The PRC

[Adil3tr]

Is it socialist?

[Tablo]

Definitely no.

[The Vegan Marxist]

It's got socialist-like tendencies in China, very much so. But it's still under a revisionist banner & is leading themselves towards Capitalism. We can't call China Socialist, nor Capitalist. Just somewhere between the two.

[Tablo]

It's got socialist-like tendencies in China, very much so. But it's still under a revisionist banner & is leading themselves towards Capitalism. We can't call China Socialist, nor Capitalist. Just somewhere between the two.
lolwut? state-capitalism is still capitalism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

lolwut? state-capitalism is still capitalism.

I believe Soviet Dude had it correct for a good part: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1830958&postcount=10

[Tatarin]

No, but it will become socialist in exactly 39 years and 8 days.

[Tenka]

I'm of the opinion that even Singapore is more "socialist" than the PRC today; which is rather sad, considering Singapore's ruling party came to power through the betrayal of socialists.
I'd like to think Tatarin is on to something though...

[Uppercut]

They're capitalist as all hell. There is a left wing of the CPC that advocates the establishment of a properly socialist economy, but the party is mostly overrun with fake commies and elitist tendencies.

Although the New Left has some popularity, I doubt that the party elite will just keel over for them. A mass movement may be required to establish workers' power within China.

[Raúl Duke]

No, not socialist...

Do the masses directly control the means of production? If not, than not socialist. State-run industries, even if they're run by a party claiming to be "for the workers" or "made up of workers," do not equal socialism or make China "not capitalist;" especially so considering that there is private industries in China. Even Marx mentioned something to this affect, after all the old 1800s Prussian state had state-run industries and that surely didn't make it socialist.


A mass movement may be required to establish workers' power within China. This is what's needed.

[China studen]

In China, the real Communists, mainly in these two sites:

Utopia http://www.wyzxsx.com/

Mao’s flag http://www.maoflag.net/html/bbs.html

In an informal setting, we never think that China is a socialist.(Of course, it says here after 1979.)

[Queercommie Girl]

^

Don't directly post Chinese links. Most people here can't understand the Chinese language.

[China studen]

^

Don't directly post Chinese links. Most people here can't understand the Chinese language.

Google Translate sufficient to make people understand the basic position of these sites.

Add that the Chinese Communists that the world only two socialist countries: DPRK, Cuba. The greatest socialist countries is that the DPRK.

[scarletghoul]

Where is the "not sure, it's highly capitalist with some socialistic elements and potentially could go back to proper socialism with a good mass movement and maoist coup in the CPC" option.

The mode of production is obviously capitalist, but there is the shell of a socialist state that could be made to go back..

[AK]

Wait... how is the DPRK "more socialist" than Cuba - and thus the "most socialist" country in the world? You'd think that Cuba would hold such a title when compared to the North.

[Queercommie Girl]

^

Both are deformed worker's states.

[bailey_187]

Essentially, its capitalist. I can see why they decided to take the capitalist road though tbh, and there has been some benefits to this. With a working class now bigger than both (IIRC) Europe and North America's, who knows what the future will bring (communism, i hope)

[Queercommie Girl]

Essentially, its capitalist. I can see why they decided to take the capitalist road though tbh, and there has been some benefits to this. With a working class now bigger than both (IIRC) Europe and North America's, who knows what the future will bring (communism, i hope)

You sound like the pro-capitalists in the CCP deliberately chose the capitalist path for China in order to make its future more likely to follow socialism, as if it's all some kind of "grand plan". I really do not think those people are really so "innocent" in their decision to turn away from socialism and the planned economy. I think it's just due to the self-interest of the bureaucrats.

If now the bigger working class in China objectively makes socialism more likely in the future, it is certainly not the intended result as far as the bureaucratic capitalists are concerned.

[China studen]

^

Both are deformed worker's states.

Only deformed and false communists (such as revisionists, Trotskyist, etc.) will deny DPRK's socialist state.

[AK]

Only deformed and false communists (such as revisionists, Trotskyist, etc.) will deny DPRK's socialist state.
Alright. I guess I'm a "deformed communist" - whatever the fuck that means.

[Queercommie Girl]

It's a socialist state, but deformed. Both NK and Cuba lack direct worker's democracy.

[Raúl Duke]

Add that the Chinese Communists that the world only two socialist countries: DPRK, Cuba. The greatest socialist countries is that the DPRK.I think it's just slight Asian chauvinism for them to label DPRK the "most socialist" or the greatest. Just like my slight pan-LatinAmerican chauvinism tells me Cuba is better (although I don't consider Cuba socialist). Doesn't mean it's true...

[Lenina Rosenweg]

In China, the real Communists, mainly in these two sites:

Utopia http://www.wyzxsx.com/

Mao’s flag http://www.maoflag.net/html/bbs.html

In an informal setting, we never think that China is a socialist.

What is the relationship or difference between Mao's Flag and the Maoist Communist Party of China? Is Mao's Flag more "hardline" Maoist? I assume MF upholds the DPRK? What is the position of the MCPC on the DPRK?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

China studen,

Are you familiar with this?

http://chinaworker.info/

[Obs]

Fuck's sake, can we go for one day without some thread ending up being a sectarian shitfest about the DPRK? One fucking day.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I don't see this as a sectarian shitfest. Socialism is an international movement, the DPRK claims to be socialist, so how one orients oneself to North Korea is important. It is also near China, and is supported by China to some extent.The main topic of this thread is China but the DPRK should be discussed in relation to the PRC..

[Obs]

Fair, but it should hardly be the main subject. And you know that whenever the DPRK is mentioned, it will become the main subject.

[4 Leaf Clover]

China is socialism put on hibernate. We can be favorable to china as much as it is favorable to its people , but china doesnt belong to strict anti-imperialist line , and it barely can be called socialist. I would also like China to take more clear stance about North Korea , in last few struggles of NK with its cheeky neighbours and Big Daddy , Chinese authorities were almost indiferent

[RadioRaheem84]

I had tried to take the CPC seriously when it advanced capitalism as a road to socialism, but it was hard to continue thinking this when their capitalist class had outgrown the initial state measure meant to confine them. Now they have a pretty vocal and active one that would be tough to break in case of worker uprising against the new class.

So in a sense it is a very capitalist country organized by the dictates of capital and state planners. I wouldn't even say it's really state capitalist at all.

But how can you make the call whether the initial Dengists were not sincere in their attempts to construct a 'socialist' plan out of stagnation and into growth? There is really no proof to pin it on outright opportunism on the part of the CPC bureaucrats. Then again there is no proof that their intentions, even today, are socialist either. :confused:

[Queercommie Girl]

I had tried to take the CPC seriously when it advanced capitalism as a road to socialism, but it was hard to continue thinking this when their capitalist class had outgrown the initial state measure meant to confine them. Now they have a pretty vocal and active one that would be tough to break in case of worker uprising against the new class.

So in a sense it is a very capitalist country organized by the dictates of capital and state planners. I wouldn't even say it's really state capitalist at all.

But how can you make the call whether the initial Dengists were not sincere in their attempts to construct a 'socialist' plan out of stagnation and into growth? There is really no proof to pin it on outright opportunism on the part of the CPC bureaucrats. Then again there is no proof that their intentions, even today, are socialist either. :confused:

Deng Xiaoping may not have been insincere, but today's China has gone far beyond what Deng envisioned the "first stage of socialism" should look like. I think one is basically too naive if one really puts one's political faith in the bureaucratic capitalist class. Even within the different layers of the capitalist class, the bureaucratic capitalists tend to be the most reactionary layer.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I think we have to look in terms of material conditions and social formations which led to Dengism. The PRC leadership, and Mao himself were struggling with how to deal with the contradictory situation China found itself in.A huge, peasant based society with feudal elements surrounded by a hostile world. The Great Leap Forward, 1000 Flowers Campaign, the "normalization" period of the early 60s, the GPCR, struggles w/the Gang of Four. and then restoration of a comprador capitalism. I don't think its a matter of how sincere the leadership was but there were powerful forces impelling China towards capitalism just as in the fSU. Capitalism and neo-liberalism in the 80s was like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up any alternatives or rivals. This reality was imposed and compounded by China's own internal contradictions and power struggle.

In short, most, but not all of the CCP felt they had no alternative.

[China studen]

I think it's just slight Asian chauvinism for them to label DPRK the "most socialist" or the greatest. Just like my slight pan-LatinAmerican chauvinism tells me Cuba is better (although I don't consider Cuba socialist). Doesn't mean it's true...

Regionalism is not the main factor.

1, Cuba had to follow the Soviet Union's revisionism in 60s,70s.

2, Korea is quite similar with the Mao Zedong era, So China‘s leftist more like Korea.

[RadioRaheem84]

China Studen,

In another thread I had posted about the New Left. What interested me was that Minqi Li, a good Chinese Marxist Economist, was grouped in with them, but the groups seems largely reformist and cares not for the plight of workers.

How are radical leftist, Maoist, socialist and communist views seen in China in academic, political and social circles?

Is there not even an attempt anymore to uphold socialism?

[China studen]

What is the relationship or difference between Mao's Flag and the Maoist Communist Party of China? Is Mao's Flag more "hardline" Maoist? I assume MF upholds the DPRK? What is the position of the MCPC on the DPRK?

"Maoist Communist Party of China" is what? As far as I know, this "party" in the beginning of the year has been destroyed. In the present China is impossible to form political parties. Because monitoring is too tight a. But I am curious why you would know this "Party."

"Mao's Flag Web" is to uphold the tradition of the main members of ideological cadres. This site is the first left-wing websites in China.
"Mao's Flag Web" and the so-called MCPC are strongly supported Korea. "Mao's Flag Web" column there is support for Korea: http://www.maoflag.net/bbs/forumdisplay.php?fid=2&filter=type&typeid=40

MCPC issued a statement in support of the Korean nuclear test, Condemned the CCP to stop Korea nuclear test.

[Raúl Duke]

N Korea doesn't uphold Marxist-Leninist-Maoism...it doesn't even call itself Marxist Leninist or Marxist if I recall.

Its main theory framework is Juche, et. al.

[China studen]

China Studen,

In another thread I had posted about the New Left. What interested me was that Minqi Li, a good Chinese Marxist Economist, was grouped in with them, but the groups seems largely reformist and cares not for the plight of workers.

How are radical leftist, Maoist, socialist and communist views seen in China in academic, political and social circles?

Is there not even an attempt anymore to uphold socialism?

I have heard the name, But I do not know him, perhaps because he was not heavily involved in leftist activities (according to statistics, he is only one involved to "Bookshop Utopia" of lecture （http://www.wyzxsx.com/ Article/Class16/200708/22148.html).

Talk about my views:

1, according to the left-wing website (http://www.globalview.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=12323) showed that Li Min Qi should belong to "Haipai Economist", which is a school within the system, there are left-leaning color, but not strong. The school leader is Cheng Enfu. Process is as a scholar, and many college leaders, and can say he is a half official.

2, because they are high-level scholars, even if they are really opposed to reform, would not say it,But specifically, I think Lee Min Ki in general, support the CCP. They often focus on academic, very few cases of grass-roots level.

3, China is a vast left-wing groups, includes a variety of ideas. Some scholars, such as Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Economics of the Zuo da pei(his column http://www.wyzxsx.com/ShowAuthor.asp?ChannelID=1&AuthorName =% D7% F3% B4% F3% C5% E0) more eager to help workers.

[China studen]

China studen,

Are you familiar with this?

http://chinaworker.info/

This is a complex issue.

1, the political parties in Europe is a similar Trotskyist party, but he claims to be "democratic socialism." So I think it is neither fish nor fowl.

2, Hong Kong is a strange place. That people do not distinguish between "left" and "right." There is a right-wing members of the Legislative Council called "Leung Kwok-hung," he claimed to Guevara's followers, but he was opposed to Mao. This is very funny and ridiculous. About this party and Leung Kwok-hung, all extreme right.

[China studen]

Fuck's sake, can we go for one day without some thread ending up being a sectarian shitfest about the DPRK? One fucking day.

Solve this problem is very simple. Down with those who slander the DPRK.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

This is a complex issue.

1, the political parties in Europe is a similar Trotskyist party, but he claims to be "democratic socialism." So I think it is neither fish nor fowl.

2, Hong Kong is a strange place. That people do not distinguish between "left" and "right." There is a right-wing members of the Legislative Council called "Leung Kwok-hung," he claimed to Guevara's followers, but he was opposed to Mao. This is very funny and ridiculous. About this party and Leung Kwok-hung, all extreme right.

The MCPC was discussed in another thread. Apparently they have recently released a declaration of principles.The Kasama website also discussed them.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ten-declarations-maoist-t139905/index.html?t=139905&highlight=MCPC

You are right, Hong Kong is a strange place.I would not say though that Leung Kwok-hung is extreme right. He is a member of the Troyskyist April 5 Movement. He is hated by the HK government and the PRC government. He's been to Cuba, Chiapas, and Venezuela to express solidarity with the struggles there. He's spent decades as a revolutionary. He sees himself as a Chinese Che Guevara. There have been two films made about his life.

[China studen]

N Korea doesn't uphold Marxist-Leninist-Maoism...it doesn't even call itself Marxist Leninist or Marxist if I recall.

Its main theory framework is Juche, et. al.

Wrong.

Prejudice comes from ignorance. Ignorance due to random rumors.

Korea has consistently adhered to Marxism-Leninism. Although the DPRK has used the word "socialism", but essentially the same.

Another. China's left-wing view that Korea and similar to the Mao Zedong era. Main system. Such as the planned economy, public welfare system, foreign policy, social trends, etc..

[RadioRaheem84]

The MCPC was discussed in another thread. Apparently they have recently released a declaration of principles.The Kasama website also discussed them.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ten-declarations-maoist-t139905/index.html?t=139905&highlight=MCPC

You are right, Hong Kong is a strange place.I would not say though that Leung Kwok-hung is extreme right. He is a member of the Troyskyist April 5 Movement. He is hated by the HK government and the PRC government. He's been to Cuba, Chiapas, and Venezuela to express solidarity with the struggles there. He's spent decades as a revolutionary. He sees himself as a Chinese Che Guevara. There have been two films made about his life.

This Leung Kwok-hun sounds like a bad ass. How is he extreme right?

The League of Social Democrats seem like cool cats, but how can they be social democratic and have Che t-shirts and what not?

[RadioRaheem84]

China Studen,

Can you tell me more about the Marxist Academy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that Cheng Enfu directs? Apparently, it's the biggest think tank in China and the most academically reputable place in China.

It has a Marxist School too. But how good is it? Is it very revisionist?

[China studen]

The MCPC was discussed in another thread. Apparently they have recently released a declaration of principles.The Kasama website also discussed them.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ten-declarations-maoist-t139905/index.html?t=139905&highlight=MCPC

You are right, Hong Kong is a strange place.I would not say though that Leung Kwok-hung is extreme right. He is a member of the Troyskyist April 5 Movement. He is hated by the HK government and the PRC government. He's been to Cuba, Chiapas, and Venezuela to express solidarity with the struggles there. He's spent decades as a revolutionary. He sees himself as a Chinese Che Guevara. There have been two films made about his life.

MCPC actually only a few dozen. Earlier this year they held in Chongqing, "the first Congress." Because they believe that Bo Xilai, Party Secretary of Chongqing is left. But the revisionist authorities quickly arrested them.
I also recognized that a network member of Wuhan, he told me everything.

Leung Kwok-hung is a political clown, he said he worship Che Guevara. But he opposes the Guevara cult of Mao Zedong. This is a joke.

[China studen]

This Leung Kwok-hun sounds like a bad ass. How is he extreme right?

The League of Social Democrats seem like cool cats, but how can they be social democratic and have Che t-shirts and what not?

The League of Social Democrats is similar to Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, is a garbage will only incite populist political party.

[China studen]

China Studen,

Can you tell me more about the Marxist Academy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that Cheng Enfu directs? Apparently, it's the biggest think tank in China and the most academically reputable place in China.

It has a Marxist School too. But how good is it? Is it very revisionist?

I told him do not quite understand. The reasons are: 1, more profound their academic and their expression in everyday use is bureaucratic discourse, I am not interested in stereotyped. 2, he does not belong to a very strong left-wing, so I paid little attention.

