I take it that this piece by a "Canberra Writer" is to be taken seriousy. But I wonder....I have not read such tendentious garbage since the'60s.

iudex.

Just goes to show that there is more than one version of HIS-story---
that is the story told according to the golden rule. Those that have the gold rule, and get to tell the "official" story, and thereby marginalise and erase from "official memory" any counter narratives and histories.

It wasnt so long ago that even OZ literature wasnt even taught in OZ universities. And as for the "aborigines"--they werent even considered human---just another species of flora and fauna.

The recent book What Orwell Didnt Know:Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics could have been written in 1916. Although of course instantaneous mass propaganda wasnt as sophisticated as it is today.

But even then the advent of the telegraph, which enabled the "news" to become rapidly available, lead to the development by governments and corporate interests, of manipulative lies and more lies.

You will get the usual responses from the usual suspects in the usual way. Its already started.

A brave little piece JP,- heaven forbid that we should EVER make such disrespectful assertions. You wicked wicked, thing, you!

I have NEVER had the slightest doubt that the rank and file (oooh! naughty me;-shocking phrase!), have been used throughout history as cannon fodder. And I agree that this is why Anzac Day evolved.

But........I come from a military family inclusive of myself, and I am more interested in todays Anzac Day.

I will NEVER, could NEVER, diminish the poor sods who were used in this way. I WILL continue to doff me' cap to all who went through the hell of the political violence that is war. To not do so, in my opinion is to dismiss and ignore the suffering of the very people that you are so concerned about!

I will not do it. Neither should you.

There is room in my life to pay tribute to those workers who are the backbone of ANY nation on Mayday.
And there is room in my life for the same people who went to war for their Governments,-so many never to return.

John Passant; you turn your back on Anzac Day-you are turning your back on people who have known a suffering that you and I are lucky to have never experienced.

Why Anzac Day was started is comtemptible;..that it has continued is to be applauded.

And yes;-I curse those in power who send decent human beings into conflicts to be maimed or killed,- for their own political gain.

I LOATHE the use of DEFENCE force personnel as an ATTACK force.

Thanks ginx.

You say:

"But........I come from a military family inclusive of myself, and I am more interested in todays Anzac Day.

"I will NEVER, could NEVER, diminish the poor sods who were used in this way. I WILL continue to doff me' cap to all who went through the hell of the political violence that is war. To not do so, in my opinion is to dismiss and ignore the suffering of the very people that you are so concerned about!

"I will not do it. Neither should you.

"There is room in my life to pay tribute to those workers who are the backbone of ANY nation on Mayday.
"And there is room in my life for the same people who went to war for their Governments,-so many never to return."

Can I just say I am not ignoring the suffering of those who went to war. Part of the article raised the idea that Anzac Day was about using that suffering and mourning to tie working people to Capitalism.

War is inherently part of capitalism. To get rid of the pain and suffering requires a new society based on democracy in all sectors of society and production for people, not profit. I think the Bolsheviks' slogan of bread, land and peace is as relevant now as it was in 1917.

As to iudex, yes of course the article is tendentious. Just like every bloody article on OLO, in every newspaper, in every TV report and on every radio. The difference is this article takes a different view to the usual tendentious nonsense.

This is the same kind of the necessary "revisionist" history, speaking to the lies of Power, that Howard Zinn wrote in The Peoples History of the USA and now The American Empire.

John Passmore

Are you really Dirk Moses?

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7253

I think we should take note of one ANZACs story, as cited by the conservative minister Dr Nelson when he claimed that John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey represented, "everything at the heart of what it means to be Australian."

Kirkpatrick was an illegal immigrant, staunchly anti-war, a radical socialist and a trade unionist.

Thanks Dr. Nelson!

John Greenfield asks:

"John Passmore

"Are you really Dirk Moses?"

I am neither John Passmore nor Dirk Moses. But thank you for referring me to Dirk's article. It was OK.

And by the way the article was written by John Passant. Facts can be difficult things.

Australian's signed onto the first world war because they wanted to protect the mother country, not because they were particularly Australian and this week in Beersheba we see one of our biggest post war betrayals being played out. In Beersheba and Palestinians fought alongside the Australian and British soldiers against the Turks yet this week the ISRAELI warmongering mother of invention of the illegal settlements in the West Bank is helping to launch a statue to the Australian soldier and the Palestinians are not invited.

