Petty bourgeois bureaucrats, social traitors and capitalist roaders

[el_chavista]

It's Bakunin's "curse": when communists seize power they will substitute a class for another one.

I think that there is no other main reason for the failure of the socialism of the 20th century than the enemy within: the petty-bourgeois leyer inside the Communist Parties.

They didn't transfer power to people but got for themselves the management of the means of economic production.

They didn't find a way to solve the problem of economic backwardness but returning to a savage capitalism, betraying the working class.

[Paulappaul]

No, the failure of 20th century Socialism was a product of mentallity that a Revolutionary Party, which is fundamentally un-proletarian can enter the Government and create Socialism. It's this kind of revisionism of Marxism which has produced the death of millions in the Soviet Union, the dictatorships in Korea and the State Capitalism practised in Cuba and China. It's the idea that the Proletarian has to be lead, rather then trust in their revolutionary spontaneity.

[el_chavista]

No, the failure of 20th century Socialism was a product of mentallity that a Revolutionary Party, which is fundamentally un-proletarian can enter the Government and create Socialism...
It is a fact that the Bolshevik Party was a mass working party who drove the capitalists out of power in Russia.


It's the idea that the Proletarian has to be lead, rather then trust in their revolutionary spontaneity.The spontaneity of workers only drives to "economicistic" tradeunionism.

[Paulappaul]

It is a fact that the Bolshevik Party was a mass working party who drove the capitalists out of power in Russia.

The very tactics which resulted in it's dictatorship.

[KC]

rather then trust in their revolutionary spontaneity.

:rolleyes:

[Zanthorus]

It's the idea that the Proletarian has to be lead, rather then trust in their revolutionary spontaneity.

That's a lovely little false dichotomy you've presented there.

There is always the other option of raising workers consciousness to a vanguard level instead of relying on "revolutionary spontaneity" or having them led by bourgeois intellectuals... which was sort of Lenin's position if you'd bothered to read any deeper than some rantings about evil Leninist conspiracies to disempower workers.

[Paulappaul]

option of raising

Uh huh, you mean teaching, that is, leading. So the proletariat does have to be lead?

[Zanthorus]

Uh huh, you mean teaching, that is, leading.

No it isn't. Try again.


So the proletariat does have to be lead?

I can't really answer that with a blanket "yes" or "no" without reference to some actual material events. Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes no. There's nothing really inherently wrong with leadership though.

[Paulappaul]

There is problem with being lead by individuals who want to mould you into something. When it comes too the idea, that the workers themselves aren't able to emancipate themselves, that they need to be raise "consciousness to a vanguard level" is when you run into the problem of the Revolutionaries becoming megalomaniacs. It's this kind of opportunistic vanguardism of teaching the proletarian it's revolutionary consciousness that Marx argued against when he said,


For nearly 40 years we have raised to prominence the idea of the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history, and particularly the class struggle between bourgeois and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution; hence, we can hardly go along with people who want to strike this class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International, we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.

We cannot, therefore, go along with people who openly claim that the workers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first be emancipated from the top down, by the philanthropic big and petty bourgeois. Should the new party organ take a position that corresponds with the ideas of those gentlemen, become bourgeois and not proletarian, then there is nothing left for us, sorry as we should be to do so, than to speak out against it publicly and dissolve the solidarity within which we have hitherto represented the German party abroad.

[Zanthorus]

There is problem with being lead by individuals who want to mould you into something. When it comes too the idea, that the workers themselves aren't able to emancipate themselves, that they need to be raise "consciousness to a vanguard level" is when you run into the problem of the Revolutionaries becoming megalomaniacs. It's this kind of opportunistic vanguardism of teaching the proletarian it's revolutionary consciousness that Marx argued against when he said,

This is like talking to a brick wall I swear.

Please show me where anyone in this thread advocated the workers being led to victory by any member of the bourgeoisie big or small. The fact is that you are arguing against your own false conception of Lenin's concept of the party. Just for kicks why don't we see what Lenin himself had to say on spontaneous working class action?