He is currently a professor at Shanghai Finance University , who is also president of the Institute of Marxism Academy of Social Sciences, Eleventh National People's Congress. http://baike.baidu.com/view/553590.htm?fr=ala0_1_1

But he sometimes audible to the left. For example, recently left the campaign launched against GM, he was in the "two sessions" on proposed legislation to regulate genetically modified food.

China has no specific school of Marxism, only Party. In some leading universities, will also be attached to the Marxist School. This and other colleges at the same level. For example, Peking University Economics College, Peking University Teachers College, Peking University Marxism College.

[RadioRaheem84]

The League of Social Democrats is similar to Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, is a garbage will only incite populist political party.


Yeah. Now that I read more about them. Their stance is very strange. They are a bit confused.

While I applaud Leung Kwok-hung for being a staunch anti-globalization activist. He is still a bit of a liberal type.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The League of Social Democrats is very confused. At a recent rally a third of their members had Che T shirts, another third had JFK T shirts, and the rest Gandhi T shirts.Leung Kwok-hung sees himself as an "entrist". The April 5 the Movement sees themselves as the revolutionary core of the LSD (the members are aware of the acronym's meaning in English, its something of a standing joke).The LSD is something like the SP in the US. LKH's involvement with the LSD is controversial but he would say that the revolutionary left in HK is tiny.He has a seat in the figurehead HK Legislative Council and he uses this as a platform for advocating worker's rights and socialism.

http://www.longhair.hk/
http://socialistworld.net/doc/4168

[Queercommie Girl]

This Leung Kwok-hun sounds like a bad ass. How is he extreme right?

The League of Social Democrats seem like cool cats, but how can they be social democratic and have Che t-shirts and what not?

"Left" and "right" are relative. They don't mean exactly the same kind of thing for different tendencies, like Trotskyists and Maoists, and for different regions of the world, like China and Europe.

[RadioRaheem84]

"Left" and "right" are relative. They don't mean exactly the same kind of thing for different tendencies, like Trotskyists and Maoists, and for different regions of the world, like China and Europe.

I assumed as much. But even for someone wearing a Che shirt and advocating anti-globalization, I figured extreme right was a bit much.

It seem as though the guy is a well intentioned soc dem.

[Queercommie Girl]

I assumed as much. But even for someone wearing a Che shirt and advocating anti-globalization, I figured extreme right was a bit much.

It seem as though the guy is a well intentioned soc dem.

I wouldn't call him "extreme right" at all. That's a phrase reserved for the fascists.

In fact, he is to the left of the social democrats. He used to be a Trotskyist actually. I would call him a centrist rather than a reformist.

[RadioRaheem84]

I wouldn't call him "extreme right" at all. That's a phrase reserved for the fascists.

In fact, he is to the left of the social democrats. He used to be a Trotskyist actually. I would call him a centrist rather than a reformist.

What made him change his views from Trot to left-soc dem?

[RadioRaheem84]

I am more convinced now after reading many of the informative posts on this thread that the PRC is largely capitalist. I thought that there were at least elements of influence with a Marxist bent but as China Studen alluded to, this isn't so.

My official position now is that China is capitalist. Rubber stamp it. :(

[Obs]

I am more convinced now after reading many of the informative posts on this thread that the PRC is largely capitalist. I thought that there were at least elements of influence with a Marxist bent but as China Studen alluded to, this isn't so.

My official position now is that China is capitalist. Rubber stamp it. :(
There, there. We all went through this. :(

[bailey_187]

I am more convinced now after reading many of the informative posts on this thread that the PRC is largely capitalist. I thought that there were at least elements of influence with a Marxist bent but as China Studen alluded to, this isn't so.

My official position now is that China is capitalist. Rubber stamp it. :(

Well (AFAIK) everyone in China is taught Marxism, all the politicians are going to be familiar with Marxism/historical materialism, and the justification for a return to capitalism is based on a particular interpretation of this.

The 1949 revolution was probably the most succesful National Liberation movement in history; the return to capitalism notwithstanding

[bailey_187]

If the state of China today depresses you, you should read Jenny Clegg's China's Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World

[RadioRaheem84]

If the state of China today depresses you, you should read Jenny Clegg's China's Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World


Are you recommending it to depress me further or to at least give me some hope? :)

[bailey_187]

hope

[Raúl Duke]

Although the DPRK has used the word "socialism", but essentially the same.

socialism =/= marxist-leninism...

You do know socialism, the concept, is older than Marx?

Also, it's arguable that what's in North Korea is actual socialism.

It's fact that N. Korea calls its theoretical frameworks "Juche"; not Marxist Leninism and much less Maoism. It's seen as an idea surpassing Marxist-Leninism. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/juche.htm) I'm not wrong, the Chinese left is (or misguided, whatever); which by the sound of it I would bet it's also disconnected from the working class in China just like large segments of the Western left is.

[RadioRaheem84]

China is fast emerging as a powerful player on the world stage. This book takes a closer look at the country's stance on a range of global issues, arguing that its multipolar diplomacy offers a concrete strategy to constrain the US pursuit of unipolar primacy. Many people assume that China will follow an imperialistic strategy and therefore be in direct conflict with the American empire in a quest for world domination. Jenny Clegg shows that China is in fact taking a multilateral approach, offering real assistance to developing countries and helping to build the institutions required to run a multipolar world. Without glossing over China's own internal difficulties, the book argues that its international consensus-building strategy could lead to a more peaceful and equitable world. This book offers a refreshing perspective on China that will be of great value to those interested in the big political questions of how to tackle war and imperialism, globalisation and development as well as to undergraduate students of politics, economics and international relations.

http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Global-Strategy-Toward-Multipolar/dp/0745325181

On the book Bailey recommended. Sounds like a great read comrade.

If China began supporting national liberation movements and helped developing countries out of the US imperial grasp, or even acted as a bulwark deterrent against US imperialism, that would be good enough for me. Not that I would directly support it, but it would be a step up from the assumption that it is just seeking imperial dominance by pushing the US out.

[Queercommie Girl]

http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Global-Strategy-Toward-Multipolar/dp/0745325181

On the book Bailey recommended. Sounds like a great read comrade.

If China began supporting national liberation movements and helped developing countries out of the US imperial grasp, or even acted as a bulwark deterrent against US imperialism, that would be good enough for me. Not that I would directly support it, but it would be a step up from the assumption that it is just seeking imperial dominance by pushing the US out.

Seriously, China doesn't have the means to replace the US as the No. 1 superpower in the foreseeable future, regardless of what the right-wing "China threat" mob in the West may dream up. China doesn't have the military power, and it doesn't have the financial power either. Its military power is far below that of Russia and its economic power is far below that of Japan.

It doesn't mean the role China plays on the international stage would automatically be "relatively progressive" though. If China is not led by a progressive/left-wing government, even if it doesn't become the top imperialist power that the US is now, it could still play a reactionary role as the "no. 2 or even no. 3 imperialist power", following the US, like the UK and Israel does today.

To be frank with you, a better analogy for what China might become in the near future if it becomes reactionary, would be Israel rather than the US itself. China would become a "regional bully", not a global imperialist aggressor like America is now.

[RadioRaheem84]

Bailey, what does the book say about China's position on the Maoist movements in Nepal and India? Also on the national liberation movements in Latin America?

[RadioRaheem84]

Seriously, China doesn't have the means to replace the US as the No. 1 superpower in the foreseeable future, regardless of what the right-wing "China threat" mob in the West may dream up. China doesn't have the military power, and it doesn't have the financial power either. Its military power is far below that of Russia and its economic power is far below that of Japan.

It doesn't mean the role China plays on the international stage would automatically be "relatively progressive" though. If China is not led by a progressive/left-wing government, even if it doesn't become the top imperialist power that the US is now, it could still play a reactionary role as the "no. 2 or even no. 3 imperialist power", following the US, like the UK and Israel does today.

To be frank with you, a better analogy for what China might become in the near future if it becomes reactionary, would be Israel rather than the US itself. China would become a "regional bully", not a global imperialist aggressor like America is now.


I think the point of the book is that China is seeking to become a diplomatic regional power bent on enacting a multi-polar world where the US would not be the lone ranger. I don't know how this would work without the muscle the former USSR had, but then again I do not know just how much muscle they had either during the Cold War to deter the US.

I do not think the book said that it was seeking to be number 1.

[bailey_187]

Bailey, what does the book say about China's position on the Maoist movements in Nepal and India? Also on the national liberation movements in Latin America?

Nothing about Nepal or the Naxalites.

About Latin America it says, in 2004, 1/3 of Investment in Latin America came from China.


This helps Latin American countries reduce their depedence on US Capital. For Chavez, China is a world power without 'imperialist airs', and the 2006 Sino-Venezuelan trade agreement, 'Great Wall' against US Hegemonism" pg.210

I dont think China cares so much about these countries National Liberation and Socialism, but more that they challenge US power, thats why they help with development i think. The book also makes the point that most of China investment is not a the typical imperiaism of finding markets and profits, but is often by State Owned Enterprises, with the intention of securing resources and aiding development for geo-political interests. So i guess China's role is in some ways 'accidently' progressive, in that its wish to develop the Global South to counter US power is having progressive benefits in the Global South.

[AK]

Wrong.

Prejudice comes from ignorance. Ignorance due to random rumors.
Random rumours in the DPRK's constitution :lol:

[China studen]

The League of Social Democrats is very confused. At a recent rally a third of their members had Che T shirts, another third had JFK T shirts, and the rest Gandhi T shirts.Leung Kwok-hung sees himself as an "entrist". The April 5 the Movement sees themselves as the revolutionary core of the LSD (the members are aware of the acronym's meaning in English, its something of a standing joke).The LSD is something like the SP in the US. LKH's involvement with the LSD is controversial but he would say that the revolutionary left in HK is tiny.He has a seat in the figurehead HK Legislative Council and he uses this as a platform for advocating worker's rights and socialism.

http://www.longhair.hk/
http://socialistworld.net/doc/4168

You have a question complicated.
I repeat, they are not theory, they did not even political sense. They are not Trotskyist, nor any other faction. They are just far-right political clown. Rely on sensationalism make a living.

[China studen]

socialism =/= marxist-leninism...

You do know socialism, the concept, is older than Marx?

Also, it's arguable that what's in North Korea is actual socialism.

It's fact that N. Korea calls its theoretical frameworks "Juche"; not Marxist Leninism and much less Maoism. It's seen as an idea surpassing Marxist-Leninism. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/juche.htm) I'm not wrong, the Chinese left is (or misguided, whatever); which by the sound of it I would bet it's also disconnected from the working class in China just like large segments of the Western left is.

Strictly speaking, socialism is the primary stage of communism. Communism is no doubt that Marxism-Leninism. So the socialist = Marxist-Leninist.

Add that I am saying is: in Korea, "socialism" word often on behalf of communism or Marxism-Leninism.

North Korea is completely socialist reasons, I have N years ago in this forum many times.

I know you is easy for Westerners ignorance, because you are brainwashed by the imperialist media too much. I talk about the most basic points:

Social system of standards to judge the economic base. North Korea planned economy and public ownership, so 100% of North Korea is a socialist country.

It's fact that North Korea's "Juche" built on the basis of Marxism-Leninism injury. Completely contains the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism.

You are wrong, or the old saying: Prejudice comes from ignorance. Ignorance due to random rumors.

When you stick to your own rumor and prejudice, you can only do a limited outlook forever.

China's left-wing has never been misled. Although China has become increasingly intense media penetration of imperialism, but China is still not be easily brainwashed leftists.

[China studen]

Random rumours in the DPRK's constitution :lol:

Hehe.

While Westerners generally pay more attention to logic than the Chinese, but Westerners are not the level of knowledge and others.

But you are the exception. You either do not understand the logic, no common sense.

1, when Korea declared the constitutional objections or abandon Marxism-Leninism?

2, in Korea. And "communism", "Marxism-Leninism," compared to "socialism" word has been the most commonly used words, although the basic meaning of these words almost, but different countries have different preferred terms are normal. Korea's constitution declared the DPRK is a socialist country.

[robbo203]

Strictly speaking, socialism is the primary stage of communism. Communism is no doubt that Marxism-Leninism. So the socialist = Marxist-Leninist. .

No such distinction exists in Marxist thought. Socialism is just a synonym for communism, not the first stage of communism. It was Lenin not Marx who talked of socialism in this way.



Add that I am saying is: in Korea, "socialism" word often on behalf of communism or Marxism-Leninism.

North Korea is completely socialist reasons, I have N years ago in this forum many times. .

N Korea has a completely capitalist system and exhibits completely all the primary features of capitalism including generalised wage labour. Even in the Leninist - or non-marxist - defintion of the term socialism as the first phase of communism North korea does not remotely qualify as "socialist". Marx's first phase of communism spoke of the existence of a labour voucher system and the absense of money and this certainly does not apply to North Korea




I know you is easy for Westerners ignorance, because you are brainwashed by the imperialist media too much. I talk about the most basic points: .

Oh and the supporters of Chinese or North Korean capitalism are not brainwashed at all I suppose..:rolleyes:



Social system of standards to judge the economic base. North Korea planned economy and public ownership, so 100% of North Korea is a socialist country.
.

What is miscalled public ownership is simply state ownership - state capitalism. Of that Engels has this to say

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific



China's left-wing has never been misled. Although China has become increasingly intense media penetration of imperialism, but China is still not be easily brainwashed leftists.

China is a significant imperialist and capitalist power in its own right and may well overtake the US in the next few decades as leading capitalist power in the world

[AK]

Hehe.

While Westerners generally pay more attention to logic than the Chinese, but Westerners are not the level of knowledge and others.
Unfounded generalisations. I don't even know why you would defame your own ethnicity, either, by saying the Chinese pay less attention to logic than westerners.


But you are the exception. You either do not understand the logic, no common sense.
Aww diddums. Would you like a hug?


1, when Korea declared the constitutional objections or abandon Marxism-Leninism?
Well the phrase "Marxism-Leninism" or "Marxist-Leninist" was never used in the constitution in the first place. That should be a hint ;)


2, in Korea. And "communism", "Marxism-Leninism," compared to "socialism" word has been the most commonly used words, although the basic meaning of these words almost, but different countries have different preferred terms are normal. Korea's constitution declared the DPRK is a socialist country.
I don't mean to sound racist or xenophobic, but you're really making no sense to me. And the constitution states (according to the DPRK's website) that socialism is still under development (i.e., not socialist "yet").

[China studen]

No such distinction exists in Marxist thought. Socialism is just a synonym for communism, not the first stage of communism. It was Lenin not Marx who talked of socialism in this way.



N Korea has a completely capitalist system and exhibits completely all the primary features of capitalism including generalised wage labour. Even in the Leninist - or non-marxist - defintion of the term socialism as the first phase of communism North korea does not remotely qualify as "socialist". Marx's first phase of communism spoke of the existence of a labour voucher system and the absense of money and this certainly does not apply to North Korea




Oh and the supporters of Chinese or North Korean capitalism are not brainwashed at all I suppose..:rolleyes:



What is miscalled public ownership is simply state ownership - state capitalism. Of that Engels has this to say

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific



China is a significant imperialist and capitalist power in its own right and may well overtake the US in the next few decades as leading capitalist power in the world

1, I said of course the development of, and be transported to the mainstream communist world recognized "Marxism", that is Marxism-Leninism.

2, North Korea no capitalist system. He was selected as the mouthpiece of imperialism, "the least free economy." North Korea is also no mention of "wage labor." Kaesong Industrial Park is the national co-SAR is a special case of the country. Leninism has developed the theory of building in least developed countries. So North Korea's regime is fully consistent with Marxism.

3, hehe. Communist China has never needed to brainwash other people. Because history will automatically prove everything. China and the Soviet Union that year debate, China has predicted the demise of the Soviet revisionists. In addition, Westerners have been brainwashed is generally very easy to judge. For example, many people in this forum, they are free to attack North Korea when the reference for many people is well known rumor.

4, in Chinese, Marxist discourse the basic socialist economic system, we use the conventional term is "public." Here we say that the meaning is.
5, revisionist China will not surpass the U.S. in general, and its fate will be and the Soviet Union almost revisionism.

[Queercommie Girl]

^

While I think NK is still a deformed worker's state due to the lack of democracy, I agree with your point number 5. China will eventually break apart like the USSR did through a "bourgeois colour revolution" under the current system, long before it could over-take the US economically or militarily.

