Bijou Drains
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The Russian Armed Forces conscript men for National Service twice a year, with the autumn draft lasting from October 1 until December 31 and the spring draft running from April 1 until July 15 In 2022, the Kremlin announced the spring draft early on February 18. (see interfax)
The draft affects all men aged 18 to 27 years old, though some conscripts can be as young as 16 years old.
Russian conscripts typically serve one year. The Yearly conscription pool of all Russian military-aged men is approximately 1.2 million people, though only about half are compelled to present themselves at their local military commissariat (voenkomat).
The Russian General Staff reported conscripting 127,000 people for the autumn 2021 draft and 134,000 people in spring 2022 out of 672,000 summoned men.
Russian Law allows soldiers conscripted by the draft to serve outside of Russia after 4 months training.
Conscripts, not reservists, you do know the difference, don’t you?
Anyway, instead of writing off the deaths of 30,000 Russian troops as being “not being catastrophic”, why are you (the alleged anti Nazi) not joining them, you do know what the word chickenshit means, don’t you?
Tinky Winky said “Russia has annexed huge swathes of resource rich territory, grown its population and all at the cost of less than 20-30,000 lives. Remind me, what’s this “catastrophic error” of which you speak?”
There we have, fully exposed, the anti working class rhetoric of TW. The mineral wealth and resources annexed will not of course be used for the benefit of the vast majority (working class) of that population, any more that it was used for the benefit of the working class when it was part of the Ukraine.
What is catastrophic asks TW, the catastrophy is the families bereft following the deaths of their loved ones, the children who have lost their fathers and perhaps mothers, the mothers and fathers grieving the deaths of their beloved children, the long term impact of these deaths on all of the family, the post traumatic stress left on the survivors, the impact of children and family living with those who have suffered PTS, the destruction of houses and resources created by working class people through their hard work, to name just a few catastrophic consequences. All of this to enrich the already fabuloously rich.
He has also exposed by his own words what has really occured. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Annex” as meaning “add (territory) to one’s own territory by apropriation”. Of course as Marxists, we are only interested in ensuring that the expropriators are expropriated.
Surprisingly though, TW has actually stumbled oafishly across a relevant “fact”, however typically he has misinterperated that “fact” as could be expected.
Tinky Winky has stated that the number of Russian Deaths is in the 20,000 to 30,000 deaths. This is probably an underestimation, as the deaths are continuing as we speak. Other estimates of 200,000 deaths are probably equally wide of the mark.
If we, for argument’s, sake work on a death toll of 35,000 (probably quite a conservative number) and compare this to war casualties in recent conflicts, it is clear that this death toll for one year of conflict is very high.
The estimated US deaths in the Korean War was 36,516 deaths over 3 years. An attrition rate of 12,000 deaths a year
The estimated death toll in the Vietnam War was 58,220 deaths over the roughly 10 year span of direct US involvement an attrition rate of 5-6,000 deaths a year
The official Soviet death toll for the Soviet Afghan war was given as 14,453 with estimates rising up to about 26,000 deaths during a 10 year campaign an attrition rate of perhaps 2,000 deaths per year.
That means the death rate that TW has agreed has occured in less than one year is greater than the combined yearly average deaths of the US deaths in Korea and Vietnam and the Soviet deaths in Afghanistan.
Considering the fact that the Vietnam and Afghan Wars led to lots of political instability in the US and USSR and the facts that no official NATO lives are being lost, that Russia doesn’t seem to be making any great progress in their offensives, being pushed back on several fronts and at least at the moment the Ukraine doesn’t seem to be about to over run, the situation might actually be one that US NATO are generally happy about.
Yes they have lost a lot of weapons, but for them the up sides are that the majority of NATO countries are upping their military budgets, the fuel crisis appears to have passed without major issue, they are likely to have Sweden and Finland added to their coalition, there is always the possiblity of war weariness arising in Russia and they get the chance to test out their weaponry without losing lives to NATO forces, whilst Russia is also losing miliary hardware, but is also losing soldiers and suppport infrastructure.
