[WS:] Why do we have to assume that socialist regime was there to stay forever? In fact, it was transitory, a passage between two stages if you will. That is what the Soviet leadership was repeating ad nauseam throughout their tenure. True, they did not elaborate much about the specifics of the future stage (except that it would be netter than anything in the past or even present) - but they openly admitted that their socialism was a development project. Why not taking it from the horse's mouth?
A key element of bourgeois/neo-liberal critique of socialism is that it "collapsed." This is akin to criticizing a ladder that it "collapsed" after a person climbed on it to a higher level. Or perhaps criticizing antibiotics because the person who was taking them was sick. Utter nonsense, but very useful in brainwashing people against the ideas of public ownership and government control of the economy that socialism entails.
Wojtek
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 4:05 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Somebody Somebody :
> It's interesting. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is
> celebrating it's 62 anniversary. Cuba's revolution is about 52 years
> old. In both cases, it's safe to say you're dealing with regimes on
> the verge of moving from moderate capitalist reforms to more
> thorough-going economic transformation. The Russian Revolution lasted
> 74 years. What is the life-span of a socialist regime? It seems to be
> at most around the length of a human lifetime.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: That's in the second historical phase. The third one will increase
> exponentially over that. ( The first phase was the Paris Commune,
> which lasted some weeks or so).
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