Maoism [Archive]

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 12:20

The first is, why was Maoism necessary in the first place?

The necessity of Maoism is proven primarily by its existence. Everything that exists must have a justification for it of some kind.

That is to say that, as I understand it, Maoism refers to the tactics developed by Mao for the Communist Party to emerge victorious in the Chinese situation. The implicit assumption being that there was something different about China, or countries with a similar social composition to China, which means that revolution cannot occur in a manner similar to how it would in advanced capitalist countries, or in countries like Russia.

Maoism is useful for Third World/neo-colonial/semi-colonial countries in which the urban working class is underdeveloped but the peasantry is extensively proletarianised due to immense poverty and gross exploitation.

However, as I understand it, the situation of China in the 20's was somewhat similar to Russia - a large territory with a majority of the population being comprised of the rural peasantry, but with a growing urban proletariat concentrated in the big cities like Shanghai.

Indeed. There was a major revolution in China, pivoted in Shanghai, during 1925-1927, as Trotskyists will tell you. But it failed due to the lack of independence of the proletarian political forces. Most CCP members and worker activists were simply massacred en masse by Chiang Kai-sheik and the right-wing KMT. After that China never had a revolutionary base among the urban working class anymore. In fact, I'd argue that even today Chinese workers have not returned to the level of political consciousness they had during the 1920s. The turn to the peasantry by the CCP after 1927 was a strategic necessity, rather than a principled choice, since the CCP officially states that the urban working class is the leading class of the revolution and the peasantry is only the semi-leading class of the revolution, even when the party was almost entirely based on the peasantry. But insufficient urban working class involvement during the 1949 Revolution meant that the Chinese worker's state was somewhat deformed even from the beginning. However, this was largely due to objective circumstances outside of anyone's control.

I should note at this point that my knowledge of Maoism is somewhat limited, having only read 'On New Democracy', and the first few chapters of Mao by Jonathan Clements, but as I understand it Maoist strategy consists of the idea of waging a 'People's War' by recruiting volunteer soldiers for a 'red army' and then using this military force to carry out revolution. This revolution establishes a 'New Democratic' state with nationalised property and worker-peasant democracy. Party of my problem may be an incorrect conception of what Maoist strategy consists of, so please enlighten me if I'm wrong.

Maoist strategy is a peasant-based one, but largely due to strategic necessity rather than principled choice. After 1927 there was no real socialist base in Chinese cities anymore, since most of the socialists, communists and trade unionists were simply massacred completely. The strategy was to "surround the cities from the countryside" through armed warfare.

However, in the late 1940s just before the PLA entered some large cities, there was a shift in the policy, at least nominally, calling on party cadres to focus more on the urban working class as the main revolutionary class once they entered cities like Shanghai. In my opinion though in practice this was never carried out properly, which is the most crucial factor in the Chinese state's later degeneration. For instance in the early 1950s the Chinese trade unionist leader Li Lisan, who was appointed as the head of the ACFTU (All China Federation of Trade Unions) after the 1949 Revolution was forcefully removed from power by Mao due to an argument over policy. Li advocated essentially independent trade unions that have powers independent from the party-state which Mao disagreed. This was Mao's major mistake. We could imagine that had independent trade unions existed in China, the later degeneration might never have happened and China today might still be a relatively healthy worker's state. So that one decision could have changed history completely.

My second question is, do you think that Maoism is at all applicable in the first world? It seems to me that, even accepting for the sake of argument that Maoism provides the best strategy for socialists in underdeveloped nations, this tactic is solely applicable to those countries, since, whereas the Bolsheviks derived their tactics from European and in particular German Social-Democracy, and took over the basic program of revolutionary social-democracy in it's entirety (Hence the fact that the Comintern's imposition of Russian tactics wasn't hopeless, leaving aside for a second the question of the legitimacy of those tactics), Maoism was developed in a specific time and place and not on the basis of the tactics of the movement in the advanced capitalist nations. As I understand it, Mao was actually going agains the line which the Comintern wanted to pursue in China. It seems to me absurd to think that Maoist tactics could be pursued succesfully in advanced capitalist countries. Which would seem to reduce the position of Maoists in first world countries to simply supporting the tactics undertaken by Maoists in the third world. In fact, what would you say to the argument that Mao's tactics were only succesful because of the highly chaotic nature of Chinese society at the time? Is people's war really a viable solution in the face of a fairly stable absolutist state apparatus?

I'd say not really that much, but there are still some Maoist ideas which might be useful, such as in principle value the pesantry a bit more highly (consider them as a "semi-leading class" rather than not revolutionary at all) even though the peasantry is only a small proportion of the overall population in Western countries; more focus on mobilising the oppressed ethnic minorities (such as Blacks and Asians) in Western countries rather than the white trade unionist elites; the doctrine of "continuous revolution"; "mass line" and the full integration of the party with the masses etc.

However, landlords still exist in the West. The Church of England for instance is one of the biggest landlords in the UK.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 14:22

However, in the late 1940s just before the PLA entered some large cities, there was a shift in the policy, at least nominally, calling on party cadres to focus more on the urban working class as the main revolutionary class once they entered cities like Shanghai. In my opinion though in practice this was never carried out properly, which is the most crucial factor in the Chinese state's later degeneration. For instance in the early 1950s the Chinese trade unionist leader Li Lisan, who was appointed as the head of the ACFTU (All China Federation of Trade Unions) after the 1949 Revolution was forcefully removed from power by Mao due to an argument over policy. Li advocated essentially independent trade unions that have powers independent from the party-state which Mao disagreed. This was Mao's major mistake. We could imagine that had independent trade unions existed in China, the later degeneration might never have happened and China today might still be a relatively healthy worker's state. So that one decision could have changed history completely.

Without being too familiar of the details of the Mao/Lisan debate, it does seem to me that this is just the playing out of the exact same debate years earlier between Lenin on the one hand as the advocate of trade union independence from the state apparatus and Trotsky and Bukharin on the other as the advocates of integrating the unions into the state. Lenin won that argument but it didn't really do much to stop the degeneration of the USSR, so I don't see what basis you have for claiming that the banning of independent trade unions was what caused the degeneration of the Chinese revolution.

penguinfoot

16th October 2010, 14:29

Maoism is useful for Third World/neo-colonial/semi-colonial countries in which the urban working class is underdeveloped but the peasantry is extensively proletarianised due to immense poverty and gross exploitation.

This doesn't make much sense, because the entire concept of New Democracy as well as the strategy that was pursued by the Comintern in the 1920s were based on the assumption that there was something feudal about China before the 1949 revolution and that underdeveloped countries are in general something less than fully enmeshed in the capitalist world-system. This is not only an idea that is made explicit in texts like On New Democracy, it's also one of the main conclusions that Mao draws in his empirical studies, such as his Report from Xunwu. If we accept that the prevalence of semi-feudalism is a crucial part of Maoist analysis then how can it be true to say that the usefulness of Maoist praxis in the underdeveloped world derives from the peasantry being proletarianized? If feudalism is still present, then logically peasants aren't proletarians because the proletariat is a social body that only comes into being and emerges as a political force under the conditions of capitalist accumulation.

However, in the late 1940s just before the PLA entered some large cities, there was a shift in the policy, at least nominally, calling on party cadres to focus more on the urban working class as the main revolutionary class once they entered cities like Shanghai.

No, the exact opposite is true, the CPC emphasized specifically that the interests of workers were to be limited. In Mao's telegram to the headquarters of Loyang front in April of 1948, Loyang being one of the key KMT strongholds in Hunan, Mao explicitly ordered the armies that were on the verge of entering major cities throughout China not to "advance slogans of raising wages and reducing existing working hours" on the grounds that maintaining a high level of production and workplace discipline was necessary during wartime conditions and that whether workers would be able to enjoy improve conditions later on would depend on whether the enterprises in which they worked "thrived". In the same telegram Mao makes it clear that cadre should not "be in a hurry to organize the people of the city to struggle for democratic reforms and improvements in livelihood" on the grounds that these matters would have to wait until the municipal administration was in good working order, a calm attitude had been restored, and "careful surveys" had been conducted. Mao also forbids cadres to adopt the slogan of "open the granaries to relieve the poor", as a slogan of this kind would have encouraged what Mao describes as a "psychology of depending on the government for relief".

These are not policies that indicate a shift towards the interests of the working class. Nor were these policy directives limited to Mao or a single telegram. We only need to look at Chen Yun's report to the National Committee of the PPCC in June of 1950 to see that there was a consensus amongst the CPC leadership that the interests of the working class were in need of restraint.

Maoist strategy is a peasant-based one, but largely due to strategic necessity rather than principled choice

You can justifiably argue that the April 1927 events changed the strategic situation in China, but what you haven't even mentioned is that, in spite of the obvious failures of Comintern policy, the CPC kept following the Comintern line of allying with the progressive bourgeoisie by siding with the Wuhan government under Wang Jingwei, and it was only after they were repressed by that government as well as the government of the KMT right in Shanghai and Nanjing that the links between the party and the working class were effectively broken.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 19:01

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

An example of a Maoist Party in the first world, Gauche Proletarianne in France (this gives some of their history http://www.isioma.net/sds00500.html ) is another example....Both groups were effectively liquidated by state repression due to their sucesses.

http://www.massline.info/

The above website explains Maoist praxis.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 19:24

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 19:51

I don't know anything about Gauche Proletarianne, but I have heard that the Black Panthers' excessive focus on community work rather than organising workers' led them into becoming almost irrelevant in several places.

Your tone of voice suggests that somehow those in the "black community" aren't real workers like whites are.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 20:02

Your tone of voice suggests that somehow those in the "black community" aren't real workers like whites are.

First of all, that was a written paragraph, so I have no idea how you inferred anything about my tone of voice. Second of all, I never said anything about the "black community" versus "white workers", I was speaking generally about community work versus worker organisation.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 20:47

I don't know anything about Gauche Proletarianne, but I have heard that the Black Panthers' excessive focus on community work rather than organising workers' led them into becoming almost irrelevant in several places.

I wonder where you might have read that? ;)

The thing that has to be remembered about The Black Panther Party is there young age when starting aswell as the constant repression they faced from the word go. They didnt fade away....They were crushed by the state which clearly identified them as a majior danger to its existence. They started from where they were and applied the mass line to the conditions they faced. People exist outside of the factory or workplace. The point to Maoism is the conquest of political power as opposed to economism which in practice limits struggles to the framework of the system and is often reactionary in content (wildcat strikes for "British jobs for British workers" were supported a while back by the social-imperialists of the CWI).

Proletarian Left in France though rejecting Trade Unionism was involved in various strikes operating as an illegal organization. Even the Left Communist Jaques Cammatte admitted that embodied the movement that came out of May/June 1968 more than anyone else.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 20:49

I wonder where you might have read that? ;)

The thing that has to be remembered about The Black Panther Party is there young age when starting aswell as the constant repression they faced from the word go. They didnt fade away....They were crushed by the state which clearly identified them as a majior danger to its existence. They started from where they were and applied the mass line to the conditions they faced. People exist outside of the factory or workplace. The point to Maoism is the conquest of political power as opposed to economism which in practice limits struggles to the framework of the system and is often reactionary in content (wildcat strikes for "British jobs for British workers" were supported a while back by the social-imperialists of the CWI).

Proletarian Left in France though rejecting Trade Unionism was involved in various strikes operating as an illegal organization. Even the Left Communist Jaques Cammatte admitted that embodied the movement that came out of May/June 1968 more than anyone else.

That's not a fair judgement, because the CWI did not actually support the slogan "British jobs for British workers", they just participated in the strike to convince people to drop their semi-nationalist ideas.

If you just work with people who don't have any kind of reactionary ideas, your organisation or movement will simply never grow. You have to work in an entryist and integrated manner to convince people to agree with your ideas.

I'm critical of some of the political lines of the CWI, mainly the ones concerning China and Maoism, but to write-off their approach like you have done here is not correct.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 20:50

I don't know anything about Gauche Proletarianne, but I have heard that the Black Panthers' excessive focus on community work rather than organising workers' led them into becoming almost irrelevant in several places.

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/settlers_industrial_unionism.html

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/settlers_cio.html

These articles might supply some context as to lack of focus on the industrial front. The issue of the national liberation of the New Afrikan nation trapped within US borders is vital to the question of socialist revolution in anyway in the USA.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 20:53

I'm critical of some of the political lines of the CWI, mainly the ones concerning China and Maoism, but to write-off their approach and you have done here is not correct.

Did you read comrade Redcat's wise comments on Trotskyism in the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group? If not you should.

The CWI is a social-imperialist and maybe even social-fascist anti-Communist cult. How do you explain the CWI's links to these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Volunteer_Force ?

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 21:12

Did you read comrade Redcat's wise comments on Trotskyism in the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group? If not you should.

The CWI is a social-imperialist and maybe even social-fascist anti-Communist cult. How do you explain the CWI's links to these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Volunteer_Force ?

The CWI may be wrong on many things, but at least they don't accuse every serious LGBT/queer activist like me a "Trotskyite troll" just for asking a few questions regarding Maoism and queer issues like you did in the M-L-M sub-forum.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 21:19

Just another quick though - would any Maoists like to comment on the apparent connection between Weitling, Bakunin and Maoism? For those not in the know, Wilhelm Weitling was an early German Communist and member of the League of the Just who argued for a 'barrack-room' form of communism. To achieve this, he advocated the creation of a forty thousand strong army of the lowest elements of society, the lumpenproletariat, including criminals of all stripes, the lower the better. He thought that the proletariat was not a distinct class with interests to enforce against other classes, but merely one section of the opressed. He also thought, in parrallel with the Blanquists, that the uprising would install a dictatorship, and not in the Marx-Engels dictatorship of the class sense. In 1843 he met Bakunin and almost certainly influenced the latters views. Years letter Bakunin would challenge Marx by stating that for him the jewel of the proletariat was not the 'aristocracy of labour', but the 'lumpenproletariat' (Although what Bakunin means by this is not necessarily in line with what Marx means), and in his Where I Stand he agains states that the tactics of the libertarian socialists will be realised through the organisation of the working masses of the town and country, in contrast to the Communists who focus solely on the industrial working class. Certainly anarchism had something of a presence in China prior to the formation of the CPC, although it's roots in middle-class republicanism meant that it never developed the capacity for labour organisation which made anarchism a strong force elsewhere. Of course, Maoists are not anarchists or Bakuninists, but again there are similarities. In fact, it could be argued that Mao was closer to Bakunin than most anarchists are. At the only congress of the International which Bakunin ever intended, the 1869 Basle congress, he argued for "the construction of the international state of millions of workers, a state which it will be the role of the International to constitute." Not to mention Bakunin's frequent arguments for revolutionary dictatorship.

penguinfoot

16th October 2010, 21:30

Are you going to respond to any of my posts about Mao and China, in this thread and others, Iseul?

I would add as a side comment to the discussions that have gone on so far that we should be careful in talking about a single paradigm of Maoism when it comes to looking at how Maoism has influenced socialists outside of China, especially during the 1960s, when Maoist ideas were prominent amongst the New Left and other social movements. What is so interesting about the history of Maoism during this period is that leftists often described themselves as Maoists but emphasized different aspects of Maoist ideology and interpreted Mao's ideas in different ways depending on what they saw as the most important political tasks in their countries and the strategies they wanted to justify - if we look at the history of German Maoism, for example, one of the reasons why Maoism was able to become something of a prominent force in radical politics during the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s is that Mao's ideas about the threat of social-imperialism and the restoration of capitalism in socialist countries enabled German Maoists to articulate a nationalist politics that criticized the Soviet Union for allegedly standing in the way of German reunification and turning the DDR into a puppet state, to the point where some German Maoists, such as those belonging to the KPD, openly called for West Germany and other Western European states to develop nuclear weapons, with Maoists almost across the board in Germany encouraging their members and supporters to enter the Bundeswehr in order to learn how to use weapons. When you consider that these were important reasons for the popularity of Maoism in the 60s and 70s, it doesn't seem quite so surprising that so many Maoists in Germany later went over to the political right. If we look at the history of French Maoism, what we find, by contrast, is that the Proletarian Left - which has already been mentioned in this thread - was drawn to Maoism because it was seen to offer a decentralized mode of organization that differed from the standard structures of the Leninist party, so that the Proletarian Left ended up engaging with Foucault and the politics of sex whilst still retaining a rhetorical commitment to Mao.

I am, actually, doing my thesis on precisely this subject =p I'm still doing the source reading at the moment though.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 21:32

To achieve this, he advocated the creation of a forty thousand strong army of the lowest elements of society, the lumpenproletariat, including criminals of all stripes, the lower the better. He thought that the proletariat was not a distinct class with interests to enforce against other classes, but merely one section of the opressed.

Zan I hate lumpens.

A wasted a good few hours on an argument on another forum about the rights and wrongs of shooting heroin dealers. Tribal people living in primitive communism and poor peasants have a very different world view to criminal scum.

Also we recognize the leading role of the working class.....The New Zealand Workers' Party and Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany unlike the rest of the left in those countries which focus on a vague notion of the "people" and "progressives" are very focused on the actual working class. India isnt Germany or New Zealand though.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 21:37

The CWI may be wrong on many things, but at least they don't accuse every serious LGBT/queer activist like me a "Trotskyite troll" just for asking a few questions regarding Maoism and queer issues like you did in the M-L-M sub-forum.

I dont trust Trotskyites. I know they are capable of all manner of dishonesty.

And Im not going to say sorry for presuming that you were trying to flush out comrades particularly from third world who might hold conservative views on that question in order to have them banned.

penguinfoot

16th October 2010, 21:40

comrades particularly from third world who might hold conservative views on that question in order to have them banned.

What, because comrades from the "third world" are uniquely conservative, and left-wing organizations based in the "first world" have never supported homophobic and sexist views?

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 21:40

Zan I hate lumpens.

I know, but that wasn't necessarily my point. Weitling's view of the proletariat as merely one section of the opressed has a lot in common with the Maoist 'bloc of four classes', and the idea of a red army as the main revolutionary force is, again, an integral part of Maoist praxis (As well as one which is somewhat inconsistent with the principle that the emancipation of the working-class must be the act of the workers' themselves, I would think).

EDIT: Also, the whole idea that 'lower is better' would seem to be a driving force behind the labour aristocracy and three worlds theory.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 21:41

I dont trust Trotskyites. I know they are capable of all manner of dishonesty.

And Im not going to say sorry for presuming that you were trying to flush out comrades particularly from third world who might hold conservative views on that question in order to have them banned.

All I asked was a honest question, something apparently you cannot hope to grasp.

But then why should I expect anything more from a paranoid sectarianist fu*cker like you who probably don't even consider queer people as "true working class"?

penguinfoot

16th October 2010, 21:45

Seeing as you still haven't engaged with me, Iseul, do you admit that you were wrong on the CPC re-emphasizing the working class in the 1940s and the other issues I highlighted?

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 21:46

All I asked was a honest question, something apparently you cannot hope to grasp.

But then why should I expect anything more from a paranoid sectarianist fu*cker like you who probably don't even consider queer people as "true working class"?

Of course queer people are part of the working class, I dont have a problem with queer people....And yes I am paranoid (living in a country where you can be imprisoned for 8 years by judge without a jury on the word of a senior police man does that to you)....How can I not be paranoid of some who claims to be representing a huge Maoist group in China that no one has ever heard of before and comes out with a declaration by them which totally ignores serious historical questions?

Im not sure what your game is. You might be just a space cadet, you might be a Trotskyite trouble maker or you could be a state agent...I havent made up my mind.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 21:54

I know, but that wasn't necessarily my point. Weitling's view of the proletariat as merely one section of the opressed has a lot in common with the Maoist 'bloc of four classes', and the idea of a red army as the main revolutionary force is, again, an integral part of Maoist praxis (As well as one which is somewhat inconsistent with the principle that the emancipation of the working-class must be the act of the workers' themselves, I would think).

EDIT: Also, the whole idea that 'lower is better' would seem to be a driving force behind the labour aristocracy and three worlds theory.

The reality of the labour aristocracy was discussed by both Marx and Lenin. Its hardly unique to Maoism though the International Communist Current reject the idea honestly and Trots basically ignore the problem.

The "block of four classes" was a reflection of the sociological realities in China at that time. The question of how far socialism was established in China during Mao's time is a complex one (I will message someone and ask them to explain the situations as they developed properly) and the "Mao years" in China were ones of intense class struggle which ultimately led to the victory of the capitalist class (not bureaucratic infighting but actual fighting on the streets in many cases).

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 21:54

Of course queer people are part of the working class, I dont have a problem with queer people....And yes I am paranoid (living in a country where you can be imprisoned for 8 years by judge without a jury on the word of a senior police man does that to you)....How can I not be paranoid of some who claims to be representing a huge Maoist group in China that no one has ever heard of before and comes out with a declaration by them which totally ignores serious historical questions?

Im not sure what your game is. You might be just a space cadet, you might be a Trotskyite trouble maker or you could be a state agent...I havent made up my mind.

What? I never even said I'm a member of the MCPC, let alone a "representative". I'm just a critical supporter, I don't even agree with many of their lines.

The MCPC is definitely real. I can give you some contact details in order to prove it, but I'm not sure if that's wise due to security reasons.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 21:55

Seeing as you still haven't engaged with me, Iseul, do you admit that you were wrong on the CPC re-emphasizing the working class in the 1940s and the other issues I highlighted?

I will definitely give you a reply.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 21:58

The reality of the labour aristocracy was discussed by both Marx and Lenin. Its hardly unique to Maoism though the International Communist Current reject the idea honestly and Trots basically ignore the problem.

The "block of four classes" was a reflection of the sociological realities in China at that time. The question of how far socialism was established in China during Mao's time is a complex one (I will message someone and ask them to explain the situations as they developed properly) and the "Mao years" in China were ones of intense class struggle which ultimately led to the victory of the capitalist class (not bureaucratic infighting but actual fighting on the streets in many cases).

Some Trotskyists don't ignore the idea of the "labour aristocracy", they just don't focus on it as much as the Maoists generally do.

Regarding the "bloc of the four classes", there is nothing wrong with class-collaborationism in some cases as long as the working class political force is always the leading force and is always politically independent. Frankly this did not really happen in the Chinese 1949 Revolution sufficiently, which is why even though it was a proletarian revolution, it was deformed in some ways even from the beginning, but that was due to the objective conditions in China at the time - extremely weak urban working class ever since the failure of the 1927 Revolution.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 22:09

http://gci-icg.org/english/communism10.htm#icc

This article though not written by Maoists and a bit ranting is a good answer to many of the criticisms that come Maoism's way.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 22:10

The reality of the labour aristocracy was discussed by both Marx and Lenin.

I'm not aware of any place where Marx discusses the idea of a labour aristocracy. Lenin does refer to the concept, although only in reference to a small minority of the proletariat, specifically the trade-union and social-democratic leaders, and still thought that the majority of the western working-class was revolutionary.

The problem is that the whole idea swings on this theory that poorer workers' are more revolutionary than well-off workers. In the 1848 revolutions for example, the poorest sections of the working-class supported organisations like the Cologne Workers' Association headed by Andreas Gottschalk. Gottschalk believed that workers should focus purely on reformist economic demands, and he got support from the poorest sections of the working-class which had been politically pacified by decades of un or under employment. By contrast, the League of the Just and later the Communist League were composed largely of artisans and skilled workers, as was the Cologne Democratic Society. As another example, the sections of the British trade unions which in the 1890's formed the right-wing of the TUC which opposed the struggle for the eight hour day and was dubbed a 'bourgeois labour party' by Engels in response to this move, later became some of the most militant fighters of the British working-class. Yet Imperialism was still continuing, so according to the labour aristocracy theory, the workers should have continued to remain pacified because of their higher pay.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 22:16

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 22:28

Certainly with respect to more recent history, Lenin's conception of the labour aristocracy is largely correct. The struggles of Trotskyist organisations such as the CWI in the UK for instance has generally shown that the trade unionist elites tend to be more reformist than revolutionary, which is one reason why the CWI in the past called for a literal class war within the Labour Party - in which ordinary and grassroots workers would overthrow the elitest reformist higher layers.

Maoists reject the British Labour Party as social-Imperialist (the number of wars its been involved in since WWI more than illustrates that). True some people close to Maoism were involved in Scargill's Socialist Labour Party but they were soon enough kicked out of it for being Communists. Infact the CWI's involvement with the British Labour Party is one of the reasons that we despise them.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 22:37

Maoists reject the British Labour Party as social-Imperialist (the number of wars its been involved in since WWI more than illustrates that). True some people close to Maoism were involved in Scargill's Socialist Labour Party but they were soon enough kicked out of it for being Communists. Infact the CWI's involvement with the British Labour Party is one of the reasons that we despise them.

The CWI was also kicked out of the Labour Party when it shifted to the right.

The CWI does not consider the Labour Party to be a "worker's party", let alone a "revolutionary party". They think the Labour Party is a "bourgeois worker's party", an intrinsically capitalist party with a mass working class base, which is why they called for a revolution within the party.

Zanthorus

16th October 2010, 22:39

the number of wars its been involved in since WWI more than illustrates that

I'm not sure why you put in 'since WWI', the Labour party actively collaborated in the war effort during the first world war.

red cat

16th October 2010, 22:41

The CWI was also kicked out of the Labour Party when it shifted to the right.

The CWI does not consider the Labour Party to be a "worker's party", let alone a "revolutionary party". They think the Labour Party is a "bourgeois worker's party", an intrinsically capitalist party with a mass working class base, which is why they called for a revolution within the party.

Why does the CWI reject and accuse the ongoing Maoist revolutions of being reactionary, non proletarian etc ? Why do their indian counterparts write false reports about the Indian and Nepalese Maoist movements ? Why are most ( if not all ) of their Indian members professionally elite students or engineers etc. who help capitalists in managing ( to be read exploiting and firing ) workers ?

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 22:42

I'm not sure why you put in 'since WWI', the Labour party actively collaborated in the war effort during the first world war.

True but that was their first majior betrayal and they have gone on to repeat it again and again.

Queercommie Girl

16th October 2010, 22:47

Why does the CWI reject and accuse the ongoing Maoist revolutions of being reactionary, non proletarian etc ? Why do their indian counterparts write false reports about the Indian and Nepalese Maoist movements ? Why are most ( if not all ) of their Indian members professionally elite students or engineers etc. who help capitalists in managing ( to be read exploiting and firing ) workers ?

The main disagreements I believe are 1) the lack of direct worker's democracy and 2) too much collaboration with the bourgeois 3) too much reliance on the peasantry.

Personally I think my views are somewhere between Maoism and Trotskyism so I don't really agree with points 2) and 3) but I think Maoist organisations could use with a bit more bottom-up democracy in their approaches.

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 22:52

The main disagreements I believe are 1) the lack of direct worker's democracy and 2) too much collaboration with the bourgeois 3) too much reliance on the peasantry.

Personally I think my views are somewhere between Maoism and Trotskyism so I don't really agree with points 2) and 3) but I think Maoist organisations could use with a bit more bottom-up democracy in their approaches.

For all their waffle about democracy the CWI internal way of operating is incredibly authoritarian if not cult like.

Maoists while not completely dogmatically rejecting electoralism in capitalist elections in practice generally reject it as a dead end. And we especially reject the so-called "Social-Democratic" parties of the first world as clear and outright class enemies.

Can you explain to me why the CWI took a UVF gun man on a lecture tour around England? (Which when it came out caused several people in Ireland to wisely leave them).

penguinfoot

16th October 2010, 22:52

Why does the CWI reject and accuse the ongoing Maoist revolutions of being reactionary, non proletarian etc ?

Because they're not proletarian, the whole history of Maoism in China as well as in other underdeveloped countries shows that it is a political tradition that rejects active involvement in the struggles of the urban working class and seeks to base itself amongst the peasantry, at the same time as arguing that the countries in which it operates are feudal, and that, because of this, workers have to wait until their countries have undergone an extended period of industrial development before a socialist revolution becomes possible. If you have evidence to show that the working class played a substantial role in the Chinese Revolution or that the Maoists in India and Nepal have a strong base amongst the working class today then by all means provide this evidence and show that Maoism actually is something more than a radical form of peasant populism, but from everything we've seen so far it seems difficult to see Maoism as having anything to do with the emancipation of the working class, if only because their social base has always been a combination of peasants and the radical intelligentsia, with the latter having a leadership role. The fact that Maoism is not a working-class force is also why it makes no sense to describe the Maoist movements in India and Nepal as revolutionary or as revolutions, because a social revolution in the Marxist sense of the word involves a change in the relations of production as a result of the political intervention of a historically ascendant class - in other words, the proletariat, with the role of the revolutionary party being to gather the most advanced sections of the class and articulate the historical interests of the class as a whole.

Now, I am not a member of the CWI, but I seriously doubt that any CWI members view Maoist movements as reactionary. Socialists should defend the Maoist movements against government repression of the kind that is being carried out by the government in India and we should seek to understand why it is that Maoist organizations have often been able to position themselves as the most prominent leftist forces in the countries where they operate. But this shouldn't stop us from exposing Maoism as a fundamentally short-sighted tradition that can't offer the working class the means to achieve its emancipation.

red cat

16th October 2010, 22:54

The main disagreements I believe are 1) the lack of direct worker's democracy and 2) too much collaboration with the bourgeois 3) too much reliance on the peasantry.

Personally I think my views are somewhere between Maoism and Trotskyism so I don't really agree with points 2) and 3) but I think Maoist organisations could use with a bit more bottom-up democracy in their approaches.

What kind of bottom-up workers' democracy are you talking about ? Even during the initial Naxalbari insurrections that had numerous flaws, the only reason why the Indian police force could not stop guerrilla actions in the southern Bihar region is because all decisions were taken in night gatherings by the worker-peasant masses in villages. That is why the old British-imperialist tactics of introducing spies in middle-class revolutionary circles and defeating military actions based on news from there did not work.

Triple A

16th October 2010, 23:05

why you comrades support Mao?
As a leftist I am I cant understand how other leftists support a guy who killed millions of people

Palingenisis

16th October 2010, 23:28

why you comrades support Mao?
As a leftist I am I cant understand how other leftists support a guy who killed millions of people

Yes Mao controlled weather and was responsible for each and every person who died in China during his life time because we all know without evil dictators nobody dies...Just like in the USA.

Oh wait maybe we support Mao because he didnt kill millions of people but actually brought a huge nation out of bondage to feudal warlords and foreign Imperialist powers...Where the lives of millions of chinese people were destoried through drug addiction and prostitution.

Maybe thats why yes.

red cat

16th October 2010, 23:31

I'm not aware of any place where Marx discusses the idea of a labour aristocracy. Lenin does refer to the concept, although only in reference to a small minority of the proletariat, specifically the trade-union and social-democratic leaders, and still thought that the majority of the western working-class was revolutionary.

The problem is that the whole idea swings on this theory that poorer workers' are more revolutionary than well-off workers. In the 1848 revolutions for example, the poorest sections of the working-class supported organisations like the Cologne Workers' Association headed by Andreas Gottschalk. Gottschalk believed that workers should focus purely on reformist economic demands, and he got support from the poorest sections of the working-class which had been politically pacified by decades of un or under employment. By contrast, the League of the Just and later the Communist League were composed largely of artisans and skilled workers, as was the Cologne Democratic Society. As another example, the sections of the British trade unions which in the 1890's formed the right-wing of the TUC which opposed the struggle for the eight hour day and was dubbed a 'bourgeois labour party' by Engels in response to this move, later became some of the most militant fighters of the British working-class. Yet Imperialism was still continuing, so according to the labour aristocracy theory, the workers should have continued to remain pacified because of their higher pay.

What Maoists generally mean by the labour aristocracy is only a very small fraction of the working class. This portion serves the bourgeoisie and is employed to act against the proletariat distancing it from real revolutionary organizations or demands. Such class-betrayers also exist in the third world, but due to imperialists fearing the possibility of revolutions in their own countries the most, they make their labour aristocracies stronger in terms of both size and power. Examples of labour aristocrats are mostly union-leaders and the upper layers of various self-proclaimed leftist parties.

As for the whole working class of imperialist countries, any comparison with their third world counterparts will show that on an average they are much better off. But this does not mean that they are not exploited. Imperialist capital exploits them just less than what would make them revolt, because the goal of capital is to expand as much as it can. This is why we sometimes see proletarian movements in imperialist countries. But these are soon pacified because the exploitation level can be readjusted by increasing exploitation in the third-world. Also, real working class "militancy" is probably absent in those countries. "Militancy" means the working class declaring a revolutionary war on the bourgeoisie. Imperialists will prevent this at all costs until the colonies remain. But soon after some revolutions in the colonies, they will no longer be able to readjust the exploitation level which will result in the working class quickly declaring and winning a revolutionary war and establishing socialism. So it is wrong to say that the first and second world working classes are not revolutionary. They will constitute a nuclear explosion which the chain reactions from the third-world revolutions will initiate.

Saorsa

17th October 2010, 01:07

If you have evidence to show that the working class played a substantial role in the Chinese Revolution or that the Maoists in India and Nepal have a strong base amongst the working class today then by all means provide this evidence

Seriously?

You've just proven that while you have an excellent amount of historical knowledge about Mao and China, you know very little about Maoism today.

Start reading.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/eyewitness-talking-workers-t134161/index.html?p=1733603#post1733603

http://www.revleft.com/vb/did-nepals-maoists-t125960/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/their-own-words-t134485/index.html?p=1737418#post1737418

http://www.revleft.com/vb/300-000-maoists-t134124/index.html?t=134124&highlight=maoist+nepal+trade+union+class

http://jedbrandt.net/2010/04/29/nepals-streets-for-may-1st-%E2%80%9Cwe-make-the-power/

I'll also quote a section from 'Revolution in Nepal', a detailed booklet I wrote earlier this year about what's happening over there.

I recommend you have a look at it.

http://workerspartynz.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/revolution-in-nepal.pdf

It is without a doubt that the Maoist party has strengthened its position since the signing of the peace agreement. Despite the fears of many supporters abroad, and despite the best efforts of the imperialists and the Nepali ruling class, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has worked towards achieving its strategic aims, and as far as it is possible to tell is has succeeded in achieving them.

