Revolutionary Provisional Government: what if Lenin pulled off a Castro? [Archive]

Die Neue Zeit

21st October 2011, 15:17

The Bolsheviks swung around to call for "All Power to the Soviets," were propelled to power, lost majority political support from the working class in 1918, then pulled off a series of anti-soviet coups d'etats (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bolshevik-coups-detat-t134819/index.html) in response.

Looking at the proposed changes to the party program, their agitation, the infrequent meetings of higher soviets such that governments could not be held accountable, and the first governmental inconsistency between the Milrevkom and the Sovnarkom, and the later governmental inconsistencies involving the CEC, its Presidium, the Sovnarkom, the Maly Sovnarkom, and the Council of Labour and Defence, it was clear that the Old Bolshevik line of a Revolutionary Provisional Government, legitimized by Bukharin's Revolutionary Convention, was more appropriate than soviets:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ironic-triumph-old-t145495/index.html

Vlast means the claiming of legitimate authority in semi-state sense, and the right to use force. The vlast is thus more fundamental than a government. It is the energising centre of a state, if not a full state itself. So the ‘old Bolsheviks’ said the workers and peasants must take power in order to carry the democratic revolution through to the end. In 1905 and after, the soviets were seen as a form of this class power, though not a necessary one. The Bolsheviks were not then thinking in terms of what Lenin said later on in his State and revolution: namely, that it was a permanent state form which would be more democratic than any we have seen.

Rather the soviets were seen as a form of state power or vlast which would carry out the tasks of the worker-peasant alliance. So they were not thinking of them in the way we do, since we have read State and revolution, which was published in 1918 and had almost nothing to do with the Russian Revolution. What they meant was the form of class power, and they were mostly concerned that it was our class doing things and not your class. This was true back in 1905-06. This class power would take the national form of a revolutionary provisional government (in Russian, ‘temporary’ and ‘provisional’ are the same word). Their concept of a revolutionary provisional government was not that of the actual Provisional government which arose in 1917, and the Bolsheviks knew this straightaway. Stalin says that explicitly in March: “the Provisional government is certainly not the revolutionary provisional government”. However, that phrase does change in meaning. But it was accepted that it would be temporary - lasting years maybe.

"All Power" to such a Revolutionary Provisional Government (RPG) would have overcome much of the institutional confusion taking place at the time. It would have put the Left SRs in their place on the question of the Decree on Peace (before the unnecessary Brest-Litovsk), yet raised their profile further with the Decree on Land. It would have passed the Workers Decrees with greater authority:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Decree#List_of_Soviet_Decrees

The structure of such an RPG, however, reminds one of the extra-constitutional rule of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, rei gerendae causa, that existed from its Revolution until 1976, even if the ministries were topped by collegiums or boards.

RED DAVE

21st October 2011, 17:06

[I]t was clear that the Old Bolshevik line of a Revolutionary Provisional Government, legitimized by Bukharin's Revolutionary Convention, was more appropriate than soviets:So you say, DNZ. Anything to get away from workers power emanating from the workplace. You go for bureaucracy like my cat goes for tuna.

RED DAVE

Jose Gracchus

21st October 2011, 20:30

The soviets and factory committees were precisely where the Bolsheviks were strongest, factionally, in the fall of 1917. It was no coincidence that they were seen as the only plausible germ of a new social form. This is just pissing in the wind. Even the "Revolutionary Convention" was to be based on soviet congresses, and a way of packing a Constituent Assembly in favor of the far left.

Die Neue Zeit

22nd October 2011, 06:43

Why, then, was power ceded from the immediate executive organs of the soviets to the Sovnarkom so quickly, without much of a hassle and before the coups d'etat? Even a Bolshevik supermajority in those executive organs should have in theory stood their ground, not to mention the Bolsheviks on the Central Committee without Sovnarkom posts.

So you say, DNZ. Anything to get away from workers power emanating from the workplace. You go for bureaucracy like my cat goes for tuna.

So you dislike Sovnarkom, then?

Jose Gracchus

22nd October 2011, 19:32

Die Neue Zeit

22nd October 2011, 23:02

Like you yourself admitted, though, the readiness of the Russian workers' self-organization was to be questioned.

Crisis management in particular is not something that can be handled by deliberative bodies. The specific questions of power, of authority, of government posed by crisis management - the immediate rei gerendae causa - required ministries and some sort of cabinet model implicit in the Revolutionary Provisional Government. However, that being said, there is no uniform ministry or cabinet model:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_government#First_among_equals_or_dominatin g_the_cabinet.3F

Where proletarian demographic majorities are involved, the individual head of government should not dominate the cabinet.

Furthermore, I mentioned the boards of the People's Commissariats and the later Collegium organs of the Ministries. That's definitely one way to have more participatory decision-making, and a big one if it were extended all the way down throughout the governmental system - very similar to the second component of Burnheim's Demarchy model.

EDIT: For some reason my last sentence or paragraph on sovereign socioeconomic governments is missing. I planned to mention this in terms of revolutionary provisional governance being comprised of multiple cabinets, linking more with the second component of Burnheim's Demarchy model.

Jose Gracchus

22nd October 2011, 23:30

Like you yourself admitted, though, the readiness of the Russian workers' self-organization was to be questioned.

Not by you or the way you will (you can practically hear "party-movement" and "alternative culture" or yet-better some other crap, sneaking in here).

Crisis management in particular is not something that can be handled by deliberative bodies. The specific questions of power, of authority, of government posed by crisis management required ministries and some sort of cabinet model implicit in the Revolutionary Provisional Government.

Reactionary and preposterous. And the Bolsheviks went straight for the bourgeois-cabinet style government, so who knows why you have a problem with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_government#First_among_equals_or_dominatin g_the_cabinet.3F

Where proletarian demographic majorities are involved, the individual head of government should not dominate the cabinet.

Furthermore, I mentioned the boards of the People's Commissariats and the later Collegium organs of the Ministries. That's definitely one way to have more participatory decision-making, and a big one if it were extended all the way down throughout the governmental hierarchy (very similar to the second component of Burnheim's Demarchy model).

And the fruitcake is delivered.

RED DAVE

22nd October 2011, 23:39

Crisis management in particular is not something that can be handled by deliberative bodies.According to you. But being a cross between a stalinist and a social democrat, what else would you believe?

Question: Do you believe in workers control of the economy by deliberative bodies" when there is no crisis? Do you believe in workers control of the economy from the ground up, emanating from the workplaces?

The specific questions of power, of authority, of government posed by crisis management required ministries and some sort of cabinet model implicit in the Revolutionary Provisional Government.So you say.

However, that being said, there is no uniform ministry or cabinet model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_government#First_among_equals_or_dominatin g_the_cabinet.3F (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_government#First_among_equals_or_dominatin g_the_cabinet.3F)What you have just posted, no big surprise, is a set of examples from entirely bourgeois governments? What does any of that crap have to do with socialism?

Where proletarian demographic majorities are involved, the individual head of government should not dominate the cabinet.But if a minority, then in comes your favorite dude in history: the Caesarian Socialist Dictator or whatever you call him?

Furthermore, I mentioned the boards of the People's Commissariats and the later Collegium organs of the Ministries. That's definitely one way to have more participatory decision-making, and a big one if it were extended all the way down throughout the governmental hierarchy (very similar to the second component of Burnheim's Demarchy model).How about a bottom-up socialist model, asshole?

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

22nd October 2011, 23:53

And the Bolsheviks went straight for the bourgeois-cabinet style government, so who knows why you have a problem with it.

OK, I'm not for the duration of the pre-constitutional Cuban Council of Ministers. What I am for, however, is say a four- or five-year duration (or less, but nonetheless multi-year) for the RPG as a single Sovnarkom or a number of Sovnarkoms (each for a given set of issues), with the RPG having "All Power" to combine policy-making, legislative, executive, and administrative authority without any constraints rei gerendae causa, not even the formal ones by some CEC or CEC Presidium, after an initial meeting by a Revolutionary Convention.

Rafiq

23rd October 2011, 00:00

According to you. But being a cross between a stalinist and a social democrat, what else would you believe?

Question: Do you believe in workers control of the economy by deliberative bodies" when there is no crisis? Do you believe in workers control of the economy from the ground up, emanating from the workplaces?

So you say.

What you have just posted, no big surprise, is a set of examples from entirely bourgeois governments? What does any of that crap have to do with socialism?

But if a minority, then in comes your favorite dude in history: the Caesarian Socialist Dictator or whatever you call him?

How about a bottom-up socialist model, asshole?

RED DAVE

You know you are quite the piece of shit. DNZ is having a civil discussion with you and it would appear that you're just adressing his points with strawman bullshit sentances that you pull out of your ass on the spot. Either contribute something useful or don't post.

Jose Gracchus

23rd October 2011, 00:03

OK, I'm not for the duration of the pre-constitutional Cuban Council of Ministers. What I am for, however, is say a four- or five-year duration for the RPG (i.e., a single Sovnarkom or a number of Sovnarkoms, each for a given set of issues) with "All Power" to combine policy-making, legislative, executive, and administrative authority without any constraints, not even the formal ones by some CEC or CEC Presidium, after an initial meeting by a Revolutionary Convention.

No one would have supported this, and this proposal as no material relationship to the real world of Russia 1917-1918, though I suppose the Bolsheviks were damned to not have any thinker as brilliant as you.

You're a fruitcake. This shit sounds literally insane, and one can imagine you building a tiny lego scale model of the Winter Palace, to then masturbate over, while you draft model decrees and minutes of meetings of your imaginary fantasy "historical alternatives". What the fuck do you think led to the Left SR coup attempt, or the bombings, or the various other kinds of left-resistance. Do you really think all the rest of the pro-soviet faction, including the working masses, would've just sat and quietly obeyed while your imaginary cabinet issued dictatorial decrees? Who cares if Sovnarkom was purely formally subject to the Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Congress of Soviets? In practice it was a self-perpetuating body which disposed of soviets that did not yield legitimacy passively to it, and did "combine policy-making, legislative, executive, and administrative authority without any constraints". The only difference is I guess to you that doesn't sound cool or moonbatty enough, so you've conjured some meaningless or irrelevant "alternative" in your head and expect this crap to be taken seriously and pollute the Theory and History forums endlessly with it.

