Post-Revolutionary Government

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html):

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

What do you think is the most effective way in which the working class can organize itself, while avoiding and making impossible the corruption of a political party? How will the working class maintain power over its representatives to assert the progress of the class interests of the proletariat?

[redstar2000]

This has been discussed before; it is the theoretical "foundation" of the 20th century Leninist states.

For advanced capitalist countries in 1848, it made sense. It no longer makes sense and will make even less sense in the future.

The working class will not concern itself with "controlling its representatives" or the corruption of a "political party" as those institutions will not exist.

The working class will retain power in its own hands, will abolish capitalism instantly (not by degrees) and will proceed to communism in a very brief period of time--my estimate is five years or less after the revolution.

In my "humble" opinion, of course. :lol:

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[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The working class will obviously need a way in which it can wield power, and it will be a central government, no? This, I believe, is what Marx was referring to.

[redstar2000]

The working class will obviously need a way in which it can wield power, and it will be a central government, no? This, I believe, is what Marx was referring to.

Yes, in 1848, that's what he was referring to.

A bit of time has passed since then.

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[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Why was this true in 1848 and no longer true today, Redstar?

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

What do you think is the most effective way in which the working class can organize itself, while avoiding and making impossible the corruption of a political party? How will the working class maintain power over its representatives to assert the progress of the class interests of the proletariat?

The Communist Party is not something that can be simply "thrown away," in my opinion. A transitory state between Capitalism and Communism is needed because there are still bourgeois elements in society that can (and will) try to regenerate, even amongst the ranks of the revolutionary forces. A new kind of Socialist state will be needed, with unprecedented democracy for the masses and dictatorship over old and new exploiting classes. But that's not all that will be needed; as I pointed out, the ranks of the Party itself will regenerate a new bourgeoisie which must be fiercely combatted. The Cultural Revolution will mobilize the workers to overthrow new bourgeois forces in top positions of the Communist Party and the People's Government; it will further revolutionize the economic and social relations and political/economic/social institutions of Socialist society (thus bringing us nearer to Communism); and it will transform old and backwards ways of thinking. This will be the way the proletariat carries forward the struggle to do away with the class system, and eventually abolish the State (eliminating the need for a Communist Party).

The working class will retain power in its own hands, will abolish capitalism instantly (not by degrees) and will proceed to communism in a very brief period of time--my estimate is five years or less after the revolution.

I disagree, and I think that the challenges we face in eliminating Capitalism once and for all are far too great to be done in simply 5 years, let along 5 decades! I like to think of it this way (this is a story a few comrades have told me more than once):

A radical professor was speaking on a panel here on the incredible changes in china during the cultural revolution.

A question was raised by a PLP supporter in the audience -- who argued that the whole enterprise of socialist revolution was a mistake, and the solution was to go straight to communism.

The speaker answered: "Look, I'm fat. you can see that. And I have been on many diets, which sometimes made some progress and then were reversed. So, I now see the light! i'm going to adopt your logic: the reason my weight loss failed is in the very idea of dieting. I'm not going to diet anymore, I'm just gonna to go STRAIGHT to thin!"

Somethin' to think about, Comrade ;)

[redstar2000]

Why was this true in 1848 and no longer true today, Redstar?

Because in 1848, the proletariat was still a minority even in the advanced capitalist countries. In many respects, in fact, material conditions in Germany, France, England, etc. strongly resembled Russian conditions c.1900. It would not surprise me to learn that Lenin was consciously aware of that and drew the appropriate conclusions.

Material conditions in the advanced capitalist countries are now enormously different from those of 1848 or even 1948! The material foundations of communism are already in place or in the process of being put in place--especially in information technology, something that Marx and Engels had no real idea of.

Marx and Engels lived in the era of bourgeois revolutions and this affected their perceptions--I think that, in particular, their occasional sympathies for a "strong centralized workers' state" was a case of "seepage"...some of the dominant bourgeois ideology of their day "seeped" into their views of the future.

It happens to the best of us.


A question was raised by a PLP supporter in the audience -- who argued that the whole enterprise of socialist revolution was a mistake, and the solution was to go straight to communism.

The speaker answered: "Look, I'm fat. You can see that. And I have been on many diets, which sometimes made some progress and then were reversed. So, I now see the light! I'm going to adopt your logic: the reason my weight loss failed is in the very idea of dieting. I'm not going to diet anymore, I'm just gonna to go STRAIGHT to thin!"

I think most of the fat was located between the professor's ears.

Seriously, your assertion that it will take "decades" is a common one among Leninists--some say "centuries". But it's still just an assertion that carries no more weight ( :lol: ) than my assertion to the contrary.

That being the case, what do we have to lose by going for what we really want?

Maybe we'll lose...either to the Leninists or to a capitalist counter-revolution. If that happens, we know that class society with all its attendant evils will be re-established.

But at least we won't have "beaten ourselves"...at least we won't have given up our hopes before the battle is joined.

And I think our chances are pretty good.

:redstar2000:

A trivial note: the PLP's version of "communism" is a "democratic centralist" party that everyone has to be in and obey. They "abolish" the state by creating a party that is a state.

Their slogan "fight for communism" really translates into "fight for us to run everything".

No thanks.

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A site about communist ideas