Lenin, etc., more influenced by Bentham, Mill, etc. -- Soviets get it about right.

So there is Bentham and Mill and the whole theory of utilitarianism, which is the idea that we should act to minimize suffering and maximize happiness for all sentient beings concerned. Alright. And there is a delicious irony, for no, you cannot really measure suffering or happiness, all you can do is make very approximate estimates.

So, what if Lenin and other early Bolsheviks had this sense of irony and were much loosey-goosier about ideology? For example, if poorest peasants like the idea that they, too, might become rich, that's fine, leave those avenues open as unlikely as they might be. Just make sure that various quasi-monopolies, whatever the Russian equivalents of U.S. railroads and grain elevators, give ordinary people a reasonably square deal. And perhaps push forward with industrialization, which is something a centralized approach might actually do a pretty good job at.

So, this is a pro-Soviet wank where they get it essentially right and roll forward from there.

Your ideas please.
 
So there is Bentham and Mill and the whole theory of utilitarianism, which is the idea that we should act to minimize suffering and maximize happiness for all sentient beings concerned. Alright. And there is a delicious irony, for no, you cannot really measure suffering or happiness, all you can do is make very approximate estimates.

So, what if Lenin and other early Bolsheviks had this sense of irony and were much loosey-goosier about ideology? For example, if poorest peasants like the idea that they, too, might become rich, that's fine, leave those avenues open as unlikely as they might be. Just make sure that various quasi-monopolies, whatever the Russian equivalents of U.S. railroads and grain elevators, give ordinary people a reasonably square deal. And perhaps push forward with industrialization, which is something a centralized approach might actually do a pretty good job at.

So, this is a pro-Soviet wank where they get it essentially right and roll forward from there.

Your ideas please.


Well unfortunately your running into the Not-Ler paradox when your postulating about a "loosy goosy" Bolshevik

If Hitler wasn't antisemtic, he wouldnt be Hitler.

If the Bolsheviks were less radical, they wouldn't be Bolsheviks and whose to say they'd be in a position of power?

If you go back and time shoot your grandpa before your born.. you get my point.

So then you question becomes if some other non-Bolshevik party were gain power and incorporate some utilitarian aspects into their policy making, what if? Right?

Well luckily the Menshiviks are an actual OTL party that I believe could have done exactly what you postulated.

And a Menshivik Soviet Union would be awesome to see
 
Lenin wouldn't have embraced Mill and Bentham, but he did have respect for Henry George and wrote (circa 1913) that George presented a prescription for a pure form of capitalism uninfluenced by feudalism. In other words, Lenin might have adopted Georgism as the best option if the Bolsheviks were operating in a non-revolutionary situation (e.g., as a minority party in a progressive Duma under peacetime conditions) on grounds that it would create the industrial preconditions for a transition to socialism more rapidly than other approaches. As to the statement, "if the Bolsheviks were less radical, they wouldn't be Bolsheviks," there is a difference between radical longrange goals and violent radical improvisation under unpredicted circumstances. Lenin's Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) clearly depicted capitalism as preferable to village communalism as the basis for a post-Czarist regime that could move in the direction of socialism. The point is not that the Bolsheviks weren't Bolsheviks prior to World War One, but that the conditions of the war would allow the worst side of Bolshevism to flourish. Otherwise, history might have remembered Lenin as a social reformer and indeed he and the Bolshevik party might have evolved in a different direction than OTL.
 
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So then you question becomes if some other non-Bolshevik party were gain power and incorporate some utilitarian aspects into their policy making, what if? Right?
No, not really. My question is not if the Bolsheviks were more utilitarian, but if they were more loosey-goosey and experimentalist and being familiar with the theory of utilitarianism was the cause of this.

For example, like with a doctor faced with a case of pneumonia, you hit it with one broad-spectrum antibiotic, and if that doesn't work, you hit it with another. This actually sounds like terrible medicine. It sounds like slopsville medicine. But given the complexity of both microbes and the human immune system, it's actually good medicine.

So, in economics, you take neither baby nor giant steps. You take a solidly medium step. You observe feedback, and then you take another solidly medium step. This is zen simplicity itself, but I have a hard time selling it.