The Maoist strategy since 2005 has been based around strengthening their support base in the urban areas. Senior leader Baburam Bhattarai says in the interview included in this pamphlet that “What we have been doing since 2005 is the path of preparation for general insurrection through our work in the urban areas and our participation in the coalition government.” The Comprehensive Peace Accords have allowed Maoist activists to operate openly in every village, in every district throughout Nepal. And in particular, it has allowed them to expand massively into the cities. In the 2008 elections, the Maoists won half the seats in Kathmandu, which had been the centre of royalist power with a minimal and totally underground Maoist presence.

As the Gaurav speech makes clear, the Maoists did not believe they could advance towards victory without a major shift in tactics. They did not have the military strength to destroy the royal army in battle, and felt that they could probably not take Kathmandu by force of arms. Even if they succeeded in liberating the cities, the cost would have been tremendous and in the densely populated urban areas working class people would have been caught in a deadly crossfire. As well as this, the Maoists were concerned about the likelihood of foreign imperialism intervening to crush them if they attempted to seize power in 2006. Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai has stated that a direct violent seizure of state power would have invited foreign intervention that would have turned the country into ‘another Afghanistan’. As is made clear both in the Gaurav speech and in the interview with Bhattarai published in this pamphlet, the Maoists did not feel they had enough support in the urban areas to justify an insurrection. They are not interested in leading a coup d’état that will force them to hold power by pointing guns at the people – instead, they want the ordinary people of Nepal to have reached the point where they can see for themselves that revolution is a necessity.

Since 2005 when they expanded openly into the cities, Maoist-affiliated trade unions have mushroomed left, right and centre. The vast majority of militant industrial action that takes place in Nepal today is carried out by their revolutionary unions, who have succeeded in winning many wage increases and betterment of conditions for the workers they organise. And the people of Nepal can tell the difference between the Maoists and the bourgeois parties on this front. In November last year, workers in the Dharan Industrial Area launched a strike that shut down the operations of several pharmaceutical companies operating in the area. They began the strike as part of a union affiliated to GEFONT, the trade union federation of the UML party. However as the strike wore on it did not take the workers long to realise that, as they put it, the UML union ‘tilted toward the management’ and did not represent their class interests.
So they left en masse and joined a radical Maoist union which enthusiastically took over organising the strike. There are many cases similar to this one, and Nepali business groups regularly complain of the militancy of the UCPN (M) affiliated unions.

They have also developed a base among students, winning elections in a great number of student associations. Maoist students have padlocked their universities and attacked their chancellors over issues like fee increases and lack of democratic governance, and these young intellectuals are playing a valuable role in the developing revolutionary movement.

When the PLA was confined to the cantonments, the Maoists set up a youth wing called the Young Communist League. According to its Chairman Ganeshman Pun, the YCL represents the “fusion of the Party’s military and political character”. Pun was a former commissar to the People’s Liberation Army Ninth Brigade, and there are many other former PLA fighters and commanders in the YCL’s leadership. It acts as a paramilitary wing of the party, and effectively operates as a second police force in Nepal, one that the poor can turn to in the knowledge that it will take their side in disputes. When the PLA entered the cantonments, the YCL expanded throughout the country, and the Nepal Army recently released statements saying it now considers the YCL to be a bigger threat to it than the PLA. The YCL is a massive organisation, with branches throughout the nation, and it can be seen at Maoist demonstrations facing off with the police and preventing them from attacking the rest of the crowd. It also carries out political education work, and helps with development projects, street cleaning, farming and other activities that benefit the people.

The simple fact of the matter is that since 2005, no other organisation has been able to mobilise as many supporters onto the streets as the Maoists have. No other organisation has been able to carry out strikes and political shut downs on the scale the Maoists have. If they could, they would. The Maoists have the support of the people and the reactionary parties are terrified by this. We know from the public statements of Maoist leaders that the main reason they postponed a full-blown seizure of power in the period between 2005 and 2006 was that they did not feel they were strong enough in the cities. And it is quite clear from the evidence available that since that time, the Maoists have grown incomparably stronger in the cities. The objective situation is that revolution is becoming more possible and more likely by the day.

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 01:14

Now, I am not a member of the CWI, but I seriously doubt that any CWI members view Maoist movements as reactionary. Socialists should defend the Maoist movements against government repression of the kind that is being carried out by the government in India and we should seek to understand why it is that Maoist organizations have often been able to position themselves as the most prominent leftist forces in the countries where they operate. But this shouldn't stop us from exposing Maoism as a fundamentally short-sighted tradition that can't offer the working class the means to achieve its emancipation.

Are you serious? What attracted me to Maoism was it's sucesses (limited in the first world, extensive in the third world). Its combination of both pragmatism and principle. Maybe "socialists" like yourself should ponder on the failures of your groups or movements in comparison with it before proceeding expose it.

Triple A

17th October 2010, 09:41

Yes Mao controlled weather and was responsible for each and every person who died in China during his life time because we all know without evil dictators nobody dies...Just like in the USA.

Oh wait maybe we support Mao because he didnt kill millions of people but actually brought a huge nation out of bondage to feudal warlords and foreign Imperialist powers...Where the lives of millions of chinese people were destoried through drug addiction and prostitution.

Maybe thats why yes.

But you cant deny his economic policies starved a lot of people and the cultural revolution killed a lot of smart people.
I think the leftists of today cant be stuck with the toughts of 50 years ago, we have to look at society of nowadays instead of looking at society of 1950

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 12:16

Seriously?

None of the links you've cited show that the Maoists are a revolutionary party of the working class. To take one example, I agree that the allegation that the Maoists banned strikes is a distortion of what actually happened and that socialists should acknowledge that not all strikes are rooted in the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and that there have been many historical and contemporary examples of the bosses using strikes as a political tool in order to put pressure on a more progressive force, although the first example that comes to my mind is the events surrounding the oil sector in Venezuela in 2002, and not Nepal. However, the Maoists not actually banning strikes is not evidence that they are a party that is socially rooted in the working class and orientated towards the interests of the working class, because there are actually very few governments in the world that categorically ban all forms of strike action or prohibit strikes in the way that allegedly took place in Nepal. So I don't see how that particular article supports your case. It seems that several of those other articles take the form of interviews with individual members of the Maoists and their associated organizations without stating the social or occupational background of those individuals or telling us anything about whether their opinions can be extended and applied to a signifiant proportion of the working class in Nepal. This is a general weakness of interviews as a way of finding out the situation in a country. The fact that, as detailed in one article, the Maoists had to bus in cadres and supporters from the countryside in order to hold a general strike that was ultimately called off as a result of the opposition of the middle class in the capital shows, if anything, that the Maoists do not have sufficient support within the capital itself, where the main body of the working class is located, which is also a conclusion that can be validly drawn from the results of the 2008 elections, due to Kathmandu being one of the electoral districts where the Maoist did less well than elsewhere.

What is significant about the situation in Nepal at the moment is that it does not exhibit any of the signs that we associate with revolutionary situations in other countries and at other points in history, most importantly of all it does not involve workers taking control of their workplaces and setting up democratic organizations that link workers within individual workplaces together and provide an alternative source of political authority alongside the power of the state and its armed bodies of men - in other words, Soviets - and whilst it would be wrong to say that the absence of Soviets is evidence that there is no potential for their formation in Nepal, the fact of the matter is that the course that has been followed by the Maoists so far has not been to encourage the weakening of the state, through the formation of Soviets and the exercise of workers' control, but to seek to take control of the state's offices. This is a reformist and parliamentary strategy that ignores some of the most basic lessons that can be drawn from the experiences of the 20th century as well as the last decades of the 19th century, namely that the tendency of the bourgeois state to support the continued class rule of the bourgeoisie and prohibit the reacquisition of genuine political decision-making by the working class is not merely a result of the fact that the state, including both its elected and appointed offices, happens to be under the direct control of the bourgeoisie at most points in time, it is also a result of the basic structure of the state itself, that is, the fact that the state is separated from and situated at the apex of a civil society in which the pursuit of private interests is dominant, and that the state, in its bourgeois-democratic form, is elected on a territorial basis, and therefore confronts individuals as atomized citizens rather than as members of a class. The point of the Commune state is precisely that it extends democratic decision-making to the whole of society by breaking down the separation between the state and civil society and that it gives open expression to the reality of class antagonisms and the nature of social production by rooting itself in productive units rather than territorial constituencies. As long as the Maoists do not seek to challenge the state through its revolutionary overthrow and replacement with the power of workers' Soviets, it is impossible to regard them as a revolutionary party.

What attracted me to Maoism was it's successes

If you'd like to tell me what successes Maoism has had, then by all means do so.

Saorsa

17th October 2010, 12:41

None of the links you've cited show that the Maoists are a revolutionary party of the working class.

You asked for evidence that "the Maoists in India and Nepal have a strong base amongst the working class today". I provided it.

The fact that, as detailed in one article, the Maoists had to bus in cadres and supporters from the countryside in order to hold a general strike that was ultimately called off as a result of the opposition of the middle class in the capital shows, if anything, that the Maoists do not have sufficient support within the capital itself, where the main body of the working class is located,

The main body of the Nepali working class is in India. The next biggest body is scattered across the Middle East and Asia. Only a tiny section of the Nepali proletariat works in Nepal.

I think you've misunderstood the situation very deeply. The Maoists did not "have" to bus in supporters from the countryside. It's very weird to see a rally of 500,000 people calling for revolution, and to make snarky dismissive comments because some of the participants came from outside Kathmandu. The right wingers always denounce revolutionaries as outside agitators, why are you helping them make a case?

The reasons for the strike being called off are much more complex than just 'middle class opposition'. Do more reading in the Situation in Nepal section where this is clearly explained. Either way, there is nothing counter-revolutionary about taking one step back to move two steps forward. During July 1917 Lenin opposed calls from the workers to stage an uprising, and fought against any premature action within the Bolshevik party. This is quite normal.

which is also a conclusion that can be validly drawn from the results of the 2008 elections, due to Kathmandu being one of the electoral districts where the Maoist did less well than elsewhere.

I think you should do more research, rather than making an argument based on assumption.

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/nepal-election-map.jpg

The Maoists swept the poor proletarian voting areas in Kathmandu. They wiped out the UML, the fake 'communist' party of the old days, and the only areas they didn't take were two seats that are strongholds of the Workers and Peasants Party and the more affluent Nepal Congress voting neighbourhoods.

The poor neighbourhoods of Kathmandu where the working class lives are Maoists strongholds.

What is significant about the situation in Nepal at the moment is that it does not exhibit any of the signs that we associate with revolutionary situations in other countries and at other points in history,

Why is that a bad thing?

There are no blueprints. Every revolution is different and unique, and those who seek to replicate the past are doomed to irrelevancy.

most importantly of all it does not involve workers taking control of their workplaces

http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/nepal-tea-workers-seize-plantations/

and setting up democratic organizations that link workers within individual workplaces together and provide an alternative source of political authority alongside the power of the state and its armed bodies of men - in other words, Soviets - and whilst it would be wrong to say that the absence of Soviets is evidence that there is no potential for their formation in Nepal, the fact of the matter is that the course that has been followed by the Maoists so far has not been to encourage the weakening of the state, through the formation of Soviets and the exercise of workers' control, but to seek to take control of the state's offices.

The Maoists have destroyed the state apparatus in most of Nepal. The decade-long People's War effectively destroyed the local governments of rural Nepal, and they have not been replaced due to the political crisis the revolution is causing. The Maoists built a parallel state apparatus during the people's war, and this parallel state continues.

The feudal army is matched by the People's Liberation Army. The police are openly challenged in the streets by the Young Communist League. There are Maoist unions in de facto control of countless workplaces and schools, the Maoists effectively have a parallel justice system... dual power is a reality in Nepal.

Baburam Bhattarai explained the party's tactics in 2009:

After the Constituent Assembly elections, when our party emerged as the largest force and we abolished the monarchy, there was a lot of enthusiasm among the masses of the people. Our party’s tactical line had been correctly implemented. That gave a tremendous force to the basic masses of the people and our support greatly increased. For the time being we cooperated with the interim government also, because by participating in that coalition government we thought we could work within the bureaucracy, within the army, within the police and within the judiciary, in order to build our support base through those state structures, which would help us for future revolutionary activities. With that in mind we participated in the coalition government. After the abolition of the monarchy, when the main contradiction would start with the bourgeois democratic forces, then our struggle took a new turn.

After April 2009 [when Prachanda resigned from government], that phase of the Constituent Assembly and implementation of the bourgeois democratic republic was more or less complete. Our understanding is to now carry on the struggle forwards to complete the New Democratic Revolution. So again we made a tactical shift, showing that from now on our major fight would be with the bourgeois democrat parties who are backed by imperialism and the expansionist forces. With this thinking our party left the government and now we are focusing on the mass movement, so that now we could really practice what we have been preaching. That means the fusion of the strategy of PPW and the tactic of general insurrection. What we have been doing since 2005 is the path of preparation for general insurrection through our work in the urban areas and our participation in the coalition government.

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 14:19

You asked for evidence that "the Maoists in India and Nepal have a strong base amongst the working class today". I provided it.

Actually, you're right. A party having some measure of popularity amongst the working class is nothing to be too excited about. What is important is whether that party is comprised of and led by the advanced section of the class and whether it fulfills the tasks of the revolutionary party, which is to serve as the memory of the class and to develop a totalized view of the world, against the reification and fragmentation that characterizes the thought of the bourgeoisie and other classes, which can enable the working class to emancipate itself. The key question should not be whether the Maoists draw a large part of their strength from the working class - although that in itself is an important debate to have - it is whether the Maoists can lead the working class in their struggle for self-emancipation. I should have made this clearer. I should also point out, though, that you've only provided evidence for Nepal, and not for India.

The Maoists did not "have" to bus in supporters from the countryside

Your articles make clear that a large number of those who participated in the strike were Maoist cadres and supporters who came from the rural areas surrounding the capital and had to be housed once they got to the city and whilst the strike was taking place. Whether they "had" to do this is up for debate, and the fact that the strike was not limited solely to the population of Kathmandu is hardly a reason to be dismissive of what took place, but all the same it does seem that the strike cannot be used as evidence that the Maoists have a mass base amongst the working class or that they are a revolutionary party. The comparison with Lenin and Russia does not make sense because the reason the Maoists called a general strike in the first place was to try and get the prime minister to resign, whereas the reason that Lenin did not support calls to take power during the summer of 1917 was because he recognized that the Bolsheviks did not yet have enough support outside of Petrograd and other major cities and that if they took power prematurely it would only be a matter of time before forces on the right who had their roots in the countryside isolated the Bolshevik urban strongholds and brought an end to the revolution, and at that point the Bolsheviks were also still only one of several forces contending for the support of the Russian working class - the difference here is that the general strike of the Maoists had as its objective a change within the legal structure of the bourgeois state, which was itself derived from another legality, namely, the fact that only the prime minister has the authority to dismiss the head of the army, whereas Lenin's decision-making was consistently informed by the long-term objective of overturning the state in its entirety, even if this required tactical concessions in the short and medium term.

I have read around Nepal, and the conclusion that has been widely drawn from commentators on both the left and right is that the strike was stopped as a result of a combination of pressure from the middle classes and the use of violence from the state security forces as well as various extra-legal groups such as vigilante gangs and Hindu chauvinists - now we can debate about whether it was right for the Maoists to call off the strike as a result of these factors but one fact which is apparent and which you seem to ignore is that, if police violence played a key role, then clearly the state apparatus has not been destroyed, as you allege, because the state is still capable of using violence against opposition forces - and command of armed bodies of men is after all one of the defining features of the state.

The Maoists swept the poor proletarian voting areas in Kathmandu

I didn't suggest otherwise, what I said was that the success of the Maoists in the capital was less striking than in other parts of the country. What is also clear, however, is that the Maoists didn't wipe out the UML as you argue as the UML scored above the Maoists in several of the seats where the Maoists did not win a plurality and scored less than ten percentage points below the Maoists in the seats where the Maoists did win a plurality. Again, we can debate what this means, but it's important not to misrepresent the facts.

There are no blueprints. Every revolution is different and unique, and those who seek to replicate the past are doomed to irrelevancy.

This is one of those things which sounds progressive but can actually serve as an excuse for the most ugly forms of opportunism. There is a reason why Soviets or bodies that have had the same functions but been called by different names have played such an important role in revolutionary struggles even when those struggles have taken place in such markedly different cultural and political contexts - the reason is that Soviets are bodies which grow organically out of struggles that are not immediately or directly revolutionary as they serve as a valuable means of coordinating the activities of workers in different enterprises and organizing activities that the bourgeois state has proven itself unable to fulfill when political authority is in crisis, such as the distribution of food, the management of infrastructure and communications, and so on. In this sense, Soviets are bodies which are not the creation of political parties, being instead rooted in the spontaneous struggles of the working class, but what is really significant about these bodies is that, by enabling workers to exercise democratic control in their workplaces at the same time as carrying out political functions and extending beyond the boundaries of individual enterprises, they break down the division between politics and economics, which is central to the ideology of the bourgeoisie, and has as its material basis the separation of the state from civil society. In doing so, they point towards the institutional conditions for the self-government of the working class and give substance to the idea of abolishing the state itself as a distinct sphere of social life.

http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/20...e-plantations/

All well and good, but where are the attempts to expand workers' self-management by transforming it into the basis of an alternative political power?

The Maoists have destroyed the state apparatus in most of Nepal

As we've seen, this isn't true, because the state retains the ability to use violence against its opponents. I don't see any reason to describe the army as a feudal one, either. The fact that, as you yourself admit, a large segment of the Nepalese working class works overseas is definitive evidence that there is nothing feudal about Nepal, either in terms of the army of the bourgeois state apparatus or its relations of production, because feudalism involves producers being tied to a specific member of the ruling class and not being able to change who they work for, whereas capitalism does involve workers having this kind of mobility. If you're going to use terms like feudal you have to justify them, not least because how we go about analyzing social relations in Nepal has a key impact on the political strategies that then become justifiable and necessary - the fact that the Nepalese Maoists view Nepal as essentially feudal is what lies behind their adherence to the idea of New Democracy and all of the secondary conclusions that idea implies, with their adherence being made explicit in the quote you provided as well as all of the major policy statements that have been put forward by the Maoists. The entire logic of New Democracy is to downplay the interests of the working class and negate any possibility of the immediate overthrow of capitalism in Nepal because that it involves the working class entering into a bloc with other classes, together forming a "bloc of four classes", that are deemed progressive in the struggle to overturn feudalism and establish a national capitalism, embodying an advanced industrial base, with one of these classes being the so-called national bourgeoisie, that is, the sections of the bourgeoisie that are said to be oppressed by Nepal's feudal and semi-colonial status, in contrast to the comprador bourgeoisie. The desire of the Maoists to respect the interests of the national bourgeoisie and to encourage growth within the framework of a capitalist economy in Nepal is what has led individuals like Bhattarai to reassure business owners that the private sector will be maintained, especially in April of 2009 in his capacity as finance minister and just before Prachanda stepped down, when he appeared before the Nepalese branch of the International Chamber of Commerce and reassured the participants that the government would pursue "a new outlook in business and industries also" - when we are faced with statements like that, how can you plausibly argue that the Maoists are genuinely committed to the overthrow of capitalism and the bourgeois state?

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 14:24

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 14:50

Penguinfoot you obviously are trolling....The main industry in Nepal is carpet making...It is a very poor, small country...Those factors greatly determine the situation...Are you being paid to discredit the revolution there?

On the contrary, what determines the potential strength of the working class is not its numerical weight, but whether there are conditions in place that enable it to acquire a revolutionary leadership, such as a high degree of concentration. Your line justifies the rejection of socialist revolution in underdeveloped countries on the grounds that those countries need to acquire a bigger working class before a revolution becomes possible.

Also, to answer the rep comment that you were too cowardly to make public, there was nothing "feudal" about China in the 1930s and 40s, culturally or otherwise, you can't say that a country is or was feudal without giving some explanation of what you mean by feudalism and how that's an accurate description to apply to the country. To say that the main achievement of the CPC was to eliminate feudal culture comes very close to saying that China is or was culturally backward, which smacks of first-world chauvinism. This isn't to deny that the CPC did carry out genuine and progressive reforms such as the overturning of the repressive marriage system, but what's important is that firstly none of these reforms had anything to do with socialism, they were all limited to the framework of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and secondly they were often highly limited in their content, even by bourgeois standards - to pursue the example I just gave, the marriage law passed in 1950 did not give both partners the right to divorce on demand but, in cases where only one partner demanded divorce, required that it be granted only when the district government and judicial organ had tried and failed to mediate and reconcile the two parties. In the case of servicemen who maintained correspondence with their family, it was required that they also give their consent before their spouse was allowed to divorce, so that the right to divorce was effectively denied to large numbers of women whose husbands were in the army. As for the issue of Japan, of course the CPC deserved support on anti-imperialist grounds - but the exact contribution of the CPC to the war effort is a matter of debate and in itself it does not make the CPC different from any other national liberation movement.

Crux

17th October 2010, 18:39

Did you read comrade Redcat's wise comments on Trotskyism in the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group? If not you should.

The CWI is a social-imperialist and maybe even social-fascist anti-Communist cult. How do you explain the CWI's links to these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Volunteer_Force ?
So now we're linked to the UVF? Yeah well, you're linked to Hitler. How? Via the Pope. Knock that ridiculous sectarian bullshit off. Yeah I know you're going to try to divert this, no doubt. So, knock it off. Besides it has fuck all to do with the subject of the thread.

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 18:55

So now we're linked to the UVF? Yeah well, you're linked to Hitler. How? Via the Pope. Knock that ridiculous sectarian bullshit off. Yeah I know you're going to try to divert this, no doubt. So, knock it off. Besides it has fuck all to do with the subject of the thread.

You knock it off.

You brought a UVF gun man on a lecture tour of England cos he came out with some nice left-sounding phrases (and there are more connections than that as we both know "comrade").

Iseul needs to make up his mind whether he is on the side of the revolution or with its enemies.

Crux

17th October 2010, 20:21

I dont trust Trotskyites. I know they are capable of all manner of dishonesty.

And Im not going to say sorry for presuming that you were trying to flush out comrades particularly from third world who might hold conservative views on that question in order to have them banned.
So you are racistly patronizing towards revolutionaries in the third world? Nice.

So maybe you should stop your ridiculous accusations and just sod off.

Queercommie Girl

17th October 2010, 20:24

Iseul needs to make up his mind whether he is on the side of the revolution or with its enemies.

Sorry but I'm not a sectarianist like you. I can work with Trotskyists, Maoists, Marcyists and even anarchists depending on the situation. It doesn't mean I agree with any of them completely.

I'm a "she", btw.

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 20:31

Sorry but I'm not a sectarianist like you. I can work with Trotskyists, Maoists, Marcyists and even anarchists depending on the situation. It doesn't mean I agree with any of them completely.
.

I have learned that the CWI in India actively campaigns against the Maoist insurgency...This one example of their counter-revolutionary.

If things get serious it will probably be necessary to physically deal Trotskyites....Clearly if you are asked by a Communist Party to blow the kneecaps of Trot you would not be willing.

You need to think about these things seriously.

Barry Lyndon

17th October 2010, 20:33

The intensity and fanaticism of the trolling that ultra-lefts engage in, especially when it comes to Venezuela and Nepal, indicates that genuine revolution scares them and they wish to cut out a comfortable niche for themselves as pampered establishment 'left critics'.

But I think some Maoists need to knock off the sectarianism too.

Queercommie Girl

17th October 2010, 20:40

I have learned that the CWI in India actively campaigns against the Maoist insurgency...This one example of their counter-revolutionary.

If things get serious it will probably be necessary to physically deal Trotskyites....Clearly if you are asked by a Communist Party to blow the kneecaps of Trot you would not be willing.

You need to think about these things seriously.

Well, it still doesn't mean I look at these things in a binary and black-and-white manner.

I seriously support queer rights for instance, but I still co-operate with organisations like the Maoist MCPC in China which is not explicitly pro-LGBT (nor is it explicitly anti-LGBT). I do not rule out the possibility that one day I may have to take up arms to defend queer rights, but does that mean I can't co-operate with a party that is not pro-LGBT right now? No.

Alliances and allegiances forever shift like the wind. There is no party patriotism.

red cat

17th October 2010, 20:53

Well, it still doesn't mean I look at these things in a binary and black-and-white manner.

I seriously support queer rights for instance, but I still co-operate with organisations like the Maoist MCPC in China which is not explicitly pro-LGBT (nor is it explicitly anti-LGBT). I do not rule out the possibility that one day I may have to take up arms to defend queer rights, but does that mean I can't co-operate with a party this is not pro-LGBT right now? No.

Alliances and allegiances forever shift like the wind. There is no party patriotism.

My question here is whether the Indian CWI is revolutionary or not. Can you show us any movement they are organizing that has resulted in any gain for the working class, rural or urban ? Please don't come up with claims of the CWI itself that it has made some workers from half a dozen factories join some strike that was primarily organized by some ( other ) bourgeois party. Those strikes have been going on in India since time immemorial and the working class has gained nothing out of them. Besides that, calling a few workers for a strike-picnic for a single day is nothing given the size of the Indian working class, no matter how crippled it might be due to the absence of bourgeois democracy.

On the other hand, we can show you Indian CWI documents on Nepal that nowhere mention the 10 year long PPW and attribute the fall of Gyanendra to the few days long Janandolan. We can also show you the post of one Indian CWI revlefter who made totally reactionary attacks on the Indian Maoists but couldn't answer when addressed and negated each of his points.

Queercommie Girl

17th October 2010, 21:00

calling a few workers for a strike-picnic for a single day is nothing given the size of the Indian working class, no matter how crippled it might be due to the absence of bourgeois democracy.

I didn't say the CWI's policies are always effective. Given their tiny size in most countries, it would be surprising if they can actually pull a major movement together at all. But I think they are subjectively genuine.

On the other hand, we can show you Indian CWI documents on Nepal that nowhere mention the 10 year long PPW and attribute the fall of Gyanendra to the few days long Janandolan. We can also show you the post of one Indian CWI revlefter who made totally reactionary attacks on the Indian Maoists but couldn't answer when addressed and negated each of his points.
Show me.

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 21:05

I didn't say the CWI's policies are always effective. Given their tiny size in most countries, it would be surprising if they can actually pull a major movement together at all. But I think they are subjectively genuine..

Why on earth do you believe a group that has offered to rat on television twice on people defending themselves from the cops are subjectively geniune?

The Spartacus League are the only Trotskyite grouping that is possibly subjectively geniune.

Crux

17th October 2010, 21:40

Crux

17th October 2010, 21:44

I didn't say the CWI's policies are always effective. Given their tiny size in most countries, it would be surprising if they can actually pull a major movement together at all. But I think they are subjectively genuine.

Show me.
Keep in mind that Red Cat's definition of "reactionary" might not jive with reality. In his mind anyone who does not fully embrace the Naxalites is a "reactionary". Here is one of the indian CWI's latest statement on the police repression against worker's and farmer's in Orissa: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4295 Judge for yourself how "reactionary" this statement is.

red cat

17th October 2010, 22:02

I didn't say the CWI's policies are always effective. Given their tiny size in most countries, it would be surprising if they can actually pull a major movement together at all. But I think they are subjectively genuine.

Have you ever wondered why their size is tiny at the first place in a country like India where there has been tremendous objective conditions for revolution for so many decades ? Wouldn't a CP with a correct line expand to at least something near to the dimensions of the Maoist CP ?

Show me.

The article I was talking about is this :

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4197

I am sorry, they have actually mentioned the PPW. What they have omitted is the fact that the Janandolan in Kathmandu wouldn't have been possible without the PPW at the first place. They have not mentioned that without the thousands of Maoist supporters who came from the villages to participate in the urban movement, Gyanendra would have won the round.

Here is comrade Saorsa's criticism of the article :

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4197

Note that they have also distorted facts about India. The Maoists are still practically in control of Lalgarh. The security forces operate only during the day, and in limited areas. The "Maoist insurgents" did not hijack any train. It was stopped by the PCAPA, a mass organization that allegedly sympathizes with the Maoists, to protest arbitrary arrests. Also, they nowhere mention the Maoist led movements that led to increment of wages among the landless peasants in many areas. In short, they try to portray it as an ordinary insurgent movement with no real mass-base. Now look at the gem of a post by a Indian CWI revlefter here :

http://www.revleft.com/vb/india-losing-maoist-t117578/index.html?p=1566660#post1566660

You see, after we address his points, he withdraws from the thread. His points were basically nothing but centrist and rightist lies sugar-coated with a layer of Marxism.

Palingenisis

17th October 2010, 22:10

Keep in mind that Red Cat's definition of "reactionary" might not jive with reality. In his mind anyone who does not fully embrace the Naxalites is a "reactionary".

No movement in the real world is perfect but when an insurgency is being waged sides must be taken. The CWI has clearly not come out in support of the Naxalite insurgency so therefore to label them as reactionary would not be a far off....They are seeking to deflect the masses from the revolution.

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 22:14

Also, they nowhere mention the Maoist led movements that led to increment of wages among the landless peasants in many areas.

If the Maoists helped landless peasants increase their wages, then what sense does it make to say that there are some parts of India that are feudal or semi-feudal in their social relations, given that the existence of wages presupposes the existence of wage-labour, that is, the alienability of human labour power, which is the distinctive feature of capitalism, understood as a system if generalized commodity production? The concept of a landless peasant, incidentally, is pretty much a contradiction in terms given that what defines the peasantry as a class is that it is comprised of petty-bourgeois producers who own the land on which they work to one degree on another - whilst allowing for the fact that the peasantry is an inherently heterogeneous class, with widely differing relations of production, so that it can include "middle peasants" who own the whole of the land they use and possibly make use of hired labour during some parts of the year, as well as "poor peasants" who own only part of the land they use and rent the rest from a landlord or "rich peasant". The people you refer to as landless peasants are rural proletarians.

It's also telling that Palingenisis and red cat haven't been able to respond to any of the points I raised concerning Nepal and Maoist ideology in my previous posts. Maoists are, it seems, all rhetoric, but no knowledge or ability to debate.

Barry Lyndon

17th October 2010, 22:22

No movement in the real world is perfect but when an insurgency is being waged sides must be taken. The CWI has clearly not come out in support of the Naxalite insurgency so therefore to label them as reactionary would not be a far off....They are seeking to deflect the masses from the revolution.

Yes, ultra-lefts like the CWI like to delude themselves that their is some sort of choice between the Indian capitalist class, the 'Stalinist' Naxalites and the 'genuine workers movement' that is led by themselves.
No such choice is there. This 'genuine workers movement' exists only in their self-aggrandizing imagination, and what members they do have take orders from their Great White Fathers in Europe and North America.
The choice is between the Indian capitalist class represented by the Congress Party, the neo-fascist BJP, and the corrupt revisionist Communist Party of India(Marxist) and the mining corporations, burning villages and raping peasant women on one side, and the Naxalites fighting a people's war for the peasants on the other.
Which side do you want to win?
It's as absurd as people like Karl Kautsky who refused to take sides during the Russian Civil War between the Reds and the Whites in the vain hope that some 'democratic socialist' alternative would arise from the ruins of Czarist Russia.

red cat

17th October 2010, 22:33

If the Maoists helped landless peasants increase their wages, then what sense does it make to say that there are some parts of India that are feudal or semi-feudal in their social relations, given that the existence of wages presupposes the existence of wage-labour, that is, the alienability of human labour power, which is the distinctive feature of capitalism, understood as a system if generalized commodity production? The concept of a landless peasant, incidentally, is pretty much a contradiction in terms given that what defines the peasantry as a class is that it is comprised of petty-bourgeois producers who own the land on which they work to one degree on another - whilst allowing for the fact that the peasantry is an inherently heterogeneous class, with widely differing relations of production, so that it can include "middle peasants" who own the whole of the land they use and possibly make use of hired labour during some parts of the year, as well as "poor peasants" who own only part of the land they use and rent the rest from a landlord or "rich peasant". The people you refer to as landless peasants are rural proletarians.

It's also telling that Palingenisis and red cat haven't been able to respond to any of the points I raised concerning Nepal and Maoist ideology in my previous posts. Maoists are, it seems, all rhetoric, but no knowledge or ability to debate.

It also "seems" to you that somehow the fact that Maoists have helped landless peasants to increase their wages, implies that there are no semi-feudal social relations in India. How do you know all this ? Did you tour the whole or most of India and see what kind of social relations exist there ? India is a place where bonded-labour and wage-labour co-exist.

The reason why we use the term landless peasant is because you can't have a proletarian without some basic notion of bourgeois democracy. The landless peasants are generally the lowest layer of the society. They come from the caste called "kshudra" literally meaning "little" and are commonly known as "dalit", meaning "trampled". These words correctly indicate their social status. They can also be forced to act at bonded-labourers at times, by the local forest-offcials, policemen or "thakurs" literally meaning "God", who are feudal lords and have control over the mass-media and parliamentary parties. The landless peasants have practically no rights.

Before you come to debate with us, take care to visit India and study its social relations. Indian class struggle or social relations won't follow your western fantasies.

Queercommie Girl

17th October 2010, 22:50

It also "seems" to you that somehow the fact that Maoists have helped landless peasants to increase their wages, implies that there are no semi-feudal social relations in India. How do you know all this ? Did you tour the whole or most of India and see what kind of social relations exist there ? India is a place where bonded-labour and wage-labour co-exist.

Yes that is why it's called semi-feudal rather than feudal.