Die Neue Zeit

23rd October 2011, 00:07

Question: Do you believe in workers control of the economy by deliberative bodies" when there is no crisis? Do you believe in workers control of the economy from the ground up, emanating from the workplaces?

I believe in much more than mere workers control. I am for systemic collective worker management. This management emanates from a number of places, not parochially from just the workplace (residential areas, for example).

What you have just posted, no big surprise, is a set of examples from entirely bourgeois governments? What does any of that crap have to do with socialism?

Again, so you dislike Sovnarkom, then?

Where proletarian demographic majorities are involved, the individual head of government should not dominate the cabinet.But if a minority, then in comes your favorite dude in history: the Caesarian Socialist Dictator or whatever you call him?

That would be the National Leader or Pan-National Leader, many times as El Presidente, other times outside La Presidencia or not holding the highest public office when exercising neo-patrimonial power, but whose image is a facade for tight control by legislative confidence and especially by confidence on the part of his party's outside-the-government leadership organ. So much for factual one-man absolutism.

No one would have supported this, and this proposal as no material relationship to the real world of Russia 1917-1918, though I suppose the Bolsheviks were damned to not have any thinker as brilliant as you.

Why did the Russian working class initially support the Provisional Government, itself not accountable to some Duma or whatever?

What the fuck do you think led to the Left SR coup attempt, or the bombings, or the various other kinds of left-resistance. Do you really think all the rest of the pro-soviet faction, including the working masses, would've just sat and quietly obeyed while your imaginary cabinet issued dictatorial decrees? Who cares if Sovnarkom was purely formally subject to the Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Congress of Soviets? In practice it was a self-perpetuating body which disposed of soviets that did not yield legitimacy passively to it, and did "combine policy-making, legislative, executive, and administrative authority without any constraints".

"All Power" to the RPG would have allowed the Bolsheviks to grow the party-movement and its institutions, and to internalize the soviet "movement" and its dynamics. Meanwhile, the non-party soviet system could serve as an apparatus of consultative public fora with greater prestige than mere town hall meetings.

The only difference is I guess to you that doesn't sound cool or moonbatty enough

Cuba's pre- and extra-constitutional Council of Ministers had a "material relationship to the real world" and was hardly "moonbatty." :confused:

Jose Gracchus

23rd October 2011, 02:31

Why did the Russian working class initially support the Provisional Government, itself not accountable to some Duma or whatever?

Because people aren't necessarily willing to die when they may yet see the immediate policies they need, when the soviets exist and are supervising the PG, and because it was provisional as in, Constituent Assembly elections by fall, not "4-5 years" of open-ended rule that who knows what the content could be. You're deluded. Your assertions are not plausible. I'm not arguing with you, I'm telling you how it is because I know you are not read on early Russia other than skimming through shit on Google Books and whatever Lars Lih says about Bolshevik history. That's not the same as the history of the whole period. Again, as usual, you propose that some formal demand you have cooked up in your head could or would plausibly be raised and could work in the past, with nothing to defend your claims than I guess "HYUCK LOL MIGHT KOOL AMIRITE?" Give me a fucking break. Stop polluting History and Theory with your self-referential Chick Tracts of Communism.

"All Power" to the RPG would have allowed the Bolsheviks to grow the party-movement and its institutions, and to internalize the soviet "movement" and its dynamics. Meanwhile, the non-party soviet system could serve as an apparatus of consultative public fora with greater prestige than mere town hall meetings.

No one supported Bolshevik party rule institutionally except for some of the ultra-vanguardists in the party leadership prior to the political, social, and economic crisis of 1918 convincing many Bolsheviks that it was the only way (following Lenin) to preserve the revolution. The mass working class political support for the Bolsheviks was for their program of immediate redress on the issues of the continuation of the war, the transport and food situation, the decline of the economy, industrial relations in the factory, and support for government and policy-making based on soviets. That's what had popular support, not the Bolsheviks as such in their own right, to do whatever they pleased or whatever you've cooked up and decided to put in their mouths as a "historical alternative".

The majority of the working-class supported the All-Russian Congress of Soviets as the fount of revolutionary vlast in order to resolve the immanent crisis pervading Russia for most of its population, and the working masses in particular. Realizing these demands also necessitated gaining the support of the peasant class, at least passively, or at least neutralize it as a source of mass opposition, which required passing the land redistribution reform, and to sanctify the already existing class war and land seizures erupting in the Russian countryside.

Your "scenario" is ahistorical, and useless even as a thought experiment. It simply does not have any significance other than revealing your lack of knowledge of history and poor education in social matters. You don't know seem to have any grasp of historical cause other than Harry Turtledove-esque, pop-crap "what if?" scenario-positing.

Cuba's pre- and extra-constitutional Council of Ministers had a "material relationship to the real world" and was hardly "moonbatty." :confused:

Hey, Sherlock, maybe you cannot just willy-nilly move around historical events and entities from context to context, across tens of thousands of miles, centuries of historical background, and decades between occurrences. The two have nothing to do with one another. The Cuban experience and Russian experience are not comparable. For one, you're clueless and do not realize that Cuba had your much-fetishized "proletarian demographic majority" in 1959.

Die Neue Zeit

23rd October 2011, 04:01

Because people aren't necessarily willing to die when they may yet see the immediate policies they need, when the soviets exist and are supervising the PG, and because it was provisional as in, Constituent Assembly elections by fall, not "4-5 years" of open-ended rule that who knows what the content could be.

Indeed you refer to Kamenev's kontrol position. The four-to-five-year RPG rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa I suggested would occur after the initial approval by a Revolutionary Convention. That Convention would still stick around like Nepal's Constituent Assembly, but exercising this limited kontrol function.

BTW, the RPG rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa could be shortened so as to end right after the end of the Russian Civil War, but my central point remains regarding appropriate organs of multi-year crisis management.

I know you are not read on early Russia other than skimming through shit on Google Books and whatever Lars Lih says about Bolshevik history.

Speaking of Soviet history specialists, I've read and re-read Graeme Gill, Moshe Lewin, Evan Mawdsley, and others. I mentioned those three specifically because they emphasize the institutions of the period.

No one supported Bolshevik party rule institutionally except for some of the ultra-vanguardists in the party leadership prior to the political, social, and economic crisis of 1918 convincing many Bolsheviks that it was the only way (following Lenin) to preserve the revolution. The mass working class political support for the Bolsheviks was for their program of immediate redress on the issues of the continuation of the war, the transport and food situation, the decline of the economy, industrial relations in the factory, and support for government and policy-making based on soviets. That's what had popular support, not the Bolsheviks as such in their own right, to do whatever they pleased or whatever you've cooked up and decided to put in their mouths as a "historical alternative".

As I said in the OP, the workers at large indeed wanted immediate redress regarding the war, transport, food production, economic decline, and industrial relations. Crisis management came to the fore, and it posed specific questions of power, of authority, of government. The organs best positioned to implement immediate redress via the Decree on Peace, the Decree on Land, and the Workers Decrees were not the soviets or even their executive committees, but ministries and cabinets culminating in an RPG, as early as November 9, a mere two days!

Things are less clear regarding support for government and policy-making based on soviets, when considering the SR and Menshevik domination of the soviets and attempts to align them with the PG. To ordinary workers, whatever governmental forms could best provide the immediate redress would be the ones supported.

The majority of the working-class supported the All-Russian Congress of Soviets as the fount of revolutionary vlast in order to resolve the immanent crisis pervading Russia for most of its population, and the working masses in particular. Realizing these demands also necessitated gaining the support of the peasant class, at least passively, or at least neutralize it as a source of mass opposition, which required passing the land redistribution reform, and to sanctify the already existing class war and land seizures erupting in the Russian countryside.

Indeed, but the Congress passed only three decrees. Not even supplemental decrees pursuant to the fulfillment of those early decrees were passed by the CEC, let alone the Congress.

North Star

23rd October 2011, 13:48

S.Artesian

23rd October 2011, 16:47

RED DAVE

23rd October 2011, 17:02

Die Neue Zeit

23rd October 2011, 17:32

DNZ the question is though how would Russian workers respond to the call of "all power to the RPG!" ? A demand like that would provide more clarification to where power in the RSFSR lay but would depend on the Bolsheviks having the support of more workers than they did. The demand for "All power to the Soviets!" could win support of workers that were not necessarily pro-Bolshevik. I think the Bolsheviks genuinely wanted the Soviets to function properly, but the disastrous state of Russia prevented this. Decisions were made under the duress of civil war which contributed to the accumulation of power by the bureaucracy, but I do not believe that the original intention of the Bolsheviks was anything like what Castro did.

Comrade, I'm not sure that explicitly mentioning the RPG would be appropriate for sloganeering without attaching it to other demands. It's a political honesty issue. I could see it being mentioned in a leaflet-sized agitational platform, something like the bottom half or two-thirds of the RSDLP program:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm

Where the words "The constitution of the Russian democratic republic must ensure" would be replaced with "More immediately, the party fights for a Revolutionary Provisional Government and a constitution that will ensure..."

Later on, "To safeguard the working class from physical and moral deterioration, and develop its ability to carry on the struggle for emancipation, the Party demands" would be replaced with "To safeguard the working class from physical and moral deterioration, and to develop its ability to carry on the struggle for emancipation, the Party fights for a Revolutionary Provisional Government to implement..."

Last, but not least, similar changes would be made in the section(s) dealing with the peasantry.

This is the real point. What Castro and other stalinists do is take the emergency measures that might, I say might, be necessary under extreme conditions and make them permanent.

I already said I oppose the notion of an RPG rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa lasting for almost two decades like Cuba's unchecked CoM did. I limited my suggestion to five years tops.

