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View Full Version : Read this article about The Case for Socialism in the whole world !!



TrotskistMarx
17th February 2012, 17:56
Dear friends, read this great article I got from the internet, about the case for socialism. It's a pretty good argument calling for marxist governments in all countries of the world !!


THE CASE FOR MARXIST GOVERNMENTS IN ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. THE CASE FOR SOCIALISM IN THE WHOLE WORLD !! THE CASE FOR A SOCIALIST WORLD !!!!


The world we live in at the beginning of the 21st century is one that is fraught with contradiction. Over 800 million of our fellow humans are chronically malnourished and at least 1.2 billion will, on any one day, go without food. At the same time, the governments of the world order the destruction of vast mountains of food to keep prices high, stockpile food until it rots and pay farmers to take land out of production because the laws of supply and demand insist that overproduction is bad for the market.

Some 600 million of our fellow humans are homeless, many sleeping rough on the streets of the world’s cities, yet there is no shortage of vacant buildings – countless millions of acres of empty living space in the major cities of the world – and certainly no shortage of building materials or skilled builders and craftsmen presently out of work. Again, we find that the market not only dictates who does and does not eat, but who does and does not sleep comfortably.

Well over one billion of our fellow humans have no access to clean water, while its growing scarcity is calculated to spark many wars across the globe this coming century. Meanwhile, the technology exists to desalinate millions of gallons each day and to set up treatment plants capable of cleaning the dirtiest water. However, there is not much profit in selling something which covers five-sixth’s of the planet, so the investment never comes.

While millions of children die each year of curable diseases and while we still await breakthroughs in medical science that can cure the presently incurable, we find there are literally thousands of scientists around the world employed in weapons programmes – paid by their respective governments to devise new methods of murder, including germ warfare. The list is as endless as it is insane. At every turn we find evidence of how capitalism destroys us physically and mentally, retarding real human development. At every turn we come smack up against the iron law of our age – “can’t pay, can’t have”. At every turn we find capitalism running wild like a rabid dog, infecting all it comes into contact with.

Credit where credit is due. Capitalism has enabled us to carry out some pretty fantastic technological and scientific feats. Advances in warfare sparked a race for rocket technology that has enabled us explore the furthest limits of the solar system. The search for oil and other resources has allowed us to plumb the deepest oceans and map out the ocean beds. We can split the atom, map the human genome, and perform the most amazing organ transplants. Nothing, it seems, is beyond us. Our productive powers are unprecedented. Our capabilities are awe-inspiring. Sadly, however, and in spite of the technology at our disposal, the never-ending battle for profits means that we have entered the 21st century dragging with us every social ill that plagued the previous century. War, hunger, poverty, disease, and homelessness are still making the headlines, and each of these problems is, to a lesser or greater degree, rooted in the way we continue to organise ourselves for production. The terrible irony is that we are already capable of solving the major problems that face us. Indeed, we have been capable of solving them for quite some time – though obviously never within the context of capitalism.

Over 20 years ago, the World Health Organisation revealed that the technology existed to feed a world population twelve times its (then) size. Five years ago the UN reported that Africa could easily feed a population six times its current size if western farming technology was introduced. Science and technology are in fact so advanced as to enable us to solve all these problems. However, the requirements of profit everywhere act as a stumbling block not only to the full use of the productive forces, but also to the full and unhindered use of science and technology in the service of humanity.

Socialists long ago realised that the problems we face are in fact social problems, not natural ones or the vengeance of gods – social problems because they have their roots in the way our world is organised for production, that is production for profit, not need. If you think seriously about it, you’ll be hard pressed to find any aspect of our lives that is not subordinated to the requirements of profit. This is the case the world over. We are all of us at the mercy of the anarchic laws of capitalism.

What is to be done by all leftist marxist parties of the world?
If this is the case, then what can we do about it? Socialists believe the only way forward lies in abolishing the money/wages/profit system that we know as capitalism and establishing a world socialist society or, in other words, a world of free access to the benefits of civilisation. Only then can we gain real control over our world and reassert control over our own destiny. Only then can we produce without polluting our world and only then can we enjoy a world in which there is no waste or want or war.

Socialists advocate a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments or armies. A world devoid of money or wages, exchange, buying or selling. A world where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit. A world in which people give freely of their abilities and take according to their own self-defined needs from the stockpile of communal wealth. A global system in which each person has a free and democratic say in how their world is run.

