Must the transition to Communism be made quickly or slowly?

[06hurdwp]

I cannot stop thinking about it, both ways have their advantages, and I am sure that either way is possible, so which would be more favourable? A sudden world revolution, or a gradual transition.

What would you choose?

[SacRedMan]

If we do it quickly everyone would scream their ass off that we want a regime like "Stalin and Ceasescu". So no, we have to learn the people what communism, in all sences, is.

[Rusty Shackleford]

too quick and it is doomed to failure as society lags behind the changes made.

too slow and it is doomed to failure due to ossification and disillusionment.

it will happen in its own way.

really, the question is of the role of the state. is it possible for it to be used by the working class or should be be torn asunder along with the whole of capitalism and fedualism.

each require different approaches and each may have different results. both require world wide revolution though. and that is something we cannot control. when revolutions happen in places where we dont live or work.


ML theory supports the use of the workers state and states that the state itself will "whither away" as material conditions and society evolve out of socialism into communism. gradual or not, no one knows how it would happen. there has never been global socialism so no one has gotten past the setting up of the workers state. would there be another revolution after global socialism or will it be an evolution into communism?


anyway, i voted gradually. supporting the establishment of a workers state and then the erosion of the state are arguably "slow."

[Rooster]

Are you guys saying "when will we hand the means of production into the hands of the workers"? Gradually or suddenly? Do you know how patronising that sounds?

[thesadmafioso]

You cannot properly answer this question without knowing the level of development in the given state to which this proposition pertains to. If a state is entirely without capitalistic development, any revolution much undertake measures of market style modernization so as to allow for the later implementation of socialism.

In a developed state with all of the economic preconditions for revolution in place, the answer then becomes much different. If an nation is at a point where it has fulfilled all of the factors demanded of a proper marxist revolution, then it may proceed past some of the earlier stages of socialism and onto communism at a quickened rate.

Though regardless of the state of a given nation/region or what have you, most any revolution will inevitably take time. Breaking the hegemony of capitalism's rule over man is not exactly something which can be viewed as a simple and quick task.

[W1N5T0N]

Just as the Communist party in China is slowly but surely implementing capitalism under one party, maybe many parties (left wing) could implement communism in other countries?

[Тачанка]

Communism grows out of the womb of socialism... Bukharin guessed 2-3 generations after socialism has come into being...

Remember, new education, new schools system, new relations between human beings create new minds...

[ZeroNowhere]

Where, when and why?

[jake williams]

Are you guys saying "when will we hand the means of production into the hands of the workers"? Gradually or suddenly? Do you know how patronising that sounds?
This would imply that the speaker controlled the means of production in the first place, but I don't think that's what at issue.

It's kind of an interesting historical question. Clearly in a broad historical sense the transition to communism is necessarily gradual, simply because the whole world can't absolutely and totally change in an instant. In general, the working class globally has been strengthening for most of the history of capitalism. This has manifested itself at a number of points as a play for state power, with varying degrees of success.

This is separate, however, from the question faced by individuals and movements at particular points in history. The working class should always do as much and go as far as it thinks it can. We have nothing to gain from waiting. Strategic pauses shouldn't be categorically rejected, but they deserve careful consideration; strategic retreats, considerably more consideration, and it's rarely clear in history that they've been useful at all.

We really don't have the luxury of determining the pace, because the whole point is that we don't control the means of changing society in the first place. But nothing ever happens all at once.

[Lucretia]

Why bother trying to predict? It's the sort of thing that Marx and Engels derided because it is a waste of time. It would be pure speculation about things that are surely the subject of multiple layers of historical determination and contingency.

[06hurdwp]

Why bother trying to predict? It's the sort of thing that Marx and Engels derided because it is a waste of time. It would be pure speculation about things that are surely the subject of multiple layers of historical determination and contingency.

I'm not trying to predict - I am just curious as to which would be the 'better way to do it'. They would both of course have the same end result, but what I want to know are the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

[jake williams]

I'm not trying to predict - I am just curious as to which would be the 'better way to do it'. They would both of course have the same end result, but what I want to know are the advantages and disadvantages of each one.
We don't have a choice. "Trying to do it slowly" is really reactionary, if that's what you're getting at. We should try to establish socialism as quickly as possible.

