Cowbee

How so? How can you simplify them to take less than an hour?

I've read Marx, quite a lot, actually.

This executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its vast and ingenious state machinery, with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half a million, this appalling parasitic body, which enmeshes the body of French society and chokes all its pores, sprang up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of the feudal system, which it helped to hasten.

He was talking about the French state. You're actually taking a metaphysical approach to Marx, not a dialectical one, by trying to abstract points away from the necessary context they exist in.

Classes are social relations to production and distribution. When production is collectivized and owned by all, it still needs managers, what Engels refers to as the "administration of things." Further still, between capitalism and communism there is the transition from one to the other, that is still heavily made up of elements of the old as elements of the new grow and overtake it.

This is basic dialectics.

That's not my argument, though, you took us down this path.

Can you answer why you’re insistent on analyzing processes outside of the context they exist in? If you’re not going to respond to my criticisms of your metaphysical outlook from last time, then defend it, otherwise all I can do is continue to point out that you keep trying to slice away context and view processes in a vacuum that doesn’t exist and doesn’t represent reality accurately as a consequence.

I don't think that's accurate, though. How do you explain dialectical materialism, historical materialism, imperialism, why capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable, revolutionary strategy, and more in under an hour?

It's incredibly obvious that they are talking about right-wing views in general, and you're laser-focusing on the German Nazi Party. That's why discussion with you never gets anywhere.

That's fairly creepy of you, is entirely conjecture, and they aren't the only Polish communists I know. That's a complete non-sequitor.

Would be a fun experiment!

What I think is especially unhelpful is people who have not read enough theory to understand what they are talking about (let alone considered it in the context it was written), but they are passionate about an issue so they try to debate people using the logic of that theory and they end up just making the theory seem like nonsense because they didn’t understand it.

This is very common, well said! And thanks for the complement. My goal is mostly to make sure people unify theory and practice, theory is a guide to action.

The NPC is made up of representatives of the working classes. Administration is not a distinct class, but a subsection of classes. Just like there are bourgeois administrators there are proletarian administrators, the same applies to intellectuals. Marx wouldn't kick my ass, he'd see that I'm correct here, same as Lenin.

The propogation of far-right views by PieFed users and the head dev is what @Riverside@reddthat.com is referring to.

I'm sorry comrade, didn't mean to call you into here, if anything just treat it like slop to view and dip!

Wikipedia doesn't contain all human knowledge, and is frequently wrong or missing info. Read the first few pages.

Sure. Sure, I’m orthodox, and yet out of two of us I seem to be the only one willing to be convinced I might be wrong or missing information.

I'm willling to be convinced with compelling enough evidence.

Like talking to a wall.
Bankrupt country. Forced to repay old loans to be able to make new ones. The poverty rates skyrocketed for 5 years. Then it became lower than during most of USSR occupation.
Go fucking grab a Polish source from the USSR occupied Poland.

Poverty rates lowered as Poland integrated into the imperialists, and was heavily flooded with EU support to serve as a "shining example" of capitalism fixing socialism. Further, I did, Dorothy Douglas lived in Poland for a time during socialism.

Dude. That was outside USSR. We were inside. The sources from that era I cited were from inside the USSR.

You're repeating the same dogma, though. Strikes are evidence of supporting overthrowing socialism, whereas if they hadn't striked then you would say that was due to oppression. You proceed from "soviets bad" and twist everything to fit your narrative. I've spoken to Polish communists like @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml and have read enough on the subject to know that you aren't painting a complete picture.

The USSR was socialist, public ownership was the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes controlled the state. The fact that you claim that they were "pretending" to be socialist just calls the rest of your points into question. The dissolution of socialism resulted in the far-right taking hold of Poland, purging the left, and selling the country out to the west.

The instability of growth I dismiss as immaterial. Why is growth supposed to be stable?

Growth being unstable points to problems with the economy, slumps, overproduction and other inefficiencies.

Skyrocketing poverty rates - refuted as loan repayment and bankrupcy under USSR - please note that your data points same poverty as 1.5% vs (vastly more during multiple decades under USSR occupation).

Poverty skyrocketed after the dissolution of socialism. Poland then sold out to the west, and joined the imperialists in Europe. Poland's economic gains as of late are primarily due to being folded into the western Empire.

Financed on loans Poland was forced to make that made sure the Poland was not self sustainable.

Poland and the USSR were both devastated by war. There were certianly economic problems, but this is not a case of colonialism.

If the Dorothy whatever bases her theory on Polish development under USSR based on the wrong data (like critically wrong), and your unable to provide other sources, you’ve made false claims, not a point.

Given how you've misread most of my sources, it's unsurprising that you're misreading Dorothy showing the drastic difference between socialist Poland's chemical production and pre-War.

I doubt that we agree on facts, as the what you quote as facts doesn’t always seem to be… anchored… in reality. And yet not once you said “you’re right, bad source”. I did a few times?

I could say the same of yourself. You constantly misread what I write, taking several comments to correct your misconception, and the same applies to sources I link.

Oh, that’s no longer something I think is possible. Now I genuinely wonder if there’s a fact, or an argument, or smthing, that could make you change your wrong opinion that USSR occupation was good for Poland (against will of Polish worker class might I add, as proven by the multiple strikes - you also need to understand that the strikes were not necessarily against socialism system, but against being forced by USSR into subserviency)

Strikes in Poland does not equate to an absolute desire to erase socialism in Poland. As Parenti said:

During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

You genuflect to orthodoxy.

Freedom Fries 2: Spanish edition incoming? Lmao

I didn't give you an excuse, I refuted your point.

I gave you more than just those sources, it's like you forgot that we had an entire conversation days ago. The USSR was not colonizing Poland, and socialism worked dramatically well for Poland. Of course, it wasn't perfect, but at the same time it doesn't mean abandoning socialism was the correct move.

I gave you sources on instability of growth, on skyrocketing poverty rates, on real industrial development, and more. You're taking the wording of Poland having "no" chemical industry in the context of a broader point on development of industry, which Poland was lagging behind in prior to socialism, as an excuse to dismiss the entire point.

Can you imagine an argument that would convince you that you’re wrong? What would that argument be?

If you were willing to actually read my points instead of brushing them away and spiraling into endless tangents then perhaps I would be able to be swayed by you. However, on the things we can both agree on as fact, we utterly disagree on interpretation.

There are some Marxists that don't put theory to practice, true, but the solution isn't to not read, but to do both. As a side-note, Marxist practice is less focused on mutual aid and more on organizing the working classes for revolution, though some ML groups like the Black Panther Party use things like free breakfast programs and such.