The Bolsheviks were quite well aware that socialism would be impossible in just Russia because it was pre-capitalist, and were banking on the success of the German Revolution to establish socialist supply chains. This is why with the failure of the revolutionary in Germany, the NEP was considered a tactical retreat.
A ‘tactical retreat’ here meaning ‘exactly what they overthrew the right-SRs for supporting’, except now, conveniently, all in the control of the Bolsheviks. Hell, half the reason that the NEP was implemented was because the peasantry were resisting collectivization, and the other half was that the ‘war communism’ of the civil war period had been fucking ruinous; not a well-considering ideological decision. Not only that, but the NEP was extremely short-lived, far too short to build up industry to the standards of a capitalist mode of production, and if it was up to Lenin, it would’ve been even shorter-lived.
Considering the Bolsheviks literally invented Democratic Centralism and made the USSR into a democracy, its definitely not fair to call them “anti-democratic”.
Democratic centralism is not democratic, and the USSR definitely was not fucking democratic in any real sense.
Regardless of its merits, there’s no denying that war communism won the Bolsheviks the civil war.
In the sense that they had lost support of the people, that the economy had fallen apart, and only by plundering the peasantry with ‘war communism’ could they keep their effort going? Uh, sure.
Not really. The USSR just moved toward a state capitalist model, and Stalin managed a social democracy attempting to build just that, industry up to the standards of a capitalist mode of production.
“Stalin managed a social democracy”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Democracy is not democratic”. The USSR had elections, representatives, an elected parliament, decisions were made by majoritarianism, it was pretty clearly democratic.
Oh, okay, so Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were democracies too, right? They had elections, representatives, an elected parliament…
A ‘tactical retreat’ here meaning ‘exactly what they overthrew the right-SRs for supporting’, except now, conveniently, all in the control of the Bolsheviks. Hell, half the reason that the NEP was implemented was because the peasantry were resisting collectivization, and the other half was that the ‘war communism’ of the civil war period had been fucking ruinous; not a well-considering ideological decision. Not only that, but the NEP was extremely short-lived, far too short to build up industry to the standards of a capitalist mode of production, and if it was up to Lenin, it would’ve been even shorter-lived.
Democratic centralism is not democratic, and the USSR definitely was not fucking democratic in any real sense.
Removed by mod
In the sense that they had lost support of the people, that the economy had fallen apart, and only by plundering the peasantry with ‘war communism’ could they keep their effort going? Uh, sure.
“Stalin managed a social democracy”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Oh, okay, so Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were democracies too, right? They had elections, representatives, an elected parliament…
Oh, wait, is the DPRK a democracy too?