It has been said here that the exponents of Social-Democratic ideas have been mainly intellectuals. That is not so. During the period of Economism the exponents of revolutionary ideas were workers, not intellectuals. This is confirmed by "A Worker", the author of the pamphlet published with a foreword by Comrade Axelrod.

[...]

In my writings for the press I have long urged that as many workers as possible should be placed on the committees...

I can hear Comrade Sergeyev booing while the non-committee-men applaud. I think we should look at the matter more broadly. To place workers on the committees is a political, not only a pedagogical, task. Workers have the class instinct, and, given some political experience, they pretty soon become staunch Social-Democrats.

(By social-democracy is meant revolutionary Marxism)


It is often said that the working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism. This is perfectly true in the sense that socialist theory reveals the causes of the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily... The working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism.

Of course I skipped over an important point in the WITBD quote which was that "bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still greater degree." (Emphasis added) Remember that old Marxist quip about "the ruling ideas of every age are those of it's ruling class"? The idea that "spontaneous" working class action can overthrow capitalism ignores that the working class doesn't exist as a force unto itself but within capitalism and subject to it's ideology. Therefore to begin with it's necessary for intellectuals and the upper-stratum of the working class to educate the rest of the class about it's historic role. This has nothing to do with the workers being led by intellectuals or the less advanced strata of the working-class being led by the more advanced. It is simply a material fact that initially most workers will not gravitate towards socialism and will have to come to realise it through struggle in which the vanguard elements of the class will bring socialist ideas to the forefront.

[Paulappaul]

The fact is that you are arguing against your own false conception of Lenin's concept of the party. Just for kicks why don't we see what Lenin himself had to say on spontaneous working class action?

I never said I was arguing against Lenin, just the false conception of vanguardism.

[Dimentio]

It's Bakunin's "curse": when communists seize power they will substitute a class for another one.

I think that there is no other main reason for the failure of the socialism of the 20th century than the enemy within: the petty-bourgeois leyer inside the Communist Parties.

They didn't transfer power to people but got for themselves the management of the means of economic production.

They didn't find a way to solve the problem of economic backwardness but returning to a savage capitalism, betraying the working class.

I think there is another reason, that people in general expect a certain segment to rule and attain administrative power in order to not have to worry about running the affairs of state and government.

[AK]

Give proof of this "petit-bourgeois" layer. I'm certain not every "evil revisionist" was petit-bourgeois (in it's actual class sense, and not the pejorative bullshit way which you almost certainly seem to be using).

[Zanthorus]

I never said I was arguing against Lenin, just the false conception of vanguardism.

Your original post talked about "20th century socialism" and the Soviet Union so I sort of assumed you were talking about Lenin since that's the guy who "vanguardism" (In the negative sense) is usually attributed to. I don't think "vanguardism" is a very good explanation for the failures of the Russian Revolution. I would question in fact wether any revolution has ever actually been pulled off succesfully merely by the work of a determined revolutionary minority.

[RED DAVE]

I think there is another reason, that people in general expect a certain segment to rule and attain administrative power in order to not have to worry about running the affairs of state and government.More of Dimentio's theory of history: that people really want to evade their responsibilities and want someone to make decisions for them.

Some fucking revolutionary.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

More of Dimentio's theory of history: that people really want to evade their responsibilities and want someone to make decisions for them.

Some fucking revolutionary.

RED DAVE

Stop trolling Dave :)

[el_chavista]

Give proof of this "petit-bourgeois" layer. I'm certain not every "evil revisionist" was petit-bourgeois (in it's actual class sense, and not the pejorative bullshit way which you almost certainly seem to be using).
Bureaucracy is made out of petty bourgeois, those like the PCUS' apparatchiki which destroyed the Soviet Union, or the clique of aristocratic Chou Enlai and his dauphin Deng Xiao Ping which betrayed the Chinese working class in their searching of rapid economic development.
My point is that Marxism-Leninism got nothing to do with the ideological betraying of the petty bourgeois layer leading the governments of the former Socialist-wannabe countries of the 20th century.