Is human nature a barrier for socialism in the whole world?
Of course, many will agree that such a world would be a beautiful place to live in, but that “human nature” will always be a barrier to its establishment, because humans are “by nature” greedy, selfish and aggressive. It quickly becomes apparent that what they are describing is not human nature as such, but various traits of human behaviour exhibited under particular circumstances. Socialists maintain that human behaviour is shaped by the kind of system people are brought up to live in – that it is not our consciousness that determines our social existence but our social existence which determines our consciousness. Nobody is born a racist or a patriot, a bigot or with a belief in gods. Nobody is born a murderer, a robber or a rapist, and our alleged greed for money is no more a function of the natural human thought process than were slavery or witch burning.

In general, the ideas the common people hold have been acquired second-hand, passed down from the ruling class above us. This is because the class which owns and controls the productive process also controls the intellectual life process in general. Any anti-social behaviour is likewise influenced by our social circumstances at any given time, i.e., when we are poor, depressed, lonely, angry and frustrated.

In most cases, those who produce the world’s wealth (some 95 percent of the world’s population) have had that second-rate education that makes free-thought difficult – an upbringing that conditions us to accept without question the ideas of our betters and superiors. Indeed, the education system is geared to perpetuate the rule of an elite, insofar as it never encourages children to question and take issue with the status quo. Children may well cite that 8 times 8 equals 64, but how many will ask about the cause of wars or query the destruction of food?

Socialists hold that because we can adapt our behaviour, the desire to cooperate should not be viewed as irrational. We hold that humans are, “by nature”, cooperative and that we work best when faced with the worst and that our humanity shines through when the odds are stacked against us. There are millions of cases of people donating their blood and organs to complete strangers, sacrificing their lives for others, of people giving countless hours of their free time to charitable work – all of this without financial incentive. There is even the case of a man throwing himself on top of a grenade to protect children in a school yard. He died to protect children, none of which were his own, and in the instant knowledge that his action was suicidal.

Today, world capitalism threatens the human race with extinction. The reason this obnoxious system survives is because we have been conditioned to accept it, not born to perpetuate it. Rest assured, no gene inclines us to defend the profit system.

Has Marxism-Socialism Been tried?
Many believe that socialism has already been tried and has failed. They then point to the former Soviet Union, to China, Cuba and a dozen other states that claimed to have established “socialism”. What they fail to grasp is that socialism has existed nowhere, and that what existed – being passed off as socialism – was in fact state capitalism, not socialism or communism (which mean the same thing). A cursory glance at the affairs of these countries reveals they never abolished the wages system. The rulers exploited their workers and outlawed dissent. They produced when only viable to do so, maintained commodity production, traded according to the dictates of international capital and, like every other capitalist state, were prepared to go to war to defend their economic interests. Moreover, in all of these countries, it was believed that socialism could be established by force, that socialism could exist in one country. The Leninists who carried out the Bolshevik Revolution maintained that the revolution could only be carried out by a minority vanguard party, that the masses were too ignorant to understand the case for change.

Socialism Can Only Exist globally
Socialism, like capitalism, can only exist on a global scale, and that it will only come about when a majority of the world’s people want it and are prepared to organise for it peacefully and democratically, in their own interests and without leaders. No vanguard can establish socialism – “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”.

Socialists are The Champion of The World: We can do it !!!
But who are the “working class”? Agreeing with Marx, we believe that there are two classes in society – the working class and the capitalist class, each one determined by its relationship to the means of living. The capitalist class own and control the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, living as parasites off profits, rent and interest. The working class, other than possessions we have purchased with our own sweat, own little more than our ability to sell our physical and mental abilities to the highest bidder. There is no “middle class” as the working class includes land workers, doctors, lawyers and teachers – anyone, indeed, who must sell their mental and physical energies to survive.

This class, the working class, runs the world and it is important to grasp this fact. It is we who fish the oceans and tend the forests and till the land and plantations. It is we who build the cities and railroads, the bridges and roads, the docks and airports. It is we who staff the hospitals and schools, who empty the bins and go down the sewers. It is we, the working class, who produce everything society needs from a pin to an oil-rig, who provide all of its services. If we can do all of this off our own bats, then surely we can continue to do so without a profit-greedy minority watching over us and, more, in our own interests.

The ruling class, of capitalists and their executive, the governments of the world, have no monopoly on our skills and abilities. These belong to us. Moreover, it is we who are responsible for the inventions that have benefited humanity and the improvements in productive techniques. Most inventions and improvements are the result of those who do the actual work thinking up easier and faster ways of completing a task, the result of ideas being passed down from generation to generation, each one improving the techniques of the previous. If those who work have given the world so much, in the past say 2000 years, then how much more are we capable of providing in a world devoid of the artificial constraints of profit?