Given this, some elements of the NATO alliance and their general staff, may actually see this whole bloodbath as something positive. Unfortunately this will not be the case for the workers who pay for this fiasco with their lives and their limbs.
Dear Tinky Winky
There is a huge difference between “surplus value” and “surplus wealth”
“As any fule kno”
AJ – “Would you care to name these non-capitalist states?”
Tinky Winky says “The USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, China, etc.”
🤣😂🤣😂
Honestly, this guy is so funny, 🤡🤡🤡Tinky winky said – “ Two of the most recent being that China’s economy would not collapse (a couple of years back it was all the rage to believe otherwise) and that Russia would easily defeat Ukraine on the battlefield if it came to war”
China’s economy has clearly had some difficulties, it achieved growth of 3% in 2022, compared to the governments target of 5.5%. Other than 2020 (the start of the pandemic) growth has been the lowest since 1976 (Mao’s death).
As to predictions of collapse, not many credible economists predicted collapse. A few have said China will face economic difficulties, which appear to be the case. This all proves what Socialists have stated clearly for years. Boom and bust cycles are all part of the nature of capitalist production. Capitalist China is not immune to these cycles.
As to your prediction that Russia would easily defeat Ukraine? Well given that 10 months of war hasn’t achieved victory and the Russians have acknowledged 24,000 dead (probably more than that) I’d hate to see what would have happened if it has been difficult.
To put that figure into some perspective the US had 33,000 deaths in just over 3 years, of the Korean War, 47,400 deaths in 10 years of the Vietnam War and 1,900 deaths in the Afghan War.
So in terms of your “predictions”, your not really the new feckin Nostradamus, are you?
AJ – If not a member of any, what political party (past or present) do you judge to be the closest to your own political beliefs?”
“TN The CPGB.”
Are you sure you don’t mean CBBC?
🤣🤣🤣TN has now exposed all that he has to offer:
An uninformed hero worship at the rotting edifice of State Capitalism. An inability to articulate any purposeful, evidenced based or coherent arguments to support his fetid nationalist rhetoric. A lack of scruple to even check his historical references for accuracy. The complete absence of any reply to the challenges and questions asked of him and all he’s got in the tank is a few unoriginal, unfunny attempts to insult. Basically he’s been on an ego trip that he hasn’t got the intellectual currency to pay the fare.
Close the door on the way out, there’s a good boy.
True Narcissist, I’m truly sorry for you. Considering the way in which you have been exposed as:
A Socialist – who has no idea what socialism is
A Leninist- whose never read a word of Lenin’s work
An anti Nazi – who has not the slightest idea of what the ideological basis of nazism or fascism is
A anti imperialist- who demonstrably has the slightest clue of Lenin’s theories of imperialism
A historian- who thought that the overthrow of the Russian Consituent Assembly had something to do with the Kornilov Affair
A promoter of Stalin’s ideas who relies on the ludicrous ramblings of Grover Furr.You are embarrassing, son.
BD “As to the Leninist concept of imperialism, which Johnny Mercer correctly analyses as follows “It almost requires a kind of conspiracy theory to suppose that capitalists give their workers more than their labour power in order to bribe them.”
TN And I’m sure that when a parent gives their child food, a warm bed and protects them from harm that is merely a bribe to get them to do their homework.
BD “When asked about how this bribe occurs and what the mechanism is by which the surplus value of third world workers is exploited by one capitalist enterprise (capitalist A) and a portion of it is consciously identified to be redistributed by western workers and then consciously distributed by other capitalist enterprises (capitalist B), Leninist supporters of this theory tend to fall silent.”
TN My, you are a bore. No one is arguing that parts of the Russian economy are not capitalist. With the betrayal of the USSR the capitalists had a field day. But since then they’ve been put in their place. The oligarchs no longer exercise singular control over the ship of state. Imperialism is not the Russian state’s reason for being.