[China studen]

Unfounded generalisations. I don't even know why you would defame your own ethnicity, either, by saying the Chinese pay less attention to logic than westerners.


Aww diddums. Would you like a hug?


Well the phrase "Marxism-Leninism" or "Marxist-Leninist" was never used in the constitution in the first place. That should be a hint ;)


I don't mean to sound racist or xenophobic, but you're really making no sense to me. And the constitution states (according to the DPRK's website) that socialism is still under development (i.e., not socialist "yet").

1, ha ha, if you think it was "Unfounded generalisations". That's fine, once again shows the level of your understanding of the world is.
The reason why the phrase is because the felt like it, because I often encounter in China is only emotional, not logical people. Of course, if you think that is "defame your own ethnicity", then you are too ignorant. This is only a statement of fact, after all, parts of different people have different habits. For example, that more stringent German, Brazilian, more uninhibited. What I do not think this is slander.

2, I like to see the ignorant show.

3, can return to logic? You said North Korea against or abstain from Marxism-Leninism. But you can not give ("Korea Constitution declared its opposition or to abandon Marxism-Leninism"), evidence that you are not without logic behind it?

4, for those who persist in ignorance of prejudice, the other facts are indeed "making no sense". For example, Kim, who has written to "Marxist-Leninism," Korea each year commemoration of this article. Of course, I know that you are ignorant of these. And, even now you know you will not abandon prejudices.

[Dimentio]

lolwut? state-capitalism is still capitalism.

If China is state-capitalist, then certainly America must already have achieved socialism...

China has mixtured together a stalinist/marxist authoritarian state with extreme capitalism. It is probably as progressive as Mussolini's Italy in the 1920's.

[AK]

1, ha ha, if you think it was "Unfounded generalisations". That's fine, once again shows the level of your understanding of the world is.
The reason why the phrase is because the felt like it, because I often encounter in China is only emotional, not logical people. Of course, if you think that is "defame your own ethnicity", then you are too ignorant. This is only a statement of fact, after all, parts of different people have different habits. For example, that more stringent German, Brazilian, more uninhibited. What I do not think this is slander.
Nope, you're not making any sense.


3, can return to logic? You said North Korea against or abstain from Marxism-Leninism. But you can not give ("Korea Constitution declared its opposition or to abandon Marxism-Leninism"), evidence that you are not without logic behind it?
I was hinting at that the DPRK's constitution never mentioned Marxism-Leninism, it should have been an eye-opener.


4, for those who persist in ignorance of prejudice, the other facts are indeed "making no sense". For example, Kim, who has written to "Marxist-Leninism," Korea each year commemoration of this article. Of course, I know that you are ignorant of these. And, even now you know you will not abandon prejudices.
Again, not making sense to me. Sorry.

[robbo203]

1, I said of course the development of, and be transported to the mainstream communist world recognized "Marxism", that is Marxism-Leninism. .


Whats this supposed to mean? I pointed out that the Marxist concept of socialism is different from the Leninist one. Do you deny this?



2, North Korea no capitalist system. He was selected as the mouthpiece of imperialism, "the least free economy." North Korea is also no mention of "wage labor." Kaesong Industrial Park is the national co-SAR is a special case of the country. Leninism has developed the theory of building in least developed countries. So North Korea's regime is fully consistent with Marxism. .

Absolute rubbish. You evidently know next to nothing about marxism if you can say this. Wage labour is not confined to the so called special economic zone but generalised. Generalised wage labour is a fundamental aspect of capitalism . It implies the existence of capitalism as any marxist would know.

[AK]

If China is state-capitalist, then certainly America must already have achieved socialism...
I don't actually see the logic behind this at all.

[Dimentio]

I don't actually see the logic behind this at all.

The USA actually have some more straws of worker control than China. The Chinese unions are severely repressed and workers are kept under conditions similar to chattel slavery.

[Queercommie Girl]

Whats this supposed to mean? I pointed out that the Marxist concept of socialism is different from the Leninist one. Do you deny this?


Marxism-Leninism is however the most prominent and significant branch of Marxism and indeed socialism in general. Major branches like Stalinism, Maoism and Trotskyism are all derived from Marxism-Leninism. Lenin is upheld as an orthodox authority by Maoist and Trotskyist parties alike. Lenin created the first real worker's state in human history and turned Marx's theory into reality. The early Soviet Union was largely a genuine democratic worker's state.

[AK]

Lenin created the first real worker's state in human history and turned Marx's theory into reality.
With his bare hands.

[ContrarianLemming]

We can't call China Socialist, nor Capitalist. Just somewhere between the two.

Either the workers control the means of production or they don't.

[robbo203]

Marxism-Leninism is however the most prominent and significant branch of Marxism and indeed socialism in general. Major branches like Stalinism, Maoism and Trotskyism are all derived from Marxism-Leninism. Lenin is upheld as an orthodox authority by Maoist and Trotskyist parties alike. Lenin created the first real worker's state in human history and turned Marx's theory into reality. The early Soviet Union was largely a genuine democratic worker's state.

I dispute just about all of this. Of course, I am aware that Leninists claim adherence to Marxist principles but Marxism-Leninism is in many respects an oxymoron that brushes over a fundamental differences in outlook between Marxism and Leninism. Read for example Keith Graham's excellent book Karl Marx - Our Contemporary: Social Theory for a Post Leninist World" (1992) which goes into this matter in great detail. These differences extend to even the very definition of terms like socialism as I have pointed out. The idea that the Bolsheviks created the "first real worker's state in human history and turned Marx's theory into reality" is frankly prepostrous and ignores eveything that went on in this period - the fate of the factory committes, the imposition of one man management, the growing authoritarianism of the early post revolutionary state and the crushing of dissent both within and outside the party which prepared the ground for Stalinism. The reality is that far from creating a "genuine democratic worker's state" the Bolshevik revolution lead to the establishment of party dictatorship over the Russian proletariat and the institutionalisation of a system of state run capitalism

[Queercommie Girl]

I dispute just about all of this. Of course, I am aware that Leninists claim adherence to Marxist principles but Marxism-Leninism is in many respects an oxymoron that brushes over a fundamental differences in outlook between Marxism and Leninism. Read for example Keith Graham's excellent book Karl Marx - Our Contemporary: Social Theory for a Post Leninist World" (1992) which goes into this matter in great detail. These differences extend to even the very definition of terms like socialism as I have pointed out. The idea that the Bolsheviks created the "first real worker's state in human history and turned Marx's theory into reality" is frankly prepostrous and ignores eveything that went on in this period - the fate of the factory committes, the imposition of one man management, the growing authoritarianism of the early post revolutionary state and the crushing of dissent both within and outside the party which prepared the ground for Stalinism. The reality is that far from creating a "genuine democratic worker's state" the Bolshevik revolution lead to the establishment of party dictatorship over the Russian proletariat and the institutionalisation of a system of state run capitalism

Your view however, is in the minority, at least among socialists and Marxists who are seriously active. Most of the prominent revolutionary socialist forces in the world today are directly derived from Marxism-Leninism.

The deformation of the Soviet worker's state occurred much later under Stalin, not during Lenin's time. In Lenin's time there was still general worker's democracy. Lenin used some dictatorial methods against certain political elements but the objective conditions in Russia at the time was certainly not favourable for the new worker's state so certain measures, like the formation of the Cheka, was necessary.

For people who are anti-vanguardist, every kind of vanguardist party politics looks like "dictatorship". But anti-vanguardism is illogical. Absolute egalitarianism is an impossible because not all humans are equal in terms of ability. There is nothing wrong with vanguardism as long as it is underpinned by democracy and under the workers' supervision. This was largely the case in Lenin's time. The deformation only occurred later under Stalin.

For people who prefer an "anarchic" kind of life without much organisation, every kind of socialist organisation looks like "state-capitalism". But as one of the founding members of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Dazhao, correctly pointed out, as long as humanity exists, there would always be a need for an organised administrative system. To have an administrative system is not equivalent to bureaucratism, let alone "state-capitalism". In Lenin's time the administration was under the workers' supervision so it was not bureaucratism. In addition, it is illogical to think that humanity can ever arrive in a "post-scarcity" world, which is more of a petit-liberal utopian pipe dream. Therefore there would always be a need for a science of economic development, even in a socialist society where everything is collectively owned. To run factories according to the law of economics is not "state-capitalism". Even egalitarian primitive communist societies had to think about how the tribe can survive economically.

Furthermore, as the Trotskyist theorist Tony Cliff said, Marxism must always move forward, or it is dead. Fundamentalism is incorrect in religion, it is also incorrect in politics. Just because Leninism changed certain elements in "original" Marxism doesn't make it inferior. Theory must respond with the times and change accordingly, not eternally get stuck in the 19th century. Trotsky was originally somewhat skeptical of Lenin, but he became a firm supporter of Leninism after the great success of the October Revolution.

Yes, life was hard for most of the workers in early post-revolution Russia. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a worker's state. No-one ever said that a socialist society is where all workers can just "put up their feet" immediately after the revolution, when reactionary forces surround them from all sides.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Far from still being "socialist", China today is borderline social-imperialist as far as I can tell. You can see how they now both possess and politically represent (and mind you in an official capacity, not in a concealed way) a whole regime of massively powerful, domestically-based monopoly-capitalists and how they're taking increasingly aggressive steps to dominate the whole region.

And yes Marxist revisionism is logically capitalist by nature, given that the alternative to socialism is capitalism. China ceased be essentially a socialist country in 1969, with the close of the Cultural Revolution, its central objectives unfulfilled. The victory of the enemy was consolidated militarily shortly after Mao's death in 1976 through a coup of the government in which hundreds of people died and thousands, if not tens of thousands, were arrested, including the whole "gang of four". There has been nothing socialist about the Chinese state since that time.

[bailey_187]

I started reading Giovannni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing and it makes an interesting point about how China may not be Capitalist.

Arrighi says that Robert Brenner lists two necesary preconditions for Capitalism. The relevent one is that direct producers must have lost control of the means of production. This is needed to activiate and sustain the competition needed that will force the direct producers to sell their labour power to the organisers of production and to subject themselves with the discipline imposed on them by the latter.

According ot Arigghi, (in reference to land still being publically owned in China i think?):

as long as the the principle access to land continues to be recognised and implemented, it is not too late for social action in contemporary China to steer evolution in a non-capitalist direction. For aslong as the principle is upheld in practice, Brenner's second condition of capitalist development (that the direct producers must have lost control over the means of production) is far from being established. In spite of the spread of market exchanges in the pursuit of profit, therefore, the nature of development in China is not necesarily capitalist. pg.24

He goes on to say that that is not to say that China is socialist, just that capitalism has not yet won. The result of this conclusion though is confusing, and as Arigghi says, it means "socialism and capitalism as understood on the basis of past experience may not be the most usueful notions" in the this respect :confused:

Anyone got any criticisms of this view? Any clarifications or elaborations about Arigghi's point? It says Samir Amin sort of agrees with this view too

[Queercommie Girl]

Land is still (nominally) collectively owned in China but this is very likely to change soon.

Every year in China now there are a large number of cases of property developers with connections to the local government forcefully taking away the peasants' lands.

[Queercommie Girl]

Arrighi is not really a socialist, his theoretical basis is not Marxism, but the so-called "world systems" idea which believes that capitalism already began during China's Northern Song dynasty.

Arrighi is very pro-China, but in that he is rather misguided. Regardless of whether China today is capitalist or still a deformed worker's state, without a mass movement from below it is impossible for socialism to be restored in the country. That is as close to "absolute certainty" as anyone can get. The few remaining socialist features in China, like collectively owned land, are slipping away gradually as we speak.

Here is an interesting debate on video featuring Arrighi:

http://ia311011.us.archive.org/2/items/2640Arrighi/2640Arrighi_512kb.mp4

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I voted the third option.

For me, China is certainly not the most Capitalist country on earth, but it is one that deeply disappoints me. I'm no Maoist, but there is nothing more distressing than watching the slow corruption (both in political and economic terms) of what was once a bastion of anti-Capitalism and a base for proletarian revolt.

I cannot support the country under its current leadership and direction.

[ContrarianLemming]

For people who are anti-vanguardist, every kind of vanguardist party politics looks like "dictatorship". But anti-vanguardism is illogical. Absolute egalitarianism is an impossible because not all humans are equal in terms of ability

cool strawman bro

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Well "the most capitalist country on Earth" I think is almost an absolute misnomer, and is certainly an incorrect formulation when discussing the basic character of a state. A political system is either essentially socialist or essentially capitalist. Degrees are really just being applied here in an economist way, based on measuring what proportion of the economy is state-owned, what proportion isn't, and attempting to define the political character of the Chinese regime based on those sorts of statistics, rather than on the basis of objective, political criteria. China is a capitalist country not because only 35% of its economy is state property, but because it underwent an actual ideological counterrevolution decades ago that was consolidated by way of a coup of the government. Given that fact, it doesn't matter how much of the nation's economy is technically state-owned because whatever portion is is owned in practice by a capitalist state.

[Queercommie Girl]

cool strawman bro

Have you forgotten this other thread, bro?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/gender-differences-conversation-t139606/index.html

The first time it's not your fault, but if it carries on then it gets a bit annoying frankly. You do know that it is a form of transphobia to not acknowledge someone based on their own subjective gender?

Please, don't slide down the path of transphobia.

(Unless of course you are just using the term "bro" in a gender-neutral manner, and you call your female comrades and friends by this term also, then that's a different matter)

Of course, gender is irrelevant to the topic of this thread, but I'm just reminding you.

As for the "strawman", no I'm not explicitly accusing him of being anti-vanguardist. But from experience most anti-Leninists also tend to be anti-vanguardists, so I was just making a generic point.

[Queercommie Girl]

With his bare hands.

Indeed.

;)

[LETSFIGHTBACK]

It's got socialist-like tendencies in China, very much so. But it's still under a revisionist banner & is leading themselves towards Capitalism. We can't call China Socialist, nor Capitalist. Just somewhere between the two.


That's like saying you're somewhat pregnant. you either are or your not.Also, you might as well say that the U.S.A has socilist tendencies because we have public schools, city health centres, public housing etc.
come on now, you know better than that.

[AK]

Please, don't slide down the path of transphobia.
What he said or implied was far from transphobic. There's a big difference between pointing out strawmen in debate and being a transphobe. Don't be like Mahatma Gandhi and accuse everyone of holding negative opinions of you because you are autistic.

[Il Medico]

Have you forgotten this other thread, bro?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/gender-differences-conversation-t139606/index.html

The first time it's not your fault, but if it carries on then it gets a bit annoying frankly. You do know that it is a form of transphobia to not acknowledge someone based on their own subjective gender?

Please, don't slide down the path of transphobia.

(Unless of course you are just using the term "bro" in a gender-neutral manner, and you call your female comrades and friends by this term also, then that's a different matter)

Of course, gender is irrelevant to the topic of this thread, but I'm just reminding you.

As for the "strawman", no I'm not explicitly accusing him of being anti-vanguardist. But from experience most anti-Leninists also tend to be anti-vanguardists, so I was just making a generic point.
Iseul, it a meme. cool *insert something* bro, is an internet meme. s/he wasn't calling you a man.

[Dave B]

I voted the third option.


For me, China is certainly not the most Capitalist country on earth, but it is one that deeply disappoints me. I'm no Maoist, but there is nothing more distressing than watching the slow corruption (both in political and economic terms) of what was once a bastion of anti-Capitalism and a base for proletarian revolt.

I cannot support the country under its current leadership and direction.

Unless you thing state capitalism is anti capitalism? Even then?

Mao Tse-tung

THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION
OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

September 7, 1953





The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.


1. In the last three years or so we have done some work on this, but as we were otherwise occupied, we didn't exert ourselves enough. From now on we should make a bigger effort.


2. With more than three years of experience behind us, we can say with certainty that accomplishing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce by means of state capitalism is a relatively sound policy and method.


3. The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. "Clearly understood" means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism. So far this has not been the case either with members of the Communist Party or with democratic personages. The present meeting is being held to achieve that end.


4. Make steady progress and avoid being too hasty. It will take at least three to five years to lead the country's private industry and commerce basically onto the path of state capitalism, so there should be no cause for alarm or uneasiness.