It is time for Capitalism to be destroyed, to fade away !!
It is easy to cite the advantages of capitalism over previous economic systems. Many people believe that capitalism, though not perfect, is the only system possible. One thing is certain, though – if we follow the capitalist trajectory, we’re in for some pretty troublesome times. Capitalism has undoubtedly raised the productive potential of humanity. It is now quite possible to provide a comfortable standard of living for every human on the planet. But, to reiterate, capitalism now stands as a barrier to the full and improved use of the world’s productive and distributive forces. In a world of potential abundance, the unceasing quest for profit imposes on our global society widespread artificial scarcity. Hundreds of millions of humans are consigned to a life of abject poverty, whilst the majority live lives filled with uncertainty.

Our ability to imagine has brought us so very far, from the days when our ancestors chipped away at flint to produce the first tools, to the landing of someone on the moon, the setting up of the world wide web, and the mapping out of the human genome. Is it really such a huge leap of the imagination to now envisage a social system that can take over from the present capitalist order of things? Is it just too daring to imagine humans consigning poverty, disease, hunger and war to some pre-historic age?

Do we really need leaders deciding our lives for us? Do we really need governments administering our lives when what is really needed is the administration of the things we need to live in peace and security? Must every decision made by our elites be first of all weighed on the scales of profit, tilted always in their favour? A growing number think not and have mobilised to confront what they perceive to be the major problems of contemporary capitalism.

In recent years there has been a world-wide backlash against neoliberal globalisation, corporate power and the iniquities of modern-day capitalism. Everywhere where the world’s ruling elite have assembled to decide their next step they have been met with protests and demonstrations that have attracted hundreds of thousands. Demonstrations at Seattle, Gothenburg, Prague, Genoa and Gleneagles, for instance, have fuelled the ongoing debate on the nature of modern day capitalism. Thousands of articles have been written on the subject and hundreds of books have been published that explore the alternatives offered by the anti-globalisation movement.

What is now clear is that the anti-globalisation movement, however well-meaning, does not seek to replace capitalism with any real alternative social system. At best it attracts a myriad of groups, all pursuing their own agenda. Some call for greater corporate responsibility. Some demand the reform of international institutions. Others call for the expansion of democracy and fairer trading conditions. All, however, fail to address the root cause of the problems of capitalism.

Capitalism cannot be reformed. Reformist-Progressives are not Leftists. Progressive Liberal Reformists are capitalists !!
One thing is certain: capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the world’s suffering billions, because reform does not address the basic contradiction between profit and need. The world’s leaders cannot be depended upon because they can only ever act as the executive of corporate capitalism. The expansion of democracy, while welcome, serves little function if all candidates at election time can only offer variations on the same basic set of policies that keep capitalism in the ascendancy.

Capitalism must be abolished if we as a species are to thrive, if the planet is to survive. No amount of reform, however great, will work. Change must be global and irreversible. It must involve all of us. We need to erase borders and frontiers; to abolish states and governments and false concepts of nationalism. We need to abolish our money systems, and with it buying, selling and exchange. And in place of this we need to establish a different global social system – a society in which there is common ownership and true democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources. A society where the everyday things we need to live in comfort are produced and distributed freely and for no other reason than that they are needed – Socialism.

It is now no utopian fantasy to suggest we can live in a world without waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. That much is assured. We certainly have the science, the technology and the know-how. All that is missing is the will – the global desire for change that can make that next great historical advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our own destiny; a belief that it is possible to free production from the artificial constraints of profit and to fashion a world in our own interests. And how soon this happens depends upon us all – each and every one of us



SOCIALISM OR DEATH !!


.

daft punk
17th February 2012, 19:06
Has Marxism-Socialism Been tried?
Many believe that socialism has already been tried and has failed. They then point to the former Soviet Union, to China, Cuba and a dozen other states that claimed to have established “socialism”. What they fail to grasp is that socialism has existed nowhere, and that what existed – being passed off as socialism – was in fact state capitalism, not socialism or communism (which mean the same thing).

Not a fan of describing the USSR as state capitalist. Degenerated workers state makes more sense.




Moreover, in all of these countries, it was believed that socialism could be established by force, that socialism could exist in one country. The Leninists who carried out the Bolshevik Revolution maintained that the revolution could only be carried out by a minority vanguard party, that the masses were too ignorant to understand the case for change.

I dont like that bit. It makes it sound like Lenin agreed with Socialism In One Country. He didnt. Also he never said the masses were too ignorant, he said in December 1917

"One of the most important tasks today, if not the most important, is to develop this independent initiative of the workers, and of all the working and exploited people generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work. At all costs we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and disgusting prejudice that only the so-called "upper classes", only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of socialist society."
"The workers and peasants are still "timid", they have not yet become accustomed to the idea that they are now the ruling class.."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/25.htm

The fact is though, it was a backward peasant country with mass illiteracy and a tiny working class, and it is the working class who build socialism, given the chance.




