Rawthentic
3rd February 2009, 06:13
Dissecting Some Easy Rejection of Nepal’s Revolution (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/dissecting-one-easy-rejection-of-nepals-revolution/)
Posted by Mike E (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129785784) on February 1, 2009
( I REALLY recommend this article, especially in relation to the discussion around the banning of strikes in nepal)
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dissection-of-a-methodjpb.jpg?w=300&h=241 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dissection-of-a-methodjpb.jpg)This first appeared as a comment within the thread on Prachanda’s recent call (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/)to prepare to seize power, inside the existing process of writing a revolutionary constituion, and outside it in the case of continuing obstruction.
Kasama is posting this comment, not because it represents the common view of the Kasama Project but because it digs into a particular controversy that needs much more systematic treatment.
By Nando
FKAR writes:
“Lenin never said this [as the Nepali Maoists have], even during the NEP:
‘Both the management and workers have a common interest now, for the development of the economy.’
Let’s not forget the fundamental contradiction.”
I would like to break this down and get into it.
There is a rather common method being exercised that says:
1) You can deduce what road the revolutionaries are on through a textual analysis of a few public statements (or a few sentences from a public statement).
Moreover, in the case of Nepal, it is extended to mean “those public statements available to us in English.” In fact, our discussion is often limited to two kinds of public statements: the ones the Nepali Maoists choose to translate, and the ones that come to us through the bourgeois press.
In the case of Lenin, it is assumed that the statements we have available (in the form of official Soviet publications of Lenin’s works) are the full list of the statements he made.
In the case of Nepal, it assumes that what Bhattarai is saying (in english) to the western press is the same thing the Maoist cadre are saying in the factories of Kathmandu and in the base camps of the Peoples Liberation Army, or in unpublished strategic documents of the party’s many recent conclaves.
This belief in the power of “textual analysis” has a world of assumptions in it (i.e. that the texts you are analyzing are accurate, that the various figures are saying what they mean, that you have texts that represent the larger picture of their policies and so on.)
Of course, line is represented in speech and print, and the public documents have SOME relationship to lines (and the struggle over line). But the method deployed here assumes a simple linear relation: what we receive is what they are saying, what they are saying is what they believe, what they believe is what they are acting on, and there is (more or less) a single “they” that has (more or less) a single common plan.
2) We can compare current statements with “classic” statements to judge the correctness of comrades.
In other words, if Lenin once said something similar it is probably OK. If lenin didn’t say something similar, it is probably suspect.
And we are not talking about larger careful analysis here (i.e. not the comparison of Lenin’s analysis of classes under socialism, with a document analyzes the relations of classes in Nepal under the new government). We are talking about comparing 5 second sound bites for legitimacy.
This has a world of assuptions in this too — including that (a) Lenin’s statements were correct. (b) that to be correct one has to be confined to the framework of statements similar to Lenin’s. (c) that conditions in revolutionary situations are similar from country to country (i.e. that what applied to russia in the NEP applies to Nepal a century later in the period before the seizure of power, and so on.)
3) The statement on not forgetting the “fundamental contradiction” implies there is a rather simple standard for measuring the class consciousness and sincerity of communists.
That too has has a world of assumptions in it.
first, what is the “fundamental contradiction”?
For marxists (generally) the fundamental contradiction of capitalism is between the socialized nature of production and the private nature of appropriation. For feudalism giving rise to revolution, there is a different fundamental contradiction.
and for a particular kind of marxist (a kind identified with a workerist trend) it is assumed that the “fundamental contradiction” is simple “workers vs. bosses.” In other words, for people of an “economist” bend, everything can be seen and judged through the prism of “workers vs. bosses.”
And so, if a revolutionary leader says ANYTHING that treats the relationship of “workers and bosses” as anything but simply and constantly antagonistic — the workerist trend thinks (on the basis of that statement alone) we can judge them to be confused at best, and class collaborationist at worst.
So that simple sentence on “fundamental contradiction” (by FKAR) is deeply marked by assumptions — and by verdicts based on those assumptions.
A Method That Offers Verdicts Without Work
What stands out to me is that making judgments based on this method means that you don’t have to make any analysis. You don’t have to know anything about the situation in Kathmandu, you don’t have to know what is going on in the factories, you don’t have to know what ELSE the Nepali Maoists are saying or doing. You can simply take a sentence or two and spin a verdict.
If I was being sarcastic, i could say that this is a wonderful method for people who don’t have the time to investigate anything. You can “know the world” without investigating the world. And I could say (sarcastically) that I am envious of people whose world view allows them to make analysis without digging deeply into the actual conditions.
And more: correct analysis is not just a matter of “seeing” a set of data called “the facts.” It also requires excavating (critically) the assumptions and underpinnings of your own conceptual framework. Several people base their criticism on an unelaborated criticism of the Maoist theory of two-stage socialist revolution in semi-feudal countries (the theory of New Democracy).
Often this Maoist theory is dismissed by two methods: First it is said that Mao’s theory is rooted in a strategic alliance (in the first stage of revolution) with the anti-feudal and anti imperialists sections of national bourgeoisie — this (again by simple assertion) is proclaimed “class collaboration” and therefore wrong in principle. Second it is said that Maoism is a subset of Stalinism, and therefore New Democracy must be a subset of stalin’s popular front, and therefore the non-revolutionary implications of that popular front (in pre World war 2 span and post World War 2 france and Italy) reveal that New Democracy must be (similarly) non-revolutionary. These are arguments by deduction and analogy — and are (inherently in their method) shallow and unsatisfying.