5. Joint state-private management; orders placed by the state with private enterprises to process materials or manufacture goods, with the state providing all the raw materials and taking all the finished products; and similarly placed orders, with the state taking not all but most of the finished products -- these are the three forms of state capitalism to be adopted in the case of private industry.


6. State capitalism can also be applied in the case of private commerce, which cannot possibly be dismissed by "excluding it". Here our experience is limited and further study is needed.


7. With approximately 3,800,000 workers and shop assistants, private industry and commerce are a big asset to the state and play a large part in the nation's economy and the people's livelihood. Not only do they provide the state with goods, but they can also accumulate capital and train cadres for the state.

8. Some capitalists keep themselves at a great distance from the state and have not changed their profits-before-everything mentality. Some workers are advancing too fast and won't allow the capitalists to make any profit at all. We should try to educate these workers and capitalists and help them gradually (but the sooner the better) adapt themselves to our state policy, namely, to make China's private industry and commerce mainly serve the nation's economy and the people's livelihood and partly earn profits for the capitalists and in this way embark on the path of state capitalism.



http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html

[Weezer]

Unless you thing state capitalism is anti capitalism? Even then?

Mao Tse-tung

THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION
OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

September 7, 1953





http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html

Mao is supporting alliance with...the bourgeoisie?

The hell is this?

[AK]

Mao is supporting alliance with...the bourgeoisie?

The hell is this?
Also, isn't it a part of Maoism that all classes should unite in anti-imperialist war or some shit like that?

[Raúl Duke]

Mao is supporting alliance with...the bourgeoisie?Not surpring...considering


isn't it a part of Maoism that all classes should unite in anti-imperialist war or some shit like that? Yes, this idea is from the New Democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy) concept which arises from the Bloc of 4 Classes theory

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'm surrounded by morons who have no clear conception of New Democracy, nor on Maoism. This is getting quite tiring. :rolleyes:

[robbo203]

Your view however, is in the minority, at least among socialists and Marxists who are seriously active. Most of the prominent revolutionary socialist forces in the world today are directly derived from Marxism-Leninism..

This despite the fact that these presumed revolutionary socialist forces manifestly have no intention of moving beyond a state controlled model of capitalism at best. Where amongst these presumed "revolutionary socialist forces" can we find the conscious intent to abolish the wages system - the very core of the marxist project?




The deformation of the Soviet worker's state occurred much later under Stalin, not during Lenin's time. In Lenin's time there was still general worker's democracy. Lenin used some dictatorial methods against certain political elements but the objective conditions in Russia at the time was certainly not favourable for the new worker's state so certain measures, like the formation of the Cheka, was necessary...


Really? So how do you explain Lenin's enthusiasm for one-man management and taylorism? How do you account for Lenin's comments in
The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government published in Isvestiya of the All - Russian Central Executive Committee (April 28, 1918 ) such as

"Large - scale machine industry which is the material productive source and foundation of socialism - calls for absolute and strict unity of will . . . How can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one".


"unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process".
Is this compatible in your view with a "workers democracy"?



For people who are anti-vanguardist, every kind of vanguardist party politics looks like "dictatorship". But anti-vanguardism is illogical. Absolute egalitarianism is an impossible because not all humans are equal in terms of ability. There is nothing wrong with vanguardism as long as it is underpinned by democracy and under the workers' supervision. This was largely the case in Lenin's time. The deformation only occurred later under Stalin....

You obvuiously have no idea what vanguardism means if you can come out with such tosh. Vanguardism does not mean rejecting the idea that we are equal in terms of ability. This is dumb and it is about the level of discourse one would expect to encounter from a particularly naive opponent of communism

To cite Keith Graham again what vanguardism actually means is
"that a given group's emancipation depends crucially on some other, much smaller group's leadership, guidance or domination in some stronger form" (The Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, Keith Graham, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, p.207).

Is is this which we revolutionary socialists oppose when we say we oppose vanguardism. Its is utterly incompatible with the idea, famously embodied in the Rules and Regulations of the International Workingmen’s Association which Marx helped to draw up(1867) that the emancipation of the working class can only be carried out by the working class itself, an idea



For people who prefer an "anarchic" kind of life without much organisation, every kind of socialist organisation looks like "state-capitalism". But as one of the founding members of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Dazhao, correctly pointed out, as long as humanity exists, there would always be a need for an organised administrative system. To have an administrative system is not equivalent to bureaucratism, let alone "state-capitalism".


Utter tosh again. Who said anything about socialism not involving organisation? State capitalism is state capitalism not becuase it entails organisation but becuase it it is a kind of organisation of society that bears the primary hallmarks of capitalism such as generalised wage labour and is predominately a form of capitalism mediated and administered by the state.



In Lenin's time the administration was under the workers' supervision so it was not bureaucratism. In addition, it is illogical to think that humanity can ever arrive in a "post-scarcity" world, which is more of a petit-liberal utopian pipe dream. Therefore there would always be a need for a science of economic development, even in a socialist society where everything is collectively owned. To run factories according to the law of economics is not "state-capitalism". Even egalitarian primitive communist societies had to think about how the tribe can survive economically


In saying this you place yourself unequivocally outside and against the whole tradition of marxian or socialist economics which emphatically does link socialism with a post scarcity world. Read the German Ideology for instance. You are in fact the very petit-liberal uopian you rail against since what could be more petit liberal than to fall for the bourgeois myth that our wants are infinite. This is the core assumption of bourgeois economics.



Furthermore, as the Trotskyist theorist Tony Cliff said, Marxism must always move forward, or it is dead. Fundamentalism is incorrect in religion, it is also incorrect in politics. Just because Leninism changed certain elements in "original" Marxism doesn't make it inferior. Theory must respond with the times and change accordingly, not eternally get stuck in the 19th century. Trotsky was originally somewhat skeptical of Lenin, but he became a firm supporter of Leninism after the great success of the October Revolution.

It is not a question of fundamentalism. I oppose Leninism not becuase I am a Marxian fundamentalist. In fact I oppose some aspects of Marx's thought as well and I am rather more eclectic in my outlook than this. I oppose Leninism becuase the logic of Leninism led to certain undesirable consequences for the working class and this is inherent in the Leninist project itself



Yes, life was hard for most of the workers in early post-revolution Russia. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a worker's state. No-one ever said that a socialist society is where all workers can just "put up their feet" immediately after the revolution, when reactionary forces surround them from all sides.

The idea of a "workers state" is just nonsense on stilts. If the workers as a class exist then ipso facto so must the capitalist class and if the capitalist class exists then ipso facto that means they exploit the workers and the state is necessarily implicated in supporting the capitalists to enable them to do just this. The workers state is just code for a new exploiting capitalist class in the form of the nomenklatura to pass themselves off as "workers" the better to exploit the actual working class.

[Queercommie Girl]

What he said or implied was far from transphobic. There's a big difference between pointing out strawmen in debate and being a transphobe. Don't be like Mahatma Gandhi and accuse everyone of holding negative opinions of you because you are autistic.

Can't you read? Are you somewhat illiterate?

I wasn't accusing him of being "transphobic" just because he said I used a strawman argument, of course that is completely irrelevant to gender or whatever. I accused him of being "transphobic" because he called me bro, even though I've already told him once before that I'm not a man.

Unless of course he is using the term "bro" in a gender neutral manner.

[Dimentio]

I started reading Giovannni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing and it makes an interesting point about how China may not be Capitalist.

Arrighi says that Robert Brenner lists two necesary preconditions for Capitalism. The relevent one is that direct producers must have lost control of the means of production. This is needed to activiate and sustain the competition needed that will force the direct producers to sell their labour power to the organisers of production and to subject themselves with the discipline imposed on them by the latter.

According ot Arigghi, (in reference to land still being publically owned in China i think?):


He goes on to say that that is not to say that China is socialist, just that capitalism has not yet won. The result of this conclusion though is confusing, and as Arigghi says, it means "socialism and capitalism as understood on the basis of past experience may not be the most usueful notions" in the this respect :confused:

Anyone got any criticisms of this view? Any clarifications or elaborations about Arigghi's point? It says Samir Amin sort of agrees with this view too

Most capitalists in Europe and the USA do not have personal control over their companies today, but most often own minority shares in several large companies at the same time, creating a weird form of oligarchical capitalism where Boards and CEO's have more influence.

[bailey_187]

Most capitalists in Europe and the USA do not have personal control over their companies today, but most often own minority shares in several large companies at the same time, creating a weird form of oligarchical capitalism where Boards and CEO's have more influence.

sorry i dont understand how this relates?

[Dave B]

Not surpring...considering

Yes, this idea is from the New Democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy) concept which arises from the Bloc of 4 Classes theory


When it comes to New Democracy from wikipedia;




This bloc of classes is symbolized most recognizably by the stars on the Flag of China (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Flag_of_China), with the largest star to symbolize the Communist Party of China (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China)'s leadership, and the surrounding four smaller stars symbolizing the Bloc of Four Classes: proletarian (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Proletarian) workers, peasants (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Peasants), petty bourgeoisie (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Petty_bourgeoisie), and the nationally-based capitalists (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Capitalists). This is the coalition of classes for Mao's "New Democratic Revolution" as he described it in his works. Mao's New Democracy explains the Bloc of Four Classes as an unfortunate but necessary consequence of imperialism (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Imperialism) as described by Lenin (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Lenin).

The classical Marxist (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Marxist) understanding of the stages of economic and historical development of the modes of production (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Mode_of_production) under which a socialist revolution (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Socialist_revolution) can take place is that the socialist revolution occurs only after the capitalist bourgeois-democratic (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Bourgeois_democracy) revolution happens first. According to this, the bourgeois-democratic revolution paves the way for the industrial proletarian (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Proletarian) class to emerge as the majority class in society, after which it then overthrows capitalism and begins constructing socialism.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy)

Actually that position is not all that far from the Bolshevik position in 1905 of supporting the capitalist revolution and going into a coalition government with the capitalist class. Although I think Lenin goes a bit overboard about how wonderful capitalism will be for the workers;

V. I. LENIN TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION


FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS
PEKING 1965

First Edition 1965



The new Iskra-ists (mensheviks)thoroughly misunderstand the meaning and significance of the category: bourgeois revolution. Through their arguments there constantly runs the idea that a bourgeois revolution is a revolution which can be advantageous only to the bourgeoisie. And yet nothing is more erroneous than such an idea. A bourgeois revolution is a

page 43
revolution which does not go beyond the limits of the bourgeois, i.e., capitalist, social and economic system.

A bourgeois revolution expresses the need for the development of capitalism, and far from destroying the foundations of capitalism, it does the opposite, it broadens and deepens them. This revolution therefore expresses the interests not only of the working class, but of the entire bourgeoisie as well. Since the rule of the bourgeoisie over the working class is inevitable under capitalism, it is quite correct to say that a bourgeois revolution expresses the interests not so much of the proletariat as of the bourgeoisie. But it is entirely absurd to think that a bourgeois revolution does not express the interests of the proletariat at all.


This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik theory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat, and that therefore we do not need bourgeois political liberty; or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bourgeois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism. From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary propositions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development where commodity production exists.

Marxism teaches that a society which is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse with civilized capitalist nations, at a certain stage of its development, itself, inevitably takes the road of capitalism. Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism.
page 44
All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism.

The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.

That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. The more complete and determined, the more consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie for Socialism.

Only those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scientific Socialism can regard this conclusion as new or strange, paradoxical. And from this conclusion, among other things, follows the thesis that, in a certain sense, a bourgeois revolution is more advantageous to the proletariat than to the bourgeoisie. This thesis is unquestionably correct in the following sense:


http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/TT05.html#c6 (http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/TT05.html)

Stalin concurred; although explained that after the consummation of the capitalist revolution, meaning when it had gone so far that it couldn’t slide back into some compromise counter revolutionary alliance with the remnants of feudalism. The Bolsheviks would remove themselves from government.

J. V. Stalin THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY



page 144
Let us examine this question. What are the arguments of the "minority"? First of all, they refer to the Amsterdam Congress. This congress, in opposition to Jaurèsism, passed a resolution to the effect that Socialists must not seek representation in bourgeois governments; and as the provisional government will be a bourgeois government, it will be improper for us to be represented in it.

That is how the "minority" argues, failing to realise that if the decision of the congress is to be interpreted in this schoolboy fashion we should take no part in the revolution either. It works out like this: we are enemies of the bourgeoisie; the present revolution is a bourgeois revolution -- hence, we should take no part in this revolution! This is the path to which the logic of the "minority" is pushing us.

Social-Democracy says, however, that we proletarians should not only take part in the present revolution, but also be at the head of it, guide it, and carry it through to the end. But it will be impossible to carry the revolution through to the end unless we are represented in the provisional government. Obviously, the logic of the "minority" has not a leg to stand on………

page 147
proletariat must come out against the existing regime jointly with the petty bourgeoisie, but must, without fail, have its own party; that it would be extremely dangerous for the Socialists to enter the new government after the victory of the revolution. If they did that they would repeat the blunder made by Louis Blanc and other French Socialists in 1848, etc.


In other words, in so far as the Italian revolution will be a democratic and not a socialist revolution it would be a great mistake to dream of the rule of the proletariat and remain in the government after the victory; only before the victory can the proletariat come out jointly with the petty bourgeoisie against the common enemy. But who is arguing against this? Who says that we must confuse the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution? What was the purpose of referring to Turati,



http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/PRG05.html (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/PRG05.html)


Which was why when Lenin turned up in Russia at the beginning of 1917 the resident Bolsheviks and Stalin had adopted a policy of support for the provisional government, it had been policy.

The Mensheviks or the "schoolboy minority" and "new Iskra-ists" were actually opposed to going into an alliance in government with the capitalist class and were using to support their argument a letter from Engels to Turati;

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1894 Engels to Filippo Turati
In Milan



But if it comes to this, we must be conscious of the fact, and openly proclaim it, that we are only taking part as an "independent Party," which is allied for the moment with Radicals and Republicans but is inwardly essentially different from them: that we indulge in absolutely no illusions as to the result of the struggle in case of victory; that this result not only cannot satisfy us but will only be a newly attained stage to us, a new basis of operations for further conquests; that from the very moment of victory our paths will separate; that from that same day onwards we shall form a new opposition to the new government, not a reactionary but a progressive opposition, an opposition of the most extreme Left, which will press on to new conquests beyond the ground already won.

After the common victory we might perhaps be offered some seats in the new Government – but always in a minority. Here lies the greatest danger. After the February Revolution in 1848 the French socialistic Democrats (the Réforme people, Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Flocon, etc.) were incautious enough to accept such positions.

As a minority in the Government they involuntarily bore the responsibility for all the infamy and treachery which the majority, composed of pure Republicans, committed against the working class, while at the same time their participation in the government completely paralysed the revolutionary action of the working class they were supposed to represent.

Here I am only expressing my personal opinion, which you asked me for, and I am doing this only with a certain amount of caution


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm)

The fact that the right Mensheviks actually went into the provisional government to ensure the "consummation" of the bourgeois or Democratic revolution ie the constituent assembly was a contradiction of their former policy.

Although consistent with Stalin’s.

As Trotsky himself reported;

Leon Trotsky WHAT NEXT?


V: THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION




Since, in a bourgeois revolution, they (the Mensheviks) were wont to say, the governing power can have no other function that to safeguard the domination of the bourgeoisie, it is clear that Socialism can have nothing to do with it, its place is not in the government, but in the opposition.

Plekhanov considered that Socialists could not under any conditions take part in a bourgeois government…


No matter how contradictory may be the opinions of the Mensheviks and their leader, Plekhanov, when you compare their statements before the Revolution with their statements of today,


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1917/next/ch05.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1917/next/ch05.htm)

The stagist theory of Marxism as interpreted by Kautsky in 1905 and later in 1918 is below for interest and supporting evidence;

Karl Kautsky Differences Among the Russian Socialists (1905)





Twenty-four years ago no one could assert with certainty that the Russian village communities might not become the starting point of a modern form of communism. Society as a whole can not leap over any stage of evolution, but single backward portions thereof can easily do this.

They can make a leap in order to correspond with other and more advanced portions. So it was possible that Russian society might leap over the capitalist stage in order to immediately develop the new communism out of the old. But a condition of this was that socialism in the rest of Europe should become victorious during the time that the village communities still had a vital strength in Russia. This at the begin- fling of the eighties appeared still possible.