Socialism Can Only Exist globally
Socialism, like capitalism, can only exist on a global scale, and that it will only come about when a majority of the world’s people want it and are prepared to organise for it peacefully and democratically, in their own interests and without leaders. No vanguard can establish socialism – “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”.

This sounds like Left Communism or even anarchism. I cant see how you can not have a vanguard party. When in the world did a socialist revolution ever take place? Once in Russia. There were loads of missed opportunities. Usually scuppered by Stalinists, sometimes thrown away by anarchists. Rosa Luxemburg was on the left, anti-party, and it was her one big mistake. Look how Germany ended up.




Socialists are The Champion of The World: We can do it !!!

That sounds a bit crap and is not even correct English, sorry!



There is no “middle class” as the working class includes land workers, doctors, lawyers and teachers – anyone, indeed, who must sell their mental and physical energies to survive.

Wrong! A school headteacher is different from a junior teacher, a chief exec of a hospital on £150,000 is different from a nursing auxilliary on less than £20,000.


Ok, most of it was ok, ish, but no mention of the global recession, no mention of global warming, and it all seemed as it they wanted to abolish money overnight, which would be silly.

rated 7/10

here is another overview you might wanna look at, the woman who wrote it is our deputy leader

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/books_pamphlets/The_Case_for_Socialism

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/pic/medium/2/2710.jpg

It is about a dozen pages, but the pages are not particularly long, divided into sections with pics and so on.

robbo203
17th February 2012, 20:05
Dear friends, read this great article I got from the internet, about the case for socialism. It's a pretty good argument calling for marxist governments in all countries of the world !!


THE CASE FOR MARXIST GOVERNMENTS IN ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. THE CASE FOR SOCIALISM IN THE WHOLE WORLD !! THE CASE FOR A SOCIALIST WORLD !!!!


.


Do you have a link to this article? Something about it does not quite ring true. No Marxist advocating free access global communism would resort to such an absurd and contradictory expression as a "Marxist government". Communism, after all, entails amongst other things the abolition of the state!

Ilyich
17th February 2012, 20:26
Do you have a link to this article? Something about it does not quite ring true. No Marxist advocating free access global communism would resort to such an absurd and contradictory expression as a "Marxist government". Communism, after all, entails amongst other things the abolition of the state!

It is true that communism would entail a stateless society but the government is not the same as the state.

robbo203
17th February 2012, 20:38
I dont like that bit. It makes it sound like Lenin agreed with Socialism In One Country. He didnt. Also he never said the masses were too ignorant, he said in December 1917

"One of the most important tasks today, if not the most important, is to develop this independent initiative of the workers, and of all the working and exploited people generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work. At all costs we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and disgusting prejudice that only the so-called "upper classes", only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of socialist society."
"The workers and peasants are still "timid", they have not yet become accustomed to the idea that they are now the ruling class.."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/25.htm

. .

He also said in What is to be Done (1902) :

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness,

Additionally he was an advocate of scientific talyorism and a hierarchical system of one man management. Care to square that with your Lenin quote?



The fact is though, it was a backward peasant country with mass illiteracy and a tiny working class, and it is the working class who build socialism, given the chance.

So in other words by this admission there was no chance of establishing socialism in Russia in 1917 - because the working class was still tiny and one might addm by Lenin's own admission , not socialist minded. And yet you contend that what happened in 1917 was a socialist revolution as opposed to a bourgeois revolution dressed up in socialist rhetoric. The proof of the pudding is in the eating




here is another overview you might wanna look at, the woman who wrote it is our deputy leader

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/books_pamphlets/The_Case_for_Socialism

.


Strikes me as just another uninspiring example of mish mash pie-in-the-sky reformism coupled with an all too drearily predictable advocacy of state run capitalism deceitfully passed off as "socialism". Christ, it even thinks the Labour Party was once a socialist party. How naive can you get?

robbo203
17th February 2012, 20:48
It is true that communism would entail a stateless society but the government is not the same as the state.


How you figure that out then, eh? My guess is that a quick sample of the populace would reveal that 99.99% would concur that the government is an entity that runs the state and thus implies the existence of a state

I'm with Engels here who contended that socialism/communism would replace the government of the people with an "adminstration of things"

Ocean Seal
17th February 2012, 20:56
I'm not trying to be mean, but seriously don't be such a Trotskyist stereotype. It's just an article.

Instead of posting "Read this article...

