Communist
13th February 2010, 13:01
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http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/S3VAbL8sfmI/AAAAAAAAB8A/oGeJo_WHdwo/s200/LeninBust.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/S3VAbL8sfmI/AAAAAAAAB8A/oGeJo_WHdwo/s1600-h/LeninBust.jpg)
Lenin on Syndicalism
"Demagogues are the worst enemies of the working class" - Lenin
Workerism
In this book Lenin was concerned to oppose what he called “economism”, which is also called “syndicalism” and in South Africa in the past and still up to now, “workerism”.
Lenin was concerned to show (following the publication of Eduard Bernstein’s gradualist “Evolutionary Socialism” and Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution?”) that a revolutionary transformation of society was not possible without a revolutionary political party of the working class. Trade union organisation of the working class was never going to be sufficient.
In the process Lenin was moved to denounce demagogy in the severest terms (see the quote above, which is taken from the text that we are using today. One reason that Lenin denounced demagogues so emphatically is because they misrepresent themselves as being “left” or revolutionary, when in fact they are “right”, and in particular gradualist, reformist and class-collaborationist.
Worker’s Control?
Sometimes syndicalism arrives at a point where it proposes, demagogically, “worker’s control” under capitalism. Marx and Lenin both denounced such tomfoolery – see, for example, Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Programme (http://sadtu-media-releases.googlegroups.com/web/1201a%2C+Critique+of+the+Gotha+Programme%2C+Karl+M arx%2C+1875.doc?gda=0gLga3MAAADO5_tBHBXARP4AsX6lmY OoW59bOFerZaOL7ZNRfZ8Q5YS2YrZWNopsbYu5HMAfjZi5U-_90BdQdvVajV87UOW2ob_zCeDtLNFfR8R_863j6R3tlgPljXli Qw8JwPblG)”
Lenin showed that the worker’s political party, the communist party, remains a “must-have”. To achieve its goals the working class must combine in a "vast association of the whole nation" and so rise above the peasant and petty-bourgeois condition of being a "sack of potatoes".
Whereas the syndicalism of individual factories or isolated mines is nothing more than a reversion to petty-bourgeois consciousness, in conditions where such petty-bourgeois behaviour is hopelessly subordinated to a bourgeois market that it cannot possibly control.
How will they sell their products, unless on the terms of the Imperialists? This is why we say that demagogy is nothing but the class enemy’s message, dressed up and re-sold in fake-revolutionary clothes. Demagogues will even be found denouncing the real revolutionaries as fakes.
When in doubt about such things, it helps to study. Lenin is a good person to study, because he was good at telling the difference between genuine things, and fakes. Especially, Lenin opposed syndicalism, workerism, gradualism reformism and economism, all of which still exist today.
Downloads:
1106a, What is to be Done, Workers & Revolutionaries, Lenin (http://communist-university.googlegroups.com/web/1106a%2C+What+is+to+be+Done%2C+Workers+%26+Revolut ionaries%2C+Lenin.doc?gda=W4PcrX4AAABRWT0JvHr826K2 AV2Sy7ruWF_cvIR4bQcjY2Qjv0TmrWil66lirPyUX6aCxEZVGH xoKCpHpCsh1YQmlRJkf_Tnl1pFkUJUuBBgHLP2xB_1F_tNrPf8 SjuO1Qk)
Worker Solidarity and Unions, MIA, Meetings, Hannington (http://communist-university.googlegroups.com/web/1106%2C+Worker+Solidarity+and+Unions%2C+MIA%3B+Mee tings%2C+Hannington.doc?gda=jh_Z84AAAABRWT0JvHr826 K2AV2Sy7ruWF_cvIR4bQcjY2Qjv0TmrWqIYeWP4QVHu5dm91rj uvG8tEC0BPEnFlA6fT3p9guJY4azGvB-4QtnhowQyXEt2ho1ks4tjyO_q)
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Posted By DomzaNet to Communist University (http://domza.blogspot.com/2010/02/lenin-against-syndicalism.html) on 2/12/2010 02:07:00 PM --
________________________________________
note: these are posted for informational use, and are NOT endorsed
necessarily by RevLeft member posting them.