But in a decade the impossibility of this transition was perfectly clear. The revolution in Western Europe moved slower and the village communities in Russia fell faster than appeared probable at the beginning of the eighties, and therewith it was decided that the special peculiarity of Russia upon which the terrorism and the socialism of the Narodnaya Volya was founded should disappear, and that Russia must pass through capitalism in order to attain socialism and that also Russia must in this respect pass along the same road as had Western Europe.

Here as there socialism must grow out of the great industry and the industrial proletariat is the only revolutionary class which is capable of leading a continuous and independent revolutionary battle against absolutism.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1905/xx/rsdlp.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1905/xx/rsdlp.htm)

Karl Kautsky The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Chapter VIII The Object Lesson




But Russia, is not one of these leading industrial States. What is being enacted there now is, in fact, the last of bourgeois, and not the first of Socialist revolutions. This shows itself ever more distinctly. Its present Revolution could only assume a Socialist character if it coincided with Socialist Revolutions in Western Europe.

That by an object lesson of this kind in the more highly-developed nations, the pace of social development may be accelerated, was already recognised by Marx in the preface to the first edition of Capital:


One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement - it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.


In spite of their numerous calls on Marx, our Bolshevist friends seem to have quite forgotten this passage, for the dictatorship of the proletariat, which they preach and practise, is nothing but a grandiose attempt to clear by bold leaps or remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of normal development.

They think that it is the least painful method for the delivery of Socialism, for "shortening and lessening its birth-pangs". But if we are to continue in metaphor, then their practice reminds us more of a pregnant woman, who performs the most foolish exercises in order to shorten the period of gestation, which makes her impatient, and thereby causes a premature birth.
The result of such proceedings is, as a rule, a child incapable of life.
Marx speaks here of the object lesson which one nation may afford another. Socialism is, however, concerned with yet another kind of object lesson, viz., that which a highly-developed industry may furnish to an industry which is backward.


To be sure, capitalist competition everywhere tends to displace old-fashioned industrial methods, but under capitalist conditions this is so painful a process that those threatened by its operation strive to avert it by all means. The Socialist method of production would therefore find in existence a number of processes which are technically obsolete; for example, in agriculture, where large-scale production has made little progress, and in places is even receding.


Socialist production can only develop on the basis of the large industry. Socialist agriculture would have to consist solely in the socialisation of what large-scale production already exists. If good results are thereby obtained, which is to be expected, provided the social labour of freely-organised men is substituted for wage labour, (which only produces very inadequate results in agriculture) the conditions of the workers in the large Socialist industry will be seen to be more favourable than those of the small peasants, and it may then be anticipated with certainty that the latter will voluntarily pass over to the new productive methods, when society furnishes them with the necessary means.

But not before. In agriculture the way for Socialism is not prepared by Capitalism in any adequate measure. And it is quite hopeless to try to convince peasant proprietors of the theoretical superiority of Socialism. Only the object lesson of the socialisation of peasant agriculture can help. This, however, presupposes a certain extension of large-scale agriculture. The object lesson will be the quicker and more effective according to the degree of development of large-scale industry in the country.




http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/dictprole/ch08.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/dictprole/ch08.htm)




In the sense that the Bolsheviks introduced state capitalism and were against introducing socialism, you could argue that they never abandoned it in a sense but merely became the state capitalist class themselves;

Introduction of Socialism or Exposure of Plunder of the State? 1917



Everybody agrees that the immediate introduction of socialism in Russia is impossible.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/22.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/22.htm)

Economic Dislocation and the Proletariat’s Struggle Against It 1917


They evade these specific issues by advancing pseudo-intellectual, and in fact utterly meaningless, arguments about a "permanent revolution", about "introducing" socialism, and other nonsense.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/17.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/17.htm)

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

To clarify Mao's comments on "state capitalism" highlighted by Dave on the previous page, indeed this was a transitional aspect of new democratic revolution. The basic concept of new democratic revolution was in part that, in oppressed nations, it's possible to forge a very broad united front for the revolutionary seizure of power because there are even capitalists who, as a result of their principally patriotic loyalties, are willing to support revolution and socialism. It should be deeply grasped by people here that large chunks of the third world bourgeoisie are not even as affluent as and have less access to capital than many first world workers! Hence those who argue that it's just automatically wrong or impossible for communists in the third world to forge a revolutionary united front with the patriotic (i.e. potentially insurgent) capitalists in their respective countries might just as well argue against uniting the whole of the proletariat here!

Mao's argument, highlighted in Dave's post on the previous page, for achieving socialism through a process of state capitalism is based on the principle of holding this revolutionary united front together, such that the more bourgeois third world elements come to more fully adopt the communist moral position of production for the purpose of serving society rather than for private accumulation. And yes the patriotic third world bourgeois elements can be won over to that morality and, in that sort of way, ultimately be brought to rupture concretely with capitalist relations. This was the essence of Mao's argument. And the approach was successful, mind you. Socialism was basically achieved in China by 1958. The Great Leap Forward that was initiated in that year was in part an attempt at consolidating the victory of socialism in China. Hence why I argue in my new Maoist theory that the failure of the Cultural Revolution to bring back the basic (albeit an altered) model of large scale communes was a clear hallmark of revisionism because it shows that the leadership of the country ultimately just gave up on the idea of consolidating socialism.

Also, this basic character of the Great Leap Forward -- being oriented toward consolidating socialism -- is the real, underlying reason it was opposed by the Soviet Union. The social-imperialist USSR aimed to keep China economically subordinate to itself. In order for that to be a reality, there needed to continue to be a significant array of capitalist economic relations in China. Hence shortly after the Great Leap Forward got going, the Soviet Union pulled out its economic advisers and blueprints and imposed a trade embargo on China in protest, forcibly exiting China from the Cold War and, in part, undermining the economic success of the Great Leap in terms of socialist accumulation, as well as forcing the Chinese Communists to increasingly recognize the Cold War for what it actually was: a high-profile rivalry between two giant imperialist superpowers and their respective spheres of influence in which communists should have no part.

So during the 1960s especially, a real crisis situation emerged in China. Partly as a result of how China had successfully forged its revolution (which never would have happened in any principally different way!), the communists were united with these nationalist elements who, especially with increasing pressure resulting from the USSR's embargo, were exerting increasing sway over the government and the Communist Party as a whole. And they unfortunately won a broad array of concessions in the course of the early-to-mid '60s and were clearly aiming to achieve full-fledged rapprochement with the United States, such that China might have some sort of powerful trade patron on which for private enterprises to rely. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt at defeating that tendency ideologically and achieving new revolutionary victories in the process. Hence it was formulated as a basic question of "the socialist road or the capitalist road?". The bottom line here, in my view, is that Mao significantly underestimated the direness of the situation and accordingly prescribed an inadequate solution. The truth is that the state and Communist Party themselves were structurally flawed in fundamental ways that would objectively tend to direct them back to capitalism under such averse circumstances. As such, they really needed to be completely destroyed and replaced by a whole new people's state and by a new communist party, the respective embryos of which should have been the Red Guards, the Shanghai Commune, and the Cultural Revolution Group.

There were some in the leadership of the country (most heavily concentrated in the Cultural Revolution Group) who, more fully than Mao, recognized how bad the situation was and came closer to recognizing what needed to really be done. This included people like Lin Biao and Jiang Qing. Anyhow, the upsurge of the Cultural Revolution really lasted from 1966 to the fall of 1967, after which point the army had basically brought revolutionary progress to a complete halt. By the end of the year, the Cultural Revolution Group had been purged of all its authentically revolutionary members and its paper, Red Flag, made to stop publication. Whereas Mao himself supported these measures, I tend to assess that Mao himself became, for all practical purposes, a revisionist at some point in 1967. The subsequent year saw the Red Guards ordered to stand down to the army and then increasingly punished by being shipped off to the countryside. Finally, after the Soviet Union began conducting border raids on China in March of 1969, by the start of the next month the old CP, essentially suspended during the Cultural Revolution, had been reconstituted under Mao's leadership. By the summer of that same year, the Red Guards were officially disbanded. By the end of 1971, most, if not all, of the revolutionary members of the Politburo had been removed. Early the next year, an initial rapprochement with the United States had been achieved. You get the picture. Everything headed downhill after the fall of 1967. The counterrevolution was consolidated with the coup of 1976, wherein the remaining revolutionary leaders in the state, including the so-called gang of four, were arrested. And that was the decisive end of socialism in China.

[Queercommie Girl]

This despite the fact that these presumed revolutionary socialist forces manifestly have no intention of moving beyond a state controlled model of capitalism at best. Where amongst these presumed "revolutionary socialist forces" can we find the conscious intent to abolish the wages system - the very core of the marxist project?


You seem to have just rejected almost every serious revolutionary socialist force that is in existence today.

Well, I'm a pragmatist. Rome isn't built in a day, and nor is socialism. It is irrational to think that wage labour can be abolished so easily and so quickly after a revolution of any kind.

Purists like you can say a lot of theoretical stuff, but your line isn't going to make much of a difference in the real world. As for me, I'd rather have an imperfect system that works than a perfect system that only exists in someone's head.



Really? So how do you explain Lenin's enthusiasm for one-man management and taylorism? How do you account for Lenin's comments in
The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government published in Isvestiya of the All - Russian Central Executive Committee (April 28, 1918 ) such as
"Large - scale machine industry which is the material productive source and foundation of socialism - calls for absolute and strict unity of will . . . How can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one".


"unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process".
Is this compatible in your view with a "workers democracy"?
Actually, yes centralism and democracy are in principle compatible rather than mutually exclusive, provided that the leadership is elected and put under supervision. It's rather undialectical to artificially impose a rigid distinction between "democracy" and "centralism".



You obvuiously have no idea what vanguardism means if you can come out with such tosh. Vanguardism does not mean rejecting the idea that we are equal in terms of ability. This is dumb and it is about the level of discourse one would expect to encounter from a particularly naive opponent of communism

To cite Keith Graham again what vanguardism actually means is
"that a given group's emancipation depends crucially on some other, much smaller group's leadership, guidance or domination in some stronger form" (The Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, Keith Graham, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, p.207).

Is is this which we revolutionary socialists oppose when we say we oppose vanguardism. Its is utterly incompatible with the idea, famously embodied in the Rules and Regulations of the International Workingmen’s Association which Marx helped to draw up(1867) that the emancipation of the working class can only be carried out by the working class itself, an idea
Don't jump the gun and start throwing out personal insults. I was describing ultimate causes. The ultimate justification for the need to have a leadership group is that this small group possesses better political consciousness as well as expertise than the rest, or in Maoist terms, more "red and expert" than the rest. That is what I meant when I said "people's abilities are not equal", which means that some people can contribute more to the task to building socialism than others.

Again, vanguardism is not mutually exclusive with self-emancipation just as centralism is not mutually exclusive with democracy. There is a dialectical relationship between them.



Utter tosh again. Who said anything about socialism not involving organisation? State capitalism is state capitalism not becuase it entails organisation but becuase it it is a kind of organisation of society that bears the primary hallmarks of capitalism such as generalised wage labour and is predominately a form of capitalism mediated and administered by the state.
As I said, having a "state" isn't the same as having a "capitalist state". The key thing is that I reject the whole concept of "state-capitalism". Capitalism necessarily implies private ownership of the means of production. If there is no private ownership of the means of production, then it's not capitalism. Just because there exists some form of wage labour doesn't mean it's capitalist, because the enterprise in question could be collectively owned and the issuing of wages collectively and democratically managed according to the socialist distributive principle of "each according to his/her needs".



In saying this you place yourself unequivocally outside and against the whole tradition of marxian or socialist economics which emphatically does link socialism with a post scarcity world. Read the German Ideology for instance. You are in fact the very petit-liberal uopian you rail against since what could be more petit liberal than to fall for the bourgeois myth that our wants are infinite. This is the core assumption of bourgeois economics.
Now you sound like a fundamentalist. You don't seem to have grasped the context of my anti-post-scarcity stance. My point is that even collectively or publicly owned work-units/enterprises must still operate according to the general laws as laid down by the science of economics. I never said "our wants are absolutely infinite", but on the other hand, our "wants" are not limited by some kind of metaphysical upper limit either. It could gradually increase with time and further development in industry and technique.

But even with wants that are very much finite, it is virtually impossible to arrive at a "post-scarcity" world in any rapid way after the revolution, which is why wage labour would still exist in a worker's state for a long time at least.

Communism gradually moves from "each according to his/her labour" to "each according to his/her needs", but that would take quite a while to achieve.

Now I say you are being "fundamentalist" because frankly you are no right to accuse someone of being "un-Marxist" just because he/she might differ with "orthodox Marxism" on a few key principles. (Not saying I'm doing that here, I'm just making a general point) As Tony Cliff said, if Marxism doesn't move forward, it is as good as dead. Marxist texts aren't like the Bible or the "word of God".



It is not a question of fundamentalism. I oppose Leninism not becuase I am a Marxian fundamentalist. In fact I oppose some aspects of Marx's thought as well and I am rather more eclectic in my outlook than this. I oppose Leninism becuase the logic of Leninism led to certain undesirable consequences for the working class and this is inherent in the Leninist project itself
It was Stalinism that led to the undesirable consequences, not Leninism. Your understanding of Leninism is very one-sided. It's like a blind person only managing to touch one part of a giant elephant and calling it a tree.



The idea of a "workers state" is just nonsense on stilts. If the workers as a class exist then ipso facto so must the capitalist class and if the capitalist class exists then ipso facto that means they exploit the workers and the state is necessarily implicated in supporting the capitalists to enable them to do just this. The workers state is just code for a new exploiting capitalist class in the form of the nomenklatura to pass themselves off as "workers" the better to exploit the actual working class.
It is utopian and frankly crazy to think that after the socialist revolution, one could just move from a capitalist world to a completely "stateless" society within a short time. This kind of idea can only exist in your head, not in the harsh objective reality of human history.

And as I said, a "state" doesn't necessarily equal to a "capitalist state". You can't just assume that the "worker's state" would be become an excuse for a new exploiting capitalist class.

[Dave B]

Iseul is putting forward the master race theory of the one party dictatorship; a party of red fascist bourgeois intelligentsia like himself with his;


"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".



Yes not all are fit to rule!


V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes

December 30, 1920




But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat,


http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm)


With the workers being ground down at the bottom by a system of cog wheels with Iseul at the more comfortable end of the transmission belt no doubt.

Burhman the ex Leninist and Trot theoretician this well enough I think;



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

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

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

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

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



Managerial Revolution,Chapter 13.

[Queercommie Girl]

^

You are obviously totally ignorant of socialism if you seriously compare Leninist vanguardism with fascism. Leninist vanguardism is not the absolute end, but only as a transitional mechanism from capitalism to communism (i.e. socialism).

The fact that people have different capabilities is an objective fact, it doesn't mean such differences are metaphysically ingrained or that people are not equal because of it. Women have less physical strength compared with men, but it doesn't mean women are worth less than men intrinsically. Vanguardism is fundamentally different from elitism because the vanguard exists only to serve the interests of the masses, it is not enough that they are skilled, smart and strong, they must also be genuinely "red", i.e. genuinely able to really put other people's interests before their own. As Mao said, "red" is more important than "expert". A vanguard is not there to indulge in its own enjoyment and luxury, but actually it's an even tougher job than an ordinary worker's position, because relatively speaking one needs to do more work, carry more responsibilities, for disproportionately little gain. As a Chinese socialist sayings goes: "The cadres are cadres because they have to work before everyone else and reap the rewards after everyone else". The political advanced status of the vanguard can only be kept if the vanguard is placed under worker's democratic supervision.

[Garret]

China is the perfect Capitalist state if you think about it.

[Obs]

Iseul is putting forward the master race theory of the one party dictatorship; a party of red fascist bourgeois intelligentsia like himself with his;


"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
yeah man lenin was just like hitler

Also, lol, Orwell quote. You realise Orwell was a Leninist, right?

[bailey_187]

China is the perfect Capitalist state if you think about it.

how is it? its capitalist, but hardly the "perfect" type for capitalists.

[Jazzhands]

how is it? its capitalist, but hardly the "perfect" type for capitalists.

