Libertarian Marxism

[Howard509]

Libertarian Marxism?
libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxism

The Character of the Commune
Karl Marx
marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME1511en_d1.html

This is one of the most libertarian documents I've ever read. After seeing the brief success of the Paris Commune, Marx loosened his authoritarianism, calling for the abolition of centralized state authority.

[Pogue]

Although I see libertarian marxists as allies naturally I think its absurd for the basis for such ideas to exist as if, because Marx said something in some of his writings that was libertarian, we should be libertarian too. I think there are better routes to becoming a libertarian socialist. But I agree with libertarian marxism, as far as the term makes sense I am very close to them.

[Howard509]

Although I see libertarian marxists as allies naturally I think its absurd for the basis for such ideas to exist as if, because Marx said something in some of his writings that was libertarian, we should be libertarian too.

Libertarianism is better than authoritarianism.

[Pogue]

yeh i dont think any of the non libertarian socialist tendencies are really socialist.

[mikelepore]

After seeing the brief success of the Paris Commune, Marx loosened his authoritarianism, calling for the abolition of centralized state authority.

I think it's a myth. I see no signs of authoritarianism in the early Marx. I see no significant change in this area the later Marx. The things he wrote about the Paris Commune were in recoognition of some of their good ideas, such as their procedure to recall elected representatives, and related administrative procedures.

[PRC-UTE]

Marx criticised it for not taking more "authoritarian" measures.

From An Afterthought on the Paris Commune, Marx to F. Domela-Nieuwenhuis



...One thing you can at any rate be sure of: a socialist government does not come into power in a country unless conditions are so developed that it can immediately take the necessary measures for intimidating the mass of the bourgeoisie sufficiently to gain time-the first desideratum-for permanent action.
Perhaps you will refer me to he Paris Commune; but apart from the fact that this was merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be. With a modicum of common sense, however, it could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people- the only thing that could be reached at the time. The appropriation of the Bank of France along would have been enough to put an end with terror to the vaunt of the Versailles people, etc. ...



It was the petit bourgeois elements within the leadership that agree with the anarchist/libertarian interpretation.

[nuisance]

Marx criticised it for not taking more "authoritarian" measures.

From An Afterthought on the Paris Commune, Marx to F. Domela-Nieuwenhuis



It was the petit bourgeois elements within the leadership that agree with the anarchist/libertarian interpretation.
:rolleyes:
Slander again? The petit bourgeoisie has nothing to do with anarchism.

[PRC-UTE]

:rolleyes:
Slander again? The petit bourgeoisie has nothing to do with anarchism.

It's not slander. I'm discussing the petit bourgeois elements in the Paris Commune. It's an historical fact.


At the same time, these local assemblies pursued their own goals, usually under the direction of local workers. Despite the formal reformism of the Commune council, the composition of the Commune as a whole was much more revolutionary. Revolutionary factions included Proudhonists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proudhon) (an early form of moderate anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism)), members of the international socialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism), Blanquists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanquists), and more libertarian republicans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic). The Paris Commune has been celebrated by anarchists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism) and Marxists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism) ever since then, due to the variety of political undercurrents, the high degree of workers' control, and the remarkable cooperation among different revolutionists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune

The petit bourgeois Proudhonists were more moderate than Marx's position. Yet anarchists today appear to agree with them over Marxists. So what I said is not slander in the slightest.

[Howard509]

I see no signs of authoritarianism in the early Marx.

Are there any anarchist or Marxist writers who agree with this?

[Luís Henrique]

Are there any anarchist or Marxist writers who agree with this?

Anarchists I don't know, but most Marxists would agree with it. I don't know from where do anarchists take the idea that Marx was authoritarian, but it is, frankly, sheer bullshit. They are reading Lenin back into Marx, and disregarding the fact that the authoritarianism and substitutionism that can be found in Lenin have a completely different origin - Russian populism. Lenin titled his famous book What is to be done after Tchernichevsky, not after Marx. It is the Nachaev-ist element in Lenin, not the Marxist one, that is authoritarian.

Luís Henrique

[nuisance]

It's not slander. I'm discussing the petit bourgeois elements in the Paris Commune. It's an historical fact.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune

The petit bourgeois Proudhonists were more moderate than Marx's position. Yet anarchists today appear to agree with them over Marxists. So what I said is not slander in the slightest.
The quote says nothing about contempoary anarchists, just a small subsection that is a very infrequent nowadays within anarchism. So, perhaps you should of referred to the 'petit-bourgeois Mutualists', opposed to anarchists, which I can only imagine that you used with slanderous intent.
BTW, here's an anarchist view of the Paris Commune, if you care to educate yourself on the matter- http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/pcommune.html

[MilitantWorker]

Anarchists I don't know, but most Marxists would agree with it. I don't know from where do anarchists take the idea that Marx was authoritarian, but it is, frankly, sheer bullshit. They are reading Lenin back into Marx, and disregarding the fact that the authoritarianism and substitutionism that can be found in Lenin have a completely different origin - Russian populism. Lenin titled his famous book What is to be done after Tchernichevsky, not after Marx. It is the Nachaev-ist element in Lenin, not the Marxist one, that is authoritarian.

Luís Henrique

.

[MilitantWorker]

The Libertarian vs. Authoritarian argument is almost completely pointless to me.

What is communism? A stateless, classless society. An egalitarian society. A collective society. Does authority exist? Do people have freedom?

What is liberty? What is freedom? What are their limitations? These are big questions, although they need to be answered in the theoretical or philosophical arena, not the tactical one.

Take freedom of speech as an example. I don't advocate it, I don't see it as useful. If a racist has complete freedom of speech, he can say whatever he wants about people. But his "freedom" is oppressive to others.

This is why the argument of libertarian vs. authoritarian is a waste of time. They are each sides of the same coin.

[Pogue]

The Libertarian vs. Authoritarian argument is almost completely pointless to me.

What is communism? A stateless, classless society. An egalitarian society. A collective society. Does authority exist? Do people have freedom?

What is liberty? What is freedom? What are their limitations? These are big questions, although they need to be answered in the theoretical or philosophical arena, not the tactical one.

Take freedom of speech as an example. I don't advocate it, I don't see it as useful. If a racist has complete freedom of speech, he can say whatever he wants about people. But his "freedom" is oppressive to others.

This is why the argument of libertarian vs. authoritarian is a waste of time. They are each sides of the same coin.

No they are not. They represent two contrasting views on how communism could be reached. They are a major question for all those who call themselves socialist and the way in which revolutionaries conduct themselves has a large influence on the working class.

[MilitantWorker]

Thanks for your comments comrade.


They represent two contrasting views on how communism could be reached.

Can you explain this in a little more detail? I'm not familiar with the arrument.

I still think there are times when strong authority is necessary, like suppressing the counterrevolutionary elements which will try to gain control of the state apparatus after the revolution. But I would consider many of my viewpoints libertarian.

How do you use these words? What meaning do they have to you?

[Pogue]

Thanks for your comments comrade.



Can you explain this in a little more detail? I'm not familiar with the arrument.

I still think there are times when strong authority is necessary, like suppressing the counterrevolutionary elements which will try to gain control of the state apparatus after the revolution. But I would consider many of my viewpoints libertarian.

How do you use these words? What meaning do they have to you?

An authoritarian in the context of socialism would be someone who belongs to the tradition of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha etc. Basically anyone who believes you need a 'state' to implement socialism on behalf of the workers, as opposed to libertarian socialism which believes that the state is a form of authority oppresive to the working class and see communism and revolution being created by the working class itself, defending it itself without the need for a state.

[Manzil]

I think it's a myth. I see no signs of authoritarianism in the early Marx. I see no significant change in this area the later Marx. The things he wrote about the Paris Commune were in recoognition of some of their good ideas, such as their procedure to recall elected representatives, and related administrative procedures.

Exactly. It's like the argument the 'early Marx' never moved beyond a 'Left Hegelian' analysis and can be safely adopted by progressive middle-class thought, whereas half-way through his career he became an angry proponent of violent workers' revolution and just so very unfashionable, dahhling.

Marx's views on the state were consistent: he sought a universal extension of the state, in extreme democratic form, and therefore its reabsorption into 'civil society', essentially negating both state and 'civil' or apolitical, bourgeois society as separate actors. The state was to encompass every member of its requisite society and thereby end the autonomy of political power from the social foundations on which it rested. Nothing could be more empowering or 'libertarian' in the context of class society.

[robbo203]

An authoritarian in the context of socialism would be someone who belongs to the tradition of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha etc. Basically anyone who believes you need a 'state' to implement socialism on behalf of the workers, as opposed to libertarian socialism which believes that the state is a form of authority oppresive to the working class and see communism and revolution being created by the working class itself, defending it itself without the need for a state.

This is true but there is an intermediate position here which does not argue for the retention of a state in any form after the revolution (i.e. the so called workers state ) . It argues nevertheless for the need to democratically capture the state in order to immediately abolish it along with capitalism itself and also insists that this must be act of a convinced socialist majority and not a vanguard elite. In this regard it is not the state that "implements" socialism as such, it is the working class as a whole which does this. The democratic capture of the state provides a convenient means not only to demonstrate such majority support to friends and foes alike but also to effectively deprive opponents of the ability to use state power to suppress the revolution by getting rid of the very structure of state power itself

The WSM is probably the best known advocate of this position but I think the SLP would argue along similar lines (any SLPers here to correct me on this?)

[Pogue]

I think the important thing is who makes up what we might call the 'workers state'. Obviously there will be a workers administration. But it has to be directly democratic, delegatory, federal, etc. Libertarians call for this, whereas the authoritarians want your Bolshevik style state.

