ive of civil liberties than what was being passed off as "Socialist". The bourgeois press gave its full support to the equation of socialism and Stalinism.
Opportunists within the labor movement in capitalist countries who wanted nothing better then to sell out the interests of working people for personal benefits found this situation extremely favorable, since they could confuse the revolutionary movements with Stalinism. These right opportunists, who also called themselves "socialist", now found it easier to openly support capitalism, including imperialist wars against Third World people, by arguing against "communism". <В
Cold War
The politics of the world became rapidly completely dominated by the East-West conflict, as it was called. People calling themselves socialist could openly support the mass genocide against the Vietnamese people by the United States carpet bombing because they opposed "communism", while in the USSR unspeakable crimes were being committed in the name of "socialism", reinforcing the state of utter confusion in the world.
The truth regarding socialism and Marxism on a world scale went into freefall. Any kind of serious historical honesty was eliminated. Bourgeois education on the issues of the 19th century, the rise of the workers movement and socialism was reduced to crude propaganda made plausible by Stalinism. For the followers of Stalin, the majority of the movement claiming to advocate socialism, the scientific philosophy of Marx was turned into a religion in which anything, regardless of how obviously it contradicted everything Marx had written, was passed off as Marxism.
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Terminological confusion
From the 1930s up to today, in the mid-1990s, the confusion in the minds of working people on a world scale is immense regarding the word "socialism". For most it is an economic project that inevitably will end up in a totalitarian government and/or economic paralysis. For some it may mean "Sweden" or simply lots of safety nets, but there is doubt this really "works".
Prior to 1917 the terms used by the socialist movement were generally understood by people. They knew that terms like social progress meant progress for the poor, for the majority of working people including small farmers. They knew that socialism meant reorganizing the government and economy so workers would have the decisive say and society would be run for the benefit of the majority. It meant more rational planning and equality. It meant more democracy not only politically but socially. That translated into the concepts of free education for all, free medical care, full employment, unemployment insurance, retirement insurance, etc.
Only right-wing demagogues could argue that socialism would lead to less democratic rights, inequality and fascist-like repressive regimes. Pre-1917 most workers would have dismissed such accusation as ridiculous and exaggerated propaganda. Not so today. The examples of Russia, China, North Korea and many others is clearly in the consciousness of people.
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Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky's efforts to argue that the Russian revolution of 1917 was betrayed and that one should not associate Stalinism with socialism was supported by only a small number of those considering themselves socialist.
Among those calling themselves socialist, some who agreed with Trotsky that something terrible was happening in Russia came to the conclusion that what happened in 1917, the very revolution Trotsky and Lenin had led, was in the end responsible for the rise of Stalinism. While such a position had some principled advocates, social democratic currents, which were busy selling out the working people they influenced, also could not stand Trotsky precisely because he remained loyal to the original ideas of the socialist movement.
Millions influenced by Stalinism lived in denial, believing the USSR was a democratic workers paradise. They hated Trotsky and cheered when he was assassinated, just as they cheered when the whole leadership of the revolution of 1917 was murdered. Looking back it seems so bizarre that people in every country of the world could on one hand claim to be for socialism and at the same time be so easily fooled.
The fact that millions believing in a more just society and in democracy could be fooled into supporting the opposite of their beliefs is something that we should give a lot of consideration to. We should give this some thought for a couple of reasons. An important one is that these people were generally materialist in their philosophical views, that is, they were not superstitious but favored science. Yet they could believe in things for which there was little, if any, factual evidence.
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Democracy and materialism
What this fact does is reinforce the...
