You quite consistantly, conflate Stalinism w/ communism. ^^^^ CB: Actually, I almost never use the term "Stalinism". I just wrote that as a concession to your terminological usage. ^^^ Those writers I cited again ...-clip-... 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) ^^^ CB: Yes ^^^^
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. ^^^^^ CB: What about no unemployment, jobs for women, peoples courts, free healthcare and college education for all, free childcare for all at work, legalized abortion, anti-racist laws, most rapid industrialization in the history of modern industrial civilization, coal miners paid the highest of all categories of occupation , support for national liberation movements around the world, Sputnik, et al. in the SU ? Rapid modernization et al in China ? Cuba's healthcare, education, committees for the defense of the rev., etc. ? Etc. ? ^^^^^^^
<http://www.globalcommunity.org/breakthrough/book/pdfs/burlatsky.pdf>. ^^^^^ CB: Actually, believe it or not, when I visited the SU in '86, I had some lectures by Burlatsky. ^^^^^ 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.
^^^^^^^ CB: I think you will find that all the socialist countries that followed Leninist principles were aware of this famous passage against barracks communism, and sought to raise the living standards of their populations consistently, however, as many of the countries were economically underdeveloped at the beginning of their revolutions, and under heavy imperialist wars and blockades that made it difficult to provide as fully as they aimed to.
Do you consider yourself a Marxist and a communist ?