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 22:57

India is a place where bonded-labour and wage-labour co-exist

The existence of cases of bonded labour is not evidence that India is anything but capitalist because these cases exist in a broader context, in which labour does exist as a commodity. This is what Marx means when he states unambiguously in the Grundrisse when referring to slavery, which is the most permanent and literal form of bounded labour, that "the fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America capitalists, but that they are capitalists, is based on their existence as anomalies within a world market based on free labour". It would make no sense to say that the existence of these instances is grounds for describing India as semi-feudal because we know that in several countries such as China, Brazil, and Mauritania, there are ongoing cases of slavery, slavery being an even more backward mode of production than feudalism, but we would not then say that these societies are pre-feudal or semi-slave societies because we accept that their social relations overwhelmingly conform to the definition of capitalism as a system of generalized commodity production in which labour power has become alienable, and that, insofar as these instances of pre-capitalism do exist, they are subordinated to the broader goals and imperatives of a capitalist economy, namely those of the accumulation of capital, deriving from competition between capitalists. If Marx's quote in the Grundrisse is not obvious enough, he makes the integration of slavery into capitalist accumulation even more explicit in Poverty of Philosophy when he says that "direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc.". You have simply pointed to bonded labour without either giving a definition of feudalism or showing how bounded labour affirms the feudal character of the Indian countryside.

you can't have a proletarian without some basic notion of bourgeois democracy

The proletariat is not defined by whether it has a "basic notion of bourgeois democracy" or not, whatever that means, it is defined by the extent of its control over both its own labour power and the means of production, in that the proletariat is both "free" from ownership or control of the means of production in that it has nothing to sell but its labour power, and "free" from being tied to a specific member of the ruling class, which is what enables it to sell its labour power as a commodity. The proletariat differs from the producers in a feudal society in these respects because producers in feudal societies retain a more direct relationship with the means of production in the form of land but at the same time are tied to a specific member of the ruling class in the form of the local lord or landowner. At no point does Marx ever say that the existence of bourgeois democracy is a prerequisite for the existence of a working class and it would make absolutely no sense if he did say this because Marx analyzes a range of societies where he is clear that bourgeois-democratic institutions are not present but where there is a sizable working class, with the absence of these institutions often being a result of the bourgeoisie turning to authoritarian forms of political rule in order to resolve growing class tensions, between itself and the working class - you can look at The Eighteenth Brumaire for the most obvious example, but right at the beginning of his intellectual development Marx also makes it clear that Germany is a country whose philosophical advances stand in sharp contrast to its relative political backwardness, and that it is also a country in which the working class was playing an increasingly militant and important role, as analyzed in Critical Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian", where Marx emphasizes the militancy of the Silesian miners, and compares them favorably with the uprisings of the English workers, England being one of the very few countries where bourgeois democracy was present.

Read some Marx, then come back to debate.

Indian class struggle or social relations won't follow your western fantasies.

I'm not "western".

The entirety of Maoist ideology, on the other hand, is based on a set of "western fantasies" and ugly orientalism because the notion of semi-feudalism and its political conclusion of New Democracy is just another way of saying that underdeveloped societies are culturally and socially backward when compared to the advanced "western countries" and that the working class has to live for some period of time under a transitional mode before it is allowed to pursue its own liberation.

red cat

17th October 2010, 23:00

Yes that is why it's called semi-feudal rather than feudal.

Yes, and please notice that I have termed it so. Also, when a Maoist speaks of feudal relations at present, it should be assumed that he is talking about semi feudalism - semi colonialism, basing his views on Mao's class analysis of China. We don't write the full words for it all the time simply because they are too long.

bricolage

17th October 2010, 23:08

Yes, ultra-lefts like the CWI like to delude themselves that their is some sort of choice between the Indian capitalist class, the 'Stalinist' Naxalites and the 'genuine workers movement' that is led by themselves.
I don't think any 'ultra-lefts' believe that a 'genuine workers movement' is 'led by themselves'. In fact the common criticism of 'ultra-lefts' is their apparent shunning of leadership. I think this off hand insults are starting to get confused now.

red cat

17th October 2010, 23:16

The existence of cases of bonded labour is not evidence that India is anything but capitalist because these cases exist in a broader context, in which labour does exist as a commodity. This is what Marx means when he states unambiguously in the Grundrisse when referring to slavery, which is the most permanent and literal form of bounded labour, that "the fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America capitalists, but that they are capitalists, is based on their existence as anomalies within a world market based on free labour". It would make no sense to say that the existence of these instances is grounds for describing India as semi-feudal because we know that in several countries such as China, Brazil, and Mauritania, there are ongoing cases of slavery, slavery being an even more backward mode of production than feudalism, but we would not then say that these societies are pre-feudal or semi-slave societies because we accept that their social relations overwhelmingly conform to the definition of capitalism as a system of generalized commodity production in which labour power has become alienable, and that, insofar as these instances of pre-capitalism do exist, they are subordinated to the broader goals and imperatives of a capitalist economy, namely those of the accumulation of capital, deriving from production between capitalists. If Marx's quote in the Grundrisse is not obvious enough, he makes the integration of slavery into capitalist accumulation even more explicit in Poverty of Philosophy when he says that "direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc.". You have simply pointed to bonded labour without either giving a definition of feudalism or showing how bounded labour affirms the feudal character of the Indian countryside.

The proletariat is not defined by whether it has a "basic notion of bourgeois democracy" or not, whatever that means, it is defined by the extent of its control over both its own labour power and the means of production, in that the proletariat is both "free" from ownership or control of the means of production in that it has nothing to sell but its labour power, and "free" from being tied to a specific member of the ruling class, which is what enables it to sell its labour power as a commodity. The proletariat differs from the producers in a feudal society in these respects because producers in feudal societies retain a more direct relationship with the means of production in the form of land but at the same time are tied to a specific member of the ruling class in the form of the local lord or landowner. At no point does Marx ever say that the existence of bourgeois democracy is a prerequisite for the existence of a working class and it would make absolutely no sense if he did say this because Marx analyzes a range of societies where he is clear that bourgeois-democratic institutions are not present but where there is a sizable working class, with the absence of these institutions often being a result of the bourgeoisie turning to authoritarian forms of political rule in order to resolve growing class tensions, between itself and the working class - you can look at The Eighteenth Brumaire for the most obvious example, but right at the beginning of his intellectual development Marx also makes it clear that Germany is a country whose philosophical advances stand in sharp contrast to its relative political backwardness, and that it is also a country in which the working class was playing an increasingly militant and important role, as analyzed in Critical Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian", where Marx emphasizes the militancy of the Silesian miners, and compares them favorably with the uprisings of the English workers, England being one of the very few countries where bourgeois democracy was present.

Read some Marx, then come back to debate.

I'm not "western".

The entirety of Maoist ideology, on the other hand, is based on a set of "western fantasies" and ugly orientalism because the notion of semi-feudalism and its political conclusion of New Democracy is just another way of saying that these societies are backward to the advanced "western countries" and that the working class has to live for some period of time under a transitional mode before it is allowed to pursue its own liberation.

I don't need to read Marx to know what goes on in India. Before you repeat your lies about Maoism, give me the entire class composition of the Indian society, and the revolutionary programme of your Indian Trot comrades, along with a list of their achievements. I always wonder why even if there are such learned Marxists among you, your organizations never manage to achieve anything on Indian soil.

And yes, bonded labour is limited to a minority of the population. The majority if the rural population are small peasants who are forced to "sell" whatever they grow to particular people. If this is capitalism, then the whole world was capitalist a thousand years ago as well.

Queercommie Girl

17th October 2010, 23:30

This doesn't make much sense, because the entire concept of New Democracy as well as the strategy that was pursued by the Comintern in the 1920s were based on the assumption that there was something feudal about China before the 1949 revolution and that underdeveloped countries are in general something less than fully enmeshed in the capitalist world-system. This is not only an idea that is made explicit in texts like On New Democracy, it's also one of the main conclusions that Mao draws in his empirical studies, such as his Report from Xunwu. If we accept that the prevalence of semi-feudalism is a crucial part of Maoist analysis then how can it be true to say that the usefulness of Maoist praxis in the underdeveloped world derives from the peasantry being proletarianized? If feudalism is still present, then logically peasants aren't proletarians because the proletariat is a social body that only comes into being and emerges as a political force under the conditions of capitalist accumulation.

It was semi-feudal within a global capitalist system, i.e. the peasantry were in the process of being proletarianised. No-one would suggest full feudalism exists anywhere at anytime during the 20th century.

No, the exact opposite is true, the CPC emphasized specifically that the interests of workers were to be limited. In Mao's telegram to the headquarters of Loyang front in April of 1948, Loyang being one of the key KMT strongholds in Hunan, Mao explicitly ordered the armies that were on the verge of entering major cities throughout China not to "advance slogans of raising wages and reducing existing working hours" on the grounds that maintaining a high level of production and workplace discipline was necessary during wartime conditions and that whether workers would be able to enjoy improve conditions later on would depend on whether the enterprises in which they worked "thrived".

1948 was still during the war, wasn't it?

After the 1949 revolution there was a dramatic improvement in the working conditions of most of the urban workers in China, and the "commanding heights" of the economy was completely nationalised.

These are not policies that indicate a shift towards the interests of the working class. Nor were these policy directives limited to Mao or a single telegram. We only need to look at Chen Yun's report to the National Committee of the PPCC in June of 1950 to see that there was a consensus amongst the CPC leadership that the interests of the working class were in need of restraint.

"In need of restraint" because there were cases of party cadres raising the worker's wages by ridiculous amounts.

You can justifiably argue that the April 1927 events changed the strategic situation in China, but what you haven't even mentioned is that, in spite of the obvious failures of Comintern policy, the CPC kept following the Comintern line of allying with the progressive bourgeoisie by siding with the Wuhan government under Wang Jingwei, and it was only after they were repressed by that government as well as the government of the KMT right in Shanghai and Nanjing that the links between the party and the working class were effectively broken.

After 1927 most of the game was effectively over.

Perhaps to some extent they continued with the mistake, but it wouldn't have made much difference either way. We are looking at these issues with the benefit of hindsight now.

scarletghoul

17th October 2010, 23:42

OP - when I get a keyboard I will answer you in more detail, but for now I will say that the question should not be about "Maoism" as some single package to be adopted or rejected. Rather, the question should be "what are the teachings of Mao + the Chinese revolution, and how are they relevant to us ?"
The entirety of Maoist ideology, on the other hand, is based on a set of "western fantasies" and ugly orientalismuhh wow lol. ive never herd anyone claim that mao zedong was a western orientalist.

In fact Mao defied his western opponents by proving the revolutionary potential of the chinese peasants. Its the orientalist trots etc who, from 20s China to modern Nepal, dismiss the backwards brown people as incapable unless they obey white intellectuals

penguinfoot

17th October 2010, 23:46

I don't need to read Marx to know what goes on in India

Of course you don't, although Marx's writings on India are still interesting, both as a source of factual information about the impact of British rule on India and as a source of textual information on the thorny issue of how Marx was influenced by the prevailing discourses of his society. What Marx's writings do offer is an understanding of the specific dynamics of capitalist society and the ways in which capitalism differs from the societies which preceded it. Marx identifies in contrast to the economists of the bourgeoisie that capitalism is not an expression of a fixed human nature but a historically conditioned system, and that the story of human history as a whole is one in which the development of the forces of production, this development being orientated towards the abolition of material scarcity, results in changes in the relations of production, depending on whether the relations support or restrain the further development of the forces, with relations of production in this context meaning the relations of effective economic power exercised over both human labour power and non-human means of production. Marx identifies the defining characteristic of capitalism as the generalization of commodity production, so that, whereas pre-capitalist societies are characterized by the production of commodities for immediate use, capitalism is based around the production of commodities for the purpose of exchange. The notion of commodity production being generalized encompasses labour power itself, so that it is only with capitalism that labour power becomes alienable, and it is this basic feature which gives us a means of determining whether societies are capitalist or not. You have totally rejected any notion of a historical approach to modes of production because you have not outlined what you view as the key features of either feudal or capitalist modes of production and nor have you shown how India or any other country exhibits either of those sets of features.

And yes, bonded labour is limited to a minority of the population.

So why did you cite it as key evidence of Indian society being semi-feudal? In any case, it's not just the fact that bonded labour is limited to a minority of society, the key point is that, when and where it exists, bonded labour occurs within the framework of a capitalist production process, it is subordinated to the imperatives of capitalist accumulation.

The majority if the rural population are small peasants who are forced to "sell" whatever they grow to particular people. If this is capitalism, then the whole world was capitalist a thousand years ago as well

What makes Indian agriculture capitalist is that the inputs and fruits of production assume the form of commodities, that is, goods that are produced for the purpose of exchange, goods which pass through a cash nexus, and are exchanged through the use of a supercommodity, in the form of money - when farmers in India purchase fertilizer or seeds they pay for these goods in cash (hence the high numbers of Indian farmers who commit suicide as a result of debt each year) and when they produce agricultural goods they then sell these goods, receiving cash in return. If Indian rural producers did not sell their goods but were forced to pass a given proportion of them over to a local member of the ruling class, then consuming the rest, and if they were forced to work on the land of that member of the ruling class for a given number of days a year rather than working on their own land, then that would be a case of feudalism because we would have evidence that labour power is not alienable, and it is indeed these features or variations of them that existed in most countries before the advent of capitalism in the 17th century, which is why capitalism has not existed for thousands of years. These features do not exist in India today because India exhibits generalized commodity production, as part of which labour power has become alienable - and if this were not the case it would not be possible for India to exhibit such high levels of rural to urban migration.

red cat

18th October 2010, 00:03

Of course you don't, although Marx's writings on India are still interesting, both as a source of factual information about the impact of British rule on India and as a source of textual information on the thorny issue of how Marx was influenced by the prevailing discourses of his society. What Marx's writings do offer is an understanding of the specific dynamics of capitalist society and the ways in which capitalism differs from the societies which preceded it. Marx identifies in contrast to the economists of the bourgeoisie that capitalism is not an expression of a fixed human nature but a historically conditioned system, and that the story of human history as a whole is one in which the development of the forces of production, this development being orientated towards the abolition of material scarcity, results in changes in the relations of production, depending on whether the relations support or restrain the further development of the forces, with relations of production in this context meaning the relations of effective economic power exercised over both human labour power and non-human means of production. Marx identifies the defining characteristic of capitalism as the generalization of commodity production, so that, whereas pre-capitalist societies are characterized by the production of commodities for immediate use, capitalism is based around the production of commodities for the purpose of exchange. The notion of commodity production being generalized encompasses labour power itself, so that it is only with capitalism that labour power becomes alienable, and it is this basic feature which gives us a means of determining whether societies are capitalist or not. You have totally rejected any notion of a historical approach to modes of production because you have not outlined what you view as the key features of either feudal or capitalist modes of production and nor have you shown how India or any other country exhibits either of those sets of features. I keep showing it, but you reject it on invalid grounds. Anyways, Marx's analyses are not very useful while analysing the Indian situation. Marx had termed the Great Uprising as India's first war of independence, which anyone who has some knowledge about Indian history, will know to be wrong. Obviously Marx was not aware of what was going on in India until some British newspapers reported them.

So why did you cite it as key evidence of Indian society being semi-feudal? In any case, it's not just the fact that bonded labour is limited to a minority of society, the key point is that, when and where it exists, bonded labour occurs within the framework of a capitalist production process, it is subordinated to the imperatives of capitalist accumulation. Well, if the minority is about, say, 10 % of the population or more, then it definitely does indicate something.

What makes Indian agriculture capitalist is that the inputs and fruits of production assume the form of commodities, that is, goods that are produced for the purpose of exchange, goods which pass through a cash nexus, and are exchanged through the use of a supercommodity, in the form of money - when farmers in India purchase fertilizer or seeds they pay for these goods in cash (hence the high numbers of Indian farmers who commit suicide as a result of debt each year) and when they produce agricultural goods they then sell these goods, receiving cash in return. If Indian rural producers did not sell their goods but were forced to pass a given proportion of them over to a local member of the ruling class, then consuming the rest, and if they were forced to work on the land of that member of the ruling class for a given number of days a year rather than working on their own land, then that would be a case of feudalism because we would have evidence that labour power is not alienable, and it is indeed these features or variations of them that existed in most countries before the advent of capitalism in the 17th century, which is why capitalism has not existed for thousands of years. These features do not exist in India today because India exhibits generalized commodity production, as part of which labour power has become alienable - and if this were not the case it would not be possible for India to exhibit such high levels of rural to urban migration.
Wrong. Indian agriculture is not capitalist because :

1) The tillers (small peasants ) are in practice tied to the land, though not through legislation.

2) They are not able to choose the buyers of their crops.

EDIT: More information can be provided on the topic, such as about peasants being paid "wages" to work in the land of one particular feudal-lord etc. but at this point they are unnecessary.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 00:32

It was semi-feudal within a global capitalist system, i.e. the peasantry were in the process of being proletarianised. No-one would suggest full feudalism exists anywhere at anytime during the 20th century.

What you are saying is substantially different from Mao's position on the place of feudalism in China, as what you seem to be saying is that the advent of capitalism does not immediately result in the abolition of feudalism all around the world at one point in time but that the destruction of pre-capitalist formations was or is an ongoing process, that proceeds by stages and over an extended period of time. This is a position that any decent Marxist would probably have to accept because Marx himself makes it clear in the last chapters of the first volume of Capital that the establishment of capitalist relations of production and the conditions for rapid capitalist accumulation in Britain took place through a number of parliamentary acts under successive governments rather than through a single revolutionary moment that eliminated all the remaining fetters on the expansion of the bourgeoisie, as in France, with these parliamentary acts gradually depriving rural producers of access to common land, until such a point where a sufficiently large proletariat was available in the cities for exploitation. The position that Mao held in relation to feudalism was that, whilst the Chinese countryside was by no means static, the forms of feudalism that did exist would not whither away by their own accord, as a result of the expansion of capitalism, because they were sustained by the KMT, and that the necessity of the New Democratic revolution sprung from the fact that the countryside would retain its feudal character unless its feudal aspects were removed through the power of political mobilization and government action. In simple terms, Mao accepted the possibility of feudal and capitalist societies or social formations existing alongside each other over the long term, whereas Marx saw that there was an innate tendency on the part of capitalism to eliminate pre-capitalist social formations, this latter position being one that was later taken up and expanded by Luxemburg. These positions are self-evidently different, and, in any case, you have yet to provide any evidence that there is anything feudal about any society currently existing.

1948 was still during the war, wasn't it?

Of course it was. But your allegation was that the CPC increasingly emphasized the interests of the working class in the late 1940s. On the contrary, as the PLA neared China's cities, the CPC leadership stressed the importance of moderation.

After the 1949 revolution there was a dramatic improvement in the working conditions of most of the urban workers in China, and the "commanding heights" of the economy was completely nationalised.

The conditions of workers did improve, but this is not evidence that the CPC put increasing emphasis on the interests of the working class or that there was anything socialist about the CPC because it would have been difficult for any organization to adopt economic policies that were worse than those adopted by the KMT during its final years in government - the success of the CPC in handling inflation alone was enough to guarantee it some measure of urban support. The main theme of the policy announcements that emerged from the central government in the first years of the PRC is one of encouraging the expansion of the private sector in order not to disrupt economic recovery - the first point relating to industry that Chen Yun made in his report to the National Committee of the PPCC in June 1950 was that the government and state-owned enterprises should follow a policy of placing orders with private factories "whenever possible" and that private factors should also be entrusted with processing work, and in the same speech it was announced under the section for taxation that the government would ensure that the tax rates for both industry and daily necessities would be lessened, with the government also committing itself to the reduction of the state deficit, and the elimination of "five hundreds items of tax", through the combination and simplification of multiple taxes applied to the same commodity. These policy announcements were by no means simply rhetorical either. The PRC government had a policy of encouraging foreign Chinese capitalists (i.e. those who were ethnically Chinese and had links to the mainland but either lived abroad or had the option of moving all their assets to places like Hong Kong and Taiwan) to return and pursue the exploitation of Chinese workers. In the case of Liu Hongsheng, head of the Liu family, for example, the government not only allowed him to keep his private enterprises but also offered him political positions, with Liu eventually being praised as a result of his cooperation in the three- and five-anti movements and awarded interest on his property once it had finally been placed into the state sector, the awarding of interest to capitalists being the government's official policy once the expansion of the state sector was underway - and in case you think that Liu was not an important capitalist, he was the founder of the Shanghai Portland Cement Works in 1920, the Hong Sung Match Company in the same year, and, under the Nationalists, he became the director of the state-owned China Steam Navigation Company during the period 1932-34, and the Chinese National Joint Production and Joint Sales Union for Matches during 1936-7, which was a state-run cartel. If anyone deserved to be called a comprador or bureaucratic capitalist with stakes in the command heights it was him, but the concessions he was given demonstrate how far the government was willing to go to appease China's capitalists.

"In need of restraint" because there were cases of party cadres raising the worker's wages by ridiculous amounts.

What's ironic here, of course, is that Liu Shaoqi was the one responsible for the execution of policies designed to control the mobilizing practices of cadres once the supposed problem of left-deviationism in the cities had emerged - he was the one who, in April and May of 1949, centralized political organization, reallocated cadres to the modern economic sector, the educational sphere, and government administration, in order to limit their influence in the main sector of the economy. How do you reconcile support for restraining workers in 1948/49 with the fact that Liu was subsequently identified as China's number one capitalist roader during the Cultural Revolution?

After 1927 most of the game was effectively over.

If the game was "over" it was only as a result of the strategic errors that were imposed on the CPC by the Comintern, against the policies of Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao, before and after the events of April. In reality, however, simply saying that the game was over ignores the further policy errors that the CPC was forced to carry out during the 1930s, which served to deepen the party's isolation from the working class, the foremost of these errors being the fact that the party was forced to follow the overall thrust of third-period Stalinism by rejecting intervention in the KMT-controlled "yellow unions" in favour of the formation of its own "red unions" - this was a policy that allowed the KMT to identify the party's underground members and supporters and prevented the party from being able to lead the defensive struggles that did emerge amongst Chinese workers during the Nanjing decade.

Thank you for replying, incidentally.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 00:45

Anyways, Marx's analyses are not very useful while analysing the Indian situation

If I wanted to recommend someone some books or essays on Indian history, then of course I wouldn't tell them to go read Marx's writings. But Said evidentially thought Marx was interesting as an example of how the orientalist notion of a static "east" being regenerated by a regenerative "west" could be taken up even by revolutionary thinkers, such is/was the prevalence of orientalist discourse.

Well, if the minority is about, say, 10 % of the population or more, then it definitely does indicate something.

Again, it's not the numerical size that matters here, it's the broader capitalist context, above all at an international level, which leads to these instances of pre-capitalism being subordinated to and integrated into the imperatives of capitalist accumulation.

1) The tillers (small peasants ) are in practice tied to the land, though not through legislation.

Exactly, not through legislation, not through political means - the fact that the tying of peasants to the land operates through economic compulsion is further evidence that the Indian countryside is not feudal because it is only under capitalism that political and economic power become distinct from one another, as represented by the institutional separation of the political state and civil society. The existence of economic compulsion is hardly evidence of any form of feudalism because you might as well say that workers are tied to their factories through the threat of not being able to find another job if they quit the job they have at a given moment - what is important is not necessarily how the relations of production manifest themselves in the viable options available to specific individuals, it is whether producers are tied, through political and coercive means, to a particular member of the ruling class, or whether they have they have the legal right to change their economies ties, the latter being a reflection of the alienability of labour power, and hence capitalism.

2) They are not able to choose the buyers of their crops.

Due to the power of monopoly, yes, in the same way that, in some American towns and cities, workers cannot feasibly choose who they sell their labour power to, due to there only being one real employer, in the form of the main company, hence the origin of the term company town - but the fact that they are selling their crops, that there are buyers who purchase their produce, shows that their crops are produced for the purchase of exchange, and hence take the form of commodities, that the transfer of the crops from the producers to the buyers takes place through the cash nexus and not through the use of political power in the form of the use or threat of coercion, as under feudalism - all of these aspects of social life in the Indian countryside are consistent with capitalism being a system of generalized commodity production.

The fact that you believe that a society can still be feudal whilst the buying and selling of commodities is taking place says a lot about your understanding of Marx's concept of a mode of production, and especially what is distinctive about capitalist relations of production.

Crux

18th October 2010, 00:51

Yes, ultra-lefts like the CWI like to delude themselves that their is some sort of choice between the Indian capitalist class, the 'Stalinist' Naxalites and the 'genuine workers movement' that is led by themselves.
No such choice is there. This 'genuine workers movement' exists only in their self-aggrandizing imagination, and what members they do have take orders from their Great White Fathers in Europe and North America.
The choice is between the Indian capitalist class represented by the Congress Party, the neo-fascist BJP, and the corrupt revisionist Communist Party of India(Marxist) and the mining corporations, burning villages and raping peasant women on one side, and the Naxalites fighting a people's war for the peasants on the other.
Which side do you want to win?
It's as absurd as people like Karl Kautsky who refused to take sides during the Russian Civil War between the Reds and the Whites in the vain hope that some 'democratic socialist' alternative would arise from the ruins of Czarist Russia.
Oh it is very very simple, but might be complex for you grasp, barry, I've noticed you have had a problem with this before. We do not believe the Naxalites are the genuine revolutionary movement. But by your reasoning I suppose it was a mistake for the russian marxists to break from the much larger, and indeed very militant, agrarian party the Revolutionary Socialist Party. I think that reference is point in case, because indeed the RSP was using individual terror and organizing peasants in the countryside. So I assume the marxists was wrong to leave them, and even more horrible, spent some years working with developing their theory and organizing in the, very small comparatively, in semi-feudal russia, working class areas. Yes, surely the formation and struggle for the Russian Socialdemocratic Party was wrong. How silly of them to not realize the main enemy was feudalism and that marxism and appealing to workers as the primary force, rather then armed struggle in the countryside as a first step, was wrong and ultra-left. And I do not wish to disbparage the RSP, they were in many instances very brave and determined souls with lofty ideals, some even ended up in the ranks of the Bolsheviks. Likewise I can admire the naxalites, but for much the same reasons I must say this, their tactics and goal are mistaken.
Likewise the RSP was a very russian movement, with long history and deep roots, whereas the Marxists took their inspiration and advice from abroad, they even dared being emembers of an International Organization, who's headquarters were rather Berlin than Petrograd. Clearly such a movement could never ever suceed.

Queercommie Girl

18th October 2010, 00:55

Oh it is very very simple, but might be complex for you grasp, barry, I've noticed you have had a problem with this before. We do not believe the Naxalites are the genuine revolutionary movement. But by your reasoning I suppose it was a mistake for the russian marxists to break from the much larger, and indeed very militant, agrarian party the Revolutionary Socialist Party. I think that reference is point in case, because indeed the RSP was using individual terror and organizing peasants in the countryside. So I assume the marxists was wrong to leave them, and even more horrible, spent some years working with developing their theory and organizing in the, very small comparatively, in semi-feudal russia, working class areas. Yes, surely the formation and struggle for the Russian Socialdemocratic Party was wrong. How silly of them to not realize the main enemy was feudalism and that marxism and appealing to workers as the primary force, rather then armed struggle in the countryside as a first step, was wrong and ultra-left. And I do not wish to disbparage the RSP, they were in many instances very brave and determined souls with lofty ideals, some even ended up in the ranks of the Bolsheviks. Likewise I can admire the naxalites, but for much the same reasons I must say this, their tactics and goal are mistaken.

The only problem with this comparison is that Maoists are not supposed to be the RSP. Maoists officially label the urban working class as the leading class and the peasantry as the "semi-leading class", while the RSP is not even Marxist. If Maoists neglect the working class, it is not primarily the fault of Maoism-in-principle, but the mistakes made by practitioners of Maoism.

Crux

18th October 2010, 01:03

The only problem with this comparison is that Maoists are not supposed to be the RSP. Maoists officially label the urban working class as the leading class and the peasantry as the "semi-leading class", while the RSP is not even Marxist. If Maoists neglect the working class, it is not primarily the fault of Maoism-in-principle, but the mistakes made by practitioners of Maoism.
Well, true, but I feel the similarites are certainly there. Especially in the adress in regards to feudalism, which seem to be a focal point the maoist choice of strategy. And even if we just look at the egeneral, the RSP, though non-marxist, was a much larger revolutionary movement. When the marxists choose to form their organization they were but a fragment of that, in that day and age I imagine similar speakers would call them ultra-left, especially since they did not go immediately to armed struggle, but to theory. This is the parallel I wish to make, just because a revolutionary movement is larger, and armed, does not mean it is more right, as seems to be the argument put forward here.

WeAreReborn

18th October 2010, 06:39

The necessity of Maoism is proven primarily by its existence. Everything that exists must have a justification for it of some kind.

Not sure if you should use this logic.. Capitalism exists therefore it must be necessary.. See? Just doesn't work. Unless you believe in fate or some kind of destiny nonsense.

red cat

18th October 2010, 07:12

If I wanted to recommend someone some books or essays on Indian history, then of course I wouldn't tell them to go read Marx's writings. But Said evidentially thought Marx was interesting as an example of how the orientalist notion of a static "east" being regenerated by a regenerative "west" could be taken up even by revolutionary thinkers, such is/was the prevalence of orientalist discourse.
Marx was interesting etc etc. But when it came to India, he was wrong. That's it.

Again, it's not the numerical size that matters here, it's the broader capitalist context, above all at an international level, which leads to these instances of pre-capitalism being subordinated to and integrated into the imperatives of capitalist accumulation. Such a large part of the population cannot be deprived of the right to choose their employer or to effectively sell their labour power in any economy that has even remotely capitalist relations of productions.

Exactly, not through legislation, not through political means - the fact that the tying of peasants to the land operates through economic compulsion is further evidence that the Indian countryside is not feudal because it is only under capitalism that political and economic power become distinct from one another, as represented by the institutional separation of the political state and civil society. The existence of economic compulsion is hardly evidence of any form of feudalism because you might as well say that workers are tied to their factories through the threat of not being able to find another job if they quit the job they have at a given moment - what is important is not necessarily how the relations of production manifest themselves in the viable options available to specific individuals, it is whether producers are tied, through political and coercive means, to a particular member of the ruling class, or whether they have they have the legal right to change their economies ties, the latter being a reflection of the alienability of labour power, and hence capitalism.Yet again, your argument stands invalid. You will not find a single "law" in the Indian constitution that binds the peasant to his land. Legislature has nothing to do with what goes on in rural India. The factors which effectively tie the peasant to his land are economic, cultural and political and somewhat a continuation of the Asiatic feudal structure that existed prior to imperialist invasion. Your ignorance about how peasants are tied to the land says that you know nothing of Asiatic feudalism, not about its Indian variant at least.

Due to the power of monopoly, yes, in the same way that, in some American towns and cities, workers cannot feasibly choose who they sell their labour power to, due to there only being one real employer, in the form of the main company, hence the origin of the term company town - but the fact that they are selling their crops, that there are buyers who purchase their produce, shows that their crops are produced for the purchase of exchange, and hence take the form of commodities, that the transfer of the crops from the producers to the buyers takes place through the cash nexus and not through the use of political power in the form of the use or threat of coercion, as under feudalism - all of these aspects of social life in the Indian countryside are consistent with capitalism being a system of generalized commodity production.An average Indian peasant cannot choose his buyer even if the monopoly is economically broken somehow. This is mostly because at some point of time he or his forefathers had been forced to borrow some money or crops from the feudal lord, which tied him to an eternal contract of selling his produce to the said feudal lord. Needless to say, these contracts are enforced through political and military means. The formal justification of the system is either this contract, or that it is against "tradition" to choose one's buyer. The widespread use of political power to enforce the system means that effectively the crops are not commodities.

The fact that you believe that a society can still be feudal whilst the buying and selling of commodities is taking place says a lot about your understanding of Marx's concept of a mode of production, and especially what is distinctive about capitalist relations of production.The fact that you believe that you can analyze a society all the while knowing nothing about it tells a lot about your common sense.

Saorsa

18th October 2010, 09:43

Concrete analysis of concrete conditions is the heart of Marxism. We are seeing an example of this in Red Cat's posts.

What we are seeing from penguinfoot is someone regurgitating Marxist theory, scraping it up and pouring it into a dogmatic bottle before forcing it down the throat of reality.

Theory is meant to flow from a concrete analysis of the facts on the ground. Penguinfoot is instead starting with preformed theoretical conclusions and sifting through the facts to pick out and make a big deal about the ones that fit into his conclusion.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 11:45

Marx was interesting etc etc. But when it came to India, he was wrong. That's it.

He was perfectly correct to say that the establishment of British colonialism resulted in the destruction of pre-existing social forms.

Such a large part of the population cannot be deprived of the right to choose their employer or to effectively sell their labour power in any economy that has even remotely capitalist relations of productions.

Firstly, you've already admitted that we're talking about a minority, which immediately makes pointing to indentured labour pretty useless if your thesis is that the social structure of the entire countryside of a vast country like India is pre-capitalist. It would be the equivalent of me pointing to cases of slavery in China in order to prove that China is currently pre-feudal. Secondly, Marx evidently did not believe that the number of producers who did not conform exactly to capitalist wage-labour was the important factor because he made it explicit that the owners of plantations in the southern United States that were based on the use of slave labour. If you think that Marx was mistaken in believing this and that the United States was actually a slave or semi-slave economy along the lines of ancient Greece and Rome then by all means say this, because, after all, Marx did make many mistakes of an analytical nature, but just know that, as far as Marxian analysis of modes of production is concerned, your point is totally invalid, it can't stand as evidence of non-capitalism in any way. I've made this point several times now, and you haven't engaged with it.

The factors which effectively tie the peasant to his land are economic, cultural and political and somewhat a continuation of the Asiatic feudal structure that existed prior to imperialist invasion. Your ignorance about how peasants are tied to the land says that you know nothing of Asiatic feudalism, not about its Indian variant at least.