In WW11 the Palestinians again fought with us when the British promised them their own statehood finally, then the British told the jews they would have their own state and to this day we keep betraying the Palestinians by supporting and cheerleading for the rogue state without borders laughingly called "the jewish state" even though 20% are not jewish.

All these damn wars, all this murder and mayhem - what on earth was it for and what did we learn?

To be an attack force whenever the US says too.

I hate ANZAC day and everything it stands for.

Well... it's about time. Someone finally put Anzac Day in political perspective. Well done John Passant.

Actually, I was about to write something along similar lines, so you have broken the ice for me, John. Much appreciated.

Anzac, far from being something to celebrate, is a yearly reminder of how we have been lap dogs for 130 years; sacrificing our youth on the alter of imperialism. Worse, we have collectively averted our eyes from the evidence that; with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, we were willing cohorts in torture, murder and genocide against innocent people; about three million altogether. There is nothing to be proud of here. None of these people were a threat to Australia. What we did, and continue to do, is support the most ruthless aggressor in human history.

I recently conducted a series of surveys and, although this was not the specific target of my research, I was astounded by the viewpoint volunteered by so many; including ex-soldiers, that Australian defence forces should only be engaged in the defense of our own continent. Clearly, the reservations expressed by Passant are widespread.

However, there was one fight that we can all be proud of, and it truly represented the Aussie spirit of independence, equal rights and equal opportunity. That was Eureka.

There was another important difference. This was a fight for the people of Australia; not for the government, which was as corrupt then as it is now. Personally, I regard Eureka as unfinished business.

Ho Hum,

You say, “And as for the "aborigines"--they weren’t(sic) even considered human---just another species of flora and fauna.” I have seen this claim made a few times in the past year and I have been searching for the documentary evidence on which it is based, with no success. Are you able to direct me to some primary sources that will tell me who considered that the Aborigines were not human, but a “species of flora and fauna”, and when this was? Thank you.

LEV...your claim about Simpson ..sources?

PASSY.

All I can say is "you poor bugger"

No..I can say more. You seem to be locked into not only an ideological dogmatic time warp that has been passed over by history, but a mindset very similar to a Jehovah's Witness (or a Mormon or Muslim) at one's door.

Let a simple example suffice.

You said: "a democratic society without bosses"

Now John... please book yourself into either Larundel (if ur in melbourne) or wherever the psychiatric disorder place is in your other location..and get some serious help. You have 'reality perception' problems.

NO BOSSES? r u serious? Mate.. put 2 people in a room, give them a task ..and you have to have at least ONE 'boss'...it's the nature of human society.

Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and concede that you might be thinking "Those bosses who have capital" hmm? Ok.. but then you have Mr Lenin, the partriarch of your revolution, gaining power, and slaughtering so many workers who supported him because they might now be a threat... and he and others becoming the 'new bosses' who control the national capital..and then try to turn everyone into mindless state drones, glazed eyed, and carrying out 'state' tasks with their humanity and creativity supressed, oppressed and depressed!

Honestly John.. trying to interpet the world through the overlay of 'class struggle' is infantile... The Socialist world simply replaced one pack of 'upper class' with another. "The politbuero".

Even blind Nellie can see this, yet, apparently with a straight face, you trot out all this rubbish and actually expect people to believe it?

Sadly.. just like when the 'sincere Muslim' reads

"and then, you may beat them" (naughty wives)

they can then say "See, Allah forbids domestic violence"

- you can make all these rediculous and wild claims, about Anzac day etc, 'class struggle' etc, with hardly a reference, source or document.

John.. people here do have brains.. please don't insult them.

While there's quite a bit of merit in John Passant's analysis, his dependence on a Marxian framework will unfortunately mean that it will be devalued for that reason rather than the substance of his argument. Also, the Anzac mythology is so entrenched now in Australian national identity that, even if his perspective isn't rejected because of its ideological slant, it would be regarded as heretical by most Australians.

I think that Anzac Day is indeed the central ritual in Australia's secular religion of nationalism, which for us involves being an Anglo-Celtic bastion in the Antipodes, whose governments have always prostrated themselves before those more powerful Western nations upon whom we depend for national security. Yes, there is much to be proud of in the Anzac tradition, but ultimately I see it as a cultural rationalisation of our dependent status.