The bourgeoisie in China is made up of high-ranking Party members, so they already hold unquestionable and direct political power (as opposed to the bourgeoisie of countries like the USA who have to bribe their way in through campaign contributions) in addition to their total control over the flow of capital that comes with being bourgeois. So when you think about it, the Chinese ruling class is stronger than that of any other country in the world.

[Raúl Duke]

So when you think about it, the Chinese ruling class is stronger than that of any other country in the world.

I wouldn't say they're the strongest but I would say they're pretty smart.

For example, when the Chinese pegged their currency to the dollar and what not that was a pretty smart move on their part. When the US consider taking some protectionist action against to counter this "economic warfare" the free-market economists were up in arms over the idea.

The Chinese economists and ruling classes are not hung up over ideologies like free-markets and what not, they do what they need to do to stay on top, strong, and thrive. I can't say the same for the American ruling class which seems to have grown senile and stupid.

[AK]

how is it? its capitalist, but hardly the "perfect" type for capitalists.
It proclaims itself as socialist to the working class and capitalist to the capitalists. It is, in the eyes of the PRC, a win-win situation; workers are taught to love it and capitalists are allowed to exploit its workers.

[Garret]

It proclaims itself as socialist to the working class and capitalist to the capitalists. It is, in the eyes of the PRC, a win-win situation; workers are taught to love it and capitalists are allowed to exploit its workers.
China has a very powerful state to protect it's system from the billion citizens, too.

This "NWO conspiracy theory's" you hear about are really just describing what elite want for the world, and they want the world to mirror China.

[robbo203]

You seem to have just rejected almost every serious revolutionary socialist force that is in existence today.

Well, I'm a pragmatist. Rome isn't built in a day, and nor is socialism. It is irrational to think that wage labour can be abolished so easily and so quickly after a revolution of any kind..

Im a pragmatist too. Pragmatically speaking, if your vision of the future does not include the revolutionary socialist goal of the abolition of wage labour then you cannot count yourself as a serious revolutiuonary socialist. QED. Your "serious revolutionary socialist forces" amount to nothing more than leftist reformists - the left wing of capital. Of course I reject them. Any serious revolutionary socialist would. These people are going nowhere and offer nothing except more of the same - capitalism.

And this thing about you cant "abolish wage labour" that easily, have you thought through what you are saying here? I suggest you are probably thinking that a revolution is what some vanguard does, not the working class as a whole. When the working class as a whole wants and understands socialism what is to stop it getting rid of the wages system?



Purists like you can say a lot of theoretical stuff, but your line isn't going to make much of a difference in the real world. As for me, I'd rather have an imperfect system that works than a perfect system that only exists in someone's head...

This is the typical sneer you would expect of someone who supports capitalism but cannot bring himself to acknowlege it. Its all there - the implied repudiation of socialism as some kind of "perfect" utopia incapable of realisation in the "real world". Saying you would rather have an imperfect system really means we might as well just stick with capitalism and tinker around with it a litte



Actually, yes centralism and democracy are in principle compatible rather than mutually exclusive, provided that the leadership is elected and put under supervision. It's rather undialectical to artificially impose a rigid distinction between "democracy" and "centralism".


Undialectical, my arse. I gave you a straightforward quotation from Lenin and asked how you squared this with the idea of workers democracy. Here it is again:

unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process".

Your attempt to wriggle out of it frankly laughable. If the masses must unquestionably obey the single will of the leaders how in hells name can the latter be put "under supervision" by them? But wait - dialectics will reveal all!! :rolleyes:



Don't jump the gun and start throwing out personal insults. I was describing ultimate causes. The ultimate justification for the need to have a leadership group is that this small group possesses better political consciousness as well as expertise than the rest, or in Maoist terms, more "red and expert" than the rest. That is what I meant when I said "people's abilities are not equal", which means that some people can contribute more to the task to building socialism than others.

See, youre doing it again! Ive already explained this to you once before. Differing abilities is not what vanguardism is about at all. Let me give you Keith Graham's definition again but, this time, try to think what is really being said here. This is how he defines vanguardism - "that a given group's emancipation depends crucially on some other, much smaller group's leadership, guidance or domination in some stronger form" (The Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, Keith Graham, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, p.207).



Again, vanguardism is not mutually exclusive with self-emancipation just as centralism is not mutually exclusive with democracy. There is a dialectical relationship between them.

Well if you thought about it for one moment you would see quite clearly that vanguardism and the self emanicipation of the working class ARE incompatible. The whole point about vanguardism is that it is the vanguard that emancipates the workers, that supposedly acts on behalf of the workers. It is NOT the workers acting on their own behalf, emancipating themselves



As I said, having a "state" isn't the same as having a "capitalist state". The key thing is that I reject the whole concept of "state-capitalism". Capitalism necessarily implies private ownership of the means of production. If there is no private ownership of the means of production, then it's not capitalism. Just because there exists some form of wage labour doesn't mean it's capitalist, because the enterprise in question could be collectively owned and the issuing of wages collectively and democratically managed according to the socialist distributive principle of "each according to his/her needs"..

Well I assume from this confused mish mash that you are not particularly au fait with Marxian economics or Marxian poilitical theory for that matter, Here's Engels in Socialisim Utopian and Scientific

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.

What he is saying is that state ownership is in no way a negation of capitalism yet you contend that capitalism has to be based on "private ownership". If you mean by that the de jure legal title to means of production by individuals capitalists then this is clearly nonsense. But in any case there is a sense in which state property IS a form of private property. Certainly as far as the workers are concerned there is absolutely no essential difference between working for a state firm and a so called private firm.

As for wages under socialism - what nonsense! Generalised wage labour is the hallmark of capitalism par excellance. As Marx pointed out wage labour pressupposes capital and vice versa.



Now you sound like a fundamentalist. You don't seem to have grasped the context of my anti-post-scarcity stance. My point is that even collectively or publicly owned work-units/enterprises must still operate according to the general laws as laid down by the science of economics. I never said "our wants are absolutely infinite", but on the other hand, our "wants" are not limited by some kind of metaphysical upper limit either. It could gradually increase with time and further development in industry and technique.

But even with wants that are very much finite, it is virtually impossible to arrive at a "post-scarcity" world in any rapid way after the revolution, which is why wage labour would still exist in a worker's state for a long time at least.

I wish you would make up your mind! Here you suggest a post scarcity world would merely be a long time in coming. But in your earlier post you said quite definitely that it will never come. This is what you said

In addition, it is illogical to think that humanity can ever arrive in a "post-scarcity" world, which is more of a petit-liberal utopian pipe dream

I pointed out that, by saying this, you place outside and opposed to the entire revolutionary socialist tradition which bases itself precisely upon the possibility of a post scarcity world. You, by contrast, prefer to be guided by the "general laws as laid down by the science of economics" meaning of course bourgeois economics with its baggage of unwarranted assumptions about human wants being infinite etc.

You havent even begun to get to grips with the arguments presented by revolutionary socialists for the possibility of a post scarcity world. For example, one key argument concerns the enormous and growing structural waste built into capitalism which effectively ties up huge amounts of labour and resources in an array of occupations - from bank clerks to cash till operators - that contribute nothing at all to human wellbeing but are nonetheless functionally indispensable to capitalism. Abolishing capitalism willl effectively double the workforce for socially useful production. That surely is relevant to the question of "post scarcity" , is it not?



Communism gradually moves from "each according to his/her labour" to "each according to his/her needs", but that would take quite a while to achieve.

For one thing if this is an allusion to the labour voucher scheme of lower communism it has to be remembered that labour vocuhers are not comparable to a wages system which you advocate. The existence of a wages system would signify the non existence of communism

For another all these kinds of transitional arrangements only make sense in the context of a still relatively undeveloped means of production as was the case in the 19th century. However, we have long gone past this point. Transitional stages after revolution are no longer needed; we have the technological capacity to produce enough now. Alternatively you might say that we are already in a transitional stage but it is a transition that occurs not after the reolution when communism is established but before the revolution


Now I say you are being "fundamentalist" because frankly you are no right to accuse someone of being "un-Marxist" just because he/she might differ with "orthodox Marxism" on a few key principles. (Not saying I'm doing that here, I'm just making a general point) As Tony Cliff said, if Marxism doesn't move forward, it is as good as dead. Marxist texts aren't like the Bible or the "word of God"..

My criticisms of others stem not from the fact they might depart from orthodox marxism in some way. As I said I am myself critical of some aspects of Marx



It is utopian and frankly crazy to think that after the socialist revolution, one could just move from a capitalist world to a completely "stateless" society within a short time. This kind of idea can only exist in your head, not in the harsh objective reality of human history..

Once again, youve got it all wrong. The preparatory work leading to a stateless moneyless socialist commonwealth is some thing that is essentially done BEFORE and leading up to the socialist revolution. The socialist revolution is only something that puts into effect what the working class have become conscious of and desire. It is an accumulative or incremental process starting NOW.



And as I said, a "state" doesn't necessarily equal to a "capitalist state". You can't just assume that the "worker's state" would be become an excuse for a new exploiting capitalist class.

The modern satate as Engels says is necessarily a capitalist state. No getting around it. The "workers state" implies the existence of the wroking class does it not. And working class implies the existence of exploitation undertaken by the capitalist class , does it not? So putting these things together we can say that the so called "workers state" is a state that allows and, indeeds, supports the capitalist class to exploit the workers. That makes the workers state something quite other than what it pretends to be . In short it is just another capitalist state administered by a new exploiting capitalist class claiming to represent the workers

[Jazzhands]

It is utopian and frankly crazy to think that after the socialist revolution, one could just move from a capitalist world to a completely "stateless" society within a short time. This kind of idea can only exist in your head, not in the harsh objective reality of human history.

Anarchist Catalonia is a perfect example of what you just said is impossible. How's that for human history?:cool: They achieved in a year or two what all the workers' states couldn't achieve in most of the 20th Century.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Anarchist Catalonia is a perfect example of what you just said is impossible. How's that for human history?:cool: They achieved in a year or two what all the workers' states couldn't achieve in most of the 20th Century.

:confused: I think you're a bit confused.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Anarchist Catalonia is a perfect example of what you just said is impossible. How's that for human history?:cool: They achieved in a year or two what all the workers' states couldn't achieve in most of the 20th Century.
Actually, they ran into many problems. They even need to go rob a bank to fund their "society."

In other word, they weren't perfect either. If they are so great, why do they collapse within a few years?

[AK]

It is utopian and frankly crazy to think that after the socialist revolution, one could just move from a capitalist world to a completely "stateless" society within a short time. This kind of idea can only exist in your head, not in the harsh objective reality of human history.
If class is the result of material factors, surely the social class barriers would disappear as soon as the material factors defining each class did? But no, this isn't so - at least not according to you.

And great job, Captain Obvious - you managed to point out that humanity has never made an overall successful transition from class society to classless society. But that's why the working class - being the only class that can abolish the current mode of production and class order - must constantly struggle for liberation and a classless society, because your class barriers won't just "devolve" under the dictatorship of the proletariat in time for communism.

[AK]

Actually, they ran into many problems. They even need to go rob a bank to fund their "society."

In other word, they weren't perfect either. If they are so great, why do they collapse within a few years?
Gee, I dunno. Why were all your precious parties infiltrated by revisionists?

[Jazzhands]

Actually, they ran into many problems. They even need to go rob a bank to fund their "society."

In other word, they weren't perfect either. If they are so great, why do they collapse within a few years?

because we lost the war, that should be obvious to anyone with a brain. not to mention the Barcelona May Day sabotages.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm a pragmatist too. Pragmatically speaking, if your vision of the future does not include the revolutionary socialist goal of the abolition of wage labour then you cannot count yourself as a serious revolutiuonary socialist. QED. Your "serious revolutionary socialist forces" amount to nothing more than leftist reformists - the left wing of capital. Of course I reject them. Any serious revolutionary socialist would. These people are going nowhere and offer nothing except more of the same - capitalism.


You are a "pragmatist"? You are not even analysing the situation with a clear head.

You made the unfounded accusation that every existing revolutionary Marxist-Leninist political force never intends to actually abolish wage labour ever. I wonder what kind of egoistical delusion made you say this kind of non-sense.

Every revolutionary force today ultimately desires to abolish wage labour, just not in such an unrealistic utopian way as you seem to think.



And this thing about you cant "abolish wage labour" that easily, have you thought through what you are saying here? I suggest you are probably thinking that a revolution is what some vanguard does, not the working class as a whole. When the working class as a whole wants and understands socialism what is to stop it getting rid of the wages system?
The "whole working class" isn't going to just suddenly wake up one morning and spontaneously create socialism. The "whole working class" would still need leadership and organisation.

Have you ever studied archaeology? Have you ever examined how it was like in primitive communist societies? Engels clearly said that the socialist system of the future would be a restoration on a higher civilisational level of primitive communism. Did primitive tribal peoples not have leaders and "vanguards", albeit under the democratic control of the tribal council? If they had them, what make you think the socialist society of the future would be any different, just because we are now more technologically advanced?



This is the typical sneer you would expect of someone who supports capitalism but cannot bring himself to acknowlege it. Its all there - the implied repudiation of socialism as some kind of "perfect" utopia incapable of realisation in the "real world". Saying you would rather have an imperfect system really means we might as well just stick with capitalism and tinker around with it a litte
Just because I believe humanity will never have a "perfect" system doesn't make me a "capitalist". The pursuit of absolute perfection is usually the sign of a delusional mind.



Undialectical, my arse. I gave you a straightforward quotation from Lenin and asked how you squared this with the idea of workers democracy. Here it is again:

unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process".

Your attempt to wriggle out of it frankly laughable. If the masses must unquestionably obey the single will of the leaders how in hells name can the latter be put "under supervision" by them? But wait - dialectics will reveal all!! :rolleyes:
Your degenerate mind is simply incapable of understanding the revolutionary dialectics of Leninism. As Lenin himself clearly said:

"They all call themselves Marxists, but their understanding of Marxism is degenerate to the extreme. The determining factor of Marxism, the revolutionary dialectics of Marxism, they have no understanding of at all."

The key of dialectical philosophy is to be able to perceive an underlying connection between phenomena and things which at first sight and on a superficial level, seem to be utterly distinct and mutually exclusive. E.g. the dualistic ideas of "spirit" and "body" are connected through modern bio-informatics and the science of neuro-electrical networks, the dualistic ideas of "male" and "female" are connected through transgenderism. If you can only see the distinction between two concepts, like centralism and democracy, like male and female, but not their underlying identity and connection, you are not using dialectical thinking.

Just because there is democracy in a factory, doesn't mean there is no leadership; Just because there is a leadership in a factory, doesn't mean there is no democratic supervision and control. So how the fuck can "democracy" and "centralism" be mutually exclusive? Isn't a factory with a vanguardist leadership but under explicit democratic supervision and control not a good explicit model of how democratic centralism is supposed to be like?

In a socialist society, as in primitive tribal communist societies, the leadership exists not through forceful coercion, but through moral respect; the people admit that the vanguard deserves to be in the leadership position more than they do because they respect their dedication to the socialist cause and expertise; meanwhile potentially anyone can strive to become the vanguardist leadership if they become "red and expert" enough. A vanguardist democracy is a combination of democracy and meritocracy, it guarantees that productivity and technique continues to advance under socialism, and society doesn't just stagnate. A stagnant society is a dead society, and will surely revert back to capitalism, feudalism or worse.

Your understanding of Leninism is like a blind man touching an elephant. You are solely focusing on the Leninist quotes which emphasise centralism, you are not even looking at the Leninist quotes which emphasise democracy. Obviously your evaluation of Leninism is hopelessly one-sided and biased.

The so-called "unquestionable" obedience of the leadership is only contextual, not absolute. It is only to be followed in certain contexts, specifically after the leadership has already been democratically elected. Neither democratic election nor supervision are constant processes that go on all the time.



See, youre doing it again! Ive already explained this to you once before. Differing abilities is not what vanguardism is about at all. Let me give you Keith Graham's definition again but, this time, try to think what is really being said here. This is how he defines vanguardism - "that a given group's emancipation depends crucially on some other, much smaller group's leadership, guidance or domination in some stronger form" (The Battle of Democracy: Conflict, Consensus and the Individual, Keith Graham, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986, p.207).
Just an one-liner quote from a textbook doesn't mean much. You seem to be utterly incapable of conducting any kind of independent analysis.

