What is your opinion about Marxism?
| 43 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
| It is the science of societal behavior both past and present | |
3 (7%) |
|
| It is a totalitarian system that has no place in the world of today | |
1 (2%) |
|
| It is a very valuable social theory that accurately explains a great deal of history and current events. But it is far from an exact science. | |
18 (42%) |
|
| It is an outdated and utterly flawed theory that holds little if any relevance for understanding the world of today | |
16 (37%) |
|
| To be honest, I really don't know enough about Marxism to venture a fair opinion. | |
3 (7%) |
|
| One of the things I miss most about Europe is authentic Hungarian goulash soup like you find in those wonderful train station restaurants. | |
2 (5%) |
|
| 2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
| Show usernames
Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |
|
= new reply since forum marked as read
are using that "crony capitalism" argument. One even said to not confuse the two. 
on DU and a growing contingent of outright Classic Reds too. And even more that are being influenced by the arguments of the Marxists on DU. That influence is actually shown pretty well in this very poll.
The comment about a poster that was espousing some pretty RW positions at the same time calling themselves "socialist" was just an aside, but it was pretty interesting to me at the time of that thread. I think it probably means that some people are taking the RW definition of "socialist" as their OWN definition. And remember, the RW considers OBAMA a "socialist".
It's pretty consistent with similar polls over the last 3 or 4 years. DU is a VERY left-wing place. Not as left wing as me in general, but still pretty darn left. And that's left on economics as well as the social issues.
As I said the only reason we have such big arguments over Third Way political lines between the Democratic Corporatists and the Democratic Socialists is because the Democratic Corporatists have a bigger megaphone and their job is easier. They don't really have to convince anybody here on POSITIONS, all they have to do is disrupt the conversations on positions to make sure they don't get a legitimate hearing. And of course, to make sure we vote for Democrats. Vote for the "D", even if they're neo-liberal Democratic Corporatists.
BTW, do you like my new label for the neo-liberal Dems? I kind of like "Democratic Corporatists". It boils down their policy positions very well. 
that makes them part of the Democratic Party, ergo "Democratic (Party) Corporatists"
...by a bunch of totally discredited authors with outright lies from the Black Book of Communism.
Criticism
Historical inaccuracies
The authors of the book have been criticized for historical inaccuracies. Concerning Nicolas Werth's section about Russia, Professor Peter Kenez of the University of California wrote about what he says are historical inaccurate statements[11]
Werth can also be an extremely careless historian. He gives the number of Bolsheviks in October 1917 as 2,000, which is a ridiculous underestimate. He quotes from a letter of Lenin to Aleksandr Shliapnikov and gives the date as 17 October 1917; the letter could hardly have originated at that time, since in it Lenin talks about the need to defeat the Tsarist government, and turn the war into a civil conflict. He gives credit to the Austro-Hungarian rather than the German army for the conquest of Poland in 1915. He describes the Provisional Government as "elected."
Estimated number of victims
Left-wing[12] French journalist Gilles Perrault, writing in an op-ed in Le Monde diplomatique has accused the authors of having used incorrect data and of having manipulated figures.[13] On the other hand, some of the estimates given in the Black Book have been deemed "too conservative". For example, regarding the Soviet famine of 1946–48, Michael Ellman writes:
In their ‘black book’, Courtois et al. (1997, pp. 258–64) do discuss the famine. The number of victims they give, however, while correct (‘at least 500,000’) is formulated in an extremely conservative way, since the actual number of victims was much larger.[14]
Two of the Black Book's contributors, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, sparked a debate in France when they publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois's statements in the introduction about the scale of Communist terror. They felt that he was being obsessed with arriving at a total of 100 million killed. They also argued that, based on the results of their studies one can estimate the total number of the victims of the Communist abuse in between 65 and 93 million.[15]
In his review of the book, historian Jean-Jacques Becker also criticized Courtois' numbers as rather arbitrary and as having "zero historical value" (Fr. "La valeur historique est nulle"
for adding up deaths due to disparate phenomena (Fr. "additionner des carottes et des navets", i.e. adding apples and oranges). Becker went further and accused Courtois of being an activist (Fr. "combattant" .[16]
Argument that the book is one-sided
Some have pointed out, that the book's account of violence is one-sided. Amir Weiner of Stanford University characterizes the "Black Book" as seriously flawed, inconsistent, and prone to mere provocation. In particular, the authors are said to savage Marxist ideology.[17] The methodology of the authors has been criticized. Alexander Dallin writes that moral, legal, or political judgement hardly depends on the number of victims.[18] It is also argued,[19] that a similar chronicle of violence and death tolls can be constructed from an examination of colonialism and capitalism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Disputing the "terror-famine" thesis
Historian J. Arch Getty noted that famine accounted for a significant part of Courtois's 100 million death toll. He believes that these famines were caused by the "stupidity or incompetence of the regime," and that the deaths resulting from the famines, as well as other deaths that "resulted directly or indirectly from government policy," should not be counted as if they were equivalent to intentional murders and executions.[20]
Mark Tauger disagrees with the authors' thesis that the famine of 1933 was artificial and genocidal. Tauger asserts that the authors' interpretation of the famine contains errors, misconceptions, and omissions that invalidate their arguments.[21] However, the historian James Mace wrote that Mark Tauger's view of the famine "is not taken seriously by either Russians or Ukrainians who have studied the topic."[22] Moreover, Stephen Wheatcroft, author of The Years of Hunger, claims Tauger's view represents the opposite extreme in arguing the famine was totally accidental.[23]
Disputing the comparison of Nazism and Communism
Although Vladimir Tismăneanu argued that the Black Book's comparison between Communism and Nazism was both morally and scholarly justifiable,[24] others have rejected the comparison.[25]
Werth and Margolin rejected the equation of Soviet repression with Nazi genocide. Werth said there was still a qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism. He told Le Monde, "Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union",[20] and "The more you compare Communism and Nazism, the more the differences are obvious."[26]