Just post the article and its title, and then offer some comments or feedback it you're interested.

daft punk
18th February 2012, 19:07
He also said in What is to be Done (1902) :

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness,

Additionally he was an advocate of scientific talyorism and a hierarchical system of one man management. Care to square that with your Lenin quote?

That quote is 1902, it is very old. Lenin may have believed in hierarchical management, but that would be to build industry to a point where socialism could be achieved, socialism is not hierarchical. Also, I don't see what is contradictory, he says workers on their own will only ever come to trade union consciousness, that is true, it is why you need a Marxist party, to push the idea of socialism. But once you have a workers state you need to involve the masses in decision making as much as possible if you ever want to achieve the end goal, in which there are no full time politicians or administrators.




So in other words by this admission there was no chance of establishing socialism in Russia in 1917 - because the working class was still tiny and one might addm by Lenin's own admission , not socialist minded. And yet you contend that what happened in 1917 was a socialist revolution as opposed to a bourgeois revolution dressed up in socialist rhetoric. The proof of the pudding is in the eating

No, if they wanted a bourgeois revolution they could have just left the Provisional Government in power, pushed for the Constituent Assembly elections, and joined that.

No, the idea was the one outlined in Trotsky's writings, socialists take power, push through the bourgeois-democratic tasks and start attempting to move in the direction of socialism, in the hope that it would spread to advanced countries who would then help them complete socialism. Why do you think Lenin had to battle with his own CC in April 1917? It was because he was advocating a new line, basically a Trotskyist one, to break from that stagist idea.






Strikes me as just another uninspiring example of mish mash pie-in-the-sky reformism coupled with an all too drearily predictable advocacy of state run capitalism deceitfully passed off as "socialism". Christ, it even thinks the Labour Party was once a socialist party. How naive can you get?

The Labour Party was socialist at one time, maybe not the leaders, but many of the member were and the constitution was.

No it is not reformist. And it advocates no state run capitalism.

What should it advocate?

robbo203
18th February 2012, 20:43
That quote is 1902, it is very old. Lenin may have believed in hierarchical management, but that would be to build industry to a point where socialism could be achieved, socialism is not hierarchical. Also, I don't see what is contradictory, he says workers on their own will only ever come to trade union consciousness, that is true, it is why you need a Marxist party, to push the idea of socialism. But once you have a workers state you need to involve the masses in decision making as much as possible if you ever want to achieve the end goal, in which there are no full time politicians or administrators.

The idea of a so called workers state is a load of bollocks in my opinion. If the working class are in a position to democratically capture (and then dispense with) the state then they are, by that very token, in a position to abolish their working class status along with class society. How it is remotely possible for an exploited class to exercise control over the very class that exploits it is one of those perplexing absurdities on the Left remains completely unexplained

That aside, as you will no doubt be aware that, with the capture of political power by the Bolsheviks and the move towards state capitalism they inaugurated, the "masses" became progressively less and less involved and disenfranchised in the decisionmaking process - look what became of the Factory committees - culminating in a one party state characterised by extreme centralisation of power and decisionmaking. This is in quite the opposite direction to what you propose and what Lenin in fact at times paid lip service to. Whatever his personal opinions on the matter he was doomed to preside over the development iof capitalism in Russia





No, if they wanted a bourgeois revolution they could have just left the Provisional Government in power, pushed for the Constituent Assembly elections, and joined that.

What the Bolsheviks may have wanted is besides the point. Lacking mass support for socialism or indeed the necessary technological infrastructure to implement it (not that it could be implemented in one country only anyway) they were doomed to effect a bourgeois revolution and to progressively position themselves more and more against the interests of the working class - Trotsky being a good example of this with his downright anti working class " militarisation of labour" programme. There is an argument for saying that the Provisional government was not sufficiently ruthless in prosecuting the bourgeois capitalist revolution and that it was precisely for this reason that Bolsheviks took power




No, the idea was the one outlined in Trotsky's writings, socialists take power, push through the bourgeois-democratic tasks and start attempting to move in the direction of socialism, in the hope that it would spread to advanced countries who would then help them complete socialism. Why do you think Lenin had to battle with his own CC in April 1917? It was because he was advocating a new line, basically a Trotskyist one, to break from that stagist idea.

Trotsky not infrequently talked a load of rubbish interspersed with the occasional sound observation. The romantic vanguardist idea that socialists should capture power and somehow "start attempting to move in the direction of socialism" has been an absolute disaster. You would have thought by now Leftsists would have learnt the lesson but they continue to unthinkingly regurgitate the same old crap.