As for this -

<< You seem to be locked into not only an ideological dogmatic time warp that has been passed over by history, but a mindset very similar to a Jehovah's Witness (or a Mormon or Muslim) at one's door.

<snip>

...people here do have brains.. please don't insult them. >>

Pot, meet kettle - except Boazy's "ideological dogmatic time warp" is far more similar to that JWs, Mormons and Muslims than Marxism ever will be.

Also, Boazy's reference to Larundel is rather hypocritical, given his offended bleating when some of our more extreme Christian nutters are referred to as certifiable frootloops.

Timely and bravely written article, John. It's not easy to swim against the tide as you have here!

I particularly applaud the following:

"… rather than questioning why war occurred and why workers died for profits."

"Anzac day downplays that horror and makes war acceptable. It is propaganda to allow the ruling class to call on the next generation of workers to join the war effort if needed."

I have sat through many Anzac Day services in schools over the years and, whilst many are very well put together and very moving, I have lamented every time the absence of any reference to the horror and stupidity of war. Quite correctly there is an honouring of fallen soldiers, but the overall context is invariably one of glorification rather than abhorrence of war.

I’ve felt conflicting emotions on Anzac Day for a long time now. With each passing year I too can see myself moving towards Marilyn’s hatred of the day and all it stands for.

CJ Morgan

“While there's quite a bit of merit in John Passant's analysis, his dependence on a Marxian framework will unfortunately mean that it will be devalued for that reason rather than the substance of his argument.”

Being critical of Western imperialism and the excesses of capitalism and framing arguments in terms of class struggle and worker solidarity doesn’t necessarily imply a “dependence on a Marxist framework”.

I agree John’s work will be devalued as a result of that link being made but in my opinion your comments just gave those critics an unwarranted free kick!

BOAZ_David

You can talk of an ideological time warp all you like but views like John’s will gain ascendancy in time. The failings of modern day capitalism are becoming increasingly evident and will eventually bring us all to a point where a major revision of the current economic order is a necessity.

The dependency on endless growth is already meeting its environmental limits. Workers at the bottom of the heap will one day resist the ever-downward pressure on their wages. Millions of subsistence farmers driven from their land will eventually reach a tipping point that will create a wave rather than the current unfelt ripple. The weaknesses in the Wall St deck of cards are already showing and printing more money will only bail us out for so long. Yes, BD one day we’ll look back on these days and wonder why we allowed ourselves to remain locked in this self-destructing time warp for as long as we did.

I agree with CJ, to see you likening John’s mindset to that of “a Jehovah's Witness (or a Mormon or Muslim) at one's door” was the absolute height of hypocrisy. This coming from a poster who never ceases to knock on all our doors with his hateful religious ranting irrespective of how off-topic it invariably is.

We might have found ourselves on the same side of the argument on a recent thread BD, but for very different reasons. Your mindset and mine are poles apart and always will be.

David,

The facts concerning Brendan Nelson's comments and John Simpson Kirkpatrick have been widely reported. e.g.,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/26/woz26.xml

You will find more detail in Peter Cochrane's book "Simpson and the Donkey the Making of a Legend" (Melbourne University Press, 1992). He was a supporter of the anarcho-socialist IWW and in a letter to his parents advocated a revolution to overthrow the rule of "Millionaires and lords and Dukes".

As I have said on the other thread:

I will leave it to the survivors of war who will march tomorrow to decide for themselves whether the day has relevance. It is their business.

Hatred of ANZAC day?- this is a democratic opinion, but it shocks the bloody hell out of me.

Thanks BOAZ_David.

I think the time for a democratic society run by those of us who produce the wealth, where production (eg food production) occurs to satisfy human need, has historically arrived.

I note you rebut none of the arguments about Anzac day. This is unfortunate since counter arguments can be made, but most mainstream analysis is actually just prowar propaganda.

But I do agree with you about one thing - a ruling class in Russia around Stalin did arise. This was because the revolution failed to spread in Europe (although it was a close run thing with revolutions breaking out across many European countries, including one in Germany which ended the war.) A revolution in more advanced capitalist countries could then have supplied the basis for moving Russia from its backwardness and at the same time seen the democratic institutions of the state like the workers councils continue. On top of that the West sent 14 armies to help the Whites overthrow the Bolshevik Government.