You haven't given any explanation of how peasants are actually tied to the land beyond vague references to different sets of factors and you've failed to deal with the fact that India has exhibited high rates of rural to urban migration, precisely because this shows that labour has become alienable and contradicts your entire a priori thesis of the Indian countryside being essentially feudal. You also reveal your blatant eurocentrism when you accept as a basic starting-point for a debate about the mode of production in India that it makes sense to talk about feudalism in an Asian context when many of the features that have been deemed central to feudalism have never existed in Asia or have existed in only a highly distorted form - in China if not India it was never the case that political offices and access to land were made hereditary and used as a way of maintaining a layered power structure in which regional lords would execute the policies of the sovereign at the same time as having a power base in their own right, in fact China was marked by the sale and purchase of land from an early point in its history, and from 1581 all taxes paid by peasants took the form of cash rather than produce.

This is mostly because at some point of time he or his forefathers had been forced to borrow some money or crops from the feudal lord, which tied him to an eternal contract

...yet you continue to fail to provide evidence that dynamics such as these encompass a majority of Indian producers or show how they actually confirm the feudal character of the Indian countryside. The fact that these obligations rose as a result of monetary debts on the part of producers and that they take the form of contracts is not evidence that the Indian countryside has been able to remain feudal, not only because you've already admitted that the cash nexus was central to economic life by the time these eternal contracts came into being, but also because the formation of contracts between individuals is a dynamic that is specific to social and legal life under capitalist relations of production, being a reflection of the abolition of the elaborate differences of status associated with feudal society. What you need to do in this debate is the following: you need to provide an overview of how Marxists should differentiate one mode of production from another in abstract terms, that is, you need to give meaning to the concept of relations of production, the you need to identify the features that are distinctive of capitalism and feudalism, and then you need to show that there are features that are characteristic of feudalism that have remained in existence in India and that these features are enough to make the Indian countryside non-capitalist to one degree or another, whilst acknowledging that Marx himself did not believe that the existence of slavery in the American South was enough to make the South anything other than fully capitalist, and giving an account of why Marx was mistaken in this regard.

I have done all of these things for my case - I have shown that the relations of production are about the exercise of effective economic power over human labour power and the means of production, I have shown that capitalism is based around the alienability of labour and the exclusion of the producers from the means of production, the former of these being a specific dimension of the generalization of commodity production, and I have shown that feudalism differs from this in that it is characterized by producers having only partial control over their labour power, in that they are tied to a specific member of the ruling class whom they most likely give part of their produce in kind rather in cash (because production in feudal societies still takes the form of use vales) and may or may not also provide with obligatory labour service as well as other kinds of obligations, with power in these societies exhibiting a convergence of economic and political spheres. I have pointed out on the basis of these definitions that the inputs and outputs of farming in India take the form of commodities and not use-values, they are goods that have been produced for the purchase of change whose transfer takes place through the cash nexus, being part of a global system based on commodity production, and that it is only because of the cash nexus that it has been possible for Indian producers to accumulate such large amounts of debt and commit suicide in increasing numbers as a result, I have pointed out that India exhibits high rates of rural to urban migration and that this is incompatible with the producers being tied to the land, I have pointed out that whilst cases of indentured labour do exist these cannot be evidence that the Indian countryside is pre-capitalist because the existence of these anomalies is still, as Marx makes clear in the Grundrisse, in the context of a capitalist system, such that they are subordinated to the accumulation of capital.

Yours has been a case without evidence or theory, designed solely to support a bankrupt politics.

Saorsa

18th October 2010, 11:51

The point is not that the Indian countryside is either entirely feudal or entirely capitalist.

The point is that widespread semi-feudal relationships coexist with specifically capitalist relationships in India. You can find countless examples of both.

I don't see what's so difficult to understand about this, yet you're consistently sidestepping the issue. Your lengthy posts attacking the concept that India is 'pre-capitalist' are attacking a strawman.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 11:55

The point is that widespread semi-feudal relationships coexist with specifically capitalist relationships in India. You can find countless examples of both.

So the American South was "semi-slave" or "semi-ancient", and these descriptions are valid for China, Brazil, and Mauritania today? After all, these countries had/have slavery and wage-labour existing alongside each other.

Your lengthy posts attacking the concept that India is 'pre-capitalist' are attacking a strawman.

It is the pre-capitalist dimension that looms large in Maoist strategy because it is carried through into the idea of New Democracy, which has as its major conclusion the view that working class is not able to or should not be allowed to pursue independent power in countries which lack an advanced industrial base and are, in the eyes of Maoists, something less than fully capitalist.

Queercommie Girl

18th October 2010, 12:41

Not sure if you should use this logic.. Capitalism exists therefore it must be necessary.. See? Just doesn't work. Unless you believe in fate or some kind of destiny nonsense.

You are missing the point.

Actually Marx never said that capitalism is "completely evil" or anything like that, but rather a necessary stage in human socio-economic development. Capitalism would create the giant industries and the modern industrial proletariat that would provide the ground for socialist society.

Historical materialism is obviously not "fate determined by God" or anything like that but it does suggest the human history develops according to some general patterns, e.g. capitalism emerging from feudalism, socialism emerging from capitalism etc.

But my point here is that not just anyone but some socialists, workers and peasants, especially those in the third world, must have seen some value in Maoism because they used Maoism as an ideological weapon against capitalism. Therefore by their concrete practice Maoism must have partial value at least even if it is flawed in some ways. After all, the essence of Marxism is all about the ability to apply concrete analysis to concrete situations, and it would be illogical to reject Maoism in the abstract, without even examining the real history of Maoism. That would be as bad as really believing in some kind of "religious-style fate".

red cat

18th October 2010, 13:05

He was perfectly correct to say that the establishment of British colonialism resulted in the destruction of pre-existing social forms. This, again, is a wrong statement. Mostly, the feudal-structure was reinforced and imperialist capital started acting through feudalism. Please give concrete examples of how British colonialism destroyed anything but a minor portion of pre-existing social relationships.

Firstly, you've already admitted that we're talking about a minority, which immediately makes pointing to indentured labour pretty useless if your thesis is that the social structure of the entire countryside of a vast country like India is pre-capitalist. It would be the equivalent of me pointing to cases of slavery in China in order to prove that China is currently pre-feudal. Secondly, Marx evidently did not believe that the number of producers who did not conform exactly to capitalist wage-labour was the important factor because he made it explicit that the owners of plantations in the southern United States that were based on the use of slave labour. If you think that Marx was mistaken in believing this and that the United States was actually a slave or semi-slave economy along the lines of ancient Greece and Rome then by all means say this, because, after all, Marx did make many mistakes of an analytical nature, but just know that, as far as Marxian analysis of modes of production is concerned, your point is totally invalid, it can't stand as evidence of non-capitalism in any way. I've made this point several times now, and you haven't engaged with it. But slavery in the US was introduced by capitalists themselves. In contrast to this, slavery in India dates its history back to thousands of years. In any civilization so far where capitalism has replaced feudalism and there has been no large forced foreign immigration, slavery has been destroyed by the natural needs of capital.

You haven't given any explanation of how peasants are actually tied to the land beyond vague references to different sets of factors and you've failed to deal with the fact that India has exhibited high rates of rural to urban migration, precisely because this shows that labour has become alienable and contradicts your entire a priori thesis of the Indian countryside being essentially feudal. You also reveal your blatant eurocentrism when you accept as a basic starting-point for a debate about the mode of production in India that it makes sense to talk about feudalism in an Asian context when many of the features that have been deemed central to feudalism have never existed in Asia or have existed in only a highly distorted form - in China if not India it was never the case that political offices and access to land were made hereditary and used as a way of maintaining a layered power structure in which regional lords would execute the policies of the sovereign at the same time as having a power base in their own right, in fact China was marked by the sale and purchase of land from an early point in its history, and from 1581 all taxes paid by peasants took the form of cash rather than produce. Utter rubbish yet again. It is you who is being eurocentric all the time, and you know that fully well. I dare you to describe Indian feudalism as it existed before the advent of British imperialism and the modifications brought into it later on, in details. If you have any intellectual credibility, you will do this.

...yet you continue to fail to provide evidence that dynamics such as these encompass a majority of Indian producers or show how they actually confirm the feudal character of the Indian countryside. The fact that these obligations rose as a result of monetary debts on the part of producers and that they take the form of contracts is not evidence that the Indian countryside has been able to remain feudal, not only because you've already admitted that the cash nexus was central to economic life by the time these eternal contracts came into being, but also because the formation of contracts between individuals is a dynamic that is specific to social and legal life under capitalist relations of production, being a reflection of the abolition of the elaborate differences of status associated with feudal society. What you need to do in this debate is the following: you need to provide an overview of how Marxists should differentiate one mode of production from another in abstract terms, that is, you need to give meaning to the concept of relations of production, the you need to identify the features that are distinctive of capitalism and feudalism, and then you need to show that there are features that are characteristic of feudalism that have remained in existence in India and that these features are enough to make the Indian countryside non-capitalist to one degree or another, whilst acknowledging that Marx himself did not believe that the existence of slavery in the American South was enough to make the South anything other than fully capitalist, and giving an account of why Marx was mistaken in this regard.

I have done all of these things for my case - I have shown that the relations of production are about the exercise of effective economic power over human labour power and the means of production, I have shown that capitalism is based around the alienability of labour and the exclusion of the producers from the means of production, the former of these being a specific dimension of the generalization of commodity production, and I have shown that feudalism differs from this in that it is characterized by producers having only partial control over their labour power, in that they are tied to a specific member of the ruling class whom they most likely give part of their produce in kind rather in cash (because production in feudal societies still takes the form of use vales) and may or may not also provide with obligatory labour service as well as other kinds of obligations, with power in these societies exhibiting a convergence of economic and political spheres. I have pointed out on the basis of these definitions that the inputs and outputs of farming in India take the form of commodities and not use-values, they are goods that have been produced for the purchase of change whose transfer takes place through the cash nexus, being part of a global system based on commodity production, and that it is only because of the cash nexus that it has been possible for Indian producers to accumulate such large amounts of debt and commit suicide in increasing numbers as a result, I have pointed out that India exhibits high rates of rural to urban migration and that this is incompatible with the producers being tied to the land, I have pointed out that whilst cases of indentured labour do exist these cannot be evidence that the Indian countryside is pre-capitalist because the existence of these anomalies is still, as Marx makes clear in the Grundrisse, in the context of a capitalist system, such that they are subordinated to the accumulation of capital.
Again, I challenge you to describe what was feudal India in details. I suspect you don't know a thing about it, no matter how much Marx you might have mugged up . Your analysis stands on nothing other than your own assertions about the present Indian situation. You need to know both Indian history and economics to do a real analysis, but unfortunately you know none of the two.

Yours has been a case without evidence or theory, designed solely to support a bankrupt politics.And we all know what your extremely rich theory, with European, Chinese and other non-Indian evidence, accompanied by the failure of your Indian comrades to achieve anything on Indian soil tells about your politics.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 15:12

Mostly, the feudal-structure was reinforced and imperialist capital started acting through feudalism.

There's absolutely no theoretical or analytical precision here whatsoever. How can capital act through feudalism, given that feudalism is a mode of production in which production assumes the form of use values rather than exchange values, when capital is defined by Marx as a sum of commodities and exchange values that are employed in production and exchanged with living labour power in order to expand and multiply themselves? The existence of capital as a social relation presupposes the generalization of commodity production and this is incompatible with any kind of feudalism because the distinguishing feature of feudalism and indeed all other pre-capitalist modes of production is that the production and exchange of commodities is restricted to only a small number of spheres of social life, the main part of production assuming the form of use values, that are either directly consumed by their producers or extracted through the use of coercion and political power rather than economic compulsion - and in fact one way of distinguishing capitalism from these modes of production is precisely the fact that the accumulation of surplus value does not necessitate the direct use of force and does not involve the clear demarcation of the part of the social product that the producers get to keep for themselves and the part that is extracted and taken by those who do not participate in productive labour, this difference being one of the main sources of mystification in capitalist systems, because it is not immediately clear to workers which part of the working day or their output assumes the form of surplus value. This kind of sloppy argumentation may be enough for ignorant Maoists, but it's not enough for Marxists.

What needs to be done in debates in all debates about modes of production and social formations is recognize that Marx had a distinctive epistemology, and that this epistemology was one that rejected the treatment of different elements of the world as discrete phenomena that can and should be analyzed in isolation from one another and linked together through the simply chains of causation that are characteristic of formal logic. The meaning of a dialectical approach to the social world, which is the epistemological framework central to the Marxist tradition, is to analyze the world as a totality, by understanding the ways in which concepts and phenomena are not only linked together but intersect with one another and can only be understood in the context of an integrated whole. This is what Lukacs means when he stresses that it is only the working class that can combat the fragmented worldview possessed by the bourgeoisie through the formation of a totalizing conception of the world, this conception being the Marxist method itself. You have failed to do this because you have pointed to phenomena like indentured labour without grasping the location of these phenomena in a capitalist world-system in which patterns of behavior and organization are being constantly reshaped according to the imperatives of capital accumulation. The implication of your view is that capital can be contained, that capital is not an inherently destructive and transformative force, which is perhaps why we should see the Maoist doctrines of semi-feudalism and socialism in one country as being closely linked together, because they both embody the assumption that capitalism does not carry with it an internal dynamic of expansion and negation, and that it is possible for capitalist and non-capitalist societies to exist alongside each other over the long term.

Please give concrete examples of how British colonialism destroyed anything but a minor portion of pre-existing social relationships.

One of the most important processes was the appropriation of all land that was not already in private hands as "Crown land", so that laborers no longer had direct access to the waste land that had previously limited their dependence on the ruling class. This was an especially important process when we consider the shift between one form of exploitation to another because the fact that there were previously areas of land that were held in common or at least not directly controlled by the Zamindars meant that the Zamindars were forced to use violence in order to prevent tenants from leaving the land, especially when cultivators were scarce, this use of violence being possible grounds for seeing the pre-colonial economy as having similarities with feudalism, whereas the appropriation of waste land meant that the pressure on producers to become dependent on the Zamindars took the form of economic compulsion alone, simply because there were no viable alternatives, even though the transfer of surplus continued to take place through sharecropping. The second half of the 19th century was marked by the development of infrastructural links between the Indian countryside and the cities which allowed for a move towards cash crops that could not otherwise have been transported economically, and when combined with the destruction of indigenous artisan industry, which resulted in artisans being forced to become laborers on the land, this meant that the products of peasants were being transported overseas and used in the production of industrial commodities such as textiles within Britain, and in the expansion of British capital, in contrast to the localized production and appropriation characteristic of feudalism.

These were enormous transformations, the fact that you're not aware of them shows who has access to the facts in this debate. However, I'm not here to remedy your poor knowledge of India. You are the only one who needs to prove their intellectual credibility, of which you ultimately have none, being a eurocentric Maoist who has no grasp either of Marx's theory of history or the history of British colonialism in India.

In any civilization so far where capitalism has replaced feudalism and there has been no large forced foreign immigration, slavery has been destroyed by the natural needs of capital.

Nonsense, slavery exists in China today, and China is neither feudal nor a slave-based society, and it has not witnessed "large forced foreign immigration" either. I have always accepted that it is possible for capitalist societies to exhibit phenomena that do not conform to the ideal-type of wage-labour in which capitalists and workers confront each other as legal equals, but I accept that these phenomena do not negate the capitalist character of the societies in which they occur because they are subordinate to the imperatives of capitalist accumulation, they do not in any sense exist independently or outside of the circuit of capital.

red cat

18th October 2010, 15:56

There's absolutely no theoretical or analytical precision here whatsoever. How can capital act through feudalism, given that feudalism is a mode of production in which production assumes the form of use values rather than exchange values, when capital is defined by Marx as a sum of commodities and exchange values that are employed in production and exchanged with living labour power in order to expand and multiply themselves? The existence of capital as a social relation presupposes the generalization of commodity production and this is incompatible with any kind of feudalism because the distinguishing feature of feudalism and indeed all other pre-capitalist modes of production is that the production and exchange of commodities is restricted to only a small number of spheres of social life, the main part of production assuming the form of use values, that are either directly consumed by their producers or extracted through the use of coercion and political power rather than economic compulsion - and in fact one way of distinguishing capitalism from these modes of production is precisely the fact that the accumulation of surplus value does not necessitate the direct use of force and does not involve the clear demarcation of the part of the social product that the producers get to keep for themselves and the part that is extracted and taken by those who do not participate in productive labour, this difference being one of the main sources of mystification in capitalist systems, because it is not immediately clear to workers which part of the working day or their output assumes the form of surplus value.
Read up on the indigo revolt before posting your walls of text.

This kind of sloppy argumentation may be enough for ignorant Maoists, but it's not enough for Marxists.May be so, may be not, but this statement has some credibility only if it comes from a Marxist, which you are not. The reluctance of your Indian comrades to move against the ruling class has proved that.

What needs to be done in debates in all debates about modes of production and social formations is recognize that Marx had a distinctive epistemology, and that this epistemology was one that rejected the treatment of different elements of the world as discrete phenomena that can and should be analyzed in isolation from one another and linked together through the simply chains of causation that are characteristic of formal logic. The meaning of a dialectical approach to the social world, which is the epistemological framework central to the Marxist tradition, is to analyze the world as a totality, by understanding the ways in which concepts and phenomena are not only linked together but intersect with one another and can only be understood in the context of an integrated whole. This is what Lukacs means when he stresses that it is only the working class that can combat the fragmented worldview possessed by the bourgeoisie through the formation of a totalizing conception of the world, this conception being the Marxist method itself. You have failed to do this because you have pointed to phenomena like indentured labour without grasping the location of these phenomena in a capitalist world-system in which patterns of behavior and organization are being constantly reshaped according to the imperatives of capital accumulation. The implication of your view is that capital can be contained, that capital is not an inherently destructive and transformative force, which is perhaps why we should see the Maoist doctrines of semi-feudalism and socialism in one country as being closely linked together, because they both embody the assumption that capitalism does not carry with it an internal dynamic of expansion and negation, and that it is possible for capitalist and non-capitalist societies to exist alongside each other over the long term. How about posting the detailed revolutionary programme and achievements of your Indian comrades that must be the consequences of your awesome theory ?

One of the most important processes was the appropriation of all land that was not already in private hands as "Crown land", so that laborers no longer had direct access to the waste land that had previously limited their dependence on the ruling class. This was an especially important process when we consider the shift between one form of exploitation to another because the fact that there were previously areas of land that were held in common or at least not directly controlled by the Zamindars meant that the Zamindars were forced to use violence in order to prevent tenants from leaving the land, especially when cultivators were scarce, this use of violence being possible grounds for seeing the pre-colonial economy as having similarities with feudalism, whereas the appropriation of waste land meant that the pressure on producers to become dependent on the Zamindars took the form of economic compulsion alone, simply because there were no viable alternatives, even though the transfer of surplus continued to take place through sharecropping. The second half of the 19th century was marked by the development of infrastructural links between the Indian countryside and the cities which allowed for a move towards cash crops that could not otherwise have been transported economically, and when combined with the destruction of indigenous artisan industry, which resulted in artisans being forced to become laborers on the land, this meant that the products of peasants were being transported overseas and used in the production of industrial commodities such as textiles within Britain, and in the expansion of British capital, in contrast to the localized production and appropriation characteristic of feudalism. If we assume the above paragraph to be factually correct, then your deduction implies that though the communal lands were seized through political and military means, the system should be called "capitalist" because the result was "economic" compulsion of peasants to depend on the feudal-lords, right ?

These were enormous transformations, the fact that you're not aware of them shows who has access to the facts in this debate. However, I'm not here to remedy your poor knowledge of India. You are the only one who needs to prove their intellectual credibility, of which you ultimately have none, being a eurocentric Maoist who has no grasp either of Marx's theory of history or the history of British colonialism in India.
It's funny how you keep accusing me of ignorance and eurocentrism, when those are the key features of your post. Your arrogance won't help you in establishing a single point in this debate.

Nonsense, slavery exists in China today, and China is neither feudal nor a slave-based society, and it has not witnessed "large forced foreign immigration" either. I have always accepted that it is possible for capitalist societies to exhibit phenomena that do not conform to the ideal-type of wage-labour in which capitalists and workers confront each other as legal equals, but I accept that these phenomena do not negate the capitalist character of the societies in which they occur because they are subordinate to the imperatives of capitalist accumulation, they do not in any sense exist independently or outside of the circuit of capital.Slavery existing in infinitesimally small pockets in a place is quite different from about 10% of the population being subject to it. Don't try to wriggle away from this fact.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 19:12

Read up on the indigo revolt before posting your walls of text.

If you think that some facet of the Indigo Revolt refutes what I said, then say so, don't post snarky comments that add absolutely nothing to the discussion.

The reluctance of your Indian comrades to move against the ruling class has proved that.

How about posting the detailed revolutionary programme and achievements of your Indian comrades that must be the consequences of your awesome theory?

It's pretty telling that you have to start coming out with these claims and demands when you can't win a debate on factual or theoretical grounds. I'm not a member of any organization so there aren't any people in India who are members of the same organization as me. It is logically flawed to say that the Maoist strategy must be the right one simply because it is the Maoists who make most of the headlines and because they are one of the largest left-wing forces in the entire country, not least in terms of the land under their control, because, as an argumentative approach, it is innately conservative - if you accept that the popularity and hegemony of a given set of strategies and analyses is a valid indication of whether those strategies and analyses are correct or not then you no longer have any logical basis for criticizing the prevailing trend even when it might be fatally flawed, because, being prevailing, it must be valid. What determines the validity of a set of strategies or analyses is not whether they are widely accepted on the left, but whether they offer the working class the tools it needs to emancipate itself. So let's debate the validity of Maoism on those grounds. If you can point to a single cases of where the Maoist strategy of building base areas in the countryside and seeking a period of New Democracy in order to develop a national capitalist economy has actually led to the attainment of socialism then that would be a good argument in favour of Maoism actually having something to offer the workers of countries like India, but you won't be able to provide a single example of where Maoism has done this, because there is not a single case of the Maoist strategy having led to socialism, anywhere, ever.

Go on, I dare you. Point to a single example of where Maoism has led to socialism.

If we assume the above paragraph to be factually correct, then your deduction implies that though the communal lands were seized through political and military means, the system should be called "capitalist" because the result was "economic" compulsion of peasants to depend on the feudal-lords, right ?

It's not a matter of assuming that it's correct, it is. If you don't think so, say so, don't hide from the key issues.

You seem to be saying that there is a contradiction or tension between capitalism coming into being through the armed power of the state and capitalist relations of production operating through economic compulsion rather than through the use of force. There is no tension or contradiction here whatsoever. Marx himself was conscious of the role played by the state in establishing capitalism in Britain, which is self-evidently not a feudal society. The reason Marx devotes the last chapters of the first volume of Capital to examining the ways in which the process of primitive accumulation took place under the guidance of the state, with the aim of creating a reserve army of labour and the concentration of exchange values to form capital, is because, from his point of view, the institutional separation between politics and economics under capitalism can create the illusion that the state played no role in the creation of the preconditions for capitalist accumulation, and that the bourgeoisie acquired their property through peaceful contracts and exchanges, with the differentiation of capitalists from workers being rooted in the superior natural faculties of the former, whereas what Marx is doing is showing that the state did play an important role in the elimination of the last barriers to capital accumulation, in spite of the fact that capitalism itself no longer embodies the convergence of economic and political power in the same way that pre-capitalist modes of production did, because capitalism does not necessitate the use of direct force and coercion, at the point of production rather than as a background guarantor of bourgeois interests, to extract surplus value. It's that simple. I don't see what's hard to understand.

Needless to say, the fact that labour power is alienable and that workers remaining on the land is a result of economic compulsion means that the term "feudal lords" is meaningless.

Slavery existing in infinitesimally small pockets in a place is quite different from about 10% of the population being subject to it. Don't try to wriggle away from this fact.

How much of a population exhibits indentured labour logically depends on your sample. If you limit you analysis to a particular Indian village where indentured labour happens to be high, you would probably find that much more than ten percent of the population exhibits that condition. You would get the same result if you looked solely at many brothels in developed countries, where indentured labour is also present. If you looked at India as a whole, on the other hand, you would not find that ten percent of the population is indentured, and the figure would be even less if you looked at the entire world, keeping in mind that capitalism is an integrated world-system in which countries cannot be analyzed as independent or isolated units. This is not the real issue, however, the real issue is not whether ten or twenty or forty percent of the population exhibits indentured labour, given that a very large proportion of the population was enslaved in the American South, the issue is that, where and when it exists, indentured labour does not exist outside of the broader framework of the capitalist system, it does not exist as an independent social phenomena, that can be analyzed as a discrete entity. It is subordinated to the dynamic of capital accumulation, this being the dynamic that makes capitalism a system that is inherently expansionist - something you deny, because you think that capitalist and pre-capitalist societies can exist alongside each other over the long term - and inimical to rational human control. I have stressed this point already in this discussion and you've yet to provide a response.

red cat

18th October 2010, 19:49

If you think that some facet of the Indigo Revolt refutes what I said, then say so, don't post snarky comments that add absolutely nothing to the discussion.

You have been doing just that throughout the whole discussion.

Anyways, read about the indigo revolt in details, then you will know how imperialist capital can act through a feudal structure.

It's pretty telling that you have to start coming out with these claims and demands when you can't win a debate on factual or theoretical grounds. I'm not a member of any organization so there aren't any people in India who are members of the same organization as me. It is logically flawed to say that the Maoist strategy must be the right one simply because it is the Maoists who make most of the headlines and because they are one of the largest left-wing forces in the entire country, not least in terms of the land under their control, because, as an argumentative approach, it is innately conservative - if you accept that the popularity and hegemony of a given set of strategies and analyses is a valid indication of whether those strategies and analyses are correct or not then you no longer have any logical basis for criticizing the prevailing trend even when it might be fatally flawed, because, being prevailing, it must be valid. What determines the validity of a set of strategies or analyses is not whether they are widely accepted on the left, but whether they offer the working class the tools it needs to emancipate itself. So let's debate the validity of Maoism on those grounds. If you can point to a single cases of where the Maoist strategy of building base areas in the countryside and seeking a period of New Democracy in order to develop a national capitalist economy has actually led to the attainment of socialism then that would be a good argument in favour of Maoism actually having something to offer the workers of countries like India, but you won't be able to provide a single example of where Maoism has done this, because there is not a single case of the Maoist strategy having led to socialism, anywhere, ever.

Go on, I dare you. Point to a single example of where Maoism has led to socialism. You know very well that Maoists hold both the USSR and PRC to have been socialist at some point. I think you want to divert the thread to another Trotsky versus Mao or Stalin debate so that the main issues here are liquidated. My question is specific to India. There are Trotskyite organizations like the CWI in India. If Trotskyite analysis is so true, then why are they not conducting workers' movements to overthrow the bourgeoisie ? On the other hand, the Maoist programme of revolution is being effectively carried out. How do you explain the failure of the Indian CWI to achieve anything substancial in India when such favourable conditions for revolution exist ?

It's not a matter of assuming that it's correct, it is. If you don't think so, say so, don't hide from the key issues.

You seem to be saying that there is a contradiction or tension between capitalism coming into being through the armed power of the state and capitalist relations of production operating through economic compulsion rather than through the use of force. There is no tension or contradiction here whatsoever. Marx himself was conscious of the role played by the state in establishing capitalism in Britain, which is self-evidently not a feudal society. The reason Marx devotes the last chapters of the first volume of Capital to examining the ways in which the process of primitive accumulation took place under the guidance of the state, with the aim of creating a reserve army of labour and the concentration of exchange values to form capital, is because, from his point of view, the institutional separation between politics and economics under capitalism can create the illusion that the state played no role in the creation of the preconditions for capitalist accumulation, and that the bourgeoisie acquired their property through peaceful contracts and exchanges, with the differentiation of capitalists from workers being rooted in the superior natural faculties of the former, whereas what Marx is doing is showing that the state did play an important role in the elimination of the last barriers to capital accumulation, in spite of the fact that capitalism itself no longer embodies the convergence of economic and political power in the same way that pre-capitalist modes of production did, because capitalism does not necessitate the use of direct force and coercion, at the point of production rather than as a background guarantor of bourgeois interests, to extract surplus value. It's that simple. I don't see what's hard to understand.

Needless to say, the fact that labour power is alienable and that workers remaining on the land is a result of economic compulsion means that the term "feudal lords" is meaningless. I am quoting my earlier question, and the answer needs to be either yes or no; not another wall of text that sums up to nothing:

If we assume the above paragraph to be factually correct, then your deduction implies that though the communal lands were seized through political and military means, the system should be called "capitalist" because the result was "economic" compulsion of peasants to depend on the feudal-lords, right ? I am asking another specific question. After the British invasion, was the Indian peasant tied to the land only through economic means ? How was the he tied to the land before that ? Answer to the point.

How much of a population exhibits indentured labour logically depends on your sample. If you limit you analysis to a particular Indian village where indentured labour happens to be high, you would probably find that much more than ten percent of the population exhibits that condition. You would get the same result if you looked solely at many brothels in developed countries, where indentured labour is also present. If you looked at India as a whole, on the other hand, you would not find that ten percent of the population is indentured, and the figure would be even less if you looked at the entire world, keeping in mind that capitalism is an integrated world-system in which countries cannot be analyzed as independent or isolated units. This is not the real issue, however, the real issue is not whether ten or twenty or forty percent of the population exhibits indentured labour, given that a very large proportion of the population was enslaved in the American South, the issue is that, where and when it exists, indentured labour does not exist outside of the broader framework of the capitalist system, it does not exist as an independent social phenomena, that can be analyzed as a discrete entity. It is subordinated to the dynamic of capital accumulation, this being the dynamic that makes capitalism a system that is inherently expansionist - something you deny, because you think that capitalist and pre-capitalist societies can exist alongside each other over the long term - and inimical to rational human control. I have stressed this point already in this discussion and you've yet to provide a response.I repeat, my point: show me another "capitalist" society where about 10% of the total population are bonded-labourers and where such labourers have not been forcefully imported from foreign lands.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 20:28

Anyways, read about the indigo revolt in details, then you will know how imperialist capital can act through a feudal structure.

This seems to be your way of saying that you don't have an argument. The Indigo plantations were fully integrated into the global circuit of capitalist accumulation, in fact the establishment of the plantations was motivated by the high demand available for blue indigo in continental Europe and Britain at the time, so that the indigo itself was produced for the purpose of exchange, not geared towards the consumption of any feudal lords, with the farmers being paid (albeit poorly) by the planters, because the goods they were producing were no longer for their own subsistence. It was an economic sector based around the production of exchange values in the interests of global capital accumulation.

I think you want to divert the thread to another Trotsky versus Mao or Stalin debate so that the main issues here are liquidated.

You were the only one who tried to hide your inability to grapple with the real issues by defending the Maoists on the grounds that they are the most visible force on the left. If you don't want to discuss whether there is any good reason to see Maoist strategy as historically successful, and therefore likely to lead to socialism in India today, then don't raise the issue. For the record, I'm not a member of the CWI, nor do I support the CWI, and as a general position I don't think that the revolutionary party is something that can just be organized at any given point in time and used as a way of creating the conditions for revolution, rather, it is something that emerges from the course of working-class struggles themselves, possibly around existing organizations, possibly as a result of the convergence of multiple organizations - what is important is that the party is not an organization that claims to be or represent the proletariat, which is what the Maoists do because they lack any actual roots amongst the empirically existing working class.

So again, if you want to show how a Maoist organization has ever carried out a revolution or attained socialism anywhere, ever, then feel free.

I am quoting my earlier question, and the answer needs to be either yes or no

The answer is yes, of course the fact that capitalism came into being through state action does not conflict with capitalism being a mode of production under which coercion does not play a direct role in the extraction of surplus value. This is basic.

I am asking another specific question

I'm not here to answer your questions, it's your problem if you don't know enough about India. I've already outlined the transformations that were introduced by British rule in India, you haven't responded.

I repeat, my point: show me another "capitalist" society where about 10% of the total population are bonded-labourers and where such labourers have not been forcefully imported from foreign lands.

This isn't a point. You haven't shown that the ten percent figure that you keep quoting is empirically valid, which I doubt, and more importantly you haven't shown that, assuming its validity, it is actually evidence in favor of India being anything other than capitalist - regardless of whether the existence of indentured labour arose as a result of the importation of foreign laborers or not. I've already explained to you on several occasions why the existence of social relationships that do not conform exactly to the ideal type of wage-labour does not negate the overall capitalist character of the society in which they are located, because these relationships are still integrated into the circuit of capitalist accumulation and situated in a global capitalist system - regardless of how prevalent they are. If you're interested in cases of bonded labour outside of India then look at the examples of Brazil, Mauritania, and China, which I've already given you - in Brazil alone there are up to 50,000 slaves according to the ILO, and half a million in Mauritania according to SOS Slaves, which is the main anti-slavery organization in the country, representing just under 20% of the entire population. This is higher than 10%, you can go on the SOS Slaves website to check this. We can only assume that you believe that Mauritania is a "semi-ancient" or "semi-slave" society, according to your logic.

red cat

18th October 2010, 21:01

This seems to be your way of saying that you don't have an argument. The Indigo plantations were fully integrated into the global circuit of capitalist accumulation, in fact the establishment of the plantations was motivated by the high demand available for blue indigo in continental Europe and Britain at the time, so that the indigo itself was produced for the purpose of exchange, not geared towards the consumption of any feudal lords, with the farmers being paid (albeit poorly) by the planters, because the goods they were producing were no longer for their own subsistence. It was an economic sector based around the production of exchange values in the interests of global capital accumulation.

Three questions :

1) Were the peasants politically and militarily forced to take loans and buy the material necessary for indigo cultivation, and that too from particular people, or not ?

2) Were the peasants politically and militarily forced to engage in indigo farming or not ?

3) Were the peasants politically and militarily forced to sell their produce of indigo to particular people at rates decided by the buyers themselves or not ?

To the point answers wanted again.