[Manzil]

Most 'authoritarians', of the anti-Stalinist sort at any rate, would regard the "Bolshevik style state" they pursue as necessarily being "directly democratic, delegatory, federal, etc." I know I would not conceive of a socialist society that was not based on the most direct democratic control by the people over both everyday economic life, and those inherited (albeit reformed, and now popularly accountable) institutions which are found necessary in the immediate period. To conflate us with tankies worshippingthe every deed of long-dead tyrants is a little insulting.

[Pogue]

Well if you advocate what the Bolsheviks implemented your not a libertarian. That state was blatantly authoritarian.

[Manzil]

At which point specifically?

I think you lump a number of different views with regard to Marxist ideology and historical practice into one, unhelpful and derogatory 'authoritarian' camp. Given that I have never experienced a self-defined 'libertarian' organisation/meeting that did not have more viewpoints than members/attendees, it's quite funny, if not exactly helpful to a constructive dialogue. People and political theories are more complex than simple oppositional, two-camp divisions around a single concept.

[Pogue]

But the tactics they propose, their history, etc. I think this means you can be either libertarian or authoritarian. Its basically democracy and workers power versus the absence of this.

[Manzil]

That should have been clearer - I mean to ask, at what point does 'what the Bolsheviks implemented' become authoritarian in your mind? From the off, or later - and why?

Secondly, I don't think you can say there was a single "Bolshevik" line. They were a mass party by the time of the revolution, making their schisms in exile even more profound.

[Manzil]

But the tactics they propose, their history, etc. I think this means you can be either libertarian or authoritarian. Its basically democracy and workers power versus the absence of this.

Do you not see how your way of phrasing this could be taken as extremely simplistic and insulting?

Shades of freedom and democracy versus terrorism.

[Pogue]

The Bolshevik government was authoritarian. It was structured on typical bourgeois lines - top down, unaccountable, undemocratic and generally anti-working class.

[Manzil]

The Bolshevik government was not a concrete, immovable structure. It was completely different in outlook, composition and structure depending on the period to which you were referring. That is what I am asking. From what point do you consider the Bolshevik government to exist: the October insurrection, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the resignation of the Left SRs? And do you regard it as 'authoritarian' and typically 'bourgeois' from that date, whatever it is, or after? Because as I say, we are talking about a society in the midst of massive turmoil and endless shifts in power between different parties, regions, and classes. I want to know what I'm discussing. It is not easy to defend a malevolent caricature of one's position.

[Pogue]

From 1918 onwards really.

[PRC-UTE]

The quote says nothing about contempoary anarchists, just a small subsection that is a very infrequent nowadays within anarchism. So, perhaps you should of referred to the 'petit-bourgeois Mutualists', opposed to anarchists, which I can only imagine that you used with slanderous intent.
BTW, here's an anarchist view of the Paris Commune, if you care to educate yourself on the matter- http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/pcommune.html

I refer you to the opening post:

"After seeing the brief success of the Paris Commune, Marx loosened his authoritarianism, calling for the abolition of centralized state authority."

That misinterpretation of Marx is also in line with the anarchists that existed in the commune. They were the moderate element. That's an historical fact. They advocated a petit bourgeois ideology- that's not even a controversial thing to say.

listen, even if I'm incorrect in saying the anarchists agreed with the petit bourgeois elements in the Paris Commune, that is not slander. I don't think you even know what slander is if you think so, mate.

I'm not surprised you found an anarchist document pushing a different line, since anarchism is a 'broad church' that disagrees about almost everything. that's why I've had quite a few anarchist allies and friends on my side, and just as many opponents.

[PRC-UTE]

The Bolshevik government was authoritarian. It was structured on typical bourgeois lines - top down, unaccountable, undemocratic and generally anti-working class.

I think legalising homosexuality, advocating personal freedom in most areas and so on is pretty libertarian, especially for that time.

whether or not it meets some criteria of 'authoritarian' is beside the point. I don't think you can show that the early bolsheviks actually oppressed any social groups. they led the way in opposing chauvinism, sexism and so on.

yes, things did degenerate later, but most Marxists, especially Trotsky have explanations for that. Explanations that are more compelling than 'cuz they were authoritarian bourgeoiseeez'

[Pogue]

I think the whole strike breaking, top down implementation and appointing of key figures was pretty authoritarian. And we are talking authoritarian socialism versus libertarian socialism, which doesn't take into account things like attitudes to homosexuality, but the mode of oraginisation.

[Manzil]

From 1918 onwards really.

So you can be a praiseworthy socialist government and still use militia to suppress 'counter-revolutionary' press and meetings, exclude opponents' parties from the executive, establish a ministry above and beyond the factory committees and workers' councils etc. as the Bolsheviks did in 1917. That is fine in the anarchist credo. But the second you dismiss a bourgeois assembly you are now authoritarians? Or was it simply the soviets' appointment of specialists and managers to put off economic collapse, that you deplore? Or the amalgamation of the militia into a permanent army and security service?

Revolutionary Russia was engaged in a continuous process, each stage developing from the next, its leaders reacting to circumstances as the civil war slowly began. Overall, the anarchists in Russia supported the Bolshevik-Left SR regime in the opening months, despite the early fighting between Red Guards and anarchist fighters, seeing a greater threat in the reaction raising its head. Seemingly so do you. But they opposed those same methods, those same acknowledgement of the situation's realities, the next year. They simply refused to acknowledge that the methods which were socialist and justifiable in 1917 required acceleration, coordination and organisation in 1918, 1919 and so on due to the changing situation.

That does not change the fact that, until the final stage of the civil war in the early 1920s (whereupon the decimation of the urban proletariat essentially stopped the socialist nature of the revolution in its tracks, even as a stop-gap to its extension throughout Europe), Russia was governed by the sort of federal, delegated and thoroughly democratic bodies which are the foundation of socialism, and which you rightly emphasise. Democracy and workers' power, and authority and repression, are not mutually exclusive. The question is at what point Soviet Russia ceased to be an authority by the workers, and became one directed against them.

In any case this is another debate. But to shove everyone into a little 'authoritarian socialist' box serves to ensure that debate does not happen.

[Pogue]

I more condemn the supression of anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, railway workers, factory committees and peasants which occured after they consolidated state power.

[mikelepore]

This is true but there is an intermediate position here which does not argue for the retention of a state in any form after the revolution (i.e. the so called workers state ) . It argues nevertheless for the need to democratically capture the state in order to immediately abolish it along with capitalism itself and also insists that this must be act of a convinced socialist majority and not a vanguard elite. In this regard it is not the state that "implements" socialism as such, it is the working class as a whole which does this. The democratic capture of the state provides a convenient means not only to demonstrate such majority support to friends and foes alike but also to effectively deprive opponents of the ability to use state power to suppress the revolution by getting rid of the very structure of state power itself

The WSM is probably the best known advocate of this position but I think the SLP would argue along similar lines (any SLPers here to correct me on this?)

There are no members of the Socialist Labor Party of America who use revleft. I was once a member, and I can report about their program. The SLP's position today is the same as it was announced in De Leon's public address "Socialist Reconstruction of Society" in 1905. De Leon said:


Political power, in the language of Marx, is merely the organized power of the capitalist class to oppress, to curb, to keep the working class in subjection. The bourgeois shell in which the social revolution must partly shape its course dictates the setting up of a body that shall contest the possession of the political robber burg by the capitalist class.

The reason for such initial tactics also dictates their ultimate goal - the razing to the ground of the robber burg of capitalist tyranny. The shops, the yards, the mills, in short, the mechanical establishments of production, now in the hands of the capitalist class - they are all to be "taken," not for the purpose of being destroyed, but for the purpose of being "held"; for the purpose of improving and enlarging all the good that is latent in them, and that capitalism dwarfs; in short, they are to be "taken and held" in order to save them for civilization.

It is exactly the reverse with the "political power." That is to be taken for the purpose of abolishing it. It follows herefrom that the goal of the political movement of labor is purely destructive.

Suppose that, at some election, the classconscious political arm of labor were to sweep the field; suppose the sweeping were done in such a landslide fashion that the capitalist election officials are themselves so completely swept off their base that they wouldn't, if they could, and that they couldn't, if they would, count us out; suppose that, from President down to Congress and the rest of the political redoubts of the capitalist political robber burg, our candidates were installed - suppose that, what would there be for them to do? What should there be for them to do? Simply to adjourn themselves, on the spot, _sine die_. Their work would be done by disbanding.

The political movement of labor that, in the event of triumph, would prolong its existence a second after triumph, would be a usurpation. It would be either a usurpation or the signal for a social catastrophe. It would be the signal for a social catastrophe if the political triumph did not find the working class of the land industrially organized, that is, in full possession of the plants of production and distribution, capable, accordingly, to assume the integral conduct of the productive powers of the land. The catastrophe would be instantaneous. The plants of production and distribution having remained in capitalist hands, production would be instantly blocked.

On the other hand, if the political triumph does find the working class industrially organized, then for the political movement to prolong its existence would be to attempt to usurp the powers which its very triumph announces have devolved upon the central administration of the industrial organization.

The "reason" for a political movement obviously unfits it to "take and hold" the machinery of production. What the political movement "moves into" is not the shops but the robber burg of capitalism - for the purpose of dismantling it.

[robbo203]

There are no members of the Socialist Labor Party of America who use revleft. I was once a member, and I can report about their program. The SLP's position today is the same as it was announced in De Leon's public address "Socialist Reconstruction of Society" in 1905. De Leon said:

Thank you for that Mike. Very interesting. It seems to confirm that the SLP too hold to a position of the "immediate abolition of the state". Incidentally what has happened to the SLP? There was some talk of them relaunching themselves a while back

[The Situationist]

It sucks that right-wing reactionaries in the U.S. have tried to co-opt the name "Libertarian" for something more akin to Milton Friedman than Karl Marx.

[Manzil]

I more condemn the supression of anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, railway workers, factory committees and peasants which occured after they consolidated state power.

