Do you support a single party state? [Archive]

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revhiphop

6th March 2012, 02:31

Pretty straight forward question. My thoughts are: 1 party should lead the whole state, but there should be different parties in the legislation. This is similar to North Korea's system. (Not really agreeing with North Korea in any way, I just think that's a good system. Wasn't sure how else to word it but "single party executive, multiparty legislative") Anyway, post your thoughts.

GoddessCleoLover

6th March 2012, 02:35

Caj

6th March 2012, 02:37

I don't support any kind of state, much less a single party one.

Kitty_Paine

6th March 2012, 02:44

It's still a group of people (or person) that are in direct control of others, which often leads to silencing opposition, oppression and a down right shitty system... No party is the way to go :thumbup:

Ocean Seal

6th March 2012, 02:47

Yes I do, a single mass party for the revolutionary proletariat and the economy organized around the demands of workers with everyone in power earning no more than a workers wage.

~Spectre

6th March 2012, 02:51

Oh joy. More "when I'm the boss!!" fantasies.

Ostrinski

6th March 2012, 02:53

sure i guess why not

MustCrushCapitalism

6th March 2012, 02:56

I like the system of one party being codified into a constitution as some sort of vanguard party, but others being allowed to exist.

eyeheartlenin

6th March 2012, 03:01

GoddessCleoLover

6th March 2012, 03:09

Trotsky's position in the Transitional Program makes sense. Hope that he gave some credit to Rosa Luxemberg since she was a revolutionary Communist who was very prescient in calling attention to the dangers of single party dictatorship back in 1918. Andres Nin and the Catalonian POUM (Workers' Party for Marxist Unification) demonstrated during the Spanish Civil War that no one party ought necessarily exercise sole leadership, and when the Spanish Stalinists crushed the POUM and murdered Nin they dealt a mortal blow to the progressive side.

BE_

6th March 2012, 03:18

GoddessCleoLover

6th March 2012, 03:31

As a corollary, IMO a revolutionary party should be ruled by the working class. When the party rules the workers, the result is dictatorship, stagnation and ultimately the restoration of capitalism.

Danielle Ni Dhighe

6th March 2012, 04:34

I support a no party state, i.e. self-rule by the working class.

gorillafuck

6th March 2012, 04:38

I support a no party state, i.e. self-rule by the working class.a no party state requires the repression of political parties which makes it equivalent to a single party government

GoddessCleoLover

6th March 2012, 04:41

The problem with a no-party state is that informal factions within the state will form that will serve as the functional equivalent of political parties. When it comes right down to it I support no party AND no state, but as long as some type of state exists I would prefer to have politics played out in the open rather than in secret.

i also agree with Zeekloid's point about state repression of political parties perhaps being a cure worse than the disease.

blake 3:17

6th March 2012, 04:46

Apologies for the long quote. It's from the Fourth International document, Socialist Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat adopted in 1985.
IV. One-party and multi-party systems

Without full freedom to organise political groups, tendencies, and parties, no full flowering of democratic rights and freedoms for the toiling masses is possible under the dictatorship of the proletariat. By their free vote, the workers and poor peasants indicate themselves what parties they want to be part of the soviet system. In that sense, the freedom of organisation of different groups, tendencies, and parties is a precondition for the exercise of political power by the working class. "The democratisation of the soviets is impossible without legalisation of soviet parties." (Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.) Without such freedom, unrestrained by ideological restrictions, there can be no genuine, democratically elected workers’ councils, nor the exercise of real power by such workers’ councils.

Restrictions of that freedom would not be restrictions of the political rights of the class enemy but restrictions of the political rights of the proletariat. That freedom is likewise a precondition for the working class collectively as a class arriving at a common or at least a majority viewpoint on the innumerable problems of tactics, strategy, and even theory (programme) that are involved in the titanic task of building a classless society under the leadership of the traditionally oppressed, exploited, and downtrodden masses. Unless there is freedom to organise political groups, tendencies, and parties, there can be no real socialist democracy.

Revolutionary Marxists reject the substitutionist, paternalistic, elitist, and bureaucratic deviation from Marxism that sees the socialist revolution, the conquest of state power, and the wielding of state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a task of the revolutionary party acting "in the name" of the class or, in the best of cases, "with the support of" the class.

If the dictatorship of the proletariat is to mean what the very words say, and what the theoretical tradition of both Marx and Lenin explicitly contain, i.e., the rule of the working class as a class (of the "associated producers"); if the emancipation of the proletariat can be achieved only through the activity of the proletariat itself and not through a passive proletariat being "educated" for emancipation by benevolent and enlightened revolutionary administrators, then it is obvious that the leading role of the revolutionary party both in the conquest of power and in the building of a classless society can only consist of leading the mass activity of the class politically, of winning political hegemony in a class that is increasingly engaged in independent activity, of struggling within the class for majority support for its proposals, through political and not administrative or repressive means.

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat in its complete form, state power is exercised by democratically elected workers’ councils. The revolutionary party fights for a correct political line and or political leadership within these workers’ councils, not to substitute itself to them. Party and state remain entirely separate and distinct entities. But genuinely representative, democratically elected workers’ councils can exist only if the masses have the right to elect whomever they want without distinction, and without restrictive preconditions as to the ideological or political convictions of the elected delegates. (This does not apply, of course, to parties engaged in armed struggle against the workers state, i.e., to conditions of civil war, or to conditions of the revolutionary crisis and armed insurrection itself, to which this resolution refers in a later point). Likewise, workers’ councils can function democratically only if all the elected delegates enjoy the right to form groups, tendencies, and parties, to have access to the mass media, to present their different platforms before the masses, and to have them debated and tested by experience. Any restriction of party affiliation restricts the freedom of the proletariat to exercise political power, i.e., restricts workers’ democracy, which would be contrary to the historical interests of the working class, to the need to consolidate workers’ power, to the interests of world revolution and of building socialism.

Obviously such rights will not be recognised for parties, groups or individuals involved in a civil war or armed actions against the workers state. Neither do such freedoms include the right to organise actions or demonstrations of a racist character or in favour of national or ethnic oppression.

In no way does the Marxist theory of the state entail the concept that a one-party system is a necessary precondition or feature of workers’ power, a workers state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. In no theoretical document of Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky, and in no programmatic document of the Third International under Lenin, did such a proposal of a one party system ever appear. The theories developed later on, such as the crude Stalinist theory that throughout history social classes have always been represented by a single party, are historically wrong and serve only as apologies for the monopoly of political power usurped by the Soviet bureaucracy and its ideological heirs in other bureaucratised workers states, a monopoly based upon the political expropriation of the working class.

History - including the convulsions in the People’s Republic of China, in Poland, Yugoslavia, Grenada and Nicaragua - has on the contrary confirmed the correctness of Trotsky’s position that "classes are heterogeneous; they are torn by inner antagonisms, and arrive at the solution of common problems no otherwise than through an inner struggle of tendencies, groups and parties.... An example of only one party corresponding to one class is’ not to be found in the whole course of political history - provided, of course, you do not take the police appearance for the reality." (The Revolution Betrayed, p. 267.) This was true for the bourgeoisie under feudalism. It is true for the working class under capitalism. It will remain true for the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat and in the process of building socialism.

If one says that only parties and organisations that have no bourgeois (or petty-bourgeois?) programme or ideology, or are not "engaged in anti-socialist or anti-soviet propaganda and/or agitation" are to be legalised, how is one to determine the dividing line? Will parties with a majority of working-class members but with a bourgeois ideology be forbidden? How can such a position be reconciled with free elections for workers’ councils? What is the dividing line between "bourgeois programme" and "reformist ideology"? Must reformist parties then be forbidden as well? Will social democracy be suppressed?

It is unavoidable that on the basis of historical traditions, reformist influence will continue to survive in the working class of many countries for a long period. That survival will not be shortened by administrative repression; on the contrary, such repression will tend to strengthen it. The best way to fight against reformist illusions and ideas is through the combination of ideological struggle and the creation of the material conditions for the disappearance of these illusions. Such a struggle would lose much of its efficacy under conditions of administrative repression and lack of free debate and exchange of ideas.

If the revolutionary party agitates for the suppression of social democratic or other reformist formations, it will be a thousand times more difficult to maintain freedom of tendencies and toleration of factions within its own ranks. The political heterogeneity of the working class would then inevitably tend to reflect itself within the single party.

Thus, the real alternative is not either freedom for those with a genuine socialist programme (who ideologically and programmatically support the soviet system) or freedom for all political parties. The real choice is: either genuine workers’ democracy with the right of the toiling masses to elect whomever they want to the soviets and freedom of political organisation of all those who abide by the soviet constitution in practice (including those who do not ideologically support the soviet system), or a decisive restriction of these political rights of the working class itself, with all the consequences flowing there from. Systematic restriction of political parties leads to systematic restriction of freedom within the revolutionary vanguard party itself.

When we say that we are in favour of a legalisation of all soviet parties, i.e. of those that abide by the soviet constitution in practice, this does not imply that we in any case underestimate the political confusion, errors, and even partial defeats which the propagation of wrong programmes and alien class influences upon the toiling masses by such parties could and will provoke under conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Even more obviously do we not call upon the workers to build parties upon the basis of what we consider wrong programmes, platforms, or policies, nor do we advocate the creation of such parties. We only state that the artificial administrative suppression of such parties - artificial inasmuch as they continue to reflect currents among the masses even if they are legally suppressed - far from reducing these dangers, increases them. The political, ideological, and cultural homogenisation of the working class, bringing the great majority of its members up to the point where they are capable of substituting a free community of self-administered citizens to the survival of a state machine (i.e., able to achieve the building of socialism and the withering away of the state) is a gigantic historical task. It is not only linked to obvious material preconditions. It involves also a specific political training: "The existence of critically-minded people, opponents, dissidents, discontented and reactionary elements, gives the revolution life and strength. The confrontation of differences and polemics develop ’the ideological and political muscles’ of the people. It is a permanent form of exercising, an antidote to paralysis and to passivity." (Tomas Borge Speaks, Granma, weekly French edition, October 7, 1984)

Likewise, Fidel Castro had polemicised against Escalante, saying: the revolution must be a school of unfettered thought. Even if practice continuity of Marxism on the subject and must be defended tooth and nail against all who would deny them.

Historical experience confirms that outside of conditions of genuine workers’ democracy, this process of training the masses for self-administration can only be retarded or even reversed, as it obviously has been in the USSR. Historical experience has also confirmed that no genuine workers’ democracy is possible without political pluralism.

gorillafuck

6th March 2012, 04:46

The problem with a no-party state is that informal factions within the state will form that will serve as the functional equivalent of political parties. When it comes right down to it I support no party AND no state, but as long as some type of state exists I would prefer to have politics played out in the open rather than in secret.I was with you until you said that this wouldn't happen in the absence of a state. I don't see where the idea comes from that factions with differing political views wouldn't be present in the absence of a state.

Danielle Ni Dhighe

6th March 2012, 04:49

When it comes right down to it I support no party AND no state
Seconded.

but as long as some type of state exists I would prefer to have politics played out in the open rather than in secret.
But isn't that also a problem with parties, where much happens behind closed doors?

eric922

6th March 2012, 06:52

Seconded.

But isn't that also a problem with parties, where much happens behind closed doors?
Well you are right, but I don't think creating a single party would solve that problem. I think it would just make it worse. Factions within the Party would essentially become new parties. Either that or dissent would not be allowed and I don't think that is a good position to take. (unless the dissenters are capitalists, in which case fuck them. They don't give us any choices in their democracy, why should we give them any in ours?)

tanklv

6th March 2012, 07:18

Democracy is the only way to go - at all levels.

Dictatorships of any sort are anethema to me and should be to all intelligent people.

In conjunction and in order for a true democracy to succeed, COMPULSORY education to the highest levels should be the operating principle - an ignorant populace begets horrific government.

The final "goal' that I like I would guess is true "anarchy" where any "government" is not really necessary, since al people will be presuing mutually beneficial self interests to each persons maximum potential.

I would liken it to a family that operates almost automatically, and only occasionally gets together to decided on any issues that may develope that would be harmful to familial harmony and success. Or even a housing complex that (even tho it's like pulling teeth to get anybody to attend meetings) only really gets people involved when it comes time to repair a damaged roof or HVAC system.

There would be various "interests" involved, but no real "factions" - as all would be working in harmony to achieve resolution to any problems that might arrise.

But would we ever get to that ideal world? Looks quite a long prospect from where we are presently.

Regicollis

6th March 2012, 08:57

There would also be differences of opinion within a single-party state. Why not have these differences out in the open?

I think all parties ought to be allowed to exist - also parties who oppose socialism and democracy. Freedom is always the freedom of those who think different or it is not freedom at all.

In a socialist society the worker's right to self-management and the collective ownership to the means of production would be legally and culturally protected to the same level that capitalism is today. When the economic system is changed the potential adherents to capitalism would be very few. There would be no capitalists to pay for these parties and the media would not be corporate controlled. The appeal of capitalism and authoritarianism in a socialist society would be low - why would workers want the bosses to return once they've tried freedom?

I also don't think the importance of parties will be as great in a socialist society as it formally is in a burgeois democracy. I think a lot of decisions would be made locally and through direct democracy instead of through formalised party systems.

Thirsty Crow

6th March 2012, 10:07

I like the system of one party being codified into a constitution as some sort of vanguard party, but others being allowed to exist.
So you think that Constitutional codification of the vanguard will ensure that the communist programme is preserved and acted upon by that party, which de fact constitutes the state?

My oh my.

Jimmie Higgins

6th March 2012, 10:28

No. As workers begin to reorganize society, I think workers will naturally block up around certain viewpoints or goals within the larger project of moving from a society based on profit to a society based on worker's interests. People who think that, say, education is the highest priority after the overthrow of capitalism might form an organized voting block.

Workers, particularly right after a revolution, might put restrictions on what kind of parties could organize: so parties might have to all uphold the principle of worker's power and democracy; building toward the ultimate goal of a stateless, classless world; etc. But within that general framework there's pleanty of room for people to favor particular programs or priorities and to form advocacy and voting blocks around them.

Yazman

6th March 2012, 11:20

I chose Other. I don't really support a party system. They take power away from the people and are far too polarising. Besides, we don't need a 'representative' system with modern technology.

Blake's Baby

6th March 2012, 12:11

I voted no. I want the state to be destroyed. Why should I support a one-party-thing-I-want-destroyed?

Rooster

6th March 2012, 12:30

This really isn't a simple question (thanks obfuscationists). This really boils down to what we mean by a party, what democracy is and what role it should take, the questions regarding revolution and revolutionary process, how this relates to the state, etc. Democracy, as the great sagacious Aristotle had observed, was the government of the mass of the people, who were on the whole, poor. The interests of the poor and the rich, the privileged and the unprivileged, are not the same. Is there a role in this for the classic vanguard party? I don't think so. I don't think direct democracy would need parties in the first place and it's direct democracy that we're aiming for, isn't it?

Dark Matter

6th March 2012, 12:36

one political party is like dictatorship (abit different)

and now im going to make my mind clear,those who fought for stateless society,you need to know that its an UTOPIAN idea and can NOT be done,so why are you fighting for something that cannot be done and never will,i even dont know if an new socialist society is going to be formed again. But socialism is still possible and anarchism or stateless society ISN'T,just think how will the world look without that STUPID government? I hate the government but this is how it is we cant live without the gov.
Just look to what IDIOTIC creatures Humans evolved? We cant live without an freaking IPAD,we cant be hungry for an day,we need our TV,COMPUTER,... and you are talking about anarchism pleas,humans will never achieve such high level as anarchism.

:che:

Yoseph

6th March 2012, 12:44

I support the idea of having several parties, if they are all for the working class. I think it should not be allowed any party representing the bourgeoisie, any party that is against the working class. But this is related to the forces / parties in each country. Maybe when Lenin implemented the policy of one party, was because the others were all enemies of the revolution, enemies of the working class. Maybe..

Rooster

6th March 2012, 12:50

one political party is like dictatorship (abit different)

and now im going to make my mind clear,those who fought for stateless society,you need to know that its an UTOPIAN idea and can NOT be done,so why are you fighting for something that cannot be done and never will,i even dont know if an new socialist society is going to be formed again. But socialism is still possible and anarchism or stateless society ISN'T,just think how will the world look without that pussy government? I hate the government but this is how it is we cant live without the gov.
Just look to what pussies Humans evolved? We cant live without an freaking IPAD,we cant be hungry for an day,we need our TV,COMPUTER,... and you are talking about anarchism pleas,humans will never achieve such high level as anarchism. We are just to pussy like and stupid for that.

:che:

You're using all of these words but I'm not sure you know what most of them mean. Also, you should get infracted for sexist language.

Jimmie Higgins

6th March 2012, 13:23

those who fought for stateless society,you need to know that its an UTOPIAN idea and can NOT be done,so why are you fighting for something that cannot be done and never will,i even dont know if an new socialist society is going to be formed again.
States didn't always exist and the modern nation state is a even more recent concept. Besides the whole concept of Marxism is that worker's can run society, they don't need class divisions and to rule over other people so therefore worker's could eliminate classes. Without class divisions then there is no need for a state (i.e. a vehicle for one class in society to maintain an order of that society that keeps them in power). It doesn't mean that people wouldn't still get together to collectively decide things, just that the state as we know it in class society would be completely useless and unnecessary.

But socialism is still possible and anarchism or stateless society ISN'T,just think how will the world look without that STUPID government? I hate the government but this is how it is we cant live without the gov.
Just look to what IDIOTIC creatures Humans evolved? We cant live without an freaking IPAD,we cant be hungry for an day,we need our TV,COMPUTER,... and you are talking about anarchism pleas,humans will never achieve such high level as anarchism.
:che:Humans lived most of their existence without formal governments let alone states. If there is no class rule, then there is no need for that rule, that order of society, to be enforced. In feudal governments, there was a lot of stress on laws to ensure people showed the proper respect to the superior castes. These rules no longer exist in most industrial nations. Why? It's because that kind of rule of society is no longer needed by a new ruling class of capitalists. They don't need people obeying some ridged god-created caste structure, but they do need rule of law, so one of the few places where that sort of social respect is still enforced is when it comes to lawmakers, judges and cops - all things that the population has to be obedient to in order for this kind of society to function.

