I just got into an argument with a Zionist settler who claimed that in the years of austerity after the Entity was established, that it had state ownership of the means of production, ergo it was a socialist state - but that the state's mismanagement led the settlers to shift towards liberal capitalism. The settler interlocutor also stressed that there were ties between the USSR and the Zionist entity.

So basically, what's up with that, and how can I better argue against Zionism, bearing these facts in mind?

top 21 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Coolkidbozzy@hexbear.net 38 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Even though the kibbutz system was socialist in ideology, it was never marxist. They existed before israel, and were used by the zionists as a tool for colonization. If the israeli state was socialist, every socdem country at the time should be considered socialist which is absurd. The israeli government to this day directly owns 93% of the land. Again, just another tool to disenfranchise the indigenous population

The USSR withdrew support for israel before it was even 10 years old. They should never have recognized it in the first place, given MLs have hated zionism since Lenin

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

So basically, my interlocutor was BSing about state-owned means of production?

Why did the USSR support Israel to begin with?

[–] Coolkidbozzy@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

They once had more state-owned companies than they do now, but they've always had a private sector where workers have no rights over the means of production

From wikipedia:

The official Soviet ideological position on Zionism condemned the movement as akin to bourgeois nationalism. Vladimir Lenin rejected Zionism as a reactionary movement, "bourgeois nationalism", "socially retrogressive", and a backward force that deprecates class divisions among Jews.[2] From late 1944, however, Joseph Stalin adopted a pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that a Jewish state would emerge socialist and pro-Soviet, and thus would speed the decline of British influence in the Middle East.

I don't blame Stalin for thinking european Jews would become the USSR's natural ally, but it seems like a silly lapse in ideology for realpolitik

It's worth pointing out that in Stalin's Marxism and the National Question, he acknowledged that zionism is reactionary. What a silly guy

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 8 points 2 years ago

Fascinating!

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wasn't the thinking at the time national liberation then class liberation? Did that come later?

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lenin's A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism was well from 1916 and that expressed that idea, didn't it?

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Dunno. Haven't read it. Let me go look it up.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Like a lot of theory, my compehension of it is lacking, but I do remember that our boy did spend some time talking about Norway's independence from Sweden in it, which I found kind of surprising and neat.

Edit: apparently Lenin wrote something dunking on Rosa Lux over Norway, The Right of Nations to Self Determination. That was in 1914.

[–] TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago

okay i had a post about this a long time ago but basically it was the politburo that overruled him on the thing and only gave tentative support to better relations with the west. They still held that the best defense against anti-semitism would be a dismantling of fascism in europe.

There was no 'support' as much as molotov ribbentrop was an alliance

[–] material_delinquent@hexbear.net 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

you gotta ask who owns what and employs whose labour for what aims. The Histadrut, general union, was exclusively jewish and also owned housing etc., but it wasnt moving to abolish property, but to "develop" jewish labour on land it first bought an empty title for to then evict the people actually living and working there or used lawfare to declare land "mevat" (fallow) and seize it to then doing the nakba and seizing the majority of land and ressources while the arab population lived in poverty and under military law. The aim was not communism, especially since other economic forms existed and the kibbutzim were like only one model, premarxian as well. I am drunk and a bit tipsy, but this "socialism" was what we'd call social democracy based on military conquest, corporatism and some state intervention as well as bad ideas on raising children developing towards the realization of vitalist-racist ideas (Nordau) or Imperialism (Labour Zionism)

2)to fuck over the brits and wrong ideas about what makes a nation i think

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 6 points 2 years ago

Very interesting.

[–] SteamedHamberder@hexbear.net 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Stalin supported Israel’s statehood for two reasons:

as a fuck-you to the British. we’re getting speculative here, but maybe a sufficiently pacified Palestine ends up like Gibraltar or Cyprus.
a hope that the communist Party (A joint Jewish-Arab party) that held about 12% of the Knesset in ‘48 could eventually make enough gains to keep Israel non-aligned. As an aside, In terms of world Powers, Israel was closer in terms of Geopolitical influence with France than the U.S. until ‘67.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

another bit on that second point, france had the largest communist party in the west and there was some hopes that theyd take over the whole country. in 1945 they had the most votes of any party, and maintained this lead until late 50s. and before the nazi occupation, france was led by socialists (and pm leon blum was a jewish man put into a concentration camp, whose party allied with the communists), so this wasnt an unreasonable conclusion

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago

Indeed. After the second world War, communists across the globe emerged from the conflict as the heroes that saved the free world. Communist parties all over the world gave their all in the fight against fascism and the people knew who fought for their freedom.

For a brief time we were yet again at the cusp of a world revolution, evermore closer to victory than we were with the October Revolution. Yet like the tide, the wave that swept so close flowed back once more in great reaction to our victory and pushed back hard.

Now we communists of the modern period wait for the next rising tide and hope it will be the final one.

[–] Xx_Aru_xX@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Strasserism

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 7 points 2 years ago

I don't know much about Strasserism, other than that it appropriated ideas of class conflict et cetera to promote antisemitic producerism. Would you like to go into more detail?

[–] axont@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago

There were socialist elements in the creation of Israel, and I don't even mean the Labor Zionists who promoted kibbutzim and moshavim. But I wouldn't call Israel a socialist project in itself, that's an exaggeration. The standard communist opinion in the 1940s was actually advocacy for the creation of a binational state of Israel/Palestine. That was Stalin's initial stance, actually, although he'd bring Soviet Jews back to the USSR in 1946 after the Yalta conference.

Leftist politics were also dominant among Jewish people in Europe. Most of the initial settlers to Israel after it attained statehood were European holocaust survivors, so those factors influenced initial Israeli politics. For instance, the Israeli Labor Party was dominant from the outset all the way until 1977. The other dominant party was Mapai (Workers' Party of Israel), a "socialist" party that got a third of the votes in the first Israeli elections.

Although I'm avoiding the elephant, which is that these movement were "labor zionism." Which is they did have working class, leftist rhetoric and would often cite people like Lenin and Marx, but they also absolutely believed in Zionism too. They weren't above displacing Arabs from their homes. Mapai and the Israeli Labor Party were absolutely complicit in genocide. So any initial socialist leanings that the Israeli people and early politicians might have had quickly folded. Israeli leftism has become just another flavor of settler colonialism, especially after the six-day war where many labor zionist leaders wanted to annex all the land taken from jordan, Egypt, and Syria. There are very fringe socialists who are properly socialist in Israel, but they aren't well represented and I'm not even sure what they do.

[–] trompete@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago

I at one point skimmed through "Der Judenstaat" by Herzl, and it's a bunch of class collaborationist shit. Like he thought rich individuals should chip in by buying land and financing transports and such, and the working classes should contribute their labor.

[–] TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net 11 points 2 years ago

labor zionism was a huge thing, but settler colonialism was just too enticing

[–] Xx_Aru_xX@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

2 days late, but https://decolonizepalestine.com/rainbow-washing/redwashing/ here's a page about it

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago

Great stuff, thanks.