Let me ask you, why is it that a smaller group should take more responsibility over socialist emancipation in general, why? Ask yourself the question at a deeper layer, rather than just parroting quotes from a book. What could be the positive justification for the existence of a vanguard in the first place, other than that this numerically smaller vanguard is more "red and expert" than the rest of the people, and so are more capable of making a bigger contribution to the construction of socialism?



Well if you thought about it for one moment you would see quite clearly that vanguardism and the self emanicipation of the working class ARE incompatible.
Right. You mean vanguardism is completely incompatible with self-emanicipation, just as centralism is completely incompatible with democracy, male is completely incompatible with female, spirit is incompatible with form, wave is completely incompatible with particle?

Surely you can't have something so weird as a combination of vanguardism and self-emanicipation, just like you can't have something so weird as a combination of centralism and democracy, male and female, spirit and form?

Your mechanical and undialectical-style thinking cannot explain actually existing objective phenomena ranging from the Leninist state to Genderqueer transgenderism to quantum physics and modern neurology.



The whole point about vanguardism is that it is the vanguard that emancipates the workers, that supposedly acts on behalf of the workers. It is NOT the workers acting on their own behalf, emancipating themselves
No. The point of vanguardism is to meritocratically and democratically select those socialists that are more "red and expert" than the rest so that they are given a greater responsibility and burden for the task of socialist construction, not that they take over the task of emancipation fundamentally from the rest of the population.

If the powers of self-emancipation are completely taken away from the people by the vanguard, then how can the people still exercise democratic supervision and control at all? Then such a "vanguardism" is not genuine Leninist vanguardism, but degenerate Stalinist vanguardism, in other words, the superficial usage of "vanguardism" as an excuse to pursue the politics of dictatorship.



Well I assume from this confused mish mash that you are not particularly au fait with Marxian economics or Marxian poilitical theory for that matter, Here's Engels in Socialisim Utopian and Scientific

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.

What he is saying is that state ownership is in no way a negation of capitalism yet you contend that capitalism has to be based on "private ownership". If you mean by that the de jure legal title to means of production by individuals capitalists then this is clearly nonsense. But in any case there is a sense in which state property IS a form of private property. Certainly as far as the workers are concerned there is absolutely no essential difference between working for a state firm and a so called private firm.

As for wages under socialism - what nonsense! Generalised wage labour is the hallmark of capitalism par excellance. As Marx pointed out wage labour pressupposes capital and vice versa.
If there is neither de jure private ownership nor de facto ownership of any kind primarily for private use, then it's not capitalism. State ownership is not necessarily equivalent to capitalist ownership.

You are forgetting the context of Engels' quote. Engels died before the Soviet Union came into existence. In Engels' day there were no worker's states, every state is a capitalist state. Engels was referring to the capitalist states of his day, not states in the general sense.

In fact, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx explicitly calls for the state ownership of the means of production, of course, he is referring to the socialist state not the capitalist state here.

Manifesto
of the Communist Party

1848

II -- PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.



I wish you would make up your mind! Here you suggest a post scarcity world would merely be a long time in coming. But in your earlier post you said quite definitely that it will never come. This is what you said

In addition, it is illogical to think that humanity can ever arrive in a "post-scarcity" world, which is more of a petit-liberal utopian pipe dream
It is totally useless to even talk about concepts like "post-scarcity" in the abstract sense. In materialist discourse, purely abstract debates have no essential meaning. As far as Marxism is concerned, both claiming that human wants are metaphysically infinite and claiming that there is a metaphysical upper limit to human wants are totally non-sensical.



I pointed out that, by saying this, you place outside and opposed to the entire revolutionary socialist tradition which bases itself precisely upon the possibility of a post scarcity world. You, by contrast, prefer to be guided by the "general laws as laid down by the science of economics" meaning of course bourgeois economics with its baggage of unwarranted assumptions about human wants being infinite etc.
Were primitive tribes not communist in terms of their economic status? So why did primitive tribes still struggle with nature for the sake of tribal economic survival? Today we have technologies which are superior, but can we ever harness infinite resources and infinite energies? I don't think so, and frankly I don't think we ever can. The so-called "science of economics" aren't bourgeois economic science, but the kind of basic economic common-sense that even primitive tribesmen would have enough sense to follow.

As I said it is useless to talk about fanciful terms like "post-scarcity" without further qualification. If "post-scarcity" is meant in the literal natural sense of humanity being able to absolutely control nature and harness infinite resources, then frankly it is a delusion, and only a mental health hospital patient or a religious fundamentalist nut would ever take it seriously. Class struggle may cease but the human struggle with nature is indeed eternal and will continue for as long as humanity exists. We always need to wrestle a livelihood from nature, no matter how advanced we've become. When Marxists talk about "post-scarcity", they generally mean it in a limited sense, as in all the basic rational needs and wants of everyone in society can be always satisfied. In this limited sense "post-scarcity" is obviously possible, but it is very difficult to reach this stage in a single step.



You havent even begun to get to grips with the arguments presented by revolutionary socialists for the possibility of a post scarcity world. For example, one key argument concerns the enormous and growing structural waste built into capitalism which effectively ties up huge amounts of labour and resources in an array of occupations - from bank clerks to cash till operators - that contribute nothing at all to human wellbeing but are nonetheless functionally indispensable to capitalism. Abolishing capitalism willl effectively double the workforce for socially useful production. That surely is relevant to the question of "post scarcity" , is it not?
Cutting waste in a finite sense doesn't imply "quantum-leaping" into "post-scarcity". You are thinking wildly here.

Bit of a tangent: while human wants aren't metaphysically infinite, they aren't metaphysically limited by some kind of mystical "upper limit" either. As technique and productivity continues to develop under socialism, people will indeed want more things, and potentially there is no limit to the development of productivity. You can't tell people to stop wanting more things based on your own understanding of "what is enough" for everyone. Such a thing cannot exist in a truly democratic society, which is what you seem to be arguing for. A socialist society is not like a stagnant feudal society populated by ignorant serfs that never develops further. If anything, socialism should in theory be even more productive than capitalism.



For one thing if this is an allusion to the labour voucher scheme of lower communism it has to be remembered that labour vocuhers are not comparable to a wages system which you advocate. The existence of a wages system would signify the non existence of communism
The labour voucher scheme was used during the Maoist era in China to some extent.

Technically, no, a wage system is not communism strictly speaking, but socialism. Leninism does not believe in jumping straight from capitalism to communism.



For another all these kinds of transitional arrangements only make sense in the context of a still relatively undeveloped means of production as was the case in the 19th century. However, we have long gone past this point. Transitional stages after revolution are no longer needed; we have the technological capacity to produce enough now. Alternatively you might say that we are already in a transitional stage but it is a transition that occurs not after the reolution when communism is established but before the revolution.
This kind of argument is debatable because exactly how much is enough? Productivity may be higher now but people, including workers, generally demand more things as well. As I said you cannot artificially set an upper limit to how much people should demand, such a method is fundamentally anti-democratic, not to mention that no-one will ever listen to you. In the days of the USSR several decades ago Khrushchev once said that communism means every single person can eat "potatoes and stewed meat" for their meals and have electrical lighting. I don't think any worker, even in much of the Third World, would be satisfied with just staying at the material living standards of "potatoes and stewed meat" today.



My criticisms of others stem not from the fact they might depart from orthodox marxism in some way. As I said I am myself critical of some aspects of Marx
Yet you explicitly said that if anyone rejects the orthodox Marxist idea of "post-scarcity", then he/she cannot be a revolutionary socialist. That sounds fundamentalist to me. Of course, I don't in principle reject the Marxist concept of "post-scarcity", but the Marxist concept of "post-scarcity" is very precise and contextual, not general and absolute.



Once again, youve got it all wrong. The preparatory work leading to a stateless moneyless socialist commonwealth is some thing that is essentially done BEFORE and leading up to the socialist revolution. The socialist revolution is only something that puts into effect what the working class have become conscious of and desire. It is an accumulative or incremental process starting NOW.
By this logic then socialism must necessarily first begin in the First World, where economic development is most advanced. What a dogmatic Eurocentric view-point. Lenin proved that it is possible to have a successful socialist revolution in an eastern, backward and "semi-barbarian" nation.



The modern satate as Engels says is necessarily a capitalist state. No getting around it. The "workers state" implies the existence of the wroking class does it not. And working class implies the existence of exploitation undertaken by the capitalist class , does it not? So putting these things together we can say that the so called "workers state" is a state that allows and, indeeds, supports the capitalist class to exploit the workers. That makes the workers state something quite other than what it pretends to be . In short it is just another capitalist state administered by a new exploiting capitalist class claiming to represent the workers
Engels wasn't even around when the Soviet Union was created. Your idea here puts you outside of every branch of Marxist-Leninist thought, from Trotskyism to Maoism, and consequently puts you outside of any serious revolutionary struggle that is taking place in the real world. Wonder why Lenin called your kind of "left communism" an infantile disorder? I bet left communists like you only make your little "theoretical" criticisms of Leninism all the time but never actually make any political impact in the real world.

The worker's state in Leninism is a transitional state in which political power is democratically controlled by the working class as a whole and the "state" is simply the executive function and expression of the collective will of the working class. In a worker's state there is no capitalist exploitation but the state exists to strengthen the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and guards the worker's state against the restoration of capitalism or even feudalism. Restoration is a serious threat, just look at what happened in the USSR and in China. In the Soviet Union they once deluded themselves that the socialist revolution has been absolutely completed and class struggle has completely ceased. Look at the Soviet Union now. As Mao said, socialist revolution is not just an one-off event after which we can all put our feet up forever, it is a continuous process. The capitalist philosophers say "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", I say "eternal vigilance is the price of genuine socialism". The worker's state exists only to politically and militarily defend the proletarian control over politics and the economy against reactionary forces, but the threat of reactionary forces is always potentially there.

A "state" is not necessarily a "capitalist state". You are completely confusing the economic base with the political superstructure. A "state" is merely a kind of political superstructure, it is only "capitalist" if the economic base that corresponds with it is "capitalist". If the economic base is "feudal", then it is a "feudal state", if the economic base is "slavery", then it is a "slavery state", and if the economic based is "socialist", then it is a "socialist state".

[Queercommie Girl]

If class is the result of material factors, surely the social class barriers would disappear as soon as the material factors defining each class did? But no, this isn't so - at least not according to you.

And great job, Captain Obvious - you managed to point out that humanity has never made an overall successful transition from class society to classless society. But that's why the working class - being the only class that can abolish the current mode of production and class order - must constantly struggle for liberation and a classless society, because your class barriers won't just "devolve" under the dictatorship of the proletariat in time for communism.

Abstract notions of "freedom" and "democracy" are not the ultimate ends of socialism. The ultimate ends of socialism are economic equality and prosperity for all. "Freedom" and "democracy" exists only as a means to this end, so that economic equality and the development of the productive forces can be guaranteed.

Human beings first develop ways and techniques to making a living and survive in a hostile natural world. Such materialistic elements are primary. Concepts of politics, art, religion came later, and are superstructural reflections of this underlying economic base. Consequently from a materialist perspective, any abstract concept like "freedom" at the level of superstructure is only meaningful because it serves the end of ensuring a better chance of survival at the base level for the collective.

In short, "Freedom" exists because it guarantees that everyone has "Bread", not that "Bread" exists to ensure people have "Freedom". Base determines superstructure.

[gorillafuck]

Anarchist Catalonia is a perfect example of what you just said is impossible. How's that for human history?:cool: They achieved in a year or two what all the workers' states couldn't achieve in most of the 20th Century.
Anarchist Catalonia was a real dictatorship of the proletariat, though. It was controlled by the working class so it was a state in the sense of class rule.

[Adi Shankara]

I find it dumbfounding to see "communists" blast the United States or Singapore for being "state capitalist"...and then defend China for being the exact same thing.

as I said before, it seems many people just support China because they enjoy the cool artwork with the angry looking workers holding up Fatman Mao's little red book. Nevermind that the PRC has been capitalist for a very long time.

[Adi Shankara]

About Latin America it says, in 2004, 1/3 of Investment in Latin America came from China.


come now, don't be a fool, we all know that "Investment" means "stealing the resources of one country by paying a group of people money for land rights they weren't entitled to in the first place".

tl;dr: you're touting that China is pouring investment (aka, capital) into Latin America for some reason?

[Bright Banana Beard]

Gee, I dunno. Why were all your precious parties infiltrated by revisionists?
That explains that we aren't sectarian as you make it out to be. We are open to many people. *Gasp*

[bailey_187]

come now, don't be a fool, we all know that "Investment" means "stealing the resources of one country by paying a group of people money for land rights they weren't entitled to in the first place".

tl;dr: you're touting that China is pouring investment (aka, capital) into Latin America for some reason?

Im not, i was quoting from a book. In your attempt to again show us your great intellect you may have missed the reference to the book. If by "touting" you mean praising, its not me who is, but Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez seems to think that Chinese FDI is beneficial to Venezuela. Why? I dont know enough about Chinese FDI in Latin America to say, but neither do you, so stop pretending you do.

I dont have the book i quoted with me right now, but when i do ill look more into it. Feel free to look up Chinese FDI in Latin America in the mean time and tell us what you find rather than just say meaningless vague statements like you just did.

[Queercommie Girl]

I find it dumbfounding to see "communists" blast the United States or Singapore for being "state capitalist"...and then defend China for being the exact same thing.

as I said before, it seems many people just support China because they enjoy the cool artwork with the angry looking workers holding up Fatman Mao's little red book. Nevermind that the PRC has been capitalist for a very long time.

Define capitalism. Just because the state owns the economy doesn't necessarily imply it is "state-capitalist". Why is it everyone just drinks down Tony Cliff's concept without any kind of critical reflection? "State" defines something at the level of the political superstructure, not at the level of the economic base. A state-owned economy could potentially be a slave-lord state economy, a feudal state economy, a capitalist state economy (state-capitalism) or a socialist state economy, depending on its economic base.

An economic system is capitalist when there is either de jure direct private ownership of the means of production and/or de facto indirect bureaucratic ownership of the means of production that is primarily geared towards private ends. It is certainly arguably that China now is "state-capitalist", but this is not the case for NK or Cuba today, or China during Mao's time, despite the lack of worker's democracy. (Actually, Mao did introduce some elements of worker's democracy during the Cultural Revolution) Because firstly there was/is virtually no "private ownership" at all, and secondly there was/is no de facto bureaucratic ownership for private ends. Even a tyrant like Stalin was actually very frugal on the private level.

[bailey_187]

as I said before, it seems many people just support China because they enjoy the cool artwork with the angry looking workers holding up Fatman Mao's little red book. Nevermind that the PRC has been capitalist for a very long time.

Do you just bang your keyboard and hope something good comes out?

The Maoists, or fans of the "cool artwork" and the little red book, are the first to denounce China as capitalist since the late 70s.

Support for present day PRC is nothing to do with a fetish for Mao or Cultural Revolution art. The groups that uphold the present day PRC as socialist or " deformed workers states" like the FRSO, Sparts, the group expelled from the IMT around the karlmarx.net website, and some CPs such as the British one ,dont particularly like the Cultural Revolution or "Maoism"

[AK]

Abstract notions of "freedom" and "democracy" are not the ultimate ends of socialism. The ultimate ends of socialism are economic equality and prosperity for all. "Freedom" and "democracy" exists only as a means to this end, so that economic equality and the development of the productive forces can be guaranteed.

Human beings first develop ways and techniques to making a living and survive in a hostile natural world. Such materialistic elements are primary. Concepts of politics, art, religion came later, and are superstructural reflections of this underlying economic base. Consequently from a materialist perspective, any abstract concept like "freedom" at the level of superstructure is only meaningful because it serves the end of ensuring a better chance of survival at the base level for the collective.

In short, "Freedom" exists because it guarantees that everyone has "Bread", not that "Bread" exists to ensure people have "Freedom". Base determines superstructure.
I would bother replying to that, but I didn't even mention freedom or democracy in that post. So your post is quite worthless in that context.

[AK]

That explains that we aren't sectarian as you make it out to be. We are open to many people. *Gasp*
And then you complain about the unwanted capitalists in your party and claim a purge is long due. Doesn't make much sense to me.