You were the only one who tried to hide your inability to grapple with the real issues by defending the Maoists on the grounds that they are the most visible force on the left. If you don't want to discuss whether there is any good reason to see Maoist strategy as historically successful, and therefore likely to lead to socialism in India today, then don't raise the issue. For the record, I'm not a member of the CWI, nor do I support the CWI, and as a general position I don't think that the revolutionary party is something that can just be organized at any given point in time and used as a way of creating the conditions for revolution, rather, it is something that emerges from the course of working-class struggles themselves, possibly around existing organizations, possibly as a result of the convergence of multiple organizations...It is good to see that you do not support the CWI. Anyways, why didn't any Trotskyite party emerge in India through any workers' struggle, while a Maoist one did ?

- what is important is that the party is not an organization that claims to be or represent the proletariat, which is what the Maoists do because they lack any actual roots amongst the empirically existing working class. Prove it.

So again, if you want to show how a Maoist organization has ever carried out a revolution or attained socialism anywhere, ever, then feel free.

There have been specific debates on these earlier here many times. If you want to learn about socialist USSR and PRC, then start a new thread for the same.

The answer is yes, of course the fact that capitalism came into being through state action does not conflict with capitalism being a mode of production under which coercion does not play a direct role in the extraction of surplus value. This is basic. Wrong. The communal lands, which were only a part of the lands the peasants tilled, were taken away militarily and politically. This made the peasants economically more dependent on the feudal lord. This is a reinforcement of the feudal structure, not its transformation to a capitalist one.

I'm not here to answer your questions, it's your problem if you don't know enough about India. I've already outlined the transformations that were introduced by British rule in India, you haven't responded. No, it's your problem that you don't know enough about India and think that others don't. And when it comes to India, I won't be satisfied with a vague outline instead of a detailed study.

This isn't a point. You haven't shown that the ten percent figure that you keep quoting is empirically valid, which I doubt, and more importantly you haven't shown that, assuming its validity, it is actually evidence in favor of India being anything other than capitalist - regardless of whether the existence of indentured labour arose as a result of the importation of foreign laborers or not. I've already explained to you on several occasions why the existence of social relationships that do not conform exactly to the ideal type of wage-labour does not negate the overall capitalist character of the society in which they are located, because these relationships are still integrated into the circuit of capitalist accumulation and situated in a global capitalist system - regardless of how prevalent they are. If you're interested in cases of bonded labour outside of India then look at the examples of Brazil, Mauritania, and China, which I've already given you - in Brazil alone there are up to 50,000 slaves according to the ILO, and half a million in Mauritania according to SOS Slaves, which is the main anti-slavery organization in the country, representing just under 20% of the entire population. This is higher than 10%, you can go on the SOS Slaves website to check this. We can only assume that you believe that Mauritania is a "semi-ancient" or "semi-slave" society, according to your logic.Check out the caste structure of India from wherever you can. The data will be largely inaccurate, because the Indian government has been preventing a caste based consensus taking place, as it will reveal the ugly face of bonded-labour still going on in India. But still, you can get a rough idea of how many Indians are Kshudras, dalits and tribals. Most of these populations are subject to bonded-labour.

You have given examples of countries Maoists hold to be semi feudal - semi colonial in nature. The problem is that I don't know enough about these countries and from the poor knowledge of India you have shown so far, I won't believe your words or sources either. So it will be appropriate if you are able to show where in most prominent capitalist societies like West Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, PRC, Japan etc. something like 10% of the population are slaves.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 21:34

To the point answers wanted again.

I'll give whichever type of answer I think is appropriate, not the type of answer that a eurocentrist like you demands. You know that the use of force was central to the original creation of the indigo plantations and so do I, but what you haven't acknowledged is why the colonial authorities in cooperation with the planters decided to set up indigo plantations in the first place - to understand the importance of this issue we have to go back to the fact that capitalist and feudal societies are distinguished from one another by whether goods are produced for the purpose of exchange or for consumption by their producers, and in the case of indigo planting in India it is self-evident that the plantations were established in order to meet the demand for indigo dye in the most advanced capitalist countries, so that the produce of the plantations took the form of commodities, that is, goods produced for the purpose of exchange, and what this meant was that the state of the indigo sector in India was effectively determined by the size of the market for indigo-related products in Britain and other European countries, rather than it being isolated from these broader economic developments and processes. The history of indigo production affirms what I have been arguing throughout the entire discussion - the defining feature of capitalism is not whether each and every social relationship adheres to the ideal-type of wage-labour whereby the capitalist and the workers confront each other as legal equals and labour is alienable in every way possible, it is the fact that commodity production is more or less generalized (even if the complete transformation of labour power itself into a commodity takes place over a period of time) and that capital is employed in the production process with the aim of expanding itself, with the circulation of commodities and accumulation of capital constituting themselves as forces that come to control human beings and determine their economic activity, which is exactly what happened in the case of indigo, as the history of the plantations can only be understood when it is put in the context of a global capitalist system.

If you want to have a discussion, stop trying to turn the debate into some socratic process, and make your own points. I'm not here to respond to your questions.

Anyways, why didn't any Trotskyite party emerge in India through any workers' struggle, while a Maoist one did ?

The Maoists did not emerge from a workers' struggle, unless you think that the Naxalbari uprising was a struggle of the working class, in which case your entire semi-feudalism thesis comes toppling down, because the working class is a distinctive feature of capitalism. You cannot have it both ways - either Maoism grew out of working-class struggles, and India is capitalist, or Maoism emerged in the conditions of a feudal society. It is not my job to defend "Trotskyite" praxis, and I don't believe that the formation of a revolutionary party is possible outside of a revolutionary situation.

Wrong. The communal lands, which were only a part of the lands the peasants tilled, were taken away militarily and politically

As they were in Britain through the enclosures, as analyzed by Marx in the last chapters of Capital volume one, which led to the producers having no choice but to move to the urban areas where they made themselves available to the incipient industrial bourgeoisie as a source of cheap labour. Without blurring over the important differences between the two countries, India also exhibit the appropriation of the commons, and this was important because it meant that the pressure on producers to work on the fields of the Zamindars increasingly took the form of economic compulsion when previously the Zamindars had been compelled to use ongoing force at the point of production in order to ensure that there were sufficient producers to work on their own lands. The diminishing importance of direct coercion was part of the shift of Zamindars away from being feudal rulers and towards being agrarian capitalists. There is nothing about this process that suggests that India is currently feudal or that British imperialism did not eliminate pre-existing social formations.

And when it comes to India, I won't be satisfied with a vague outline instead of a detailed study.

I'm not going to give you "a detailed study", you should find the time to familiarize yourself with the mode of production debate. All that is clear from this discussion is that you have no idea what you were talking about.

Most of these populations are subject to bonded-labour.

Still no evidence from you, nor any explanation of what this means or why it makes India feudal.

You have given examples of countries Maoists hold to be semi feudal - semi colonial in nature

Yes, Maoists do think this, and, as we've seen in this thread, they do so largely on the basis that they see cases of indentured labour in these countries and assume that these cases must make the country feudal - in which case it makes absolutely no sense to demand examples of capitalist countries that exhibit high levels of bonded labour because, from your point of view, the existence of bonded labour is enough to make a country feudal. It's like demanding examples of a blind person who can see, for want of a better analogy. What you haven't done is give any explanation of why any level of prevalence of bonded labour should make a society feudal when cases of bonded labour are, as I've been stressing again and again, not independent of the circuit of capital accumulation, not capable of being studied in isolation as discrete entities, but integrated into the capitalist-world system, orientated towards the production of commodities, and subordinated to broader economic processes. This is made unambiguous by Marx's point in the Grundrisse, which I cited right at the beginning of this discussion.

WeAreReborn

18th October 2010, 21:49

You are missing the point.

Actually Marx never said that capitalism is "completely evil" or anything like that, but rather a necessary stage in human socio-economic development. Capitalism would create the giant industries and the modern industrial proletariat that would provide the ground for socialist society.

Historical materialism is obviously not "fate determined by God" or anything like that but it does suggest the human history develops according to some general patterns, e.g. capitalism emerging from feudalism, socialism emerging from capitalism etc.

But my point here is that not just anyone but some socialists, workers and peasants, especially those in the third world, must have seen some value in Maoism because they used Maoism as an ideological weapon against capitalism. Therefore by their concrete practice Maoism must have partial value at least even if it is flawed in some ways. After all, the essence of Marxism is all about the ability to apply concrete analysis to concrete situations, and it would be illogical to reject Maoism in the abstract, without even examining the real history of Maoism. That would be as bad as really believing in some kind of "religious-style fate".
I know I was half making a joke. But in a way nothing is completely evil but in my opinion, Capitalism should be avoided. And maybe some form of Capitalism is needed but I'm pretty sure Marx didn't envision advanced modern global capitalism like it is today, not that I am saying that is what you were implying at all, just simply pointing it out. But I think we shouldn't wait around for the "natural" changes in society and change it ourselves, that is when the mass is informed.

I don't complete reject Maoism for being effective where it was, although I think Mao didn't make a great society, as it was governed but sure his tactics were efficient but now a days we should focus on the situation at hand and deal with it on a purely situational basis.

red cat

18th October 2010, 22:08

I'll give whichever type of answer I think is appropriate, not the type of answer that a eurocentrist like you demands.

Being specific about India is not eurocentrism, knowing nothing about India and still making vague points about it with reference to Marxism is eurocentrism, which is what exactly you are doing.

You know that the use of force was central to the original creation of the indigo plantations and so do I, but what you haven't acknowledged is why the colonial authorities in cooperation with the planters decided to set up indigo plantations in the first place - to understand the importance of this issue we have to go back to the fact that capitalist and feudal societies are distinguished from one another by whether goods are produced for the purpose of exchange or for consumption by their producers, and in the case of indigo planting in India it is self-evident that the plantations were established in order to meet the demand for indigo dye in the most advanced capitalist countries, so that the produce of the plantations took the form of commodities, that is, goods produced for the purpose of exchange, and what this meant was that the state of the indigo sector in India was effectively determined by the size of the market for indigo-related products in Britain and other European countries, rather than it being isolated from these broader economic developments and processes. The history of indigo production affirms what I have been arguing throughout the entire discussion - the defining feature of capitalism is not whether each and every social relationship adheres to the ideal-type of wage-labour whereby the capitalist and the workers confront each other as legal equals and labour is alienable in every way possible, it is the fact that commodity production is more or less generalized (even if the complete transformation of labour power itself into a commodity takes place over a period of time) and that capital is employed in the production process with the aim of expanding itself, with the circulation of commodities and accumulation of capital constituting themselves as forces that come to control human beings and determine their economic activity, which is exactly what happened in the case of indigo.The concepts of wage labour, and the worker having the right to choose under whom he works are central to capitalism. A system that does not fulfill these conditions cannot be called capitalist.

If you want to have a discussion, stop trying to turn the debate into some socratic process, and make your own points. I'm not here to respond to your questions. Of course, because you don't know the answers. You should admit that.

The Maoists did not emerge from a workers' struggle, unless you think that the Naxalbari uprising was a struggle of the working class, in which case your entire semi-feudalism thesis comes toppling down, because the working class is a distinctive feature of capitalism. You cannot have it both ways - either Maoism grew out of working-class struggles, and India is capitalist, or Maoism emerged in the conditions of a feudal society.The Maoists did not pop out of Naxalbari movement. Communist revolutionaries had been forming their cores since the 1940s; a time when the proletariat started seizing the leadership of revolutionary movements from the national bourgeoisie. There had been huge workers' and peasants' struggles in India since then. For example the workers' struggles in support of the naval revolt. From the failure of achieving military victory over the ruling class, careful plans of starting with the seizure of power in the countryside began to be chalked out. However, due to lack of proper planning, the Indian working class, under the banner of MLM, had again tried to seize power in particular cities just after the Naxalbari insurrections, and failed due to the semi feudal - semi colonial nature of the society. After that the urban working class has been engaging in mass movements to make whatever gain possible and defend the peoples' war, and will conduct insurrections only when it is sure of winning.

And Maoism growing out of working class struggle does not imply that India is capitalist. Due to imperialist capital acting through feudalism, the working class exists in India, though in a very weak form. However, though it is still weak to conduct urban insurrections, it is strong enough to provide class-leadership over the ongoing peoples' war.

It is not my job to defend "Trotskyite" praxis, and I don't believe that the formation of a revolutionary party is possible outside of a revolutionary situation. So you mean that there is no revolutionary situation in India at present ?

As they were in Britain through the enclosures, as analyzed by Marx in the last chapters of Capital volume one, which led to the producers having no choice but to move to the urban areas where they made themselves available to the incipient industrial bourgeoisie as a source of cheap labour. Without blurring over the important differences between the two countries, India also exhibit the appropriation of the commons, and this was important because it meant that the pressure on producers to work on the fields of the Zamindars increasingly took the form of economic compulsion when previously the Zamindars had been compelled to use ongoing force at the point of production in order to ensure that there were sufficient producers to work on their own lands. The diminishing importance of direct coercion was part of the shift of Zamindars away from being feudal rulers and towards being agrarian capitalists. There is nothing about this process that suggests that India is currently feudal or that British imperialism did not eliminate pre-existing social formations. Yet again you start demonstrating your eurocentrism. In Britain the transformation was towards capitalism as the peasants left the villages, which resulted in most of the population turning into the urban proletariat. In India it was a reinforcement of feudalism, so that the peasants remained in villages, which is why most of the population is still rural.

I'm not going to give you "a detailed study", you should find the time to familiarize yourself with the mode of production debate. All that is clear from this discussion is that you have no idea what you were talking about.

Stop making excuses to hide your ignorance.

Still no evidence from you, nor any explanation of what this means or why it makes India feudal. What kind of evidence do you want ? If I provide evidence will it settle the question once and for all ?

Yes, Maoists do think this, and, as we've seen in this thread, they do so largely on the basis that they see cases of indentured labour in these countries and assume that these cases must make the country feudal - in which case it makes absolutely no sense to demand examples of capitalist countries that exhibit high levels of bonded labour because, from your point of view, the existence of bonded labour is enough to make a country feudal. It's like demanding examples of a blind person who can see, for want of a better analogy. What you haven't done is given any explanation of why any level of prevalence of bonded labour should make a society feudal when cases of bonded labour are, as I've been stressing again and again, not independent of the circuit of capital accumulation, not capable of being studied in isolation as discrete entities, but integrated into the capitalist-world system, orientated towards the production of commodities, and subordinate to broader economic processes.In a capitalist system the capitalists compete with each other. When such a system grows, the capitalists will search for cheaper and cheaper labour force, so that large land holdings etc. will offer wages and select the cheapest labourer. This way, the existing bonded labourers will have enough opportunity to flee to some such land holding, which they cannot do in a feudal system, as each lord has his own fixed labourers, and the fleeing bonded-labourer is captured before he goes far enough. So a capitalist system will not have slaves until they have huge monopolies that agree to cooperate and import slaves from a different system.

Saorsa

18th October 2010, 22:33

Here's a hint from a Revleft veteran. If you post gigantic walls of text, people will drop out of the conversation.

It helps to make your points succinctly and in as to the point a way as possible. This isn't a university debating chamber. You don't get extra points for verbosity.

Reznov

18th October 2010, 23:13

I'd say not really that much, but there are still some Maoist ideas which might be useful, such as in principle value the pesantry a bit more highly (consider them as a "semi-leading class" rather than not revolutionary at all) even though the peasantry is only a small proportion of the overall population in Western countries; more focus on mobilising the oppressed ethnic minorities (such as Blacks and Asians) in Western countries rather than the white trade unionist elites; the doctrine of "continuous revolution"; "mass line" and the full integration of the party with the masses etc.

Regarding to what you said about "mobilising" the "oppressed ethnic minorities (such as blacks and asians)

Are you saying this is what Maoists in Western countries are doing?

Or what they should be trying to do?

Weezer

18th October 2010, 23:21

I dont trust Trotskyites. I know they are capable of all manner of dishonesty.

So is every human being.

Queercommie Girl

18th October 2010, 23:24

Regarding to what you said about "mobilising" the "oppressed ethnic minorities (such as blacks and asians)

Are you saying this is what Maoists in Western countries are doing?

Or what they should be trying to do?

I'm not actually suggesting anything concrete, since I don't even label myself an orthodox Maoist of any kind, nor am I a member of any Maoist organisation, in the West or otherwise.

It's not really "mobilising ethnic minorities" (because this sounds like ethnic minorities are mobilised as opposed to the whites, but that's not the aim at all), but mobilising the whole working class together in a more effective way by considering racism etc. more seriously.

Fighting against racism etc. is an integral part of socialist politics. This is because the working class is one united whole ultimately, so if one section of it is oppressed by racism, then in a sense the entire working class is oppressed. Genuine working class unity can never come about through someone imposing some "doctrine of unity" from above or something, because the masses of workers will simply never respond to that at all. It can only be forged through seriously considering the specific issues facing each section of the working class, and through solidarity and mutual aid across the different sections of the working class.

One example is the solidarity between the British miners and the LGBT community in the great miner strikes. Many of the miners initially had homophobic views, but through the fact that the LGBT community helped the miners in their strike actions, they changed their reactionary views on queer issues, and actively embraced the LGBT community and its own campaigns too. This is a good example of different sections of the working class truly coming together not through some kind of "abstract imposed unity", but through genuine mutual solidarity and aid. With race it's basically the same.

penguinfoot

18th October 2010, 23:25

The concepts of wage labour, and the worker having the right to choose under whom he works are central to capitalism. A system that does not fulfill these conditions cannot be called capitalist.

This is the first time you've actually provided a definition of capitalism after several pages of debate, despite me having emphasized this basic point right at the start of the discussion - but what this apparently simple definition does not do is recognize that the alienability of labour power is only one particular dimension of the underlying process that can be considered the ultimately distinguishing feature of capitalism, namely the fact that it is only under capitalism that commodity production becomes generalized, with the alienability of labour power being part of this because labour power becoming alienable signifies that labour power itself has been transformed into a commodity. Once you grasp that generalized commodity production is the key feature of capitalism and that pre-capitalist modes of production are defined in terms of the production of use-values - and Marx argues exactly along these lines on the very first page of Capital - then it should become obvious that, whilst instances such as the indigo plantations in India did not exhibit exact adherence to the ideal type of wage-labour, in that there was not legal equality between workers and owners, and whilst this is also true of indentured labour in India today, these phenomena were and are still compatible with capitalism, because they were and are production processes orientated towards the production of exchange-values and dependent on the world market, with the underlying aim of production being the expansion and multiplication of the capital that has been employed, capital itself being fundamentally a sum of exchange values.

This is why I have been emphasizing time and again that cases of indentured labour do not exist outside of the circuit of capitalist accumulation, they are subordinate to capitalist imperatives. Marx showed that he had exactly the same view in the Grundrisse when he noted "the fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America capitalists, but that they are capitalists, is based on their existence as anomalies within a world market based on free labour", and what Marx did by making this comment is demonstrate his view that capitalism is a global system and that individual social phenomena can therefore be analyzed only from a global and holistic perspective, not as isolated entities. The instances of indentured labour that you have been citing are anomalies of the exact same nature as the cases of slavery that Marx is highlighting, and your only response to this has been to make the absurd point that India is different from the American South because the slaves in the latter were forcibly imported, without giving any explanation of why the fact that black slaves originally came from the Caribbean and Africa made any different to the relations of production in America, or why indentured laborers not being from outside India makes India less than capitalist today. When I've pointed to the fact that other countries also exhibit indentured labour to one degree or another you've either said that those countries are feudal as well, without having given any response to my explanation of why indentured labour is not incompatible with capitalism, or you've accepted the existence of indentured labour in countries that are capitalist but have questioned its extent - the implication being that some amount of indentured labour is okay (in which case you are not even consistent with the rigid definition of capitalism you provided in your last post, which apparently requires that all labour power be totally alienable) but that, once its extent reaches a certain point, the society becomes feudal, without giving us any idea of what the magic number, the point at which indentured labour becomes sufficiently widespread for a society to become feudal, actually is, suggesting only that it's between zero and ten percent, because ten percent - a figure that you haven't provided any empirical basis for - is enough to make India feudal.

You have nothing to offer but a messy set of assertions with no supporting evidence.

The Maoists did not pop out of Naxalbari movement. Communist revolutionaries had been forming their cores since the 1940

The activity of Communists in the 1940s did not take place only in anticipation of the creation of Maoist organizations, this is historical teleology on an absurd level. The CPI was in fact founded in the 1920s.

Due to imperialist capital acting through feudalism, the working class exists in India

This is a formulation that you haven't given any content. You cited the indigo revolt and the plantations that gave rise to it as evidence of "capital acting through feudalism" but I've already pointed out that the plantations were engaged in commodity production and that feudalism is defined in terms of the production of use values. The indigo plantations were capitalist, you haven't proven otherwise.

I should add at this point that it is generally true that the capitalist does not extract surplus value through the use of direct coercion at the point of production in the same way as the feudal lord but that this shouldn't blind us to the ways in which violence has been used by individual capitalists and independently of the state to police the accumulation of capital, as when American company bosses organized their own vigilante groups to intimidate striking workers and trade union leaders in the first decades of the century, so, again, just as in the case of wage-labour based on legal equality, it's best to treat the absence of direct coercion from exploitation under capitalism as an ideal type, and not to ignore the fact that violence has played a role, and that this does not detract from the capitalist character of America in the early twentieth century. This is a further reason why the use of violence to form and maintain the indigo plantations did not make them feudal institutions. The key factor is the production of exchange values.

it is still weak to conduct urban insurrections, it is strong enough to provide class-leadership over the ongoing peoples' war.

In what way is the working class leading the "people's war" if it is being conducted in the countryside, unless you take the substitutionist position that the CPI(M) itself is the proletariat, regardless of its social composition?

So you mean that there is no revolutionary situation in India at present ?

No, I don't think that revolutionary situations are created by political parties.

In Britain the transformation was towards capitalism as the peasants left the villages, which resulted in most of the population turning into the urban proletariat. In India it was a reinforcement of feudalism, so that the peasants remained in villages, which is why most of the population is still rural.

You don't seem aware of this but India is currently witnessing high rates of rural to urban migration, which is why the urban population is now around a quarter of the total, when, at the turn of the century, it was almost insignificant - now tell me, how is it possible for such large numbers of people to grow if the Indian countryside is feudal, given that feudalism embodies the binding of producers to the land? The answer is of course that the majority of rural residents are not tied to the land through any coercive or political means and are increasingly being forced to move to the cities as a result of economic pressures, in the form of the encroachment of agribusiness. As for the impact of British rule, the fact that, geographically speaking, producers remained in the countryside is not the key factor - the key factor is that the methods by which they were exploited became increasingly capitalist in nature because the Zamindars no longer had to rely on direct coercion, and that it was only a matter of time before the object of production switched to cash crops, that is, commodities. The establishment of British colonialism involved the capitalist transformation of the Indian countryside.

What kind of evidence do you want ? If I provide evidence will it settle the question once and for all ?

As I've made clear throughout this thread, I don't see the size of the indentured labour population as being of real importance. What you have to show is that the existence of indentured labour makes a society feudal. As I've noted above, you can't say that the existence of indentured labour in and of itself makes a society feudal because we both agree that there are cases of slavery in societies that are capitalist, such as China, and if you think it's simply a case of degree and that a society suddenly becomes feudal when indentured labour becomes sufficiently prevalent, you have to establish what the required level of prevalence is, and explain what is so significant about that level. Of course, I've already explained to you why I don't think that indentured labour is at all incompatible with capitalism and I've made it clear that Marx had the exact same view.

It helps to make your points succinctly and in as to the point a way as possible

This may be tough for ignorant Maoists like you, but the world is complex, these things can't be summed up in talking-points taken out of the Little Red Book.

red cat

19th October 2010, 00:54

This is the first time you've actually provided a definition of capitalism after several pages of debate, despite me having emphasized this basic point right at the start of the discussion - but what this apparently simple definition does not do is recognize that the alienability of labour power is only one particular dimension of the underlying process that can be considered the ultimately distinguishing feature of capitalism, namely the fact that it is only under capitalism that commodity production becomes generalized, with the alienability of labour power being part of this because labour power becoming alienable signifies that labour power itself has been transformed into a commodity. Once you grasp that generalized commodity production is the key feature of capitalism and that pre-capitalist modes of production are defined in terms of the production of use-values - and Marx argues exactly along these lines on the very first page of Capital - then it should become obvious that, whilst instances such as the indigo plantations in India did not exhibit exact adherence to the ideal type of wage-labour, in that there was not legal equality between workers and owners, and whilst this is also true of indentured labour in India today, these phenomena were and are still compatible with capitalism, because they were and are production processes orientated towards the production of exchange-values and dependent on the world market, with the underlying aim of production being the expansion and multiplication of the capital that has been employed, capital itself being fundamentally a sum of exchange values. But elsewhere Marx has also said again and again that in capitalism the worker "sells" his labour-power to the capitalist. This is totally in contradiction to the way you try to define capitalism.

This is why I have been emphasizing time and again that cases of indentured labour do not exist outside of the circuit of capitalist accumulation, they are subordinate to capitalist imperatives. Marx showed that he had exactly the same view in the Grundrisse when he noted "the fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America capitalists, but that they are capitalists, is based on their existence as anomalies within a world market based on free labour", and what Marx did by making this comment is demonstrate his view that capitalism is a global system and that individual social phenomena can therefore be analyzed only from a global and holistic perspective, not as isolated entities. The instances of indentured labour that you have been citing are anomalies of the exact same nature as the cases of slavery that Marx is highlighting, and your only response to this has been to make the absurd point that India is different from the American South because the slaves in the latter were forcibly imported, without giving any explanation of why the fact that black slaves originally came from the Caribbean and Africa made any different to the relations of production in America, or why indentured laborers not being from outside India makes India less than capitalist today. When I've pointed to the fact that other countries also exhibit indentured labour to one degree or another you've either said that those countries are feudal as well, without having given any response to my explanation of why indentured labour is not incompatible with capitalism, or you've accepted the existence of indentured labour in countries that are capitalist but have questioned its extent - the implication being that some amount of indentured labour is okay (in which case you are not even consistent with the rigid definition of capitalism you provided in your last post, which apparently requires that all labour power be totally alienable) but that, once its extent reaches a certain point, the society becomes feudal, without giving us any idea of what the magic number, the point at which indentured labour becomes sufficiently widespread for a society to become feudal, actually is, suggesting only that it's between zero and ten percent, because ten percent - a figure that you haven't provided any empirical basis for - is enough to make India feudal.

You have nothing to offer but a messy set of assertions with no supporting evidence.
I ask again, what kind of evidence should I provide ?

The activity of Communists in the 1940s did not take place only in anticipation of the creation of Maoist organizations, this is historical teleology on an absurd level. The CPI was in fact founded in the 1920s.

Initially the CPI was not revolutionary; its top leaders followed Gandhiism. It is only during the 1940s that the working class started coming into the party in huge numbers and conducted real revolutionary movements. And yes, from that point of time the roots of Maoism started spreading in the Indian working class. Please take care to study a little beyond wikipedia articles if you want to comment on such topics.

This is a formulation that you haven't given any content. You cited the indigo revolt and the plantations that gave rise to it as evidence of "capital acting through feudalism" but I've already pointed out that the plantations were engaged in commodity production and that feudalism is defined in terms of the production of use values. The indigo plantations were capitalist, you haven't proven otherwise.

I should add at this point that it is generally true that the capitalist does not extract surplus value through the use of direct coercion at the point of production in the same way as the feudal lord but that this shouldn't blind us to the ways in which violence has been used by individual capitalists and independently of the state to police the accumulation of capital, as when American company bosses organized their own vigilante groups to intimidate striking workers and trade union leaders in the first decades of the century, so, again, just as in the case of wage-labour based on legal equality, it's best to treat the absence of direct coercion from exploitation under capitalism as an ideal type, and not to ignore the fact that violence has played a role, and that this does not detract from the capitalist character of America in the early twentieth century. This is a further reason why the use of violence to form and maintain the indigo plantations did not make them feudal institutions. The key factor is the production of exchange values.Well, my definition of capitalism is consistent with the explanation of Marx in wage labour and capital. Having said this, I would like to know what revolutionary strategies and tactics you would have proposed for a society where almost all production was being carried out in a manner similar to Indian indigo farming.

In what way is the working class leading the "people's war" if it is being conducted in the countryside, unless you take the substitutionist position that the CPI(M) itself is the proletariat, regardless of its social composition? What is the social composition of the CPI(Maoist)? Where do its members come from ? Do you even know that ? Mind it, we are talking about the CPI(Maoist), not the PLGA.

No, I don't think that revolutionary situations are created by political parties.
This is the most common revisionist argument ever used to oppose revolutions of any kind. Only the worst kind of reactionaries would say that despite the huge amount of oppression and resistance to it there is no revolutionary situation in India. What is going on in a third of India ? What would you call the radical change of relations of production that are taking place along with the civil war ?

You don't seem aware of this but India is currently witnessing high rates of rural to urban migration, which is why the urban population is now around a quarter of the total, when, at the turn of the century, it was almost insignificant - now tell me, how is it possible for such large numbers of people to grow if the Indian countryside is feudal, given that feudalism embodies the binding of producers to the land? The answer is of course that the majority of rural residents are not tied to the land through any coercive or political means and are increasingly being forced to move to the cities as a result of economic pressures, in the form of the encroachment of agribusiness. As for the impact of British rule, the fact that, geographically speaking, producers remained in the countryside is not the key factor - the key factor is that the methods by which they were exploited became increasingly capitalist in nature because the Zamindars no longer had to rely on direct coercion, and that it was only a matter of time before the object of production switched to cash crops, that is, commodities. The establishment of British colonialism involved the capitalist transformation of the Indian countryside. Please explain why they remained in the countryside in India as opposed to their British counterparts concentrating in cities. And why is it suddenly happening now, even though your "capitalist" economy in India allegedly created the same conditions more than a hundred years ago ? What magic is suddenly causing them to leave villages. Clearly you don't know why.

As I've made clear throughout this thread, I don't see the size of the indentured labour population as being of real importance. What you have to show is that the existence of indentured labour makes a society feudal. As I've noted above, you can't say that the existence of indentured labour in and of itself makes a society feudal because we both agree that there are cases of slavery in societies that are capitalist, such as China, and if you think it's simply a case of degree and that a society suddenly becomes feudal when indentured labour becomes sufficiently prevalent, you have to establish what the required level of prevalence is, and explain what is so significant about that level. Of course, I've already explained to you why I don't think that indentured labour is at all incompatible with capitalism and I've made it clear that Marx had the exact same view.I had already outlined the reasons for my claim in my last post. But you completely ignore it for some unknown reason. I am quoting it here for your convenience:

In a capitalist system the capitalists compete with each other. When such a system grows, the capitalists will search for cheaper and cheaper labour force, so that large land holdings etc. will offer wages and select the cheapest labourer. This way, the existing bonded labourers will have enough opportunity to flee to some such land holding, which they cannot do in a feudal system, as each lord has his own fixed labourers, and the fleeing bonded-labourer is captured before he goes far enough. So a capitalist system will not have slaves until they have huge monopolies that agree to cooperate and import slaves from a different system.

This may be tough for ignorant Maoists like you, but the world is complex, these things can't be summed up in talking-points taken out of the Little Red Book.Since you have called comrade Saorsa ignorant, I challenge you to debate him regarding the UCPN(M), if you have enough guts, that is. You seem to be some typical western petit-bourgeois teen who has no knowledge of neither the history nor the revolutionary struggles of South Asia.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 02:22

But elsewhere Marx has also said again and again that in capitalism the worker "sells" his labour-power to the capitalist. This is totally in contradiction to the way you try to define capitalism.

Yes, this an element of Marx's account of capitalism, and it is totally consistent with the underlying definition of capitalism which I've given, which is the one that appears most often in Marx's entire body of work, that is, a system of generalized commodity production, which is exactly what Marx defines it as in the very first line of Capital when he states that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities"", the quoted part of this sentence being from his earlier Critique of Political Economy in 1859 - in order for it to be possible for labour power to be sold it is necessary that the generalization of commodity production encompass labour power, because what defines a commodity is that it is a good that is produced for the purpose of being exchanged through the cash nexus, that is, bought and sold. What you are ignoring by citing the sale of labour power as a fixed definition of capitalism is a crucial part of Marx's method, which is moving from the abstract to the concrete - this is the methodological approach that Marx follows in Capital because he starts with what he deems to be the most basic entity of capitalist society in the form of a commodity and only after having examined the different dimensions of the abstract commodity, such as its embodiment of both use and exchange value, does he then go on and examine the more concrete dimensions and determinations of the capitalist system, including the distinction between labour and labour power, the law of surplus value, the different cycles of capital production and accumulation, and so on, so that the capitalist system is revealed in its full complexity, the analysis having begun at the highest level of abstraction. The point of moving from the abstract to the concrete is made clear by Marx in Capital, specifically the third volume, when Marx explains that only “analysis of the empirically given conditions” can show how the “economic basis”, revealing as it does “the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relations of sovereignty and dependence”, can show “infinite variation” due to such factors as “natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc”. The point that Marx is making, which in this context is concerned with the relationship between base and superstructure but is also stressed in other contexts as well, is that the economic processes articulated in Capital are abstract in nature, even when they have moved beyond an analysis of the simple commodity, and that they cannot be a substitute for an empirical analysis of given societies, with an appreciation of their complexity and historical specificity.

You are totally ignoring this crucial element of Marx's methodological approach because you are treating the definitions and explanations provided in Capital as axioms that a society must conform to in order to be described as capitalist, when Marx himself clearly did not believe this to be the case, because he saw the American South as a capitalist society, as made absolutely explicit in the Grundrisse, in spite of it containing elements that do not conform exactly to the definition of wage-labour as a social relationship in which labour power is alienable and workers and capitalists confront each other as legal equals. You are also being logically inconsistent when you infer that a society must meet a fixed and abstract definition of capitalism in its entirety in order to be described as capitalist because both of us accept that there are cases of slavery in countries like China and even more developed states (look at the conditions of illegal immigrants, particularly in brothels - that's indentured labour for you) and that these cases do not make these societies non-capitalist. If you accept that there are isolated incidents of slavery in China and elsewhere but that China is still capitalist, you cannot logically say that a society must only have "pure" wage-labour in order to be capitalist. I have explained to you why I see these cases as being consistent with capitalism, namely the fact that they are engaged in the production of exchange values and are integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation, and on that basis I have argued consistently that indentured labour in India deserves to be analyzed in the same terms, whereas you have given no explanation of why slavery in China does not make China feudal when indentured labour in India makes India feudal except to say that the latter is more prevalent, in spite of slavery in the American South being far more prevalent than any similar cases in India today.