BD “Similarly when asked why on earth Capitalist A would give up part of their profits to support capitalist B, they either remain silent or try to explain that the invisible cabal that run the system want to ensure that western workers are getting a more wealth than they produce in order to keep them from turning revolutionary!”
TN The issue is imperialism not the existence of capitalist enterprises in Russia.”
Dear TN, you really are as thick as a monk’s foreskin, aren’t you.
Let’s just try and pull this apart for you in simple terms so you can understand.
1st Point (which the guy you cited actually explains in his video) is that he is talking about Lenin’s theory of Imperialism. This is not the same thing as imperialism in its normal everyday usage (i.e. the process and expansion of creating empires). Therefore (as I have tried to explain to you before), in the way that Lenin described imperialism it does not references classical empires, medieval empires, or even Darth Vader and his intergalactic empire.
You have quoted and sourced information from writers and commentators who specifically discuss the Leninist concept of imperialism, therefore when you talk about imperialism (which you do frequently) we must assume that you are talking about Imperialism in the Leninist sense.
Moving on to your comments, you begin by making an analogy between capitalists allegedly bribing workers to remain acquiescent and parents giving warm food, a bed, etc. What the fuck are you talking about???
Are you attempting to say that capitalists are involved in some kind of nurturing relationship which the workers?? Apart from the clear nonsense of that analogy, what has that got to do with Lenin’s view which was that super exploitation of workers in the developing world creates super profits part of which are used to “overpay” western workers in order to keep them passive. This view is completely contrary to Marx’s view which states that exploitation and production of surplus value takes place “at the point of production”
Moving on to your view that “the oligarchs exercise singular control over the ship of state”, even if that was the case, so what. The crucial issue is the issue of property relationships. The capitalists (including oligarchs, capitalists and the state) own and control the means of production, the workers do not own anything other than the ability to labour and to produce wealth through their labour. Going back to what Engels stated “The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship isn’t abolished; it is rather pushed to the extreme.”
State ownership does not mean that exploitation has been abolished it means, generally, it has been merely streamlined.
Your final comment about a “Marxist State” shows just how little you know of Marx’s work and his view of the state. Engels stated that “The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong—into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.”
Hence the rest of the quote from Engels, which by your own comment have demonstrated you don’t understand.
“But at this extreme it is transformed into its opposite. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains within itself the formal means, the key to the solution.”
What he was saying is that state ownership (i.e. nationalisation, etc.) does not resolve the situation, but is rather part of the process of consolidation of large scale capitalist enterprises, in the same way that multinational and huge corporations increase the concentration of capital, reducing the ownership of the means of production into the hands of smaller and smaller numbers of property owners and thus increases not only the tension between labour and capital but creates the large scale enterprises and productive forces necessary to transform from a society of ownership of the means of production by the few (Capitalists, state capitalists, oligarchs or whatever way you describe them) working in the interests of the few, to a society based on Common Ownership (not state ownership) which works on the basis of from each according to their ability to each according to their need.
You say that “the issue is not imperialism not the existence of capitalist enterprises in Russia.”
In that is exactly where you are wrong, even if it was possible to have capitalism without imperialism (which is completely impossible because of the nature of capitalism) the fundamental issue at the basis of the class struggle the struggle between labour and capital, would continue, regardless of whether capital was help in the form of state ownership, private ownership or some hybrid of each.
TN states – “This is what an ideological snowflake looks like. Yes, Gazprom makes a profit but the shareholders are the Russian people not a select group of capitalist investors.”
Sadly TN once again trips over his ill informed boot laces. Gazprom is jointly owned between the Russian State (approximately 51%) and individual and institutional shareholders. So TN and the clown from the video are incorrect when they say that the profits from use of natural resources in Russia are not used to increase the wealth of a select few.