RED DAVE

23rd October 2011, 18:08

This is the real point. What Castro and other stalinists do is take the emergency measures that might, I say might, be necessary under extreme conditions and make them permanent.
I already said I oppose the notion of an RPG rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa lasting for almost two decades like Cuba's unchecked CoM did. I limited my suggestion to five years tops.I'm glad you oppose i, but five years is about the amount of time from the death of Lenin and the trimph of Stalin.

There is no reason to believe that imposing bureaucratic structures on a revolution will not lead to stalinism. They are unnecessary in modern revolution. It is a serious error to suppose that they lead to anything but counter-revolution. We're seeing that kind of shit in Nepal right now.

"The dream of reason breeds monsters."

[B]RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

23rd October 2011, 19:45

I'm glad you oppose i, but five years is about the amount of time from the death of Lenin and the triumph of Stalin.

Ending even as early as the end of the Civil War is way less time than Stalin's ascension.

There is no reason to believe that imposing bureaucratic structures on a revolution will not lead to stalinism. They are unnecessary in modern revolution. It is a serious error to suppose that they lead to anything but counter-revolution. We're seeing that kind of shit in Nepal right now.

I did mention Nepal's Constituent Assembly and Provisional Government, but I also emphasized the term rei gerendae causa to describe the multi-year purpose and powers of an RPG's rule-by-decree. Look up that Latin term.

There is ultimately no reason to believe that the crisis management I have proposed necessarily leads to Stalinism, either. Stalin's rise was the result of certain processes occurring in the Communist Party, not in the state's civil administration. In fact, all the populist talk of "combatting bureaucracy" was the speck in the other person's eye, while the party processes and almost everyone looking the other way were the plank in one's own eye!

Jose Gracchus

23rd October 2011, 19:53

The dictatura rei gerendae causa was an institution for the emergency perpetuation of the ruling class in Classical Rome. The dictator was invariably a member of the ruling patrician class, and his mandate was to preserve the existing institutions of the Roman republican state at all costs. "For the matter to be done."

Die Neue Zeit

23rd October 2011, 22:40

S.Artesian

23rd October 2011, 23:41

What about the French Committee for Public Safety and its relationship with the more passive National Convention, then, the relationship "for the matter to be done" before the June law that deprived the deputies of immunity from arrest?

Nothing like his appealing to the history of bourgeois revolutions to prove how limited, how fundamentally bourgeois DNZ's view are. What was it Marx said in The Civil War in France-- that unlike bourgeois parliaments, the commune was itself the legislating and executing agency? Something like that. But for a commune to be both a legislating and executing agency means........for the class to act through its own organizations of the class for itself and not through those of a club, a committee, know matter how "left wing" it thinks its is.

It should be pointed out here that part, just part of the problem with the Bolshevik leadership was that it could never get beyond thinking of itself as anything more than a reincarnation of the left Jacobins. Of course such thought, reflecting a paucity of imagination, reflects more than a paucity of imagination, but the class origins of that leadership, the limitations of that leadership, and the uneven and combined development that defined the Russian Revolution.

Let's look at the CPS-- what was its course of development....what exactly were the fruits of its labor? Well, not to put too fine a point on it... but the CPS was responsible for suppressing the commune and after destroying the Hebertists, the CPS went after Desmoulins and the "old Cordeliers" thus depriving the revolution of its most steadfast and indefatigable supporters.

We know what happened to the CPS next...don't we? Thermidor.

DNZ occupies thread after thread with contortion after contortion attempting to dismiss the essential importance of class wide, non-party, organizations to overthrow the social relations of production, rather than mimic them.

He's going back on my ignore list. I suggest others might want to consider that alternative.

Die Neue Zeit

24th October 2011, 01:32

Nothing like his appealing to the history of bourgeois revolutions to prove how limited, how fundamentally bourgeois DNZ's view are.

Exactly how was the Cuban Council of Ministers "bourgeois" (just to see if your thinking is consistent for a change)?

What was it Marx said in The Civil War in France-- that unlike bourgeois parliaments, the commune was itself the legislating and executing agency? Something like that. But for a commune to be both a legislating and executing agency means........for the class to act through its own organizations of the class for itself and not through those of a club, a committee, know matter how "left wing" it thinks its is.

The Paris Commune had a Communal Council of 92 members that combined legislative and executive power. That's about the size of Sovmin in the later Soviet years.

DNZ occupies thread after thread with contortion after contortion attempting to dismiss the essential importance of class wide, non-party, organizations to overthrow the social relations of production, rather than mimic them.

I merely take Marx's First International dictum on political parties much more seriously than ultra-lefts like yourself do, to the point where I think his other statement of "party in the broadest sense" (i.e., inclusive of typical takes on social movements, councils, etc.) is contradictory.

Jose Gracchus

24th October 2011, 02:34

You mean contradicts your hobby-horse of what a party should be. :rolleyes:

promethean

24th October 2011, 05:04

I merely take Marx's First International dictum on political parties much more seriously than ultra-lefts like yourself do, to the point where I think his other statement of "party in the broadest sense" (i.e., inclusive of typical takes on social movements, councils, etc.) is contradictory. If you take it so seriously, surely you must be able to provide evidence that a "party" of the type you keep putting forth bizarre, nonsensical ideas for even exists or has ever existed. To me, your posts seem more like random thoughts that come into your head than anything to be taken seriously or engaged with, as doing would be a waste of time.

Die Neue Zeit

25th October 2011, 03:43

If you take it so seriously, surely you must be able to provide evidence that a "party" of the type you keep putting forth bizarre, nonsensical ideas for even exists or has ever existed.

Look no further than the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD. :)

Back to the OP: While the Russian working class was by no means ready to be the ruling class, the three to five years afforded by a ministry- and cabinet(s)-based Revolutionary Provisional Government's rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa, supplemented by some kontrol/supervisory actions by a Revolutionary Convention, would have allowed the Bolsheviks to refine their implementation of the SPD model in Russia for the inevitable time to go back into opposition, and would have prevented "the dethronement of Lenin's Government" (Eugene Huskey) (http://books.google.ca/books?id=mKcazy5JDCgC&pg=PA13&dq=executive+sovnarkom+dethronement+government&hl=en&ei=9SSmTvLXGoGOiAK0_KHDDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=executive%20sovnarkom%20dethronement%20governmen t&f=false) by an increasingly de-politicized Central Committee, its departments, and its standing committees.

RED DAVE

25th October 2011, 04:05

Look no further than the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD. :)So your political idals are one party that sold out before WWI and one party that sold out after WWI.

Back to the OP: While the Russian working class was by no means ready to be the ruling classSo you sasy. But you never believe that the working class will be ready.

the three to five years afforded by a ministry- and cabinet(s)-based Revolutionary Provisional Government's rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa, supplemented by some kontrol/supervisory actions by a Revolutionary Convention, would have allowed the Bolsheviks to refine their implementation of the SPD model in Russia for the inevitable time to go back into opposition, and would have prevented "the dethronement of Lenin's Government" (Eugene Huskey) (http://books.google.ca/books?id=mKcazy5JDCgC&pg=PA13&dq=executive+sovnarkom+dethronement+government&hl=en&ei=9SSmTvLXGoGOiAK0_KHDDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=executive%20sovnarkom%20dethronement%20governmen t&f=false) by an increasingly de-politicized Central Committee and its standing committees.Political fantasy: as if turning over the government to some kind of bureaucratic dictatorship would have solved anything. You have no concept of the historical process as the result of class struggle.

RED DAVE

promethean

25th October 2011, 04:17

Look no further than the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD. :)

Back to the OP: While the Russian working class was by no means ready to be the ruling class, the three to five years afforded by a ministry- and cabinet(s)-based Revolutionary Provisional Government's rule-by-decree rei gerendae causa, supplemented by some kontrol/supervisory actions by a Revolutionary Convention, would have allowed the Bolsheviks to refine their implementation of the SPD model in Russia for the inevitable time to go back into opposition, and would have prevented "the dethronement of Lenin's Government" (Eugene Huskey) (http://books.google.ca/books?id=mKcazy5JDCgC&pg=PA13&dq=executive+sovnarkom+dethronement+government&hl=en&ei=9SSmTvLXGoGOiAK0_KHDDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=executive%20sovnarkom%20dethronement%20governmen t&f=false) by an increasingly de-politicized Central Committee and its standing committees.
Since for your random shit to be taken seriously, you needed to have been a member of the pre-war SPD and the inter-war USPD or a member of an actual present-day party which fits your "hard" party line. However since there are no USPD members still lurking around on internet boards today :rolleyes: and you admit that you are not part of any real party as such, your posts amount to nothing but historical roleplay/re-enactment. This forum seems to have a lot of such people, including so-called Hoxhaists and "inter-war" Stalinists. Its interesting that your sort of badly made historical fiction stays on a serious political discussion board like this.

Die Neue Zeit

25th October 2011, 04:28

Since for your random shit to be taken seriously, you needed to have been a member of the pre-war SPD and the inter-war USPD or a member of an actual present-day party which fits your "hard" party line. However since there are no USPD members still lurking around on internet boards today :rolleyes: and you admit that you are not part of any real party as such, your posts amount to nothing but historical roleplay/re-enactment. This forum seems to have a lot of such people, including so-called Hoxhaists and "inter-war" Stalinists. Its interesting that your sort of badly made historical fiction stays on a serious political discussion board like this.

The likes of historian Lars Lih have not been members of such parties, yet they are thankfully taken more seriously these days in terms of historical analysis and current political ramifications (read: reviving Orthodox Marxism and providing more substantive critiques of ultra-leftism).

one party that sold out after WWI

How did the USPD organization "sell out," in your view?

promethean

25th October 2011, 04:43

The likes of historian Lars Lih have not been members of such parties, yet they are thankfully taken more seriously these days in terms of historical analysis and current political ramifications (read: reviving Orthodox Marxism and providing more substantive critiques of ultra-leftism).

How did the USPD organization "sell out," in your view?
I would not consider any analysis or politics coming from the heads of academics to be of any worth at all, as opposed to a political analysis developed from among workers by their experience as members of the working class. People like Lars Lih or yourself are basically engaged in a sort of anti-political historical re-enactment and is not something that can be taken seriously. The sort of random fiction you come up with (like this thread) still has no place on a political board. I would suggest that you take up some other hobby, maybe go for a reenactment of the politics of the Merovingian dynasty?

