Re:In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
by anatoly on Friday December 16, 2011 @07:34PM
(#3362953)
So what you're saying is that Chomsky means that USSR's regime wasn't anarcho-socialism.
I agree that it wasn't.
But Chomsky isn't saying that; he's saying that it wasn't socialism, and not only that, that it was "about as remote from socialism as possible". That's just a lie. Anarcho-socialists were never the only or the "true" socialists in any reasonable sense. They weren't even the most dominant faction in socialism, most of the time. Chomsky has to know that. He may privately believe that the only real socialism is anarcho-socialism, but that's his business.
I haven't seen the video yet, but you don't quote him as saying that the USSR wasn't Marxist, just that it wasn't socialist. A huge historical difference between Marxists and socialists is how to transition from capitalism to socialism. Marx believed that a "worker's state/council" would be needed, whereas the anarchists predicted that a "red bureaucracy" would only be worse than the one it replaced.