[Blake's Baby]

You're talking about several things at once. I think the revolutionary seizure of power will have to be rapid - if we don't suppress the capitalists quickly, they'll organise the counter-revolution pretty sharpish. But the actual transition to socialism may take some time.

I think Bukharin's '2 or 3 generations' is too pessimistic though. Don't forget that he was extrapolating from the extreme mess Russia was in from the civil war and whatnot, but also surrounded by aggressive capitalist nations, so his opinion was clouded by living in a beseiged 'socialist bastion'; that won't happen next time, because the revolution will be worldwide. the revolution itself will be harder, but the transition to socialism will actually be possible, and it will involve such a massive liberation of human potential it will make the Russian revolution look like a barn dance.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

That communism can be achieved almost instantly, or in a 'short-run' frame of time is utopian folly.

We can seize the means of production and work towards dis-establishing the monetary system and other functions of oppression as soon as there is a critical mass of support for our movement, but we cannot fool ourselves. Communism, in the small 'c' sense as Marx described, requires enormous changes in human nature which, as the Socialisms of the 20th century showed, cannot be forced.

We cannot mould Socialist man. We cannot mould human nature, at best we can only reduce its worst excesses until human nature has developed to the point where greed is not the first reference point of man's thoughts.

[Rusty Shackleford]

That communism can be achieved almost instantly, or in a 'short-run' frame of time is utopian folly.

We can seize the means of production and work towards dis-establishing the monetary system and other functions of oppression as soon as there is a critical mass of support for our movement, but we cannot fool ourselves. Communism, in the small 'c' sense as Marx described, requires enormous changes in human nature which, as the Socialisms of the 20th century showed, cannot be forced.

We cannot mould Socialist man. We cannot mould human nature, at best we can only reduce its worst excesses until human nature has developed to the point where greed is not the first reference point of man's thoughts.



"Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."

— Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

and some more

we cannot mold mans consciousness that is for sure. but we have the ability to mold the material conditions around us. The way we interact with each other and with the material world is fundamental. We can change the way we interact economically which in turn changes the way we interact personally. Out of our conscious changing of economic relations and social relations, society catches up and acts in a completely new way and thus becomes a new society.


this is not an instant action. it takes years to take hold. you cannot simply change the mode of production and declare communism if no one has had any time to experience it. there is no telling of how long it will take, but this is a core part of the issue.

[bcbm]

if communism doesn't happen before 2005 we are probably in for a shitty next couple decades

[Delenda Carthago]

Communism grows out of the womb of socialism... Bukharin guessed 2-3 generations after socialism has come into being...

And thats why Stalin...

[thefinalmarch]

The premise of this thread is rather strange; it presumes that either communism is some government programme to be enacted from above, or that workers will consciously make a decision when and if to abolish classes in their entirety. I always thought of any "transition to communism" as more or less an observable process than anything else. It's a transition from a stateless*, classless society to... what is essentially just a far more geographically-widespread (globally-encompassing) stateless, classless society.

(* stateless in the anarchist sense of the state being a hierarchical organisation of institutions which serve to maintain the mutual class interests of the ruling class, with most power being distributed topmost. Actual "workers states" do not fall in to this definition of the state)

What happens during this transition? To answer that question - excluding the general process of workers globally revolting during a revolutionary wave - not much. In "enclaves" or "sections" of society where the people as whole democratically run society and capitalist property relations have been done away with following a revolution, the material conditions which are the basis for class distinctions cease to exist, and thus class dictatorship becomes a meaningless term in reality, as the only time the proletariat as a whole could exercise its political and economic authority over the capitalist classes is during the process of revolution itself. The proletarian revolution is a unique one in that it not only overthrows the bourgeoisie, but it abolishes itself as well as the class system - so we cannot accurately describe a post-revolutionary, pre-communist society as being the proletariat's dictatorship as the concept of a class dictatorship presupposes the existence of multiple classes.

Just as the Communist party in China is slowly but surely implementing capitalism under one party, maybe many parties (left wing) could implement communism in other countries?
If this is your idea of a revolution, I don't want any part in it.