--------------------
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/S3VAbL8sfmI/AAAAAAAAB8A/oGeJo_WHdwo/s200/LeninBust.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/S3VAbL8sfmI/AAAAAAAAB8A/oGeJo_WHdwo/s1600-h/LeninBust.jpg)
Lenin on Syndicalism
"Demagogues are the worst enemies of the working class" - Lenin
Workerism
In this book Lenin was concerned to oppose what he called “economism”, which is also called “syndicalism” and in South Africa in the past and still up to now, “workerism”.
Lenin was concerned to show (following the publication of Eduard Bernstein’s gradualist “Evolutionary Socialism” and Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution?”) that a revolutionary transformation of society was not possible without a revolutionary political party of the working class. Trade union organisation of the working class was never going to be sufficient.
In the process Lenin was moved to denounce demagogy in the severest terms (see the quote above, which is taken from the text that we are using today. One reason that Lenin denounced demagogues so emphatically is because they misrepresent themselves as being “left” or revolutionary, when in fact they are “right”, and in particular gradualist, reformist and class-collaborationist.
Worker’s Control?
Sometimes syndicalism arrives at a point where it proposes, demagogically, “worker’s control” under capitalism. Marx and Lenin both denounced such tomfoolery – see, for example, Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Programme (http://sadtu-media-releases.googlegroups.com/web/1201a%2C+Critique+of+the+Gotha+Programme%2C+Karl+M arx%2C+1875.doc?gda=0gLga3MAAADO5_tBHBXARP4AsX6lmY OoW59bOFerZaOL7ZNRfZ8Q5YS2YrZWNopsbYu5HMAfjZi5U-_90BdQdvVajV87UOW2ob_zCeDtLNFfR8R_863j6R3tlgPljXli Qw8JwPblG)”
Lenin showed that the worker’s political party, the communist party, remains a “must-have”. To achieve its goals the working class must combine in a "vast association of the whole nation" and so rise above the peasant and petty-bourgeois condition of being a "sack of potatoes".
Whereas the syndicalism of individual factories or isolated mines is nothing more than a reversion to petty-bourgeois consciousness, in conditions where such petty-bourgeois behaviour is hopelessly subordinated to a bourgeois market that it cannot possibly control.
How will they sell their products, unless on the terms of the Imperialists? This is why we say that demagogy is nothing but the class enemy’s message, dressed up and re-sold in fake-revolutionary clothes. Demagogues will even be found denouncing the real revolutionaries as fakes.
When in doubt about such things, it helps to study. Lenin is a good person to study, because he was good at telling the difference between genuine things, and fakes. Especially, Lenin opposed syndicalism, workerism, gradualism reformism and economism, all of which still exist today.
Downloads:
1106a, What is to be Done, Workers & Revolutionaries, Lenin (http://communist-university.googlegroups.com/web/1106a%2C+What+is+to+be+Done%2C+Workers+%26+Revolut ionaries%2C+Lenin.doc?gda=W4PcrX4AAABRWT0JvHr826K2 AV2Sy7ruWF_cvIR4bQcjY2Qjv0TmrWil66lirPyUX6aCxEZVGH xoKCpHpCsh1YQmlRJkf_Tnl1pFkUJUuBBgHLP2xB_1F_tNrPf8 SjuO1Qk)
Worker Solidarity and Unions, MIA, Meetings, Hannington (http://communist-university.googlegroups.com/web/1106%2C+Worker+Solidarity+and+Unions%2C+MIA%3B+Mee tings%2C+Hannington.doc?gda=jh_Z84AAAABRWT0JvHr826 K2AV2Sy7ruWF_cvIR4bQcjY2Qjv0TmrWqIYeWP4QVHu5dm91rj uvG8tEC0BPEnFlA6fT3p9guJY4azGvB-4QtnhowQyXEt2ho1ks4tjyO_q)
--
Posted By DomzaNet to Communist University (http://domza.blogspot.com/2010/02/lenin-against-syndicalism.html) on 2/12/2010 02:07:00 PM --
________________________________________
note: these are posted for informational use, and are NOT endorsed
necessarily by RevLeft member posting them.