It is only during the 1940s that the working class started coming into the party in huge numbers and conducted real revolutionary movements. And yes, from that point of time the roots of Maoism started spreading in the Indian working class.

And how did the CPI become Maoist when it was only in 1942/3 that Mao established himself as the undisputed leader of the CPC through the Yenan rectification campaigns, before the end of the War of Resistance, before the 1949 Revolution, before the Secret Speech, before the launching of the Great Leap Forward, and before the Cultural Revolution - before any of the events that led to Maoism becoming a distinct and major force?

I would like to know what revolutionary strategies and tactics you would have proposed for a society where almost all production was being carried out in a manner similar to Indian indigo farming

Can you point to any such society, historically or currently? A revolutionary strategy has to be conducted on the basis of the conditions that exist today, when capitalism encompasses the entire world, when capitalism functions as an integrated world-system.

What is the social composition of the CPI(Maoist)?

Overwhelmingly drawn from the countryside, with the original leaders of dissident Communism in India having been drawn from the ranks of the middle-class intelligentsia, especially the student body. If you have evidence that the Maoists in India are a party of the working class in the sense that their mass membership is comprised of workers and that their leadership is also working class, both socially and in terms of political orientation, then please provide it, but given that the Maoists are overwhelmingly operational in the rural districts and the tribal areas in particular there are no grounds for saying that they are a party of the working class in any sense.

What would you call the radical change of relations of production that are taking place along with the civil war ?

In what ways have relations of production changed?

Please explain why they remained in the countryside in India as opposed to their British counterparts concentrating in cities. And why is it suddenly happening now, even though your "capitalist" economy in India allegedly created the same conditions more than a hundred years ago ?

The initial stabilization of the population in the countryside rather than mass migration to the cities as in Britain was a result of the fact that India's pre-existing relations of production did not exhibit centers of industrial production in the same way as Britain during the same period - there are of course legitimate debates to be had about why India did not exhibit the same pattern of industrialization, one factor is the strategic location of fuel resources, which were more accessible in the locations where industrial capitalism first emerged - as well as a further change introduced by the establishment of British colonial control, namely the destruction of artisan industry. None of this negates the introduction of capitalism, because there is nothing inherently feudal about agriculture or the countryside. There is nothing "new" about rural to urban migration, it has been an ongoing process for more than a century, as reflected in the rural-urban ratio, with the rate of migration only being slowed by the continuing impacts of colonialism and underdevelopment on the condition of Indian industry. If you don't know this, that's your problem.

In a capitalist system the capitalists compete with each other. When such a system grows, the capitalists will search for cheaper and cheaper labour force, so that large land holdings etc. will offer wages and select the cheapest labourer. This way, the existing bonded labourers will have enough opportunity to flee to some such land holding, which they cannot do in a feudal system, as each lord has his own fixed labourers, and the fleeing bonded-labourer is captured before he goes far enough. So a capitalist system will not have slaves until they have huge monopolies that agree to cooperate and import slaves from a different system.

This does nothing to explain why the American South and contemporary China exhibiting indentured labour does not make these societies non-capitalist when India exhibiting indentured labour is enough to make Indian society feudal. It refers to no specific empirical context, no historical evidence, it completely ignores the ways in which states have removed the binding of producers to the land and local members of the ruling class, it makes no mention of generalized commodity production, or circuits of capital accumulation, it offers no basis on which to account for the continued existence of slavery in China today. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make.

I challenge you to debate him regarding the UCPN(M), if you have enough guts, that is. You seem to be some typical western petit-bourgeois teen

I've already done so, and he hasn't responded to my last post. I am also neither western (that Eurocentrism and orientalism again! read some Said) petit-borugeois, nor a teen. Not typical either.

Saorsa

19th October 2010, 05:06

This may be tough for ignorant Maoists like you, but the world is complex, these things can't be summed up in talking-points taken out of the Little Red Book.

This may be tough for a Trotskyist intellectual like yourself, but however complex the world is you can make points on an internet forum without writing gigantic walls of text.

How are you supposed to relate to ordinary people with your politics if this is the most concise you can be?

Maybe I'll respond to your post later. But it's very likely I won't. If your post was a bit shorter I'd have happily responded already, but I honestly just don't have the time to debate you.

Feel free to take this as a glorious victory. Your arguments are obviously far too powerful to be written in less than 300 word paragraphs, how could I possibly stand against that? :P

KlÃ©ber

19th October 2010, 05:28

Barry Lyndon

19th October 2010, 06:15

This may be tough for a Trotskyist intellectual like yourself, but however complex the world is you can make points on an internet forum without writing gigantic walls of text.

How are you supposed to relate to ordinary people with your politics if this is the most concise you can be?

Maybe I'll respond to your post later. But it's very likely I won't. If your post was a bit shorter I'd have happily responded already, but I honestly just don't have the time to debate you.

Feel free to take this as a glorious victory. Your arguments are obviously far too powerful to be written in less than 300 word paragraphs, how could I possibly stand against that? :P

One of the reasons I stopped associating myself with orthodox Trotskyist groups was that they appeared to function more like a history/philosophy club then a political organization. They just seem to be in love with the length of their own polemics about increasingly obscure and hair-splitting historical topics that have zero relevance to workers struggles today.

red cat

19th October 2010, 07:02

Yes, this an element of Marx's account of capitalism, and it is totally consistent with the underlying definition of capitalism which I've given, which is the one that appears most often in Marx's entire body of work, that is, a system of generalized commodity production, which is exactly what Marx defines it as in the very first line of Capital when he states that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities"", the quoted part of this sentence being from his earlier Critique of Political Economy in 1859 - in order for it to be possible for labour power to be sold it is necessary that the generalization of commodity production encompass labour power, because what defines a commodity is that it is a good that is produced for the purpose of being exchanged through the cash nexus, that is, bought and sold. What you are ignoring by citing the sale of labour power as a fixed definition of capitalism is a crucial part of Marx's method, which is moving from the abstract to the concrete - this is the methodological approach that Marx follows in Capital because he starts with what he deems to be the most basic entity of capitalist society in the form of a commodity and only after having examined the different dimensions of the abstract commodity, such as its embodiment of both use and exchange value, does he then go on and examine the more concrete dimensions and determinations of the capitalist system, including the distinction between labour and labour power, the law of surplus value, the different cycles of capital production and accumulation, and so on, so that the capitalist system is revealed in its full complexity, the analysis having begun at the highest level of abstraction. The point of moving from the abstract to the concrete is made clear by Marx in Capital, specifically the third volume, when Marx explains that only “analysis of the empirically given conditions” can show how the “economic basis”, revealing as it does “the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relations of sovereignty and dependence”, can show “infinite variation” due to such factors as “natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc”. The point that Marx is making, which in this context is concerned with the relationship between base and superstructure but is also stressed in other contexts as well, is that the economic processes articulated in Capital are abstract in nature, even when they have moved beyond an analysis of the simple commodity, and that they cannot be a substitute for an empirical analysis of given societies, with an appreciation of their complexity and historical specificity.

You are totally ignoring this crucial element of Marx's methodological approach because you are treating the definitions and explanations provided in Capital as axioms that a society must conform to in order to be described as capitalist, when Marx himself clearly did not believe this to be the case, because he saw the American South as a capitalist society, as made absolutely explicit in the Grundrisse, in spite of it containing elements that do not conform exactly to the definition of wage-labour as a social relationship in which labour power is alienable and workers and capitalists confront each other as legal equals. You are also being logically inconsistent when you infer that a society must meet a fixed and abstract definition of capitalism in its entirety in order to be described as capitalist because both of us accept that there are cases of slavery in countries like China and even more developed states (look at the conditions of illegal immigrants, particularly in brothels - that's indentured labour for you) and that these cases do not make these societies non-capitalist. If you accept that there are isolated incidents of slavery in China and elsewhere but that China is still capitalist, you cannot logically say that a society must only have "pure" wage-labour in order to be capitalist. I have explained to you why I see these cases as being consistent with capitalism, namely the fact that they are engaged in the production of exchange values and are integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation, and on that basis I have argued consistently that indentured labour in India deserves to be analyzed in the same terms, whereas you have given no explanation of why slavery in China does not make China feudal when indentured labour in India makes India feudal except to say that the latter is more prevalent, in spite of slavery in the American South being far more prevalent than any similar cases in India today.

I have already given an example where Marx describes capitalism the way I do. If he characterizes capitalism elsewhere in a different manner, then his own works are self contradictory. Then there is no reason to prefer one particular characterization of capitalism over all other ones.

And how did the CPI become Maoist when it was only in 1942/3 that Mao established himself as the undisputed leader of the CPC through the Yenan rectification campaigns, before the end of the War of Resistance, before the 1949 Revolution, before the Secret Speech, before the launching of the Great Leap Forward, and before the Cultural Revolution - before any of the events that led to Maoism becoming a distinct and major force?
Certain key points of Maoism were being developed throughout the Chinese revolution. The Indian communists sided with the Soviet-Chinese bloc and rejected Trotskyite opportunism right from the beginning.

Can you point to any such society, historically or currently? A revolutionary strategy has to be conducted on the basis of the conditions that exist today, when capitalism encompasses the entire world, when capitalism functions as an integrated world-system.
But according to your claim, capitalism had encompassed India even during the time of the indigo cultivation. Keeping this in mind, what would your revolutionary strategy and tactics be ? Moreover, do you have any strategy and tactics for a revolution in India now, or do you have nothing to offer to the Indian working class, thus demonstrating that your politics are effectively liquidationist and serve the ruling classes at the end of the day ?

Overwhelmingly drawn from the countryside, with the original leaders of dissident Communism in India having been drawn from the ranks of the middle-class intelligentsia, especially the student body. If you have evidence that the Maoists in India are a party of the working class in the sense that their mass membership is comprised of workers and that their leadership is also working class, both socially and in terms of political orientation, then please provide it, but given that the Maoists are overwhelmingly operational in the rural districts and the tribal areas in particular there are no grounds for saying that they are a party of the working class in any sense. But according to you, whom I term peasants are actually workers. So even if Maoists are overwhelmingly from the countryside, they must be composed mostly of workers.

In what ways have relations of production changed? Land has been snatched from feudal lords and redistributed among all small peasants, collectivization has been started in Bastar, the businesses that existed in those areas and were operated by the ruling class have been occupied by the corresponding workers, all middlemen who were involved in the buying of agricultural and forest produce over vast areas have been done away with, so that the tribals may now sell their produce to whoever they want. Tyrants and the caste system have been eliminated so that a person may now choose his occupation. Bonded labour has also been ended.

The initial stabilization of the population in the countryside rather than mass migration to the cities as in Britain was a result of the fact that India's pre-existing relations of production did not exhibit centers of industrial production in the same way as Britain during the same period - there are of course legitimate debates to be had about why India did not exhibit the same pattern of industrialization, one factor is the strategic location of fuel resources, which were more accessible in the locations where industrial capitalism first emerged - as well as a further change introduced by the establishment of British colonial control, namely the destruction of artisan industry. None of this negates the introduction of capitalism, because there is nothing inherently feudal about agriculture or the countryside. There is nothing "new" about rural to urban migration, it has been an ongoing process for more than a century, as reflected in the rural-urban ratio, with the rate of migration only being slowed by the continuing impacts of colonialism and underdevelopment on the condition of Indian industry. If you don't know this, that's your problem. Massive industrialization is a feature of capitalism. This took place only in Europe and America. Continuing impacts of colonialism shouldn't be a problem if colonialism was capitalism itself. Can you show in details how "continuing impacts of colonialism" is being a problem ?

This does nothing to explain why the American South and contemporary China exhibiting indentured labour does not make these societies non-capitalist when India exhibiting indentured labour is enough to make Indian society feudal. It refers to no specific empirical context, no historical evidence, it completely ignores the ways in which states have removed the binding of producers to the land and local members of the ruling class, it makes no mention of generalized commodity production, or circuits of capital accumulation, it offers no basis on which to account for the continued existence of slavery in China today. I have no idea what argument you're trying to make. The slavery that is existant in China is not a continuation of anything from the feudal period. I have already pointed out how capital is expected to act to terminate slavery. Either contradict it logically or show where in Europe or USA slavery exists today, so that it consists of around 10% of the population.

EDIT :One more major point that I forgot to mention about the revolutionary changes being brought about by the Indian Maoists is the public ownership of natural resources.

KlÃ©ber

19th October 2010, 07:16

One of the reasons I stopped associating myself with orthodox Trotskyist groups was that they appeared to function more like a history/philosophy club then a political organization. They just seem to be in love with the length of their own polemics about increasingly obscure and hair-splitting historical topics that have zero relevance to workers struggles today.
Before 1917, this was a common criticism of Bolsheviks by anarchists and economists. The Tsarist secret police actually ignored Russian Marxism for a while because they thought it was just a club for discussing economics. Lenin was not against taking a break from political interventions in the early days of the movement, in favor of study groups to build up comrades' political consciousness. What Is To Be Done? is basically a defense of this line, whereas the "Mass Line" is a retreat to Narodnik anti-intellectualism.

The working class is dangerously ignorant of its own history. A professional revolutionary should have a firm grasp of the past experiences of the workers' movement. Wanting to train cadre in the Leninist manner is not necessarily a bad thing. There are certainly "Trotskyists" who use theory to excuse abstention from real-world politics, as there are people like that in every tendency, but theory is just as important as practice. One can not properly understand and apply theory without being politically active, but activism does not necessarily lead in a revolutionary direction without the application of revolutionary theory.

DaringMehring

19th October 2010, 07:50

Permit me the question of someone who doesn't follow Maoism too closely.

If Maoist thinks that the peasant guerrilla struggle in the 3rd world is the key to socialism, that China, NK, Vietnam, are truly socialist, etc. (I think these are wrong and anti-Marxist, but accepting that they believe it and that arguing about that is another matter) -- then what are they doing messing around agitating in the first world?

For me, Marxism is a guide to action --- the collected wisdom of the greatest minds of the proletarian movement. It helps me understand the politics that I participate in. So, what then, for Maoist? How can anyone even know if theory is useful or true just by sitting around from afar thinking about it. It just doesn't add up to me.

So honest question to Maoist -- what do you do, and how is Maoism useful to you?

red cat

19th October 2010, 07:58

milk

19th October 2010, 08:09

On the point of language, it's always better to say something as briefly and precisely as possible, and not waste time and space repeating oneself, but it's also condescending to make stereotypes about working people, that they are too dumb/uneducated to partake in "intellectual" discussion.

Unfortunately I've personally experienced it as an unskilled manual worker. I've had to swallow my resentment at times. I have heard usually middle class people talk about working people in such condescending terms ("they simply haven't had the education" etc), and they are so ignorant of, in the UK at least, there being a strong autodidactic tradition among working class people. The working class has had, and will continue to have, a rich intellectual life.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 12:04

I have already given an example where Marx describes capitalism the way I do. If he characterizes capitalism elsewhere in a different manner, then his own works are self contradictory

His works must be self-contradictory for you, then, because we've seen time and time again that he thought it was possible for a society to contain slaves but also be capitalist, whereas you seem to believe that his definition of capitalism requires that all economic activity conform to a fixed definition of wage-labour in order for a society to be capitalist. As I've stated already, your emphasis on labour power being alienable is fine as a definition of capitalism because relations and modes of production can be defined in terms of relations of effective economic power, which means the degree of control exercised by producers both over their own labour power and the means of production, but what needs to be kept in mind is that labour power becoming alienable is only one (albeit a very important) dimension of the process that Marx stresses at the beginning of Capital, which is the generalization of commodity production. Unless you think it was completely arbitrary of Marx to start at this point, it makes more sense to emphasize the links between the alienability of labour power and this basic process rather than taking the alienability of labour power as an independent and isolated feature. You also ignore the importance of moving from the abstract to the concrete, which is Marx's notion of studying empirical circumstances and the possibility of given societies deviating from the processes and relationships outlines in his analysis of capitalism whilst still remaining essentially capitalist in their economic structures. This is why it is not contradictory for Marx to define capitalism in broad terms as a society based on the generalization of commodity production whilst still recognizing that the American South was capitalist in spite of labour power not yet being a full commodity - he never thought that his economic laws would manifest themselves exactly or in the same ways in all societies.

I mean, seriously, do you really think that such a systematic thinker as Marx would have been so stupid to think that labour power has to be completely and permanently alienable in order for a society to be anything but feudal at the same time as stressing elsewhere in no uncertain terms that a society in which slaves were present was also fully capitalist? What's important is that when Marx does say why he thinks that the American South was capitalist the point he stresses is that the plantations were locked into the world market, that is, they were engaged in commodity production, they were integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation - not that the slaves were imported. This was true of the indigo plantations, it is true of all production in India today as well. The fact that you have no other explanation except that Marx was contradictory shows that you have no grasp of his methodology.

The Indian communists sided with the Soviet-Chinese bloc

No they didn't, there was a series of splits, and the CPI remains in existence, stop telling a grotesque teleological narrative which characterizes the whole of the history of Indian Communism as a movement towards the current state of Maoism.

But according to your claim, capitalism had encompassed India even during the time of the indigo cultivation. Keeping this in mind, what would your revolutionary strategy and tactics be?

France was capitalist in 1871, but Marx was clear that the Paris Commune failed largely because the objective material conditions for communism had not yet come into being, capitalism was still capable of developing the forces of production. If you seriously think that a socialist revolution was possible anywhere in the world in 1871, then you don't understand a thing about communism or Marx's theory of history. The fact that the material conditions for communism didn't yet exist doesn't mean that there was no point in being a communist or a socialist then of course, but for Marxists it would have been difficult to advocate an immediate socialist revolution rather than incremental improvements in working conditions whilst remaining consistent with the basic Marxist position that communism cannot be built on the basis of material scarcity, that it requires an advanced productive apparatus that only comes into being under capitalism, and that only when capitalism begins to fetter the further growth of the productive forces is a revolution viable.

But according to you, whom I term peasants are actually workers. So even if Maoists are overwhelmingly from the countryside, they must be composed mostly of workers.

This is true, but these workers are not classed as part of the working class as such because they are landless laborers - this is important because what makes the working class a revolutionary class for Marxists is that its position in centers of industrial production and large units of production means that it is compelled to socialize the means of production, simply because the act of working alongside large numbers of other workers on a daily basis is what encourages the formation of a class consciousness based around collective struggle and also at a more basic level because a factory is not something that can be conceivably divided up and distributed amongst the people who work there, whereas rural laborers, because they remain on the land, have as their main object becoming an independent producer, through the re-division of the land that is owned by the landowners and can be divided up, rather than the negation of capitalism.

Land has been snatched from feudal lords and redistributed among all small peasants

Needless to say, there is nothing feudal about any of the landowners in India today, but could you pinpoint the exact ways in which the Maoists have overthrown capitalist relations of production in India, that is, where they've negated commodity production and replaced it with production for use by the producers, based around democratic control of the means of production? Do you think that the areas under Maoist control are socialist or communist in their mode of production?

Massive industrialization is a feature of capitalism

This is too simplistic, the effect of capitalism is neither to enable universal industrial development nor to condemn countries like India to total lack of development, it is to foster combined and uneven development, both within and between countries, whereby forms of advancement exist alongside forms of backwardness, this being a totally valid description of India today.

The slavery that is existant in China is not a continuation of anything from the feudal period.

So you implicitly accept that China has slaves, regardless of where they come from, and that China is still capitalist, in which case it is possible for a society to not conform totally to a fixed definition of capitalism of the kind that you provide and still be capitalist. In the case of American South, we know that Marx believed this was the case because production was orientated towards commodities and locked into the world market. This is also true of India today - indentured laborers are engaged in the production of commodities.

But slavery in India is a continuation of feudalism, you say! Well, this doesn't have much meaning, it's true that slavery has existed as an institution in India on an almost unbroken basis, but there's no reason to think that this automatically makes India feudal when indentured laborers are engaged in commodity production, when individuals are not born into indentured labor but attain that condition as a result of their economic circumstances - and Marx himself is clear that whether slavery is a continuation from feudalism or not is not the important fact, not only because of his emphasis on the world market as the key factor in the Grundrisse, but also because, in Poverty of Philosophy, having described slavery as "the pivot of bourgeois industry", he then includes Surinam and Brazil as examples of societies where slavery plays a key role in bourgeois production - despite these societies being ones that you would doubtless describe as semi-feudal, and despite the fact that they also embodied slavery when they were both pre-capitalist.

You have failed to give a coherent explanation of why indentured laborers producing commodities in India makes India feudal when Marx was explicit that much larger numbers of slaves producing commodities in the American South made the American South fully capitalist.

I have already pointed out how capital is expected to act to terminate slavery.

Marx didn't think so: in Poverty of Philosophy he makes it clear that "direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc", he gives no indication that we should expect slavery to disappear with the emergence of capitalism (and to hold this expectation completely ignores the role of working people in brining about abolition) and he stresses just how important slavery is for the capitalist system - an observation that holds true today.

Either contradict it logically or show where in Europe or USA slavery exists today, so that it consists of around 10% of the population.

Slavery doesn't exist to that extent in either of these countries, and I don't see why you view that as a killer point. You have defined capitalism in a rigid way as an economic system under which labour power has been made fully alienable and you have pointed to this definition as evidence that India cannot be capitalist because not all labour power is fully and permanently alienable. If slavery continues in China, which you accept, if there are also pockets of indentured labour amongst the most exploited sections of illegal immigration populations in developed countries, then surely there is something non-capitalist about these societies? And yet you accept that they are capitalist, which says that the whole of society not conforming to the legal equality of employer and employee, what I've been referring to as the ideal-type of wage-labour, is not enough in and of itself to make that society anything other than capitalist. If India is feudal, there must be something else. So in response you've either shouted that slavery in India is continuous from feudalism (see above; Marx does not stress this, he stresses the importance of the world market, because he understands the importance of commodity production, this is also true of Brazil and Surinam, both of which Marx saw as part of bourgeois industry) or that slavery is not as prevalent elsewhere as it is in India - but you haven't explained why the prevalence of indentured labor is so important, given that Marx was happy to accept the American South as capitalist when much more than ten percent of the population were slaves, or how prevalent it needs to be for a society to be feudal. You've come up with these absurd qualifications because you can't accept as Marx did that indentured labour is not incompatible with capitalism, that the key factor is commodity production, because capitalism is a system of generalized commodity production.

I think we've pretty much reached the end of the line here, you're tied up in knots.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 12:36

In fact, for people like CA, let me break this down into simple terms:

Maoist: Capitalism is defined as a mode of production under which labour power can be bought and sold. There are indentured laborers in India who cannot sell their labour power just as they want to, therefore India is not capitalist.

Me: We have to be careful about defining capitalism in that way, because it ignores that the alienability of labour power is just one dimension of generalized commodity production, which is how Marx defines capitalism at the beginning of Capital. More importantly, in the Grundrisse, Marx makes clear that the American South was capitalist, despite there being slavery on a massive scale, because they were engaged in commodity production, they were locked into the world market. The production of commodities is the most important thing here, and indentured laborers also produce commodities in India today. Clearly Marx believed that we need to study societies in their empirical and historical specificity, and not to expect the analyses presented in Capital to apply in an axiomatic way everywhere. This is called moving from the abstract to the concrete.

Maoist: Slavery in India is derived from feudalism, we expect capitalism to eliminate slavery. This is what makes indentured labour in India different from the American South.

Me: But this doesn't negate what Marx does stress in the Grundrisse, which is that the plantations were producing commodities, that they were locked into the world market, that they were integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation. At no point does Marx mention where the slaves came from, and you give no explanation of why slavery having existed continuously in India makes it pre-capitalist when production has shifted from use-values to exchange-values. His stress on the world market is consistent with his definition of capitalism as generalized commodity production. Also, in Poverty of Philosophy, Marx does not say that slavery is bound to be eliminated by capitalism, he describes it as the pivot of modern industry. He also gives examples of where slavery still exists and where it is a central part of bourgeois industry and where slavery has existed more or less continuously since these societies were pre-capitalist - he points to Brazil and Surinam in particular. Implicitly speaking, Marx did not believe that slavery having existed on an unbroken basis makes a society pre-capitalist.

Also, indentured labour exists in China and in developed countries. We both accept this. We also both accept that these societies are capitalist. How do you square this with the notion that indentured labour makes a society non-capitalist?

Maoist: Indentured labour in India exists on a larger scale.

Me: It existed on an even larger scale in the American South, but that society was capitalist. You haven't explained why prevalence is important and how prevalent indentured labour needs to be in order for a society to be feudal. What is the magic figure? What you ultimately haven't done is grasp the importance of commodity production, which is what production involving indentured labour is orientated towards, what the slaves in the American south were engaged in, and what Marx views as central to capitalism. The transition from feudalism to capitalism is a shift from the production of use-values to exchange-values.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 14:43

Trotsky advocated the theory of permanent revolution to overcome the conditions of semi-feudalism

Nope, try again, idiot:

"Of course, matters would be quite hopeless if feudal survivals did really dominate in Chinese economic life, as the resolutions of the ECCI asserted. But fortunately, survivals in general cannot dominate. The draft program on this point, too, does not rectify the errors committed, but reaffirms them in a roundabout and nebulous fashion. The draft speaks of the “predominance of medieval feudal relations both in the economics of the country and in the political superstructure ...” This is false to the core. What does predominance mean? Is it a question of the number of people involved? Or the dominant and leading role in the economics of the country? The extraordinarily rapid growth of home industry on the basis of the all-embracing role of mercantile and bank capital; the complete dependence of the most important agrarian districts on the market; the enormous and ever-growing role of foreign trade; the all-sided subordination of the Chinese village to the city – all these bespeak the unconditional predominance, the direct domination of capitalist relations in China. The social relations of serfdom and semi-serfdom are undeniably very strong. They stem in part from the days of feudalism; and in part they constitute a new formation, that is, the regeneration of the past on the basis of the retarded development of the productive forces, the surplus agrarian population, the activities of merchants’ and usurers’ capital, etc. However, it is capitalist relations that dominated and not “feudal” (more correctly, serf and, generally, precapitalist) relations. Only thanks to this dominant role of capitalist relations can we speak seriously of the prospects of proletarian hegemony in the national revolution. Otherwise, there is no making the ends meet."

From The Third International After Lenin, Part III - Summary and Perspectives of the Chinese Revolution: Its Lessons for the Countries of the Orient and for the Whole of the Comintern, The Question of the Character of the Coming Chinese Revolution

China was, needless to say, the case that led Trotsky to acknowledge that the theory of permanent revolution was applicable for the whole of the world, especially for underdeveloped countries, and not just Russia. The fact that scum like Shachtman and the USFI say that the United States and Pakistan are/were feudal in any way just shows that they don't understand the theory of permanent revolution.

red cat

19th October 2010, 14:47

His works must be self-contradictory for you, then, because we've seen time and time again that he thought it was possible for a society to contain slaves but also be capitalist, whereas you seem to believe that his definition of capitalism requires that all economic activity conform to a fixed definition of wage-labour in order for a society to be capitalist. As I've stated already, your emphasis on labour power being alienable is fine as a definition of capitalism because relations and modes of production can be defined in terms of relations of effective economic power, which means the degree of control exercised by producers both over their own labour power and the means of production, but what needs to be kept in mind is that labour power becoming alienable is only one (albeit a very important) dimension of the process that Marx stresses at the beginning of Capital, which is the generalization of commodity production. Unless you think it was completely arbitrary of Marx to start at this point, it makes more sense to emphasize the links between the alienability of labour power and this basic process rather than taking the alienability of labour power as an independent and isolated feature. You also ignore the importance of moving from the abstract to the concrete, which is Marx's notion of studying empirical circumstances and the possibility of given societies deviating from the processes and relationships outlines in his analysis of capitalism whilst still remaining essentially capitalist in their economic structures. This is why it is not contradictory for Marx to define capitalism in broad terms as a society based on the generalization of commodity production whilst still recognizing that the American South was capitalist in spite of labour power not yet being a full commodity - he never thought that his economic laws would manifest themselves exactly or in the same ways in all societies.

I mean, seriously, do you really think that such a systematic thinker as Marx would have been so stupid to think that labour power has to be completely and permanently alienable in order for a society to be anything but feudal at the same time as stressing elsewhere in no uncertain terms that a society in which slaves were present was also fully capitalist? What's important is that when Marx does say why he thinks that the American South was capitalist the point he stresses is that the plantations were locked into the world market, that is, they were engaged in commodity production, they were integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation - not that the slaves were imported. This was true of the indigo plantations, it is true of all production in India today as well. The fact that you have no other explanation except that Marx was contradictory shows that you have no grasp of his methodology.

So, what is the one line answer to this question ? Did Marx describe capitalism as a system where the worker "sells" his labour-power to the capitalist, and at the same time allegedly claimed other systems that did not exhibit this property, as capitalist or not ? If Marx's methodology was really as self-contradictory as you portray it to be, then I really have no grasp over it.

No they didn't, there was a series of splits, and the CPI remains in existence, stop telling a grotesque teleological narrative which characterizes the whole of the history of Indian Communism as a movement towards the current state of Maoism.

Give me an instance where the majority of the CPI had opposed the PRC before the Sino-Indian war. You will find none. The splits took place around a period of five years whereby the majority of Indian communists again took a firm stand in support of the PRC, and the parliamentary left was reduced to only a small fraction of its original size. Since the 1940s the whole movement of the vast majority of Indian communists had always been towards Maoism.

France was capitalist in 1871, but Marx was clear that the Paris Commune failed largely because the objective material conditions for communism had not yet come into being, capitalism was still capable of developing the forces of production. If you seriously think that a socialist revolution was possible anywhere in the world in 1871, then you don't understand a thing about communism or Marx's theory of history. The fact that the material conditions for communism didn't yet exist doesn't mean that there was no point in being a communist or a socialist then of course, but for Marxists it would have been difficult to advocate an immediate socialist revolution rather than incremental improvements in working conditions whilst remaining consistent with the basic Marxist position that communism cannot be built on the basis of material scarcity, that it requires an advanced productive apparatus that only comes into being under capitalism, and that only when capitalism begins to fetter the further growth of the productive forces is a revolution viable.

You don't have to pretend to be a Marxist to claim this. You can reveal your right-winger self and state that the Indian revolution is not possible as well. In fact, you are so good at this that you are almost sure to get handsomely paid by the Indian government. You'd better contact them as soon as possible.

This is true, but these workers are not classed as part of the working class as such because they are landless laborers - this is important because what makes the working class a revolutionary class for Marxists is that its position in centers of industrial production and large units of production means that it is compelled to socialize the means of production, simply because the act of working alongside large numbers of other workers on a daily basis is what encourages the formation of a class consciousness based around collective struggle and also at a more basic level because a factory is not something that can be conceivably divided up and distributed amongst the people who work there, whereas rural laborers, because they remain on the land, have as their main object becoming an independent producer, through the re-division of the land that is owned by the landowners and can be divided up, rather than the negation of capitalism.

Another excellent deduction. Capitalism without the working class !

Needless to say, there is nothing feudal about any of the landowners in India today, but could you pinpoint the exact ways in which the Maoists have overthrown capitalist relations of production in India, that is, where they've negated commodity production and replaced it with production for use by the producers, based around democratic control of the means of production? Do you think that the areas under Maoist control are socialist or communist in their mode of production?

Yes, the areas that have been under Maoist control for a long time are experiencing this kind of production.

This is too simplistic, the effect of capitalism is neither to enable universal industrial development nor to condemn countries like India to total lack of development, it is to foster combined and uneven development, both within and between countries, whereby forms of advancement exist alongside forms of backwardness, this being a totally valid description of India today.

No, surplus capital inevitably grows beyond the agricultural sector and results in heavy industrialization, as in USA and western Europe.

So you implicitly accept that China has slaves, regardless of where they come from, and that China is still capitalist, in which case it is possible for a society to not conform totally to a fixed definition of capitalism of the kind that you provide and still be capitalist. In the case of American South, we know that Marx believed this was the case because production was orientated towards commodities and locked into the world market. This is also true of India today - indentured laborers are engaged in the production of commodities.

But slavery in India is a continuation of feudalism, you say! Well, this doesn't have much meaning, it's true that slavery has existed as an institution in India on an almost unbroken basis, but there's no reason to think that this automatically makes India feudal when indentured laborers are engaged in commodity production, when individuals are not born into indentured labor but attain that condition as a result of their economic circumstances - and Marx himself is clear that whether slavery is a continuation from feudalism or not is not the important fact, not only because of his emphasis on the world market as the key factor in the Grundrisse, but also because, in Poverty of Philosophy, having described slavery as "the pivot of bourgeois industry", he then includes Surinam and Brazil as examples of societies where slavery plays a key role in bourgeois production - despite these societies being ones that you would doubtless describe as semi-feudal, and despite the fact that they also embodied slavery when they were both pre-capitalist.

You have failed to give a coherent explanation of why indentured laborers producing commodities in India makes India feudal when Marx was explicit that much larger numbers of slaves producing commodities in the American South made the American South fully capitalist.

But that definition of Marx was inconsistent with what he said about capitalism earlier. Anyways, as long as you are unable to negate my reasons as to why slavery cannot continue directly from the feudal to capitalist periods, your blocks of text stand effectively void in content.

And besides economic conditions, cultural factors such as the caste system etc. also contribute heavily towards bonded labour. The caste-system makes a kshudra's son a kshudra, who are generally doomed to take up the same occupation and debt as their parents.

Marx didn't think so: in Poverty of Philosophy he makes it clear that "direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc", he gives no indication that we should expect slavery to disappear with the emergence of capitalism (and to hold this expectation completely ignores the role of working people in brining about abolition) and he stresses just how important slavery is for the capitalist system - an observation that holds true today.

Slavery doesn't exist to that extent in either of these countries, and I don't see why you view that as a killer point. You have defined capitalism in a rigid way as an economic system under which labour power has been made fully alienable and you have pointed to this definition as evidence that India cannot be capitalist because not all labour power is fully and permanently alienable. If slavery continues in China, which you accept, if there are also pockets of indentured labour amongst the most exploited sections of illegal immigration populations in developed countries, then surely there is something non-capitalist about these societies? And yet you accept that they are capitalist, which says that the whole of society not conforming to the legal equality of employer and employee, what I've been referring to as the ideal-type of wage-labour, is not enough in and of itself to make that society anything other than capitalist. If India is feudal, there must be something else. So in response you've either shouted that slavery in India is continuous from feudalism (see above; Marx does not stress this, he stresses the importance of the world market, because he understands the importance of commodity production, this is also true of Brazil and Surinam, both of which Marx saw as part of bourgeois industry) or that slavery is not as prevalent elsewhere as it is in India - but you haven't explained why the prevalence of indentured labor is so important, given that Marx was happy to accept the American South as capitalist when much more than ten percent of the population were slaves, or how prevalent it needs to be for a society to be feudal. You've come up with these absurd qualifications because you can't accept as Marx did that indentured labour is not incompatible with capitalism, that the key factor is commodity production, because capitalism is a system of generalized commodity production.

I think we've pretty much reached the end of the line here, you're tied up in knots.

Slavery was only one of the examples I gave to indicate that there is feudalism in India. While you continue to wriggle around my justification of it, unable to provide any logic regarding why competition among capital blocs won't end slavery, I also notice that you are very conveniently ignoring the vast peasantry who are compelled to act according to the feudal lords' will by economic, cultural and political means, and also the question as to why a Trotskyite party has not emerged in India despite the widespread peasants' and workers' struggles. I too think that we have reached the end of the line here, as you have consistently demonstrated the fact that you are not able to provide any valid answers to my questions.

In fact, for people like CA, let me break this down into simple terms:

Maoist: Capitalism is defined as a mode of production under which labour power can be bought and sold. There are indentured laborers in India who cannot sell their labour power just as they want to, therefore India is not capitalist.

Me: We have to be careful about defining capitalism in that way, because it ignores that the alienability of labour power is just one dimension of generalized commodity production, which is how Marx defines capitalism at the beginning of Capital. More importantly, in the Grundrisse, Marx makes clear that the American South was capitalist, despite there being slavery on a massive scale, because they were engaged in commodity production, they were locked into the world market. The production of commodities is the most important thing here, and indentured laborers also produce commodities in India today. Clearly Marx believed that we need to study societies in their empirical and historical specificity, and not to expect the analyses presented in Capital to apply in an axiomatic way everywhere. This is called moving from the abstract to the concrete.

Maoist: Slavery in India is derived from feudalism, we expect capitalism to eliminate slavery. This is what makes indentured labour in India different from the American South.

Me: But this doesn't negate what Marx does stress in the Grundrisse, which is that the plantations were producing commodities, that they were locked into the world market, that they were integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation. At no point does Marx mention where the slaves came from, and you give no explanation of why slavery having existed continuously in India makes it pre-capitalist when production has shifted from use-values to exchange-values. His stress on the world market is consistent with his definition of capitalism as generalized commodity production. Also, in Poverty of Philosophy, Marx does not say that slavery is bound to be eliminated by capitalism, he describes it as the pivot of modern industry. He also gives examples of where slavery still exists and where it is a central part of bourgeois industry and where slavery has existed more or less continuously since these societies were pre-capitalist - he points to Brazil and Surinam in particular. Implicitly speaking, Marx did not believe that slavery having existed on an unbroken basis makes a society pre-capitalist.

Also, indentured labour exists in China and in developed countries. We both accept this. We also both accept that these societies are capitalist. How do you square this with the notion that indentured labour makes a society non-capitalist?

Maoist: Indentured labour in India exists on a larger scale.

Me: It existed on an even larger scale in the American South, but that society was capitalist. You haven't explained why prevalence is important and how prevalent indentured labour needs to be in order for a society to be feudal. What is the magic figure? What you ultimately haven't done is grasp the importance of commodity production, which is what production involving indentured labour is orientated towards, what the slaves in the American south were engaged in, and what Marx views as central to capitalism. The transition from feudalism to capitalism is a shift from the production of use-values to exchange-values.

Posting your same bull-shit twice won't make it seem a bit less idiotic.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 15:32

So, what is the one line answer to this question ?

There isn't a one-line answer to the question of what is distinctive about capitalism, that's why Marx wrote three volumes on capitalism's laws of motion, but if there is one feature that Marx emphasizes, it's that capitalism is based on the generalization of commodity production, the alienability of labour power being part of that process, that's why he begins his investigation with an analysis of the single commodity, emphasizing the centrality of commodity production to capitalism in the very first line, and only then goes on to investigate the more complex dimensions of capitalism. One-line soundbites may be enough for ignorant Maoists whose sole political education is the Little Red Book, but it's not good enough for Marxists. There is nothing contradictory about Marx's method, he was consistent in stressing that analyzing capitalism's laws of motion in the abstract is not a substitute for empirical analysis of given societies, and that we should not expect these societies to conform in each and every way to the laws of motion that are presented in his analyses, even once they have moved away from their abstract staring-point - this is true of capitalist societies not always exhibiting the full and permanent alienability of labour power as we know from the fact that Marx himself saw the American South as a capitalist society, it is also true of the ratios in which commodities exchange with one another, that is, the law of value, in that, whilst arguing that the rations in which commodities exchange is determined by the amounts of labour that go into their production, Marx was also conscious of the other factors that might alter these rations in particular cases, such as variations in demand and supply. The same concept of moving from the abstract to the concrete - that is, acknowledging the empirical and historical specificities of particular societies - is also evident in Marx's theory of history because at no point did he believe that each and every society has to go through the sequence of historical stages that he points towards in the 1859 Preface, he was open to the possibility of societies missing out stages, going through the stages in a different order compared with other societies, there being stages that some societies go through and other societies don't, and so on. This is obvious from his letters to Vera Zasulich at the end of his life. You have totally ignored Marx's emphasis on the importance of specificity by asserting time and time again that a society has to adhere to a fixed and abstract definition of capitalism in order to be capitalist. This not only shows an absolute ignorance of Marx's own analysis, it is also logically inconsistent with your own admissions, because you accept that China is capitalist at the same time as accepting that China exhibits indentured labour and therefore does not axiomatically conform to the definition of capitalism you present.

Give me an instance where the majority of the CPI had opposed the PRC before the Sino-Indian war.

The Sino-Soviet split was only just emerging in its full complexity during the Sino-Indian war, so there were hardly any official Communist Parties that felt it was necessary to side with one power against the other. What you're presenting is a narrow and teleological view of the history of the Indian Communist tradition that sees its entire history as a movement towards the present Maoist movement, without acknowledging its full diversity and complexity.

You don't have to pretend to be a Marxist to claim this.

Are you saying that communism was possible in 1871, and that Marx was wrong to say that the objective preconditions had not come into being?

Another excellent deduction. Capitalism without the working class !

At no point have I ever stated that there is no working class in India. I think you're not paying enough attention.

Yes, the areas that have been under Maoist control for a long time are experiencing this kind of production.

If there is a functioning communist or socialist society in the middle of the Indian countryside, then in order to prove the existence of such a society you would need to show that there are no longer any cases of commodity production and that the Maoists have succeeded in totally isolating the areas under their control from the outside world, so that there is production only for use, and that the base areas are not subject to external economic and political pressures, with control of the means of production and allocation of resources taking place through democratic planning. If such a society does exist, however, how do you reconcile the existence of this socialist or communist society with the basic Marxist position that communism and socialism require an advanced productive apparatus for their basis, that they need to make use of the advances that occur under capitalism, including the fruits of modern industry? What possibility is there of abolishing scarcity by making use solely of the Indian countryside, especially if it is pre-capitalist as you say? What you are saying, if you are serious about the Maoist base areas being socialist or communist in their mode of production, is that it is possible for a society to jump straight from feudalism to socialism regardless of its level of productive development, that communism is possible in conditions of pressing material scarcity. There is absolutely nothing Marxist about this position at all.

No, surplus capital inevitably grows beyond the agricultural sector and results in heavy industrialization, as in USA and western Europe.

Do you think that India has no heavy industry, both as a result of foreign investment and the activity of companies that are based in India? Have you never heard of Tata?

But that definition of Marx was inconsistent with what he said about capitalism earlier.

See Marx's concept of moving from the abstract to the concrete. See Marx's recognition that the American South was capitalist, and that what made it so was the fact that the plantations were engaged in commodity production - the generalization of commodity production being the way he opens his analysis of Capital in volume one.

Anyways, as long as you are unable to negate my reasons as to why slavery cannot continue directly from the feudal to capitalist periods,

You haven't explained why slavery remaining a permanent feature of social life from feudalism to the present makes a society feudal when the object of slave production has shifted from use-values to exchange-values. Without an explanation of why the continued existence of slavery - by which I mean slavery having existed continuously, seeing as you accept that slavery exists in China and the developed world and that this does not make those societies pre-capitalist, despite your axiomatic definition of capitalism requiring that there be nothing but wage-labour in order for a society to be capitalist - is so important as to make societies feudal, this point is empty. You have't dealt with the examples of capitalist societies which Marx himself gives in Poverty of Philosophy, these societies being ones in which slavery acts as the pivot of bourgeois industry, and these societies also being ones in which slavery had existed continuously, since pre-capitalism. In case your stupidity led you to forget the examples that Marx gives, I'll remind you - Brazil and Surinam.

And besides economic conditions, cultural factors such as the caste system etc. also contribute heavily towards bonded labour.

Yes, bonded labour that is employed in the production of commodities, in production processes that are integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation, such that they are dependent on the world market. This is the underlying issue, because capitalism is a system of generalized commodity production, You haven't dealt with it.

Slavery was only one of the examples I gave to indicate that there is feudalism in India

You haven't given any examples or evidence at all. Your sole point is shouting that ten percent of the Indian population is engaged in indentured labour, without having provided any evidence for this claim, without acknowledging that ten percent represents a small proportion of the total population, and whilst totally ignoring the fact that, regardless of how many of them there are, indentured laborers are engaged in commodity production, just like the slaves on the plantations in the American South, that India has witnessed mass migration from the countryside to the cities, that Marx himself was perfectly comfortable with there being cases of slavery within a capitalist society, going so far as to describe slavery as the pivot of bourgeois industry.

unable to provide any logic regarding why competition among capital blocs won't end slavery,

There is countless empirical evidence that slavery does not get magically eliminated by the progress of capitalism and that there is no contradiction between a society being capitalist and containing producers who do not conform exactly to the wage-labour relationship - this is true of China, it is true of developed societies where there are cases of indentured labour...unless you view these societies as non-capitalist, you have to logically accept that a society can have slaves and still be capitalist. Although it's hard to accept logic from someone as ignorant as yourself.

Read some real Marxism, not the ramblings of crackpot eurocentrists like yourself.

red cat

19th October 2010, 16:00

There isn't a one-line answer to the question of what is distinctive about capitalism, that's why Marx wrote three volumes on capitalism's laws of motion, but if there is one feature that Marx emphasizes, it's that capitalism is based on the generalization of commodity production, the alienability of labour power being part of that process, that's why he begins his investigation with an analysis of the single commodity, emphasizing the centrality of commodity production to capitalism in the very first line, and only then goes on to investigate the more complex dimensions of capitalism. One-line soundbites may be enough for ignorant Maoists whose sole political education is the Little Red Book, but it's not good enough for Marxists. There is nothing contradictory about Marx's method, he was consistent in stressing that analyzing capitalism's laws of motion in the abstract is not a substitute for empirical analysis of given societies, and that we should not expect these societies to conform in each and every way to the laws of motion that are presented in his analyses, even once they have moved away from their abstract staring-point - this is true of capitalist societies not always exhibiting the full and permanent alienability of labour power as we know from the fact that Marx himself saw the American South as a capitalist society, it is also true of the ratios in which commodities exchange with one another, that is, the law of value, in that, whilst arguing that the rations in which commodities exchange is determined by the amounts of labour that go into their production, Marx was also conscious of the other factors that might alter these rations in particular cases, such as variations in demand and supply. The same concept of moving from the abstract to the concrete - that is, acknowledging the empirical and historical specificities of particular societies - is also evident in Marx's theory of history because at no point did he believe that each and every society has to go through the sequence of historical stages that he points towards in the 1859 Preface, he was open to the possibility of societies missing out stages, going through the stages in a different order compared with other societies, there being stages that some societies go through and other societies don't, and so on. This is obvious from his letters to Vera Zasulich at the end of his life. You have totally ignored Marx's emphasis on the importance of specificity by asserting time and time again that a society has to adhere to a fixed and abstract definition of capitalism in order to be capitalist. This not only shows an absolute ignorance of Marx's own analysis, it is also logically inconsistent with your own admissions, because you accept that China is capitalist at the same time as accepting that China exhibits indentured labour and therefore does not axiomatically conform to the definition of capitalism you present.

The Sino-Soviet split was only just emerging in its full complexity during the Sino-Indian war, so there were hardly any official Communist Parties that felt it was necessary to side with one power against the other. What you're presenting is a narrow and teleological view of the history of the Indian Communist tradition that sees its entire history as a movement towards the present Maoist movement, without acknowledging its full diversity and complexity.

Are you saying that communism was possible in 1871, and that Marx was wrong to say that the objective preconditions had not come into being?

At no point have I ever stated that there is no working class in India. I think you're not paying enough attention.

If there is a functioning communist or socialist society in the middle of the Indian countryside, then in order to prove the existence of such a society you would need to show that there are no longer any cases of commodity production and that the Maoists have succeeded in totally isolating the areas under their control from the outside world, so that there is production only for use, and that the base areas are not subject to external economic and political pressures, with control of the means of production and allocation of resources taking place through democratic planning. If such a society does exist, however, how do you reconcile the existence of this socialist or communist society with the basic Marxist position that communism and socialism require an advanced productive apparatus for their basis, that they need to make use of the advances that occur under capitalism, including the fruits of modern industry? What possibility is there of abolishing scarcity by making use solely of the Indian countryside, especially if it is pre-capitalist as you say? What you are saying, if you are serious about the Maoist base areas being socialist or communist in their mode of production, is that it is possible for a society to jump straight from feudalism to socialism regardless of its level of productive development, that communism is possible in conditions of pressing material scarcity. There is absolutely nothing Marxist about this position at all.

Do you think that India has no heavy industry, both as a result of foreign investment and the activity of companies that are based in India? Have you never heard of Tata?

See Marx's concept of moving from the abstract to the concrete. See Marx's recognition that the American South was capitalist, and that what made it so was the fact that the plantations were engaged in commodity production - the generalization of commodity production being the way he opens his analysis of Capital in volume one.

You haven't explained why slavery remaining a permanent feature of social life from feudalism to the present makes a society feudal when the object of slave production has shifted from use-values to exchange-values. Without an explanation of why the continued existence of slavery - by which I mean slavery having existed continuously, seeing as you accept that slavery exists in China and the developed world and that this does not make those societies pre-capitalist, despite your axiomatic definition of capitalism requiring that there be nothing but wage-labour in order for a society to be capitalist - is so important as to make societies feudal, this point is empty. You have't dealt with the examples of capitalist societies which Marx himself gives in Poverty of Philosophy, these societies being ones in which slavery acts as the pivot of bourgeois industry, and these societies also being ones in which slavery had existed continuously, since pre-capitalism. In case your stupidity led you to forget the examples that Marx gives, I'll remind you - Brazil and Surinam.

Yes, bonded labour that is employed in the production of commodities, in production processes that are integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation, such that they are dependent on the world market. This is the underlying issue, because capitalism is a system of generalized commodity production, You haven't dealt with it.

You haven't given any examples or evidence at all. Your sole point is shouting that ten percent of the Indian population is engaged in indentured labour, without having provided any evidence for this claim, without acknowledging that ten percent represents a small proportion of the total population, and whilst totally ignoring the fact that, regardless of how many of them there are, indentured laborers are engaged in commodity production, just like the slaves on the plantations in the American South, that India has witnessed mass migration from the countryside to the cities, that Marx himself was perfectly comfortable with there being cases of slavery within a capitalist society, going so far as to describe slavery as the pivot of bourgeois industry.

There is countless empirical evidence that slavery does not get magically eliminated by the progress of capitalism and that there is no contradiction between a society being capitalist and containing producers who do not conform exactly to the wage-labour relationship - this is true of China, it is true of developed societies where there are cases of indentured labour...unless you view these societies as non-capitalist, you have to logically accept that a society can have slaves and still be capitalist. Although it's hard to accept logic from someone as ignorant as yourself.

Read some real Marxism, not the ramblings of crackpot eurocentrists like yourself.

Yet again, another post with nothing other than flaming and consistency of not answering the questions I ask. Interestingly, you also seem to take no notice of some of the points that I made in the post, and your sight fails you so mysteriously at those particular lines, that you don't even quote them. Anyways, in your colossal effort to slander the biggest revolutionary movement ever, you have reached some original deductions, the crown jewel of which is : a mode of production can be capitalist without being associated with wage-labour or the producers under it being the working class.

Along with these and false information about the CPI, are the common reactionary stories of socialism not being possible without some kind of martian gadgets, and the assertion that the Indian society is not revolutionary in the first place. Noticing the intellectual dishonesty that you are engaging in, I do not see the need of posting anymore serious material in reply to your bullshit.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 16:10

you have reached some original deductions, the crown jewel of which is : a mode of production can be capitalist without being associated with wage-labour or the producers under it being the working class

On the contrary, my consistent argument has not been that capitalism can exist without a working class, or that there is no working class in India today. The point is that capitalism is based on the generalization of commodity production, as Marx makes clear when he opens Capital by saying that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”", and that wage-labour signifies that labour power has itself been transformed into a commodity, but that, in order for a society to be capitalist, it is not necessary for commodity production to be all-encompassing, it is not necessary for the labour power of each and every member of that society to be fully and permanently alienable - there is, as Marx makes clear, scope for anomalies that do not conform to wage-labour, and what makes these anomalies compatible with capitalism is that they are still engaged in the production of exchange values, they are still situated in the context of a capitalist world market. It is that simple. The indentured laborers of India, comprising a small minority of the population, do not produce use-values in the way that is characteristic of feudalism, they produce exchange values, commodities, and are therefore integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation. They do not in any way detract from India's capitalist character, they are a central part of it, just as Marx saw slavery as the pivot of bourgeois industry in the American South and other contexts.

the common reactionary stories of socialism not being possible without some kind of martian gadgets

It is not reactionary to say that socialism and communism require an advanced productive apparatus, that you cannot have socialism and communism as long as the productive forces are not capable of abolishing material scarcity. This is one of the basic principles of scientific socialism, it is what allowed Marx and Engels to distinguish themselves from the reactionary and romantic socialists. You have not shown that there is a functioning communist society in the Indian countryside or that there could ever be.

The liberation of the Indian working class will be the act of that class itself as part of a world revolution, it will not be the work of Maoist guerillas.

red cat

19th October 2010, 16:27

On the contrary, my consistent argument has not been that capitalism can exist without a working class, or that there is no working class in India today. The point is that capitalism is based on the generalization of commodity production, as Marx makes clear when he opens Capital by saying that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”", and that wage-labour signifies that labour power has itself been transformed into a commodity, but that, in order for a society to be capitalist, it is not necessary for commodity production to be all-encompassing, it is not necessary for the labour power of each and every member of that society to be fully and permanently alienable - there is, as Marx makes clear, scope for anomalies that do not conform to wage-labour, and what makes these anomalies compatible with capitalism is that they are still engaged in the production of exchange values, they are still situated in the context of a capitalist world market. It is that simple. The indentured laborers of India, comprising a small minority of the population, do not produce use-values in the way that is characteristic of feudalism, they produce exchange values, commodities, and are therefore integrated into the circuit of global capitalist accumulation. They do not in any way detract from India's capitalist character, they are a central part of it, just as Marx saw slavery as the pivot of bourgeois industry in the American South and other contexts.

It is not reactionary to say that socialism and communism require an advanced productive apparatus, that you cannot have socialism and communism as long as the productive forces are not capable of abolishing material scarcity. This is one of the basic principles of scientific socialism, it is what allowed Marx and Engels to distinguish themselves from the reactionary and romantic socialists. You have not shown that there is a functioning communist society in the Indian countryside or that there could ever be.

First, some simple questions, that require simple, one-line or preferrably yes/no answers:

1) Did you claim the Indian agricultural sector to be capitalist or not ?

2) Did you claim that it was capitalist without the producers being wage-labourers or not ?

3) Did you claim that these same producers are not classed as part of the working class or not ?

It is extremely easy to answer these questions, but as we all know from your past posts, you will either not quote them or post walls of texts about Marx's works instead, since you know that posting honest answers to this questions will reveal that you have distorted the meaning of capitalism itself.

The liberation of the Indian working class will be the act of that class itself as part of a world revolution, it will not be the work of Maoist guerillas.Strawman. Whole peasantry and working class populations in the civil-war zones turn Maoist, and participate in the party, guerrilla squads, mobile army and militia units to secure military, political and economic victory over the ruling class.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 16:54

1) Did you claim the Indian agricultural sector to be capitalist or not ?

You're missing a fundamental point, which is that Marx's method rejects attempts to analyze concepts and phenomena as discrete entities that can be studied in isolation from one another, with the relationships between them being postulated as ones of simple causation and interaction, in the way that formal logic leads us to believe - the meaning of dialectical materialism is to recognize that societies and phenomena can only be grasped as elements of an integrated whole, it means to pursue a totalizing view of the world, and in the case of India and Indian agriculture this means that the agricultural sector has to be put in the context of an entire social formation, that is, the whole of the Indian economy, which itself needs to be put in the context of a global capitalist system based on the circulation of commodities, as it is this global system that shapes the behavior and choices of Indian producers, including those in agriculture. This was true in the case of the indigo plantations because they were set up and managed in response to high levels of demand for indigo products in the most advanced capitalist countries and it is true of Indian agricultural producers today because they are producing commodities either for the world market or for urban consumers who are themselves bound up with the world market. They are not situated outside of the global capitalist system, they are wholly integrated into it. Your question reveals your ignorance of the basic tools of Marxian social analysis.

2) Did you claim that it was capitalist without the producers being wage-labourers or not ?

It is possible to have a capitalist society where not all of the producers have total control over their labour power and confront the members of the capitalist class as legal equals, this means that a capitalist economy can embody slaves and indentured laborers, this is something that Marx himself was clear on, because he always stressed the study of historical and empirical specificities, not the rigid application of abstract laws. Most of all, he stresses that capitalism is to be understood as a system of generalized commodity production, the alienability of labour power being one dimension of such generalization. This is what he says in the very first line of Capital, and what this means with regards to slavery and capitalism is made clear in the Grundrisse.

3) Did you claim that these same producers are not classed as part of the working class or not ?

They are not part of the working class, they are anomalies in the sense that they deviate from the alienability of labour power, but they cannot be seen as independent of capitalism or as evidence that a society is anything less than fully capitalist, they need to be seen as integrated into the operation of capital, because they are engaged in commodity production, and part of the global circuit of capital accumulation. The people who are part of the working class in India are the millions of factory and service workers in the cities whom the Maoists ignore.

Now let me ask you this:

Do you believe that it is necessary for each and every one of the producers in a society to meet the formal definition of wage-labour, that is, to have complete control over their labour power, to meet the employer as a legal equal, for that society to be capitalist?

Do you think that Marx was wrong to see the American South as fully capitalist and as part of the capitalist world system?

Do you think that China, with its significant numbers of slaves, is capitalist today?

Do you think that Indian indentured labors are engaged in commodity production, or do they produce for their own use and for the use of their immediate masters?

Do you think it is possible to have a feudal society in which production is orientated towards exchange-values and not use-values?

Do you think that socialism can come into being at any point in history, at any level of productive development? Does this mean that socialism can be formed on a single island, in a single room? If not, why not?

Whole peasantry and working class populations in the civil-war zones turn Maoist, and participate in the party, guerrilla squads, mobile army and militia units to secure military, political and economic victory over the ruling class.

Unfortunately it just ain't so, not only because the Maoists in India are based in the countryside when the industrial proletariat is located in the cities, but also because the history of the Chinese Revolution shows us that the CPC was always willing to restrain the independent activity of the working class and indeed the peasantry when the struggles of these classes threatened to disrupt the stability of the bloc of four classes - they prevented peasants from chasing landlords into the cities to expropriate their urban enterprises, for example, on the grounds that the New Democratic revolution was to be limited to feudal landholdings (of which there were none) and comprador capital only. See my earlier posts in this thread about the history of Maoism for a broader discussion, and, if you please, provide an example of where a Maoist movement has actually resulted in socialism or communism - if you really feel like it, you can give an explanation of what is socialist or communist about the base areas at the moment.

red cat

19th October 2010, 17:13

You're missing a fundamental point, which is that Marx's method rejects attempts to analyze concepts and phenomena as discrete entities that can be studied in isolation from one another, with the relationships between them being postulated as ones of simple causation and interaction, in the way that formal logic leads us to believe - the meaning of dialectical materialism is to recognize that societies and phenomena can only be grasped as elements of an integrated whole, it means to pursue a totalizing view of the world, and in the case of India and Indian agriculture this means that the agricultural sector has to be put in the context of an entire social formation, that is, the whole of the Indian economy, which itself needs to be put in the context of a global capitalist system based on the circulation of commodities, as it is this global system that shapes the behavior and choices of Indian producers, including those in agriculture. This was true in the case of the indigo plantations because they were set up and managed in response to high levels of demand for indigo products in the most advanced capitalist countries and it is true of Indian agricultural producers today because they are producing commodities either for the world market or for urban consumers who are themselves bound up with the world market. They are not situated outside of the global capitalist system, they are wholly integrated into it. Your question reveals your ignorance of the basic tools of Marxian social analysis.

It is possible to have a capitalist society where not all of the producers have total control over their labour power and confront the members of the capitalist class as legal equals, this means that a capitalist economy can embody slaves and indentured laborers, this is something that Marx himself was clear on, because he always stressed the study of historical and empirical specificities, not the rigid application of abstract laws. Most of all, he stresses that capitalism is to be understood as a system of generalized commodity production, the alienability of labour power being one dimension of such generalization. This is what he says in the very first line of Capital, and what this means with regards to slavery and capitalism is made clear in the Grundrisse.

They are not part of the working class, they are anomalies in the sense that they deviate from the alienability of labour power, but they cannot be seen as independent of capitalism or as evidence that a society is anything less than fully capitalist, they need to be seen as integrated into the operation of capital, because they are engaged in commodity production, and part of the global circuit of capital accumulation. The people who are part of the working class in India are the millions of factory and service workers in the cities whom the Maoists ignore.

No straight-forward answers, as expected.

Now let me ask you this:

Do you believe that it is necessary for each and every one of the producers in a society to meet the formal definition of wage-labour, that is, to have complete control over their labour power, to meet the employer as a legal equal, for that society to be capitalist?

Do you think that Marx was wrong to see the American South as fully capitalist and as part of the capitalist world system?

Do you think that China, with its significant numbers of slaves, is capitalist today?

Do you think that Indian indentured labors are engaged in commodity production, or do they produce for their own use and for the use of their immediate masters?

Do you think it is possible to have a feudal society in which production is orientated towards exchange-values and not use-values?

Do you think that socialism can come into being at any point in history, at any level of productive development? Does this mean that socialism can be formed on a single island, in a single room? If not, why not?

No point of answering these given your reluctance to give straight-forward answers to the questions that you have been asked.

Unfortunately it just ain't so, not only because the Maoists in India are based in the countryside when the industrial proletariat is located in the cities, but also because the history of the Chinese Revolution shows us that the CPC was always willing to restrain the independent activity of the working class and indeed the peasantry when the struggles of these classes threatened to disrupt the stability of the bloc of four classes - they prevented peasants from chasing landlords into the cities to expropriate their urban enterprises, for example, on the grounds that the New Democratic revolution was to be limited to feudal landholdings (of which there were none) and comprador capital only. See my earlier posts in this thread about the history of Maoism for a broader discussion, and, if you please, provide an example of where a Maoist movement has actually resulted in socialism or communism - if you really feel like it, you can give an explanation of what is socialist or communist about the base areas at the moment.

Unfortunately for you, your lies about the Indian situation prove your intellectual dishonesty yet again.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 17:24

No straight-forward answers, as expected.

There are no straight-forward answers when you're dealing with a society as complex as India or a theoretical issue as important as capitalism's laws of motion. If you can't handle that, then too bad.

red cat

19th October 2010, 18:07

There are no straight-forward answers when you're dealing with a society as complex as India or a theoretical issue as important as capitalism's laws of motion. If you can't handle that, then too bad.

In other words, you lack the courage to admit that your characterization of capitalism, as well as your numerous comments about India, are totally erroneous.

RED DAVE

19th October 2010, 18:11

Unfortunately it just ain't so, not only because the Maoists in India are based in the countryside when the industrial proletariat is located in the cities, but also because the history of the Chinese Revolution shows us that the CPC was always willing to restrain the independent activity of the working class and indeed the peasantry when the struggles of these classes threatened to disrupt the stability of the bloc of four classes - they prevented peasants from chasing landlords into the cities to expropriate their urban enterprises, for example, on the grounds that the New Democratic revolution was to be limited to feudal landholdings (of which there were none) and comprador capital only. See my earlier posts in this thread about the history of Maoism for a broader discussion, and, if you please, provide an example of where a Maoist movement has actually resulted in socialism or communism - if you really feel like it, you can give an explanation of what is socialist or communist about the base areas at the moment. Unfortunately for you, your lies about the Indian situation prove your intellectual dishonesty yet again[/quote]You have accused him of lying. Okay, prove it.

And welcome back.

RED DAVE

red cat

19th October 2010, 18:17

Unfortunately for you, your lies about the Indian situation prove your intellectual dishonesty yet againYou have accused him of lying. Okay, prove it.

And welcome back.

RED DAVE

He has distorted quite a few facts. I am focusing on only one of them for the time being.

If you read his earlier posts carefully, you will see how he separates capitalism from wage-labour and the working class.

penguinfoot

19th October 2010, 18:40

If you read his earlier posts carefully, you will see how he separates capitalism from wage-labour and the working class.

In the very first post that was directed to you, I said the following:

"...the existence of wages presupposes the existence of wage-labour, that is, the alienability of human labour power, which is the distinctive feature of capitalism, understood as a system of generalized commodity production"

You're either incredibly stupid, or a liar. The alienability of labour power and the generalization of commodity production are tightly linked together, the former being one dimension of the latter, because labour power being alienable shows that it has been transformed into a commodity. The argument isn't that capitalism can exist without a working class, or that the alienability of labour power isn't an important part of capitalism, it's that the existence of social strata which do not exactly conform to wage-labour, due to the producers not standing in a relationship of legal equality to their employers, do not detract from the capitalist character of the society in which they take place. Why, you may ask? Because the producers whose labour power is less than fully alienable are producing commodities, they are dependent on the world market, they are integrated into the circuit of global capital accumulation. In other words, it is not necessary for each and every single one of the producers to exhibit full alienability of labour power on a permanent basis in order for that society to be capitalist. I have been absolutely consistent on this.

He has distorted quite a few facts

Prove it. Although that might be too much to expect from a Maoist who thinks that communism can be created any time, any place, regardless of the level of productive development. I shall now earnestly seek to build a functioning communist society in my bedroom....

RED DAVE

19th October 2010, 18:49

He has distorted quite a few facts. I am focusing on only one of them for the time being.

If you read his earlier posts carefully, you will see how he separates capitalism from wage-labour and the working class.Okay. Problem is that under capitalism, wage-labor and the working class, in the classic sense of the West, are not necessary.

As was pointed out, no one, Marx included, has ever called the Confederacy anything but capitalism. But commodity production did not use wage labor. The class that raised agriculture products for sale, not consumption, and manufactured commodities for sale, was slave labor and therefore not a working class, unless you want to stretch the term beyond all recognition.

Same thing with indenture. Probably the majority of unskilled labor in the early colonies, before they discovered the joys of slavery, was under indenture, which means it was not wage labor.

RED DAVE

red cat

19th October 2010, 19:11

Okay. Problem is that under capitalism, wage-labor and the working class, in the classic sense of the West, are not necessary.

As was pointed out, no one, Marx included, has ever called the Confederacy anything but capitalism. But commodity production did not use wage labor. The class that raised agriculture products for sale, not consumption, and manufactured commodities for sale, was slave labor and therefore not a working class, unless you want to stretch the term beyond all recognition.

Same thing with indenture. Probably the majority of unskilled labor in the early colonies, before they discovered the joys of slavery, was under indenture, which means it was not wage labor.

RED DAVE

If we extend the concept of capitalism beyond how Marx describes it in Wage Labour and Capital, then it has nothing to do with the proletarian being able to choose his employer anymore. Without this defining characteristic of capitalism, which separates it from all earlier economies, and also characterizes the proletariat, a new class that "sells" its labour-power, talking about the revolutionary changes that the proletariat can bring about makes no sense either.

red cat

19th October 2010, 19:20

In the very first post that was directed to you, I said the following:

"...the existence of wages presupposes the existence of wage-labour, that is, the alienability of human labour power, which is the distinctive feature of capitalism, understood as a system of generalized commodity production"

You're either incredibly stupid, or a liar. The alienability of labour power and the generalization of commodity production are tightly linked together, the former being one dimension of the latter, because labour power being alienable shows that it has been transformed into a commodity. The argument isn't that capitalism can exist without a working class, or that the alienability of labour power isn't an important part of capitalism, it's that the existence of social strata which do not exactly conform to wage-labour, due to the producers not standing in a relationship of legal equality to their employers, do not detract from the capitalist character of the society in which they take place. Why, you may ask? Because the producers whose labour power is less than fully alienable are producing commodities, they are dependent on the world market, they are integrated into the circuit of global capital accumulation. In other words, it is not necessary for each and every single one of the producers to exhibit full alienability of labour power on a permanent basis in order for that society to be capitalist. I have been absolutely consistent on this.