And I'm pretty sure that the hundreds of thousands of years humans lived without states and classes has had more of an evolutionary impact than ipods, computers, and TVs have had (if any, which I doubt).

l'EnfermÃ©

6th March 2012, 15:07

According to Marx and Engels, after a proletarian revolution, the proletarian state loses it's political nature and eventually withers away. I don't support a 1-party state, a 2-party state or a multi-party state, I only support a proletarian state and this position is consistent with Marxist tradition.

seventeethdecember2016

6th March 2012, 15:16

Die Neue Zeit

6th March 2012, 15:20

I support Vanguardism. The One Party System claim is based on Western interpretations of Marxist-Leninist systems. In reality, M-L systems are more NO party systems rather than one party.

Anyway, when looking at a country like China, one could see that there are many factions among the Communist party.

And that, folks, is precisely why I support a genuine one-party system. The working class cannot be a class for itself without constituting into a mass political party-movement, but this in turn must retain its political character over policymaking and legislation. Only then can one support an administrative "party" (of former full members) on the other side.

manic expression

6th March 2012, 16:16

I like the system of one party being codified into a constitution as some sort of vanguard party, but others being allowed to exist.
Yes, I must agree. The position of the party of the workers should have official constitutional recognition, but other parties should be allowed to operate and even take public office. This is the setup of Cuban socialism and it works exceptionally well on just about all counts.

Beyond that, I am open to the Soviet-style structure, that is a strongly one-party state with no other parties, or even a situation where no party is given official prominence (a challenging prospect to say the least, but one that I think could function nonetheless). There is, I think, more than one answer to the question.

Doflamingo

10th March 2012, 21:41

I want to eliminate the state

Firebrand

10th March 2012, 22:44

A major problem i've always seen with parties is that it boxes up a load of different views together. So while you may support the free education for all that a party is offering, you really don't like their idea of making everyone wear green hats on tuesday. While you may oppose some of the views of a party you may support others. Thats why it is better not to have a party system.

Factions would still of course form but they would be less rigid, and on more of a case by case basis. Because the factions would be on a case by case basis there would be less oppertunity for resentment to build up since the people you argue agaionst on the hat issue, may well be on your side on the education front.

Anyway I thought that modern technology pretty much eliminated the need for representative democracy.

ABMarx

10th March 2012, 22:49

I support a stateless, classless society

zoot_allures

10th March 2012, 23:13

In theory, at least, absolutely not. I'm deeply anti-authoritarian, and I want more democracy, not less. However, when it comes to the real world as it currently operates, I'm not so sure more democracy is always such a good idea, and I suspect that even single party states can sometimes be justified.

We all have our own view of what the ideal way of organizing society is, but ultimately, we're never going to be able to put it into practice. There will always be very difficult compromises. One of the primary concerns I'd have for the survival of socialism are the external threats, and I do wonder if the less democratic systems are more resilient against those.

Robocommie

11th March 2012, 04:44

sure i guess why not

Best answer ever!

Rafiq

11th March 2012, 04:49

No because the party ends up becoming the bourgeois that they were trying to "destroy". Why the fuck would anyone want a few people in a party controlling everything they do? The state should be afraid of its people, ALWAYS!

Oh the Irony. You apply bourgeois concepts like "Power Corrupts" to dismiss a single party-mass movement as bourgeois?

Rafiq

11th March 2012, 04:51

I support a single-party state dictatorship.

NewLeft

11th March 2012, 04:54

I support a single-party state dictatorship.
As a temporary transition, of course?

Amal

11th March 2012, 05:04

IMO, the basic question should be "do we support class dictatorship i.e. dictatorship of proletariat over other classes during the transitional period?" Those who answer "no" to this question better stay away from calling themselves "left" at all.

Ostrinski

11th March 2012, 05:05

I support the seizure of state power by a party that is of, by, and for the working class. I oppose the bourgeois active leadership/passive base structure of the communist parties that exert themselves as something that exists above or outside of the working class and that are characterized by their own unique political content and intellectual tradition. Rather, the party should be something much more broad, something that exists within the realm of working class radical democracy.

Brosip Tito

11th March 2012, 05:10

No single party state.

Although I believe that a single revolutionary party will be the vanguard of the revolution (read: guide of the revolution), I support the idea of multiple socialist parties participating and presenting their own platforms within the workers councils.

Veovis

11th March 2012, 05:18

Ostrinski

11th March 2012, 05:22

No one can tell what a true workers' state will look like exactly, but I think that if there are constitutional guarantees against the reinstatement of private property, multiple parties can function within a socialist framework.But what would be the purpose in re-instating the multi-party system, unless you were going to revive the bourgeois party structure? All decision making can be done direct-democratically within the worker's party. To succumb to the idea of multiple parties is to succumb to bourgeois politics.

Grenzer

11th March 2012, 05:26

Single party system is a terrible idea, as is the idea of having a party with constitutionally protected special privileges. There might be some unique circumstances where such a think would be needed, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

The single party apologists make me think of Julius Nyerere. He wrote extensively on trying to justify a single party state, but it never works in practice. I've always found it ironic that Leninists seem to be the most vigorous proponents of single party system. Didn't Lenin advocate having a multi-party system in his future plans for the USSR at some point? I could be wrong, but I thought I had read that somewhere. A one party system seems to necessarily entail corruption and plutocracy; until I see a functioning example I'm going to be damn skeptical. Fuck one party states.

Brosip Tito

11th March 2012, 05:31

But what would be the purpose in re-instating the multi-party system, unless you were going to revive the bourgeois party structure? All decision making can be done direct-democratically within the worker's party. To succumb to the idea of multiple parties is to succumb to bourgeois politics.
If I'm not mistaken, the Paris Commune was multi-party, and Engels and Marx saw it as a prime example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Ostrinski

11th March 2012, 05:37

Ostrinski

11th March 2012, 05:39

If I'm not mistaken, the Paris Commune was multi-party, and Engels and Marx saw it as a prime example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.I'd be interested in reading about the political structure of the Paris Commune, do you have a link? But even so, for a proletarian revolution of any kind to succeed there must be central coordination.

Brosip Tito

11th March 2012, 05:43

I'd be interested in reading about the political structure of the Paris Commune, do you have a link? But even so, for a proletarian revolution of any kind to succeed there must be central coordination.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm

Marx discusses it here, I believe. Been a long time since I read it.

Grenzer

11th March 2012, 06:06

But this is still employing the bourgeois conception of what a party is and should be.

I don't see how the logical conclusion that a group of individuals having monopoly on political power leads to abuse is bourgeois. I mean technically the concept of materialism, part of which is that there is an objective truth, is just an extension of the bourgeois ideals of the enlightenment. Does this mean that materialism is valueless? I don't think it is, though this is not the place to discuss it in detail. Too often it seems like labeling is simply a way of dismissing something without actually rebutting it. Simply invalidating something by a label doesn't seem to be a good way to counter claims of corruption and plutocracy, which are backed up by empirical evidence. Could a party of the workers be different? Maybe, but I have yet to see an adequate explanation in this thread could truly be democratic and representative of the workers. If one upholds the RSDLP as a true party of the worker's then that organizational method has been proven to put an arbitrary wedge of unaccountability between workers and those running the party.

The working class is something separate from a party, unless someone is going to try to define the party AS the working class, which seems like a bizarre and illogical claim unless it's directly democratic and literally includes every member of the working class. The working class isn't a party, it's a class. A party is something that exists separately, and who it's working in the interests of is key. Is it working in the interests of its elite members, or the class in which it claims to be acting in the interests of? The fate of the Russian revolution seems to suggest that the RSDLP was not truly in control by the workers, at least by the period of 1924. Of course Russia is a complex issue since the proletariat was in a minority, democracy wasn't a possibility. The fact still stands that there exists no empirical evidence to support the virtues of a single party state, and no compelling argument has yet been made in its defense. Political organizations are going to be unavoidable, whether it's a stateless society or not, so political plurality seems to be the best option. The claim that a single party state can work simply because there has been no true workers' party to exist to date does not seem to be a compelling argument against political plurality, and I would guess that there are other people that agree.

I am not dogmatically opposed to single organization rule, I'd just like to see a comprehensive explanation of how a single party state could work as opposed to vague statements of "We need a single party state because political plurality is evil." as I have seen some do.

ChrisK

11th March 2012, 06:17

I voted for other. In the short term I would say that I agree with a single-MASS-party state. The party would have to be comprised of the majority of the working class, with the working class running the show.

In the long term I aim at a stateless society in which a political party would be unnecessary.

Rafiq

11th March 2012, 17:21

As a temporary transition, of course?

A long temporary transition, but a transition none the less.

daft punk

11th March 2012, 17:23

Voted no. Nobody in their right mind sets out to have a one party state.

Rusty Shackleford

11th March 2012, 17:25

my goal in life is to be insulted by being called a red tsar. then, i can die happy.

GoddessCleoLover

11th March 2012, 17:27

Always happy to help someone achieve their goal in life. Rusty Shackleford, you Sir, are nothing but a Red Tsar!:D

Leo

11th March 2012, 18:21

The dictatorship of the proletariat means the dictatorship of the workers' councils, not the dictatorship of any party.

A single-party dictatorship means nothing less than the death of the party if there is anything proletarian and revolutionary about it.

Ismail

12th March 2012, 13:54

And in the GDR/DDR, "East Germany," there were multiple apparent parties, like a party for Christians, a party for former Nazis (incredibly), etc., but those "parties" were not permitted to compete for power in opposition to the SED, the party representing the interests of the ruling bureaucracy. I would not be surprised if such a toothless "multi-party" system existed in some of the other East European allies of the USSR.

All those formulations merely served to secure the rule of the bureaucracy, which had politically displaced the working class.There were multiple parties united under Fronts in the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and one other party in Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania had multiple parties until 1948 or so when the communist parties triumphed over their bourgeois opposition which, it seems, was not willing to collaborate. Yugoslavia and Albania had no bourgeois parties at any time, and Albania has the distinction of having had no coalition government whatsoever (whereas Yugoslavia had a brief one.) The idea of other, bourgeois parties existing in the postwar Fronts was part of the conception of People's Democracy. The idea of bourgeois parties existing beyond that, however, was forwarded by the Soviet revisionists as part of their "many roads to socialism" shtick.

In his September 1967 speech to the 4th Congress of the Democratic Front of Albania, Hoxha noted the following:

"After the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established and consolidated, which is achieved under the guidance of the communist party, the existence for a long time of other parties, inside or outside the front, even if they are 'progressive' ones, has no meaning, no 'raison d'être' even formally on account of their alleged traditions. Every progressive tradition is blended with the revolutionary line of the communist party. The revolution overthrows a whole world, let alone a single tradition. As long as the class struggle goes on during the whole period of socialist construction of society and transition to communism, and since political parties uphold the interests of specific classes, it would be absurd and opportunist to have other non-Marxist-Leninist parties existing in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, especially when the economic basis of socialism has been laid. This does not affect democracy at all but, on the contrary, strengthens genuine proletarian democracy. The democratic nature of a system is in no way gauged by the number of parties, but is determined by its economic basis, by the class in power, and by the policy and activity of the State and by the fact whether it conforms to the interests of the broad masses of the people, whether it serves them or not.

With a view to achieving their counter-revolutionary aims in the service of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, the modern revisionists are ever more zealously proceeding along the way of degrading the communist parties and socialist regimes. They are liquidating the parties of the working class denying their proletarian class nature and proclaiming them as 'parties of the people as a whole'. In fact they have turned them into bourgeois parties of a new type. The degeneration of the communist parties and socialist order in certain countries, where revisionist cliques hold sway, is bringing about the revival of the system of two or more bourgeois parties under the guise of socialism and on behalf of the alleged development of socialist democracy. The fronts that exist in some of these countries have remained so on paper, they are lifeless and signs are already apparent of the revival and political and organizational activation of parties taking part in these fronts striving to win commanding posts in the socialist state which is continually assuming the features of a bourgeois state. The extreme groupings of modern revisionists, particularly in capitalist countries like France and Italy, are striving to persuade their revisionist colleagues in socialist countries to speedily proceed along this road in order to give a further proof to the western bourgeoisie that they are prepared to put an end to 'Stalinist socialism' and to re-establish a new bourgeois socialism of the social-democratic type and to make the work of revisionists in capitalist countries easier to unite and merge with the bourgeoisie and their parties, in order to join it in setting up such a 'socialist' order in these countries."
(Enver Hoxha. Report on the Role and Tasks of the Democratic Front for the Complete Triumph of Socialism in Albania. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1974. pp. 44-46.)

He spoke of this not long before calls in Czechoslovakia for the National Front and its bourgeois parties to have greater "independence" from the revisionist "Communist" Party under Dubček were made.

Yefim Zverev

12th March 2012, 14:14

OCMO

12th March 2012, 18:34

I guess, in cases of social stability, a multi-party system should be allowed. However, those parties could only be leftists (in a present perspective, of course) and must have a democratic nature. By the time i'm speaking of this, capitalists are already out of the central powers, so maybe the parties shouldn't be allowed to have weapons, since the battle against whatever remains of the old society can be managed by apartidarian organizations.

I firmly believe in my ideology, and think it represents the best way of achieving socialism, but if my ideological oponents are on the socialist spectrum too let them have parties as well, i see no harm in that.

Deicide

12th March 2012, 18:42

I want a one party state with me as the infallible, supreme leader with a personality cult (like Stalin and Mao).

Hermes

12th March 2012, 19:03

This is probably a silly position, but I believe in no state at all. I'm not really convinced that a state in any form can result in the eventual abolition of the state.

If I had to choose, I would support the restriction of party formation and advertising. If there was a sincere presidential candidate who had all of the right ideas for fixing all of the evils of the state, then he probably still wouldn't get voted in because he was in the wrong party. The muckraking and party loyalty that goes on is disgusting. People should research their candidate and his views and make their decision based on that, not because of some party he's a part of.

Vyacheslav Brolotov

12th March 2012, 19:05

"We guard the Party like a gem"
-from a song in honor of Enver Hoxha's birthday

Bostana

12th March 2012, 22:31

I want a one party state with me as the infallible, supreme leader with a personality cult (like Stalin and Mao).

Yes because Stalin fought in the October Revolution risking his life, fighting along side his Comrades, and sacrificing his mortal being for the Country that he loved.

But it was all a thought out plan, to trick everyone so he could rise to power and take over the world
muwahahahahahah
:D

Ostrinski

12th March 2012, 22:36

Yes because Stalin fought in the October Revolution risking his life, fighting along side his Comrades, and sacrificing his mortal being for the Country that he loved.

But it was all a thought out plan, to trick everyone so he could rise to power and take over the world
muwahahahahahah
:DI don't even know where to begin.

Deicide

12th March 2012, 22:42

Bostana you're a figment of my imagination. You can't possibly exist.

Bostana

12th March 2012, 22:44

Bostana you're a figment of my imagination. You can't possibly exist.

Relax it was a joke

Omsk

12th March 2012, 22:49

Ahm.

I support the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proleteriat and the rise of the proleterian Vanguard party which would direct action trough councils and workers groups , at the same time concentrating on the main problems that could rise during the revolution.Such a party would rule by mass support and would represent the huge groups of people,poor workers,not the interest groups which would fight for profit and their own personalized goals.

Bostana

12th March 2012, 22:57

Brosa Luxemburg

12th March 2012, 23:15

Vladimir Innit Lenin

13th March 2012, 23:14

I support the working class and believe that I have no right to impose a single party upon the workers of the world. My individual opinion is that allowing a single party to lead the state would lead to a dictatorship of that party over the working class and the entire polity and society. Granting such a special status to one party seems like it would be an invitation to abuse of that power, and since that single party would have power over the state and its repressive apparatus the results would likely be tragedy rather than socialism.

I echo this.

Personally I believe the no-party system will become the most democratic. The bureaucratic apparatus of a single-party state is totally unnecessary, given the ability of masses of people to congregate, communicate and organise these days.

Vyacheslav Brolotov

13th March 2012, 23:25

I do not believe a liberated working class can defend itself and maintain its democratic dictatorship with the threat of global capitalism and capitalist elements within its own nation that wish to retake power. You need a vanguard party and history has proven that fact. If any of you anti-vanguardists have proof that a liberated working classes can defend itself against capitalism without the protection of a vanguard, then please show it to me.

P.S. The Paris Commune does not count.

Martin Blank

13th March 2012, 23:39

I'm not even sure I agree with there being a single party-organization in the lead of the revolution itself, much less there being a single party-organization in charge of the workers' republic (the transition from capitalism to communism). I guess it all comes down to one's definition of a "party".

Yefim Zverev

13th March 2012, 23:42

Barack Obama opened 59 revleft accounts (in coop with CIA) to vote for "Multiple Parties" in this poll.

The Intransigent Faction

14th March 2012, 03:12

Of course Go go single party proletarian dictatorship...

Multiple voices and true democracy in a single communist party rather than one common state ideology in multiple parties.

Multiple parties are a part of capitalist nation-state, they are there to deceive people that they vote their future where they actually have no contribution at all. State ideology never changes. When right goes high they push social democrats then they push right again. Example: Democrat party->Republican->Democrat->Republican..In Europe same... right-left-right-left... the left is but not left.. it is fool's left.

Multiple parties are for fools. Multiple parties are for agents and spies for deceivers. Multiple parties are obstacle and time waste. Multiple parties are part of capitalism. Multiple parties are for fake communists. Multiple parties are for those who have no understanding about freedom and democracy and still think in the dimension and categories of liberalism/capitalism.

For real communists single communist party with actual proletarian dictatorship and with the aim of communism and international cooperation with workers of other countries is the way.

SAzofLc3DMk

That does it. That music was so epic I almost want to switch tendencies!
...But seriously, good thing I don't make judgements about political tendencies based on music.

To quote Rosa Luxemburg, "“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all".