Yes, there needs to be a real engagement with Mao’s theory of New Democracy. Yes there needs to be an engagement with the Nepali Maoist decision to envision an anti-monarchist “substage” in their approach to New Democratic revolution. And yes, there needs to be an analysis of their current struggle over when to end that sub-stage, and how to gather forces for the revolution forward. I can’t imagine how you can dismiss the revolution in Nepal without seriously engaging somewhere on those three issues.
The obvious problem is that you can’t reach any correct or insightful analysis of anything with that method of “deduction from pre-existing principles” — without any serious investigation and theoretical engagement.
The Exciting Fact that Our World has Living Revolutions
(Without being sarcastic) I want to argue strongly against an infantile and very dogmatic approach to living revolutions.
for many people reading this, this is the first living set of revolutions you have had a chance to watch and learn from. This is not a time for infantile judgement, highly mechanical methods, or quick rush to judgment.
It may be that this revolution in Nepal gets derailed. It may be that it eventually doesn’t find its way through all the complex contradictions it faces. It may be (ultimately) that a wrong line gets consolidated. It may be that they ultimately get crushed by the National Army.
But a method that makes judgment on a few press releases will never understand the actual process of either revolution OR counterrevolution. And that would be a terrible loss.
And more serious are the results of this methodological approach: Many people are not taking up their internationalist responsibilities to discuss (with people in the U.S.) the Maoist revolutions in Nepal and India. And the reason for much of this is that there is a widespread inability to take a clear stand. People don’t “support the revolution, while we analyze its developments with a critical mind.” To many take a stand of “watch with suspicion, without supporting the revolution at all.”
It has been so long since there has been a communist revolution near power that many communists actually don’t know how to act.
In this I am with N3wday: I am eager for a much deeper understanding of the background for these events and statements. And I am suspicious of any judgment that is not based on such analysis.
But further, it is not just a matter of “get more facts.” It is also a matter of understanding how revolutions proceed, how they sometimes have to consolidate or make concessions, or fight for a period of stability so they can move to the next leap, or oppose the destabilization and growing chaos that suddenly erupts in revolutions.
It is very naive to think that if revolutionaries are calling for calm they must be counterrevolutionaries. Or to think that if a new government is seeking foreign loans (in words, at the moment) it must be preparing to establish neocolonialism
The actual history of actual revolutions
On another level, it is worth noting that FKAR is mistaken when he suggests that Lenin’s government did not have to develop similar policies in regard to “workers and management.”
I say this while setting aside (just for this second) the huge differences between Lenin’s NEP and the current situation in Nepal (including the differences between their countries, the differences in the nature of their revolution, and the fact that Nepal has not actually had its revolution yet.)
Every socialist revolution so far has had in its economic structure three or four different kinds of ownership system in industrial production:
They have had private capitalists operating, they have had state capitalism operating, they have had the beginnings of socialist ownership (usually started by expropriating the property of reactionaries who opposed them in the civil war), and then they have had a sea of “cooperatives” (which means various kinds of “small businesses” inside a socialist transition period.
In Lenin’s time there were a number of major joint operations with foreign capitalists (in order to get the Baku oil fields going, but not just there.) And if you investigate it, you will discover that Lenin had to help work out how the “relations in production” would operate for a capitalist firm operating within a newborn socialist state.
Having to mediate the relations of workers and management within some key capitalist concerns (at the very beginning of a socialist process) does not mean (inherently) that the revolutionaries do not intend to have a socialist process.
Perhaps a better analogy to Nepal, would be the Maoist policies in the period before the 1949 seizure of power — where the Chinese Maoists had some areas of political power, but were overall working within the framework of a country dominated by the old order (and in the framework of a war shattered economy, and within the shadow of new threats of war). Go investigate Mao’s approach to the capitalists willing to operate in areas under his control (who often played a key role bringing in necessary salt etc.)
More to the point, on the fundamental contradiction of feudalism: in that period Mao called of the agrarian revolution for a period, and his movement arranged “rent reductions” in areas under their control. One aspect of this was forcing landlords to lower rents. But inherently, another aspect of that policy was upholding that peasants needed to pay those landlords those lowered rents. In one sense, the Maoists were (temporarily) in the position of enforcing the payment of those rents whose abolition was at the heart of the agrarian revolution (and whose abolition went to the heart of the fundamental contradiction of feudal relations).
One way of getting a materialist understanding of the difficult emergence of radical new economic relations from a radical political movement is to study Mao’s writings from that period of transition. (Example Mao’s essay “we must learn to do economic work (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_22.htm).”)
My point is not that Mao’s words and policies apply directly to Nepal (which is under rather different conditions)… but to point out that the task of revolutionaries (especially as they approach state power) is not simple to agitate the people against the property owners. There are complexities to the process.
After the seizure of power in china, the revolution nationalized the property of large bureaucrat capitalists who had sided with the KMT, and they nationalized the property of foreign imperialists.
But they did not nationalize the property of capitalists who had (one way or another) supported the revolution and who had not fled the country with the KMT armies, and whose enterprises formed an important, stable and functioning part of the economy. so, for example, as the Chinese revolutionary army fought in Korea, the meat they ate during the war came from slaughterhouses that were still privately owned (and we know this because there were scandals and conflicts over the supply of meat). However, for the sake of this discussion the point is that in such cases, the revolutionary government of Mao clearly needed a policy for adjudicating the relations of management and workers in those capitalist concerns (even while the conditions were being created, overall, for developing the socialist economy and integrating those factories into such a planned and liberated economy.)