Get this clear in your head: If a minority captures power in advance of the majority becoming socialist then inevitably by default that minority will have no other option than to administer capitalism. Equally inevitably the more you attempt to administer capitalism the more you will be sucked into aligning yourself with the interest of capital against wage labour. After all how else can you administer capitalism except first of formeost in the interests of capitalism?

I despair of the Left sometimes - or should I say, some on the Left. They just dont want to learn from the lessons of the past but persist with this barnacle-like attachment to old and utterly discredited dogmas










The Labour Party was socialist at one time, maybe not the leaders, but many of the member were and the constitution was.

No it is not reformist. And it advocates no state run capitalism.

What should it advocate?

Absolute rubbish. The Labour Party was never at any point a socialist party. It did not even pretend to embrace a maximum programme ((along with a minimum programme) as was the case with with social democratic parties in the Second International - most notably the German SDP.

Your outfit seems to be just followng in the steps of Old Labour, going nowhere. It certainly does advocate all sorts of fanciful but unrealisable reforms and it certainly does advocate nationalisation (in the pamphlet you linked to it argues for the nationalisation of the railways) and nationalisation is emphatically state capitalism

Renegade Saint
18th February 2012, 20:51
Not a fan of describing the USSR as state capitalist. Degenerated workers state makes more sense.

Why, in your opinion, did the working classes not rise up in defense of their 'workers' state' when it was threatened with collapse?

TrotskistMarx
19th February 2012, 06:00
Indeed the world left is divided between the people who say that USSR was a degenerated workers state. And those who say it was a state-capitalist system. The neoliberal economic system of USA makes life so expensive for most american low income families, that I conform even to a welfare state-capitalist system with free medicines and other free goodies.

But I think we need a real marxist left, but at the same time a more realist, united lest, a less utopian left. But not realist in the realist way of third way social-democrats Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Tony Blair and Michelle Bachelet. But I mean keeping and maintaining the premises of marxism strong, but at the same time applied to the real world. Because the real world out there is a vampire, like the Smashing Pumpkins song, thanks


.



Why, in your opinion, did the working classes not rise up in defense of their 'workers' state' when it was threatened with collapse?

robbo203
19th February 2012, 08:36
Indeed the world left is divided between the people who say that USSR was a degenerated workers state. And those who say it was a state-capitalist system. The neoliberal economic system of USA makes life so expensive for most american low income families, that I conform even to a welfare state-capitalist system with free medicines and other free goodies.

But I think we need a real marxist left, but at the same time a more realist, united lest, a less utopian left. But not realist in the realist way of third way social-democrats Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Tony Blair and Michelle Bachelet. But I mean keeping and maintaining the premises of marxism strong, but at the same time applied to the real world. Because the real world out there is a vampire, like the Smashing Pumpkins song, thanks


.


What is the link to the article you posted?

daft punk
19th February 2012, 16:16
If the working class are in a position to democratically capture (and then dispense with) the state then they are, by that very token, in a position to abolish their working class status along with class society. How it is remotely possible for an exploited class to exercise control over the very class that exploits it is one of those perplexing absurdities on the Left remains completely unexplained

Hmm. You need a workers state to defend against restoration attempts and attack from outside. Thy cant abolish their working class status overnight, not for the whole economy and certainly not the whole world. Of course it would be a lot easier in a few advanced countries if it ever happened there first.



That aside, as you will no doubt be aware that, with the capture of political power by the Bolsheviks and the move towards state capitalism they inaugurated, the "masses" became progressively less and less involved and disenfranchised in the decisionmaking process - look what became of the Factory committees - culminating in a one party state characterised by extreme centralisation of power and decisionmaking. This is in quite the opposite direction to what you propose and what Lenin in fact at times paid lip service to. Whatever his personal opinions on the matter he was doomed to preside over the development iof capitalism in Russia
It was not capitalism or even state capitalism. Lenin sometimes used the term state capitalism, but only to describe some of the ways they tried to build industry and to explain that it was not yet socialism.
The democratic aspects went the wrong way because of the civil war. After the war things should have gone more democratic, and Trotsky called for that in 1923 onwards, and in 1922 Lenin warned against bureaucracy. Maybe in hindsight they didnt do enough at the time, but it's easy to be an armchair critic. What worried Lenin was the way the bureaucrats, a privileged elite inherited from the Tsar, were taking over from within, running rings around the communists. What do you think they should have done different?