If the working class is developed and revolutionarily conscious enough to lead a mass-based (not vanguardist) revolution, then it would stand to reason that it would be unnecessary to outlaw all but a single political party. No bureaucracy or intellectual vanguardist elite would be needed to protect the masses from themselves because reactionary ideas would not gain enough traction to threaten the vast revolutionary proletarian majority, physically or ideologically. The only purpose of such a vanguard would be for itself to secure its own position of privilege.

The difference between us as revolutionary leftists and the social democratic left/the centre/the right must be that our politics arises spontaneously out of the material conditions of the masses and revolutionary agitation of political consciousness, as opposed to being imposed on workers by some small group of elitists.

It is absolutely right, though, to say that the choice between multiple bourgeois parties is a false choice for workers. That's why electoralism should be rejected (and rather ironically, at least here in Canada it's the parties that want to establish one-party states that tend to involve themselves in multi-party democracy)!

milkmiku

14th March 2012, 03:36

I'd support a single party state if it was led by Extra dimensional beings/super AI/god like beings who have the best interest of mankind at heart and would never betray us.

Until then, I'll support whatever government that is not our right evil.

Die Neue Zeit

14th March 2012, 15:37

I do not support a state in which only one party is legally allowed to operate. I feel that a communist conscious among the working class will better develop under a system that allows the workers to make their own decisions. A one-party system does not allow this because a worker cannot decide to join a political party other than the state sanctioned one.

Too much diversity can be a bad thing, with multiple parties having multiple factions. Workers could still join a party-movement's political tendencies.

I'm not even sure I agree with there being a single party-organization in the lead of the revolution itself, much less there being a single party-organization in charge of the workers' republic (the transition from capitalism to communism). I guess it all comes down to one's definition of a "party".

The discussion around here tends to define "party" merely as some organization gathering electoral or other public policy support. In the latter case, the organization would be little different from a lobby group.

As for my mass institutional definition, I don't think there's much of a choice these days. "United fronts" is a cover for maintaining unnecessarily separate organizations because they can't maintain unity in action.

Per below...

To quote Rosa Luxemburg, "“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all".

The same Rosa Luxemburg who agitated for a split in the anti-war Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany that resulted in the bumbling Communist Party of Germany? The same Rosa Luxemburg who couldn't see the one possibility of revolutionary success summarized as "All Power to Independent Social Democracy" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-power-independent-t155105/index.html)?

Orlov

14th March 2012, 15:39

Factionalism is a cancer, inner party democracy is the only option.

Die Neue Zeit

14th March 2012, 15:48

Factionalism is a cancer, inner party democracy is the only option.

Factionalism certainly is, according to Marx himself (not Lenin, but Marx against Bakunin's "secret faction"), but inner party democracy must allow for multiple tendencies.

Orlov

14th March 2012, 15:57

Yefim Zverev

14th March 2012, 16:45

as opposed to being imposed on workers by some small group of elitists.

If you secretly blame Soviet Union to be elitist. I would tell you that everybody had their rights to join Communist Party.

Die Neue Zeit

15th March 2012, 01:28

Factionalism certainly is, according to Marx himself (not Lenin, but Marx against Bakunin's "secret faction"), but inner party democracy must allow for multiple tendencies.
As long as these tendencies accept socialism and are able to productively engage in party work in the interest of the working class I fail to see the issue. However, there cannot be other parties outside of the existing working class organization in control and instituting the dictatorship of the proletariat as this would simply lead to chaos, confusion and the breaking of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The problem with Lenin's ban on "factions" from there on in was that it was a ban on tendencies. Because of this, the Communist Party eventually ceased to be a proper political party from Stalin's time onwards. Manic wrote here that the Soviet Union was a no-party state, but what he neglected to say was that Moshe Lewin wrote this as harsh criticism, not support.

Only with multiple tendencies can there exist a genuine one-party system.

If you secretly blame Soviet Union to be elitist. I would tell you that everybody had their rights to join Communist Party.

In practice, no they didn't. On the one hand, candidates had to have "connections." On the other hand, programmatic education was poor even after the success of literacy campaigns.

Martin Blank

15th March 2012, 01:31

The discussion around here tends to define "party" merely as some organization gathering electoral or other public policy support. In the latter case, the organization would be little different from a lobby group.

As for my mass institutional definition, I don't think there's much of a choice these days. "United fronts" is a cover for maintaining unnecessarily separate organizations because they can't maintain unity in action.

This is the problem I see: The accepted definition of what the mass proletarian party is supposed to be owes more to petty-bourgeois democratism (i.e., classical social democracy) than it does to Marx and, to a lesser extent, Engels.

I've seen you use the phrase "party-movement", and I think it's one of the best neologisms you've come up with, though we may apply the term differently. The reason I say that is because that is a good way to think about Marx's definition of the proletarian party; it was not an institutional body with a singular structure and clearly outlined doctrine. It was more like a movement, with multiple organizations (including "party-organizations", like ours) participating and working together in association based on a common platform or program of action based around the three central tenets of such a party: 1) the raising up of the working class into being a class-for-itself, 2) the defeat and overthrow of capitalist rule, and 3) the victory of the working class through the taking of state power.

In the Civil War in France, Marx described the "Party of Order" that brought Louis Bonaparte to power in France as "a combination formed by all the rival fractions and factions of the appropriating classes". In doing so, he was contrasting that party to the one that made the workers' revolution in Paris: the Party of the Commune; the proletarian party. Given how the workers' revolution in Paris was carried out, I consider it a fair argument to say that Marx's definition of the proletarian party -- the "Party of the Commune" -- as being the converse of the "Party of Order". That is, the proletarian party is a combination formed by all the revolutionary fractions and factions of the working class.

This is why I think "party-movement" is a good term to use when talking about the proletarian party. In modern language, what Marx is describing is more like a movement than a singular organization (the latter model being substituted for Marx's definition after his death by the rise of the social-democratic parties of Europe and America).

As for the Comintern-style "united front", that has been more or less a failure since it was first raised. It's primary weakness was, and remains, the attempt to create such a front alongside bourgeois socialists and petty-bourgeois socialists, on the purely idealistic notion of subjective revolutionism -- that is, because these elements say and think they're socialists or communists, even when their actions are in the service of the exploiting and oppressing classes, that means they are. Thus, they should be part of the big happy family of the united front.

The only effective kind of "united front" is a revolutionary united front of proletarian communist organizations, whose actions are consistently building toward the three pillars of the proletarian party. In this sense, the revolutionary united front is a transitional formation between the current situation of disparate and disjointed cadre-based proletarian party-organizations, and the formation of a mass proletarian party-movement. The period of the revolutionary united front provides the opportunity to work together while also retaining the organizational and political independence necessary for the crafting of a proletarian party-movement and its program/platform.

I'll stop here for now.

Vyacheslav Brolotov

15th March 2012, 01:36

This whole "Single party executive branch, multiparty legislative" theory was an idea I had when I was 12, which just shows how impractical it is. It only works in your head when you are a social democrat on the verge of becoming a Leninist. Otherwise . . .

Die Neue Zeit

15th March 2012, 01:49

This is the problem I see: The accepted definition of what the mass proletarian party is supposed to be owes more to petty-bourgeois democratism (i.e., classical social democracy) than it does to Marx and, to a lesser extent, Engels.

I've seen you use the phrase "party-movement", and I think it's one of the best neologisms you've come up with, though we may apply the term differently. The reason I say that is because that is a good way to think about Marx's definition of the proletarian party; it was not an institutional body with a singular structure and clearly outlined doctrine. It was more like a movement, with multiple organizations (including "party-organizations", like ours) participating and working together in association based on a common platform or program of action based around the three central tenets of such a party: 1) the raising up of the working class into being a class-for-itself, 2) the defeat and overthrow of capitalist rule, and 3) the victory of the working class through the taking of state power.

Thanks, comrade, for the neologism kudos. I agree that the current definition of "mass party" is too vulgar.

There is indeed somewhat of a difference in how you and I apply the term "party-movement." There are multiple organizations of a political, cultural, or other character, but each of them is very explicitly a party institution (permanent organization). On the other side of the equation, you forgot to mention that "the accepted definition of what a mass/social movement is supposed to be owes more..." to vulgar origins.

Re. Marx himself: there's a slippery slope. How far does one go in taking the line of "party in the broad sense" and "party in the historical sense" (Bordiga?) before one approaches practical anti-partyism?

Real parties are real movements and vice versa.

Your last sentence there relates to my Proletarian-Not-Necessarily-Communist (PNNC) Party possibility. I'll skip to your last point re. united fronts for a moment. Precisely because of the possibility of a PNNC, united fronts are politically bankrupt. I wrote here of how communists could veer left and call for mass strikes within the DOTP, while still being responsible to the PNNC power (like "Popular Front Communists" related to Parliamentary Socialists in power):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/direction-syndicalism-and-t135993/index.html

So when I write my advocacy of a genuine one-party system, it can be of either the PNNC type or the mass social-proletocratic type.

In the Civil War in France, Marx described the "Party of Order" that brought Louis Bonaparte to power in France as "a combination formed by all the rival fractions and factions of the appropriating classes". In doing so, he was contrasting that party to the one that made the workers' revolution in Paris: the Party of the Commune; the proletarian party.

FYI, I don't think there really was much of a proletarian "party in the broad sense" as there was one of "the working classes" (going back to when the French workers and petit-bourgeoisie weren't fully differentiated yet). Which goes to my next point:

As for the Comintern-style "united front", that has been more or less a failure since it was first raised. It's primary weakness was, and remains, the attempt to create such a front alongside bourgeois socialists and petty-bourgeois socialists, on the purely idealistic notion of subjective revolutionism -- that is, because these elements say and think they're socialists or communists, even when their actions are in the service of the exploiting and oppressing classes, that means they are. Thus, they should be part of the big happy family of the united front.

If there is to be tactical cooperation with non-worker groups, it's better to have a Communitarian Populist Front, of which the Paris Commune's government itself was the first. :)

This is why I think "party-movement" is a good term to use when talking about the proletarian party. In modern language, what Marx is describing is more like a movement than a singular organization (the latter model being substituted for Marx's definition after his death by the rise of the social-democratic parties of Europe and America).

My opinion, of course, is that the Revolutionary Social Democracy in the original Socialist International ("Second") took the understanding of the word "party" to its highest level precisely because of the multiplicity of party institutions / permanent party organizations within a party institutional framework.

[And I linked in an earlier post to my historical musings re. Independent Social Democracy in Germany having its chance at a one-party system.]

The only effective kind of "united front" is a revolutionary united front of proletarian communist organizations, whose actions are consistently building toward the three pillars of the proletarian party. In this sense, the revolutionary united front is a transitional formation between the current situation of disparate and disjointed cadre-based proletarian party-organizations, and the formation of a mass proletarian party-movement. The period of the revolutionary united front provides the opportunity to work together while also retaining the organizational and political independence necessary for the crafting of a proletarian party-movement and its program/platform.

I'll stop here for now.

It's good to know that the "revolutionary united front" is only temporary, comrade.

TheGodlessUtopian

15th March 2012, 01:54

I support anything which leads to revolutionary socialism; so, yes and no?

Psy

15th March 2012, 02:21

Marvin the Marxian

15th March 2012, 04:06

I support the working class as a class eliminating the property relations in the means of production that form the material basis for its class character (as well as that of the capitalist class). If you want to call that a single-party state, fine. But it would only last for the revolutionary period, which would hopefully be brief. Afterwards there would be no state because the opposing class relations have been eliminated, so the term "single-party state" would have no meaning anymore. On the other hand, I'm sure the post-revolutionary administrative apparatus would have various factions, tendencies, whatever you want to call them.

A Marxist Historian

15th March 2012, 07:14

The real problem is as long as capitalists exist then they will put forward at least one capitalist party in any election and the capitalists are not stupid to call their party the capitalist party, and it is only logical that if the revolution is engaged in a world war against capitalism that all capitalists parties would be banned (in short political parties would be free to operate as long as as they had no link to capitalism).

For example lets say we have a industrial commune that establishes a worker's state, it is currently fighting for its life against the army of its former bourgeois state, why would let the Tea Party hold protest, on the other hand if anarchists want to protest the revolutionary army fine as long as they don't support the barbarian hordes of capitalist armed forces trying to slaughter the revolution.

Should capitalist parties be banned? Depends on the circumstances. Once a workers government is firmly in the saddle and capitalist counterrevolution is unlikely, no reason to ban them. Rather, treat them like capitalist democracies treat workers parties, tolerate them unless they get out of hand and start fomenting revolution, but watch them carefully.

But I should think a proper workers democracy should in fact be multiparty, for the simple reason that there certainly will be different conceptions of how to advance towards socialism.

The USSR in the 1920s ended up as a single party state because all the other parties, including those that called themselves socialist, were in fact counterrevolutionary.

The Mensheviks claimed to be a "loyal opposition," but that's difficult to accept, as theoretically they saw socialism in Russia as premature, and that capitalism was better for Russia. So for them not to seek capitalist counterrevolution was in fact an inconsistency on their part. So placing limits on them or even illegalizing them until the Revolution was secure made sense.

And the Revolution could only have been made secure by spreading it, since you can't build socialism in one country.

-M.H.-

Ismail

15th March 2012, 07:43

Well the big problem with that view is that capitalist parties are very obviously going to serve, at the very least, as pressure groups for capitalism and a break on the construction of socialism. The Bolsheviks worked with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries because they had a huge following amongst the peasantry at first and because they were willing to support the soviets. They subsequently lost popularity and went over to counter-revolution, as was befitting of them as a populist party with a petty-bourgeois ideology.

The only real existence a capitalist party can have is that of a totally subservient and basically inactive one like those in Eastern Europe, and all that meant is that when the time was right they tried to activate themselves to press for capitalism and liberalism in economic and social matters.

There's no reason for bourgeois parties to exist unless it's for tactical reasons early on after the revolution. Political parties are for bourgeois democracy, not proletarian democracy. The point of multiple parties and their newspapers, etc. existing in the first few months after the October Revolution served as an educative example of why such tolerance, which proved fruitless in practice, shouldn't be repeated. It was one of those things that arose because the October Revolution was the first of its kind and there was no precedent on how to treat capitalist parties and presses.

Grenzer

15th March 2012, 08:01

Political parties are for bourgeois democracy, not proletarian democracy.

I would agree, but isn't it unavoidable that differing ideas in regards to tactics or other matters would be expressed by factions that could be roughly analogous to parties? In addition, wouldn't this statement include the CPSU?

Tangentially related, but for all the talk of the Soviet Union being a one party dictatorship, there has been little discussion about the actual organs for democracy in the Soviet Union(if they indeed existed at all, or were for mere show) and the actual relationship between the workers and the party, elections, and that sort of thing. It seems most of the major works just gloss over these technical details of the workings of fSU.

robbo203

15th March 2012, 08:14

If you secretly blame Soviet Union to be elitist. I would tell you that everybody had their rights to join Communist Party.

Rather like Henry Ford's quip - you can have any Ford T model so long as its black. Point is that its a pseudo choice and another form of authoritarian control which not only strives to eliminate opposition in a negative sense (the stick approach) but also in a positive sense strives to induce support and loyalty to the regime by dangling the carrot of carreer advancement up the ranks of the pseudo communist party. Not that it was that easy to get into the Party , as someone has said, but once you are in there are distinct advantages that go with being a party member and that separate you from the ordinary workers.

So much for the monumental fraud perpetrated by these state capitalist dictatorships that they represented some sort of workers government. Those who rose through the ranks of the Party were eventually able to join that elite club called the state capitalist class who collectively owned the means of productiuon as a class through their complete control of the state

Incidentally, talking of Ford and the early automobile industry, Ford's assembly line factories were the setting par excellance in which the Fred Taylors principles of scientific management were put into practice - how to screw the workers with maximum efficiency . Lenin, the bourgeois revolutionary and firm advocate of top-down one-man manangement, was a great fan of Scientific Taylorism along with Benito Mussolini . No surprise there then

Ismail

15th March 2012, 09:17

Tangentially related, but for all the talk of the Soviet Union being a one party dictatorship, there has been little discussion about the actual organs for democracy in the Soviet Union(if they indeed existed at all, or were for mere show) and the actual relationship between the workers and the party, elections, and that sort of thing. It seems most of the major works just gloss over these technical details of the workings of fSU.Having read some works on the subject, on paper the system was very democratic, especially on the local level. The soviets of town, city and village had various abilities at their disposal to construct recreational and other buildings out of their own budgets at the decision of the people, elections were in theory a mass-based phenomenon, etc.

The "Stalin Constitution" of 1936 also strengthened democracy in theory, since the indirect voting for higher organs (people elect soviets which elect higher soviets which send delegates to the All-Russian/Ukrainian/(insert) Congress of Soviets which send delegates to the All-Union Congress of Soviets, IIRC) was changed into direct voting for all government organs. The interesting thing is that elections initially held under that newly-adopted constitution were actually fairly democratic, as was the popular discussion process. Getty's article "State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s" and the relevant chapter in Sarah Davies' book Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia note this, giving examples of honest-to-god actual voting for two or more different candidates that didn't end in "glorious proletarian 99.9% none of the above 0.1%" or whatever in that short period.

But then that was followed by the usual 99.9% elections which continued until the Gorbachev era.

The day-to-day government of the USSR was basically the same from 1918 onwards, though. Just replace "The All-Union Congress of Soviets meets (a few times a year) and the Central Executive Committee conducts daily work in its absence" with "The Supreme Soviet meets (whenever, but it was also infrequent) and the Presidium carries out daily work in its absence." All the Eastern Bloc states, the DPRK and I think Vietnam and Laos have the same system wherein the legislature meets infrequently and daily work is carried out by its presidium. The USSR, Albania, etc. legislatures also elected a Council of Ministers, which was the executive government of the country (just as the Council of People's Commissars was the executive government of the Soviet Republic from 1918-1936.)

Grenzer

15th March 2012, 09:43

Having read some works on the subject, on paper the system was very democratic, especially on the local level. The soviets of town, city and village had various abilities at their disposal to construct recreational and other buildings out of their own budgets at the decision of the people, elections were in theory a mass-based phenomenon, etc.

The "Stalin Constitution" of 1936 also strengthened democracy in theory, since the indirect voting for higher organs (people elect soviets which elect higher soviets which send delegates to the All-Russian/Ukrainian/(insert) Congress of Soviets which send delegates to the All-Union Congress of Soviets, IIRC) was changed into direct voting for all government organs. The interesting thing is that elections initially held under that newly-adopted constitution were actually fairly democratic, as was the popular discussion process. Getty's article "State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s" and the relevant chapter in Sarah Davies' book Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia note this, giving examples of honest-to-god actual voting for two or more different candidates that didn't end in "glorious proletarian 99.9% none of the above 0.1%" or whatever in that short period.

But then that was followed by the usual 99.9% elections which continued until the Gorbachev era.

The day-to-day government of the USSR was basically the same from 1918 onwards, though. Just replace "The All-Union Congress of Soviets meets (a few times a year) and the Central Executive Committee conducts daily work in its absence" with "The Supreme Soviet meets (whenever, but it was also infrequent) and the Presidium carries out daily work in its absence." All the Eastern Bloc states, the DPRK and I think Vietnam and Laos have the same system wherein the legislature meets infrequently and daily work is carried out by its presidium. The USSR, Albania, etc. legislatures also elected a Council of Ministers, which was the executive government of the country (just as the Council of People's Commissars was the executive government of the Soviet Republic from 1918-1936.)

Interesting, I will check out that chapter in Davies' book when I get the opportunity to do so. For now I'm still reading about Lenin and State Capitalism, so it will take time to get to that.

I had to ask since this seems like it should be an important factor in any analysis of the USSR, but it's something I've never actually seen detractors of the USSR confront in a specific fashion; something that seems would be necessary to confront in order to prove that the dictatorship of the proletariat did not exist.

The TANU ruling party of Tanzania, which was in effect a one party dictatorship during the 1950's to the 1980's conceived of itself as an African Socialist party. It's leader, Julius Nyerere, is often referred to by scholars as an "African Stalin" because of his support and implementation of forced agricultural collectivization. He wrote extensively on his conception of what a socialist state should be. It was in both theory and practice a one party dictatorship. There were annual elections, but the choice given was "Unity" and "Disunity, dissolution, and chaos." These elections were chaperoned by armed soldiers, and generally TANU got a minimum of about 95% of the vote. I haven't found any sources that detail what happened to those individuals that would vote for "disunity" but one can assume that this was an infrequent occurrence, and those that did were made an example of. This seems to be the archetypal representation of how most of us would think of a one party dictatorship, but it seems that at least in the beginning, the Soviet Union was not like this.

Ismail

15th March 2012, 11:06

The TANU ruling party of Tanzania, which was in effect a one party dictatorship during the 1950's to the 1980's conceived of itself as an African Socialist party. It's leader, Julius Nyerere, is often referred to by scholars as an "African Stalin" because of his support and implementation of forced agricultural collectivization.He maintained an opportunistic foreign policy (pro-West and pro-Chinese) and his "African Socialism" was capitalism.

There were annual elections, but the choice given was "Unity" and "Disunity, dissolution, and chaos." These elections were chaperoned by armed soldiers, and generally TANU got a minimum of about 95% of the vote. I haven't found any sources that detail what happened to those individuals that would vote for "disunity" but one can assume that this was an infrequent occurrence, and those that did were made an example of. This seems to be the archetypal representation of how most of us would think of a one party dictatorship, but it seems that at least in the beginning, the Soviet Union was not like this.Well from 1917-1921 or so the Bolsheviks did have to compete in most areas for votes with other parties or unaffiliated candidates. After that, however, the issue was not one of parties but of the candidates themselves. Most of the de facto democratic aspect of the elections dealt with the choosing of candidates by factory workers, the trade unions, and with the final approval of the Party. Until 1936 a number of groups of persons (e.g. clergy) were not allowed to vote as a temporary measure, and the allocation of seats and such were stacked against the peasantry in favor of the working-class.

When voting day came all the mass organizations would go out and call on people to vote. Not voting was probably seen as a sign of distrust of the Soviet system and thus marked one as a suspicious character. After 1936 the voting process was conducted via, at least formally, the secret ballot, but before that a show of hands was used (which some argued was coercive and signaled out anyone who didn't raise said hands.) Oftentimes elections became "holiday" days in which there wasn't much of an excuse not to vote.

Unlike Tanzania soldiers had nothing to do with it. Organizing the elections was done via mass organizations and the Party. To give examples in the GDR and Albania (which tended to be more elaborate than other Eastern Bloc states in this regard), first the Party would call on its cadre to make sure as many people voted as possible, because this was seen as a good indicator of their consciousness and their commitment to the state (at least in theory.) The Party cadre would then discuss matters with the Front (the National Front in the GDR, the Democratic Front in Albania) and its own cadre, and would work with the Front (of which most of its leading personnel were simultaneously Party and Front members) to produce a list of candidates to be voted upon. Meetings would be held in the towns and cities in which people would be presented with these lists on behalf of the Front and asked to give their approval. The people would almost always vote in the affirmative by large margins with, IIRC, a show of hands.

Then come election day the mass organizations of the Party (which were also mass organizations of the Front) would be out in full force. The trade unions would call on the workers to demonstrate their support for the policies of the state and their own power by voting "Yes" for the Front slate, the women's organization would rally the women to vote to demonstrate their power, army groups would do the same, etc. and people would be organized to go to the polls and vote. In practice this basically just meant you went into the voting booth, put in "Yes," and walked out without much thought.

The USSR didn't have a Front (although in the 30's and 40's election propaganda praised the informal "bloc of communists and independents") but elections basically worked the same way from the mid-20's onwards. Local elections were patented on the Soviet example so Albania for instance had People's Councils based on the Soviets in the USSR, and other Eastern Bloc states had similar local organs.

Here are two quotes from an old post of mine on the East German electoral system:

“The function of elections in the socialist system is misunderstood if they are regarded in the traditional way as being a method for approving or rejecting a policy and those who represent it... Because this system sees itself by definition as progressive, as serving the good of the people...

Thus elections have purely the function of general assent. At the same time they serve to mobilize and educate the mass of the people politically. The large-scale preparations for the elections—it would be wrong to call them an electoral battle—are intended to bind the citizens more closely to the system and to ensure their active support for those aims which the leading party prescribes for state and society. The actual ballot thus attains the character of a demonstration, it is ‘an act of self-assertion by the socialist state’. Election day is therefore not a day of political decision... it is a day when the political system asserts itself and, in the eyes of the SED, even a red-letter day. For this reason too it is the ambition of the political leadership to get everyone who is entitled to vote to the polls if possible. Although there is no legal compulsion to vote, the percentage of voters is always close to 100%: in 1963 it was 99.25%, in 1967 98.82%. The higher the percentage vote that can be recorded, the higher is the rate of success....

All candidates must introduce themselves to the electors at ‘electoral conferences’. At such conferences it may happen that the selection committee of the National Front is told by the electors' organization that certain candidates ought not to be selected...

For the SED, elections... are exclusively a ‘means of integration for the strengthening and further development of the socialist power of the state’... the function of elections in the GDR is simply to give assent to the system.”
(Kurt Sontheimer & Wilhelm Bleek. The Government and Politics of East Germany. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1975. pp. 78-80.)

Victor Grossman, an American defector to East Germany, noted in his memoirs that, "Candidates for the People's Chamber were questioned at neighborhood meetings and occasionally met disapproval. But most voters dutifully deposited in the box their unmarked ballot with the one National Front slate. Only a few brave souls used the tiny voting booth in the rear. Most people feared that it might seem that they were crossing out names, and who wished to risk a possible bonus or promotion just for a secret ballot? When a fellow student found no pencils in the booths, he circulated an angry petition to Premier Grotewohl. For his efforts he was censured by his SED party group. That was his only punishment; he earned no enmity from other students, but the authorities surely had labeled him a potential troublemaker." (Crossing the River, p. 140.)

Martin Blank

15th March 2012, 12:13

There is indeed somewhat of a difference in how you and I apply the term "party-movement." There are multiple organizations of a political, cultural, or other character, but each of them is very explicitly a party institution (permanent organization). On the other side of the equation, you forgot to mention that "the accepted definition of what a mass/social movement is supposed to be owes more..." to vulgar origins.

I understand what you're saying here, and when I do think of the proletarian party as a party-movement, it does keep that all-encompassing character. For example, the Workers Party brings to the proletarian party-movement its political party-organization (WPA), its youth groups (YWF and YPA), its economic organization (ATRIUM), its aid and relief organization (RSS), its legal defense wing (ILDF) and other bodies. In coming together as the proletarian party-movement, though, each of these organizations will act in combination with similar organizations that are arms of other tendencies who are also part of the association. So, in this sense, there is a parallel between your understanding of the "party-movement" and mine, even though yours still rests on the concept of a singular organization.

Re. Marx himself: there's a slippery slope. How far does one go in taking the line of "party in the broad sense" and "party in the historical sense" (Bordiga?) before one approaches practical anti-partyism?

That's the thing about Marx's concept of the proletarian party: "partyism vs. anti-partyism" is an irrelevant dichotomy. Whether you're an individual, local formation or national party-organization, if you are working alongside other like-minded elements based around the practical program of building the working class into a class-for-itself, overthrowing capitalism and capitalist rule, and securing the conquest of state power by the working class, you're a part of the proletarian party ... whether you like it or not, more or less.

I think Marx was too much of a materialist to play with metaphysical constructs like "party in the broad sense" or "party in the historical sense". Those are empty slogans and vacuous "theories" that are meant to square the circle and smooth over internal contradications. Marx's definition of the proletarian party, if it is to be placed in comparison to the two aforementioned concepts, can best be described as the party in the real sense. That is, it is the proletarian party (party-movement) that actually emerges from concrete material conditions and develops based on its real-world dynamics, not the wishful thinking of this or that organization.

FYI, I don't think there really was much of a proletarian "party in the broad sense" as there was one of "the working classes" (going back to when the French workers and petit-bourgeoisie weren't fully differentiated yet). Which goes to my next point:

Actually, Marx draws a pretty clear class line when he talks about the relationship between the workers' revolution and Commune, on one side, and the petty bourgeoisie, on the other side. For the most part, the petty bourgeoisie detested the workers' revolution, the Commune and its decrees. At the same time, they did not rise against the Commune because they knew they would end up being ruined if Thiers and his "Party of Order" were able to return to power. They were very much between a rock and a hard place -- which is where they belong in a time of proletarian revolution.

If there is to be tactical cooperation with non-worker groups, it's better to have a Communitarian Populist Front, of which the Paris Commune's government itself was the first. :)

What does the proletarian party gain from tactical alliances with non-proletarian groups? If history is any judge, the best they get is nothing; the worst is betrayal, defeat and massacre (e.g., the defeat of the Paris Commune). There is really no need in today's world to make any such alliances with non-working-class formations, even if they call themselves socialist or communist. In the end, such an alliance is diversionary and counterproductive.

My opinion, of course, is that the Revolutionary Social Democracy in the original Socialist International ("Second") took the understanding of the word "party" to its highest level precisely because of the multiplicity of party institutions / permanent party organizations within a party institutional framework.

I think you're definitely right about that. But I would also add two factors to the reasons: First, most of Marx's writings that draw together the methodological underpinnings of his concept of the proletarian party were not published until at least the 1920s. By that time, world Social Democracy had pretty much given up all pretense to being proletarian organizations.

Second, j'accuse Engels. In the later years of his life, Marx went from being casually supportive to indifferent to increasingly hostile toward the growing social-democratic movement in Europe.

In 1879, Marx drafted the famous "circular letter" to the leadership of the "Social-Democratic Workers Party of Germany" (its actual name was "Socialist Workers Party of Germany"), signed by both him and Engels, which threatened a break with the party if it decided to drop its proletarian character. Two years later, he opposed the Zurich conference of social-democratic parties (which became the preparatory meeting for the ultimate formation of the Second International), calling it both "premature" and making clear it was not the kind of International he thought should come into existence (Marx preferred something akin to the Communist League, but public and international in character).

After Marx died in 1883, Engels had not only lost his political partner of 40 years, but was increasingly becoming dependent on the social-democratic parties to publish his articles and books. That meant smoothing over past differences with men like Kautsky, Bebel, Bernstein, etc. Part of that seems to be looking the other way when "liberties" were taken with Marx's views.

It's good to know that the "revolutionary united front" is only temporary, comrade.

Any united front, even the one espoused in the Comintern documents, has to be seen as a temporary phenomenon. For the Comintern, the "united front" only had value as long as sections of the International only held sway over a minority of organized, active workers. It was meant to be abandoned as a tactic after the Communist parties in each country had won over the majority of organized, active workers. And I guess that's why it always seemed to be a permanent formation: the "official Communists" were never able to fulfill the task assigned to it by the united front.

This, of course, begs the question: What really failed -- the party or the tactic? Personally, I think it's both, but it was the tactic that failed first, then the party.

Die Neue Zeit

15th March 2012, 14:53

Should capitalist parties be banned? Depends on the circumstances. Once a workers government is firmly in the saddle and capitalist counterrevolution is unlikely, no reason to ban them. Rather, treat them like capitalist democracies treat workers parties, tolerate them unless they get out of hand and start fomenting revolution, but watch them carefully.

It should be asserted that, contrary to affections for petit-bourgeois democratism, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the highest form of participatory but managed democracy for the working class (http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-power-rule-t160796/index.html). Lenin noted that there should be no fetishes for universal suffrage or multi-party pluralism. Clearly, "managed" refers to who can vote, who can't, who can run candidates or run as a candidate, who can't, who can in general participate in the political affairs of society, and who can't.

Naturally, I disagree with your "multi-party" argument afterwards. At the very minimum, workers should emulate Putin (ironically) in their attitude towards counterrevolutionary formations later on: endless stacks of registration papers, long waiting times, etc. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/does-venezuela-need-t141876/index.html)

Die Neue Zeit

15th March 2012, 15:17

I understand what you're saying here, and when I do think of the proletarian party as a party-movement, it does keep that all-encompassing character. For example, the Workers Party brings to the proletarian party-movement its political party-organization (WPA), its youth groups (YWF and YPA), its economic organization (ATRIUM), its aid and relief organization (RSS), its legal defense wing (ILDF) and other bodies. In coming together as the proletarian party-movement, though, each of these organizations will act in combination with similar organizations that are arms of other tendencies who are also part of the association. So, in this sense, there is a parallel between your understanding of the "party-movement" and mine, even though yours still rests on the concept of a singular organization.

That's the thing about Marx's concept of the proletarian party: "partyism vs. anti-partyism" is an irrelevant dichotomy. Whether you're an individual, local formation or national party-organization, if you are working alongside other like-minded elements based around the practical program of building the working class into a class-for-itself, overthrowing capitalism and capitalist rule, and securing the conquest of state power by the working class, you're a part of the proletarian party ... whether you like it or not, more or less.

That, comrade, brings to my mind Leo Panitch's remarks in an article advocating dues-based, membership organizations with respect to the future of the Greater Toronto Workers Assembly. He then went on to say that whether one calls it a "party" or not doesn't matter.

Just don't call it a party. :D

I think Marx was too much of a materialist to play with metaphysical constructs like "party in the broad sense" or "party in the historical sense". Those are empty slogans and vacuous "theories" that are meant to square the circle and smooth over internal contradications.

At the very least, the Marx of the IWMA didn't entertain such nonsense.

Marx's definition of the proletarian party, if it is to be placed in comparison to the two aforementioned concepts, can best be described as the party in the real sense. That is, it is the proletarian party (party-movement) that actually emerges from concrete material conditions and develops based on its real-world dynamics, not the wishful thinking of this or that organization.

What an innovative phrase, comrade! :thumbup1:

What does the proletarian party gain from tactical alliances with non-proletarian groups? If history is any judge, the best they get is nothing; the worst is betrayal, defeat and massacre (e.g., the defeat of the Paris Commune). There is really no need in today's world to make any such alliances with non-working-class formations, even if they call themselves socialist or communist. In the end, such an alliance is diversionary and counterproductive.

Comrade, I'm of a more mixed opinion on the subject of tactical alliances with other classes (http://www.revleft.com/vb/again-unions-workers-t161517/index.htm). So many factors come into play, like proletarian demographic majorities ("One Reactionary Mass" applied to everyone else) vs. proletarian demographic minorities (Third World Caesarean Socialism), the Revolutionary Social-Democratic combination of Volkspartei with class independence, and even that one basic fact to be grudgingly acknowledged: that very basic political struggle can more often than not be initiated by non-worker groups.

[Contrast urban petit-bourgeois democratism, like that last exhibited by Occupy, with mere labour disputes, my openly dismissive usage of mainstream terminology to describe the perennial potential of certain types of "economic struggles."]

[I]Second, j'accuse Engels. In the later years of his life, Marx went from being casually supportive to indifferent to increasingly hostile toward the growing social-democratic movement in Europe.

In 1879, Marx drafted the famous "circular letter" to the leadership of the "Social-Democratic Workers Party of Germany" (its actual name was "Socialist Workers Party of Germany"), signed by both him and Engels, which threatened a break with the party if it decided to drop its proletarian character. Two years later, he opposed the Zurich conference of social-democratic parties (which became the preparatory meeting for the ultimate formation of the Second International), calling it both "premature" and making clear it was not the kind of International he thought should come into existence (Marx preferred something akin to the Communist League, but public and international in character).

After Marx died in 1883, Engels had not only lost his political partner of 40 years, but was increasingly becoming dependent on the social-democratic parties to publish his articles and books. That meant smoothing over past differences with men like Kautsky, Bebel, Bernstein, etc. Part of that seems to be looking the other way when "liberties" were taken with Marx's views.

The pre-war SPD maintained its class character (in demographics) until the formation of the USPD. The surprising likes of Bebel and von Vollmar wanted peasants in the partei-bewegung ("party-movement"), but it was Kautsky who prevailed against them (http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-strugglist-labour-t97028/index.html).

