It was shared also by Lenin & Trotsky. I explained why the above assertion is true and why a "proletarian state" is a contradiction in terms (since there is no way for the proletariat maintain control of a state) on this list several days ago. If you disagree then refute it.
Dddddd0814 at aol.com wrote:
> Maybe I misunderstood what you meant when you referred to
>"authoritarian
> socialism" above. Did you mean actual attempts at socialism or did you
> just mean the notion of socialism in the abstract?
I mean the notion that socialism should be achieved by seizing control of the state and using the state to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. This can be contrasted with libertarian socialism.
> And what did you mean by "Marxist-Leninism"?
I mean the followers of Lenin. Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists and other proponets of the Vanguard party, "dictatorship of the proletariat", etc.
> Joe:
> Considering that the vast majority of real-life socialist societies have
> been pre-industrial I think it's pretty absurd to claim that you must
> have industrialization before you can have socialism.
>
> David:
> But, what I am saying is that there have never been any "real-life
> socialist societies." The Soviet Union was basically a state-capitalist
> society. I do not agree with Stalin that the Soviet Union was truly
> "socialist" in any sense of the term. Lenin said, and wrote over and
> over again that socialism was impossible in one country.
I'm not referring to state-capitalist countries like the USSR, China, Cuba, etc. but to the many indigenous socialist societies that have existed throughout history. The Iriquois are one example.
> David wrote:
> > If we really wanted an end to *all* authority and control
> immediately, just
> > for the sake of eliminating them, we'd have to advocate women stop
> defending
> > themselves from attackers, African Americans stop defending
> themselves from
> > the cops, workers stop organizing against the bourgeoisie!
>
> Joe:
> This of course is standard Marxist word magic, with little relation to
> what anti-authoritarians mean by the term authority. To illustrate the
> fallacy behind this, let's take an example. Say someone responded to
> your call for the abolition of capitalism by defining capitalism as
> "production of stuff." This person then proceeds to defend capitalism
> by pointing out that we have to produce stuff to survive - otherwise
> we'll starve. This is then taken as a vindication of capitalism. The
> fallacy in such an arguement should be obvious to any socialist - the
> manipulation of the term 'capitalism' allows him to obscure social
> relations and avoid the socialist critique of capitalism. You (and
> Engels) do the same thing with the term authority.
>
> David:
> I'm having trouble understand this paragraph. Is the interlocutor
> someone who or agrees or disagrees with socialism, or....?
The interlocutor is someone who disagrees with socialism and advocates capitalism. He's using the same locial fallacy, which relies on playing with the definition of words, that Engel's (and some other Marxists) use
against anarchists with the term "authority" and sometimes "state" as well.
> Anyway, I think what I was trying to say, from a socialist perspective,
> was that "authority" necessarily has a class nature to it-- i.e., it is
> not a classless term.
Hiererchical authority in the economic sphere = class, yes. One can have authority in other spheres as well (reproductive hierarchy, or patriarchy, is an example). To abolish classes hierarchy in the economy must be abolished.
Joe