And I don't mean everything works out perfectly and people sing kumbaya. That wouldn't make for very interesting alternate history.

I mean more like Lenin's NEP, but on steroids. Maybe like three dozen such programs, and some work out and some don't. That would make for a far richer alternate timeline, and maybe a legitimate challenge to the corporate capitalism of the west.
 
Bolshevik ruthlessness had nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with a desire to win the civil war in such a way that even if concessions are made it is entirely the decision of their government were these concessions are made. If you want to make the Bolsheviks nicer the simplest solution is to destroy the white movement as fast as possible and to preserve as much of the democratic structure of the soviets as possible (which was gradually chopped away during the civil war). The other method here would be to have Lenin live a few years longer and properly expel Stalin and his ilk. Utilitarianism won't fix this because as far as the Bolsheviks wee concerned they were utilitarians and being as pragmatic as was reasonable given the circumstances.

The other way to keep the Bolsheviks on a more politically forgiving path would be to keep the initial revolutionary coalition of anarchists, Left-SRs, and radical Mensheviks together after Brest-Livotsk. A large part of their political comes from the attempt on Lenins life by members of the Left SRs, and their generally being violently opposed to the war policy of the soviet government.
 
If the Bolsheviks were OK with peasants getting rich (which you explicitly said), they wouldn't be Bolsheviks.

This really is on the level of 'What if Hitler weren't anti-semitic'.
 
If the Bolsheviks were OK with peasants getting rich (which you explicitly said), they wouldn't be Bolsheviks.

This really is on the level of 'What if Hitler weren't anti-semitic'.

I'm pretty sure the NEP says otherwise. The big problem with that policy during the civil war and the material poverty of the Russian state are the real bar to instituting that early on.
 
I'm pretty sure the NEP says otherwise. The big problem with that policy during the civil war and the material poverty of the Russian state are the real bar to instituting that early on.

The NEP was a policy that was adopted as a matter of desperation--Lenin specifically compared it to Brest-Litovsk. It was not a policy the Bolsheviks would have arrived at unless they had to.
 
The NEP was a policy that was adopted as a matter of desperation--Lenin specifically compared it to Brest-Litovsk. It was not a policy the Bolsheviks would have arrived at unless they had to.

But so was war communism according to Trotsky, who was of the opinion that the NEP was the right policy given the easing of circumstances. And as far as the Bolsheviks were concerned circumstance forced them into basically all of their early policies.
 
I'm pretty sure the NEP says otherwise. The big problem with that policy during the civil war and the material poverty of the Russian state are the real bar to instituting that early on.

The NEP was a policy that was adopted as a matter of desperation--Lenin specifically compared it to Brest-Litovsk. It was not a policy the Bolsheviks would have arrived at unless they had to.

The NEP allowed peasants private plots. It wasn't about letting them get 'rich'. In fact, the OTL Scissor Crisis and considering 'NEPmen' (middlemen) to be 'class enemies' certainly indicate some of limitations of how far the NEP was prepared to let capitalism go, namely 'not very far'.
 
The NEP allowed peasants private plots. It wasn't about letting them get 'rich'. In fact, the OTL Scissor Crisis and considering 'NEPmen' (middlemen) to be 'class enemies' certainly indicate some of limitations of how far the NEP was prepared to let capitalism go, namely 'not very far'.

Well yeah. I would say that part of the flaw of this assumption is that allowing more capitalism is probably the wrong view of how to improve soviet communism. I personally don't think that's the means to improve the soviet unions policy, letting peasants get rich doesn't really solve much beyond helping along the Kulaks everyone likes for some reason. I would say a more open democratic regime would do far more to make Soviet Russia a happier place to live.
 
If the Bolsheviks were OK with peasants getting rich (which you explicitly said), they wouldn't be Bolsheviks.

This really is on the level of 'What if Hitler weren't anti-semitic'.
I also said as unlikely as these avenues might be, but yes, leave them open.

Just like today, a person working part-time at Walmart might dream of being a poker star. Takes a lot of skill in a lot of different situations. As a profession, probably among the hardest "easy money" a person will ever make. But if someone wants to do this, more power to them!