Brosip Tito

15th March 2012, 17:37

Reverse reformism? Can capitalism be reformed out of socialism or the DOTP through elections and parliamentary participation? Would you call that counter-revolution or counter-reformism? If it is actually counter-revolution for a capitalist party to reverse the DOTP via parliament, how is it not revolution to create socailism via reform? If reformism cannot bring about socialism from capitalism, why can it bring about capitalism from socialism?

The idea that allowing multi-party democracy within socialism, or the dotp, will allow for capitalism to be "voted back in" is fucking stupid. In my opinion, it's anti-marxist.

Grenzer

15th March 2012, 17:59

I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that a proletarian movement cannot exist independently of a party. The entire thing just reeks of opportunism. DNZ's idea of "real parties as real movements" is tangental, but I don't think it claims that a movement is by default a party, but rather that it should be. In fact DNZ's and Cthulhu's claim seem to be in a sense opposite. The former claims that parties and the labor movement exist indepently of each other, and that ideally the interests and goals of the party should become aligned with that of the labor movement without capitulating to reformism while the latter seems to claim that there is no difference between a party and the proletarian movement. I'm not sure what the point of this latter claim is. If one accepts the idea, then it seems like a convenient straw man to repress revolutionaries whose disagreements with the monolithic party may only amount to strategic or even tactical differences. Of course allowing multiple tendencies within a party would go a long ways, but I don't think it would eliminate the problem entirely. Perhaps I have merely misinterpreted, but this is what my impression has been.

The concern is not out of a fetish for democracy, which is to say democracy for the sake of democracy; but rather out of a concern of potential repression of geuinely progressive portions of the proletarian movement. This has the potential to become an interesting discussion.

"There is no movement, there is only The Party; and those who oppose The Party MUST DIE!"

We all know how that turned out..

He maintained an opportunistic foreign policy (pro-West and pro-Chinese) and his "African Socialism" was capitalism.

I'm well aware of the true nature of African "Socialism" in which many cases couldn't even really be called third positionist. African Socialism peaked in the 70's, at much the same time Marxism-Leninism(at least how they conceived of it) did. As far as I know there isn't a single African state which describes itself as Marxist-Leninist or African Socialist.

TheRedAnarchist23

15th March 2012, 18:35

I support no state.

Ismail

15th March 2012, 19:02

As far as I know there isn't a single African state which describes itself as Marxist-Leninist or African Socialist.Siad Barre called his government's ideology scientific socialism and said that there could no Arab, African, etc. "socialism" but only the socialism of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Which sounded nice and refreshing until you find out that he said Islam provides the seeds for socialism and then after 1978 he became a corrupt US-backed leader who allowed such bastions of progress as Saudi Arabia to invest in Somalia. The government was still nominally "socialist" ("scientific" no less) up until the end and the descent into anarchy in 1991.

Also:

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/scan22.jpg

There was Mengistu, though. He was no advocate of "African Socialism," just Soviet-style "Marxism-Leninism" of the Brezhnev variety transplanted to Ethiopia (and Mengistu actually denounces Gorby to this day, claiming that he ruined the international "socialist" camp.) ZANU-PF also pretends it's still a militant and socialist party; it calls its governing organ the Politburo, refers to everyone in the party as "comrade," talks of the national liberation struggle against the Rhodesian regime, and... that's about it.

Psy

15th March 2012, 22:31

A Marxist Historian

16th March 2012, 01:56

Siad Barre called his government's ideology scientific socialism and said that there could no Arab, African, etc. "socialism" but only the socialism of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Which sounded nice and refreshing until you find out that he said Islam provides the seeds for socialism and then after 1978 he became a corrupt US-backed leader who allowed such bastions of progress as Saudi Arabia to invest in Somalia. The government was still nominally "socialist" ("scientific" no less) up until the end and the descent into anarchy in 1991.

Also:

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/scan22.jpg

There was Mengistu, though. He was no advocate of "African Socialism," just Soviet-style "Marxism-Leninism" of the Brezhnev variety transplanted to Ethiopia (and Mengistu actually denounces Gorby to this day, claiming that he ruined the international "socialist" camp.) ZANU-PF also pretends it's still a militant and socialist party; it calls its governing organ the Politburo, refers to everyone in the party as "comrade," talks of the national liberation struggle against the Rhodesian regime, and... that's about it.

There were actually quite a few African governments that called themselves "Marxist-Leninist," back when that would guarantee you a monthly check from Moscow. The Central African Republic for example. And of course the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen across the waters, though in their case it was a bit more than that.

And, interestingly enough, Eritrea still does. But nobody cares, as it's a close ally of the US, so not even the US State Department takes that seriously.

As for Mengistu, he is long out of power. In fact, I thought he was dead?

Meles Zenawi (do I have that spelled right?), of the Tigre Liberation Front that fought a long guerilla struggle against his regime,and now the dictator of Ethiopia, used to consider himself "Marxist Leninist," but I don't think he does any more.

-M.H.-

Die Neue Zeit

16th March 2012, 02:43

I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that a proletarian movement cannot exist independently of a party. The entire thing just reeks of opportunism. DNZ's idea of "real parties as real movements" is tangental, but I don't think it claims that a movement is by default a party, but rather that it should be.

Why is it opportunistic? My remarks aren't "tangental"; what I am saying is that mass organizations calling themselves "parties" should be mass movements, and that social phenomena calling themselves "movements" should be mass parties.

In fact DNZ's and Cthulhu's claim seem to be in a sense opposite. The former claims that parties and the labor movement exist indepently of each other, and that ideally the interests and goals of the party should become aligned with that of the labor movement without capitulating to reformism while the latter seems to claim that there is no difference between a party and the proletarian movement.

I didn't say that at all. The early 20th-century line was that Revolutionary Social Democracy was the Marxist merger of socialism and the worker movement. Because of this, by definition the Revolutionary Social Democracy (the party) was already the mass worker movement.

I've made this "substitutionist" and "voluntarist" claim before, and I'll say it again: the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD were themselves the German worker-class-for-itself.

Of course allowing multiple tendencies within a party would go a long ways, but I don't think it would eliminate the problem entirely. Perhaps I have merely misinterpreted, but this is what my impression has been.

Therein lies my advocacy of a genuine one-party system, comrade.

Martin Blank

16th March 2012, 03:13

... while the latter [Cthulhu] seems to claim that there is no difference between a party and the proletarian movement. I'm not sure what the point of this latter claim is. If one accepts the idea, then it seems like a convenient straw man to repress revolutionaries whose disagreements with the monolithic party may only amount to strategic or even tactical differences. Of course allowing multiple tendencies within a party would go a long ways, but I don't think it would eliminate the problem entirely. Perhaps I have merely misinterpreted, but this is what my impression has been.

I would say that there is misinterpretation and misunderstanding here. The proletarian party, as Marx described it, would still have a certain level of organization and coordination above and beyond the broader workers' movement, but it would be more ad hoc than institutional.

I would say, for example, that a horizontal structure similar to that used by the #Occupy movement (including the InterOccupy coordinating groups), coupled with a communist program of action, would be a very organized proletarian party-movement. The local bodies would be more like action (affinity) groups and working groups, and coordinating groups would only be permanent in the sense that they will continue to meet when needed.

The broader workers' movement will have its own groupings and structures (some organic, some not), among which will be the proletarian party-movement. The broader workers' movement will also have brothers and sisters who are not in the front ranks of the class struggle -- who are not politically conscious (i.e., not revolutionary) or even very active.

In the end, the point of raising Marx's concept of the proletarian party is to acknowledge that there will be differences of opinion and disagreements about strategy and tactics, and that such political question should be settled politically, which means open debate and subjecting the differing ideas to the test of history, not organizationally, which only leads to purges and a monolithic ideology. The working class is not a homogeneous mass that is ripe for groupthink; it has a diversity of opinion as broad as the class itself. That has to be recognized and understood if there is to be a proletarian party built that can successfully participate in a revolution.

Die Neue Zeit

16th March 2012, 03:25

I would say that there is misinterpretation and misunderstanding here. The proletarian party, as Marx described it, would still have a certain level of organization and coordination above and beyond the broader workers' movement, but it would be more ad hoc than institutional.

Note to Grenzer: it would seem that the exact opposite of what you're saying is true. Comrade Cthulhu, not myself, is the one who said that movement and party would still be distinct, plus he mentioned ad hoc stuff (but well outside the limitation of ad hoc-isms). I was the one who said that a real movement and a real party would be identical, and I mentioned institutional stuff.

I would say, for example, that a horizontal structure similar to that used by the #Occupy movement (including the InterOccupy coordinating groups), coupled with a communist program of action, would be a very organized proletarian party-movement. The local bodies would be more like action (affinity) groups and working groups, and coordinating groups would only be permanent in the sense that they will continue to meet when needed.

And of course I think that such would be a very, very good start... but a start nonetheless. However, "meeting when needed" raises problems of accountability in the long run. Even the best of soviets didn't meet frequently enough to exercise their power of accountability, and contrast that with the potential for party branch meetings.

The working class is not a homogeneous mass that is ripe for groupthink; it has a diversity of opinion as broad as the class itself. That has to be recognized and understood if there is to be a proletarian party built that can successfully participate in a revolution.

I'm not, of course, suggesting that groupthink is any sort of solution, but merely that institutional pluralism and associated, small-l liberal slippery slopes aren't beneficial for the working class, either.

Martin Blank

16th March 2012, 03:58

And of course I think that such would be a very, very good start... but a start nonetheless. However, "meeting when needed" raises problems of accountability in the long run. Even the best of soviets didn't meet frequently enough to exercise their power of accountability, and contrast that with the potential for party branch meetings.

I disagree. Since the proletarian party would be composed of various organizations and groupings, each with elected delegates on a coordinating body, I would tend to think that these constituent elements of the party-movement would not only be reviewing what their delegate(s) were saying and doing on the body, but also wanting to hear other delegates. I see this taking place around the InterOccupy meetings I attend representing Occupy Saginaw. Every GA, the participants want to know what we talked about, how I voted (if a vote took place), etc. In a time of sharpened class struggle, when meetings would take place more often, I would figure that review of what a delegate said and did in these coordinating meetings would be a paramount task, with levels of accountability and review being directly proportional to the height of the revolutionary struggle.

I'm not, of course, suggesting that groupthink is any sort of solution, but merely that institutional pluralism and associated, small-l liberal slippery slopes aren't beneficial for the working class, either.

I don't see liberalism or even pluralism being an issue in the proletarian party-movement. You seem to forget the central role of the program in this, which is to be the centripetal force that binds workers together in the struggle. Given the three central tenets of the program of the proletarian party-movement -- the raising of the proletariat to being a class-for-itself; the overthrow of capitalism and capitalist rule; the conquest of state power by the proletariat -- I do not see much room for liberalism, politically or organizationally. For that matter, given how clear the program based on these three points would be, I would see the "pluralism" within the proletarian party-movement as kept to differences of doctrine and tactics -- both of which can be contained within a multi-tendency political party-organization at this time.

Die Neue Zeit

16th March 2012, 04:11

I disagree. Since the proletarian party would be composed of various organizations and groupings, each with elected delegates on a coordinating body, I would tend to think that these constituent elements of the party-movement would not only be reviewing what their delegate(s) were saying and doing on the body, but also wanting to hear other delegates. I see this taking place around the InterOccupy meetings I attend representing Occupy Saginaw. Every GA, the participants want to know what we talked about, how I voted (if a vote took place), etc. In a time of sharpened class struggle, when meetings would take place more often, I would figure that review of what a delegate said and did in these coordinating meetings would be a paramount task, with levels of accountability and review being directly proportional to the height of the revolutionary struggle.

My concern was with regards to periods after successes. It is only natural that many organizations would disband after failures, but sustaining something like class power could only be done by frequent meetings of the main bodies. Historical workers councils couldn't do this, with their executive committees and higher bodies - and I won't go into proper government bodies, but if you're interested, here's my food for thought: http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

[Off-topic: Perhaps in another thread you could explain the development of cabinets as bourgeois institutions and their rationale.]

I don't see liberalism or even pluralism being an issue in the proletarian party-movement. You seem to forget the central role of the program in this, which is to be the centripetal force that binds workers together in the struggle. Given the three central tenets of the program of the proletarian party-movement -- the raising of the proletariat to being a class-for-itself; the overthrow of capitalism and capitalist rule; the conquest of state power by the proletariat -- I do not see much room for liberalism, politically or organizationally. For that matter, given how clear the program based on these three points would be, I would see the "pluralism" within the proletarian party-movement as kept to differences of doctrine and tactics -- both of which can be contained within a multi-tendency political party-organization at this time.

I'm sure you and I are in fundamental agreement, just emphasizing on different aspects of the agreement. That last sentence is what I'm banging about, too, all the way to my genuine one-party system stance. :)

Disclaimer on "Thanks": Some time ago, comrade Q expressed constructive, informed disagreement with my genuine one-party system stance. Amongst us informed revivalists, I know I'm in quite a minority in advocating this.

Ismail

16th March 2012, 08:34

There were actually quite a few African governments that called themselves "Marxist-Leninist," back when that would guarantee you a monthly check from Moscow. The Central African Republic for example.I was unaware the CAR ever called itself "Marxist-Leninist." Do you have a source for that? Bokassa "converted" to Islam for a few years to get on Gaddafi's good side, and then he proclaimed himself Emperor of the "Central African Empire" and reverted to Catholicism. It is my understanding that the government that replaced Bokassa was French-backed after the French became embarrassed about how profoundly lame and unpopular Bokassa became.

As for Mengistu, he is long out of power. In fact, I thought he was dead?He's still alive, wanted on "genocide" charges by the Ethiopian government. He lives in Zimbabwe. There's an interview with him in the book Talk of the Devil by Riccardo Orizio. There's also a version of the interview available on JSTOR with the title "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

Mengistu speaking in third-person: "Gorbachev and Reagan were involved in a conspiracy against progress. Gorbachev betrayed the whole world, not just Mengistu. He destroyed his own country and the entire international socialist movement. He came to power saying he wanted to fight corruption in the Communist Party, but he didn't really want to improve the system. He came to dismantle it." Mengistu also praised the DPRK and called it a wonderful country.

Meles Zenawi (do I have that spelled right?), of the Tigre Liberation Front that fought a long guerilla struggle against his regime,and now the dictator of Ethiopia, used to consider himself "Marxist Leninist," but I don't think he does any more."After the defeat at Shire, the Derg abandoned all of Tigray to the rebels, and the EPRDF's expanding guerrilla alliance started the military and political manoeuvres that would end in the takeover of Addis Ababa two years later. The Soviet bloc was close to casting Mengistu adrift. No belated acts of liberalization would save him. For his part Meles Zenawi, barely known outside Tigray, began introducing himself to a wider world.

An early encounter with the western press led to an observation that has dogged him ever since. He told an interviewer at the end of 1989 that the Soviet Union and other eastern bloc countries had never been truly socialist and added, 'The neatest any country comes to being socialist as far as we are concerned is Albania.' As Meles set off in 1990 on his first venture to the United States, his aspiration to the mantle of Enver Hoxha and to run Ethiopia on Albanian lines did not inspire much confidence.

In Washington he met the veteran Ethiopia-watcher Paul Henze. Henze was as impressed by Meles as many foreigners have been in the years since, and he made detailed notes after two long conversations. Meles had to deal first with the Albanian connection. 'I have never been to Albania,' Meles told Henze. 'We do not have any Albanian contacts. We are not trying to imitate in Tigray anything the Albanians have done.'

Meles was equally keen to reject the Marxist tag. 'We are not a Marxist-Leninist movement,' he said. 'We do have Marxists in our movement. I acknowledge that. I myself was a convinced Marxist when I was a student at [Addis Ababa University] in the early 1970s, and our movement was inspired by Marxism. But we learned that Marxism was not a good formula for resistance to the Derg and our fight for the future of Ethiopia.'

As the EPRDF moved out of the countryside to take over the towns and the cities, it emerged into a post-communist world, and a rapid political make-over was needed. 'When we entered Addis Ababa, the whole Marxist-Leninist structure was being disgraced,' said General Tsadkan. 'We had to rationalize in terms of the existing political order . . . capitalism had become the order of the day. If we continued with our socialist ideas, we could only continue to breed poverty.'"
(Peter Gill. Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid. New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. pp. 74-75.)

Neither the Ethiopian or Eritrean rebels really got much in the way of outside assistance, which goes some way towards explaining their professed radicalism at the time.

Grenzer

16th March 2012, 09:02

I was unaware the CAR ever called itself "Marxist-Leninist." Do you have a source for that? Bokassa "converted" to Islam for a few years to get on Gaddafi's good side, and then he proclaimed himself Emperor of the "Central African Empire" and reverted to Catholicism. It is my understanding that the government that replaced Bokassa was French-backed after the French became embarrassed about how profoundly lame and unpopular Bokassa became.

You're quite right on this, the Central African Republic was never Marxist-Leninist in any sense of the word. After gaining full independence in 1960, the form of government was your typical bourgeois republic, albeit with high levels of corruption and neopatrimonialism. French intervention was critical in overthrowing the short lived "Central African Empire" which came not long after a supposed incident in which students were protesting the high price of required school uniforms. The students were thrown in crowded jail cells, where many supposedly suffocated to death. It was rumored that Bokassa used his "royal" scepter to cane several of them to death, something which I personally find unlikely, and of course it's irrelevant whether this actually happened. It gave the French the pretext they needed to get rid of him. The neopatrimonial republic was restored, but only to be overthrown by a military coup again. With the wave of "Democratization" in the early 90's, the old neopatrimonial republic was back. So yeah.. absolutely nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism.

The whole episode with Bokassa makes for a pretty amusing historical lesson at least.

Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'

16th March 2012, 10:22

No single 'vanguard' party can act in the interest of the people as a whole or the workers; all political parties are slaves to their own ideology and the certainty that they know best, so never put just one of the those parties in total control because that is a dictatorship and leads to tyranny

Martin Blank

17th March 2012, 00:54

My concern was with regards to periods after successes. It is only natural that many organizations would disband after failures, but sustaining something like class power could only be done by frequent meetings of the main bodies. Historical workers councils couldn't do this, with their executive committees and higher bodies - and I won't go into proper government bodies, but if you're interested, here's my food for thought: http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

Keeping up momentum is always an issue, especially in a revolutionary situation. That's why so many of them fail. I would argue, though, that in a workers' republic there would be bodies that would sustain class power and keep momentum going. Workers' councils are often too cumbersome to be able to handle the maintaining of morale and continuity of activity. This is where I think the revolutionary industrial union movement becomes central, and also begins to serve its leading role in the transition to communism.

Workplace committees are smaller and more flexible than a workers' council, and they would be able to maintain not only accountability, but also sustain momentum. Neighborhood assemblies would also play a similar role as the workplace committees, insuring accountability and continuity at the most basic levels. I would also say that the working groups that emerge from the workers' councils and are responsible for administering public services would be able to address accountability and continuity as well. All three of these bodies are the ones that the working class would come into contact with on a daily basis in the period of the workers' republic. It only makes sense that these bodies would be the locus of maintaining the revolutionary principles.

As for the revolutionary provisional government, I tend to see that as something that is an historical aberration, not a logical conclusion. What I mean is, a revolutionary provisional government is something that arises under a very narrow set of material conditions, and is not something that is a constituent part of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism.

An example of the extraordinary circumstances that would give rise to a revolutionary provisional government would be if the U.S. government were to collapse under its own contradictions, the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties (Dem, Rep, Green, Lib, etc.) were totally discredited and rejected, and people turned to party-organizations like ours, the SP, PSL, etc., to work together to form a new government, even though people were not ready for a full-blown workers' republic or "socialism" -- that is, the structures for workers' control and a workers' republic had yet to be built, and there was still a lot of convincing that needed to be done to garner the support among workers for the transition from capitalism to communism.

The likelihood of such a situation arising? Mostly slim to none ... and Slim is on his way out of town. But stranger things have happened, so....

[Off-topic: Perhaps in another thread you could explain the development of cabinets as bourgeois institutions and their rationale.]

I can do that, when I have the time. If I did, though, it would be in the context of discussing the problems with how the Sovnarkom was organized after the October Revolution. The Workers' Group was particularly critical of how the body was organized, likening it to a bourgeois cabinet. I have given this issue a lot of thought in recent months, and that's led me to some very definite conclusions.

I'm sure you and I are in fundamental agreement, just emphasizing on different aspects of the agreement. That last sentence is what I'm banging about, too, all the way to my genuine one-party system stance. :)

I see what you're saying, but I still see too many pitfalls in the one-party system. As much as any party can be open and multi-tendency is as much as it can do an about-face and purge all dissent from its ranks, which is exactly what the Bolsheviks did.

Die Neue Zeit

17th March 2012, 01:16

Keeping up momentum is always an issue, especially in a revolutionary situation. That's why so many of them fail. I would argue, though, that in a workers' republic there would be bodies that would sustain class power and keep momentum going. Workers' councils are often too cumbersome to be able to handle the maintaining of morale and continuity of activity. This is where I think the revolutionary industrial union movement becomes central, and also begins to serve its leading role in the transition to communism.

You and I definitely agree on the inverse size issue. It's what the Paris Communal Council and Sovnarkom had to their advantage and what typical workers assemblies and councils don't have, to their disadvantage.

Workplace committees are smaller and more flexible than a workers' council, and they would be able to maintain not only accountability, but also sustain momentum. Neighborhood assemblies would also play a similar role as the workers' councils, insuring accountability and continuity at the most basic levels. I would also say that the working groups that emerge from the workers' councils and are responsible for administering public services would be able to address accountability and continuity as well. All three of these bodies are the ones that the working class would come into contact with on a daily basis in the period of the workers' republic. It only makes sense that these bodies would be the locus of maintaining the revolutionary principles.

I agree with the parallelism.

As for the revolutionary provisional government, I tend to see that as something that is an historical aberration, not a logical conclusion. What I mean is, a revolutionary provisional government is something that arises under a very narrow set of material conditions, and is not something that is a constituent part of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism.

An example of the extraordinary circumstances that would give rise to a revolutionary provisional government would be if the U.S. government were to collapse under its own contradictions, the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties (Dem, Rep, Green, Lib, etc.) were totally discredited and rejected, and people turned to party-organizations like ours, the SP, PSL, etc., to work together to form a new government, even though people were not ready for a full-blown workers' republic or "socialism" -- that is, the structures for workers' control and a workers' republic had yet to be built, and there was still a lot of convincing that needed to be done to garner the support among workers for the transition from capitalism to communism.

The likelihood of such a situation arising? Mostly slim to none ... and Slim is on his way out of town. But stranger things have happened, so....

Actually, the reason I suggested that combined with some revolutionary convention (and received hysterical polemics from banned members in the process) is that it's more likely than, say... ad hoc councilisms, Mai 1968 redux, etc. in terms of policy success.

The RPG's impact could be minimized if the party-movement itself provides "substitutionist" and "voluntarist" structures within itself, like Central or Executive Workers Councils (same old party committees in all but name).

I can do that, when I have the time. If I did, though, it would be in the context of discussing the problems with how the Sovnarkom was organized after the October Revolution. The Workers' Group was particularly critical of how the body was organized, likening it to a bourgeois cabinet. I have given this issue a lot of thought in recent months, and that's led me to some very definite conclusions.

Feel free to post in my threads when you do:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/cabinets-evolution-and-t169130/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

I'm sure you and I are in fundamental agreement, just emphasizing on different aspects of the agreement. That last sentence is what I'm banging about, too, all the way to my genuine one-party system stance.I see what you're saying, but I still see too many pitfalls in the one-party system. As much as any party can be open and multi-tendency is as much as it can do an about-face and purge all dissent from its ranks, which is exactly what the Bolsheviks did.

No worries re. the constructive, informed disagreement, comrade.

Rafiq

17th March 2012, 03:39

Workplace committees are smaller and more flexible than a workers' council, and they would be able to maintain not only accountability, but also sustain momentum. Neighborhood assemblies would also play a similar role as the workplace committees, insuring accountability and continuity at the most basic levels. I would also say that the working groups that emerge from the workers' councils and are responsible for administering public services would be able to address accountability and continuity as well. All three of these bodies are the ones that the working class would come into contact with on a daily basis in the period of the workers' republic. It only makes sense that these bodies would be the locus of maintaining the revolutionary principles.

But a means of unifying these bodies under the flag of the mass party-movement would better administrate and organize a worker's republic. A higher, unchallenged body is necessary. Neighborhood assemblies, Worker's Councils, and Work place committies lack the ability to admistrate mass regions and populations. This was also a contributing factor of the Bolsheviks stripping councils of supreme executive power in favor of the state and party, and had absolutely nothing to do with Power corrupting.

As for the revolutionary provisional government, I tend to see that as something that is an historical aberration, not a logical conclusion. What I mean is, a revolutionary provisional government is something that arises under a very narrow set of material conditions, and is not something that is a constituent part of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism.

But what is more important, a transition from capitalism to communism or the fulfillment of the worker's interests through X means, tactically (Involving the abolishment of capitalism all together). Remember, communism is a movement and as a movement that Marx talked of, it is not something to be compared with capitalism, it could, on the other hand, be compared with several Bourgeois-ideological constructs, such as Liberalism (Which includes conservatives, btw).

and there was still a lot of convincing that needed to be done to garner the support among workers for the transition from capitalism to communism.

Workers don't need external forces to "convince them" of anything. That's pure Idealism. Communism as an Ideology formed directly out of the working class, and any Materialist knows that even if an ideology is shattered for a class, they will formulate a new one to better represent their interests in accordance with modern times.

The Communists should not exist to "Convince workers to want communism". Because in essence, we don't know what this "Communism" (as an ends, a society we should organize ourselves into) really is. The truth, is that all we know is that the proletariat's interests are inevitably prone to diverge, or are inherently antithetical from their class enemy, and when I say this, I don't mean as if "I know what's better for them", I mean it as, in behavior, in action, in political views, the proletariat always will ideologically diverge from Bourgeois society, and it takes no external forces to spark such a fire.

I see what you're saying, but I still see too many pitfalls in the one-party system. As much as any party can be open and multi-tendency is as much as it can do an about-face and purge all dissent from its ranks, which is exactly what the Bolsheviks did.

A party could only take such a road out of mere desperation. Using the Bolsheviks as an example (which were the only force ever to be able to carry out a proletarian revoluiton, btw) is absurdity, and cannot stand as a historical example of a single-party state's faulty.

Do you believe in this power corrupts nonsense? It's essentially a form of Bourgeois-Idealist thought, that arose near the dawn of Bourgeois revolutions.

Power cannot corrupt. A party would not have the capability to merely become "greedy" and "corrupt" and turn on the proletariat. Because the distinction between the Party and the Proletarian movement must be zero. Of course, perhaps, these opportunist parties we see today are not a direct reflection of the working classes interest, which is why the Party we speak of would eventually grow organically out of the proletariat itself, as did all the communist parties in origin. Problem being, the communist parties we see today have not adjusted themselves to material conditions and have been abandoned all together by the proletariat, therefore, will whither away into the dumps of 20th century communism, eventually.

So, if a Marxist is going to criticize a Single Party state, it would have to be a criticism stemming from pure systematic defunciton (That, it would not be able to thoroughly administrate regions and that X is more efficient in organizing the working class, which doesn't have a lot of empirical backing, historically). All states represent the embodied interests of a class. Only will a proletarian state become in itself a bourgeois state if it's championship is isolated and it is forced to adjust itself to the world market and Imperialism, than, naturally, such a state would have to retain the capitalist mode of production (No matter how much they distate it). Should such a thing occur, one way or another, they'd have to satisfy the hunger of capital, and, Human consent and Capital going at it produces the most obvious of results: the victory over capital. Some Bourgeois states express their class rule through one party, or multiple parties. Either way, those parties will serve them to the end, whether it be one or many. There is no real evidence that the Bourgeois state has split in it's interests with the Bourgeoisie itself, so tell me how this could be any different with a Proletarian state ruled by and organized by a Single Party?

A Marxist Historian

17th March 2012, 03:51

You're quite right on this, the Central African Republic was never Marxist-Leninist in any sense of the word. After gaining full independence in 1960, the form of government was your typical bourgeois republic, albeit with high levels of corruption and neopatrimonialism. French intervention was critical in overthrowing the short lived "Central African Empire" which came not long after a supposed incident in which students were protesting the high price of required school uniforms. The students were thrown in crowded jail cells, where many supposedly suffocated to death. It was rumored that Bokassa used his "royal" scepter to cane several of them to death, something which I personally find unlikely, and of course it's irrelevant whether this actually happened. It gave the French the pretext they needed to get rid of him. The neopatrimonial republic was restored, but only to be overthrown by a military coup again. With the wave of "Democratization" in the early 90's, the old neopatrimonial republic was back. So yeah.. absolutely nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism.

The whole episode with Bokassa makes for a pretty amusing historical lesson at least.

I was geographically off by one country. I was thinking of the country usually referred to as "Congo Brazzaville," currently officially named the Republic of the Congo. In between Bokassaland and Mobutuland.

I hastily checked this on that ultra-reliable source Wikipedia, which seems to confirm this.

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

-M.H.-

Martin Blank

17th March 2012, 08:26

But a means of unifying these bodies under the flag of the mass party-movement would better administrate and organize a worker's republic. A higher, unchallenged body is necessary. Neighborhood assemblies, Worker's Councils, and Work place committees lack the ability to administrate mass regions and populations. This was also a contributing factor of the Bolsheviks stripping councils of supreme executive power in favor of the state and party, and had absolutely nothing to do with Power corrupting.

I agree that there is a need for bodies that exist above local workers' councils. Economically and politically, there will need to be Congresses of workers' delegates that address issues on a regional, state/provincial, industrial, supply-chain, national and, ultimately, global level. The strategy of revolutionary industrial unionism addresses this point directly. The reason I was focusing on neighborhood assemblies and workplace committees was to answer DNZ's questions about accountability and maintaining momentum in a revolutionary period, and pointing out that the best bodies to exercise those would be the ones that workers have to deal with every day -- on the job and at home. It's not about "power corrupting", but about the inherent dangers of micromanagement and how it affects those being managed.

But what is more important, a transition from capitalism to communism or the fulfillment of the worker's interests through X means, tactically (Involving the abolishment of capitalism all together). Remember, communism is a movement and as a movement that Marx talked of, it is not something to be compared with capitalism, it could, on the other hand, be compared with several Bourgeois-ideological constructs, such as Liberalism (Which includes conservatives, btw).

Can you please clarify your point? I don't think I'm understanding the connection you're making here.

Workers don't need external forces to "convince them" of anything. That's pure Idealism. Communism as an Ideology formed directly out of the working class, and any Materialist knows that even if an ideology is shattered for a class, they will formulate a new one to better represent their interests in accordance with modern times.

The Communists should not exist to "Convince workers to want communism". Because in essence, we don't know what this "Communism" (as an ends, a society we should organize ourselves into) really is. The truth, is that all we know is that the proletariat's interests are inevitably prone to diverge, or are inherently antithetical from their class enemy, and when I say this, I don't mean as if "I know what's better for them", I mean it as, in behavior, in action, in political views, the proletariat always will ideologically diverge from Bourgeois society, and it takes no external forces to spark such a fire.

I think you misunderstand what I meant by "convincing workers". It's not a matter of convincing my brothers and sisters about communism in the abstract; I happen to agree with you about how communism emerges organically from within the class itself. Rather, my comments were about a hypothetical set of material conditions in which the working class was still hesitant in making the big steps associated with social revolution -- a hypothesis whose chances were, as I wrote, "slim to none ... and Slim is on his way out of town".

Generally speaking, though, I do agree with you about the working class being ideologically divergent from the exploiting classes, and that we don't need to "convince" workers of what they already know through their own concrete experiences. Again, that's why I consider the revolutionary provisional government to be an historical aberration ... which is also how I consider Stalinism.

A party could only take such a road out of mere desperation. Using the Bolsheviks as an example (which were the only force ever to be able to carry out a proletarian revoluiton, btw) is absurdity, and cannot stand as a historical example of a single-party state's faulty.

That makes no sense. It is precisely because the Bolsheviks carried out a proletarian revolution that makes them the subject to the most merciless communist criticism. (And, BTW, they were not the only ones to make a workers' revolution. Both in Paris in 1871 and St. Louis in 1877, workers staged successful revolutions and held on for weeks; it was the counterrevolutionary backlash that they did not survive.)

Do you believe in this power corrupts nonsense? It's essentially a form of Bourgeois-Idealist thought, that arose near the dawn of Bourgeois revolutions.

No, I do not believe in the "power corrupts" concept. Personally, I think that for every Gaddafi or Peron there is a Cincinnatus or Washington. Power does not corrupt, but corrupt people often achieve positions of power.

Power cannot corrupt. A party would not have the capability to merely become "greedy" and "corrupt" and turn on the proletariat. Because the distinction between the Party and the Proletarian movement must be zero. Of course, perhaps, these opportunist parties we see today are not a direct reflection of the working classes interest, which is why the Party we speak of would eventually grow organically out of the proletariat itself, as did all the communist parties in origin. Problem being, the communist parties we see today have not adjusted themselves to material conditions and have been abandoned all together by the proletariat, therefore, will whither away into the dumps of 20th century communism, eventually.

I very much agree with this statement.

So, if a Marxist is going to criticize a Single Party state, it would have to be a criticism stemming from pure systematic dysfunction (That, it would not be able to thoroughly administrate regions and that X is more efficient in organizing the working class, which doesn't have a lot of empirical backing, historically). All states represent the embodied interests of a class. Only will a proletarian state become in itself a bourgeois state if it's championship is isolated and it is forced to adjust itself to the world market and Imperialism, than, naturally, such a state would have to retain the capitalist mode of production (No matter how much they distate it). Should such a thing occur, one way or another, they'd have to satisfy the hunger of capital, and, Human consent and Capital going at it produces the most obvious of results: the victory over capital. Some Bourgeois states express their class rule through one party, or multiple parties. Either way, those parties will serve them to the end, whether it be one or many. There is no real evidence that the Bourgeois state has split in it's interests with the Bourgeoisie itself, so tell me how this could be any different with a Proletarian state ruled by and organized by a Single Party?

Your argument here makes two false assumptions: 1) that the working class is a singular, homogeneous mass, and 2) that parties, like states, represent one class as a whole.

First, the level of homogeneity within a social group, such as a class, is inversely proportional to the size of the social group. And the proletariat as a class is as diverse as humanity itself, especially since the world proletariat makes up more than 75 percent of the world's population these days (in the U.S., it hovers between 65 and 67 percent). Among those millions and, worldwide, billions of workers, you are bound to find differences of opinion and disagreements -- some mild and others sharp. In this sense, I would argue that there is a level of "systematic dysfunction" in the concept of the single-party system. If we look historically, the single-party arrangement does lead to a cookie-cutter, boilerplate approach to local issues. I've seen this happen, both in other political organizations I belonged to in the past, and in my years as a unionized worker. If decisions are being made top-down, there is a kind of vulgar mechanical materialism that develops, where, eventually, you see administrative punishment become a substitute for political discussion and debate. The benefit of unifying both national political party-organizations like ours with small localized organizations and active individuals is that these local groups and individuals will bring tested ideas and methods into a movement that needs to sink its roots deep into its class.

Second, each party does not represent the whole of a class, and the proletarian party is no exception. The proletarian party-movement is at the forefront of the most politically conscious and self-acting sections of the working class; it does not include those sections of the working class who remain under the sway of bourgeois ideology, or those who are apathetic and cynical. I believe it was Lenin who pointed out that parties represent a specific section of a class, and that when these parties are in power, the interests of those sections of classes are what is represented by the state. The proletarian party-movement cannot encompass the entirety of the working class any more than it can encompass sections from other classes.

