The biggest problem they fall in is constant universalism. Anything that is not pure in content, anything that includes any particular solutions to concrete problems, especially if it deviates from the Idea of Full Communism is deemed as a betrayal of the revolution. (Check out the conceptions of universalism and particularism in Hegel). Just to give an idea, he criticized Stalin for introducting wage-differentiation for different occupations (as in a doctor is paid more than a line worker). This was made to combat flight from factory to factory, in search of better wages and general reluctance to engage in more demanding jobs (as there were little to no incentives in the early collectivization phase). Since SU was trying to industralize heavily and was in need of experts, there had to be incentives for such experts to come to be. Trotsky criticized this as uncommunist, and insisted on keeping the wages the same for EVERYONE, as to build communism here and now, ignoring the reality that existed at that particular historical moment (and aleo because he hated Stalin).

Where can I read about this?

I’ve read Kristen R. Ghodsee’s Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism. DISCOURAGE people from reading this book! I would rate it as 2/5, it provides some limited data, most of which shows that USSR and the Eastern Bloc was one of the best places in the world to be a woman, yet the author does not refrain from saying “we definetely can have the same thing without ToTaLiTarIaN government”. She also vulgarizes Rosa Luxemburg in the last chapter, by saying that she believed that reform and revolution were different ways of achieving the same goal. I would take any recommendations on the “woman question” though, maybe except from Ultras like Kollontai who wanted to focus on universals and disregard the particulars (which Trotsky, curse his name, pointed out - focusing on universalization in the area of family, transforming the idea of “mine” and “yours” in regards to children leads to justifications of neglect of children, a shame he couldn’t see the same universalization he was committing in the national question, by focusing on an ideal of an “international” revolution and interpreting INTER-NATIONAL as cosmopolitan)

Why do you consider Colonialism to be such importnat subject so as to make 1/4 of the course about it? Do you reckon it is of any use to a comrade in a country like Slovakia, which has no history of colonialism whether imposed or enforced (or am I mistaken?) And what about modern problems and possible solutions to them? What about the nuclear question, or the rise of surveillance technology?