[AK]

Bureaucracy is made out of petty bourgeois, those like the PCUS' apparatchiki which destroyed the Soviet Union, or the clique of aristocratic Chou Enlai and his dauphin Deng Xiao Ping which betrayed the Chinese working class in their searching of rapid economic development.
My point is that Marxism-Leninism got nothing to do with the ideological betraying of the petty bourgeois layer leading the governments of the former Socialist-wannabe countries of the 20th century.
You've got no proof that every revisionist was petit-bourgeois. Stop avoiding the point.

[Fietsketting]

I think it will be best if everyone just started with listening to me. My idea's are sound and can teach you all kind of revolutionairy theory when i am the head of the proletariat wich our vanguard won't put in place cause only we can tell when the time is right. Waaaaittt a minute.....

[Glenn Beck]

There is problem with being lead by individuals who want to mould you into something. When it comes too the idea, that the workers themselves aren't able to emancipate themselves, that they need to be raise "consciousness to a vanguard level" is when you run into the problem of the Revolutionaries becoming megalomaniacs. It's this kind of opportunistic vanguardism of teaching the proletarian it's revolutionary consciousness that Marx argued against when he said,

Whatever, homes. I don't have a problem with 'molding' hapless fucks into wise cats who know the score. I'd want the same done to me, and that's my standard: do unto others. Your individualism leads you to totally absurd positions that don't really stand on anything except moralism.

It's really mystifying too, people who are revolutionary and people who aren't are both people, they're on equal footing. You aren't a superior being from another planet violating some kind of Prime Directive by organizing, educating, and *gasp* leading other people.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

More of Dimentio's theory of history: that people really want to evade their responsibilities and want someone to make decisions for them.

Some fucking revolutionary.

RED DAVE

So what do you think should be done if someone doesn't want anything to do with the political process? Force them to vote and attend meetings "for their own good"?

[Blake's Baby]

It's Bakunin's "curse": when communists seize power they will substitute a class for another one.

I think that there is no other main reason for the failure of the socialism of the 20th century than the enemy within: the petty-bourgeois leyer inside the Communist Parties.

They didn't transfer power to people but got for themselves the management of the means of economic production.

They didn't find a way to solve the problem of economic backwardness but returning to a savage capitalism, betraying the working class.

So; if the administration set up in revolutionary Russia had been composed of dedicated proletarian worker-militants, it would have been able to implement socialism?

So; the failure of socialism is a sociological question (too many sons of lawyers, not enough steelworkers) or even a question of policy (too petty-bourgeois, not workerist enough)?

So; Stalin was right, Lenin, Trotsky and Marx were wrong, socialism is possible in one country, as long as the right class is in power and/or the right policy is persued?

I don't buy it. The reason the revolution deteriorated in Russia is the failure of the world revolution, not the fact that Lenin's dad was a school inspector or not enough workers headed up ministries. Those things being different wouldn't have changed anything. The successful world revolution would have changed everything.

[eyedrop]

So what do you think should be done if someone doesn't want anything to do with the political process? Force them to vote and attend meetings "for their own good"?If it is a small part of the population, then let them do what they want, no worries.

If it is a large part of the population, then the proletariat haven't matured enough to want to take matters into it's own hands and all talk of communism or anarchism is moot. The best you'll end up with is a benevolent despotic class for a while before it feeds it own interests.

[Paulappaul]

Whatever, homes. I don't have a problem with 'molding' hapless fucks into wise cats who know the score. I'd want the same done to me, and that's my standard: do unto others. Your individualism leads you to totally absurd positions that don't really stand on anything except moralism.

It's really mystifying too, people who are revolutionary and people who aren't are both people, they're on equal footing. You aren't a superior being from another planet violating some kind of Prime Directive by organizing, educating, and *gasp* leading other people.


We're not talking about walk in the park. We're talking about the building of a new society. If you subordinate people to your leadership, then they never learn how to become leaders or free thinkers. When the working class fights it's own fights, when organizes on it's own, it learns from it's battles.

When the Working class is subordinated, to a Party or Trade Union, it falls under their leadership, their ideology and thus it lacks it's own autonomy. If the working class never learns from it's mistakes, never learns to direct production and lead a revolution, then it's doomed for building a Socialist society for the fact that it doesn't know how.

