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LucyParsonsRocks wrote (edited )

Did it ever occur to you that, by not giving a few men all that power, you wouldn't have to worry about them being corrupted by it and killing everyone? And it's not just Stalin, what about Mao's struggle sessions? Pol pot? Mugabe? Ceaușescu? Lenin killing the people who actually fought the revolution? Has there ever been an ML strongman that didn't make a mockery of communism?

it's far better than the alternative

But capitalism isn't the only alternative to state socialism.

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red_pepper wrote

The state is merely an instrument of oppression of one class by another. Under capitalism it is bourgeoisie oppression of the proletariat, and under a transitional socialist state it is the opposite. So, the first question I have is how does the proletariat expropriate and oppress the bourgeoisie without an apparatus to expropriate and oppress them?

And, just as the contradictions of capitalism bring about the conditions of revolution, the contradictions of socialist transition bring about the conditions of counterrevolution. As class struggle continues and intensifies under a transitional socialist state, the threat of capitalist restoration continually increases because counterrevolutionary forces will grow in reaction to oppression. The second question I have is how are you to stop counterrevolution If you don't have a government and a communist party to lead it?

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DissidentRage wrote

The state is merely an instrument of oppression of one class by another. Under capitalism it is bourgeoisie oppression of the proletariat, and under a transitional socialist state it is the opposite.

I think it's a mistake to refer to a government as a state in this situation because it's not tasked with protecting capital. Also "oppression of the bourgeoisie" doesn't make sense because oppression is a defining trait of being bourgeois.

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