Discussion on political parties

[Dave B]

A bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie, but with a party of the bourgeois intelligentsia instead. Of such a small size and concentrated power, in comprising about 1% o the population, that it would be the envy of any state capitalist class.

V. I. Lenin, SPEECH AT THE FIRST ALL-RUSSIA CONGRESS OF WORKERS IN EDUCATION AND SOCIALIST CULTURE JULY 31, 1919




When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won,


http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SWSC19.html (http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SWSC19.html)

The casual elements or ‘non proletarian factory workers’ like myself can remain at the wrong end of a ‘transmission belt’ of political and economic power. According to the ‘dialectics’ of;

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

[KC]

When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won,

A Party is an organisation aspiring to administer public political power on behalf of a social class [emphasis mine](even though it may enjoy support in only a part of that class).


Any social formation, be it a pressure group, social movement, trade union, political party or whatever, in one way or another reflects the interests of specific social strata. For example, as Engels puts it in his On the History of the Communist League (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1885hist.htm):



... economic facts, ... are, at least in the modern world, a decisive historical force; ... they form the basis of the origination of the present-day class antagonisms; ... these class antagonisms, in the countries where they have become fully developed, thanks to large-scale industry, ... are in their turn the basis of the formation of political parties and of party struggles, and thus of all political history.”


However, political parties, bear a very specific relation to social classes (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class) because a political party is either the government party, or a “government-in-waiting”, and a government, by administering a state, either overtly defends the interest of the ruling social class (even if specifically defending interests of a sub-class), or seeks to replace it with that of another class. A party which does not aspire to administer public political power, is not really a party at all [again emphasis mine].


Marxists.org (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm#political-party)

[Dave B]

Well nearly all political parties claim to represent the majority interests of the population as a whole even if the majority do not have the ‘advanced’ understanding of the political leadership.

In which case a bit, or a lot, of top down ‘tough love’ is required.

The alternative interpretation is for the cynics and the victims I suppose.

When you are in control and under pressure; finding ‘reds’, ‘whites’ or petty bourgeois Mensheviks under the beds to justify the repression of the freedom of speech and the existence of a secret police force, midnight snatch squads and model show trials becomes important.

Providing dreary quotes can be tiresome, but when someone else conveniently puts it as well as you can yourself, in a manor that even a stupid Bolshevik pig should be able to understand, then why not?


Burhman the ex Leninist and Trot theoretician;



"Both communism (Leninism) and fascism claim, as do all the great social ideologies to speak for the people as a whole for the future of mankind. However it is interesting to notice that both provide even in their public words for an elite or vanguard. The elite is of course the managers and their political associates the rulers of the new society.

Naturally the ideologies do not put it this way. As they say it the elite represents, stands for, the people as a whole and their interests. Fascism is more blunt about the need for the elite, for `leadership'. Leninism worked out a more elaborate rationalisation. The masses according to Leninism are unable to become sufficiently educated and trained under capitalism to carry in their own immediate persons the burdens of socialism

The mases are unable to understand in full what their interests are. Consequently, the transition to socialism will have to be supervised by an enlightened vanguard which `understands the historic process as a whole' and can ably and correctly act for the interests of the masses as a whole; like as Lenin puts it, the general staff of an army.

Through this notion of an elite or vanguard, these ideologies thus serve at once the two fold need of justifying the existence of a ruling class and at the same time providing the masses with an attitude making easy the acceptance of its rule.


This device is similar to that used by the capitalist ideologies when they argued that capitalist were necessary in order to carry on business and that profits for capitalists were identical with prosperity for the people as a whole…………….The communist and fascist doctrine is a device, and an effective one, for enlisting the support
of the masses for the interests of the new elite through an apparent identification of those interests with the interests of the masses themselves."



Managerial Revolution,Chapter 13.

[Zurdito]

Well nearly all political parties claim to represent the majority interests of the population as a whole even if the majority do not have the ‘advanced’ understanding of the political leadership.

In which case a bit, or a lot, of top down ‘tough love’ is required.

The alternative interpretation is for the cynics and the victims I suppose.

When you are in control and under pressure; finding ‘reds’, ‘whites’ or petty bourgeois Mensheviks under the beds to justify the repression of the freedom of speech and the existence of a secret police force, midnight snatch squads and model show trials becomes important.

Providing dreary quotes can be tiresome, but when someone else conveniently puts it as well as you can yourself, in a manor that even a stupid Bolshevik pig should be able to understand, then why not?


Burhman the ex Leninist and Trot theoretician;



Managerial Revolution,Chapter 13.

This BS has nothing to do with the thread, can it be split at least?

[Led Zeppelin]

This BS has nothing to do with the thread, can it be split at least?

Yup, done. :)

[ComradeOm]

Providing dreary quotes can be tiresome...Then I suggest that you stop basing your criticisms on out of context quotes. There are a wealth of grounds on which the Bolsheviks can be criticised and it would be interesting to confront them rather than the distorted spectre of Lenin that you've thrown up more than once

Now KC has stated the traditional position that the party represented the proletariat and was an organ of proletarian rule. Instead of challenging this assertion, as there are certainly grounds to, you have tried to construct a strawman ("midnight snatch squads", etc) and actually posted a third-party strawman argument. So here's the challenge for you - can you demonstrate that the Russian Communist Party did not enjoy the support of the proletariat in 1919?

Please, I'd be interested to hear your arguments on this. Although keep in mind that I tend to deal in historical facts