Naturally there needs to be some form of practical organization alongside the proletariat. But where as those who are proponents of Vanguardism, where as those who are Council Communists, Anarchists, etc. differ is if organization should be the tool of the working class, or if the working class should be the tool of an ideology.

[Zanthorus]

But where as those who are proponents of Vanguardism, where as those who are Left Communists, Anarchists, etc. differ is if organization should be the tool of the working class, or if the working class should be the tool of an ideology.

Left-Communists have been among the staunchest supporters of vanguardism.

[Paulappaul]

Sorry, let me rephrase that, the Council Communists, Anarchists, etc. I some time mistake the two, forgetting Bordiga.

[Zanthorus]

Sorry, let me rephrase that, the Council Communists, Anarchists, etc. I some time mistake the two, forgetting Bordiga.

Actually it wasn't just Bordiga. A fair bit of the work by the Italian Left was done in the period when Bordiga wasn't writing anything. But besides that...

I was just rereading Cyril Smith's book on Marx at the Millenium and although he himself is "anti-vanguardist" I actually think he puts forward the best argument in favour of the vanguard in his discussion of Marx's concept of revolution:


Those who could grasp the general nature of the transition a bit more clearly than their fellow humans had to engage in practical activity within the conflicts in society as a whole. For this, they needed to try to illuminate each of these struggles with their understanding of the nature of their time as the epoch of the socialist revolution.

This is basically the idea of a vanguard - the most advanced, class conscious section of the working-class which strives to impart it's superior understanding to the rest of the class. Even Stalin believed that "The Party must be, first of all, the advanced detachment of the working class... in order that it may really be the armed detachment, the Party must be armed with revolutionary theory, with a knowledge of the laws of the movement, with a knowledge of the laws of revolution." (Foundations of Leninism)

Saying that vanguardists want the working class to be a "tool of ideology" is just pure slander. In fact it is the spontaneists who end up allowing the working class to become the tool of bourgeois ideology. By not attempting to educate people with the knowledge of past revolutionary experience and the Marxist critique of society so that they can really take life into their own hands but allowing them to try and find their way "spontaneously" by themselves is basically asking to repeat the same mistakes over and over again until we end up with the "common ruin of the contending classes".

[Wolf Larson]

So what do you think should be done if someone doesn't want anything to do with the political process? Force them to vote and attend meetings "for their own good"?
Which political process? The current false (representative) democracy? A technocratic process where the engineers make all decisions or a work place democracy where workers decide for themselves?


When you try to claim anarchist or any socialist docrtrine and reject actual worker democracy you are only fooling yourself (and the rest of the moderating staff who keeps you around). Not I said the fly.

[RED DAVE]

More of Dimentio's theory of history: that people really want to evade their responsibilities and want someone to make decisions for them.

Some fucking revolutionary.
So what do you think should be done if someone doesn't want anything to do with the political process? Force them to vote and attend meetings "for their own good"?If the working class "doesn't want anything to do with the political process," then there will be no revolution.

My point is that Dimentio and the rest of the Technocratic ilk have no concept of revolution, the role of the working class, or working class democracy. It's an elitist ideology which he (and you) are pretending is revolutionary.

RED DAVE

[Paulappaul]

Actually it wasn't just Bordiga..

Sorry, the Italian Left.


This is basically the idea of a vanguard - the most advanced, class conscious section of the working-class which strives to impart it's superior understanding to the rest of the class.... to educate people with the knowledge of past revolutionary experience and the Marxist critique of society

The working class is susceptible to the same forms of corruption and bureaucracy as Politicians. When you give full power to say, a central commitee or "the working class Vanguard" you run the risk of that Committee taking hold of a struggle. Regardless, people are enlightened to class antagonism not by a Party's central committee, telling them the Marxist Critique of Society, but by their struggle against Capitalism. It's within strikes, protests, etc. that true Class Consciousness is achieved, it's within these events that Working class gains it's practical knowledge with which struggle against Capitalism, not a Parties past experience.

If we grow to rely on a party, for our organization, for our lessons, then the party comes to be a nanny and a result the working class never grows. Which is what I was meaning to say in my first post, that the Proletariat becomes dependent on a Party for it's guidance, the Party to create Socialism. It's in this that a Party can go wrong, and create the same forms of exploitation we saw present in the Soviet Union. Where a party despite being surrounded by the masses, failed to be the masses.



Saying that vanguardists want the working class to be a "tool of ideology" is just pure slander.

And they do. A central committee uses the Proletarian to follow through with programme.


In fact it is the spontaneists who end up allowing the working class to become the tool of bourgeois ideology.

By what? Refusing to work within Bourgeois Parliaments and Reformist Trade Unions? By working with them to form more autonomous methods of organization?

[Blake's Baby]

Why do you take the word 'vanguard', which Zanthorus has already said is 'the most theoretically-advanced class-conscious section of the working class', and read it at as 'dictatorial central committee'? Is a 'dictatorial central committee' also 'the most class-conscious section of the working class'? I don't need an answer, no it isn't, therefore, it isn't the 'vanguard' that Zanthorus is discussing.

The 'vanguard' is not identical with 'the international organisation of the working class/the class party'; but it is to be hoped that the World Party will contain a good part of the vanguard. If you like, RevLeft and LibCom are the vanguard; those workers striving to make sense of the world situation, the balance of forces, the perspective for struggle, those trying to understand revolution, counter-revolution, history, how the proletariat can take its struggle forward.

Yes some workers will become class-conscious through their own bitter experiences; and some will become class-conscious through reading and debating; but the party isn't the general staff of the revolution, it's more like a library where the past victories and defeats, the insights of generations of militants are stored ready to be generalised when class struggle re-emerges, which it is at the moment, and people are becoming aware of those lessons.

[Paulappaul]

Why do you take the word 'vanguard', which Zanthorus has already said is 'the most theoretically-advanced class-conscious section of the working class', and read it at as 'dictatorial central committee'? Is a 'dictatorial central committee' also 'the most class-conscious section of the working class'? I don't need an answer, no it isn't, therefore, it isn't the 'vanguard' that Zanthorus is discussing.

Zanthorus was referring to Lenin early, who was staunch supporter of such Democratic Centralism. A Vanguard can organise itself in any form and thus I gave a critique of Zanthorus Definition and later applied it such things as the Central Committee.


If you like, RevLeft and LibCom are the vanguard; those workers striving to make sense of the world situation, the balance of forces, the perspective for struggle, those trying to understand revolution, counter-revolution, history, how the proletariat can take its struggle forward.

With a term like Vanguard you can apply it to anything. The difference between what your talking about and what we're talking about is Vanguard that is leading i.e. Organized into a Party/organization.

[Blake's Baby]

... the idea of a vanguard - the most advanced, class conscious section of the working-class which strives to impart it's superior understanding to the rest of the class. ...

No, that's what Zanthorus was talking about, I know because I read what he wrote and then I quoted him; I didn't just make up some stuff based on not liking Lenin very much.

[el_chavista]

So; if the administration set up in revolutionary Russia had been composed of dedicated proletarian worker-militants, it would have been able to implement socialism?Actually the manual workers were underrepresented in the party.
Quoting Cockshott:
The slowdown in Soviet growth was in large measure the inevitable result of economic maturity, a movement towards the rate of growth typical of mature industrial countries. A modest programme of measures to improve the efficiency of economic management would probably have produced some recovery in the growth rate...
What the USSR got however, was not a modest programme of reform, but a radical demolition job on its basic economic structures. This demolition job was motivated by neo-liberal ideology. Neo-liberal economists both within the USSR and visiting from the USA...

So; the failure of socialism is a sociological question (too many sons of lawyers, not enough steelworkers) or even a question of policy (too petty-bourgeois, not workerist enough)?Namely Brezhnev's epoch of industrial maturity that drove the apparatchiki to think that socialism was stagnated, Gorbachev's mismanaged crisis and betrayal, and CIA's agent Yeltsin.
The western capitalism never stopped trying to intervene and destabilize the USSR. Reagan's budget wouldn't have been enough were it not for the social treason of the "leadership".


So; Stalin was right, Lenin, Trotsky and Marx were wrong, socialism is possible in one country, as long as the right class is in power and/or the right policy is persued?Those questions are a matter of history of the revolutionary movement. My point is that our science of the proletarian revolution has not failed. It's only the "leadership" that have betrayed the elementary truths of Marxism-Leninism.

I don't buy it. The reason the revolution deteriorated in Russia is the failure of the world revolution, not the fact that Lenin's dad was a school inspector or not enough workers headed up ministries. Those things being different wouldn't have changed anything. The successful world revolution would have changed everything. Disdain it or not, that "state capitalism/degenerated workers state" without a capitalist class, it was actually part of the world revolution. As a socialist revolution in one country is unlikely to be carried to its completeness, so the world revolution can't conquer every country at the same time.

[Paulappaul]

No, that's what Zanthorus was talking about, I know because I read what he wrote and then I quoted him; I didn't just make up some stuff based on not liking Lenin very much.

I don't understand the point your trying to make here. I gave my critique of the following definition,


This is basically the idea of a vanguard - the most advanced, class conscious section of the working-class which strives to impart it's superior understanding to the rest of the class.... to educate people with the knowledge of past revolutionary experience and the Marxist critique of societyWhich was in the context of Lenin and Stalin, naturally I gave my critique of such a definition of Vanguard. My critique could extended to any Vanguard which has a position over the Proletarit.

[Blake's Baby]

...
Disdain it or not, that "state capitalism/degenerated workers state" without a capitalist class, it was actually part of the world revolution. As a socialist revolution in one country is unlikely to be carried to its completeness, so the world revolution can't conquer every country at the same time.

I am accutely aware that the Russian Revolution was part of the world revolution - one of the more spectacularly successful parts. And a socialist revolution in one country is impossible to carry to completeness, that is the tragedy of Russia, and the rest of the world.

So; the world revolution failed to rescue the Russian revolution from its isolation, and that inevitably led to capitalist restoration in Russia. As the world revolution was in retreat from 1921, and destroyed for 40 years in the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, after which a brutal counter-revolution took hold everywhere, to my mind, the date of capitalist restoration must reasonably be sought between 1921-1927.

On political grounds (banning of fractions, suppression of Kronstadt Soviet) I go for March 1921, though certainly I see the invasion of Poland in 1920 as a terrible sign of wrong conceptions in the early Soviet Republic. And the Congress of the Peoples of the East was a terrible idea.

On the other hand, there were still proletarian currents in the Bolshevik Party up to 1924 at least, and even later if one considers the Trotskyists, who did have some correct positions. Also, the battles that were lost in Russia were still being fought in the CI. So on theoretical grounds, 1927, or even 1928, might been seen as significant turning points in turning Russia from the 'Red Bastion' to a vicious state capitalist dictatorship.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't understand the point your trying to make here. I gave my critique of the following definition,

Which was in the context of Lenin and Stalin, naturally I gave my critique of such a definition of Vanguard. My critique could extended to any Vanguard which has a position over the Proletarit.

It wasn't in the context of Lenin and Stalin.

Please tell me with which of these words - "...the most advanced, class conscious section of the working-class..." - is Zanthorus referring to Lenin or Stalin?

[Paulappaul]

For one, he was talking about it earlier in post #10 and later following that quote with regards to the Foundations of Leninism by Stalin. Regadless I've said earlier how my critique of a Vanguard extends to all Vanguards which lead under Zanthorus' definition.

[Zanthorus]

Paulappaul:


Comrade Rosa Luxemburg’s article in Nos. 42 and 43 of the Neue Zeit is a criticism of my Russian book on the crisis in our Party. I cannot but thank our German comrades for their attention to our Party literature and their attempts to acquaint German Social-Democrats with it, but I must point out that Rosa Luxemburg’s Neue Zeit article does not acquaint the reader with my book, but with something else. This may be seen from the following instances. Comrade Luxemburg says, for example, that my book is a clear and detailed expression of the point of view of “intransigent centralism”. Comrade Luxemburg thus supposes that I defend one system of organisation against another. But actually that is not so... Rosa Luxemburg further says that “according to his [Lenin’s] conception, the Central Committee has the right to organise all the local Party committees”. Actually that is not so... Comrade Luxemburg says that in my view “the Central Committee is the only active nucleus of the Party”. Actually that is not so... Comrade Luxemburg says that I characterised my stand point more acutely, perhaps, than any of my opponents could have done when I defined a revolutionary Social-Democrat as a Jacobin who has identified himself with the organisation of the class-conscious workers. Yet another error of fact...

Maybe you should read the whole of Lenin's reply to Luxemburg (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/sep/15a.htm) and actually learn something about Lenin instead of repeating the usual cold warrior talking points.

Nowhere have I personally said anything about central committee's controlling the working class either. That was your own reading between the lines based on your own nonunderstanding of Lenin. Nowhere have I said anything about reformist trade unions or participation in parliament either. Supporting vanguardism doesn't imply support for anything else Lenin wrote, especially not anything in what was probably Lenin's worst work. I consider Gorter's reply to be the better piece. And funnily enough he also calls for a vanguard "hard as steel, clear as glass."

[Paulappaul]

Maybe you should read the whole of Lenin's replay to Luxemburg and actually learn something about Lenin instead of repeating the usual cold warrior talking points.

When was I talking about Lenin and Luxemburg's correspondence? My critique was vested in a Vanguard that leads the Proletarian, rather then the Proletarian leading itself. I used the central commitee as an example of a Vanguard that can be organized on your definition, but it's interchangeable with any organisation that leads the Proletariat to it's victory. Once again, you're jumping the gun and placing me among "ignorant left communists who don't know anything about Lenin"


Nowhere have I personally said anything about central committee's controlling the working class either.

Nor did I say so you did.


Nowhere have I said anything about reformist trade unions or participation in parliament either.

Never said you did. I was asking why we spontaneists are a tool of bourgeois ideology, hence why I followed "Refusing to work within Bourgeois Parliaments and Reformist Trade Unions" with a question mark.


And funnily enough he also calls for a vanguard "hard as steel, clear as glass."

I'm aware of Gorter's and other Left Communist Vanguardism, some of which I don't agree with but that's all fine and dandy (Particularly the Italian Left). I would say however that such Vanguardists believe, to quote Gorter in Open Letter "that the importance of masses is greater" then the Third Internationals' Vanguard, so I'd say Gorter leaned more towards Spontaneity then Lenin's tactics.

[Blake's Baby]

So, you are aware that Zanthorus was not talking about a vanguard that ruled over the working class, but was actually the most theoretically advanced part of the working class, and that this is the vanguard that Gorter was talking about too?

So, why do you keep talking about Lenin and central committees? You are criticising something that no-one has suggested and no-one supports - certainly not Zanthorus, Glenn Beck or myself. It is a giant Lenin-shaped bogeyman of straw concocted from your own head.

[Paulappaul]

So, you are aware that Zanthorus was not talking about a vanguard that ruled over the working class, but was actually the most theoretically advanced part of the working class, and that this is the vanguard that Gorter was talking about too?

So, why do you keep talking about Lenin and central committees? You are criticising something that no-one has suggested and no-one supports - certainly not Zanthorus, Glenn Beck or myself. It is a giant Lenin-shaped bogeyman of straw concocted from your own head.


I have responded to this more like 3 times, what don't you understand? You know what. I'm not even going to bother with this one anymore.

[Dimentio]

More of Dimentio's theory of history: that people really want to evade their responsibilities and want someone to make decisions for them.

Some fucking revolutionary.

RED DAVE

And what if that is true? Most of history has shown that people don't resent authority and tend to accept it, as long as the rulers provide them with safety and the right to privacy.

[AK]

And what if that is true? Most of history has shown that people don't resent authority and tend to accept it, as long as the rulers provide them with safety and the right to privacy.
Most of history has been a big clusterfuck of class struggle, war and disaster. And keep in mind that people more often than not have only accepted authority because they have been conditioned to do so.