Prove it. Although that might be too much to expect from a Maoist who thinks that communism can be created any time, any place, regardless of the level of productive development. I shall now earnestly seek to build a functioning communist society in my bedroom....

Obviously, because that is the best you can do . Good luck !

DaringMehring

19th October 2010, 19:22

I do not understand your points. Firstly, the major Maoist parties of today hold that the countries you have mentioned are not socialist anymore. Secondly, the world revolution cannot be complete without insurrections in the first world. Preparations for revolution are needed in every country.

What I'm saying is, I feel the truth and usefulness of Marxism in what I do (which is labor-oriented). If Maoist's goal is to start a revolution in a first world country, do they feel the same? Does Maoist theory help? To my mind, there are so many necessary steps for the proletariat to mobilize itself that the philosophies of "go get your gun" or "if everyone would listen to Chairman Bob, then there'd be a revolution" are useless.

If Maoist is star-crossed by "people's war" and "New Democracy" then why not go to the 3rd world and join in. Fight your fight. But where I am, "people's war" is not the relevant political work, "New Democracy" would be a joke of a goal, and the Maoists are just kids who dream of getting a bazooka plus acolytes of Prophet Avakian.

red cat

19th October 2010, 19:36

What I'm saying is, I feel the truth and usefulness of Marxism in what I do (which is labor-oriented). If Maoist's goal is to start a revolution in a first world country, do they feel the same? Does Maoist theory help? To my mind, there are so many necessary steps for the proletariat to mobilize itself that the philosophies of "go get your gun" or "if everyone would listen to Chairman Bob, then there'd be a revolution" are useless.

Indeed, revolution is a complex process, and it is up to the Maoists of the first world to chalk out the appropriate revolutionary programme applicable there. But so far as the third world is concerned, military oppression is so extreme here, that it is impossible to engage in much organizing activities without being able to defend oneself militarily. Hence the emphasis on the peoples' war right from the beginning.

Also, you seem to be confusing Bob Avakian with Maoism. As a matter of fact, you will not find any recent Maoist document from South Asia that upholds the RCP.

The universal realizations of Maoism that will be applicable in the first world are seizure of power by the proletariat through violence, the mass line and continuous revolution till communism is achieved.

If Maoist is star-crossed by "people's war" and "New Democracy" then why not go to the 3rd world and join in. Fight your fight. But where I am, "people's war" is not the relevant political work, "New Democracy" would be a joke of a goal, and the Maoists are just kids who dream of getting a bazooka plus acolytes of Prophet Avakian.Proletarian internationalism leads first world Maoists to support the ongoing peoples' wars. In future, some of them might even join them. But this does not mean that first world Maoists neglect organizing in their own country in any way. And yes, for capitalist countries, there can be a more or less direct transition to socialism, with a few years of NEP if necessary.

Palingenisis

19th October 2010, 19:39

Palingenisis

19th October 2010, 20:05

Also, you seem to be confusing Bob Avakian with Maoism. As a matter of fact, you will not find any recent Maoist document from South Asia that upholds the RCP.

Bob Avakian no longer claims to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist.

RED DAVE

19th October 2010, 21:07

Okay. Problem is that under capitalism, wage-labor and the working class, in the classic sense of the West, are not necessary.

As was pointed out, no one, Marx included, has ever called the Confederacy anything but capitalism. But commodity production did not use wage labor. The class that raised agriculture products for sale, not consumption, and manufactured commodities for sale, was slave labor and therefore not a working class, unless you want to stretch the term beyond all recognition.

Same thing with indenture. Probably the majority of unskilled labor in the early colonies, before they discovered the joys of slavery, was under indenture, which means it was not wage labor.
If we extend the concept of capitalism beyond how Marx describes it in Wage Labour and Capital, then it has nothing to do with the proletarian being able to choose his employer anymore. Without this defining characteristic of capitalism, which separates it from all earlier economies, and also characterizes the proletariat, a new class that "sells" its labour-power, talking about the revolutionary changes that the proletariat can bring about makes no sense either.Nice try but irrelevant. Let me cut to the quick:

Was the American South before and during the Civil War, where the primary mode of production was commodity production but the primary labor was not wage labor but slavery, was that society capitalism or not?

RED DAVE

red cat

19th October 2010, 21:14

Nice try but irrelevant. Let me cut to the quick:

Was the American South before and during the Civil War, where the primary mode of production was commodity production but the primary labor was not wage labor but slavery, was that society capitalism or not?

RED DAVE

I don't know about the American South during the Civil War. Why not stick to India itself ?

RED DAVE

19th October 2010, 21:32

I don't know about the American South during the Civil War. Why not stick to India itself ?Learn.

Direct slavery is as much the pivot of our industry today as machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery no cotton; without cotton, no modern industry. It is slavery which has made the colonies valuable; the colonies have created world trade; world trade is the necessary condition of large-scale machine industry. Thus, before the traffic in Negroes began, the colonies supplied the Old World with only a few productes and made no visible change in the face of the earth. Slavery is therefore an economic category of the highest importance. – Karl Marx to Pavel Yasilyevich Annenkov, December 28, 1846RED DAVE

red cat

19th October 2010, 21:40

Learn.

RED DAVE

Thank you, but sorry; my notion of learning about any place would be studying a little more than a single paragraph. I appreciate your effort, but I won't comment on the American South until I have read about it in details from several books, complete with the analyses of some CP that I trust.

Presently, I can't see why my lack of knowledge about the American South should be of any hindrance to a discussion with respect to India.

RED DAVE

19th October 2010, 22:17

Presently, I can't see why my lack of knowledge about the American South should be of any hindrance to a discussion with respect to India.i brought up the American South to demonstrate that Marx did not consider that wage labor is the only form of labor "permitted" under capitalism.

I demonstrated that. Now we can discuss India.

RED DAVE

red cat

19th October 2010, 22:31

i brought up the American South to demonstrate that Marx did not consider that wage labor is the only form of labor "permitted" under capitalism.

I demonstrated that.

Assuming that you are right, this still doesn't prove anything. Marx could be wrong as well. Certain points that he made about India were completely wrong. So if he did not consider wage labour the only form of labour permitted under capitalism, contrary to what he said in Wage Labour and Capital, then his definitions are self-contradictory and cannot be accepted without further analysis and modification.

Now we can discuss India.

RED DAVESure.

Crux

20th October 2010, 01:16

penguinfoot

20th October 2010, 09:30

So if he did not consider wage labour the only form of labour permitted under capitalism, contrary to what he said in Wage Labour and Capital

At which point in Wage Labour and Capital does Marx say that wage labour is "the only form of labour permitted under capitalism"? As opposed to saying that wage-labour is an important feature of capitalism and reflection of labour power being transformed into a commodity, which is compatible with saying that there can be relationships other than wage-labour without undermining the capitalist character of the society in which they take place.

Also, does this mean that China is not a capitalist society today, due to it having cases of slavery?

Obviously, because that is the best you can do . Good luck !

It's your problem if you're too ignorant to defend your absurd claim that the base areas in India comprise a communist or socialist society. Not only does this make a nonsense of the basic Marxist position that communism can only be built on the basis of an advanced productive apparatus, of the kind that cannot be found in the Indian countryside, it also makes a mockery of the Maoist doctrine of New Democracy, which is justified precisely on the grounds that a leap from feudalism to socialism is not possible and that a society needs to undergo industrial development under capitalism, guided by the bloc of four classes.

So, not only do you contradict Marxism, you also contradict the nonsense that is Maoism.

RED DAVE

20th October 2010, 14:16

The point is that bourgeois democracy is an absolute necessity before a socialist society can be constructed. No one believes that any of the countries of South Asia or some of the other Third World countries is a bourgeois democracy in the meaningful sense of the term.Wrong this was precisely Lenin's point: that the bourgeoisie can't bring about bourgeois democracy in the age of imperialism. The point of Leninism was that the proletariat would accomplish the bourgeois and proletarian revolution as one, which is what the Bolsheviks did. To wait for bourgeois democracy is to sabotage the revolution.

In this era of capitalism, the bourgeoisie cannot carry out the task of bringing about a bourgeois democracy. It is the historical duty of the proletariat to carry out the task of bringing about what the bourgeoisie should have done already. The fact that Trotsky (and Marx) advocated Permanent Revolution demonstrates that they saw the necessity of bringing about this.Okay.

Similarly Mao was also advocating the same thing with the bloc of the four classes in New Democracy.Absolutely dead wrong. The bloc of four classes is the antithesis of Leninism. It is an alliance with the bourgeoisie, employing bourgeois methods of the extraction of surplus value, which Lenin never advocated. This brings about a bizarre hybrid, state capitalism. As we have seen in each case where this was done, in China and Vietnam, this leads to private capitalism.

New Democracy is basically a necessity to bring about the historical task of the bourgeoisie under the leadership of the proletariat.Again, the antithesis of Leninism. Lenin says just the opposite: that the proletariat takes the lead in the revolutin and the stage of bourgeois democracy, or New Democracy, is passed over on a direct route to socialism.

Maoism sets the stage for capitalism. We are seeing the Nepalese Maoists, in a bourgeois government, without a hint of workers power, doing that right now.

RED DAVE

penguinfoot

20th October 2010, 14:21

The point is that bourgeois democracy is an absolute necessity before a socialist society can be constructed

There is no "point" here, this is an empty assertion. You also fundamentally misunderstand Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, the point is not that the working class needs to introduce bourgeois democracy and can then introduce socialist revolution just after the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution have been completed, in a mechanical way that retains the stageist conception of the Stalinists, the point for Trotsky is that the bourgeois and socialist revolutions cannot be separated from one another, because in order to defend the basic gains of the bourgeois-democratic revolution the proletariat finds itself compelled to move beyond them by making the revolution permanent, that is, by transforming it without interruption into a socialist revolution - this is why Trotsky states in The Permanent Revolution (1931) that "the complete and genuine solution of their [countries with belated bourgeois development] tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation".

The argument that Trotsky is making is that if the revolution stops at the bourgeois-democratic stage then it will be highly unstable and even its most basic democratic gains will be eliminated and reversed within a period of time, which may be short or long depending on the historical and political conditions of individual countries, the key issue being that it is impossible for the full range of tasks that comprise the bourgeois-democratic revolution to be accomplished and maintained on a permanent basis - this was affirmed by the experience of the Russian Revolution because the bourgeois government that was established as a result of the February Revolution rapidly encountered opposition from the reactionary right in the form of the Kornilov revolt as well as the emergence of the Black Hundreds, so that the choice was not between the continuation of development under a bourgeois-democratic regime and the conquest of power by the Bolsheviks, which has been a common claim of bourgeois historians ever since the revolution, but between a Bolshevik revolution on the one hand and a proto-fascist coup on the other.

Read some Trotsky, then come back.

red cat

20th October 2010, 17:19

At which point in Wage Labour and Capital does Marx say that wage labour is "the only form of labour permitted under capitalism"? As opposed to saying that wage-labour is an important feature of capitalism and reflection of labour power being transformed into a commodity, which is compatible with saying that there can be relationships other than wage-labour without undermining the capitalist character of the society in which they take place.

Also, does this mean that China is not a capitalist society today, due to it having cases of slavery?

It's your problem if you're too ignorant to defend your absurd claim that the base areas in India comprise a communist or socialist society. Not only does this make a nonsense of the basic Marxist position that communism can only be built on the basis of an advanced productive apparatus, of the kind that cannot be found in the Indian countryside, it also makes a mockery of the Maoist doctrine of New Democracy, which is justified precisely on the grounds that a leap from feudalism to socialism is not possible and that a society needs to undergo industrial development under capitalism, guided by the bloc of four classes.

So, not only do you contradict Marxism, you also contradict the nonsense that is Maoism.

More nonsense on Marxism, Maoism, socialism, communism and India. I asked three very simple questions, and yet I find no direct answers to them.

By the way, new democracy is not a transitional state in which the whole of the country magically clings to some pre-socialist mode of production. The areas which have been liberated long ago are already into or near the socialist phase.

If you continue to avoid my questions and engage in flaming and calling Maoism nonsense, then you also give me the right to call Trotskyism nonsense and counter-revolutionary.

RED DAVE

20th October 2010, 19:22

A Maoist debates someone from another tendency.

At which point in Wage Labour and Capital does Marx say that wage labour is "the only form of labour permitted under capitalism"?red cat doesn't answer.

As opposed to saying that wage-labour is an important feature of capitalism and reflection of labour power being transformed into a commodity, which is compatible with saying that there can be relationships other than wage-labour without undermining the capitalist character of the society in which they take place.penguinfoot answers the question. No response from red cat.

Also, does this mean that China is not a capitalist society today, due to it having cases of slavery?red cat doesn't answer.

It's your problem if you're too ignorant to defend your absurd claim that the base areas in India comprise a communist or socialist society.red cat fails to defend his position.

Not only does this make a nonsense of the basic Marxist position that communism can only be built on the basis of an advanced productive apparatus, of the kind that cannot be found in the Indian countrysidered cat has no reply.

it also makes a mockery of the Maoist doctrine of New Democracy, which is justified precisely on the grounds that a leap from feudalism to socialism is not possible and that a society needs to undergo industrial development under capitalism, guided by the bloc of four classes.red cat fails to defend basic Maoist theory.

So, not only do you contradict Marxism, you also contradict the nonsense that is Maoism.penguinfoot makes a strong assertion. No reply from red cat.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

21st October 2010, 00:13

It is an alliance with the bourgeoisie, employing bourgeois methods of the extraction of surplus value, which Lenin never advocated. This brings about a bizarre hybrid, state capitalism.
Which is necessary for the proletariat to carry out the historical task of the bourgeosie.Then how come Lenin never thought of it? How come Lenin, following Trotsky, advocated permanent revolution: the combining of the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions into one with no alliance with the bourgeoisie, national or comprador.

How come Lenin missed the glories of New Democracy and went for a workers state?

No one wants New Democracy to be the last stage of any revolution nor is there any "break" between ND and socialism. It is one continuous process.New Democracy is an alliance of the working class with the ccapitalilst class, supervised by the party bureaucracy. We know where it leads: to capitalism.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

21st October 2010, 00:16

New Democracy and socialism are one continuous process like Permanent Revolution.If this is true, without dialectical contradiction, which is what "one continuous process," then why have China and Vietnam become capitalism?

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

21st October 2010, 00:34

Then how come Lenin never thought of it? How come Lenin, following Trotsky, advocated permanent revolution: the combining of the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions into one with no alliance with the bourgeoisie, national or comprador.

How come Lenin missed the glories of New Democracy and went for a workers state?
Lenin was not Mao. Mao was not Lenin. No one is claiming they are one. They had different ideas.They sure as shit did. What they had was a completely different concept of the struggle for socialism. Lenin believed in a vanguard party that, by its successful leadership, won the allegiance of the working class. Mao believed in a peasant army, which the party could use to discipline the working class and impose exploitation by the state.

New Democracy is an alliance of the working class with the ccapitalilst [sic] class, supervised by the party bureaucracy. We know where it leads: to capitalism.
Yes. It is possible that New Democracy could lead to capitalism. So could Permanent Revolution or any other type of revolution.New Democracy is capitalism. It's state capitalism, which leads to private capitalism. Under Permanent Revolution, the working class can lose state power through a military onslaught of the bourgeoisie, failure of the revolution to spread, etc. Under New Democracy, the working class has already lost state power. It never had it. Unless you're going to argue that the workers held state power in China or Vietnam.

If this is true, without dialectical contradiction, which is what "one continuous process," then why have China and Vietnam become capitalism?
Because of the defeat of the revolutionBut how was the revolution defeated in China and Vietnam. In Russia, we know that the working class was defeated by the civil war and the control of the economy by the stalinist bureacracy. In China and Vietnam, the victory of the party was the defeat of the workers and the workers state.

RED DAVE

syndicat

21st October 2010, 00:40

Their ideology and strategy were different. but both had a strategy of building a party-state, both advocated the dictatorship of the party (in Lenin's case by spring of 1918, before the civil war). in the Russian revolution the consolidation of the party-state apparatus was also the defeat of the revolution.

RED DAVE

21st October 2010, 00:57

Their ideology and strategy were different.They sure were: Lenin's was the antithesis of Mao's.

but both had a strategy of building a party-state, both advocated the dictatorship of the party (in Lenin's case by spring of 1918, before the civil war).The temporary notions advocated by Lenin under the pressure of war and civil war were made into a system by Mao.

in the Russian revolution the consolidation of the party-state apparatus was also the defeat of the revolution.This is true. Probably, by the time that the civil war was over and the revolutions failed in the West, the revolution was doomed. The temporary measures were never repealed.

RED DAVE

Zanthorus

21st October 2010, 01:03

both advocated the dictatorship of the party (in Lenin's case by spring of 1918, before the civil war).

Ahem, I think you'll find that the spring of 1918 was not before the civil war. Strictly speaking the Russian civil war began on October the 25th 1917 with the seizure of power by the MRC, although the real fighting began on the 28th with the uprising of officer-cadets in Petrograd in tandem with an attack on the southern skirt of the city by a cossack detachment led by General Krasnov. General Alexei Kaledin had taken power in the Don region on the day of the October revolution pending the provisional governmnet's re-establishment of order. The campaign against Kaledin's forces began in November 1917 when detachments began to be deployed from central Russia, and in December no less a figure than the People's Commisar for War Antonov-Ovseenko was given operational command. Opposition to the Soviet government was also formed in November 1917 in the town of Orenburg and led by Alexander Duto, who overthrew the local town Soviet.

syndicat

21st October 2010, 02:35

historians usually think of the "civil war" as the period when white armies were receiving foreign support, and this is usually timed with the rebellion of the Czech Legion in June 1918. this is a different phase of the struggle from the roughly 3 months following Oct 1917 that it took the new Soviet government to consolidate its hold on the country. take a look for example at the histories by Brovkin and Fitzpatrick. also the Bolsheviks gave the civil war as the excuse for the period of the "terror", which also was during the summer of 1918, when opposition groups were being systematically suppressed and people were subject to summary executiion by the cheka merely because someone denounced them or if they were caught trying to bring food into the city from the countryside, in a period when the govt was unable to feed the cities and huge numbers of people were doing this.

the Supreme Council for National Economy, and its various regional and industry subbodies, did have roughly the presence of the three groups you mention: party representatives, various engineers & managers, and union bureaucrats. but this is a higher level than the individual enterprise or workplace where individual managers were in charge, afaik. for example, in the debate over "industrial democracy" at the party congress in 1921, Shlyapnokov was at pains to point out he wasn't against the internal hierarchies of engineers and managers in the workplaces but was talking only about changing the industry management boards, and the national planning council, via the proposed producers' congress.

black magick hustla

21st October 2010, 07:46

8, when opposition groups were being systematically suppressed and people were subject to summary executiion by the cheka merely because someone denounced them or if they

I think that happened in every civil war situation ever in the history of mankind though. I would not be surprised if the anarchists did their excesses too on the excuse of shooting fascists and priests who were "sympathizers".

thÃ¤lmann

21st October 2010, 16:31

penguinfoot

21st October 2010, 16:53

the concept of new democratic revolution is nothing more then lenins national democratic revolution

No, it's really not. Even before the war, when Lenin was frankly wrong on the question of what the upcoming tasks of the revolution would be, his argument was that the working class and peasantry would take power and establish the conditions for rapid capitalist accumulation because the bourgeoisie was too weak to do so, and that they would retain political power whilst allowing capitalism to develop. This is the meaning of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, which is the term that Lenin used to describe this arrangement, not the "national democratic revolution". At no point did Lenin argue in favor of an illusory distinction between the comprador and national bourgeoisie in the same way that Mao did and at no point did he argue that the bourgeoisie itself would have any stake in the political system during the transitional phase. There is nothing approximating the bloc of four classes in Lenin's ideas, his consistent argument is that the whole of the bourgeoisie is weak, not that the proletariat has to ally with one section of the bourgeoisie.

So, on Lenin's ideas before the war, you are wrong. On Lenin's ideas in 1917, you're even more wrong, because he had accepted Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution by that point, he was no longer committed to a transitional phase.

RED DAVE

21st October 2010, 17:13

whatever somebody think about lenin and mao, the concept of new democratic revolution is nothing more then lenins national democratic revolution. so you cant blame mao for his alliance with the national bourgoisie and critisize it with lenin.To follow on on penuinfoot's post above, show us where Lenin:

(1) ever used the term "national democratic revolution"; and

(2) ever advocated any alliance with the "national" bourgeoisie or the "comprador"bourgeoisie.

Read Lenin's April Theses (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm) and see what i'm talking about.

[THESIS] 2) The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.

This transition is characterised, on the one hand, by a maximum of legally recognised rights (Russia is now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the absence of violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning trust in the government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism.

This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life.

[THESIS] 3) No support for the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.RED DAVE

thÃ¤lmann

21st October 2010, 17:41

youre talking about russia, iam talking about semifeudal/semicolonial oppressed nations, and for that kind of countries lenin of course said its ok ti work with the bourgoisie and also bourgois partys.

Zanthorus

21st October 2010, 18:11

historians usually think of the "civil war" as the period when white armies were receiving foreign support, and this is usually timed with the rebellion of the Czech Legion in June 1918. this is a different phase of the struggle from the roughly 3 months following Oct 1917 that it took the new Soviet government to consolidate its hold on the country. take a look for example at the histories by Brovkin and Fitzpatrick. also the Bolsheviks gave the civil war as the excuse for the period of the "terror", which also was during the summer of 1918, when opposition groups were being systematically suppressed and people were subject to summary executiion by the cheka merely because someone denounced them or if they were caught trying to bring food into the city from the countryside, in a period when the govt was unable to feed the cities and huge numbers of people were doing this.

I only just starting to read up on the Civil War period in any depth, so I can't really reply to your assertions of what occured during the terror. However, I think the concept of Civil War you are employing is ideologically charged. A civil war is a war between two organised groups within the same nation state, and this could justifiably be said to portray Russia at any time from 1917-20. Trying to link up the civil war with policies which were justified with it and ignoring the struggle that preceeded it is dishonest, as it suggests a relatively peaceful start to Soviet power, which is not the case. As for historians, Evan Mawdsley in his book on the Civil War claims that the war began in October 1917.

RED DAVE

22nd October 2010, 00:23

youre talking about russiaAnd China and Vietnam and Cuba, etc.

iam talking about semifeudal/semicolonial oppressed nations(1) What is a "semifeudal nation"?

(2) What is a "semicolonial nation"?

and for that kind of countries lenin of course said its ok ti work with the bourgoisie and also bourgois partys.(3) When did Lenin say that? What were his exact words?

RED DAVE

Crux

22nd October 2010, 03:40

red cat

24th October 2010, 21:46

A Maoist debates someone from another tendency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)
At which point in Wage Labour and Capital does Marx say that wage labour is "the only form of labour permitted under capitalism"? red cat doesn't answer.

Did Marx anywhere in his works treat the "other" forms of labour under capitalism in details and chalk out any general revolutionary strategy for a society in which such forms of labour would constitute the vast majority or even whole of a "capitalist" economy ? If he didn't, then there is no reason to identify such an economy as "capitalist". Even Marx could have been wrong due to his lack of knowledge about countries like India.

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

As opposed to saying that wage-labour is an important feature of capitalism and reflection of labour power being transformed into a commodity, which is compatible with saying that there can be relationships other than wage-labour without undermining the capitalist character of the society in which they take place. penguinfoot answers the question. No response from red cat.

Upto how much of the economy can be constituted by such "other" relationships ? Why does such a form of "capitalism" prevent the country under consideration from industrializing like the countries where the capital acting on it is based ? Again, given these factors, what exactly are the revolutionary strategies for such "capitalist" countries ? If two forms of economies have nothing or very few things in common regarding the percentage of particular relations constituting them, or in the revolutionary processes overthrowing them, then it does not make much sense classifying them as the same form of economy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

Also, does this mean that China is not a capitalist society today, due to it having cases of slavery? red cat doesn't answer.
I will ask the questions I asked long ago: what percentage of the Chinese population works as slaves, and how does it affect the strategies of revolution there ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

It's your problem if you're too ignorant to defend your absurd claim that the base areas in India comprise a communist or socialist society. red cat fails to defend his position. I suspect that you know very well that such false accusations are not worth defending against. Specially if the accuser has consistently demonstrated his ignorance on the country being discussed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

Not only does this make a nonsense of the basic Marxist position that communism can only be built on the basis of an advanced productive apparatus, of the kind that cannot be found in the Indian countryside red cat has no reply.

Again, it is rather silly just to speak of Marxist "positions" without talking of exactly how these would prevent the construction of socialism and why the accuser thinks that "advanced productive" apparatus are not found in any Indian villages ? Is the latter concept a product of his first-worldist line of thinking that also explains his ignorance about India ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

it also makes a mockery of the Maoist doctrine of New Democracy, which is justified precisely on the grounds that a leap from feudalism to socialism is not possible and that a society needs to undergo industrial development under capitalism, guided by the bloc of four classes. red cat fails to defend basic Maoist theory.
Excellent, specially when I had already posted this earlier:

By the way, new democracy is not a transitional state in which the whole of the country magically clings to some pre-socialist mode of production. The areas which have been liberated long ago are already into or near the socialist phase.

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinfoot http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1901035#post1901035)

So, not only do you contradict Marxism, you also contradict the nonsense that is Maoism. penguinfoot makes a strong assertion. No reply from red cat.

RED DAVE
Why do I need to contradict every nonsense that a person posts with no intention other than that of flaming ?

penguinfoot

25th October 2010, 19:51

Did Marx anywhere in his works treat the "other" forms of labour under capitalism in details and chalk out any general revolutionary strategy for a society in which such forms of labour would constitute the vast majority or even whole of a "capitalist" economy

There is no definitive work where Marx investigates the problems and strategic issues present in underdeveloped capitalist societies, which isn't surprising because he saw his main task as being the analysis of capitalism's internal laws of motion rather than societies that were in the middle of a transition from capitalism to feudalism or which did not conform to an abstract definition of capitalist relations of production, but there's plenty of evidence to show that he did believe that revolution was still possible in those societies where pre-capitalist social formations existed in one form or another or where wage-labour was not the only form of economic transaction between the producers and the ruling class, and that he became increasingly interested in those societies towards the end of his life - the best example of this is his several draft letters to Vera Zasulich, where Marx examines the situation in Russia. You aren't familiar with those texts, of course.

More importantly, however, it's completely absurd to say that, because Marx never provided a definitive study of any single society where phenomena other than wage-labour were present, in the sense of a study of the same length as Capital, as opposed to his large numbers of individual articles on the American South, and India, he must have believed that societies where slavery was present were not capitalist. We know for a fact that Marx did view societies such as the American South as capitalist in spite of their huge slave populations because he makes it absolutely explicit in texts as different as the Grundrisse and Poverty of Philosophy, not to mention his Letter to Annenkov, and if anything, the fact that Marx felt capable of asserting that this was true on multiple occasions and then (in the Grundrisse) pointing to the integration of that specific society into the world market as a reason for this assertion suggests that he did not believe that there was anything really ambiguous or worthy of extended discussion when it came to the question of whether societies such as the American South were capitalist or not, probably because it was so obvious that they were, based on his own definition of capitalism as a system of generalized commodity production (hence the emphasis on the world market in the Grundrisse) as well as his recognition that Capital was meant to provide an analysis of capitalism in the abstract rather than to provide a description of every single empirically given capitalist society.

You might as well state that, because neither Engels nor Marx provided a detail of situations where the state takes total control of the economy rather than just having an important role in it, it makes no sense to accept state capitalism or state monopoly capitalism as viable concepts. You've provided a total non-argument, and you haven't yet pointed to the part of Wage Labour and Capital where Marx says that "the only form of labour permitted under capitalism" is wage-labour. Do so.

Even Marx could have been wrong due to his lack of knowledge about countries like India.

Make up your mind. If you think that Marx would have regarded societies where there are phenomena other than wage-labour as capitalist, then point to where he says this, be it in Wage Labour and Capital or anywhere else, and give us a good reason not to accept Marx's repeated statements to the contrary in Poverty of Philosophy, his Letter to Annenkov, and the Grundrisse as having the same intellectual weight. If you think that Marx was wrong to view societies like the American South as capitalist, and that whether a society produces commodities or not is unimportant, then state why you think that Marx was so wrong, and provide an alternative critique of political economy.

Upto how much of the economy can be constituted by such "other" relationships ?

This more than anything else shows your infantile level of analysis. You do not determine the mode of production in a society by tallying up the different kinds of transactions that take place between the producers and the ruling class and then seeing which one is the biggest proportion or whether the transactions that are not wage-labour reach a certain percentage of the total. Instead, what you do, following Marx's dialectical method, is analyze societies as integrated totalities, as part of which you recognize that it is impossible to grasp the various phenomena in that society as discrete elements that can be studied in isolation from each other, and that, instead, it is necessary to see the way the phenomena intersect, and to place the society as a whole in the context of a world market, in order to fully understand the imperatives and forces that regulate economic activity in that society.

If we do this in the case of India, we find that, although it is true that there are phenomena that do not conform to wage-labour in all respects or on a permanent basis, these phenomena do not detract from the capitalist character of Indian society, because different kinds of economic relationships are intermingled with one another and all economic activity is orientated towards the production of commodities, goods that are produced for exchange, and not goods for consumption, keeping in mind that the generalization of commodity production is one of the most fundamental characteristics of capitalism, which is why it is the way that Marx chooses to introduce Capital - and what is more important is that the commodities that are produced in India's capitalist economy are not only sold within India but also on the international market, with the inputs of the production process likewise being international as well as domestic in origin, such that production within India, is, in all its dimensions, integrated into the global capitalist system, and subordinate to the imperatives of global capitalist accumulation.

Again, given these factors, what exactly are the revolutionary strategies for such "capitalist" countries ?

There is a need for different revolutionary strategies even for countries in which incidents of slavery and indentured labour are much more marginal than, say, India, and even when countries are at the same level of development - if you'd read Marx's 1872 speech in Amsterdam you would know this, but you haven't read that speech, so you don't. How revolutionaries in India (and by this I mean revolutionaries who are actually committed to socialism, not the Maoists) approach the specific features and problems of their society is a matter for them but the basic principle that underpins all Marxist strategy and which allowed Lenin and the Bolsheviks to distinguish themselves from revolutionary populism in Russia is that only the working class has the power to emancipate humanity in the course of emancipating itself and that the emancipation of this class must be the act of the class itself and not of an organization that attempts to speak on its behalf.

I will ask the questions I asked long ago: what percentage of the Chinese population works as slaves, and how does it affect the strategies of revolution there ?

Slavery in China only exists on a marginal and temporary basis so no-one can know how widespread it is. I wouldn't say that it substantially affects revolutionary strategy in China, and for that matter, I don't think that the existence of indentured labour in the Indian countryside affects the orientation of Indian revolutionaries towards the working class in a highly significant way either.

I suspect that you know very well that such false accusations are not worth defending against. Specially if the accuser has consistently demonstrated his ignorance on the country being discussed.

So you can't explain what is communist or socialist about the base areas.

Again, it is rather silly just to speak of Marxist "positions" without talking of exactly how these would prevent the construction of socialism and why the accuser thinks that "advanced productive" apparatus are not found in any Indian villages ?

Again, make your mind up. Either socialism is possible at a very low level of productive development, or, socialism requires a highly developed productive apparatus, and an apparatus of that kind is present in the Indian countryside.

The fact that you can't defend your original position - the former - and that you're not trying to merge it with the latter (equally absurd) position just shows your lack of faith in your own ideas and your inability to maintain a consistent argument. You can't have socialism without a developed productive apparatus because if you don't have that kind of apparatus then the poverty and hardship that socialism is supposed to abolish will simply be generalized, with the continued existence of these ills ultimately resulting in the return of what Marx, in The German Ideology, describes as "all the old crap", including "the struggle for daily necessities" and the other conditions that favour the eventual re-emergence of a class system - the actual passage in which Marx explains why a developed productive apparatus is so important is titled "development of the productive forces as a material premise for communism", which makes it clear that there was no doubt in Marx's mind about whether communism can simply come into being in any society and at any point in history without mankind having first gone through a period of development, this period being characterized by the presence of classes. A developed productive apparatus does not exist in Indian villages for the same reason that a developed productive apparatus did not exist anywhere in the world in the eighteenth century, because those villages and their inhabitants are still limited in their ability to exercise control over the natural world around them and because their means of production are not sufficient to provide for material abundance and the meeting of mankind's diverse and multiple needs.

If you seriously believe that Indian villages are highly developed in their productive capacities then you will need to provide evidence for this, and also explain how this can be reconciled with what Marx suggests in the 1859 Preface, where he contends that relations of production rise and fall according to whether they support or limit the development of the productive forces, and that there is only so much room for development within a given set of relations before those relations must give way in order to enable further development, with it only being under capitalism that the prospect of abundance is opened up if not realized - it is completely impossible to believe that the Indian countryside is feudal and to believe simultaneously that they have a sufficiently developed productive apparatus for communism without totally rejecting some of the most elementary features of Marx's theory of history.

By the way, new democracy is not a transitional state in which the whole of the country magically clings to some pre-socialist mode of production

That's interesting, so you believe that it's okay for a developed socialist society to recognize the right to own private property, to amass savings, and to pass on and inherit private property - all three of these beings rights that were guaranteed in China's 1954 constitution. What kind of socialism is that?

Rub a Maoist, what do you get? An ignorant little reformist who thinks that workers in underdeveloped countries should wait for real socialism because they aren't ready yet.