They didn't "suppress" the factory committees. The entire national economy broke down, with most workers either emigrating to the countryside from hunger, or leaving to fight in the civil war, and the remainder allowing the basic infrastructure to collapse into complete chaos. Russia almost ceased to exist as a developed and unified economic bloc - to restart basic trade and production required the party apparatus to step in and coordinate it from above. The revolutionary workforce of 1917 no longer existed.

The anarchists were not the first to be suppressed - you seem to have no problem with the principle of breaking up other parties, as happened during 1917, only complaining when it happens to your organisation. Understandable but not really an argument. The anarchists opposed the Soviet regime, in the midst of an emerging civil war. It was fairly predictable what would happen.

As to the peasants, the Bolsevhik-Left SR government came to power specifically against the will of the mass of the countryside. It was explicitly the dictatorship of the towns - of both the actual workers, and the radicalised troops concentrated in the capitals - over the majority of Russian society. To allow the peasants freedom against the Soviet Republic would have led to an immediate restoration of the Socialist Revolutionary-Menshevik bloc that allowed thousands more to die on the front throughout the months after February. It would have negated the programme of the entire revolutionary left, suicide in slow motion...

[robbo203]

They didn't "suppress" the factory committees. ...
This does not accord with the historical account of the events posted below - from
]http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticlePrint/6498

Out of this upsurge of activity came the first attempt by the factory committee movement to form its own national organization, independent of the trade unions and political parties. In December the Central Soviet of Factory Committees of the Petrograd Area published a Practical Manual for the Implementation of Workers' Control of Industry. The manual proposed that "workers control could rapidly be extended into ‘workers' management'." The manual also announced the intention of forming the factory committees into regional federations and a national federation.
Isaac Deutscher explains what then happened:
"The Factory Committees attempted to form their own national organization, which was to secure their virtual economic dictatorship. The Bolsheviks now called upon the trade unions to render a special service to the nascent Soviet State and to discipline the Factory Committees. The unions came out firmly against the attempt of the Factory Committees to form a national organization of their own. They prevented the convocation of the planned All-Russian Congress of Factory Committees and demanded total subordination on the part of the Committees."(7)
However, the Bolshevik Party had only just taken state power - and their grip on power would become even more tenuous with the onset of the Russian civil war in May, 1918. This resulted in a compromise in which the party committed itself to trade union control of the economy.
This helped the party leadership to gain the cooperation of the party's trade union cadres in suppressing the drive of the factory committee movement for direct worker management. The trade union control concept would be encapsulated in Point 5 of the program adopted at the 1919 Communist Party congress:
"The organizational apparatus of socialized industry must be based primarily on the trade unions...Participating already in accordance with the laws of the Soviet Republic and established practice in all local and central organs of industrial administration, the trade unions must proceed to the actual concentration in their own hands of all the administration of the entire economy, as a single economic unit." The first step in supplanting the workers' drive for economic self-management with central planning from above was the decree on December 5, 1917, setting up the Supreme Economic Council (Vesenka), under the direct authority of Sovnarkom. Vesenka was made up of Bolshevik trade union officials, Bolshevik Party stalwarts and "experts" appointed from above by the government. Vesenka was assigned the task of creating "a plan for the organization of the economic life of the country" and was to "direct to a uniform end" the activities of all existing economic authorities. Here we have the beginnings of a central planning apparatus assuming managerial functions.
The fate of the factory committee movement was fought out at the first All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions in January, 1918. Here the Bolsheviks put forward their plan to subordinate the factory committees to hierarchical union control. The main Russian political tendency with a vision for direct workers management were the anarcho-syndicalists. At the congress, the 25 anarcho-syndicalist delegates, representing Don Basin miners, Moscow railway workers and other workers, made a desperate effort to defend the factory committee movement and its drive for direct workers' management. They proposed "that the organization of production, transport and distribution be immediately transferred to the hands of the toiling people themselves, and not to the state or some civil service machine made up of one kind or another of class enemy." G.P. Maximov, a prominent anarcho-syndicalist, distinguished between horizontal coordination and hierarchical control of the economy:
"The aim of the proletariat was to coordinate all activity,...to create a center, but not a center of decrees and ordinances but a center of regulation, of guidance - and only through such a center to organize the industrial life of the country."
However, the Bolsheviks got the decision they wanted. They had the majority of delegates, and Menshevik and Social Revolutionary Party supporters at the congress also voted for subordination of the factory committees to the trade unions.

With control over the government, the armed forces, the trade union apparatus, and majorities on many of the factory committees, the Bolshevik Party was able to tame the factory committee movement. Any factory committee that didn't go along could be isolated; a factory could be denied resources it needed

[Manzil]

If you take a single comment, you can prove whatever you want. As I said in that very same paragraph, the Soviet government exerted control "from above". Several posts before I also acknowledged the Bolsheviks/Left SRs created "a ministry above and beyond the factory committees and workers' councils". I am not denying the historical facts. Indeed, the government went much further than the period Deutscher is discussing, removing any semblance of real economic control from the trade unions as well, centralising authority in the national political bodies under their charge.

I am saying they were not "suppressed" - a highly charged term, implying (as I'm sure Pogue believes) that the Bolsheviks were ideologically opposed to workers' control. They had campaigned throughout 1917 on the basis of direct control of Russia by the organs of workers' power. The problem was in the practical implementation of that idea within the war-torn Russia of 1917. Economic activity simply collapsed under the weight of the various bodies which had seized control in different regions from the vacuum left by the PG. So they was replaced. The factory committees were not, however, viable as the basis of economic reconstruction. By the time that everyday economic functions had been restored, the workers who led the committees in 1917 were gone - dead, in military service or having returned to the countryside. So they were not politically trustworthy, in the eyes of the regime, to take up that responsibility. But it wasn't a case of the Bolsheviks "suppressing" them out of political calculations; at the time they did not fulfil the role required of them, if they were to remain the centre of revolutionary activity.

[ChrisK]

I think the important thing is who makes up what we might call the 'workers state'. Obviously there will be a workers administration. But it has to be directly democratic, delegatory, federal, etc. Libertarians call for this, whereas the authoritarians want your Bolshevik style state.

You're making a sweeping judgement here. Example, I, a Cliffite Trotskyist, believe that a workers state ought to be comprised of workers, voted in by workers and they, of course, must be instantly recallable. If this is what you call the endpoint, then I must be less authoritarian than you, since I believe that that must eventually go away and then workers would run their communes. So no, we "authoritarians" do not call for what Stalin did.

[Luís Henrique]

Well if you advocate what the Bolsheviks implemented your not a libertarian. That state was blatantly authoritarian.

It should be made clear that the Bolsheviks did not advocate what they "implemented". Stalinist Russia was the result of many contradictory actions by the Bolsheviks and their internal and external enemies. At its most basic roots, there was a probably insoluble conundrum, on which the Bolsheviks got lost:

1. You can't struggle against the rest of the world without a solid economy to supply your armies.

2. You can't build a solid economy without requiring the majority of the population to build it, with labour and labour power, which means, with labour hours.

3. You can't overwork yourself and be the rulling class: if you spend most of your time working in a factory or farm, when are you going to rule anything?

The idea that the Bolsheviks consciously envisioned a State like the Stalinist Soviet Union is ridiculous. Stalin rewrote history in order to promote that point of view. We shouldn't believe him; as in so many topics, he was lying on this.

Luís Henrique

[Pogue]

It should be made clear that the Bolsheviks did not advocate what they "implemented". Stalinist Russia was the result of many contradictory actions by the Bolsheviks and their internal and external enemies. At its most basic roots, there was a probably insoluble conundrum, on which the Bolsheviks got lost:

1. You can't struggle against the rest of the world without a solid economy to supply your armies.

2. You can't build a solid economy without requiring the majority of the population to build it, with labour and labour power, which means, with labour hours.

3. You can't overwork yourself and be the rulling class: if you spend most of your time working in a factory or farm, when are you going to rule anything?

The idea that the Bolsheviks consciously envisioned a State like the Stalinist Soviet Union is ridiculous. Stalin rewrote history in order to promote that point of view. We shouldn't believe him; as in so many topics, he was lying on this.

Luís Henrique

I am referring to the Bolshevik state that was created after they consolidated power in 1918.

[Luís Henrique]

I am referring to the Bolshevik state that was created after they consolidated power in 1918.

They didn't consolidate power in 1918.

Luís Henrique

[Pogue]

I think its pretty clear the Bolsheviks had consolidated state power by 1918, as this is when they gained control of most areas of industry and administration, as opposed to the later periods of 1917 when the factory committees were growing contrary to the organs such as the central committee of Soviets. I am not referring to the consolidation for the Bolshevik regime of the whole of Russia, which occured after they won the civil war.

[The Feral Underclass]

Although I see libertarian marxists as allies naturally I think its absurd for the basis for such ideas to exist as if, because Marx said something in some of his writings that was libertarian, we should be libertarian too.

I think you've totally misunderstood what libertarian Marxism is. That's not the reason the term and ideas of libertarian Marxism came about. It's not as simple as Marx said something libertarian therefore they're libertarians. It's a specific set of divergence from Marxism with many traditions.

[Pogue]

I think you've totally misunderstood what libertarian Marxism is. That's not the reason the term and ideas of libertarian Marxism came about. It's not as simple as Marx said something libertarian therefore they're libertarians. It's a specific set of divergence from Marxism with many traditions.

I don't think I misunderstand it. What I was saying was in relation to the OP and ideas that because elements of Marx's work were undoubtedly libertarian we should thus be libertarian too. I think libertarian socialism is reached from a different understanding of history and class struggle than simply reading marx's work. I recognise alot of strands of lbiertarian marxism represent, as you said, a specific set of divergence from marxism with many traditions, but oncemore, i was addressing the OP.

[mikelepore]

Thank you for that Mike. Very interesting. It seems to confirm that the SLP too hold to a position of the "immediate abolition of the state".

To summarize their position is a bit complicated because first I have to say what they mean by the terminology.