What the Bolsheviks may have wanted is besides the point. Lacking mass support for socialism or indeed the necessary technological infrastructure to implement it (not that it could be implemented in one country only anyway) they were doomed to effect a bourgeois revolution and to progressively position themselves more and more against the interests of the working class - Trotsky being a good example of this with his downright anti working class " militarisation of labour" programme. There is an argument for saying that the Provisional government was not sufficiently ruthless in prosecuting the bourgeois capitalist revolution and that it was precisely for this reason that Bolsheviks took power
You are right about the Prov Gov. Re the militarisation of labour, let me explain. The economy was devastated and needed a boost. First Trotsky proposed ending war communism. This was rejected. So he said, well if we are gonna keep it, lets do it properly. There already was some militarisation of labour anyway. Trotsky believed it was a workers state, and as such the workers had nothing to fear from the government, and therefore the unions could be incorporated into the state and used for decision making. It actually would have given the unions a role in planning. This too was rejected and Trotsky later said Lenin was right to reject it. Finally after a year of getting nowhere they implemented Trotsky's original plan and called it the NEP. Stalin took it way too far though.





Trotsky not infrequently talked a load of rubbish interspersed with the occasional sound observation. The romantic vanguardist idea that socialists should capture power and somehow "start attempting to move in the direction of socialism" has been an absolute disaster. You would have thought by now Leftsists would have learnt the lesson but they continue to unthinkingly regurgitate the same old crap.

This has only been attempted once, in Russia, and you just pointed out one of the main reasons, the fact that the PG wasnt doing anything useful. read In Defence of October for an explanation why the revolution happened, Trotsky lists about 8 reasons.



Get this clear in your head: If a minority captures power in advance of the majority becoming socialist then inevitably by default that minority will have no other option than to administer capitalism. Equally inevitably the more you attempt to administer capitalism the more you will be sucked into aligning yourself with the interest of capital against wage labour. After all how else can you administer capitalism except first of formeost in the interests of capitalism?

Trotskyists have no intention of administering capitalism. The CWI policy for the UK would be to nationalise the top 200 companies to start with. You have to start somewhere.




Absolute rubbish. The Labour Party was never at any point a socialist party. It did not even pretend to embrace a maximum programme ((along with a minimum programme) as was the case with with social democratic parties in the Second International - most notably the German SDP.

Clause 4 part 4
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."
Socialist. And most of the members were socialist.



Your outfit seems to be just followng in the steps of Old Labour, going nowhere. It certainly does advocate all sorts of fanciful but unrealisable reforms and it certainly does advocate nationalisation (in the pamphlet you linked to it argues for the nationalisation of the railways) and nationalisation is emphatically state capitalism

Nationalisation is state capitalism, how do you work that one out? They dont mean the same form of nationalisation as in the past, they mean democratic workers control, planning and management.

daft punk
19th February 2012, 16:17
Why, in your opinion, did the working classes not rise up in defense of their 'workers' state' when it was threatened with collapse?
when exactly do you mean?

Renegade Saint
19th February 2012, 20:31
when exactly do you mean?
I'm not sure if I can be any clearer. Why didn't the workers rise up to defend their "workers' states" when they were in danger of collapsing?

daft punk
19th February 2012, 20:50
when? You mean the 1980s?

Renegade Saint
19th February 2012, 20:55
when? You mean the 1980s?
Well fucking duh. When the "counter-revolutions" were under way in the former Soviet bloc why didn't the working classes militantly try to stop it?

Q
19th February 2012, 21:06
Clause 4 part 4
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."
Socialist. And most of the members were socialist.

Clause 4 is often used as "proof" that the Labour party was socialist at some point. But why did they exclude the CPGB when it was formed out of, among others, the BSP (a constituent part of the Labour Party)? Why did they only include clause 4 after the Russian revolution, other then to prevent workers from moving to the CPGB and keep workers dissent in 'safe channels' for capital? At what point were "most of the members" in the Labour party explicit socialists?

Also, if you carefully read clause 4, you cannot fail to note how ambiguous the formulation is. What does "common ownership" mean, for example? Nationalisation into state property (not a socialist feature of course, as Marx explains very well in, for example, his Critique on the Gotha Programme)? What does "popular administration" mean? Does it mean workers democracy or parliamentary democracy? It is really a formulation anyone, leftwing or rightwing, can live with... it is not clear whatsoever.

No, the Labour Party was obviously never a socialist party. The party was and still is to this very day a party that is the political wing of the trade union bureaucracy. A layer that has every reason to stay within the capitalist system. Labourism is therefore our enemy and we should not aim to recreate it in a new workers party, but instead fight for a consistent communist programme and for radical democracy as to attain working class political hegemony.