What then about the 51% state owned part of Gazprom. TN’s lazy source cites Marx to support his argument regarding state capitalism, yet Engels wrote in 1880:
“But neither the conversion into joint stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital. In the case of joint-stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, too, is only the organization with which bourgeois society provides itself in order to maintain the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against encroachments either by the workers or by individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its form, is then the state of the capitalists, the ideal collective body of all the capitalists. The more productive forces it takes over as its property, the more it becomes the real collective body of the capitalists, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship isn’t abolished; it is rather pushed to the extreme. But at this extreme it is transformed into its opposite. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains within itself the formal means, the key to the solution.”
So presumably TN considers Engels an ideological snowflake.
As to the Leninist concept of imperialism, which Johnny Mercer correctly analyses as follows “It almost requires a kind of conspiracy theory to suppose that capitalists give their workers more than their labour power in order to bribe them.”
When asked about how this bribe occurs and what the mechanism is by which the surplus value of third world workers is exploited by one capitalist enterprise (capitalist A) and a portion of it is consciously identified to be redistributed by western workers and then consciously distributed by other capitalist enterprises (capitalist B), Leninist supporters of this theory tend to fall silent.
Similarly when asked why on earth Capitalist A would give up part of their profits to support capitalist B, they either remain silent or try to explain that the invisible cabal that run the system want to ensure that western workers are getting a more wealth than they produce in order to keep them from turning revolutionary!
This leads to the question, why are the third world workers not likely to turn into revolutionaries as a result of their double exploitation, when western workers need to be bribed not to become revolutionary.
Of course the whole shaky edifice of Lenin’s theory of Imperialism is full of holes. I wouldn’t criticise TN re this, it is very clear he has never read anything by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg, etc. As his replies on this forum shows, TN wallows and basks in his lack of knowledge and his scant grasp on Marxist theory, rather like a pig wallowing in its own shite.
TN – You have surpassed even your high standard of stupid comments, well done!!
The attempted coup d’etate arranged by Kornilov took place in August/September 1917 (new style/old style). The October revolution took place in (you’ve guessed it!) October (or November old style).
The supression of the consituent assembly took place in January 1918 and involved the supression of democratic parties, the vast majority of which opposed the continuation of the war. The armistice ending Russian involvement in the war took place on the 15th December BEFORE the overthrow of the Consituent Assembly.
Kornolov’s later involvement in the civil war had the stated aims of ending the Bolshevik regime, not to “end participation in WW1” Russian participation in WW1 had already ended.
With regards to your comments about the crack down on Russian speakers in the Ukraine, you will note I used the term “justification”, I didn’t say that the crackdown was real, it was just as imaginary as Stalin’s purge of Crimean Tatars. Over 2/3 of the Tatar men of military age were actually active in the Red Army at the time of the transportations,
TN – States “launch an unprovoked attack on Russian speaking Ukrainians.”
However according to TN (24-01-23 @ 12.45pm), ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars was “Necessary given the existential crisis unfolding at the time and the groups’ collaboration with the enemy.”
Exactly the same justification the Ukrainian government is using to explain their actions regarding ethnic Russians.
Presumably, TN thinks that the undemocratic overthrow of the Russian Constituent assembly in 1917-18 by the Bolshevik coup d’etat was justified, whilst the undemocratic Maidan revolution was not.
Yet more evidence of TN’s inconsistency and anti working class sentiment
True Narcisist’s replies –
“He has claimed to be a proponent of anti imperialism whilst clearly having no idea of the basic teachings of Lenin’s concept of imperialism.”
Expansion of capital, yada, yada.
“He has claimed to be a Marxist,”
Erm, never have.
“but demonstrates no understanding of the ideas of class struggle”
Don’t need to be a Marxist for that though I’m sure it helps.
“the Labour Theory of Value”
Value created through human effort, yada, yada.
“or the idea of historical materialism.”
Class based societies, yada, yada.”
Thanks for confirming what we already know, that you are an ill informed poseur, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