[AK]

I find it dumbfounding to see "communists" blast the United States or Singapore for being "state capitalist"...and then defend China for being the exact same thing.

as I said before, it seems many people just support China because they enjoy the cool artwork with the angry looking workers holding up Fatman Mao's little red book. Nevermind that the PRC has been capitalist for a very long time.
Uh... there are communists that denounce the US and Singapore as state capitalist?

Define capitalism.
The socio-economic system where one class has control of the means of production and employs a class of workers who are economically enslaved to the class which controls the means of production.

In my view, capitalism doesn't need a Bourgeoisie that are the legal property-holders of the means of production.

[robbo203]

[
You are a "pragmatist"? You are not even analysing the situation with a clear head.
You made the unfounded accusation that every existing revolutionary Marxist-Leninist political force never intends to actually abolish wage labour ever. I wonder what kind of egoistical delusion made you say this kind of non-sense.
Every revolutionary force today ultimately desires to abolish wage labour, just not in such an unrealistic utopian way as you seem to think.
Yeah yeah - "ultimately" meaning never. When the state capitalist left even deign to mention the abolition of the wages system - and lets be candid here, its hardly ever - it is to put it firmly on the back burner, indefinitely. For all their anti-capitalist rhetoric they are just one of the means by which capitalism entrenches and perpetuates itself. To want and argue for socialism now is "unrealistic" and "utopian", they say as do you. It is a sentiment that any hack bourgeois apologist would fully endorse . But of course according to this warped logic there never will be a time when the goal of socialism will be "realistic" as long as workers are told to be "realistic" and accept that there is no alternative to capitalism and its wage system for the time being. In short what you and your buddies on the state capitalist left are about is nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy. You have no conception of the need to break out of reformist treadmill that binds you ideologically and completely to capitalism


The "whole working class" isn't going to just suddenly wake up one morning and spontaneously create socialism. The "whole working class" would still need leadership and organisation..
Bullshit. The working class needs leadership like it needs a hole in its head. Putting your faith in some vanguard to deliver Nirvana is a certain recipe for perpetuating capitalism. This arrogant and contemptuous view of the workers in fact goes back to early ideologists or capitalism like John Locke who similarly argued that the workers were too thick to determine their own future and needed a leadership to do it for them. Their role was simply to "believe", not to think. Rienhold Niebuhr one of President Kennedy's gurus likewise talked of the need for the powerful elite to recognise the "stupidity of the average man" and to provide them with necessary illusions to keep them on the "right path". Your views in essence are no different

Organisation is another matter. Workers can, and need to, self organise.

As for the "whole working class" just suddenly waking up one morning and spontaneously creating socialism that is precisely what I was trying to tell you will not and cannot happen. The whole point is that socialism is consciously created by the workers. It is a cumulative and incremental process of class consciousness expanding and deepening over time. Awareness of the socialist alternative has to grow and the job of socialists is to propagate such an alternative. You on the other hand see no point in doing this because socialism according to you is unrealistic. But of course it will always remain "unrealistic" while people like you continue to think it is so.


Have you ever studied archaeology? Have you ever examined how it was like in primitive communist societies? Engels clearly said that the socialist system of the future would be a restoration on a higher civilisational level of primitive communism. Did primitive tribal peoples not have leaders and "vanguards", albeit under the democratic control of the tribal council? If they had them, what make you think the socialist society of the future would be any different, just because we are now more technologically advanced?..
Archeology? I think you mean anthropology, dont you? Yes Ive studied anthropology and have read several of the classics including Evans Pritchards ethnography on the Nuer - a fiercely egalitarian stateless society. Functionaries like the leopard skin man in Nuer society had no power they could wield over others in the tribe. They were simply intermediaries. One reason why tribes like the Nuer have no kind of discernable leadership structure or power hierarchy is because of the basic tendency towards fission - individuals could vote with their feet (as they could also do in a socialist society when everyone has free acess to the means of living). Segmentary lineages could peel off from the main body and set up camp elsewhere. In social evolutionary terms there is a transition from hunter gather bands to tribes to early forms of class society but the great bulk of our existence as a species took the form of egalitarian stateless societies. Of course there were differences between individuals in such societies as in any society but as I keep on reminding you and you keep on forgetting this has nothing to do with vanguardism which is a theory of political action


Just because I believe humanity will never have a "perfect" system doesn't make me a "capitalist". The pursuit of absolute perfection is usually the sign of a delusional mind.

Whooooooosh! Seems like the point I made completely by passed you, didnt it chum? I didnt say what you said I said at all. I said something quite different - that the attribution of "perfection" to socialism is part of an elaborate sneer that capitalist apologists need to make - the better to knock down this straw man argument. You were the one suggesting I wanted to create a perfect system whereas you were being "realistic" by opting for an imperfect one instead. This is the same dumb line that the aforementioned capitalist apologists like to peddle. Since perfection is unobtainable, ergo, socialism is unobtainable. Which is precisely why these plonkers like to argue - just as you do - that the pursuit of socialism equals the pursuit of some perfect society. It is not. Socialism is not a perfect society, its just a better one than what you and they have to offer - capitalism


Your degenerate mind is simply incapable of understanding the revolutionary dialectics of Leninism. As Lenin himself clearly said:
"They all call themselves Marxists, but their understanding of Marxism is degenerate to the extreme. The determining factor of Marxism, the revolutionary dialectics of Marxism, they have no understanding of at all."
The key of dialectical philosophy is to be able to perceive an underlying connection between phenomena and things which at first sight and on a superficial level, seem to be utterly distinct and mutually exclusive. E.g. the dualistic ideas of "spirit" and "body" are connected through modern bio-informatics and the science of neuro-electrical networks, the dualistic ideas of "male" and "female" are connected through transgenderism. If you can only see the distinction between two concepts, like centralism and democracy, like male and female, but not their underlying identity and connection, you are not using dialectical thinking.
I think you fall under the category of "confused dialecticians" mentioned in the following rather interesting pamphlet http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/hm.pdf


Just because there is democracy in a factory, doesn't mean there is no leadership; Just because there is a leadership in a factory, doesn't mean there is no democratic supervision and control. So how the fuck can "democracy" and "centralism" be mutually exclusive? Isn't a factory with a vanguardist leadership but under explicit democratic supervision and control not a good explicit model of how democratic centralism is supposed to be like?
.
Strewth. Is this meant to be attempt to extricate yourself from the problem I pointed out earlier? How can your beloved vanguardist leadership be under ...ahem ..cough... "democratic supervision" ...when they are the ones who are doing all the supervising themselves and when those who they supervise must to quote Lenin again, offer unquestioning submission to their will. Oh and please dont tell me its all about "dialectics" again, a subject about which you display the most superficial understanding. Have you never heard of the expression power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, eh?


In a socialist society, as in primitive tribal communist societies, the leadership exists not through forceful coercion, but through moral respect; the people admit that the vanguard deserves to be in the leadership position more than they do because they respect their dedication to the socialist cause and expertise; meanwhile potentially anyone can strive to become the vanguardist leadership if they become "red and expert" enough. A vanguardist democracy is a combination of democracy and meritocracy, it guarantees that productivity and technique continues to advance under socialism, and society doesn't just stagnate. A stagnant society is a dead society, and will surely revert back to capitalism, feudalism or worse..
Once again and please pay attention - this is not what vanguardism is about. Vanguardism is a theory of political action which postulates that the emancipation of a larger group is dependent on a smaller group that captures power on behalf of the former with the supposed intention of doing just that. The classic vanguardist postion is outlined by Lenin in his Theses on Fundamental Tasks of The Second Congress Of The Communist International published in 1920
On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties and the old leaders of the Second International, that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as well as deception of the workers. In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat, supported by the whole or the majority of this, the only revolutionary class, overthrows the exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists—it is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute class struggle, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can be educated, trained and organised around the proletariat under whose influence and guidance, they can get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses engendered by private property; only then will they be converted into a free union of free workers.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/04.htm). And please note - it is the vanguard who according to lenin emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery. It is not the exploited who emancipate themselves from this state of slavery. THIS is what vanguardism means


The so-called "unquestionable" obedience of the leadership is only contextual, not absolute. It is only to be followed in certain contexts, specifically after the leadership has already been democratically elected. Neither democratic election nor supervision are constant processes that go on all the time...
The context is quite clear. Lenin was talking about industry in general. He was saying the workers must obey the will of the leaders without question. Any reasonable person would recognise that this is not compatible with the idea of a worker's democracy at all


Just an one-liner quote from a textbook doesn't mean much. You seem to be utterly incapable of conducting any kind of independent analysis.
...
Ive conducted enough of an independent analysis to leave you completely stymied, grasping at straws and unable to provide a rational response to my probing questons


Let me ask you, why is it that a smaller group should take more responsibility over socialist emancipation in general, why? Ask yourself the question at a deeper layer, rather than just parroting quotes from a book. What could be the positive justification for the existence of a vanguard in the first place, other than that this numerically smaller vanguard is more "red and expert" than the rest of the people, and so are more capable of making a bigger contribution to the construction of socialism?...
Er ...I am not the one advocating vanguardism in case you have forgettoen. So dont ask me "why is it that a smaller group should take more responsibility over socialist emancipation in general". I would simply respond that you wont get socialist emancipation in that case. All you will get is the reproduction of a society run in the interests of this smaller group/class


.
If there is neither de jure private ownership nor de facto ownership of any kind primarily for private use, then it's not capitalism. State ownership is not necessarily equivalent to capitalist ownership.
You are forgetting the context of Engels' quote. Engels died before the Soviet Union came into existence. In Engels' day there were no worker's states, every state is a capitalist state. Engels was referring to the capitalist states of his day, not states in the general sense.
In fact, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx explicitly calls for the state ownership of the means of production, of course, he is referring to the socialist state not the capitalist state here....

This is nonsense. Certainly the Manifesto called for state ownership of the means of production amongst its list of state capitalist reforms at the end of section 2 - reforms which Marx and Engels later downplayed if not altogether repudiated (see the 1872 preface for example). Indeed this is one of a number of things which Marx and Engels said and with which which I strongly disagree. However, it is absulute rubbish to suggest that they were refering to some oxymoronic notion called the "socialist state" in the Manifesto. If you have the slightest evidnce for this claim then produce it! It is absolutely clear to me that they were talking about a situation in which the workers movement came to power when capitalism was still relatively undeveloped and there was a need to develop the means of production further but on a capitalist basis. I have never come across a single reference anywhere to the term "socialist state" in the writings of Marx and Engels so i would be more that interested to see if you can back up your claim

The Soviet Union far from being a departure from, or exception to, Engels' observation about the modern state becoming the "national capitalist" by taking over the means of production. is actually a striking confimration of what Engels had to say. The Soviet Union was a clear example of state run capitalism and, though modern day Leninists are understandably coy about admitting it, Lenin himself was quite clear that state capitalism being the way forward asnd that there was no possibility of introducing socialism in Russia at the time. In fact Lenin urged that Russia follow the example of the state capitalist German war economy!!



It is totally useless to even talk about concepts like "post-scarcity" in the abstract sense. In materialist discourse, purely abstract debates have no essential meaning. As far as Marxism is concerned, both claiming that human wants are metaphysically infinite and claiming that there is a metaphysical upper limit to human wants are totally non-sensical.....
Who said anything about a metaphysical upper limit. I am saying wants are socially determined and that in a socialist society where individuals have free access to the goods and services the material basis of mindless consumerism, of seeking status through conspicuous consumption, simply disappears.



Were primitive tribes not communist in terms of their economic status? So why did primitive tribes still struggle with nature for the sake of tribal economic survival? Today we have technologies which are superior, but can we ever harness infinite resources and infinite energies? I don't think so, and frankly I don't think we ever can. The so-called "science of economics" aren't bourgeois economic science, but the kind of basic economic common-sense that even primitive tribesmen would have enough sense to follow..

I suggest you read Marshall Sahlin's Stone Age economics: The original Affuent Society. Far from the so called primitive hunter gatherer having to endure a life of constant struggle with nature, anthropological data suggests quite the opposite. They enjoyed a degree of leisure which the modern proletariat can only dream about. Your bourgeois prejudices are definitely showing!



Yet you explicitly said that if anyone rejects the orthodox Marxist idea of "post-scarcity", then he/she cannot be a revolutionary socialist. That sounds fundamentalist to me. Of course, I don't in principle reject the Marxist concept of "post-scarcity", but the Marxist concept of "post-scarcity" is very precise and contextual, not general and absolute...
And yet in an earlier post you said

In addition, it is illogical to think that humanity can ever arrive in a "post-scarcity" world, which is more of a petit-liberal utopian pipe dream



By this logic then socialism must necessarily first begin in the First World, where economic development is most advanced. What a dogmatic Eurocentric view-point. Lenin proved that it is possible to have a successful socialist revolution in an eastern, backward and "semi-barbarian" nation....
Except of course that it wasnt a socialist revolution. It established state capitalism not socialism



Engels wasn't even around when the Soviet Union was created. Your idea here puts you outside of every branch of Marxist-Leninist thought, from Trotskyism to Maoism, and consequently puts you outside of any serious revolutionary struggle that is taking place in the real world. Wonder why Lenin called your kind of "left communism" an infantile disorder? I bet left communists like you only make your little "theoretical" criticisms of Leninism all the time but never actually make any political impact in the real world.....

One of the reasons why the communist movement has made little impact on the real world to date is precisely because of the misassociation of the term "communism" with brutal state capitalist dictatorships that cynically employed the rhetoric of communism revoltion to further their own capitalist agenda. Hopefuilly this will be less and less the case in the future as your sort of politics withers on the vine




The worker's state in Leninism is a transitional state in which political power is democratically controlled by the working class as a whole and the "state" is simply the executive function and expression of the collective will of the working class. In a worker's state there is no capitalist exploitation but the state exists to strengthen the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and guards the worker's state against the restoration of capitalism or even feudalism. Restoration is a serious threat, just look at what happened in the USSR and in China. In the Soviet Union they once deluded themselves that the socialist revolution has been absolutely completed and class struggle has completely ceased. Look at the Soviet Union now. As Mao said, socialist revolution is not just an one-off event after which we can all put our feet up forever, it is a continuous process. The capitalist philosophers say "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", I say "eternal vigilance is the price of genuine socialism". The worker's state exists only to politically and militarily defend the proletarian control over politics and the economy against reactionary forces, but the threat of reactionary forces is always potentially there......

You are utterly deluded. The so called workers state was not even a bourgois demnocracy but a thoroughgoing capitalist dictatorship that opppressed the workers in the name of the workers. You have failed completely to deal with my point. If the workers exists as a class then so must the capitalists. If the capitalists exists as a class then they can only do so by exploiting the workers. Ergo the so called workers state is actually a state that upholds the right of the capitalists to exploit the workers. Ergo it cannot possibly be a workers state. So the workers state is a contradiction in terms. It is nonsense on stilts



A "state" is not necessarily a "capitalist state". You are completely confusing the economic base with the political superstructure. A "state" is merely a kind of political superstructure, it is only "capitalist" if the economic base that corresponds with it is "capitalist". If the economic base is "feudal", then it is a "feudal state", if the economic base is "slavery", then it is a "slavery state", and if the economic based is "socialist", then it is a "socialist state".

Next I guess you will be saying if the economic base is communism then it is a "communist state". Whats holding you back from saying that? Could it be that even you with your piss poor grasp of Marxian political theory recognises that since communism is a classless society then it must be a stateless society. The only grounds on what you claim that there is such a thing as a socialist state is because you think socialism is different from communism. What you dont seem to realise is that in traditional Marxism and Anarchism for that matter socialism and communiusm were just synynoms - alternative terms to describe the same kind of society. The distinction between socialism and communism was most famously invented by Lenin. It was never something that was found in any of Marx's writings. Not that the terms themselves are that important in themselves. They are just labels. No serious socialist revolutionary would touch your so called socialist state with a bargepole. It would be a state administering a class society and as we know class societies can only ever be run in the interests of the exploting minority and not the exploitated majority / in this case the proletariat

[Mather]

No, the PRC is state capitalist.

But unlike many past and present state capitalist regimes, the PRC has a large, powerful and dynamic private sector that has been growing in size for decades. At some point this will transform the PRC into a regular 'free market' economy, much like Japan or the USA.