Ismail

25th October 2011, 10:11

your posts amount to nothing but historical roleplay/re-enactment. This forum seems to have a lot of such people, including so-called Hoxhaists and "inter-war" Stalinists.Except, you know, Enver Hoxha really did exist, as did the Party of Labour, and there were plenty of parties that adhered to the Albanian line and various parties that do so today. Hoxha held various meetings with the leaders of these parties, as did various Albanian ideologists and other officials throughout the 1960's, 70's and 80's.

In a November 8, 1956 article which he contributed to Pravda Hoxha spoke out against attempts to promote "specific socialisms" in different countries. Throughout his leadership Hoxha denounced Maoism, Juche, the Soviet revisionists, the "non-capitalist" Ba'athists and other bourgeois forces said Soviet revisionists allied with, the "Foco" views of Che Guevara, the "Eurocommunists," and so on. He pointed out that only the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin was correct. He wrote 70 volumes worth of published Collected Works, 23 volumes of published diaries, 3 volumes of collected letters, and various memoirs, all of which were based on actual events occurring in the real world.

Do you see pro-Hoxha individuals on RevLeft making hypothetical "what-if" threads such as these? Do you see them making up terms? ("Hoxhaism" does not count, the word is Maoist in origin and was used to attack those who supported the Albanian line. Its usage as a term to self-describe oneself is internet-based and for that reason shouldn't be used.) You could claim that there is a disconnect between these individuals and the actual pro-Albanian parties that exist today, but then again I don't think we'll see too many people from places like Burkina Faso, Benin or Ecuador making accounts on RevLeft.

RED DAVE

25th October 2011, 11:11

Except, you know, Enver Hoxha really did exist, as did the Party of Labour, and there were plenty of parties that adhered to the Albanian line and various parties that do so today. Hoxha held various meetings with the leaders of these parties, as did various Albanian ideologists and other officials throughout the 1960's, 70's and 80's.And what you seek to do is to reenact the errors of one form of stalinism or another.

In a November 8, 1956 article which he contributed to Pravda Hoxha spoke out against attempts to promote "specific socialisms" in different countries. Throughout his leadership Hoxha denounced Maoism, Juche, the Soviet revisionists, the "non-capitalist" Ba'athists and other bourgeois forces said Soviet revisionists allied with, the "Foco" views of Che Guevara, the "Eurocommunists," and so on. He pointed out that only the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin was correct. He wrote 70 volumes worth of published Collected Works, 23 volumes of published diaries, 3 volumes of collected letters, and various memoirs, all of which were based on actual events occurring in the real world.Too bad in all that he didn't know that socialism was based on workers control.

Do you see pro-Hoxha individuals on RevLeft making hypothetical "what-if" threads such as these? Do you see them making up terms? ("Hoxhaism" does not count, the word is Maoist in origin and was used to attack those who supported the Albanian line. Its usage as a term to self-describe oneself is internet-based and for that reason shouldn't be used.) You could claim that there is a disconnect between these individuals and the actual pro-Albanian parties that exist today, but then again I don't think we'll see too many people from places like Burkina Faso, Benin or Ecuador making accounts on RevLeft.What I see pro-Hoxha people doing is calling state capitalism socialism.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

25th October 2011, 11:16

How did the USPD organization "sell out," in your view?How about their merger with the Social Democrats in 1922?

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

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

25th October 2011, 14:18

^^^ That's what happens when the left majority was foolish to vote for merger with the very organization that split from it earlier, despite the latter being a smaller organization.

RED DAVE

25th October 2011, 15:01

^^^ That's what happens when the left majority was foolish to vote for merger with the very organization that split from it earlier, despite the latter being a smaller organization.So now you are divorcing the USPD from its own majority. So, let's see:

(1) The SPD is really cool.

(2) The SPD engages in one of the worst sell-outs in history and supports Germany's entry into WWI.

(3) The USPD is formed from a split from the SPD.

(4) The USPD goes back into the SPD.

And these are your ideal political parties.

RED DAVE

Jose Gracchus

25th October 2011, 16:00

B-b-b-b-but dude! Haven't you seen DER ARBEITER BOWLING KLUB JA? Or our great ARBEITER CHORAL BAND? ALTERNATIVE CULTURE 4 THE WIN WUNDERBAR

Die Neue Zeit

26th October 2011, 15:30

(3) The USPD is formed from a split from the SPD.

(4) The USPD goes back into the SPD.

Look up the disaster that was the Halle Congress. :rolleyes:

B-b-b-b-but dude! Haven't you seen DER ARBEITER BOWLING KLUB JA? Or our great ARBEITER CHORAL BAND? ALTERNATIVE CULTURE 4 THE WIN WUNDERBAR

I don't agree with either the author's reliance on Weber with respect to bureaucracy or the underestimation of bureaucracy as a process, but this is good commentary:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=bciQpfRc87IC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=%22socialist+alternative%22+%22eddy+u%22+%22mod ern+bureaucracy+during+the+transition%22&source=bl&ots=yGKe6t6beq&sig=-2Kri9vS2HtF-W9gEnQplXHzqJM&hl=en&ei=xBaoTv2NMoX9iQKg3KCtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

If there is an analytical lesson to be learned from the demise of Soviet-type societies, it is not about capitalism's future as much as it is about the socialist alternative itself. Specifically, it is about the role of modern bureaucracy during the transition to socialism. The place of such administration is quite unclear in Marx's and Engels's famous but terse exposition of the transition to socialism. With Lenin and Mao, modern bureaucracy became an object of opprobrium. But socialism, like capitalism, is a system of division of labor. Its long-term feasibility has to be based on members of the workforce consenting to their assignments and subordination within the workplace, which is precisely what did not occur in Soviet-type societies.

[...]

Theories of possible future socialisms thus need to address not only the role of modern bureaucracy but also its political implications during and after the transition to socialism. They must not disregard Weber as previous theories and practice of socialism did.

Jose Gracchus

26th October 2011, 21:17

But socialism, like capitalism, is a system of division of labor. Its long-term feasibility has to be based on members of the workforce consenting to their assignments and subordination within the workplace, which is precisely what did not occur in Soviet-type societies.
You heard it here, everyone. The "feasibility" of "socialism" "has to be based on members of the workforce consenting to their assignments and subordination within the workplace".

You just do not believe in revolutionary socialism. You should be put in OI, because your politics are just not the same as ours. You're a social democrat at best, third-positionist at worst. You should probably just set up your own thing on the Internet like 'neo-Proudhonist' Kevin Carson or something, that would be a more productive use of your time.

I mean this as actual advice. I think among your actual political brethren you may feel more at home. Either that or Soviet-Empire. Your vision of socialism has no emancipatory character whatsoever, and I think you have misled yourself about this, and therefore spend much time wasted agitated to a group of people you do not have common politics with. Perhaps Stalinists. But that's a low bar.

RED DAVE

27th October 2011, 00:36

If you [Die Neue Zeit] take it so seriously, surely you must be able to provide evidence that a "party" of the type you keep putting forth bizarre, nonsensical ideas for even exists or has ever existed.
Look no further than the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD.
So your political idals are one party that sold out before WWI and one party that sold out after WWI.
How did the USPD organization "sell out," in your view?
How about their merger with the Social Democrats in 1922?
That's what happens when the left majority was foolish to vote for merger with the very organization that split from it earlier, despite the latter being a smaller organization.
So now you are divorcing the USPD from its own majority. So, let's see:

(1) The SPD is really cool.

(2) The SPD engages in one of the worst sell-outs in history and supports Germany's entry into WWI.

(3) The USPD is formed from a split from the SPD.

(4) The USPD goes back into the SPD.

And these are your ideal political parties.
Look up the disaster that was the Halle Congress.You have just made no point whatsoever.

One more time: you have posited the pre-WWI SPD and the post-WWI USPD as your ideal political parties. The pre-WWI SPD engaged in one of the worst sell-outs in Left history: supporting Germany's entry into WWI. The USPD, after a few years of independence, went back into the SPD.

This is the history of your two ideal parties. To this we add your recent approving quote, which Jose Gracchus has already destroyed:

But socialism, like capitalism, is a system of division of labor. Its long-term feasibility has to be based on members of the workforce consenting to their assignments and subordination within the workplace,And now it is legitimate to ask, what the fuck kind of revolutionary are you? Your favorite parties were both sell-outs. Your concept of socialism is bureaucratic. I've referred to you elsewhere as some kind of a weird amalgam of stalinist and social democrat.

Why are you here? Why shouldn't you be restricted to OI?

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

27th October 2011, 03:29

You have just made no point whatsoever.

The left majority in the Halle Congress had two options: to maintain their presence in the USPD as realisten/realos (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=838) and continue to purge the renegades and MSPD ass-kissers, or to hook up with the Russian fan club that was the "Comintern," as well as with the very same divisive partisan-Nutters who tried pulling the organizational rug from beneath them when they formed the KPD.

And now it is legitimate to ask, what the fuck kind of revolutionary are you? Your favorite parties were both sell-outs. Your concept of socialism is bureaucratic. I've referred to you elsewhere as some kind of a weird amalgam of stalinist and social democrat.

As I said above, I don't agree with either the author's reliance on Weber with respect to bureaucracy or the underestimation of bureaucracy as a process.

Also, if we go by one Pat Devine's functional vs. "social" division of labour, then there are certain processes ("bureaucracy") that are needed to maximize output for work in any given functional division of labour. In relation to those rotated into administering, directing and planning (1)... those in creative activity (2), caring and nurturing (3), skilled activity (4), and unskilled and repetitive activity (5) need to "consent to their assignments" during the whole time they're not rotated out.

If you want to discuss more about division of labour:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nature-ussr-t161229/index.html?p=2277275

Or the USPD:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/debating-cpgb-alternative-t162794/index.html

Please post there. I'd like to get this thread back on topic with respect to the necessity of a more empowered Sovnarkom or group of Sovnarkoms, which would have rendered the Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 entirely unnecessary.

RED DAVE

27th October 2011, 10:50

You have just made no point whatsoever.
The left majority in the Halle Congress had two options: to maintain their presence in the USPD as realisten/realos (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=838) and continue to purge the renegades and MSPD ass-kissers, or to hook up with the Russian fan club that was the "Comintern," as well as with the very same divisive partisan-Nutters who tried pulling the organizational rug from beneath them when they formed the KPD.We are still left with the same situation. You have posited two parties as ideals: the SPD and the USPD. The SPD, one more time, sold out the working class by supporting
Germany's entry ito WWI. And you still, with all your histroical gobbledy-gook, can't get away from the fact that the USPD majority voted to join the SPD.

So both parties you idealize were social democratic.

And now it is legitimate to ask, what the fuck kind of revolutionary are you? Your favorite parties were both sell-outs. Your concept of socialism is bureaucratic. I've referred to you elsewhere as some kind of a weird amalgam of stalinist and social democrat.
As I said above, I don't agree with either the author's reliance on Weber with respect to bureaucracy or the underestimation of bureaucracy as a process.So, one more time, you are letting us know that your concept of socialism is bureaucratic and not democratic.

Also, if we go by one Pat Devine's functional vs. "social" division of labour, then there are certain processes ("bureaucracy") that are needed to maximize output for work in any given functional division of labour. In relation to those rotated into administering, directing and planning (1)... those in creative activity (2), caring and nurturing (3), skilled activity (4), and unskilled and repetitive activity (5) need to "consent to their assignments" during the whole time they're not rotated out.

If you want to discuss more about division of labour:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nature-ussr-t161229/index.html?p=2277275

Or the USPD:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/debating-cpgb-alternative-t162794/index.html

Please post there. I'd like to get this thread back on topic with respect to the necessity of a more empowered Sovnarkom or group of Sovnarkoms, which would have rendered the Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 entirely unnecessary.So you quote some academic left-wing sociologist's gobbledy-gook and think that anyone is going to be diverted?

You are not a revolutionary. Why don't you do the right thing and get thee to OI?

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

31st October 2011, 03:16

So, one more time, you are letting us know that your concept of socialism is bureaucratic and not democratic.

So you quote some academic left-wing sociologist's gobbledy-gook and think that anyone is going to be diverted?

You are not a revolutionary. Why don't you do the right thing and get thee to OI?

"Why don't you do the right thing and get thee to LibCom?"

Your vision of socialism has no emancipatory character whatsoever, and I think you have misled yourself about this, and therefore spend much time wasted agitated to a group of people you do not have common politics with. Perhaps Stalinists. But that's a low bar.

When I arrived at this board I harbored ultra-left strategic illusions. Only through revolutionary institutions can classes get their act together, seize and exercise power, and emancipate themselves. Also, on the contrary, I don't waste my time. I just don't "preach" to stubborn ultra-left-coms in my rebuttal of their tired strategic arguments. :)

Either that or Soviet-Empire.

I'm tempted to say something similar about LibCom to the stubborn ultra-left-coms around here.

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 03:27

When I arrived at this board I harbored ultra-left illusions.And now you harbor social democratic and stalinist illusions.

Only through revolutionary institutions can classes get their act together, seize and exercise power, and emancipate themselves.(1) You show no indication that you are interested in "revolutionary institutions," which you have not defined here. Your constant interest is in bureaucratic structures that have little or nothing to do with revolution.

(2) We are not, primarily, dealing with "classes" at revleft. We deal with the working class: the class that will lead the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The fact that you are fantasizing about an extra-class, without defining the classes involved, is telling.

(3) "Get[ting] their act together" is a rather bizarre way of referring to the building of revolutionary organizations and the preparation for the overthrow of capitalism. However, since, as many people have pointed out, you have no experience with party building, it's not surprising that you would use such a phrase.

(4) Your attempt here to demonstate that you don't belong in OI is not particularly convincing.

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

31st October 2011, 03:32

You show no indication that you are interested in "revolutionary institutions," which you have not defined here. Your constant interest is in bureaucratic structures that have little or nothing to do with revolution.

Except for certain specific examples and theories on specific forms, soviets and workplace committees may be r-r-r-revolutionary organizations, but they are not revolutionary institutions. I have already defined what constitutes a revolutionary institution.

We are not, primarily, dealing with "classes" at revleft. We deal with the working class: the class that will lead the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The fact that you are fantasizing about an extra-class, without defining the classes involved, is telling.

I was making a general statement. The early feudal honchos and even the early bourgeoisie needed their institutions to get their act together and so on.

"Get[ting] their act together" is a rather bizarre way of referring to the building of revolutionary organizations and the preparation for the overthrow of capitalism.

That's not the case when there's the clear-cut choice of institutionalization vs. endless ad hoc-isms.

Your attempt here to demonstate that you don't belong in OI is not particularly convincing.

Your attempt here to demonstate that you don't belong in LibCom is not particularly convincing.

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 04:04

Except for certain specific examples and theories on specific forms, soviets and workplace committees may be r-r-r-revolutionary organizations, but they are not revolutionary institutions. I have already defined what constitutes a revolutionary institution.(1) Your notions are not informed by revolutionary Marxism but by the experiences of social democracy and stalinism.

(2) You have never been involved in party building.

(3) As far as anyone can tell you've never even been a member of a union, let alone a shop steward.

(4) Yet you set yourself up to define soviets as revolutionary organizations, not revolutionary institutions.

(5) The reason you're doing all this is that your concept of a revolutionary institution is bureaucratic to the core and has nothing to do with working class power over the economy, emanating from working class control of the workplaces.

(6) Given the above, I question your ability to make valid theoretical distinctions in this area (or any other for that matter).

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

31st October 2011, 04:13

(1) Your notions are not informed by revolutionary Marxism but by the experiences of social democracy and stalinism.

The original revolutionary Marxism was something that Lenin called "Revolutionary Social Democracy." :confused:

(2) You have never been involved in party building.

(3) As far as anyone can tell you've never even been a member of a union, let alone a shop steward.

Ad hominems.

(4) Yet you set yourself up to define soviets as revolutionary organizations, not revolutionary institutions.

(5) The reason you're doing all this is that your concept of a revolutionary institution is bureaucratic to the core and has nothing to do with working class power over the economy, emanating from working class control of the workplaces.

(6) Given the above, I question your ability to make valid theoretical distinctions in this area (or any other for that matter).

You don't know the subtle details.

Pretty much any organization that isn't an ad hoc one can be bureaucratic (even "to the core"), not just institutions. I use the latter term as my short-handed preference over "permanent organization" and "semi-permanent organization," things which the RevLeft user NHIA, for example, is staunchly against.

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 04:32

(1) Your notions are not informed by revolutionary Marxism but by the experiences of social democracy and stalinism.
The original revolutionary Marxism was something that Lenin called "Revolutionary Social Democracy." :confused:That may well be, but the social democracy you'r referring to is the rotten German sell-out variety, which you have admitted is your ideal. And, of course, you haven't addressed the stalinist strain in your thinking.

(2) You have never been involved in party building.

(3) As far as anyone can tell you've never even been a member of a union, let alone a shop steward.
Ad hominems.Hardly. It indicates that basically you're an armchair revolutionary whose work has no practice to back it up. Combine that with your social democracy/stalinism, and that puts your foundation as a revolutionary on extremely shaky ground.

(4) Yet you set yourself up to define soviets as revolutionary organizations, not revolutionary institutions.

(5) The reason you're doing all this is that your concept of a revolutionary institution is bureaucratic to the core and has nothing to do with working class power over the economy, emanating from working class control of the workplaces.
You don't know the subtle details.There's nothing subtle about your love for bureaucracy. It comes out in virtually every post you make. Nor is there any subtlety in your rejection of workers control of the economy emanating upwards from the workplaces.

Pretty much any organization that isn't an ad hoc one can be bureaucratic (even "to the core"), not just institutions.(A) You're bullshitting to avoid my point that you are a lover of bureaucracy. (B) We're not talking about "any organization." We're talking about soviets and revolutionary parties. To either of these, bureaucracy is death.

I use the the latter term as my short-handed preference over "permanent organization" and "semi-permanent organization," things which the RevLeft user NHIA, for example, is staunchly against.Stuff and nonsense. Bureaucracies and permanent or semi-permanent organizations or institutions, especially revolutionary organization or institutions, are not synonymous. Your rationale here covers either that you don't know the difference between an ongoing organization and a bureaucracy, or you're trying to conceal the fact that you support the existence of bureaucracies in revolutionary organizations and institutions.

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

31st October 2011, 04:36

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 04:47

Again, your definition of "bureaucracy" and my definition are different. For me, bureaucracy is a process, something not like your more static view of "bureaucracy" (merely hierarchy, permanent or semi-permanent specialization, and red tape).(1) You need to stop making up your own definitions if you want to communicate with anyone other than yourself. Your penchant for doing this is part and parcel of your lack of concrete political experience. Maybe if your actually engaged in the give and take of party building and/or the rough and tumble of trade union functioning, you might start to use the same language as other people.

(2) Frankly, though, I think that your notion of bureaucracy is the same as mine. The difference is that you love it, and I hate it. You are starting to waffle on this, though, because you're being caught out on it over and over again.

(3) You are trying to dodge the fact that you are coming from a stalinist and social democratic point of view, both of which are supremely bureaucratic with regard to revolutionary organizations and institutions.

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

31st October 2011, 05:17

You don't know the subtle details.

Priceless. Truly priceless. Here's a guy who considers Stalin's use of slave labor a "plus," actually refers to it as "primitive socialist accumulation" and now he says others don't understand the "subtle details."

ROFLMAO. UCNMTSU. UFB. FFT.

Hilarious. I mean this guy's a walking self-parody.

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 05:25

From another thread:

All we need to know is that the implementation of Economy-Wide Indicative Planning based on extensive mathematical optimization is a far better start to that question than Trotskyist slogans for "workers control" and "schools of planned economy."Translation: bureaucracy is better than workers control. It's hard to write a clearer statement of a bureaucratic mind-set than the above.

Again, you are a cross between a social democrat and a stalinist. Why don't you get honest and hang out in OI with your ilk?

RED DAVE

tir1944

31st October 2011, 11:07

"Bureaucracy" is the means/a tool for workers control.

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 12:15

"Bureaucracy" is the means/a tool for workers control.Spoken like a true Stalinist.

This is a perfect example why, in any political struggle, Stalinists can't be trusted. They have a gut-level instinct for bureaucracy, and they love it. Whether it's in a revolutionary situation, a mass movement, a union, or in a political organization, look to the Stalinists to support bureaucracy and try to become it.

When they had control of societies in the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, etc., they built and controlled massive bureaucracies which sat on the backs of the working class to control it.

RED DAVE

tir1944

31st October 2011, 12:23

Ranting aside,you are aware of the fact that Lenin spoke in favor of "bureaucracy" and against "worker's self-management" several times,right?
Do you want sources?

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 13:13

Ranting aside,you are aware of the fact that Lenin spoke in favor of "bureaucracy" and against "worker's self-management" several times,right?
Do you want sources?Yes, I am quite aware of this. And this is a problem in and of itself. However, at the very least, what Lenin put forth during the exigencies of the civil war, you Stalinists make into an eternal principle of socialism.

You are no socialists. You are the petty-bourgeoisie within the workers movements. Your role is to stand above the contending classes until the bourgeoisie is strong enough to stand on its own two feet.

See the USSR and China for what you do when you have a chance: bureaucratic state capitalism leading to private capitalism. You're Maoist flavor is dong the same thing in Nepal as I write this, except they're skipping right over state capitalism and becoming the political leadership of private capitalism.

RED DAVE

tir1944

31st October 2011, 13:20

See the USSR and China for what you do when you have a chance: bureaucratic state capitalism leading to private capitalism.
That's some fucked up logics my friend.
Otherwise one might argue that revolutionary Marxism leads to private capitalism.:rolleyes:
What utter nonsense.
You're completely ignoring the facts,namely Khruschov's revisionism and the abandonment of MLism,the restoration of capitalism etc...

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 13:29

See the USSR and China for what you do when you have a chance: bureaucratic state capitalism leading to private capitalism.
That's some fucked up logics my friend.Oh really? According to who?

Otherwise one might argue that revolutionary Marxism leads to private capitalism.:rolleyes:Only if you think that Stalinism and Maoism are revolutionary Marxism.

What utter nonsense.Yes, I agree that what the Stalinists did in the USSR, the Maoists in China, etc., is utter nonsense from a revolutionary point of view.

You're completely ignoring the facts,namely Khruschov's revisionism and the abandonment of MLism,the restoration of capitalism etc...Khruschev made no fundamental change to the relations of production in the USSR that were established under Stalin. Surplus value was extracted from the working class before, during and after Khruschev's time in office, as it is today. The workers merely exchanged one set of bosses for another.

How else do you explain that the USSR and China went from what you call socialism to what everyone calls capitalism without any fight back by the working class?

RED DAVE

tir1944

31st October 2011, 13:34

S.Artesian

31st October 2011, 15:33

Ranting aside,you are aware of the fact that Lenin spoke in favor of "bureaucracy" and against "worker's self-management" several times,right?
Do you want sources?

Yeah, I'm aware of that. And he also spoke in favor of the militarization of labor [until the second half of 1920]; he spoke in favor of "single man" rule of factories and industries; he spoke in favor of summary executions without recourse; he spoke in favor of the post office as an example of socialism; he praised "state-capitalism" as a step-forward for the Russian Revolution... he said lots and lots of things... including "All Power to the Soviets."

So what? Lenin probably said, at some point everything and anything-- including "my feet hurt." Does that mean everyone needs to take off his or her shoes?

RED DAVE

31st October 2011, 16:04

How else do you explain that the USSR and China went from what you call socialism to what everyone calls capitalism without any fight back by the working class?
Nope,that's false:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Georgian_demonstrations
There were other instances of working class resistance too...Uhh, dude, we're talking about when state capitalism collapsed in the USSR and China in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As for the rest of your post,i feel it's pointless to argue with you.
To say that the industrialization of the USSR is "nonsense from a rev. POV" (etc) is definitely something too absurd to seriously comment on.To say that the enforced industrialization of the USSR, foisted on the backs of the working class, was cool and progressive, is liberalism at best.

And you still haven't explained how this industrialized socialist paradise became a capitalist hell practically overnight with no fight back from the working class to maintain the "gains" of "socialism."

RED DAVE

ZeroNowhere

31st October 2011, 16:09

And you still haven't explained how this industrialized socialist paradise became a capitalist hell practically overnight with no fight back from the working class to maintain the "gains" of "socialism."

RED DAVE
Presumably because the revisionists managed to take power over a helpless working class majority, in a manner which clearly had nothing to do with bureaucracy and party rule.

Die Neue Zeit

22nd November 2011, 04:36

I do not believe that the original intention of the Bolsheviks was anything like what Castro did.

Another example, comrade, came across my mind: what about Mao's Central People's Government from 1949 to 1954, consisting of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_People's_Government_of_the_People's_Republ ic_of_China

The People's Revolutionary Military Committee
The Government Administration Council

Flanked by two or more lesser bodies? That was short, but definitely multi-year, had (quoting Jose here) a "material relationship to the real world," and was hardly "moonbatty."

Also check out the role of the Political Consultative Conference from 1949 to 1954 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_People%27s_Political_Consultative_Conferen ce#History). Formally speaking, the Central People's Government and its "dictatorial decrees" were not subordinate to this legislative organ (except maybe in a somewhat supervisory manner, a la kontrol).

A Marxist Historian

22nd November 2011, 08:09

The Bolsheviks swung around to call for "All Power to the Soviets," were propelled to power, lost majority political support from the working class in 1918, then pulled off a series of anti-soviet coups d'etats (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bolshevik-coups-detat-t134819/index.html) in response.

Looking at the proposed changes to the party program, their agitation, the infrequent meetings of higher soviets such that governments could not be held accountable, and the first governmental inconsistency between the Milrevkom and the Sovnarkom, and the later governmental inconsistencies involving the CEC, its Presidium, the Sovnarkom, the Maly Sovnarkom, and the Council of Labour and Defence, it was clear that the Old Bolshevik line of a Revolutionary Provisional Government, legitimized by Bukharin's Revolutionary Convention, was more appropriate than soviets:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ironic-triumph-old-t145495/index.html

"All Power" to such a Revolutionary Provisional Government (RPG) would have overcome much of the institutional confusion taking place at the time. It would have put the Left SRs in their place on the question of the Decree on Peace (before the unnecessary Brest-Litovsk), yet raised their profile further with the Decree on Land. It would have passed the Workers Decrees with greater authority:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Decree#List_of_Soviet_Decrees

The structure of such an RPG, however, reminds one of the extra-constitutional rule of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, rei gerendae causa, that existed from its Revolution until 1976, even if the ministries were topped by collegiums or boards.

A truly bizarre concept.

Since, in the heat of revolution and civil war, the Bolsheviks didn't always dot every i and cross every t, preferring that the workers should win their battles instead of being caught up in some Soviet parody of parliamentary cretinism, you propose that they should have just kicked over the traces, forgotten about workers democracy altogether, and rammed a self-appointed "provisional" dictatorship Castro style down the throat of the Soviet people! Instant Stalinism from Day One!

Hey, compared to that, the anarchists in charge would have been a lesser evil. Who knows, they at least *thought* that they were representing the democratic will of the working class, perhaps they could have learned from their myriad blunders in the school of hard knocks.

The oddest idea of all is the one about backing it up by a "Revolutionary Convention." On the Cuban model I suppose, with anybody criticizing Lenin foir any reason whatsoever dragged off to the Lubyanka on the spot?

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

22nd November 2011, 08:17

DNZ does have a point; the Bolsheviks constantly struggled to translate their dominance of the pro-'soviet power' faction at the Congress of Soviets into a one-party government and executive dominance more generally. Once able to use the support in the soviets to declare their "provisional workers' and soldiers' [and later, "peasants'" too] government", they consistently moved to deprive the working masses of the soviets themselves of a substantive participatory role in policy-making or crisis management.

Before the Civil War, the Bolsheviks were increasingly for one-man industrial management, for limitation or outright sequestration of the role and possibilities for workers' factory committees, for top-down single-party bourgeois-cabinet-style governance, and for a continuation of capitalism in the factory under "workers' supervision".

All the other parties were counterrevolutionary or wavered uselessly and distractingly between Red and White, just getting in the way of the working class. The left wings of all other parties (including the anarchists) joined the Bolsheviks, leaving the refuse behind. The cockpit of democracy in the revolution was what the Bolsheviks had and no Stalinists have ever had, namely internal democracy in the party of the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party.

The working masses had plenty role in policymaking at every level. But, in a desperate civil war situation, all the temporary measures you decry were necessary. Engels, by the way, argued strongly for one man management in his anti-Bakunin polemic "On Authority," which has been posted here frequently. Practical experience of actual revolution confirmed Engels's speculations in advance 100%.

-M.H.-

Die Neue Zeit

23rd November 2011, 03:05

A truly bizarre concept.

Since, in the heat of revolution and civil war, the Bolsheviks didn't always dot every i and cross every t, preferring that the workers should win their battles instead of being caught up in some Soviet parody of parliamentary cretinism, you propose that they should have just kicked over the traces, forgotten about workers democracy altogether, and rammed a self-appointed "provisional" dictatorship Castro style down the throat of the Soviet people! Instant Stalinism from Day One!

If you read further posts, you'll note that I have a much shorter duration in mind. It would have been provisional, even if it would have lasted three to five years. In just the post above yours, I suggested the Chinese example as another example of a more "ideal" Revolutionary Provisional Government.

As for "Anti-Revisionist" Stalinism, the only non-constitutional scenario I'm aware of that would be similar to an RPG came in the form of the WWII-era State Committee of Defense, when in fact the Supreme Soviet... met during every year of the war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Defense_Committee)!

The oddest idea of all is the one about backing it up by a "Revolutionary Convention." On the Cuban model I suppose, with anybody criticizing Lenin foir any reason whatsoever dragged off to the Lubyanka on the spot?

Again, given my post immediately above, the Revolutionary Convention (inclusive of all the soviets) would have been like China's Political Consultative Conference from 1949-1954. Kontrol would have been exercised, but the rule-by-edict-and-decree rei gerendae causa power would have remained undisputedly with the Revolutionary Provisional Government, the Sovnarkom(s). :)

A Marxist Historian

29th November 2011, 06:27

Another example, comrade, came across my mind: what about Mao's Central People's Government from 1949 to 1954, consisting of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_People's_Government_of_the_People's_Republ ic_of_China

The People's Revolutionary Military Committee
The Government Administration Council

Flanked by two or more lesser bodies? That was short, but definitely multi-year, had (quoting Jose here) a "material relationship to the real world," and was hardly "moonbatty."

Also check out the role of the Political Consultative Conference from 1949 to 1954 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_People%27s_Political_Consultative_Conferen ce#History). Formally speaking, the Central People's Government and its "dictatorial decrees" were not subordinate to this legislative organ (except maybe in a somewhat supervisory manner, a la kontrol).

During this period, Mao was still supporting the "bloc of four classes," you had tiny bourgeois parties like the "Revolutionary Kuomintang" participating in an admittedly rather phony and illusory coalition government with the CP, and workers strikes and attempts at plant seizures were being suppressed by this "provisional government." Not by the way in a desperate attempt to maintain production and prevent economic collapse, as the Bolsheviks were sometimes compelled to do, but to, as was said quite openly by Mao and the CCP, to not break up the "bloc of four classes" and lose the support of the "national bourgeoisie."

For an excellent description of what was going on at this point in China, read this report from the leader of the Chinese Trotskyists:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/peng/1951/nov/causes.htm

I think his position in 1951 that China was not yet a bureaucratically-deformed workers state after the Stalin model was erroneous, but it certainly is an arguable position.

I think this all argues rather well against your position, I should think.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

29th November 2011, 06:39

Uhh, dude, we're talking about when state capitalism collapsed in the USSR and China in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

To say that the enforced industrialization of the USSR, foisted on the backs of the working class, was cool and progressive, is liberalism at best.

And you still haven't explained how this industrialized socialist paradise became a capitalist hell practically overnight with no fight back from the working class to maintain the "gains" of "socialism."

RED DAVE

60 years of Stalinist passivization and political chloroforming led most Soviet workers to believe in "socialism from above," and when there was no lead from any element or fragment of the Soviet party or state apparatus to fight back, the workers just sort of sat there and took it, resenting it every second but not knowing what to do about it.

There were mass mobilizations in the first few months in Moscow by Stalinist ultras vs. Yeltsin, but these were promptly turned into a "red-brown coalition" with priests, Cossacks and fascists, not against capitalism but on a Russian nationalist basis strongly flavored by anti-Semiitism etc. So the workers got even more demoralized and drifted home.

So now you have a useless and highly reactionary mood of nostalgia for Stalin in Russia. Workers are still demoralized to this day by the destruction of their state and their revolution without any resistance. Which is why while the whole rest of the world is starting to boil, nothing in particular is happening in the ex-USSR.

As Trotsky once said, the worst kind of defeat is surrender without resistance.

And, oh yes, the industrialization of Russia was an extremely progressive phenomenon. The whole reason why we need revolution is that it is no longer possible to develop the productive forces of society under capitalism. If it were, then we would still be in the 19th century, with reform not revolution on the immediate agenda for the working class.

-M.H.-

Jose Gracchus

29th November 2011, 06:48

"Political chloroforming" = gotta be my favorite Marxoid ad hoc patch I've ever heard of

S.Artesian

29th November 2011, 16:08

[1] And, oh yes, the industrialization of Russia was an extremely progressive phenomenon. [2] The whole reason why we need revolution is that it is no longer possible to develop the productive forces of society under capitalism.[3] If it were, then we would still be in the 19th century, with reform not revolution on the immediate agenda for the working class.

[1] Bourgeois formalism by someone claiming to be a Marxist historian: the "progressive" aspect of the development of the productive forces is (a)the development of the social relations of production--the development of that class--which can lead the transition to a more human, social, fulfilling organizatoin of production. In developing capitalism that means the bourgeoisie-- to a point-- the bourgeoisie and the proletariat to another point, and finally to simply the proletariat. In all "phases" or points what is "progressive" essentially is development of the class struggle. (b) for a revolutionary proletarian transformation, the progressive aspect is partly the same-- the development of a more social, expansive, human organization of production; and partly not the same- it is the non-reproduction of classes, or proto-classes; it is the reproduction of non-classes.

The industrialization of the fSU fails to be progressive in both areas; neither creating a social relation in and of itself, contained within its geographic territory, capable of overthrowing capitalism, of enhancing class struggle on an international scale and leading a transition, nor capable of reproducing a social-ism of non-classes.

Unless of course you consider the defeat of the proletariat internationally, and the advance of WW2 progressive, which I'm sure you do not.

[2] Really? Are you really stating that there has been no development of the productive forces under capitalism in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, China, South Korea, France, Turkey, etc. etc. If there has been no development can you account for the increase in industrial output, labor productivity, improvements in public health etc.?

And if development of productive forces is the the "marker" for progressive and there has been none under capitalism.... how can you support any form, variation, or even expression of nationalism which truly is incapable of developing productive forces?

[3] Apparently some people still are, since Lenin's little pamphlet on Imperialism utilized to large extent data from the close of the 19th century. Or maybe we're stuck in 1916.... just saying.

Tim Finnegan

29th November 2011, 16:28

All the other parties were counterrevolutionary or wavered uselessly and distractingly between Red and White, just getting in the way of the working class. The left wings of all other parties (including the anarchists) joined the Bolsheviks, leaving the refuse behind. The cockpit of democracy in the revolution was what the Bolsheviks had and no Stalinists have ever had, namely internal democracy in the party of the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party.
Then why did the left-wing of the Bolshevik Party itself end up constituting itself as an opposition faction, the Workers' Opposition, developing a strong criticism of the Bolshevik leadership on the very same grounds which Jose Gracchus described? The criticisms he make are just retrospective, they were points of very significant contention during the period itself.

A Marxist Historian

4th December 2011, 00:03

Then why did the left-wing of the Bolshevik Party itself end up constituting itself as an opposition faction, the Workers' Opposition, developing a strong criticism of the Bolshevik leadership on the very same grounds which Jose Gracchus described? The criticisms he make are just retrospective, they were points of very significant contention during the period itself.

The Workers Opposition were basically trade union bureaucrats wanting the unions many of them led to control the economy, I don't consider them really a left wing, at least not in any sense meaning that they should have been supported. They did oppose NEP and had an ultra-left attitude to the peasantry, which is why they participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt revolt so enthusiastically.

It is fortunsate that they did not win out, if they had the peasant revolts of the winter of 1921 might have snowballed to the point of the collapse of the Bolshevik regime and the restoration of capitalism.

But they were a faction within Bolshevism, they were revolutionaries. I think it is very good that the WO was never suppressed, that Lenin and Trotsky's bright idea of kicking their representatives off the Central Committee in 1922 was outvoted, and that later they at first participated in the Left Opposition together with Trotsky, Zinoviev etc.

Kollontai capitulated and became a loyal Stalinist who survived the purges precisely because she gave Stalin a bit of evidence that he wasn't killing off *all* the old revolutionaries. That Yezhov, the NKVD head, had been a Workers Oppositionist no doubt helped too.

Shlyapnikov, the other main leader, did capitulate, but uncapitulated more or less and was framed up and shot in the usual Stalinist fashion.

-M.H.-

S.Artesian

4th December 2011, 00:20

And the left-SRs? They were counterrevolutionaries, too? And the maximalists?

All other parties were not counterrevolutionary in October 1917, January 1918, June 1918.

A Marxist Historian

4th December 2011, 00:28

[1] Bourgeois formalism by someone claiming to be a Marxist historian: the "progressive" aspect of the development of the productive forces is (a)the development of the social relations of production--the development of that class--which can lead the transition to a more human, social, fulfilling organizatoin of production. In developing capitalism that means the bourgeoisie-- to a point-- the bourgeoisie and the proletariat to another point, and finally to simply the proletariat. In all "phases" or points what is "progressive" essentially is development of the class struggle. (b) for a revolutionary proletarian transformation, the progressive aspect is partly the same-- the development of a more social, expansive, human organization of production; and partly not the same- it is the non-reproduction of classes, or proto-classes; it is the reproduction of non-classes.

Artesian is spinning off here from Marxism to Lukacs style pseudo-Marxian idealism. Of course that is his right, but no one should confuse this with anything Marx ever argued.

The class struggle helps to advance society--if the right side wins of course, not otherwise naturally. Social progress, not intensification of class struggle, is what socialists want, or at any rate should want. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one socialist thinker whoever seriously claimed that progress towards socialism would primarily be marked by ever-intensifying class struggle. I am referring of course to J. V. Stalin.

[The industrialization of the fSU fails to be progressive in both areas; neither creating a social relation in and of itself, contained within its geographic territory, capable of overthrowing capitalism, of enhancing class struggle on an international scale and leading a transition, nor capable of reproducing a social-ism of non-classes.

Then why did Marx spend so much time in the 19th century trying to decide which side in European wars was the side that revolutionaries should support? I don't think there was a single inter-capitalist war in which he was neutral. Your notions certainly have nothing to do with Marxism.

The industrialization of the USSR vastly increased the social weight of the proletariat in a country that until then had been 90% peasant and extremely backward. What's more, it raised the standard of living of the population, and particularly of the workers, to a huge amount. And you had free medical care, free education, no unemployment, etc. etc.

All things that workers tend to care a lot about, whether or not intellectuals do.

Unless of course you consider the defeat of the proletariat internationally, and the advance of WW2 progressive, which I'm sure you do not.

Of course not, but that was due not to Bolshevism, but to Stalinism.

[2] Really? Are you really stating that there has been no development of the productive forces under capitalism in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, China, South Korea, France, Turkey, etc. etc. If there has been no development can you account for the increase in industrial output, labor productivity, improvements in public health etc.?

And if development of productive forces is the the "marker" for progressive and there has been none under capitalism.... how can you support any form, variation, or even expression of nationalism which truly is incapable of developing productive forces?[/QUOTE]

In the 19th Century, nationalism, the main ideology of the bourgeoisie, did help advance the productive forces indirectly. Now, it no longer does, as capitalism is no longer progressive. And yes, the nationalist aspects of Stalinist "socialism in one country" are in many ways the worst thing about it.

Overall, the productive forces of the world have been on the decline. With exceptions in particular sectors in certain periods for particular reasons.

I've posted on this elsewhere, but the results of WWII made possible temporary gains in the productive forces in a number of the countries you mention for a variety of reasons.

Western Europe due to the partial resolution of the central economic contradiction of European capitalism, Balkanization, by Adolph Hitler. So you get the EEC and then the EU, now breaking down.

Asian countries due to US imposed reforms on Japan itself and what was left of Japan's "Asian co-prosperity sphere" possible because the capitalists hurt by this were Japanese, not American.

And the impact of the Chinese Revolution of course, directly and indirectly, with both social reforms, especially land reform, imposed by the US to prevent the spread of the Chinese Revolution, and huge economic aid to make Japan, South Korea, etc. counterweights to Peoples' China.

Lastly, you have a temporary boom in some Third Woirld countries lately reflecting the extreme, universal economic *decline* in all the imperial centers. After all, if the economy is to function at all you have to produce stuff somewhere.

But this is really too complex a question to be dealt with so briefly.

[3] Apparently some people still are, since Lenin's little pamphlet on Imperialism utilized to large extent data from the close of the 19th century. Or maybe we're stuck in 1916.... just saying.[/QUOTE]

The big change after 1916 was, of course, the Bolshevik Revolution. Which finally completely collapsed in 1991.

So now the world looks more like it did at the time Lenin was writing his pamphlet than it did 30 years ago.

-M.H.-

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

5th December 2011, 22:48

OK, I'm not for the duration of the pre-constitutional Cuban Council of Ministers. What I am for, however, is say a four- or five-year duration (or less, but nonetheless multi-year) for the RPG as a single Sovnarkom or a number of Sovnarkoms (each for a given set of issues), with the RPG having "All Power" to combine policy-making, legislative, executive, and administrative authority without any constraints rei gerendae causa, not even the formal ones by some CEC or CEC Presidium, after an initial meeting by a Revolutionary Convention.

Can I just say that the fact that you clearly bothered to think about whether this CEC body of yours should be called a "Presidium" or some equally inane word pretty much sums everything up.

Die Neue Zeit

6th December 2011, 03:47

I was referring to what happened in actual history. The All-Russia Congress of Soviets elected the All-Russia Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the latter formally elected the Council of People's Commissars (Article 35). However, early enough the CEC established a Presidium of the CEC because the Bolsheviks deemed that there were too many troublemaking SRs in the CEC proper. :glare:

Contrast this formal accountability to, as I mentioned in the OP, the pre-1976 Council of Ministers of Cuba, and to, in later posts, the relationship between the Central People's Government and the Political Consultative Conference during the first five years of the PRC. In both these latter cases, the provisional government in power was more effective and efficient. In the case of the latter, the legislative body played a primarily consultative role. Revolutionary Provisional Governments should have optimal effectiveness and efficiency for the immediate matters to be done.

RED DAVE

6th December 2011, 05:23

Revolutionary Provisional Governments should have optimal effectiveness and efficiency for the immediate matters to be done.How do you define "effectiveness" and "efficiency" in class terms? Or are you using this terms in a trans-historical sense?

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

6th December 2011, 05:30

I mean both, and again note the italics and the Latin in my earlier posts.

RED DAVE

6th December 2011, 13:09

How do you define "effectiveness" and "efficiency" in class terms? Or are you using this terms in a trans-historical sense?
I mean both, and again note the italics and the Latin in my earlier posts.I presume you are responding to my post above. If so, you have not answered my questions, so I'll make it easier.

How do you define "effectiveness" and "efficiency" in class terms?

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

7th December 2011, 04:43

You still don't get the D-word(s) I've been explicit with throughout this thread?

In class terms, getting favourable labour legislation during revolutionary upheaval means that the RPG must be able to effectively pass such into law by decree, edict (pronounced as "e*dict" with a "d" in there), diktat, etc. Efficiency comes in two areas: the speed at which favourable labour legislation becomes law, and the speed at which this is ordered through the political administration (civil servants and more) and enforced throughout society.

You don't have that when "All Power" is left to a squabbling larger body (that either can't meet often enough or debates too much to the point of filibustering its seat-warming a**es left, right, and center) or with said body being empowered to exercise too many "checks and balances" (beyond basic kontrol) on the RPG. Or, as Jose put all this above, the civil servants, law enforcement, etc. should "quietly obey" or made to do such in the name of efficiency as the "cabinet issued dictatorial decrees" effectively.

A Marxist Historian

7th December 2011, 10:48

And the left-SRs? They were counterrevolutionaries, too? And the maximalists?

All other parties were not counterrevolutionary in October 1917, January 1918, June 1918.

I don't know too much about the maximalists.

As for the left SR's, the Bolsheviks certainly didn't consider them counterrevolutionaries in Oct. 1917 or Jan. 1918, in fact they had a coalition government with them.

But in June 1918 they tried to stage a coup, based on the fact that the deputy head of the Cheka was a Left SR. If it had succeeded, you would have replaced the rule of the workers with a police dictatorship.

After that, the Left SR's fell apart, a lot of them joined the Bolsheviks, and the remaining fragment indeed became counterrevolutionaries, mounting terrorist assassinations and supporting gruesome anti-Semitic peasant rebellions against the workers.

-M.H.-

RED DAVE

7th December 2011, 12:22

You still don't get the D-word(s) I've been explicit with throughout this thread?Your constant use of weird-ass terminology doesn't answer any questions.

In class terms, getting favourable labour legislation during revolutionary upheaval means that the RPG must be able to effectively pass such into law by decree, edict (pronounced as "e*dict" with a "d" in there), diktat, etc.Fabulous! You see effectiveness and efficiency in terms of passing legislation.

Efficiency comes in two areas: the speed at which favourable labour legislation becomes law, and the speed at which this is ordered through the political administration (civil servants and more) and enforced throughout society.Fantastic: socialism is a bureaucracy, complete with "legislation," a "political administration," "civil servants" and with "enforce[ment]."

Sounds like a stalinist's or social democrat's wet dream. Notice that nothing is said about the working class, workers control of the economy, revolutionary councils from the bottom up.

You don't have that when "All Power" is left to a squabbling larger body (that either can't meet often enough or debates too much to the point of filibustering its seat-warming a**es left, right, and center) or with said body being empowered to exercise too many "checks and balances" (beyond basic kontrol) on the RPG. Or, as Jose put all this above, the civil servants, law enforcement, etc. should "quietly obey" or made to do such in the name of efficiency as the "cabinet issued dictatorial decrees" effectively.Wonderful: the goal of a socialist revoluion is a political bureaucracy.

RED DAVE

Die Neue Zeit

8th December 2011, 03:23

Fabulous! You see effectiveness and efficiency in terms of passing legislation.

Why not? Much political struggle revolves around legalisms and related enforcement.

Fantastic: socialism is a bureaucracy, complete with "legislation," a "political administration," "civil servants" and with "enforce[ment]."

How would you define a "civil servant"? Even if they're on average skilled workers' wages, recallable, limited to time in office, etc. there is still the question of necessary position.

Notice that nothing is said about the working class, workers control of the economy, revolutionary councils from the bottom up.

Because:

1) This is mainly a History thread.
2) Theoretically, discussion on the working class and systemic collective worker management (not just "workers control" from workplace) in a Revolutionary Provisional Government scenario is tied to mass party-movements.
3) "Revolutionary councils from the bottom up" in the Russian case have passed only three f****** decrees (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html?p=2272215)!

Wonderful: the goal of a socialist revoluion is a political bureaucracy.

Here's an example of two effective and efficient "dictatorial decrees" from Sovnarkom that were "quietly obeyed" by the State Bank and the relevant money-handlers:

Focusing on another aspect of the article: the Bank of France.

I've just read key portions of Soviet Administrative Law: Theory and Policy (http://books.google.ca/books?id=TT4jrxORoXIC) by George Ginsburgs, Gianmaria Ajani, and Gerard Pieter van den Berg, and perhaps this was the detailed way that the Communal Council should have approached the Bank of France:

For instance, once Vladimir Ilyich handed me a decree over his own signature [...] with an order to the State Bank, outside all rules and formalities and as an exception to those rules, to hand over to the Secretary of [Sovnarkom] 10 million rubles at the disposition of the government [...] Vladimir Ilyich said, "If you don't get the money, don't come bank." [...] Relying on the lower level staff and the couriers, who were on our side, and also threatening that the Red Guard had already surrounded the bank, we succeeded in getting into the cash office of the bank, despite all sorts of excuses that were made up by the higher officers of the State Bank, such as false alarms, etc., and we made the cashier give out the amount required. We conducted the receipt of the money at a counting table under the cocked guns of the soldiers of the military guard of the bank. There was a difficulty with bags for the money. We had not brought anything with us. One of the couriers finally lent a pair of some sort of large old bags. We filled them to the top with money, put them over our backs and carried them to our vehicle.

[Lenin] had a wardrobe chest brought into a nearby room to hold the first Soviet treasury, surrounded this chest with a semicircle of chairs and posted a sentry. A special decree of [Sovnarkom] established the procedure for safekeeping and use of this money.