[Trotskist]

chavizta: you are 100% right. You can say that you are the grand-grand son of Karl Marx and say that you are the most hardcore socialist, but if you become president and grab all the wealth and power for you and your political party, there won't be any economic liberation and egalitarianism. If there is no transfer of power by nationalization of corporations under state-control, and then a transfer of power by turning those state-control corporations into *workers control of the means of production*. If workers are not the owners of corporations, they won't have power.

It's like Tony Montana from Scarface said: "First you gotta get the money, after the money comes the power, and after the power comes the girl"

If workers in a socialist-government don't become the real owners of the wealth of that country there won't be any socialism, but a Stalinist Capitalism

.




It's Bakunin's "curse": when communists seize power they will substitute a class for another one.

I think that there is no other main reason for the failure of the socialism of the 20th century than the enemy within: the petty-bourgeois leyer inside the Communist Parties.

They didn't transfer power to people but got for themselves the management of the means of economic production.

They didn't find a way to solve the problem of economic backwardness but returning to a savage capitalism, betraying the working class.

[Trotskist]

hahaha, what a cool quote !!

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"Humanity won't be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat."
Mai 68 Revolutionaries

[Die Neue Zeit]

That is infantile thinking at its worst. A properly organized proletarian society, while rotating job functions, still retains the bureaucratic job functions regardless. Contrary to widespread belief here, bureaucracy builds working-class political movements, while spontaneity hinders them.

[AK]

hahaha, what a cool quote !!

.

"Humanity won't be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat."
Mai 68 Revolutionaries
Indeed. Not to stray off-topic, but you can find more like that here: http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm

[AK]

That is infantile thinking at its worst. A properly organized proletarian society, while rotating job functions, still retains the bureaucratic job functions regardless. Contrary to widespread belief here, bureaucracy builds working-class political movements, while spontaneity hinders them.
If you're anything like the user Jimmie Higgins, you will realise that the term "bureaucrat" refers to the capitalist and Stalinist administrators - and not delegates of sorts to co-operate between different communities and workplaces.

[Paul Cockshott]

If you're anything like the user Jimmie Higgins, you will realise that the term "bureaucrat" refers to the capitalist and Stalinist administrators - and not delegates of sorts to co-operate between different communities and workplaces.

You have to realise that those whom the Western Left called 'bureacrats' in the USSR were by the 1950s largely engineers of working class origin who had received a technical education under the soviet system. Think Korolyov. These engineers rose to managerial positions because their engineering skills were really needed in those positions. There is a real problem with seeing how to ensure that people with such skills do not become socially dominant. Proposing workplace delegates does not solve the problem - taking him as an example it does take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist.

Gerovitch is interesting to read on this see: http://web.mit.edu/slava/homepage/articles/Gerovitch-Stalins-Rocket-Designers.pdf

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Which political process? The current false (representative) democracy? A technocratic process where the engineers make all decisions or a work place democracy where workers decide for themselves?

I was asking RED DAVE what would happen to those individuals who display no interest whatsoever in participation in his ideal political system - because believe it or not, people like that exist, and I have no reason to believe they are unique to capitalism.


If the working class "doesn't want anything to do with the political process," then there will be no revolution.

I didn't even mention the working class, I mentioned individuals in whatever political system you prefer who abstain for whatever reason - perhaps they've got something more interesting to them personally to do than attend meetings, or perhaps they couldn't care less about a particular policy either way because they think it doesn't affect them.


My point is that Dimentio and the rest of the Technocratic ilk have no concept of revolution, the role of the working class, or working class democracy. It's an elitist ideology which he (and you) are pretending is revolutionary.

You and your anti-technocratic ilk need to change the fucking record already and stop spamming this sort of content-free noise. We know you don't think technocracy is revolutionary, you don't need to keep repeating yourself.

[eyedrop]

And what if that is true? Most of history has shown that people don't resent authority and tend to accept it, as long as the rulers provide them with safety and the right to privacy.
While I can agree that most of history has shown "that people don't resent authority and tend to accept it," people today is less likely to accept it than people of 100 years ago. They will likely be even less likely in a revolutionary times.

In the uprisings in the early 19eth century (or should it be 20eth?) people did to some degree look to a leader, or party, to fix society and I believe if we were in a revolutionary situation today people wouldn't.