Labour however also has a few positive sides as opposed to "continental" European social-democracy, one of which is its class character, deformed as it may be. I described this in my blog here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=3233):



In the case of a "Labour Party", that's to be expected. A "Labour Party" is traditionally the political wing of a national trade union movement

This is actually only true in a limited way. That is, the "Labour setup" of social-democracy (the political wing of the trade union movement) is a specific anglo-saxon (that is, the UK and its former colonies) phenomena. I haven't seen it in that form on "continental" Europe, where social-democracy traditionally has had much looser ties to the trade unions (and consequently have much less of a class character).

Labour in the UK on the other hand still has a close TUC link and for that reason maintains a (contradictionary) class character. That is, at least during election times the working class is specifically addressed as a class. This is not the case in "continental" European social-democratic parties, or at least not to the same extent.

This is something not widely understood for some reason, so I thought I'd write it out for once. I believe this has strategical implications in how communists should relate to the Labour parties, which is different from how we should relate (if at all) to the social-democratic parties. But that is of course a long running debate.

daft punk
21st February 2012, 09:35
Well fucking duh. When the "counter-revolutions" were under way in the former Soviet bloc why didn't the working classes militantly try to stop it?
There were movements towards democratic socialism in those countries from time to time, in 1953, 1956 and in the early 80s. But they got massive repression and sort of lost it. Then when the workers were at a low ebb the Stalinists swapped over to capitalism. Bit simplified but obviously it was different in different countries.

daft punk
21st February 2012, 09:38
Clause 4 is often used as "proof" that the Labour party was socialist at some point. But why did they exclude the CPGB when it was formed out of, among others, the BSP (a constituent part of the Labour Party)? Why did they only include clause 4 after the Russian revolution, other then to prevent workers from moving to the CPGB and keep workers dissent in 'safe channels' for capital? At what point were "most of the members" in the Labour party explicit socialists?

Also, if you carefully read clause 4, you cannot fail to note how ambiguous the formulation is. What does "common ownership" mean, for example? Nationalisation into state property (not a socialist feature of course, as Marx explains very well in, for example, his Critique on the Gotha Programme)? What does "popular administration" mean? Does it mean workers democracy or parliamentary democracy? It is really a formulation anyone, leftwing or rightwing, can live with... it is not clear whatsoever.

No, the Labour Party was obviously never a socialist party. The party was and still is to this very day a party that is the political wing of the trade union bureaucracy. A layer that has every reason to stay within the capitalist system. Labourism is therefore our enemy and we should not aim to recreate it in a new workers party, but instead fight for a consistent communist programme and for radical democracy as to attain working class political hegemony.

Labour however also has a few positive sides as opposed to "continental" European social-democracy, one of which is its class character, deformed as it may be. I described this in my blog here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=3233):

are you saying Militant was wrong to join it? You are CWI arent you?

Renegade Saint
21st February 2012, 13:15
There were movements towards democratic socialism in those countries from time to time, in 1953, 1956 and in the early 80s. But they got massive repression and sort of lost it. Then when the workers were at a low ebb the Stalinists swapped over to capitalism. Bit simplified but obviously it was different in different countries.
That sounds more like a state capitalist explanation of the fall of the USSR than an orthodox trotskyist one...

daft punk
21st February 2012, 14:55
Why? I dont think the USSR was state capitalist.

robbo203
21st February 2012, 22:58
H

Clause 4 part 4
"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."
Socialist. And most of the members were socialist. .

This has nothing to do with socialism. Clause 4 was a peice of utter contradictory confusion. Think about it - how is it possible to reconcile exchange with common ownership? Exchange denotes an exchange of property rights but by what right does an individual or an enterprise assert ownership of what is exchanged when the means of production are commonly owned?

Common ownership logically precludes production for exchange and a "means of exchange". The labour Party at NO time in it long and sordid anti-working class history was a socialist organisation and no socialist would touch this clearly capitalist political organisation with a bargepole

Dave B
21st February 2012, 23:33
Why? I dont think the USSR was state capitalist.


Leon Trotsky;

The Position of the Republic and the Tasks of Young Trotskyist Workers To Understand That We Have State Capitalism




this is explicable in part by an incomprehension of an expression frequently used by us, that we now have state capitalism. I shall not enter into an evaluation of this term; for in any case we need only to qualify what we understand by it. By state capitalism we all understood property belonging to the state which itself was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which exploited the working class. Our state undertakings operate along commercial lines based on the market. But who stands in power here? The working class. Herein lies the principled distinction of our state ‘capitalism’ in inverted commas from state capitalism without inverted commas.

What does this mean in perspective? Just this. The more state capitalism say, in Hohenzollern Germany, as it was, developed, the more powerfully the class of junkers and capitalists of Germany could hold down the working class. The more our ‘state capitalism’ develops the richer the work ing class will become, that is the firmer will become the foundation of socialism.http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm