Ross Wolfe tackles Domenico Losurdo’s work as “a new school of falsification, all in service of justifying the course history has taken. Everything he wrote had to align with the geopolitical interests of [a] few nominally socialist states […]”
Ross Wolfe tackles Domenico Losurdo’s work as “a new school of falsification, all in service of justifying the course history has taken. Everything he wrote had to align with the geopolitical interests of [a] few nominally socialist states […]”
Ah yes, the classic “vibes-based” dismissal, the kind of anti-argument you throw out when someone describes material reality in terms you find uncomfortable. If you think what I said is against reality, then by all means, show me the workers’ movement that is currently in ascendancy. Show me where the forces of democratic, emancipatory socialism are gaining ground, in power, not just theory.
What I described is the actual, lived condition of most people under every political regime:
You’re just upset the metaphor cuts too close. It’s easier to wave your hand and pretend I’m being irrational than to confront the fact that both the liberal capitalist states and your preferred so-called “socialist” states function more like authoritarian command systems than vehicles for human liberation. That’s the point Wolfe makes about Losurdo: he rehabilitates authoritarian power under the guise of realism, and you defend it by pretending it’s the only “realistic” politics left.
That’s not Marxism. That’s resignation.
So unless you’re going to refute the content, and not just vibe-check my tone, I’d say your reply is exactly the kind of hollow deflection that props up authoritarian ideology from both sides of the geopolitical aisle.
Incorrect, AES states have comprehensive input from the working class.
Dissent from capitalists should be punished in socialist systems.
Vibes-based.
Socialist states have comprehensive democratization.
Some are vibes, some are wrong.
You have no real points, they are vibes-based. If you get that a lot, it’s because you keep it up.
This sounds good on paper, but what does “comprehensive input” mean in practice?
Are workers writing laws? Controlling their workplaces? Choosing party leadership through open, competitive democratic processes? Or are they participating in pre-vetted structures with predetermined outcomes, where “input” means saying yes to a development plan handed down by technocrats?
If you believe the existence of mass organizations or consultative meetings equals democratic power, then we’re using very different definitions of input. I’m talking about real sovereignty, workers as a class directing society, not just attending approved assemblies or being asked to cheer along.
Sure, suppression of class enemies is nothing new in revolutionary politics. But here’s the bait-and-switch: Once you’ve defined all dissent as capitalist, then any criticism of the ruling party becomes fair game for punishment, even from within the working class. That’s where the authoritarian slide happens: workers who don’t conform are accused of “bourgeois deviation.” This is exactly the sleight of hand Losurdo deploys, and which Wolfe critiques.
If you’re serious about building socialism, suppressing bourgeois sabotage isn’t the same as silencing internal dissent. The second you collapse those two into one, you stop talking about socialism and start defending an apparatus that protects itself at all costs.
Again, define “democratization.” Does it mean:
Genuine multiparty pluralism within a socialist framework?
The right of workers to organize independent unions or parties?
Open debate about policy, leadership, or direction, without fear of retaliation?
If not, then “comprehensive democratization” sounds more like managed participation, not democracy. Yes, socialist states have forms of participation, and some of them are impressive. But that’s not the same as workers’ power. Even Lenin knew the difference, and warned about it. So let’s not flatten this into a slogan.
So to summarize:
I’m not arguing that socialism is inherently authoritarian. I’m saying when Marxists stop being vigilant about power, we create systems that no longer serve liberation, and then we rationalize it afterward by accusing critics of being liberals or capitalists.
Losurdo is part of that rationalization. That’s what Wolfe is pointing out.
Your points were built on vibes and falsehoods, though. You keep fronting false conclusions and justifying them with your personal feelings on the matter.
Do you have a single response of substance to make or are you just going to claim “falsehood” and leave it at that and not even try to find what you think was false ?
I mean, if you’re post modern enough you can probably call anything I said into question but you won’t even try ? Just say “Falsehood” like it’s some kind of magical incantation ?
It’s more the reverse, you backed up absolutely nothing you said. The burden of justifying your points is on you, not on me disproving you.
Very well here’s the faxes
USSR (post-1921):
After the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, which demanded “Soviets without Bolsheviks”, i.e. genuine worker control, the Soviet Union gradually replaced grassroots soviet democracy with top-down Party rule. Soviets became formal organs for rubber-stamping decisions.
China:
While mass line ideology and democratic centralism are emphasized, elections are noncompetitive, all candidates are vetted by the Communist Party, and independent unions are illegal (e.g., suppression of Jasic worker organizers in 2018). The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is state-controlled.
East Germany (GDR):
The Socialist Unity Party controlled elections and all political participation was channeled through the National Front, which ensured pre-selected candidates and zero competitive democracy. “Worker input” was symbolic.
Cuba:
The Cuban Communist Party is the only legal political party. While mass organizations exist (e.g., Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), criticism of the Party or state socialism is grounds for arrest or exile (e.g., repression of dissidents like Oswaldo Payá or labor activists).
Lenin himself, in State and Revolution (1917), warned that the degeneration of the workers’ state into bureaucracy was a real threat. The Paris Commune, which he upheld as a model, required revocable mandates, direct accountability, and no permanent state machinery.
“So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.” — Lenin
Soviet purges (1930s):
Stalin’s purges executed or imprisoned hundreds of thousands of loyal Party members, including Left Oppositionists like Trotskyists, Bukharinists, and anarchists. These were not “capitalists,” but Marxists arguing for alternate paths.
Hungarian Revolution (1956):
Sparked by working-class demands for democratization and independent socialism. The Soviet Union invaded, crushed the revolution, and executed its leaders. These were workers and students, not capitalists.
Czechoslovakia (1968):
The Prague Spring aimed to create “socialism with a human face.” Again, Warsaw Pact tanks invaded to stop internal dissent from within socialism.
China (Anti-Rightist Campaign, 1957):
Intellectuals who took Mao’s offer to “Let a hundred flowers bloom” literally, expressing dissent within socialism, were branded Rightists and sent to labor camps. These were not capitalists.
Rosa Luxemburg in The Russian Revolution (1918):
“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party, however numerous they may be, is no freedom at all… Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”
Even Marx and Engels, in The German Ideology, emphasized the importance of free association, not blind Party rule.
One-party rule is the norm in all AES (Actually Existing Socialist) states:
China
Cuba
Vietnam
North Korea
Laos
All of these have no competitive elections, no free press, and no legal opposition parties. That’s not “comprehensive democratization”, it’s hegemonic governance.
No independent unions in China, Cuba, or Vietnam. All unions are state-controlled.
The Jasic Workers Campaign (2018) saw young Maoist students and workers arrested for trying to form an independent union, while quoting Mao and Marx.
Suppression of internal dissent in the USSR:
All forms of left opposition were crushed: the Workers’ Opposition, the Democratic Centralists, Trotskyists, and later left communists like the Bordigists.
Absence of press freedom:
Every AES state ranks near the bottom of Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. Even mild dissent, such as investigative reporting or criticizing infrastructure failures, is punished.
Samizdat literature in the USSR:
Under heavy censorship, dissidents wrote in code, metaphor, or between the lines. Feeling was often all you had when you couldn’t state political facts openly.
Artists and musicians in AES states (and capitalist ones) often expressed dissent indirectly because direct speech was punished. This is not “vibes-based” in the dismissive sense — it’s strategic resistance.
Anarchist or council-communist critiques during the early Soviet era often expressed emotional alienation from power that had shifted away from workers and into a bureaucratic Party elite. These critiques, based on lived experience, were later vindicated by the historical record.
The Frankfurt School (Adorno, Marcuse) developed the concept of reified consciousness, when people experience alienation but lack the language to articulate it because power controls discourse.
In One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse noted:
These are not vibes, but a material critique with ample historical precedent and theoretical basis.
For a lot of these, you falsely equate multi-party participation to democracy. For a lot of the others, such as Kronstadt, you defend ultraleft terrorism that would have cost the socialist society the war. For others like Hungary, you defend western-backed fascists that set Nazis free from prison and were lynching jews and communists.
Your “material analysis” seems to work backward from your desired result, regardless of the facts on the ground.
No, I equate democracy to meaningful working-class control over power and multi-party systems can be part of that, depending on context. But democracy also includes:
Freedom to form independent unions
Freedom to organize outside of the state
Freedom of press, criticism, and theory
Accountability of leadership to the masses
Tell me: In AES systems, what institution exists to fire party leadership from below? Where is the mechanism of revocable mandates, like in the Paris Commune or Soviets pre-1921?
One-party rule doesn’t automatically disqualify a system from being democratic but when the Party cannot be criticized, no alternative policies can be proposed, and workers are disempowered from decision-making, you’re no longer dealing with worker democracy. You’re dealing with bureaucratic centralism, not socialism.
Let’s clear this up: The Kronstadt sailors were not “ultraleft terrorists.” They were:
The same sailors who had supported the Bolsheviks in 1917
Demanding the re-establishment of Soviet democracy
Advocating free elections of Soviets, freedom of speech for workers, and an end to Party dictatorship
Their slogans were:
“All power to the Soviets not to parties!”
That’s not ultraleftism. That’s classical Marxism. You can argue their timing was disastrous, yes but to paint their demands as terrorism is pure historical revisionism. Even Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who witnessed the events, condemned the repression.
And if the survival of socialism depends on liquidating the very people who created it, then something’s already gone very wrong.
Another tired smear. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was:
A popular uprising, involving students, workers, and even rank-and-file Communists
Focused on demands for free unions, free speech, the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and a more democratic socialism
Led by people like Imre Nagy, who remained committed to socialism not liberalism or fascism
Yes, reactionary forces tried to infiltrate it, as they often do in any upheaval but you don’t get to erase a mass working-class revolt by pointing to a few far-right opportunists. That’s like calling every protest in France “fascist” because some far-right parties try to show up. It’s dishonest.
Also, your claim that “Nazis were released from prison and lynched Jews and communists” is not only wildly exaggerated, it’s been debunked by multiple post-Cold War historians (e.g., Johanna Granville). The majority of those killed during the uprising were workers and students, and the repression afterward saw thousands executed or imprisoned many of them lifelong Communists.
That’s projection. What I’m doing is:
Looking at who holds power in AES states
Investigating how dissent is treated
Asking whether workers have any real sovereignty
Your position assumes the righteousness of the Party line, and justifies all repression as necessary regardless of the actual dynamics on the ground. You work backwards from the assumption that any rebellion must be capitalist or fascist which lets you label all criticism as enemy activity. That’s not analysis. That’s circular logic dressed up as discipline.
I don’t support “bourgeois democracy.” I support worker self-emancipation.
I don’t support counterrevolution. I support criticism from below the foundation of Marxism.
And I don’t support letting bureaucracies define who counts as “the people.”
You’re trying to erase real historical tensions within the socialist movement and pretend that all critiques of AES states are liberal. But history shows otherwise: many of these critiques come from Marxists, revolutionaries, and communists who believed in a deeper, freer socialism and paid the price for saying so.
If you want to argue from facts, bring them. But stop recycling slogans that have been used for decades to justify the repression of actual communists in the name of “realism.”
Liberation is not obedience.
Socialism is not silence.