A Brief but Nuanced Discussion of Strikes
Newspaper accounts have widely among some anarchist circles, that the Maoists have been banning strikes in Nepal’s public sector. I look forward to learning the details of these events — whether they are true, whether they are justified, whether they are not justified, and so on.
But in order to even have the space to make such a judgement we need to visit some very basic historical materialist points about strikes:
Are strikes a form of struggle by workers? obviously. Have strikes played a good role in revolutionary upsurges and the organization of working people? Obviously.
Does that mean that all strike waves are good, and should be encouraged? No.
Now all of this goes against some assumptions.
There is a workerist and syndicalist logic there assumes there is only one way in which socialism can arrive: Since socialism is worker control, by simple logic socialism can only arrive when the workers take direct control of the means of production. And since strikes are seen (in this syndicalist view) as a first step toward “workers control” — clearly any action by any government or party that seeks to modify (or “dictate”!) the actions of workers (at the point of production) must be anti-socialist. Again, this is a politics without tactics, or strategy, or political mediation — it is a method of analysis that does not require any analysis of events, or forces, or outcomes. Workers either are in control of themselves and production or they aren’t. And so (from that assumption) you can draw simple and clear inferences (without any study of tactics, strategy, conjuncture or political mediation).
Real history (and real revolution) don’t work like that. (Just as real socialism is not — either politically or economically — a product of direct ”worker control.”)
The first thing that happened after the Bolshevik October Revolution was a national railroad strike launched by the anti-Bolshevik national railroad workers union to oppose (and strangle) the communist revolution. And the first act of the Bolsheviks in power was breaking that strike, and getting the trains running so that they could extend their power from a few centers (and so they could wage and win civil war).
And strikes have also played a major role in destabilizing governments that the U.S. wanted destabilized — most famously in Allende’s chile, and recently in Venezuela. So when we “remember the fundamental contradiction” lets remember that this fundamental contradiciton is resolved, not by economic strikes, but by revolution — and we need to evaluate strikes (in revolutionary periods, and under socialism) not from some simplistic notion that “strikes are always right” but from the point of view of the revolution itself.
It is even possible for a revolutionary moment to unleash a long-pentup and justified demand for wages that are (nontheless) inconvenient for that revolutionary moment. there was a famous time in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, just as events in Shanghai were ripening for a seizure of power (by the many mass organizations against the entrenched party committee.) And (in that moment) wave of economic workstoppages broke out, and there was a combination of suppression and concessions by the existing party committee. These events could not be judged by simplistic methods, since the standard had to be what would move events, the rebel organizations, and public opinion toward the more important question of power itelf: what class and what future would be represented in Shanghai, and China, and ultimately the world?
At the Anting Incident Mao’s followers argued against the workstoppages while uniting with the new revolutionary grassroots organizations and their demands. It played a key role in setting the stage for the January Storm (for the actual seizure of power and overthrow of the old party.
The Particularities of Nepal
After I originally posted this essay as a comment, Bryan wrote (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/#comment-11100):
“Nice chapter, Nando. Here’s a brief response that people who aren’t internet warriors can read quickly: Nepal is a bourgeois republic. It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state. Nepal under Prachanda = Bourgeois republic. USSR under Lenin = workers state. Parliament and soviets are two institutions that politically reflect opposing classes.”
Bryan is, as he promises, rather tidy:
His argument implies that you don’t need to lay bare your argument, but that you can just present your verdict — and that the truth is revealed (because the truth about reality is ultimately simple.)
But I want to argue that we need a “nice chapter” (and actually more) to understand conditions within a real revolution unfolding in a very different culture, in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains. In other words, here again, we have to argue for the very right (and necessity) to do real analysis. (Even a “chapter,” god forbid!) Not just a soundbite, not just a quick litmus test.
And I want to make a simple argument to readers: If you want to judge real revolutions by soundbites and unexplored assumptions, go ahead. But you will not “know the world, to change the world.” If we don’t have the analytical tools to really study, explore, evaluate and learn from this living revolution — how can we possibly make one? Do we imagine that the choices and paths of our own revolution are so simple?
Just imagine the assumptions embedded in this little formula:
“Parliament and soviets are two institutions that politically reflect opposing classes.”
In fact, the state capitalists of the Soviet Union proved quite capable (as Mao pointed out) of using the Soviet form to carry out capitalism. And Soviets have not proven to be a form that was easily exported from the tsarist empire to other o****ries (though it was tried with some disasterous effects.) In fact each revolution will undoubtedly create its own instutions from its own particularities… not pick up forms from the past.
Other parts of what Brian asserts is formulas laden with unstated assumptions (which, in fact, need to be engaged — refuted or upheld).
But let me just unravel some of the problems with this tidy bundle of verdicts-without-underpinnings:
“Nepal is a bourgeois republic. It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state. “
Nepal is currently a country that has (very recently) entered into a fragile (I’d say “unstable”) status that can be termed “bourgeois democracy.” It is not quite a “bourgeois republic” (as Bryan claims) because the main instrument of power in the country (the National Army) is under the control of notorious feudal castes and royalist cliques — and so the state (in Nepal) is hardly simply “bourgeois” but is confronted (from within) by quite powerful and quite feudal forces. (Let’s say for our more pedantic readers that it is like a “Feburary Revolution under Nepali conditions.”)
Part of Bryan’s argument is correct: Nepal has not (yet) passed through a seizure of power that breaks up the old instruments of class power and (in a decisive way) puts radically new, different forces in power (who are fighting for a socialist road).