To the SLP, the meaning of the the word "state" is closely connected with using a geographical kind of constituency to manage society. When the SLP says "stateless" the major part of their meaning is the discontinuation of the use of towns, counties and provinces as levels of planning. But they also say that municipalities would still exist. And a "central directing authority." No regional levels of planning in between the municipality and the centrality -- just those two extremes.

Their greatest concern seems to be that they want to stop having a congress composed of representatives elected by the populations of Alabama, Nebraska, Maine, New York, etc., and instead have a congress composed of representatives elected by the staff members of manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, education, medicine, etc.

I see some confusion because the literature says repeatedly that the "only" tasks of that administration would be to manage production and distribution, but then some question-and-answer exchanges establish the continued need for a society to enact and enforce laws. Then I have never seen any follow-up to discuss how they think those laws should be made or enforced.

As for the immediate nature of the social change, yes, they say that economic class division can be abolished in an instant, and that alone would mean that the state would likewise be abolished in an instant. But I see here a conflation between those two issues: it's stateless by definition because it's classless, and it's stateless by definition because it doesn't have a geographal constituency. The problem I see there is that it's not valid to say two separate things by definition.

As some readers here will have noticed, the anarchist objective of having "no authority" or "no coercion" is entirely absent in the De Leonist version of what "stateless" means.


Incidentally what has happened to the SLP? There was some talk of them relaunching themselves a while back

No one told me anything officially. But publishing a newspaper was just about their only activity, and then they stopped publishing the newspaper, so I don't know in what sense they still exist. There are still local sections and they still have monthly meetings, but I have no idea what they do there.

Mike Lepore, deleonism.org (http://www.deleonism.org/)

[Howard509]

The writings of Marx are valuable in understanding the rise of capitalism and how capitalism works, irrespective of whether he presented a viable alternative. 19th century anarchists agreed with Marx's analysis and his desire for a classless, stateless society. They were also intelligent enough to see that you can't create a state dictatorship to dismantle the state and a ruling class to abolish classes.

[Howard509]

Anarchists I don't know, but most Marxists would agree with it. I don't know from where do anarchists take the idea that Marx was authoritarian, but it is, frankly, sheer bullshit. They are reading Lenin back into Marx, and disregarding the fact that the authoritarianism and substitutionism that can be found in Lenin have a completely different origin - Russian populism. Lenin titled his famous book What is to be done after Tchernichevsky, not after Marx. It is the Nachaev-ist element in Lenin, not the Marxist one, that is authoritarian.

Luís Henrique

Haven't anarchists like Bakunin always considered Marx authoritarian?

[MilitantWorker]

19th century anarchists agreed with Marx's analysis and his desire for a classless, stateless society. They were also intelligent enough to see that you can't create a state dictatorship to dismantle the state and a ruling class to abolish classes.

Intelligence has nothing to do with your argument.

I don't think any real Marxists actually advocates a "state dictatorship." If they did I wouldn't consider them serious and genuine communists.

The Marxists I work with advocate dismantling the state through organic proletarian political structures. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is not a dictatorship in the sense you are using. I wish people would get off this lame and false criticism.

We advocate organic institutions and the dissemblance of the state and the political/economic power of the bourgeoisie through mass assemblies, mass strikes, councils, committees and what have you. The masses should be armed against the state, as it is a conservative force that must be eliminated in order to reach the collective society we are all aiming for.

I didn't say the only the most advanced members of the revolutionary party should be armed against the bourgeois and the state. I didn't say that only the revolutionary party itself should be armed against the state. I said that all workers should be armed against the state.

I assume you are still gonna refute my argument. So, I must ask? How do you think human beings should get rid of capitalism, the state, and their agents that wish to maintain them?

[Luís Henrique]

Haven't anarchists like Bakunin always considered Marx authoritarian?

Maybe, but it was Bakunin who was in favour of secret societies and conspiracies. Those in my book are necessarily authoritarian.

Luís Henrique

[Howard509]

I agree with Marx's analysis of capitalism, but I disagree with using authoritarian means for communist ends. I'm not even sure if I'm a communist, but I'm definitely anti-corporate.

[Howard509]

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is not a dictatorship in the sense you are using.

That's how it worked out in the 20th century.



I assume you are still gonna refute my argument. So, I must ask? How do you think human beings should get rid of capitalism, the state, and their agents that wish to maintain them?

Are you familiar with agorism? You could create a black market economy to undermine, and eventually replace, capitalism.

[robbo203]

It should be made clear that the Bolsheviks did not advocate what they "implemented". Stalinist Russia was the result of many contradictory actions by the Bolsheviks and their internal and external enemies. At its most basic roots, there was a probably insoluble conundrum, on which the Bolsheviks got lost:

Well , yes and no. If we are talking about Lenin, no, he didnt start out with a vision of the Soviet Union corresponding to "Stalinist Russia". But bit by bit he was constrained by circumstances to put in place the basic building blocks on which Stalinist Russia was founded. What he advocated at one point, he ceased to at another and instead advocated something quite at variance with his original views. JUst look at the way in which his earler views on Taylorism changed into support for the notion of "one-man management" and a hierarchical bourgeois idea of management. The same goes for his earlier support for old Bolshevik policy of uravnilovka or income levelling along the lines of the Paris Commune. Already by April 1918 in address given published as "The Soviets at Work" Lenin recanted: "We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists.


All this goes to underscore the basic and undeniable truth of the matter that, whatever the subjective opinions of Lenin or others at one point or another, the Bolshevik revolution was doomed to be nothing more than a capitalist revolution. The objective preconditions for a genuine socialist revolution were simply not present. And in pursing state capitalism as the only realistic option Lenin paved the way for Stalin

[ZeroNowhere]

That's how it worked out in the 20th century.
This is the general equivalent of going into a thread about libertarian Marxism and objecting due to the Libertarian Party.

[Luís Henrique]

All this goes to underscore the basic and undeniable truth of the matter that, whatever the subjective opinions of Lenin or others at one point or another, the Bolshevik revolution was doomed to be nothing more than a capitalist revolution. The objective preconditions for a genuine socialist revolution were simply not present. And in pursing state capitalism as the only realistic option Lenin paved the way for Stalin


Ah, but then we are talking of objective conditions, not of subjective intentions. Look, you cannot argue that the objective conditions made a socialist revolution impossible in 1917 Russia, and then conclude that the Bolsheviks were evil capitalists because they did the only thing that - according to you - was possible in the situation.

Luís Henrique

[robbo203]

Ah, but then we are talking of objective conditions, not of subjective intentions. Look, you cannot argue that the objective conditions made a socialist revolution impossible in 1917 Russia, and then conclude that the Bolsheviks were evil capitalists because they did the only thing that - according to you - was possible in the situation.

Luís Henrique

I dont view the Bolsheviks as "evil capitalists"; they had no option but to carry out a capitalist revolution. This is so even if their subjective intentions were otherwise and by and large I dont think the Bolsheviks were particularly intent upon creating a genuine wageless stateless socialist society. Socialist ideas were certainly current among the Bolsheviks but were, as far as I can tell, a distinctly minority flavour. This is to say nothing of the Russian workers at large who were themselves a distinct minority in a still largely agrarian peasant economy.

So the Bolsheviks had to carry out a capitalist revolution and in carrying it out, created the Soviet state which was the primary means by which those who controlled this state became the parasitic class that owned the means of production in de facto terms - the Soviet capitalist class

[Luís Henrique]

I dont view the Bolsheviks as "evil capitalists"; they had no option but to carry out a capitalist revolution.

Good. I hope you realise that some people seem to take that line?

Now, do you support the Bolshevik lead of a bourgeois revolution? Or do you think that another leadership - the cadets, the mensheviks, the anarchists - would have done a better job?

The Bolsheviks, or at least some of them, believed that a socialist revolution was in order in Russia in 1917. Do you think that such belief, or delusion, was detrimental to their role as leaders of a bourgeois revolution?

Also, the Bolsheviks, or some of them, believed that a socialist revolution was in order in Europe as a whole, and that a triumphant socialist revolution in Europe - in Germany at the very least - would make the shortcomings of Russia's own capitalist development remarkably less important. Do you agree with them?

Luís Henrique

[robbo203]

Good. I hope you realise that some people seem to take that line?

Now, do you support the Bolshevik lead of a bourgeois revolution? Or do you think that another leadership - the cadets, the mensheviks, the anarchists - would have done a better job?

I dont support the principle of leadership or vanguardism. Period. Nor do I think socialist are required to support a bourgeois revolution in that sense. And before you say anything, yes I am familiar enough with the views of Marx on the subject; I think he erred. The political consequences of socialist revolutionaries aligning themselves with the interests of the capitalist class are all too obvious. Whether others like the Mensheviks might have done a better job at overseeing the transformation of Russia into a capitalist society is a moot point. The one very good thing the Bolsheviks did do was to take Russia out of the war; on the other hand they did an enormous dissservice to the socialist cause by associating socialism with state capitalism and a ruthless one party political dictatorship


The Bolsheviks, or at least some of them, believed that a socialist revolution was in order in Russia in 1917. Do you think that such belief, or delusion, was detrimental to their role as leaders of a bourgeois revolution?


Well of course such a belief was a complete delusion. It is hard to imagine how anyone remotely acquainted with Marxism could think otherwise. But it was to the benefit of the Bolsheviks that they were able to draw upon the great prestige and pulling power of socialism to further thier state capitalist agenda and in the process muddied the waters and discredited socialism.



Also, the Bolsheviks, or some of them, believed that a socialist revolution was in order in Europe as a whole, and that a triumphant socialist revolution in Europe - in Germany at the very least - would make the shortcomings of Russia's own capitalist development remarkably less important. Do you agree with them?