People have their dreams. And I strongly suspect the same was true back in the 1910s.

Now, what you can do as a new government is remove obvious abuses. For example, if grain wholesalers are acting in collusion as a de facto syndicate. Or, if tax rates are high and tax collectors use this as a club to extract bribes. On this second point, you simply use your best estimate of how far tax rates can be reduced. And then you'd probably rather reduce them twice, rather than reduce them and have to raise them again.
 
I would say that part of the flaw of this assumption is that allowing more capitalism is probably the wrong view of how to improve soviet communism.
I'll run with this. I'm interested in improving the Soviet economy, government, society, etc., and not so much in a specific brand of government.

So, it might be that what I have in mind leads to a rather boring Social Democrat type of government. So be it.

Still might play off the West in interesting ways. For example, if the Soviets had survived to the present day, they might say, look, we never promised a free Internet. We always monitored for such things as sexual predators. We started with a strict, controlled Internet and then gradually loosened up. You Americans promised a free Internet and then people found that wasn't really the case.
 
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Bolshevik ruthlessness had nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with a desire to win the civil war in such a way that even if concessions are made it is entirely the decision of their government were these concessions are made. If you want to make the Bolsheviks nicer the simplest solution is to destroy the white movement as fast as possible and to preserve as much of the democratic structure of the soviets as possible (which was gradually chopped away during the civil war). The other method here would be to have Lenin live a few years longer and properly expel Stalin and his ilk. Utilitarianism won't fix this because as far as the Bolsheviks wee concerned they were utilitarians and being as pragmatic as was reasonable given the circumstances.

The other way to keep the Bolsheviks on a more politically forgiving path would be to keep the initial revolutionary coalition of anarchists, Left-SRs, and radical Mensheviks together after Brest-Livotsk. A large part of their political comes from the attempt on Lenins life by members of the Left SRs, and their generally being violently opposed to the war policy of the soviet government.

But the problem with the Bolsheviks go back to before the Civil War. The Bolsheviks had a contempt for democratic institutions- that's why they dissolved the assembly. They also had a contempt for the peasants, who were the majority of the Russian population. Put these two together, and the only way you avoid massive peasant revolts is if the Bolsheviks never make decisions that adversely affect the peasants, which is highly unlikely. And peasant revolts will just make the Bolsheviks more ruthless.
 
I also said as unlikely as these avenues might be, but yes, leave them open.

Just like today, a person working part-time at Walmart might dream of being a poker star. Takes a lot of skill in a lot of different situations. As a profession, probably among the hardest "easy money" a person will ever make. But if someone wants to do this, more power to them!

People have their dreams. And I strongly suspect the same was true back in the 1910s.
Sure they do, and did. The difference is that the Government isn't going to line you up against the wall and shoot you if you play professional poker.

Peasants being comfortable, having enough clothes and food to eat. THAT is a 'dream' at that point in Russia. Letting them aspire to that is one thing. Letting them aspire to 'riches'? Nope. They'd simply not be Bolshevists - or anything remotely LIKE Bolshevists.
 
But the problem with the Bolsheviks go back to before the Civil War. The Bolsheviks had a contempt for democratic institutions- that's why they dissolved the assembly. They also had a contempt for the peasants, who were the majority of the Russian population. . .
This is similar to doctors who have contempt for their patients. There are a fair number of doctors like this, and sometimes they're even effective doctors, although obviously handicapped by this and probably with blind spots.

Or, why would someone stay at a job as an elementary school PE teacher if she didn't have patience for children? If she didn't even really like children ? ? Oh, I remember a PE teacher like this. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

So, this is all a reasonably common human phenomenon.

And this is all part of the wank, what if Lenin, and what other leaders of the revolution had more of a sense of humor, a sense of proportion, a sense of irony.

And maybe studying another similar field can sometimes give you that.

And utilitarianism during the time of Bentham and James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill), I have read, was surprisingly successful in areas such as societal reform and changes in law for something which, afterall, was primarily a philosophic school of thought.
 
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