Nazi = National Socialist, remember. That bolded bit wasn't just for show.
Also you neglected to mention the millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, French, etc etc put into labor camps ('extermination through work' was abig thing back then) who certainly did not enjoy these benefits while undoubtably qualifying as workers.
National socialism is socialism for a privileged people, not socialism by the working class for the whole population. It is not socialism in the sense of a politics derived from the interests and capacity of the working class, it is a reactionary response to exploitation and misery. If we're going to bring up the misery visited by the USSR on minorities, then we ought to bring up the misery visited by capitalism on many other millions as well. Or are those crimes not the crimes of capitalism?
The USSR (and its unfortunate policies) was the result of an ultimately failed revolution. The revolution was a success in many ways, but it did not succeed in bringing about the epoch of socialism. It relied on the successful uprisings of Germany and other developed nations, and those never came. What came was the intervention of many, many imperial armies that decimated the working class and destroyed the class basis for Bolshevik power. The subsequent fallout with the farmers (whose interests were not the same, ultimately, as those of the working class) further cemented the failure of the revolution, and the rise of the bureaucrat class.
If you contrast the reactionary periods of Stalin and his followers with what flowered during 1917, 1918, you will find great differences. While Gorky's phrasing of "destroy homosexuality and fascism will vanish" was adopted by Stalin, the outset of the revolution saw great gains made for lesbians, gays, bisexuals -- and even transgendered people (though the term, I think, did not exist then): there were procedures done with the best available methods and tools at the time to operate on a person's (for lack of a better term) sex. And note that this was during an incredibly bloody civil war and conflict with imperialist powers, it is not as if it could not be better had socialism actually triumphed and the likes of Austria and England stopped bothering this new organized workers' state with murder and destruction. It is not as if socialists themselves bring about the terrors of the world, it is the conflict with the existing ruling classes (or class, if you'd rather) that does it.
If you think socialism is the worst of the USSR and of Nazism, then you have a very confused and unfortunate view of socialism. It is undeniable that this view is held by many, but it is not what socialists want categorically. As a socialist, I want a revolution from below, I want political power for the working class, I want an end to oppressive and exploitative politics -- not just another Holocaust, not just more opportunism, imperialism. Socialism is the result of workers' power, and that is not what we have had. We have had something approaching that, but not quite. Trotsky and Cliff have referred to the USSR variably as a degenerated or deformed workers' state ("with bureaucratic distortions", I think was the phrasing) and a state capitalist entity. Either way, I think it is true enough that the working class did not have state power in what came to be the USSR.
While this might be considered a derailment, I don't think it is. A call for a socialist politics and a socialist presidential candidate (which is a very current question in the US right now) is relevant, and the critique (I am being generous here, what this actually is is just a knee-jerk McCarthyist response) are interrelated. It is important for the history of the world that the history of socialism be actually expressed and that we don't rely on the lazy stereotyping and falsification of reactionaries.
You can find contemporary texts and better analysis on Marxists.org, in many different languages and from many authors of varying backgrounds. You have anarchists, marxists, bolsheviks, mensheviks, and a lot more. It is better to read what has actually been done and written rather than rely on forum posts that claim knowledge, even if they seem reliable and convincing.
Author
Topic: The Abusive Policing Thread: Beyond Brown, No Justice (Read 442781 times)