Luís Henrique

Well clearly they were wrong. You would have thought that the very fact that the Second International broke up in warring factions with onset of the First World war would have been a big enough hint that the working class in Europe was far from ready for a socialist revolution. But they miscalculated on that as they miscalculated on so many other things. In principle the backwardness of Russia might have been less of a problem had there really been a substantial mass movement for genuine socialism in Europe but you would still need to have a significant socialist movement in Russia too. And such a movement standing squarely for the abolition of the wage system (capitalism) simply did not exist to any significant extent in Russia at the time

[MilitantWorker]

Now, do you support the Bolshevik lead of a bourgeois revolution? Or do you think that another leadership - the cadets, the mensheviks, the anarchists - would have done a better job?

How come no one is considering the workers?

There were many mistakes made during the Russian Revolution..too many and too off topic to touch on in this thread. Here is a good ICC article (http://en.internationalism.org/book/export/html/2276) on the subject..

To answer your questions, I think that the revolutionary proletarian movement should not have anything to do with bourgeois revolutions. Workers fight back against capitalism due to objective conditions, mainly.

The legal labor struggle that culminated in the 1905 revolution was supported by the bourgeoisie. The bosses even kept paying their striking workers during some of the strikes.

[Luís Henrique]

I dont support the principle of leadership or vanguardism. Period. Nor do I think socialist are required to support a bourgeois revolution in that sense. And before you say anything, yes I am familiar enough with the views of Marx on the subject; I think he erred. The political consequences of socialist revolutionaries aligning themselves with the interests of the capitalist class are all too obvious.

Well, what is the sence of talking about "socialist revolutionaries" in a society in which there are no objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution? In such a society, there can only be bourgeois revolutionaries, or non-revolutionaries at all.

Do you suggest that the correct line of action in a society in which there are no objective conditions for a socialist revolution is no action at all? That it is better to be a non-revolutionary than a bourgeois revolutionary?

Then I fear you are back into confusing objective conditions with subjective dispositions, and blaming the Bolsheviks for doing what they had to do.


Whether others like the Mensheviks might have done a better job at overseeing the transformation of Russia into a capitalist society is a moot point.

Well, no. Arguably, the Mensheviks had a better grasp of the situation: they "knew" no socialist revolution was possible, so they proposed to support the bourgeoisie in a bourgeois revolution instead. So, even if I find this position deeply mistaken, it is an arguable one; it at least blames the Bolsheviks for doing what was (in their view) wrong.


The one very good thing the Bolsheviks did do was to take Russia out of the war; on the other hand they did an enormous dissservice to the socialist cause by associating socialism with state capitalism and a ruthless one party political dictatorship

According to you, they had no choice - it was that or backing, even if only by omission, the czarist war effort.


Well of course such a belief was a complete delusion. It is hard to imagine how anyone remotely acquainted with Marxism could think otherwise. But it was to the benefit of the Bolsheviks that they were able to draw upon the great prestige and pulling power of socialism to further thier state capitalist agenda and in the process muddied the waters and discredited socialism.

Well, deep back into subjectively blaming the Bolsheviks for being reactionaries. Now, no longer objective conditions that forced them to do what was necessary, but a previous "state capitalist agenda" that they maliciously imposed into the Russian people, using socialism as a subterfuge.

Before, "socialism" was nearly unthinkable in Russia. Now, we discover it had a great prestige, that the Bolsheviks used, on purpose, to the end of establishing a bourgeois dictatorship...


Well clearly they were wrong. You would have thought that the very fact that the Second International broke up in warring factions with onset of the First World war would have been a big enough hint that the working class in Europe was far from ready for a socialist revolution.

Well, with a revolution going on in Germany, Italy, and Hungary, and the previous near-collapse of the French Army, maybe it wasn't so obvious as you, with the benefit of hindsight, believe.


But they miscalculated on that as they miscalculated on so many other things. In principle the backwardness of Russia might have been less of a problem had there really been a substantial mass movement for genuine socialism in Europe but you would still need to have a significant socialist movement in Russia too. And such a movement standing squarely for the abolition of the wage system (capitalism) simply did not exist to any significant extent in Russia at the time

As opposite to having a "great prestige" that could be manipulated by the eeeeeeeeeeeevil Bolsheviks to foster State capitalism. Yes we know.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

How come no one is considering the workers?

Well, we are discussing the possibility that the Russian Revolution was doomed to being a bourgeois revolution. In that sence, either the workers had an interest in helping the bourgeoisie in toppling the semi-feudal czarist State (the Menshevik thesis), or they had an interest or doing it for the incompetent/inappetent bourgeosie (the Bolshevik thesis before April 1917).

Now, if you want to discuss the possibility that 1917 Russia was mature for a socialist revolution (Trotsky's thesis, encamped by Lenin in his April Theses), that's a different issue. In this case, evidently, the opportunities were real, and were lost by the Bolshevik leadership.


There were many mistakes made during the Russian Revolution..too many and too off topic to touch on in this thread. Here is a good ICC article (http://en.internationalism.org/book/export/html/2276) on the subject..

Only those who dare make mistakes; those who prefer inaction can always give us ther ex-post explanations of what went wrong and why they would not make the same mistakes.


To answer your questions, I think that the revolutionary proletarian movement should not have anything to do with bourgeois revolutions. Workers fight back against capitalism due to objective conditions, mainly.

This pressuposes, however, the existence of capitalism, which usually means the existence of a bourgeois State, which makes a bourgeois revolution pretty much useless. There are reasons to place Russia in this case, and there are reasons to place Russia in the opposite case - feudal State, embrionary capitalism, a bourgeoisie arguably still able of taking revolutionary action against feudalism, a society arguably in need of a bourgeois revolution. A revolutionary, I would say, could believe that Russia was mature for a socialist revolution and attempt to build one. A revolutionary, I also think, could believe that Russia needed a bourgeois revolution and conclude it was necessary to support the bourgeoisie in it, or that it was necessary to undertake it against the bourgeoisie's wishes if it was too timid. Something a revolutionary should not do, I think, is to conclude that a bourgeois revolution is in order and then refuse to take action under the pretext that it is a bourgeois revolution. This is proper of philistines, not of revolutionaries.


The legal labor struggle that culminated in the 1905 revolution was supported by the bourgeoisie. The bosses even kept paying their striking workers during some of the strikes.

So? This would add up to the idea that the Russian Revolution ought to be a bourgeois revolution. What do you propose? The "legal Marxist line" of cooperating with the autocracy under the pretence of opposing the capitalists?

Luís Henrique

[robbo203]

Well, what is the sence of talking about "socialist revolutionaries" in a society in which there are no objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution? In such a society, there can only be bourgeois revolutionaries, or non-revolutionaries at all.

Do you suggest that the correct line of action in a society in which there are no objective conditions for a socialist revolution is no action at all? That it is better to be a non-revolutionary than a bourgeois revolutionary?

Then I fear you are back into confusing objective conditions with subjective dispositions, and blaming the Bolsheviks for doing what they had to do.

Of course there objective condition or preconditions for a socialist revolution - one being the technological potential to sustain a genuine socialist society. In Russia 1917 such a potential was absent, and so socialism was an impossibility even if the subjective dispostion in favour of socialism - another prcondition for socialism - had existed and that too was absent. There simply was no no mass socialist consciousness, certainly not in the sense of seeking the abolition of the wages system. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded

I am not suggesting in the absence of these preconditions for socialism that socialists do nothing. What I am saying is that they should not align themselves with the interests of the ascendant capitalist class. One thing they could be doing as well as spreading socialist ideas is pushing for the greatest possible democratisation of society.

What I blame the Bolsheviks for is not because they had no option but to promote capitalism but becuase of the tremendous disservice they did to the socialist cause by associating their state capitalism with socialism. I also question whether some of the more repuganant policies of the Bolsheviks - their dictatorial methods in particular - were necessary from the standpoint of wanting to transform Russia into a capitalist society. Was it really necessary for example to ban political opposition. The pretext that there was civil war raging at the time strikes me as a pretty feeble one.




Well, no. Arguably, the Mensheviks had a better grasp of the situation: they "knew" no socialist revolution was possible, so they proposed to support the bourgeoisie in a bourgeois revolution instead. So, even if I find this position deeply mistaken, it is an arguable one; it at least blames the Bolsheviks for doing what was (in their view) wrong..

Yes, there is some truth in this. I think in a way the Mensheviks were rather more faithful to the marxist tradition than the Bolsheviks were but even so I would disagree profundly with the Menshevik strategy of supporting the capitalists. This is a recipe for their complete co-option by capitalism



According to you, they had no choice - it was that or backing, even if only by omission, the czarist war effort.

..


That was a choice and in choosing to take Russia out of the war the Bolsheviks chose well. This is one thing that I give them full credit for



Well, deep back into subjectively blaming the Bolsheviks for being reactionaries. Now, no longer objective conditions that forced them to do what was necessary, but a previous "state capitalist agenda" that they maliciously imposed into the Russian people, using socialism as a subterfuge...

Nope. I blame the Bolsheviks for doing things over which they had a choice not for doing trhings over which they had no choice. They had no choice but to develop capitalism - socialism was simply not on the cards. However, they did have a choice in the way they went about this and they certainly had a choice about whether or not to deceitfully use socialism as a subterfuge to further their state capitalist agenda


Before, "socialism" was nearly unthinkable in Russia. Now, we discover it had a great prestige, that the Bolsheviks used, on purpose, to the end of establishing a bourgeois dictatorship......

Indeed, partly I would say this was for external consumption but partly also I would say this was becuase the term socialism itself was already undergoing a radical transformation at the hands of Lenin in particular. The term no longer really meant what it had meant in the classical marxian tradition




Well, with a revolution going on in Germany, Italy, and Hungary, and the previous near-collapse of the French Army, maybe it wasn't so obvious as you, with the benefit of hindsight, believe.


Come on, it was pretty obvious at the time that if the parties of the Second International split up into warring factions aligning themselves with their respective capitalist classes and buying into the whole myth of borugeois nationalism, that any socialist consciousness they might have evinced was skin deep. There were marxists at the time who saw this and not with the benefit of hindsight. Moreover , here I am just talking about the politicos. What of the wider working class? This same working working had voted obviously capitalist parties into power. How could anyone possibly infer from this that the workers were ready for socialism.