I'll have to stop here. The gout flareup in my wrist is killing me, plus I have to be up early. So, it might be Sunday evening before I'm able to get back to this thread.

MustCrushCapitalism

17th March 2012, 08:44

There seems to be so much misconception about democracy in a single-party Marxist-Leninist state. The ideal one party system would allow for independents to run. I've said before that a multi-party system with one vanguard party seperate from the rest would be good idea, but just as much would be allowing independents to run.

To quote Lenin...

"Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. But every voluntary association (including the party) is also free to expel members who use the name of the party to advocate anti-party views. Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too. I am bound to accord you, in the name of free speech, the full right to shout, lie and write to your heart’s content. But you are bound to grant me, in the name of freedom of association, the right to enter into, or withdraw from, association with people advocating this or that view. The party is a voluntary association, which would inevitably break up, first ideologically and then physically, if it did not cleanse itself of people advocating anti-party views. "

The party is a voluntary association acting on the basis of democratic centralism so as to prevent factionalism within the party, but expressing views in disagreement with the party when one is not a member is perfectly fine.

If we look at the capitalist political system, we can see that the capitalist class has its vanguard, in the major political parties in whatever country's political system. There's no real reason to have more than one party as the vanguard of the proletariat in the ideal dictatorship of the proletariat.

tl;dr: my views on this are long and complicated, but a one-party state can be very democratic.

robbo203

17th March 2012, 09:45

The Communists should not exist to "Convince workers to want communism". Because in essence, we don't know what this "Communism" (as an ends, a society we should organize ourselves into) really is. The truth, is that all we know is that the proletariat's interests are inevitably prone to diverge, or are inherently antithetical from their class enemy, and when I say this, I don't mean as if "I know what's better for them", I mean it as, in behavior, in action, in political views, the proletariat always will ideologically diverge from Bourgeois society, and it takes no external forces to spark such a fire.

We've been here before, havent we?

What you are espousing is a grossly mechanical and telelological view of history. Its is ironically - despite you going on about "materialism" - an extremely idealistic view of history you are advancing, a kind of "ghost in the machine" type of argument in which we are pushed and pulled in a certain direction without being any the wiser. History with a capital "H" has the future all mapped out for us and we have no role as creative thinking agents in determining it

Sorry, but there is no way in which you can achieve a communist society without workers wanting and understanding what is meant by a communist society - not the fine details but cetainly the broad outline. And there is certainly no warrant whatsover for suggesting this is a view that Marx or Engels held. They were adamant that workers have to know "what is at stake" (to quote Engels) in order for a communist society to emerge.

If you want a communist future you have to advance the "idea" of a communist future - there is no getting around that. It is an integral aspect of the "cognitive dissonance" we communists seek to foster in getting our fellow workers to look at the world around them with fresh eyes. You cannot offer a serious critique of capitalism without putting forward a credible alternative. The two go hand in hand are are mutually supporting.

Objective material or economic forces do NOT automatically push individuals in a communist direction. Anyone who believes that is utterly deluded and is turning an insight into a religious dogma.

This is the problem with so many on the Left. They have this completely mechanical one-sided view of history as a series of so called "revolutuonary situations" driven by external economic forces. Economic crises are unwittingly perceived to be the ally of the communist cause (and I suspect are almost subconsciously welcomed for that very reason). But economic crises to NOT automatically generate a communist outlook. They can also generate a Fascist or a Nazi outlook. Look at the rise of the Nazi party in Germany out of the devastation of depression.

No, economic crises can quite clearly also result in workers lowering their political sights, pulling in their horns and indeed turning on their fellow workers in the cutthroat business of getting of a job or maintaining a given wage level. Here in Spain the voters have just elected by a landslide the conservative Popular Party into power in the midst of a horrendous morale-sapping , apathy-making recession in which unemployment levels stand at 21%

The simple lesson is this. Material conditions can swing either way - or should I say in potentially many different ways - in terms of their contribution to the political outlook. Those who pooh-pooh the role of spreading idea (while at the same time ironically spreading a very mechanical and fatalistic idea of the way in which history works) as "idealist", simply do not grasp what is meant by idealism at all.

Putting forward a clear vision of a communist alternative to capitalism is not - I repeat, not - idealism. This bastardised notion of idealism overlooks that that there is no such thing as historical change that does not involve ideas.
It is, in fact, a totally false dichotomy that distinguishes between ideas on the one hand and material conditions on the other - as though the one is not significantly influenced by the other

Ismail

17th March 2012, 11:30

It is, in fact, a totally false dichotomy that distinguishes between ideas on the one hand and material conditions on the other - as though the one is not significantly influenced by the otherThis is quite right. Marx himself said that ideas become a material force when they take hold on the masses. There's a big difference between workers protesting and even being enraged at the bourgeoisie in, say, a horrible economic crisis, and them actually understanding what is to be done to move beyond capitalism and the very necessity of doing away with classes in general. In itself protests, strikes, etc. embolden workers, but that does not automatically transform into class consciousness.

Grenzer

17th March 2012, 11:53

Siad Barre called his government's ideology scientific socialism and said that there could no Arab, African, etc. "socialism" but only the socialism of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Which sounded nice and refreshing until you find out that he said Islam provides the seeds for socialism and then after 1978 he became a corrupt US-backed leader who allowed such bastions of progress as Saudi Arabia to invest in Somalia. The government was still nominally "socialist" ("scientific" no less) up until the end and the descent into anarchy in 1991.

There was Mengistu, though. He was no advocate of "African Socialism," just Soviet-style "Marxism-Leninism" of the Brezhnev variety transplanted to Ethiopia (and Mengistu actually denounces Gorby to this day, claiming that he ruined the international "socialist" camp.) ZANU-PF also pretends it's still a militant and socialist party; it calls its governing organ the Politburo, refers to everyone in the party as "comrade," talks of the national liberation struggle against the Rhodesian regime, and... that's about it.

Interesting information to note. I just realized I had made a major mistake in one of my posts, I had meant to say that I wasn't aware of the existence of any African states which described themselves as Marxist-Leninist or African Socialist which exist today.

I was geographically off by one country. I was thinking of the country usually referred to as "Congo Brazzaville," currently officially named the Republic of the Congo. In between Bokassaland and Mobutuland.

I hastily checked this on that ultra-reliable source Wikipedia, which seems to confirm this.

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

-M.H.-

Ok, that makes sense then. I was surprised that you had made that mistake, since you are usually very reliability with this sort of thing.

I suppose we should get back on the topic though.

Threetune

17th March 2012, 17:58

I think the expression "single party" could be explained a little further. Even in the USSR, where there was absolutely only one party, official rhetoric still talked about the "bloc of Party and non-party people," IIRC.

And in the GDR/DDR, "East Germany," there were multiple apparent parties, like a party for Christians, a party for former Nazis (incredibly), etc., but those "parties" were not permitted to compete for power in opposition to the SED, the party representing the interests of the ruling bureaucracy. I would not be surprised if such a toothless "multi-party" system existed in some of the other East European allies of the USSR.

All those formulations merely served to secure the rule of the bureaucracy, which had politically displaced the working class.

Trotsky had a different idea. In his Transitional Program, there is a proposal for multiple parties in a workers' state, on the condition that each party support the conquests of the working class, the revolutionary advances. I think Trotsky's proposal has merit.

This is ignorant nonsense. Lenin wrote two hefty pamphlets denouncing Trotsky’s bureaucratic “shake-up” shit.

‘THE TRADE UNIONS, THE PRESENT SITUATIONAND TROTSKY'S MISTAKES’

And

‘Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin’

Lenin said:“The net result is that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky's and Bukharin's theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky's "theses" are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject it.” (Prolonged, stormy applause.)

Published in pamphlet form
in 1921

Published according to the pamphlet

text collated with the verbaum re-
port edited by Lenin

NoPasaran1936

17th March 2012, 18:26

As long as workers can write a constitution which they can use to prevent the ones in power becoming a new ruling class, and permit the use of rebellion to re-establish the workers' state, oh and the much need for internal factions. I wouldn't want a single group to run it.

However, ultimately, who needs a state?

Rafiq

17th March 2012, 20:09

We've been here before, havent we?

I must have forgotten.

What you are espousing is a grossly mechanical and telelological view of history.

Again with this disgusting Bourgeois Idealism covered under the guise of avoiding "Mechanical" views of reality. What you call mechanical is Historical Materialism a core tenet of Marxism. Engels called "Mechanical Materialism" Long term, static determinism. But indeed, Marxism is very deterministic, only it is a different determinism, i.e. A dynamic short term determinism.

Its is ironically - despite you going on about "materialism" - an extremely idealistic view of history you are advancing, a kind of "ghost in the machine" type of argument in which we are pushed and pulled in a certain direction without being any the wiser.

Marx indeed believed there was a "Ghost in history". So did Adam Smith (The hidden hand). Such is a core tenet of Marxian conception of History. But this ghost is not external from Human kind, it's just humans cannot control it, and usually major events caused by material conditions were unintentional, or unexpected. Human thought is a mere reflection of material conditions (The over all ideological makeup of society, that of which ideology is a reflection of class, etc., if we want to talk in terms of modern day capitalism), and in term that human thought is expressed as the "Ghost in the machine", in some ways.

History with a capital "H" has the future all mapped out for us and we have no role as creative thinking agents in determining it

Ah yes, the classic pathetic argument used by Idealists during Marx's time, they couldn't argue with Materialism, so they develop a straw man.

History, or, the future, does not exist. Indeed, if we were to go back in time thousands of years, society would look very different from today. There isn't a set long term timeline blue printed for the human race, of course. But we Marxian Materialists say that creative thinking agents have no fucking major effect on how history manifests itself . Robbo, don't be fucking pathetic. It's sad. Men and women make history, but not as they please.

Meaning, indeed, of course, it's humans that make history, but they cannot choose what history they wish to bring about, because

1. The Material world in process acts indifferent from Human will.

2. The Mode of production was manifested and became something beyond itself, and acts not in favor of human will, but human will in favor of capital (For the Bourgeois class)

3. Humans act as mere agents of material conditions, and material conditions in terms of human society are a mixture between already existing natural material conditions, and material conditions unintentionally created by humans as a response to those natural conditions. Human will plays little to no part in the process of creation in history. In fact, human will is a mere reflection of our surroundings. And our surroundings, again, came about to benefit an economic class, that of which functions to serve capital.

Sorry, but there is no way in which you can achieve a communist society without workers wanting and understanding what is meant by a communist society -

Of course, which is why Communist society in itself does not exist ,and is not the end goal of Marxians. For the abstract Marxians (That have no class, that are just spectators, obviously don't exist, but if we pretend), we believe the interests of the proletariat antithetical from the Bourgeoisie, so, they saw Communism (which existed long before Marxism) as a mere reflection of those interests, and therefore supported it as a movement. The communists always wished to put the proletariat in a position of class dictatorship (Besides the petty bourgeois socialists like prodhoun) over it's enemy.

Communism is a tool of the proletariat class, a hammer in which the enemy is crushed, contrary to your silly Idealist concept, that Proletarians should be tools to forfill a communist dream, "Because you know what's best for them". That is fucking Idealism, antithetical to Marxism and even some currents of Anarchism. '

Again, we (or the proletariat class, if you will) should not act as agents to bring about a communist society, rather, Communism as an ideology should act to for fill their class interests.

not the fine details but cetainly the broad outline. And there is certainly no warrant whatsover for suggesting this is a view that Marx or Engels held. They were adamant that workers have to know "what is at stake" (to quote Engels) in order for a communist society to emerge.

But this is when communism was already organically developed by the worker's themselves. Marx and Engels sought to make it scientific, to show the working people, yes, what is at stake, what they are risking, and tactics to how they could meet their own ends. They did not, put forward this new society that should replace capitalism and tell workers that they should be tools to forfill the ends of an Ideology.

Ideology is a reflection of class (Material condition), not the other way around.

You cannot simply say "Well, I put forward a communist society over all else but not too much details because that's Utopian". No, they very notion of saying what you think society will look like, or how it should look like, is Utopian in itself. You are still making recipes for kitchens of hte future, just less detail of what those recipes consist of. Materialists say fuck you to the very concept of even imagining what the recipes of the future kitchen will be. That is the difference.

If you want a communist future you have to advance the "idea" of a communist future - there is no getting around that.

The very thought that humans can determine their own future is antithetical to Marxism. We know that, because of current material conditions, the proletariat can, or will, eventually overthrow it's class enemy. Such a revolutionary condition does not exist yet. So when it does not exist, it is not our job to preach, it is our job to hold a firm scientific stance, and for those of us who are proletarians, we should, defend your interests as a proletarian and perhaps a certain amount of preaching class struggle will get you somewhere, but to tell proletarians they must be agents of for filling your Ideological wet dream is not only an insult to them, it's an insult to Marxism itself.

It is an integral aspect of the "cognitive dissonance" we communists seek to foster in getting our fellow workers to look at the world around them with fresh eyes. You cannot offer a serious critique of capitalism without putting forward a credible alternative. The two go hand in hand are are mutually supporting.

100% bullshit.

Capitalism can be systematically criticized (Scientifically) without having to offer a solution. Because we know a solution can exist, and there is no need to prove that. Humans have been around for two million years, and today, almost anything seems possible. Does it even make sense that a soluiton to capitalism is impossible? This is common sense, it is possible!

The question is, is it up to us, and is it brought about by us arguing, debating, and preaching? The answer, you can find with a simple introduction to Materialist conception of history.

Objective material or economic forces do NOT automatically push individuals in a communist direction. Anyone who believes that is utterly deluded and is turning an insight into a religious dogma.

Of course, this is 100% true. It is Idealist to think that material conditions will automatically act in favor of communism. But, what are the origins of communism? It was a mass movement that was a direct human-ideological response to material conditions. Again, I Marxians are Dynamic Short Term deterministic, we recognize that Ideology, human behavior, and culture are determined by material conditions, but, this could sometimes only be in the short term, at any time, things change chaotically, and like I said before, If we were to go back thousands of years and reverse time, society today would look very different. Material Conditions are a force that have little boudnries and are by no means already set in stone hundreds of years prior, but humans are forced by a complete boundary, excluding genetics, instinct, etc.

This is the problem with so many on the Left. They have this completely mechanical one-sided view of history as a series of so called "revolutuonary situations" driven by external economic forces.

No, the problem with the Left today is that, like you, they are not "mechanical" enough. They have this obscure mentality that revolution will occur through preaching. Friend, go back to the 1800's and tell me communism became popular because of missionaries spreading the word. it's undoubtedly a myth.

I'd say the fact you'd suggest such rubbish means you're a metaphysical reactionary (in the sense of how you perceive history) and no doubt you are playing into the hands of Bourgeois thought. Should you have your way, Marxism is a mere stepping stone to a full Bourgeois-Idealist conception of history. No, it is us who have the upper hand in this deabte, we have always had the upper hand.

Economic crises are unwittingly perceived to be the ally of the communist cause

No doubt this is a common myth among the left, but it is in no way "Too Materialistic". On the countrary, it's 100% Idealist to adhere to the notion that material conditions gone wrong in capitalism are an open door for communism, no.

But, you're a fool if you think Economic crises don't give birth to class struggle, and communism was a reflection of the proletariat side of the war. In a way, they are an ally of the proletarian cause in the sense that they generate class struggle. This struggle may not always generate communism exactly, but we don't give a fuck. Ideologically, they would develop something that would be in their favor as a class, and that is what Marxists stand for, not communism external from the proletariat, like you.

Communism is not some universal concept that just needs to be added, like a recipe, to the proletariat. If communism needs to be something external and not organically sprouted from the proletariat class, than to hell with communism. I stand with the proletariat's class interest, regardless of what Ideology they will choose in the future to represent them. You're making Communism something as if it's abstract in all historical scenarios and just needs to be "added in". This is horse shit.

(and I suspect are almost subconsciously welcomed for that very reason). But economic crises to NOT automatically generate a communist outlook. They can also generate a Fascist or a Nazi outlook. Look at the rise of the Nazi party in Germany out of the devastation of depression.

Only if the Bourgeois classes get the upper hand in the inevitable class war that is a result of economic crises, which we should hope we are better strategically to do next time. Nazism was just a champion of the Bourgeois class, and it's victory merely signifies the victory of the Bourgeoisie as a class and the defeat of the German proletariat.

In times of economic crises, all classes get meaner ideologically. The Bourgeois classes formulate their Fascism, or Free Market Capitalism, or what ever they like, and the Proletarians put forward their uttermost radical expression of fire. This is the result of the class war.

So, you're right in a tiny sense, though, you are loosing a class analysis. This should not be about our ideology verses their's. It is about the proletarian class against the class enemy.

No, economic crises can quite clearly also result in workers lowering their political sights, pulling in their horns and indeed turning on their fellow workers in the cutthroat business of getting of a job or maintaining a given wage level. Here in Spain the voters have just elected by a landslide the conservative Popular Party into power in the midst of a horrendous morale-sapping , apathy-making recession in which unemployment levels stand at 21%

Again, only if the Proletarian class is crushed in the struggle. This is a defeat for the proletariat class, not a defeat for abstract communism as an ideology.

The simple lesson is this. Material conditions can swing either way - or should I say in potentially many different ways - in terms of their contribution to the political outlook.

In the direction of class(s)

Those who pooh-pooh the role of spreading idea (while at the same time ironically spreading a very mechanical and fatalistic idea of the way in which history works) as "idealist", simply do not grasp what is meant by idealism at all.

A materialist conception of history is Scientific, like the works of Darwin and Freud. It is not so much spreading an ideology as it is spreading a structural framework from understanding how humans organize themselves. That's totally different from telling humans what their future should be. And at the same time pretending to hold the model of which.

I think it's you who doesn't understand what Idealism and Materialism are, and from a very, non agressive, non competitive or confrontational point, I not only ask, I beg you to do some research on these two concepts, perhaps Marx and Engels should not be first (as they're hard to grasp) but by Marxists who can simplify it (Which worked for me much better), as such is a stepping stone to understanding the works of Marx and Engels.