The seeds for the future can be seen in that first workers Government - workers councils, with automatic rights of instant recall if the workers disagreed with their representative, (something we could perhaps think about for our elected President), withdrawing from imperialist war,and of course the idea of production to satisfy human need, something the backwardness of Russia, its de-classification because of the Civil War and the failure of the revolution to spread, made a dream. Stalin's development of the idea of socialism in one country was the exact opposite of these ideas,and represented not the logical extension of the revolution but its defeat. Sandra Bloodworth has just published a book on this called something like When Workers took power: Russia 1917 and puts the arguments in more rounded and sophisticated ways.

The class conflict going on all over Europe that broke out during and after the war makes Marxism a helpful tool to understanding what was happening, and I think that includes understanding the rise of national myths like Anzac day (or more generally Bastille day, or Independence day and so on.)

Ginx

You say:

"As I have said on the other thread:

"I will leave it to the survivors of war who will march tomorrow to decide for themselves whether the day has relevance. It is their business.

"Hatred of ANZAC day?- this is a democratic opinion, but it shocks the bloody hell out of me."

I don't see why the survivors of the war should be the ones to decide its relevance considering the role the day plays in our national psyche. I don't hate Anzac day. I am trying to understand it.

In 1917 during peace negotiations with the Germans, the Bolsheviks fraternised with the German soldiers. It was part of their strategy to show to German soldiers (workers in uniform) that another world, one without war, was possible, and that German workers were the same as Russian workers and Australian workers. Their common enemy was their exploiters (ie bosses)and their states who had ordered them into this imperialist war and its consequent destruction of perhaps 10 million lives. All for profit.

One of the consequences of the war and the brutality of worker slaughtering worker was that it radicalised many soldiers. (My understanding is that the largest vote against conscription on both occasions was from the Western Front.)

Nowhere in the celebration of Anzac Day do I see any attempt to understand war and what causes it. I do see a day of ceremony which objectively glories war. My concern is that this sort of Day helps create the conditions for the same brutality tomorrow and the day after and the day after. Thus now our brave Aussies troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan helping the US and others kill probably somewhere in the vicinity of a million people. The link between the celebration of Anzac Day and the ability to recruit Australian workers to fight rotten wars seem pretty clear to me.

"I don't see why the survivors of the war should be the ones to decide its relevance considering the role the day plays in our national psyche. I don't hate Anzac day." (Passy)

I believe that they are PRECISELY the people who SHOULD decide.

Hate ANZAC Day? No. I was not referring to you. The word has been used, and it shocked me.

"I do see a day of ceremony which objectively glories war." (Passy)

Yes I know you do, and you aren't alone in that view. (I DO realize you said objectively).

I could not disagree more strongly on this. Those men marching are THE most graphic reason AGAINST war.

Whilst we as human-beings seek power and control to the extent of invasion, we will need a DEFENCE military to prevent this happening. To Australia, that is... Whilst we have Governments who collude with other Governments to this same end we will have what we have now:- an ATTACK force. And collude with them we must-smaller nations will always prostitute themselves to the superpower pimps to protect their future interests.

SO..; Governments encourage the very people we are both concerned about, to do their dirty work, and it is the military ethic to obey orders..
SO...; the beat will go on.

I see any ANZAC day type thing as appreciating what they have had to/chose to do.
You see it as an endorsement of those who put them up to it?

Ginx

You say:

"I see any ANZAC day type thing as appreciating what they have had to/chose to do.

"You see it as an endorsement of those who put them up to it?"

I see it as more than an endorsement. I see it as some false glue to attach people to a system that is essentially exploitative, ie expropriates the value workers create. That system leads to competing blocs of capital sending workers to fight in defence of their "own" exploiters. The first world war is a pretty good example, as is the second world war although the issue of fascism was an added layer to the competing capitalisms in that case.

It trains people to believe that being armed to the teeth to kill Turks or Germans or Japanese or Iraqis or Afghanis all in the name of defending Australia (ie the profit system and the bosses who are its main beneficiaries) is a good thing, and shrouds that in words like democracy and valour.

War is inherently evil and destructive. Capitalism, because of the very way it's structured along class and competitive lines, breeds war, and has to have tools to convince its working class majority to go along with war.

Anzac day is to my mind an important tool in that armoury.

In my city on Thursday thousands of Chinese students dominated the Torch rally, bought in by the Chinese Embassy. The dictatorship in China is using a range of tools to tie its workers to the system and crude nationalism is one. Objectively I see no difference between the nationalism of those waving their Chines flags in my city and preventing others from putting a point of view and the (metaphorical) flag waving that goes on on Anzac day.

I want to create a society in which war is a thing of history, stuck in a museum, not one killing millions as we write.

TBC

Ginx

Some more thoughts and questions. Hopefully you take them in the spirit of enquiry and discovery they are offered (for you and me.)

I don't accept the defence/attack distinction you mentioned, but am prepared to accept it for the purposes of this discussion.

Why is that every use of Australian troops since 1885 in the Sudan, through to the Boer War, World Wars 1 and II, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, to now in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Solomon Island and PNG is Australia invading other countries?

Apart from the fact that we have our own imperialist interests and they express themselves through attaching ourself to a great and powerful friend (and hence going overseas to invade other countries is our insurance policy with them) my article tried to show a little historical analysis of World War 1 and the rise of Anzac day in a society that was polarising along class lines. Then Anzac day was part of the battle to prevent that polarisation. Now it is part of the battle to cement over that division.

And how do the bosses get workers to go to all these wars? Anzac day is part of that process. Was our presence in Iraq or Afghanistan questioned or encouraged by Anzac day on Friday? I think the latter.

I want a world without war where we can feed everyone, clothe everyone and provide adequate housing, health care and education for the real humanity to arise. I don't see Anzac day as in any way getting us there. Rather it hinders us in that goal precisely because it ties workers to the very system that creates war, hunger and poverty.

Anyway, I am getting a bit passionate and should desist.

Thanks for the question. I appreciate your views always.

The usual tedious and pedantic Marxist drivel.

Does the imbecile who wrote this article actually believe that if we lived under a Marxist collective led by the usual "vanguard" of bureaucrats and party commissars there would be FEWER wars and LESS oppression?

Please! Give me a break.

Thanks Sonofeire.

As the idiot you refer to, yes I do believe that working class rule is synonymous with freedom.

I think you mistake Stalinism (the defeat of the revolution) with socialism, but I guess from the tone of your comments that might be something you would not want to consider.

Why not try to address some of the issues raised in the article? Abuse is a poor substitute for rational discussion and debate.

".....Please! Give me a break."
Posted by sonofeire, Monday, 28 April 2008 12:16:42 PM

Very constructive ducky!

So?.. regarding your invitation;- what part of you would you like broken?

So, "Ginx",

Do you think your own little smart-ass quip was any MORE constructive, "Ducky"?

I am 57 years old, I have traveled to many countries, and I have PERSONALLY witnessed several examples of the inevitably authoritarian nature of Marxist socialist experiments, including Cuba. They have ALL been brutal, they have all been paranoid, they have all been mindlessly inefficient, and, as far as individual liberty is concerned, they have all SUCKED. Unless you have had equivalent exposure to ACTUAL Marxist regimes, as opposed to Marxist theory, you are in no position to lecture me about "constructive" comment. That is analogous to listening to Rasputin lecture a tribe of Quakers about the virtue of chastity.
When I was a young history student at university in the 1970's, like a significant number of my contemporaries, I was a member of the radical (Trotskyist) Left myself. Fortunately, I managed to free myself of my Marxist delusions before being self-committed to an asylum for the criminally self-righteous. From my personal experience, those in the "intellectual" class who have been the most ignorant of Marxist theory AND Marxist reality have been the ones who considered themselves the most dogmatically "Marxist". They had little or no understanding of the continuous changing process of Marx's own thought throughout the course of his life, for the simple reason they were too lazy to read. All they did was recite slogans learned from their dilettante professors.
And, yes, "Passy", I'm sorry if I offended your tender sensibilities. I'm sure you are not an "imbecile" . . . simply one who, like my former self, is emotionally attached to an anachronistic, dangerous and simplistic ideology because it reinforces your self-esteem to imagine yourself as a "revolutionary" knight in the armies of proletarian "liberation". I did read your article . . . every word. I did not find it to be a profound analysis of the multi-faceted complexity of human behavior. I found it to be a tedious repetition of the same platitudes, cliches and slogans about the "ruling class" that I have heard since I was 13 years old.

Son of Eire.

I asked if you would respond to some of my points. Is my history incorrect? If my analysis is wrong, why? Words like tedious and cliché ridden are tedious and cliché ridden.

Your other comments give me some indication of your thoughts. Cuba is not socialist. None of the Stalinist regimes are or were. Neither was Russia in 1917, although there was a working class revolution there.

Trotsky's analysis of the USSR as a deformed workers state was wrong. Otherwise socialists would have to accept that you can export socialism through guns (eg from Russia into Eastern Europe) rather than through mass democratic working class revolution. Me, I'll stick to democratic revolution by the mass of the working class.

The working class played no role in the nationalist revolutions in places like China or Cuba so they can't be socialist.

Stalinism was a form of capitalism in which the state became the grand expression of capital and exploited workers and used the value they produced to further accumulate - in Russia's case to move from feudalism to mass industrial capitalism in a generation. This is something that took hundreds of years in England and Europe. The brutality of early capitalism over that period is if you like concertinaed into a few decades in Russia and the occupied Eastern European countries. As Marx wrote, "the history of capitalism is written in blood" and Stalinism is another example of that.

If you are interested read Tony Cliff on State Capitalism in Russia.

The revolutions in Eastern Europe and Russia overthrew the yoke of Stalinism and saw a jump from state capitalism to semi-state capitalism and a semi-free market.

The forthcoming revolution in China when Chinese workers overthrow the dictatorship and by doing so set up democratic organs of rule will show the truth of my analysis.

And just as the Stalinists paraded their weapons on 7 November in Red Square to celebrate that ruling class rule and create the lie of freedom and truth, ANZAC Day plays a similar (but not exactly the same) role here in Australia.

You are a child of the Universe!!

'Been there, done that, I'm right, you're wrong,...blah, blah, blaaahhhh.....'

It doesn't make you any less of a boring old fart.

I don't care where you've been;or what you've learned.
You have little intelligence if you presuppose by your arrogant little dirge,- that those you are condescending to have not had some of the life experiences that you have,-and then some.

Cut to the damn chase you little twerp;- I don't care what opinion you have arrived at, you are yet another vain and arrogant Right thinking plonker who thought you could lecture others who did not hold your views.

Enjoy them. Embrace them. But don't tell me how to think and what to believe. I have had a damn basin full of the self-serving arrogance of the Right, and their repeated criticism of the Left,-soft Left, or whatever.

It has been a really bad day, and I am in a bloody bad mood. I intend henceforth to hang you Right thinkers up by your grubby Y-fronts every time you spout more bullshet about those who disagree with you, who,- by virtue of that disagreement, must be on the so-called Left, with no experience of life etc.

Tell you what;-I'll get some rest, and see if you are any less obnoxious domani.

I doubt it.

Ginx

In some sort of strange way I actually enjoy the abuse from the Right. It is usually mindless pap and so indicates to me that the various ideas the left put forward are superior. All the Right can muster in response is stereotypical arguments and personal abuse.

About the only area on OLO where the right has some (but not always) sensible commentators is in economics and I think we shouldn't leave the terrain to them there either as the financial crisis continues, as cost push inflation cuts into living standards, as the US enters into recession (or barely staves it off), as wars continue to destroy lives and economies around the world, and, in my view, the ultimate indictment of capitalism, the 2.5 bn on the planet who live on less than $2 per day face starvation. Certainly the 1 bn people who live on less than a dollar a day face real hunger every day and the food price increases of over fifty percent for them in recent times mean literally life or death.

We might disagree about Anzac day but that is a mere bagatelle compared to the threat capitalism now poses to large swathes of humanity. The system won't feed people, not because there is not enough food, but because 1 bn people are too poor to buy it. What sort of madness is this? What a criminal way to organise society.

It is always refreshing to see myself lacerated by the hysterics of Marxist apologists. It means that I must be doing something right . . . not "RIGHT".
Of course, anyone who describes a nation's citizens as "The Masses" . . . as if they are some sort of faceless blob . . . is not likely to have a fond appreciation of something called, "individual" liberty.
"Ginx", in all seriousness, am I really supposed to have a lot of intellectual respect for someone who makes egregious mistakes in spelling? Being called "arrogant", simply because I spoke of my own experience visiting several Marxist countries, is a bit amusing. Coming from someone with your degree of dogmatism, being called "arrogant" is somewhat akin to a megalomaniac like Stalin accusing Ghandi of egotism. The point is that, despite all their rhetoric about "learning from history", most Marxists have proven themselves repeatedly incapable of learning from the history of Marxism itself. And "Ginx", just EXACTLY what are the "life experiences" that you have that you insinuate challenge the validity of the lessons I have learned from my own experiences? I may very well be "an old fart" . . . although I didn't realize that 57 was all that old . . . but at least I'm no longer a naive YOUNG fart. I am sorry if you have no wish to learn from the experiences of those who might be older than you, but that's really not my problem. You know what's really funny? When I was a Marxist, I would often respond with the same hysterics as you did whenever someone questioned the "justice" of socialism.

"Passy", I really have no wish to insult you anymore, because I have no doubt that you are well-read and educated. However, you really are tedious. Being well-read, in itself, does not make one wise. Your claim that the Soviet Union and Cuba were not, and are not, Socialist would certainly be disputed by a great many citizens there who grew up reading Marx, Lenin AND Stalin. I know, I've asked many of them. Your definition is YOUR definition . . . not theirs. You keep asking me why I have not dissected your article piece by piece. It's because I have heard it all many times before. I became a Marxist when I was 17 years old, and remained so for many years. Do you think I haven't previously made the same claims, read many of the same books, and, repeated the same slogans as you, many times while witnessing the same arguments being dissected by Marxist REALITY . . . as opposed to Marxist theory? Every time I have had an argument with Marxists about the constant failures of Marxist experiments, the typical answer is, "But it doesn't have to be that way . . . in 'our' revolution . . . the 'next' revolution, we will do better." . . . Just like all those failures who went before them. How many times do a group of people have to try the same ideas, over and over, while expecting DIFFERENT results, before they realize what they are . . . INSANE!
It is largely GOVERNMENT legislation that creates corporate monopolies . . . by legislation favoring one enterprise over another. TRUE free-enterprise, regulated by democratic law, is not perfect, anymore than socialism or theocracy are perfect. It was not meant to be, because it was not meant to be utopian. It was meant to be a practical device for promoting individual liberty and creative entrepreneurship with the context of the recognized imperfections of human nature.
I would recommend a review of Hayek and von Mises. Have a nice day.

Thanks Son of Eire.

Of course given the history of the USSR the ruling class there was always going to portray the Stalinist system as some sort of socialist/Marxist/communist paradise.

Ruling classes everywhere do it. The US is a similar example. All this celebration of revolution is designed to hide the truth of the revolution. In fact the political tradition I come out of was one of the first groups Stalin suppressed or killed.

You say in relation to my definition of socialism )ie the working class democratically running society to satisfy human need, not to make a profit) that, in relation to people you know from the Stalinist era, "Your definition is YOUR definition . . . not theirs."

Actually my definition is also Marx's definition. He talks about the self-emancipation of the working class. I don't see any of that under Stalinism. I see the exploitation and oppression of workers, which is why I and many other Marxist thinkers (oops, i am not a Marxist thinker, but you get the drift, I hope) describe Stalinism as state capitalist. Tony Cliff on State Capitalism in Russia is a good start. Sandra Bloodworth on How Workers took power: the 1917 Russian revolution is a good rebuttal of the Lenin equals Stalin analysis and explains cogently the reasons for the defeat of the Russian revolution and the democratic ideals which drove millions of Russian workers and peasants and soldiers to support the Bolsheviks.
The lessons of 1917 are as relevant today as then, I believe.

If you want to disagree, then there are some sort of OK books out there, which of course I disagree with. Even Noam Chomsky disagrees with my views about the Bolsheviks. Others like Pipes ignore historical records but are OK as anti-Bolshevik propaganda. Hayek I've read. Not much more I can say really.