[MilitantWorker]

Well, what is the sence of talking about "socialist revolutionaries" in a society in which there are no objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution? In such a society, there can only be bourgeois revolutionaries, or non-revolutionaries at all.


the Mensheviks had a better grasp of the situation: they "knew" no socialist revolution was possible, so they proposed to support the bourgeoisie in a bourgeois revolution instead

I would argue that the objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution were there in Russia. They were there inside Russia, as well as throughout other countries of the world.

It was a huge mistake not to ensure that the primary task of Russian workers and revolutionaries during the period of the Revolution was to spread there struggle to other countries. Had Russian socialists done this, whether or not this or that objective condition was ripe or not would be irrelevant.


[In Russia there was a] feudal State, embrionary capitalism, a bourgeoisie arguably still able of taking revolutionary action against feudalism, a society arguably in need of a bourgeois revolution.


A revolutionary, I also think, could believe that Russia needed a bourgeois revolution and conclude it was necessary to support the bourgeoisie in it, or that it was necessary to undertake it against the bourgeoisie's wishes if it was too timid.

By the outbreak of WWI, it should have become obvious that capitalism had entered a new period in its existence. There were no more colonies to conquer for resources, no more new markets to exploit. Capitalism could provide nothing but war and crisis, it was no longer a progressive social system.

At microscopic, regional and local levels it is possible that Capitalism could have improved the quality of life for the people in society. But by 1905, world capitalism had spread and become advanced enough that the conditions for an international proletarian revolution were there.

[Luís Henrique]

Of course there objective condition or preconditions for a socialist revolution - one being the technological potential to sustain a genuine socialist society.

Yes, and this is not an abstraction. That was what I posited in a previous post: if they needed to overwork themselves in order to (re)build their economy, they could not possibly become the ruling class.


In Russia 1917 such a potential was absent, and so socialism was an impossibility even if the subjective dispostion in favour of socialism - another prcondition for socialism - had existed and that too was absent. There simply was no no mass socialist consciousness, certainly not in the sense of seeking the abolition of the wages system. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deludedIn which case it is absurd that you accuse the Bolsheviks of abusing the enormous popularity of socialism...


I am not suggesting in the absence of these preconditions for socialism that socialists do nothing. What I am saying is that they should not align themselves with the interests of the ascendant capitalist class. One thing they could be doing as well as spreading socialist ideas is pushing for the greatest possible democratisation of society.Yes, that was what was called "legal Marxism" in Russia in those days.


What I blame the Bolsheviks for is not because they had no option but to promote capitalism but becuase of the tremendous disservice they did to the socialist cause by associating their state capitalism with socialism. I also question whether some of the more repuganant policies of the Bolsheviks - their dictatorial methods in particular - were necessary from the standpoint of wanting to transform Russia into a capitalist society. Was it really necessary for example to ban political opposition. The pretext that there was civil war raging at the time strikes me as a pretty feeble one.Well, this is more reasonable: perhaps a different leadership would have provided a more smooth transition towards socialism. Unhappily such other leadership seemed to be absent at the time; the Mensheviks, which apparently qualified, for some reason supported the czarist war effort, and so where discarded by the masses, which were fed up with war.


Yes, there is some truth in this. I think in a way the Mensheviks were rather more faithful to the marxist tradition than the Bolsheviks were but even so I would disagree profundly with the Menshevik strategy of supporting the capitalists. This is a recipe for their complete co-option by capitalismWhich means that you assume an a-historic point of view, contradictory with your veredict that there were no objective conditions for a socialist revolution in 1917 Russia. Either there is an history, and certain conditions may be absent from a certain age and place - in which case the task of people there isn't to dream about a future to which they don't belong, but to act in order to do what their time asks for - or there isn't a history, and assertions about "objective conditions" mean nothing. You can't have both.


That was a choice and in choosing to take Russia out of the war the Bolsheviks chose well. This is one thing that I give them full credit forOh well. That kind of choice they had. They also had the choice to disband the Okhrana (they did), separate the State from the Orthodox Church (they did), suppress nobility titles (they did) and establish full equality towards law (they did), confiscate the lands of the nobility (they did) and distribute it to the peasantry (they did), relinquish the czarist hold over Ukraine, Finland, Georgia, etc. (they did), suppress laws against homosexuality (they did), set free common prisoners (they did), legalise abortion (they did), revoke legislation that subdued wives to their husbands (they did), establish universal and secular education (they did), etc.


Nope. I blame the Bolsheviks for doing things over which they had a choice not for doing trhings over which they had no choice. They had no choice but to develop capitalism - socialism was simply not on the cards. However, they did have a choice in the way they went about this and they certainly had a choice about whether or not to deceitfully use socialism as a subterfuge to further their state capitalist agendaAs pointed before, this is a ridiculous accusation. According to yourself, there wasn't any actual socialist movement in Russia; the Bolsheviks had no need to "pretend" they were socialists. If they claimed they were, it was because they so believed - even if wrongly. And the idea that they had a "state capitalist agenda" is even more ridiculous.


Indeed, partly I would say this was for external consumption but partly also I would say this was becuase the term socialism itself was already undergoing a radical transformation at the hands of Lenin in particular. The term no longer really meant what it had meant in the classical marxian traditionBefore you argued that that was because of what reality imposed onto him. Now you are back to a conspirative, and, frankly, childish, interpretation of history.


Come on, it was pretty obvious at the time that if the parties of the Second International split up into warring factions aligning themselves with their respective capitalist classes and buying into the whole myth of borugeois nationalism, that any socialist consciousness they might have evinced was skin deep. There were marxists at the time who saw this and not with the benefit of hindsight. Moreover , here I am just talking about the politicos. What of the wider working class? This same working working had voted obviously capitalist parties into power. How could anyone possibly infer from this that the workers were ready for socialism.With ongoing revolutions in half of Europe? It was easier than guessing the opposite.

Revolution was defeated everywhere but Russia at that time; but it was a very real presence in most of Europe. To ignore it is to ignore actual history, and to rely on hindsight.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I would argue that the objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution were there in Russia. They were there inside Russia, as well as throughout other countries of the world.

Well, maybe there were. I doubt it, though - Russia was too belated towards the rest of Europe; a reactionary but industrialised Europe would necessarily attack and defeat a revolutionary but agrarian Russia - unless the Russians did what they did: made production the absolute priority of their lives, which meant accepting bourgeois specialists and working hours that made political participation, not to talk about being the ruling class, impossible.

Evidently, as Rosa Luxemburg put it, the question could only be posed in Russia, but it could only be solved in Europe as a whole.


It was a huge mistake not to ensure that the primary task of Russian workers and revolutionaries during the period of the Revolution was to spread there struggle to other countries. Had Russian socialists done this, whether or not this or that objective condition was ripe or not would be irrelevant.I think this was a mistake that they did not make. They made anything possible to support Revolution elsewhere. They failed, which is a different thing. Revolution was defeated in Budapest, in Vienna, in Turin, in Munich, in Berlin, in Kiel - everywhere it was attempted. These defeats cannot be put into the account of the Russian workers or of the Bolsheviks.


By the outbreak of WWI, it should have become obvious that capitalism had entered a new period in its existence. There were no more colonies to conquer for resources, no more new markets to exploit. Capitalism could provide nothing but war and crisis, it was no longer a progressive social system.This is, I believe, a failed analysis. Capitalism appeared to be living its final crisis in 1918; in 1921 it was clear it had been able to survive it. (Un?)surprisingly, it managed to survive the 1929 economic crisis without any real attempts at revolution, remotely comparable to those by 1917-1921. By 1930, whatever the objective conditions where, it was obvious that the proletariat had been extensively and intensively defeated everywhere; if that was not enough, the brutal suppression of the Spanish revolution later in the decade was further proof. All this without no further colonies to conquer and no new markets to exploit. True, even with this general proletarian defeat panorama, capitalism seemed to promise only worse and more barbaric wars in the future.

Then, after the brutal cataclysm of 1939-1945, capitalism entered an unprecedented age of growth and progress up to 1973, without the international proletariat giving any signs of recovery. True, anti-colonial revolts succeeded everywhere in the Third World - China, Vietnam, Africa, Cuba, etc. Yet by 1980 we had capitalism not only in the economic rise, but also in a political offensive that would see that most the ex-colonies became perypheric to the capitalist system, and culminated with the destruction of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe.

So the thesis that capitalism entered its agonic period around 1914 is in contradiction with every observable fact; and moreover, it has been proved that "objective conditions" by themselves do nothing; actual subjective disposition and action are absolutely necessary to achieve revolution.


At microscopic, regional and local levels it is possible that Capitalism could have improved the quality of life for the people in society. But by 1905, world capitalism had spread and become advanced enough that the conditions for an international proletarian revolution were there.Well, if you are talking about objective conditions, it may well be. Subjective conditions don't exist today, however, and except for the few years around the end of WWI, have never existed anywhere.

Luís Henrique

[Leo]

I would argue that the objective conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution were there in Russia. They were there inside Russia, as well as throughout other countries of the world.

Well, maybe there were. I doubt it, though - Russia was too belated towards the rest of Europe; a reactionary but industrialised Europe would necessarily attack and defeat a revolutionary but agrarian Russia

I think that a lot of the arguements about what happened in Russia not being a proletarian revolution comes down to this argument: "but there were lots of peasants in Russia!"

Needless to say there were also lots of cities in Russia which were industrial, and which had a massive working class as well as a massive working-class movement. Not only that but these cities were at the center of the life of Russia, they were where the heart of Russia was beating not the vast farmlands. Obviously they were where the central power structures were based on as well. I think saying that there was no conditions for a proletarian socialist revolution in Russia due to the existence of a peasantry is downplaying the role played by the working class.

