>
> CB: You have made this point quite emphatically and repeatedly. Do you
> have
> some thoughts about some other issues besides these with respect to what
> went on in socialist countries ? Do you think that any stalinists or
> communists , whether in the SU or elsewhere, accomplished any socialist
> goals, or
> were the only things they ever did crimes, demogogy and paranoia...
You quite consistantly, conflate Stalinism w/ communism. Those writers I cited again (Fernando Claudin, " 2 vols., Monthly Review Press, "The Communist Movement, " Agnes Heller, F. Feher, Gyorgy Markus, "Dictatorship Over Needs, " Paul Bellis, "Marxism and the USSR, " Pavel Campaneanu, David Rousset, Cornelius Castoriadis, "The Alternative in Eastern Europe, " by R. Bahro, Verso Books, "Let History Judge, " by Roy Medvedev, "Revolution in the Third World, " G. Chaliand, preface by Wallerstein, translated by Diana Johnstone, Penguib Books, "The Stalinist Legacy, " ed. by Tariq Ali, Penguin Books, re-issued by Lienne Rienner pubs. in Boulder, CO.) recently, from anti-Stalinist left pov's are not to be confused with say, Richard Pipes. (Though I did find interesting his chapter in the 2nd vol. of his History of the Russian Revolution on Mussolini and Lenin)
Authoritarian welfare states at best, with none of the political structures that would have represented democratic control over the means of distribution, distribution and exchange by the working class. Instead, nationalization of the MOP, by a State-Party Apparatus that had congealed into a new Ruling Class, with all the economic and social privileges that our Rulers grab for themselves and their families.
http://www.globalcommunity.org/breakthrough/book/pdfs/burlatsky.pdf.
Marx and Engels not only did not ignore the ethical principles of socialism, but on the contrary strongly criticized those pseudo-communists who denied culture and civilization. This is what Marx wrote about brutal, "barracks"-type communism, a "morbid shadow" of truly scientific communism: This communism, denying everywhere the personality of a human being, is only a consistent expression of private property . . . Any man with private property, as such, experiences, at least toward a wealthier man with private property, envy and thirst for parity . . . Brutal communism, proceeding from an idea of some minimum for everybody, is an implementation of this envy and parity. This form of communism is limited. One can see that this manner of liquidating private property is not a true assimilation. It groundlessly denies the whole realm of culture and civilization and signifies the return to the unnatural simplicity of a poor and crude man who did not rise above or understand the concept of private property.
Michael Pugliese