words, the whole "Stalin was afraid of his rivals and wanted to kill them all" narrative has no basis. Both works rely heavily on Soviet archival materials and I can't recommend them enough.