What you are saying regarding the question could only be posed in Russia, but it could only be solved in Europe (even the whole world) as a whole is certainly true. While the conditions for a proletarian revolution existed in Russia (and evidently existed in places even more agrarian that Russia, like China, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia etc.), the conditions for building socialism alone in Russia did not exist - but neither did it exist in Germany alone, or England alone and so forth. Only by expanding could the working class start building socialism.


This is, I believe, a failed analysis. Capitalism appeared to be living its final crisis in 1918; in 1921 it was clear it had been able to survive it. (Un?)surprisingly, it managed to survive the 1929 economic crisis without any real attempts at revolution, remotely comparable to those by 1917-1921. By 1930, whatever the objective conditions where, it was obvious that the proletariat had been extensively and intensively defeated everywhere; if that was not enough, the brutal suppression of the Spanish revolution later in the decade was further proof. All this without no further colonies to conquer and no new markets to exploit. True, even with this general proletarian defeat panorama, capitalism seemed to promise only worse and more barbaric wars in the future.

Well, yes what you seem to be saying here is that capitalism did not immediately collapse, managed to defeat the working class and kept surviving. This is evidently true. Merely surviving, and that by means of brutal repression as well as other artificial structural measures, and offering nothing to the world except wars and barbarism does not mean that capitalism is a progressive social system though, nor does it mean that capitalism had been advancing. Other social systems, for example feudalism, managed to survive while rotting on their feet for centuries. I'd say that capitalism had been in a similar condition more or less since the beginning of the last century.


Then, after the brutal cataclysm of 1939-1945, capitalism entered an unprecedented age of growth and progress up to 1973, without the international proletariat giving any signs of recovery.

Well - May 68?

As for the post-war boom, while this is an ongoing debate in our organization at the moment (you can check out http://en.internationalism.org/ir/133/economic_debate_decadence and if you want to read more on the details of different positions: http://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/136/war-economy , http://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/136/bases-of-accumulation , http://en.internationalism.org/ir/135/economic-debate-postwar-prosperity). Sometimes a growth is cancerous rather than healthy and comes back haunting the system even more. The crisis did become obvious in the 70s. I'd say that it hasn't really left ever since either.


Only those who dare make mistakes; those who prefer inaction can always give us ther ex-post explanations of what went wrong and why they would not make the same mistakes.

Yeah it's really stupid trying to draw the lessons of the experience, lets make the old mistakes over and over again, otherwise we will be preferring inaction!!!

[Devrim]

Evidently, as Rosa Luxemburg put it, the question could only be posed in Russia, but it could only be solved in Europe as a whole.

I think this was a mistake that they did not make. They made anything possible to support Revolution elsewhere. They failed, which is a different thing. Revolution was defeated in Budapest, in Vienna, in Turin, in Munich, in Berlin, in Kiel - everywhere it was attempted. These defeats cannot be put into the account of the Russian workers or of the Bolsheviks.

I think that the assertion here is correct, but I am not in complete agreement with the conclusion drawn from it. In my opinion the tactics advocated by the Bolsheviks were deeply flawed (see the arguments at the Second Congress, 'Left wing Communism...', 'An Open Letter to comrade Lenin etc...').

To the extent that these tactics were foistered on the international it can be put into the account of the Bolsheviks.

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

I think that a lot of the arguements about what happened in Russia not being a proletarian revolution comes down to this argument: "but there were lots of peasants in Russia!"

That's not what I have argued. My argument was,


At its most basic roots, there was a probably insoluble conundrum, on which the Bolsheviks got lost:

1. You can't struggle against the rest of the world without a solid economy to supply your armies.

2. You can't build a solid economy without requiring the majority of the population to build it, with labour and labour power, which means, with labour hours.

3. You can't overwork yourself and be the rulling class: if you spend most of your time working in a factory or farm, when are you going to rule anything?


What you are saying regarding the question could only be posed in Russia, but it could only be solved in Europe (even the whole world) as a whole is certainly true. While the conditions for a proletarian revolution existed in Russia (and evidently existed in places even more agrarian that Russia, like China, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia etc.), the conditions for building socialism alone in Russia did not exist - but neither did it exist in Germany alone, or England alone and so forth. Only by expanding could the working class start building socialism.That's fair - but still the nature of the difficulties in Russia was of a different degree. Had revolution won in Germany alone, and been isolated in Germany, the German proletariat would still be able to face - for a much more extended period at least - foreign armed intervention without having to resource to absolute priority for production. Not to say that isolating revolution in Germany would be much more difficult for the bourgeoisie than isolating it in Russia - if not for other reasons, because the role of the German - as opposed to Russian - economy in international capitalism was central. (Anyway, I am not saying the bit about where the question was posed and where it should be solved - Rosa Luxemburg said it, with her habitual precision and clarividence.)


Well, yes what you seem to be saying here is that capitalism did not immediately collapse, managed to defeat the working class and kept surviving. This is evidently true. Merely surviving, and that by means of brutal repression as well as other artificial structural measures, and offering nothing to the world except wars and barbarism does not mean that capitalism is a progressive social system though, nor does it mean that capitalism had been advancing. Other social systems, for example feudalism, managed to survive while rotting on their feet for centuries. I'd say that capitalism had been in a similar condition more or less since the beginning of the last century.I would say this is not true, or at least that it is not precisely dated. Evidently if you said that in 1915, 1925 or 1935 it would make a lot of sence. The period after WWII wasn't by any means similar; capitalist expansion then certainly did not offer the world only wars and barbarism.


Well - May 68?I would argue it unhappily cannot be really compared to the revolutionary situation in 1917-1921. But you are right, this was a sign, even if not much more than a sign.


As for the post-war boom, while this is an ongoing debate in our organization at the momentThanks, I will certainly check the links.


Sometimes a growth is cancerous rather than healthy and comes back haunting the system even more. The crisis did become obvious in the 70s. I'd say that it hasn't really left ever since either.Sometimes a growth is cancerous. Certainly the capitalist economy grew during the 1919-39 period, and certainly this does not detract from the fact that capitalism seemed (and probably was) in deep crisis during all that period. The 1945-73 seems to me to have been different in nature (extension of bourgeois democratic rule, not of open dictatorships; elevation, not depression, of the life conditions of the masses; increase of international commerce; local instead of global wars, etc.) Anyway, this is, at least to me, analysis, not dogma.


Yeah it's really stupid trying to draw the lessons of the experience, lets make the old mistakes over and over again, otherwise we will be preferring inaction!!!Sorry, but you are here taking my words completely out of context. I by no means suggest that we shouldn't draw lessons from experience. I am saying that drawing the conclusion that "we would best have not done anything" (or "anything dangerous") from the Russian Revolution experience is really unwise. Especially if based in the self-contradictory argument that the Bolsheviks duped the masses by pretending they were socialists, and anyway there was no socialist movement in Russia at the time.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I think that the assertion here is correct, but I am not in complete agreement with the conclusion drawn from it. In my opinion the tactics advocated by the Bolsheviks were deeply flawed (see the arguments at the Second Congress, 'Left wing Communism...', 'An Open Letter to comrade Lenin etc...').

The Bolsheviks certainly did make mistakes, and it is possible that the tactics they advocated were deeply flawed. Which tactics, by the way?

What we consider "mistakes" by the Bolsheviks varies according to our political positions. Not to talk about the right, that believes a revolution is a mistake in itself, it has been argued that the Bolsheviks were wrong because they attempted an impossible revolution - and also that they were wrong because they didn't attempt more at the impossible. Blaming them for having a hidden "State capitalist agenda", as has been done in this thread, seems to me a blatant falsety. Blaming them for not attempting to expand the revolution seems to me contrary to the facts. They tried, they failed. Maybe, as you argue, they tried with mistaken methods; this is still not the same as not trying. The Bolshevik attempt to "build Socialism" in Russia, in any case, only came after the revolution in Europe had been clearly defeated. Anyway, nothing of this has to do with the argument that it was "obvious" in 1917 that revolution would be defeated, and so should have not been attempted, which is my main concern in this thread.


To the extent that these tactics were foistered on the international it can be put into the account of the Bolsheviks.

True. Evidently, however, the ability of the Bolsheviks to impose ideas onto the International was a consequence of the defeat of the revolution elsewhere, much more than a cause. If revolution was victorious in Germany, then it would be the German party who would be able to call the shots.

Luís Henrique

[Devrim]

True. Evidently, however, the ability of the Bolsheviks to impose ideas onto the International was a consequence of the defeat of the revolution elsewhere, much more than a cause. If revolution was victorious in Germany, then it would be the German party who would be able to call the shots.

It is true that the German revolution was the central point. It was also the central point of disagreement between the left and the centre as represented by Lenin. One could say that the confusion caused in the German movement, and the adoption of what we, not to mention the majority of KPD members at the time who were expelled from the party, saw as disasterous policies, could at least be seen as partly contributing too the faliure of the revolution.


The Bolsheviks certainly did make mistakes, and it is possible that the tactics they advocated were deeply flawed. Which tactics, by the way?

Particulary on parlimentarianism, the unions, and the opportunist merger with the USPD.

Devrim

[Pogue]

It is true that the German revolution was the central point. It was also the central point of disagreement between the left and the centre as represented by Lenin. One could say that the confusion caused in the German movement, and the adoption of what we, not to mention the majority of KPD members at the time who were expelled from the party, saw as disasterous policies, could at least be seen as partly contributing too the faliure of the revolution.



Particulary on parlimentarianism, the unions, and the opportunist merger with the USPD.

Devrim

I never understood why left Communists do not refer more to the supression of the factory committees as evidence of the 'mistakes' of the Bolsheviks, or perhaps even the breurecratic state they implemented which was opposed ot the working class.

[Luís Henrique]

I never understood why left Communists do not refer more to the supression of the factory committees as evidence of the 'mistakes' of the Bolsheviks, or perhaps even the breurecratic state they implemented which was opposed ot the working class.

