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A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

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Foz Meadows

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“As far as immediate material production is concerned, the decision whether an object is to be produced or not, i.e., the decision on the value of the object, will depend essentially on the labor time required for its production. For it depends on that time whether society has time to develop in a human way. And even as far as intellectual production is concerned, must I not, if I proceed reasonably in other respects, consider the time necessary for the production of an intellectual work when I determine its scope, its character and its plan? Otherwise, I risk at least that the object that is in my idea will never become an object in reality, and can therefore acquire only the value of an imaginary object, i.e., an imaginary value.”

“I have always thought of objectivity and impartiality as complex, messy concepts, tending to agree with BBC journalist Nick Robinsons view that impartiality is something to believe in and strive for but which you must accept you will almost certainly never quite achieve.”

“Trotsky's assault on Kronstadt in March 1921 marked a point of no return. There was no longer even a whiff of pretense that the Communist government had the support of the people over whom it ruled. The Red Terror had been aimed at "class enemies"; the Civil War was a struggle against "imperialists and White Guards." Even the peasant wars had pitted, in theory at least, proletarians against "capitalist farmers." But now the world's first "proletarian" government had begun slaughtering urban proletarians, too. It is no wonder that "Kronstadt" became, in addition to a black mark on Trotsky's record, a byword of Bolshevik betrayal for European socialists who refused to bow to Moscow.”

“Stalinism in turn is not an abstraction of “dictatorship”, but an immense bureaucratic reaction against the proletarian dictatorship in a backward and isolated country. The October Revolution abolished privileges, waged war against social inequality, replaced the bureaucracy with self-government of the toilers, abolished secret diplomacy, strove to render all social relationship completely transparent. Stalinism reestablished the most offensive forms of privileges, imbued inequality with a provocative character, strangled mass self-activity under police absolutism, transformed administration into a monopoly of the Kremlin oligarchy and regenerated the fetishism of power in forms that absolute monarchy dared not dream of.”

“Two weeks later General Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. 'Will you,' the asked, 'promise to divide the estates of the Cossack landlords among the working Cossacks?' 'Only over my dead body,' responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And the Cossack movement was no more...”