In fact, Nepal is in a complex situation where the government is headed by Maoists, while the royalist military still exists. And the difference between this and Allende’s Chile is that in THIS case, the Maoists ALSO have their own army encamped in “cantons” across the country (and, some say, dispersed in the country as organizers of the militant Young Communist League).
Now this situation can’t be analysed by looking at “the classics” — because no such situation has happened before.
But even to start to analyze it, we need to confront Bryan’s assertion:
“It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state.”
Ok, I’ll bite: How do you know? What is your evidence and reasoning? I would like to see Bryan (or anyone knowledgable) to document this claim.
I think this may prove to be true (eventually). But I don’t think the situation is yet so simple.
It is clear that there are some forces (within the Maoist party, and many observors outside their ranks) who would like to see the Maoists adopt the stabilization of capitalism as their goal. I think there is evidence that the sharp struggle within the UCP(M) involves that question — whether to consolidate the anti-monarchist revolution at the new bourgeois democratic stage, or to move on by revolutionary means to form a Peoples Democracy, a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. And predictably, part of the struggle in the ideological realm revolves around what, precisely, a Peoples Democracy is and isn’t. Can anyone tell what the details of this conflict are?
Is there some way of knowing that the revolutionary impulses will be (or already have been) defeated? Should we really act on that assumption? Is there a law that says the Right in this struggle can’t be defeated? Or that a “genuine left” can’t take a revolutionary path against them (next week? next month? or….)
For Bryan, I suspect that he assumes there is no “left” in this conflict (because they are all Maoists, and therefore Stalinists, and therefore proponents of Menshevism, and therefore inherently class collaborationist, and therefore….) There are well-known currents in trotskyism that see mere reality as the pale but loyal manifestations of all-mighty pre-existing principles. But most of us are not as prone to dogmatic inferences and unjustified certainties.
Speaking for myself, I constantly feel partially blinded by only having very fragmentary information…. and I find it hard to get an overall picture of where things are going. This makes some people very impatient — but neither science or real events care whether we feel that kind of impatience. (I am also impatient to learn when in the evolutionary process human speech developed, but I’m just going to have to fucking wait until there is some basis for a conclusion.) And luckily we don’t NEED some final verdict in order to act on some important international responsibiities — and we need to grasp that in revolution there really are no final verdicts, and the slim reed of forward progress is always contested, controversial, and whipping about wildly in contingent winds.
It is clear that the reacitonary parties have created a real roadblock in the Constituent Assembly (where the revolutionaries won a plurality but not a majority). And this means that on the key questions of revolution (agrarian revolution, the future of the National army, the relations with India, the treatment of minority groups) the Maoists can’t simply decide, and the reactionaries can simply obstruct. The only apparent resolution to emerge out of this framework would be a profound Maoist concession on those key matters (which, obviously, is exactly what is being demanded.)
Identifying and Critically Evaluating a Leading Line
Now in that light, I want to point out that the essay by Prachanda (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/#comment-11100) (calling on the people to prepare to seize power) has barely been discussed.
In discussion with one person, they said to me “Well i like his statement, it is encouraging, but I don’t like their other statements.”
Ok, but really, you need to develop a synthesis: you need to examine how these various parts fit together, to get an insight into what is actually being attempted.
What does it mean to “like” the statements when the revolutionaries are calling for a new advance, and “not like” those statements that call for consolidation or retreat? Are we revolutionaries when we advance, but revisionists when we retreat or retrench or compromise? Isn’t that a bit simplistic and subjective? what are the measurements by which you “like” something: Whether real people and events fit into your linear expectations?
Prachanda is threatening widespread mass struggle (and possibly insurrection) if there isn’t progress toward a radically new and different constitution in the assembly. He is identify the parties that are roadblocks to the people’s hopes, and he is calling on the people to prepare for struggle. And (very prominently in this piece) he is pointing out the important role played by the armed struggle (previously in the form of peoples war) in all progress so far.
This is a call for people (at the base of society and of his party) to prepare themselves for the next wave of struggle. Mao on the eve of his final push for power made a famous statement “Cast Away Illusions Prepare for Struggle (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_66.htm)” — which is interesting in many ways (including about what it reveals about the depth of illusions that had been growing in Mao’s party during their period of pre-revolutionary negotiations with the KMT).
And then (simultaneous with this statement) there are other events happening:
An attempt to define what exactly this “Peoples Democratic Republic” would be — which the Maoists are advocating instead of capitalism (and instead of the parliamentary republic advocated by the reactionary parties).
And various forces in the Nepali party are (from their views, and from their Ministries) making statements about that — not all of which seem to be seamlessly connected. In other words, there are some common views being expressed, and some divergent views being expressed.
And all of this is happening in the context of a clear (and long expected!) crisis in the constituent assembly process.
Some people think that the deadlock in the constitutent assembly means that the Maoists were wrong to enter that process. this is an example of the kind of infantile logic I am trying to criticize.
Often communists must enter a process, KNOWING its limitations, knowing that it will resolve one conflict but produce new ones, and knowing that this will help THE PEOPLE deepen their experience and understanding of the various political forces.
It was obvious (all along) that this Constituent Assembly could not agree (or more precisely that it could only agree if the Maoists gave up their cause). this was, for example, one of the main points of a speech at the big Nepal event in the New School (when Prachanda was in New York City).
So this knot tightens and demands resolution, and Prachanda is saying (like Mao) that the people need to sharpen their sword.
If you want to analyze the UCP(M) other statements, perhaps you should consider what they mean in that context.
Posted by Mike E (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129785784) on February 1, 2009
( I REALLY recommend this article, especially in relation to the discussion around the banning of strikes in nepal)
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dissection-of-a-methodjpb.jpg?w=300&h=241 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dissection-of-a-methodjpb.jpg)This first appeared as a comment within the thread on Prachanda’s recent call (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/)to prepare to seize power, inside the existing process of writing a revolutionary constituion, and outside it in the case of continuing obstruction.
Kasama is posting this comment, not because it represents the common view of the Kasama Project but because it digs into a particular controversy that needs much more systematic treatment.
By Nando
FKAR writes:
“Lenin never said this [as the Nepali Maoists have], even during the NEP:
‘Both the management and workers have a common interest now, for the development of the economy.’
Let’s not forget the fundamental contradiction.”
I would like to break this down and get into it.
There is a rather common method being exercised that says:
1) You can deduce what road the revolutionaries are on through a textual analysis of a few public statements (or a few sentences from a public statement).
Moreover, in the case of Nepal, it is extended to mean “those public statements available to us in English.” In fact, our discussion is often limited to two kinds of public statements: the ones the Nepali Maoists choose to translate, and the ones that come to us through the bourgeois press.
In the case of Lenin, it is assumed that the statements we have available (in the form of official Soviet publications of Lenin’s works) are the full list of the statements he made.
In the case of Nepal, it assumes that what Bhattarai is saying (in english) to the western press is the same thing the Maoist cadre are saying in the factories of Kathmandu and in the base camps of the Peoples Liberation Army, or in unpublished strategic documents of the party’s many recent conclaves.
This belief in the power of “textual analysis” has a world of assumptions in it (i.e. that the texts you are analyzing are accurate, that the various figures are saying what they mean, that you have texts that represent the larger picture of their policies and so on.)
Of course, line is represented in speech and print, and the public documents have SOME relationship to lines (and the struggle over line). But the method deployed here assumes a simple linear relation: what we receive is what they are saying, what they are saying is what they believe, what they believe is what they are acting on, and there is (more or less) a single “they” that has (more or less) a single common plan.
2) We can compare current statements with “classic” statements to judge the correctness of comrades.
In other words, if Lenin once said something similar it is probably OK. If lenin didn’t say something similar, it is probably suspect.
And we are not talking about larger careful analysis here (i.e. not the comparison of Lenin’s analysis of classes under socialism, with a document analyzes the relations of classes in Nepal under the new government). We are talking about comparing 5 second sound bites for legitimacy.
This has a world of assuptions in this too — including that (a) Lenin’s statements were correct. (b) that to be correct one has to be confined to the framework of statements similar to Lenin’s. (c) that conditions in revolutionary situations are similar from country to country (i.e. that what applied to russia in the NEP applies to Nepal a century later in the period before the seizure of power, and so on.)
3) The statement on not forgetting the “fundamental contradiction” implies there is a rather simple standard for measuring the class consciousness and sincerity of communists.
That too has has a world of assumptions in it.
first, what is the “fundamental contradiction”?
For marxists (generally) the fundamental contradiction of capitalism is between the socialized nature of production and the private nature of appropriation. For feudalism giving rise to revolution, there is a different fundamental contradiction.
and for a particular kind of marxist (a kind identified with a workerist trend) it is assumed that the “fundamental contradiction” is simple “workers vs. bosses.” In other words, for people of an “economist” bend, everything can be seen and judged through the prism of “workers vs. bosses.”
And so, if a revolutionary leader says ANYTHING that treats the relationship of “workers and bosses” as anything but simply and constantly antagonistic — the workerist trend thinks (on the basis of that statement alone) we can judge them to be confused at best, and class collaborationist at worst.
So that simple sentence on “fundamental contradiction” (by FKAR) is deeply marked by assumptions — and by verdicts based on those assumptions.
A Method That Offers Verdicts Without Work
What stands out to me is that making judgments based on this method means that you don’t have to make any analysis. You don’t have to know anything about the situation in Kathmandu, you don’t have to know what is going on in the factories, you don’t have to know what ELSE the Nepali Maoists are saying or doing. You can simply take a sentence or two and spin a verdict.
If I was being sarcastic, i could say that this is a wonderful method for people who don’t have the time to investigate anything. You can “know the world” without investigating the world. And I could say (sarcastically) that I am envious of people whose world view allows them to make analysis without digging deeply into the actual conditions.
And more: correct analysis is not just a matter of “seeing” a set of data called “the facts.” It also requires excavating (critically) the assumptions and underpinnings of your own conceptual framework. Several people base their criticism on an unelaborated criticism of the Maoist theory of two-stage socialist revolution in semi-feudal countries (the theory of New Democracy).
Often this Maoist theory is dismissed by two methods: First it is said that Mao’s theory is rooted in a strategic alliance (in the first stage of revolution) with the anti-feudal and anti imperialists sections of national bourgeoisie — this (again by simple assertion) is proclaimed “class collaboration” and therefore wrong in principle. Second it is said that Maoism is a subset of Stalinism, and therefore New Democracy must be a subset of stalin’s popular front, and therefore the non-revolutionary implications of that popular front (in pre World war 2 span and post World War 2 france and Italy) reveal that New Democracy must be (similarly) non-revolutionary. These are arguments by deduction and analogy — and are (inherently in their method) shallow and unsatisfying.
Yes, there needs to be a real engagement with Mao’s theory of New Democracy. Yes there needs to be an engagement with the Nepali Maoist decision to envision an anti-monarchist “substage” in their approach to New Democratic revolution. And yes, there needs to be an analysis of their current struggle over when to end that sub-stage, and how to gather forces for the revolution forward. I can’t imagine how you can dismiss the revolution in Nepal without seriously engaging somewhere on those three issues.
The obvious problem is that you can’t reach any correct or insightful analysis of anything with that method of “deduction from pre-existing principles” — without any serious investigation and theoretical engagement.
The Exciting Fact that Our World has Living Revolutions
(Without being sarcastic) I want to argue strongly against an infantile and very dogmatic approach to living revolutions.
for many people reading this, this is the first living set of revolutions you have had a chance to watch and learn from. This is not a time for infantile judgement, highly mechanical methods, or quick rush to judgment.
It may be that this revolution in Nepal gets derailed. It may be that it eventually doesn’t find its way through all the complex contradictions it faces. It may be (ultimately) that a wrong line gets consolidated. It may be that they ultimately get crushed by the National Army.
But a method that makes judgment on a few press releases will never understand the actual process of either revolution OR counterrevolution. And that would be a terrible loss.
And more serious are the results of this methodological approach: Many people are not taking up their internationalist responsibilities to discuss (with people in the U.S.) the Maoist revolutions in Nepal and India. And the reason for much of this is that there is a widespread inability to take a clear stand. People don’t “support the revolution, while we analyze its developments with a critical mind.” To many take a stand of “watch with suspicion, without supporting the revolution at all.”
It has been so long since there has been a communist revolution near power that many communists actually don’t know how to act.
In this I am with N3wday: I am eager for a much deeper understanding of the background for these events and statements. And I am suspicious of any judgment that is not based on such analysis.
But further, it is not just a matter of “get more facts.” It is also a matter of understanding how revolutions proceed, how they sometimes have to consolidate or make concessions, or fight for a period of stability so they can move to the next leap, or oppose the destabilization and growing chaos that suddenly erupts in revolutions.
It is very naive to think that if revolutionaries are calling for calm they must be counterrevolutionaries. Or to think that if a new government is seeking foreign loans (in words, at the moment) it must be preparing to establish neocolonialism
The actual history of actual revolutions
On another level, it is worth noting that FKAR is mistaken when he suggests that Lenin’s government did not have to develop similar policies in regard to “workers and management.”
I say this while setting aside (just for this second) the huge differences between Lenin’s NEP and the current situation in Nepal (including the differences between their countries, the differences in the nature of their revolution, and the fact that Nepal has not actually had its revolution yet.)
Every socialist revolution so far has had in its economic structure three or four different kinds of ownership system in industrial production:
They have had private capitalists operating, they have had state capitalism operating, they have had the beginnings of socialist ownership (usually started by expropriating the property of reactionaries who opposed them in the civil war), and then they have had a sea of “cooperatives” (which means various kinds of “small businesses” inside a socialist transition period.
In Lenin’s time there were a number of major joint operations with foreign capitalists (in order to get the Baku oil fields going, but not just there.) And if you investigate it, you will discover that Lenin had to help work out how the “relations in production” would operate for a capitalist firm operating within a newborn socialist state.
Having to mediate the relations of workers and management within some key capitalist concerns (at the very beginning of a socialist process) does not mean (inherently) that the revolutionaries do not intend to have a socialist process.
Perhaps a better analogy to Nepal, would be the Maoist policies in the period before the 1949 seizure of power — where the Chinese Maoists had some areas of political power, but were overall working within the framework of a country dominated by the old order (and in the framework of a war shattered economy, and within the shadow of new threats of war). Go investigate Mao’s approach to the capitalists willing to operate in areas under his control (who often played a key role bringing in necessary salt etc.)
More to the point, on the fundamental contradiction of feudalism: in that period Mao called of the agrarian revolution for a period, and his movement arranged “rent reductions” in areas under their control. One aspect of this was forcing landlords to lower rents. But inherently, another aspect of that policy was upholding that peasants needed to pay those landlords those lowered rents. In one sense, the Maoists were (temporarily) in the position of enforcing the payment of those rents whose abolition was at the heart of the agrarian revolution (and whose abolition went to the heart of the fundamental contradiction of feudal relations).
One way of getting a materialist understanding of the difficult emergence of radical new economic relations from a radical political movement is to study Mao’s writings from that period of transition. (Example Mao’s essay “we must learn to do economic work (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_22.htm).”)
My point is not that Mao’s words and policies apply directly to Nepal (which is under rather different conditions)… but to point out that the task of revolutionaries (especially as they approach state power) is not simple to agitate the people against the property owners. There are complexities to the process.
After the seizure of power in china, the revolution nationalized the property of large bureaucrat capitalists who had sided with the KMT, and they nationalized the property of foreign imperialists.
But they did not nationalize the property of capitalists who had (one way or another) supported the revolution and who had not fled the country with the KMT armies, and whose enterprises formed an important, stable and functioning part of the economy. so, for example, as the Chinese revolutionary army fought in Korea, the meat they ate during the war came from slaughterhouses that were still privately owned (and we know this because there were scandals and conflicts over the supply of meat). However, for the sake of this discussion the point is that in such cases, the revolutionary government of Mao clearly needed a policy for adjudicating the relations of management and workers in those capitalist concerns (even while the conditions were being created, overall, for developing the socialist economy and integrating those factories into such a planned and liberated economy.)
A Brief but Nuanced Discussion of Strikes
Newspaper accounts have widely among some anarchist circles, that the Maoists have been banning strikes in Nepal’s public sector. I look forward to learning the details of these events — whether they are true, whether they are justified, whether they are not justified, and so on.
But in order to even have the space to make such a judgement we need to visit some very basic historical materialist points about strikes:
Are strikes a form of struggle by workers? obviously. Have strikes played a good role in revolutionary upsurges and the organization of working people? Obviously.
Does that mean that all strike waves are good, and should be encouraged? No.
Now all of this goes against some assumptions.
There is a workerist and syndicalist logic there assumes there is only one way in which socialism can arrive: Since socialism is worker control, by simple logic socialism can only arrive when the workers take direct control of the means of production. And since strikes are seen (in this syndicalist view) as a first step toward “workers control” — clearly any action by any government or party that seeks to modify (or “dictate”!) the actions of workers (at the point of production) must be anti-socialist. Again, this is a politics without tactics, or strategy, or political mediation — it is a method of analysis that does not require any analysis of events, or forces, or outcomes. Workers either are in control of themselves and production or they aren’t. And so (from that assumption) you can draw simple and clear inferences (without any study of tactics, strategy, conjuncture or political mediation).
Real history (and real revolution) don’t work like that. (Just as real socialism is not — either politically or economically — a product of direct ”worker control.”)
The first thing that happened after the Bolshevik October Revolution was a national railroad strike launched by the anti-Bolshevik national railroad workers union to oppose (and strangle) the communist revolution. And the first act of the Bolsheviks in power was breaking that strike, and getting the trains running so that they could extend their power from a few centers (and so they could wage and win civil war).
And strikes have also played a major role in destabilizing governments that the U.S. wanted destabilized — most famously in Allende’s chile, and recently in Venezuela. So when we “remember the fundamental contradiction” lets remember that this fundamental contradiciton is resolved, not by economic strikes, but by revolution — and we need to evaluate strikes (in revolutionary periods, and under socialism) not from some simplistic notion that “strikes are always right” but from the point of view of the revolution itself.
It is even possible for a revolutionary moment to unleash a long-pentup and justified demand for wages that are (nontheless) inconvenient for that revolutionary moment. there was a famous time in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, just as events in Shanghai were ripening for a seizure of power (by the many mass organizations against the entrenched party committee.) And (in that moment) wave of economic workstoppages broke out, and there was a combination of suppression and concessions by the existing party committee. These events could not be judged by simplistic methods, since the standard had to be what would move events, the rebel organizations, and public opinion toward the more important question of power itelf: what class and what future would be represented in Shanghai, and China, and ultimately the world?
At the Anting Incident Mao’s followers argued against the workstoppages while uniting with the new revolutionary grassroots organizations and their demands. It played a key role in setting the stage for the January Storm (for the actual seizure of power and overthrow of the old party.
The Particularities of Nepal
After I originally posted this essay as a comment, Bryan wrote (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/#comment-11100):
“Nice chapter, Nando. Here’s a brief response that people who aren’t internet warriors can read quickly: Nepal is a bourgeois republic. It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state. Nepal under Prachanda = Bourgeois republic. USSR under Lenin = workers state. Parliament and soviets are two institutions that politically reflect opposing classes.”
Bryan is, as he promises, rather tidy:
His argument implies that you don’t need to lay bare your argument, but that you can just present your verdict — and that the truth is revealed (because the truth about reality is ultimately simple.)
But I want to argue that we need a “nice chapter” (and actually more) to understand conditions within a real revolution unfolding in a very different culture, in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains. In other words, here again, we have to argue for the very right (and necessity) to do real analysis. (Even a “chapter,” god forbid!) Not just a soundbite, not just a quick litmus test.
And I want to make a simple argument to readers: If you want to judge real revolutions by soundbites and unexplored assumptions, go ahead. But you will not “know the world, to change the world.” If we don’t have the analytical tools to really study, explore, evaluate and learn from this living revolution — how can we possibly make one? Do we imagine that the choices and paths of our own revolution are so simple?
Just imagine the assumptions embedded in this little formula:
“Parliament and soviets are two institutions that politically reflect opposing classes.”
In fact, the state capitalists of the Soviet Union proved quite capable (as Mao pointed out) of using the Soviet form to carry out capitalism. And Soviets have not proven to be a form that was easily exported from the tsarist empire to other o****ries (though it was tried with some disasterous effects.) In fact each revolution will undoubtedly create its own instutions from its own particularities… not pick up forms from the past.
Other parts of what Brian asserts is formulas laden with unstated assumptions (which, in fact, need to be engaged — refuted or upheld).
But let me just unravel some of the problems with this tidy bundle of verdicts-without-underpinnings:
“Nepal is a bourgeois republic. It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state. “
Nepal is currently a country that has (very recently) entered into a fragile (I’d say “unstable”) status that can be termed “bourgeois democracy.” It is not quite a “bourgeois republic” (as Bryan claims) because the main instrument of power in the country (the National Army) is under the control of notorious feudal castes and royalist cliques — and so the state (in Nepal) is hardly simply “bourgeois” but is confronted (from within) by quite powerful and quite feudal forces. (Let’s say for our more pedantic readers that it is like a “Feburary Revolution under Nepali conditions.”)
Part of Bryan’s argument is correct: Nepal has not (yet) passed through a seizure of power that breaks up the old instruments of class power and (in a decisive way) puts radically new, different forces in power (who are fighting for a socialist road).
In fact, Nepal is in a complex situation where the government is headed by Maoists, while the royalist military still exists. And the difference between this and Allende’s Chile is that in THIS case, the Maoists ALSO have their own army encamped in “cantons” across the country (and, some say, dispersed in the country as organizers of the militant Young Communist League).
Now this situation can’t be analysed by looking at “the classics” — because no such situation has happened before.
But even to start to analyze it, we need to confront Bryan’s assertion:
“It is not evolving towards something else. Prachanda’s goal is to stabilize a bourgeois republic with himself as the head of state.”
Ok, I’ll bite: How do you know? What is your evidence and reasoning? I would like to see Bryan (or anyone knowledgable) to document this claim.
I think this may prove to be true (eventually). But I don’t think the situation is yet so simple.
It is clear that there are some forces (within the Maoist party, and many observors outside their ranks) who would like to see the Maoists adopt the stabilization of capitalism as their goal. I think there is evidence that the sharp struggle within the UCP(M) involves that question — whether to consolidate the anti-monarchist revolution at the new bourgeois democratic stage, or to move on by revolutionary means to form a Peoples Democracy, a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. And predictably, part of the struggle in the ideological realm revolves around what, precisely, a Peoples Democracy is and isn’t. Can anyone tell what the details of this conflict are?
Is there some way of knowing that the revolutionary impulses will be (or already have been) defeated? Should we really act on that assumption? Is there a law that says the Right in this struggle can’t be defeated? Or that a “genuine left” can’t take a revolutionary path against them (next week? next month? or….)
For Bryan, I suspect that he assumes there is no “left” in this conflict (because they are all Maoists, and therefore Stalinists, and therefore proponents of Menshevism, and therefore inherently class collaborationist, and therefore….) There are well-known currents in trotskyism that see mere reality as the pale but loyal manifestations of all-mighty pre-existing principles. But most of us are not as prone to dogmatic inferences and unjustified certainties.
Speaking for myself, I constantly feel partially blinded by only having very fragmentary information…. and I find it hard to get an overall picture of where things are going. This makes some people very impatient — but neither science or real events care whether we feel that kind of impatience. (I am also impatient to learn when in the evolutionary process human speech developed, but I’m just going to have to fucking wait until there is some basis for a conclusion.) And luckily we don’t NEED some final verdict in order to act on some important international responsibiities — and we need to grasp that in revolution there really are no final verdicts, and the slim reed of forward progress is always contested, controversial, and whipping about wildly in contingent winds.
It is clear that the reacitonary parties have created a real roadblock in the Constituent Assembly (where the revolutionaries won a plurality but not a majority). And this means that on the key questions of revolution (agrarian revolution, the future of the National army, the relations with India, the treatment of minority groups) the Maoists can’t simply decide, and the reactionaries can simply obstruct. The only apparent resolution to emerge out of this framework would be a profound Maoist concession on those key matters (which, obviously, is exactly what is being demanded.)
Identifying and Critically Evaluating a Leading Line
Now in that light, I want to point out that the essay by Prachanda (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/prachanda-nepalese-people-will-seize-power/#comment-11100) (calling on the people to prepare to seize power) has barely been discussed.
In discussion with one person, they said to me “Well i like his statement, it is encouraging, but I don’t like their other statements.”
Ok, but really, you need to develop a synthesis: you need to examine how these various parts fit together, to get an insight into what is actually being attempted.
What does it mean to “like” the statements when the revolutionaries are calling for a new advance, and “not like” those statements that call for consolidation or retreat? Are we revolutionaries when we advance, but revisionists when we retreat or retrench or compromise? Isn’t that a bit simplistic and subjective? what are the measurements by which you “like” something: Whether real people and events fit into your linear expectations?
Prachanda is threatening widespread mass struggle (and possibly insurrection) if there isn’t progress toward a radically new and different constitution in the assembly. He is identify the parties that are roadblocks to the people’s hopes, and he is calling on the people to prepare for struggle. And (very prominently in this piece) he is pointing out the important role played by the armed struggle (previously in the form of peoples war) in all progress so far.
This is a call for people (at the base of society and of his party) to prepare themselves for the next wave of struggle. Mao on the eve of his final push for power made a famous statement “Cast Away Illusions Prepare for Struggle (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_66.htm)” — which is interesting in many ways (including about what it reveals about the depth of illusions that had been growing in Mao’s party during their period of pre-revolutionary negotiations with the KMT).
And then (simultaneous with this statement) there are other events happening:
An attempt to define what exactly this “Peoples Democratic Republic” would be — which the Maoists are advocating instead of capitalism (and instead of the parliamentary republic advocated by the reactionary parties).
And various forces in the Nepali party are (from their views, and from their Ministries) making statements about that — not all of which seem to be seamlessly connected. In other words, there are some common views being expressed, and some divergent views being expressed.
And all of this is happening in the context of a clear (and long expected!) crisis in the constituent assembly process.
Some people think that the deadlock in the constitutent assembly means that the Maoists were wrong to enter that process. this is an example of the kind of infantile logic I am trying to criticize.
Often communists must enter a process, KNOWING its limitations, knowing that it will resolve one conflict but produce new ones, and knowing that this will help THE PEOPLE deepen their experience and understanding of the various political forces.
It was obvious (all along) that this Constituent Assembly could not agree (or more precisely that it could only agree if the Maoists gave up their cause). this was, for example, one of the main points of a speech at the big Nepal event in the New School (when Prachanda was in New York City).
So this knot tightens and demands resolution, and Prachanda is saying (like Mao) that the people need to sharpen their sword.
If you want to analyze the UCP(M) other statements, perhaps you should consider what they mean in that context.