Then I suggest you reread this thread.

Luís Henrique

[Devrim]

I never understood why left Communists do not refer more to the supression of the factory committees as evidence of the 'mistakes' of the Bolsheviks, or perhaps even the breurecratic state they implemented which was opposed ot the working class.

I wasn't commenting on the 'mistakes' of the Bolsheviks. I was commenting on the faliure of the revolution. They are different issues.

I think that we would be in agreement that the revolution was doomed to faliure if it didn't spread. This implies some other things, one of them being that whatever economic policy was followed in Russia it couldn't save the revolution without workers taking power in Germany anyway.

If you read the left communists in Russia at the time they argued resolutely against things like the implementation of things like one man management.

However, it isn't really connected to the points that were being made here unless you believe that 'socialism in one country' ccould have been constructed with better economic policies.

Devrim

[Leo]

I never understood why left Communists do not refer more to the supression of the factory committees as evidence of the 'mistakes' of the Bolsheviks, or perhaps even the breurecratic state they implemented which was opposed ot the working class.

You can check out the following articles:

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/187_factory_committees.htm
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/300/anarchism-and-workers-control

[ChrisK]

The writings of Marx are valuable in understanding the rise of capitalism and how capitalism works, irrespective of whether he presented a viable alternative. 19th century anarchists agreed with Marx's analysis and his desire for a classless, stateless society. They were also intelligent enough to see that you can't create a state dictatorship to dismantle the state and a ruling class to abolish classes.

The pre-20th century definition of a dictatorship was direct democracy, not an oligarchical oppressive regime. Direct democracy was the dictatorship because the ruling class called it the tyranny of the majority and a direct threat to their power. Therefore, dictatorship of the proletariat translates into the direct democracy of the proletariat in modern terms.

[ZeroNowhere]

The pre-20th century definition of a dictatorship was direct democracy, not an oligarchical oppressive regime. So the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie ("dictatorship of the bourgeois class") was referring to the direct democracy of the bourgeoisie (whatever that should mean), rather than the class rule of the bourgeoisie? I also recall Marx referring to the 'spiritual dictatorship of the Pope', and Engels wrote an article named 'Military Dictatorship in Austria'.


They were also intelligent enough to see that you can't create a state dictatorship to dismantle the state and a ruling class to abolish classes.Why can't you have a ruling class to abolish classes?

[robbo203]

In which case it is absurd that you accuse the Bolsheviks of abusing the enormous popularity of socialism...

Historically, prior to World War one, the word "socialism" tended to be treated as more or less a synonym for communism. I have already given a few examples from various sources. It was Lenin who broke with the marxian tradition by describing socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. In my view, this redefining of socialism was undertaken to circumvent the obvious fact that in no way was the Bolshevik revolution a genuine socialist revolution - it established state capitalism, not socialism - and to maintain the pretence that Russia was somehow still on course to a post capitalist society



Well, this is more reasonable: perhaps a different leadership would have provided a more smooth transition towards socialism. Unhappily such other leadership seemed to be absent at the time; the Mensheviks, which apparently qualified, for some reason supported the czarist war effort, and so where discarded by the masses, which were fed up with war....


There was no "transition to socialism". It was a transition to state capitalism, a solidification or consolidation of capitalist relations of production based on generalised commodity production and wage labour. It matters not what leadership was ensconced in power - had it been the Mensheviks and not the Bolsheviks, capitalism would still have been the only viable option available. Socialism was simply not on the cards for the reasons given



Which means that you assume an a-historic point of view, contradictory with your veredict that there were no objective conditions for a socialist revolution in 1917 Russia. Either there is an history, and certain conditions may be absent from a certain age and place - in which case the task of people there isn't to dream about a future to which they don't belong, but to act in order to do what their time asks for - or there isn't a history, and assertions about "objective conditions" mean nothing. You can't have both.
....

This is absurd. I am not at all taking an ahistorical point of view. Let me restate my position again - the only option on the table for the Bolsheviks was to develop capitalism because the objective preconditions for socialism simply did not exist. You are confusing this with something quite different - what should be the position of socialists in circumstances when socialism is simply not possible. Should we align ourselves with the ascendent capitalist class in order to further the development of capitalism. I say no - not becuase the further development of capitalism would not bring socialism or the preconditions fo socialism closer. This will happen without or without any assistance from the socialists. I say no because to align yourself with the interests of the capitalist class is effectively to cease to be socialist completely, to relinquish socialist revolution in favour of capitalist reform. I actually consider it to be a vital role of socialists to sustain the clear and distinctive socialist objective even in circumstances when socialism is not on the cards in readiness for the time when socialism might become possible This is an entirely different argument to what you attribute to me



As pointed before, this is a ridiculous accusation. According to yourself, there wasn't any actual socialist movement in Russia; the Bolsheviks had no need to "pretend" they were socialists. If they claimed they were, it was because they so believed - even if wrongly. And the idea that they had a "state capitalist agenda" is even more ridiculous.....

I dont say genuine socialist ideas did not have some currency at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, I simply assert that there was no significant socialist movement clearly standing for the abolition of wage labour - the litmus test for anyone claiming to bre a socialist. If you have evidence to the contrary lets hear it.

And yes the Bolsheviks did have a state capitalist agenda! It is ridiculous to deny this. Lenin himself tirelessly promoted state capitalism as the answer to Russia's backwardness and pointed to the state capitalism of the German war economy as an example to be emulated.



Before you argued that that was because of what reality imposed onto him. Now you are back to a conspirative, and, frankly, childish, interpretation of history......


What on earth are you on about? It is a fact - is it not ? - that Lenin redefined socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. I am not suggesting that the basic reality somehow altered because of what Lenin said or did not say. History is not the result of a conspiracy. How individuals chose to interpret history may be a different matter but that does not alter the basic underlying reality. Your ciriticisms are confused




With ongoing revolutions in half of Europe? It was easier than guessing the opposite.

Revolution was defeated everywhere but Russia at that time; but it was a very real presence in most of Europe. To ignore it is to ignore actual history, and to rely on hindsight.

Luís Henrique

That entirely depends on what you mean by "revolution" of course. Uprisings and so forth do not equate with revolution in my book which entails a fundamental change in the basic mode of production. Your romanticised view of history with "half of europe" in the throes of "revolution" hardly squares with the facts. The working class throughout Europe massively acquiesced in the continuation of capitalism in one form or another. They had just been at each others throats fighting for the competing interests of the rival national capitalist groupings in the form of the First World War . German workers had fought and died for the interests of German capitalism. British workers for the interests of British capitalism. And so on,. And you seriously suggest these same workers were ready for a socialist revolution?

[ChrisK]

So the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie ("dictatorship of the bourgeois class") was referring to the direct democracy of the bourgeoisie (whatever that should mean), rather than the class rule of the bourgeoisie? I also recall Marx referring to the 'spiritual dictatorship of the Pope', and Engels wrote an article named 'Military Dictatorship in Austria'.

Why can't you have a ruling class to abolish classes?

Sorry I should have been more clear. I meant in the context of a popular movement. I do that alot, where I just assume you can read my intent without me giving any indicator of it.

[Howard509]

Since I don't want chaos, I believe there should be a transitional period into an anarchist society. Whatever state remains under this period should be as libertarian as possible, with as much mass participation as possible. If the state disappeared now, I don't think the majority of people would be ready. I don't believe we need a vanguard party to fight a revolution to overthrow the state. Hopefully, the capitalist state, being unsustainable, will collapse on its own, or become sufficiently weakened that the people won't need a civil war.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Particulary on parlimentarianism, the unions, and the opportunist merger with the USPD.

Devrim

Merger with the USPD? That wasn't a merger. One part of the USPD merely decided to merge with the KPD, and the KPD accepted this second flight.

If anything else, the KPD should have liquidated into the USPD to make up for its ultra-leftist genesis.

[Devrim]

Merger with the USPD? That wasn't a merger. One part of the USPD merely decided to merge with the KPD, and the KPD accepted this second flight.

Well you said it. Actually the KPD worked hard for this merger and it was consistent with the policy of the International.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

How did the KPD "work hard," exactly? The left-wing of the USPD was won over merely by the obvious scab role of the right-wing.

[Bilan]

:rolleyes:
Slander again? The petit bourgeoisie has nothing to do with anarchism.

Well, yes, it does, especially at that time - considering anarchist theoreticians like Proudhon.
However, in the current context, there are strands of the anarchist 'movement' which have definite roots in the working class -particularly the Communist and Syndicalist strands of anarchism.
But yes, the petit-bourgeoisie certainly did have a lot to do with anarchism.

[ZeroNowhere]

:rolleyes:
Slander again? The petit bourgeoisie has nothing to do with anarchism.To be honest, I don't think it's slander unless one is to have forgotten about a pretty well known guy with the initials 'F. E.'

[JimmyJazz]

I know this post is old, but:


Libertarian Marxism?
libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxism

The Character of the Commune
Karl Marx
marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME1511en_d1.html

This is one of the most libertarian documents I've ever read. After seeing the brief success of the Paris Commune, Marx loosened his authoritarianism, calling for the abolition of centralized state authority.

Actually, after the brief (to say the least) experience of the Commune, Marx became even more adamant that the first and really the only main task of a working class revolution was to smash the old state apparatus and secure state power. So, he got more "authoritarian" as the result of the Commune. As far as I know, it's from the Commune period that you first see the analysis Engels would later summarize as, "a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is."

He was convinced that a working class revolution would inevitably be socialist in character. So what he was concerned about was that the working class should be in power, and that required rejection and authoritarian suppression of all non-working class elements.

[Comrade Corwin]

Please enlighten me. I am not sure how any of this resembles the theory of Libertarianism. I thought Libertarianism was to strip the government into its most basic skeletal power structure to prevent it from interfering with people's lives as much as possible.