Putting forward a clear vision of a communist alternative to capitalism is not - I repeat, not - idealism. This bastardised notion of idealism overlooks that that there is no such thing as historical change that does not involve ideas.

Idealism is much more than that. Idealism relies on the notion that historical change occurs solely because of Ideas at all. Radical Ideology will rise from the ashes of economic crises during class war. Whether the proletariat will call it Communism or not is irrelevant.

It is, in fact, a totally false dichotomy that distinguishes between ideas on the one hand and material conditions on the other - as though the one is not significantly influenced by the other

They are, Material conditions (which come first) create and generate ideology (or, to say better, humans generate them in response based on class), but this ideology cannot influence historical events without it being a tool of the class that it was created from. So, the triumph of Liberalism was not an external Idea apart from material conditions, it was the Hatchet of the Bourgeois classes, and their triumph signified it's existence, and in turn, it influenced many things, including how humans behave and think. But, the ideology cannot exist external from the base (The bourgeois class). Should the bourgeois class be defeated, with no class conscious, than the ideology becomes a zero level irrelevant artifact of the past, much like the "Communism" you endorse so much (which no longer has a basis in class struggle, for now). Therefore, Materialists should go to the root and support class struggle before the communism.

Rafiq

17th March 2012, 20:14

This is quite right. Marx himself said that ideas become a material force when they take hold on the masses. There's a big difference between workers protesting and even being enraged at the bourgeoisie in, say, a horrible economic crisis, and them actually understanding what is to be done to move beyond capitalism and the very necessity of doing away with classes in general. In itself protests, strikes, etc. embolden workers, but that does not automatically transform into class consciousness.

Show me a single text by Marx that supports this rubbish. A scientific understand, of course, is external, but the call to move beyond capitalism goes hand in hand with proletarians engaging in combat with the Bourgeoisie, the latter precedes the former.

Proletarians don't need external forces or "more enlightened proletarians" to develop and interest which involves abolishing capitalism, as such an interest occurs during times of Economic crisis, and economic crisis will always be inevitable in capitalism. Sorry, Ismail, but your bourgeois fantasies of the Petite Bourgeois Hoxhaist party manipulating the working class to achieve it's own sick, anti Marxist ideological ends come to a halt in the face of Marxism.

Completely pathetic how the Hoxhaists are championing this Idealist nonsense. It's not surprising at all to me, they need this Dualism, this Anti-Marxist Idealism in order for their Idealist grand Master Hoxha's shit works to be taken seriously in any Marxist current. That's why Ismail and Roach are championing Robbo, i.e. They feel threatened by my accusations that Hoxha's ideological foundations, i.e. Anti Revisionist Marxism Leninist is 500% Idealist and Anti Marxist in nature.

Nice try, but it's not going to work.

Ismail

17th March 2012, 21:10

Die Neue Zeit

17th March 2012, 21:35

I think you misunderstand what I meant by "convincing workers". It's not a matter of convincing my brothers and sisters about communism in the abstract; I happen to agree with you about how communism emerges organically from within the class itself. Rather, my comments were about a hypothetical set of material conditions in which the working class was still hesitant in making the big steps associated with social revolution -- a hypothesis whose chances were, as I wrote, "slim to none ... and Slim is on his way out of town".

How would the working class not be hesitant?

No, I do not believe in the "power corrupts" concept. Personally, I think that for every Gaddafi or Peron there is a Cincinnatus or Washington. Power does not corrupt, but corrupt people often achieve positions of power.

"People corrupt power." (Yuri Andropov)

And the proletariat as a class is as diverse as humanity itself, especially since the world proletariat makes up more than 75 percent of the world's population these days (in the U.S., it hovers between 65 and 67 percent).

Wait a minute, comrade. You're really overstating the numbers of the world proletariat. It makes up at least two-thirds of the populations of developed countries, for sure, but most developing countries have proletarian demographic minorities, like India.

Second, each party does not represent the whole of a class, and the proletarian party is no exception. The proletarian party-movement is at the forefront of the most politically conscious and self-acting sections of the working class; it does not include those sections of the working class who remain under the sway of bourgeois ideology, or those who are apathetic and cynical. I believe it was Lenin who pointed out that parties represent a specific section of a class, and that when these parties are in power, the interests of those sections of classes are what is represented by the state. The proletarian party-movement cannot encompass the entirety of the working class any more than it can encompass sections from other classes.

Actually, what Lenin said goes back to the French Marxist Jules Guesde about the forward-thinking proletariat and the less political workers.

Die Neue Zeit

17th March 2012, 21:39

Die Neue Zeit

17th March 2012, 21:50

So when it does not exist, it is not our job to preach, it is our job to hold a firm scientific stance, and for those of us who are proletarians, we should, defend your interests as a proletarian and perhaps a certain amount of preaching class struggle will get you somewhere, but to tell proletarians they must be agents of for filling your Ideological wet dream is not only an insult to them, it's an insult to Marxism itself.

100% bullshit.

Capitalism can be systematically criticized (Scientifically) without having to offer a solution. Because we know a solution can exist, and there is no need to prove that. Humans have been around for two million years, and today, almost anything seems possible. Does it even make sense that a soluiton to capitalism is impossible? This is common sense, it is possible!

Whoa! Whatever happened to the relationship between a revolutionary program and a revolutionary movement, that without the former the latter cannot exist?

There can be criticism without solutions, but that's what all the mainstream chatter about Marx is these days: all criticisms, no solutions.

[Of course, they ignore Marx the IWMA activist.]

The question is, is it up to us, and is it brought about by us arguing, debating, and preaching? The answer, you can find with a simple introduction to Materialist conception of history.

To which I respond by quoting the latter part of Kautsky's profoundly true and important quote in WITBD:

"Proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring [modern socialism] into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow."

No doubt this is a common myth among the left, but it is in no way "Too Materialistic". On the countrary, it's 100% Idealist to adhere to the notion that material conditions gone wrong in capitalism are an open door for communism, no.

I'm a dynamic materialist, but determinism is, unfortunately, not dynamic.

But, you're a fool if you think Economic crises don't give birth to class struggle

It depends on which kind of economic crisis. Robbo just mentioned the Great Depression, and he is correct there. Something like the Long Depression, on the other hand, typical gives genuine class struggle momentum.

Now he goes around with "Orthodox Marxism" and praises DNZ.

Both you and comrade Rafiq need to sit down and familiarize yourselves more with what is a revolutionary program, and the notable difference between a revolutionary program and "revolutionary theory."

Rafiq

18th March 2012, 02:03

Rafiq, the glorious grandmaster of Marxism, once asked (http://www.revleft.com/vb/communism-possible-one-t145097/index.html?t=145097) "Is communism possible in one country? Or does it require the whole world to be Communist?" This was less than two years ago. Now he goes around with "Orthodox Marxism" and praises DNZ.

Ah, the pinnacle of desperation: Personal attacks.

Ismail, this is even more pathetic on your behalf, let us analyze the amount I've learned in two years and yet, for five years you've still had your head up your ass.

Secondly, the part about me "praising DNZ" is a common myth. Just because I don't dismiss DNZ or bash him because I understand he has quite a lot to contribute to the theoretical level of this forum does in no way signify that I am some sort of worshiper of him. There are other users who I respect for similar reasons, so why don't I get labeled as a praiser of them as well?

The only thing you've learned in five years is tiny, precise useless information about Hoxha's life that is irrelevant all together. While I was building my understanding of Marxism, you were reading books about the various positions as to how Hoxha masturbated.

Rafiq

18th March 2012, 02:23

Whoa! Whatever happened to the relationship between a revolutionary program and a revolutionary movement, that without the former the latter cannot exist?

There can be criticism without solutions, but that's what all the mainstream chatter about Marx is these days: all criticisms, no solutions.

[Of course, they ignore Marx the IWMA activist.]

But don't you believe a stronger phase of proletariat class conscious must be in place before a revolutionary program could even be established?

To which I respond by quoting the latter part of Kautsky's profoundly true and important quote in WITBD:

"Proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring [modern socialism] into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow."

I bolded the part, that of which is incompatible with Robbo's post. Of course, I said, that perhaps it is a possibility that enlightened proletarians could bring others into the class struggle, but, I clearly said that as material conditions change, we cannot have this mentality that proletarians should be agents in achieving "communism", and that preaching "communism" (that is, the communism of the 20th century that we know very well, which doesn't just mean the Soviet Union and friends, it means communism in general, even the communism before the Soviet Union as an ideology) will never give birth to a proletarian revolutionary movement. In doing so, this would be opportunism, it would be external from the proletariat itself. It is communism (the ideology, the concept) that should have to adjust itself to modern times, not other way around.

I agree there are different levels of class conscious, but the very existence of class conscious will occur regardless of forces external from the Proletarian class itself. But, I concur with the fact that higher levels of class conscious to some extent require more intellectually clear sighted proletarians.

I'm a dynamic materialist, but determinism is, unfortunately, not dynamic.

Of course, which is why I just made up "Dynamic Short term determinism", which is the same thing as Historical Materialism. Determinists like to say that history and time are set, and that, the future is already predicted. But I said I was a dynamic determinist because I believe there could be several different outcomes in regards to how history "plays out", but the mode of production would determine culture, the behavior of society (excluding genetic causes of behavior), etc. (short term) but several different outcomes are possible in regards to all of those things, but should they occur, which they already have, we can go back and find out precisely how they did, i.e. We can differentiate art based on reflections of class interest, of books, etc.

It depends on which kind of economic crisis. Robbo just mentioned the Great Depression, and he is correct there. Something like the Long Depression, on the other hand, typical gives genuine class struggle momentum.

But class struggle itself does not usually heat up, lest there actually is a crisis. The Great Depression had a much more heated class struggle than the "golden ages" of the 20's and 50's, (Late 50's and 60's gave birth to new class struggle as things were starting to wear off).

Die Neue Zeit

18th March 2012, 07:00

But don't you believe a stronger phase of proletariat class conscious must be in place before a revolutionary program could even be established?

Not necessarily, comrade. The Utopian Socialists coughed up the Socialist program and Socialist consciousness. The political legacy of Marx and Engels was in the merger formula, doing what the Utopian Socialists refused to do re. engaging the working class.

I bolded the part, that of which is incompatible with Robbo's post. Of course, I said, that perhaps it is a possibility that enlightened proletarians could bring others into the class struggle, but, I clearly said that as material conditions change, we cannot have this mentality that proletarians should be agents in achieving "communism"

Um, that's the whole point of agency. I don't subscribe to "communization" theory. The communist mode of production is the maximum program, the end goal, etc.

and that preaching "communism" (that is, the communism of the 20th century that we know very well, which doesn't just mean the Soviet Union and friends, it means communism in general, even the communism before the Soviet Union as an ideology) will never give birth to a proletarian revolutionary movement

What should be "preached" is the merger formula. It's no good "preaching" things like historic but past labour disputes devoid of any political content, let alone both class content and "socialist" content.

it would be external from the proletariat itself

Um, both Socialist consciousness and basic Political consciousness originate from outside the class movement, if not necessarily the class as a whole.

Rafiq

18th March 2012, 18:35

Not necessarily, comrade. The Utopian Socialists coughed up the Socialist program and Socialist consciousness. The political legacy of Marx and Engels was in the merger formula, doing what the Utopian Socialists refused to do re. engaging the working class.

But a class conscious was present, no? This is something we no longer have.

Um, that's the whole point of agency. I don't subscribe to "communization" theory. The communist mode of production is the maximum program, the end goal, etc.

What I am trying to say, is that Communism is an ideology, a reflection of hte interests of the proletariat. But, since the 1990's, this has not been the case, therefore communism in general has been something external from the worker's movement since then. This is why people see proletarians as merely potential converts to communism to achieve their end goal society, which is completely alien to Marxism.

From the German Ideology:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, (or) an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

What should be "preached" is the merger formula. It's no good "preaching" things like historic but past labour disputes devoid of any political content, let alone both class content and "socialist" content.

But in regards to the merger formula: What is the base? Is it the proletariat or Socialism? It must be the proletariat. The proletariat must proceed socialism, for socialism must be a tool of the proletariat, and not the other way around.

Um, both Socialist consciousness and basic Political consciousness originate from outside the class movement, if not necessarily the class as a whole.

Socialism and Communism were both mobilized through the worker's movement. In this sense, they originate within the proletariat themselves, and all evidence of "Communism" before the worker's movement merely signifies it was transformed and adjusted to forfill their needs. Was it not the proletariat class struggle that proceeded the communist movement?

And in turn, it was Marxism that proceeded the proletarian movement of the 20th century, which is most likely what Kautsky was referring to. Of course Marxism is of absolute necessity, and something like Marxism does not arise out of no where. Communism (Proletarian dissatisfaction with present state of things, rage against the bourgeoisie, or whatever we wish to call it, etc.) , on the other hand, arises organically from the proletariat's interest as a hole. Class struggle proceeded communism, communism was merely a weapon. But Marxism is something that required to be structured outside the class movement, of course.

Rafiq

18th March 2012, 19:20

Oh, and Ismail :

http://www.revleft.com/vb/berlin-wall-t63996/index.html?t=63996

http://www.revleft.com/vb/informed-communism-were-t63659/index.html?t=63659

And to this day you still can't argue why it's such a necessity to keep citizens in socialist countries prohibited from leaving. And it's been five years.

Martin Blank

18th March 2012, 19:53

How would the working class not be hesitant?

Practical preparation. I tend to think that the main role of the proletarian communist party-organization (e.g., the Workers Party in America) is practical preparation. That is, it is part of our job to help prepare workers for the practical elements of workers' control. We should be producing literature about workplace committees and the kind of tasks workers would have to take on after driving out the owners and managers: basic bookkeeping, inventory control, supply-chain coordination, etc. If workers are prepared to step in and take control, the chances of hesitation at the moment of truth are minimized.

Wait a minute, comrade. You're really overstating the numbers of the world proletariat. It makes up at least two-thirds of the populations of developed countries, for sure, but most developing countries have proletarian demographic minorities, like India.

It depends on one's definition of the proletariat. In India's case, the number is around 55 percent. That includes the core active workforce, the underemployed and unemployed, landless peasants (who are counted separately from agricultural laborers) and temporary contract workers. In neighboring Indonesia, the percentage of the working class is considerably higher, as it is in China. You may be right that the 75 percent figure is too high, but the main point, that the working class internationally is very diverse in its experiences and opinions, is still valid. Moreover, I would still argue that the working class on a global scale is a majority of the population.

Actually, what Lenin said goes back to the French Marxist Jules Guesde about the forward-thinking proletariat and the less political workers.

Actually, it goes all the way back to Marx, but he wasn't as concise on the issue as Lenin or Guesde.

Die Neue Zeit

18th March 2012, 20:30

What I am trying to say, is that Communism is an ideology, a reflection of hte interests of the proletariat. But, since the 1990's, this has not been the case, therefore communism in general has been something external from the worker's movement since then. This is why people see proletarians as merely potential converts to communism to achieve their end goal society, which is completely alien to Marxism.

Like you said, there isn't much of a worker-class movement, either (mere "labour movements" don't count). Per derisive left-com terminology, there must be volunteers willing to step up to the plate and re-forge the worker-class movement, like Lassalle, Bebel, and W. Liebknecht.

But in regards to the merger formula: What is the base? Is it the proletariat or Socialism? It must be the proletariat. The proletariat must proceed socialism, for socialism must be a tool of the proletariat, and not the other way around.

Neither, really: It is the worker-class movement, not "the class as a whole" on one side or Socialism on the other.

Class struggle proceeded communism, communism was merely a weapon. But Marxism is something that required to be structured outside the class movement, of course.

That's true.

Die Neue Zeit

18th March 2012, 20:37

Practical preparation. I tend to think that the main role of the proletarian communist party-organization (e.g., the Workers Party in America) is practical preparation. That is, it is part of our job to help prepare workers for the practical elements of workers' control. We should be producing literature about workplace committees and the kind of tasks workers would have to take on after driving out the owners and managers: basic bookkeeping, inventory control, supply-chain coordination, etc. If workers are prepared to step in and take control, the chances of hesitation at the moment of truth are minimized.

Comrade, perhaps even the proletarian elements of Revolutionary Social Democracy downplayed the role of "practical preparation" (conversely, underestimating the potential for Alternative Culture even while organizing a lot) in defining an actual revolutionary period for the working class.

It depends on one's definition of the proletariat. In India's case, the number is around 55 percent. That includes the core active workforce, the underemployed and unemployed, landless peasants (who are counted separately from agricultural laborers) and temporary contract workers. In neighboring Indonesia, the percentage of the working class is considerably higher, as it is in China. You may be right that the 75 percent figure is too high, but the main point, that the working class internationally is very diverse in its experiences and opinions, is still valid. Moreover, I would still argue that the working class on a global scale is a majority of the population.

The diversity argument is valid, but I don't think India's landless peasants are proletarians (as opposed to the contract workers, full-time farm workers, etc.). Aren't they the same as tenant farmers?

Anyway, this second part about the potential for Third World Caesarean Socialism is off-topic, so I'll leave this part of the discussion at that and for another thread at another time.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

18th March 2012, 20:50

Die Neue Zeit

18th March 2012, 20:56

Then the workers don't want it and communists should leave it at that and intensify the criticism of the pluralism when there's a societal breakdown. The task is to convince the class movement and the class as a whole of the necessity of a genuine one-party system.

A Marxist Historian

18th March 2012, 21:08

This is ignorant nonsense. Lenin wrote two hefty pamphlets denouncing Trotsky’s bureaucratic “shake-up” shit.

‘THE TRADE UNIONS, THE PRESENT SITUATIONAND TROTSKY'S MISTAKES’

And

‘Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin’

Lenin said:“The net result is that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky's and Bukharin's theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky's "theses" are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject it.” (Prolonged, stormy applause.)

Published in pamphlet form
in 1921

Published according to the pamphlet

text collated with the verbaum re-

port edited by Lenin

Threetune, this is a total nosequitur.

Especially since Zinoviev, the Bolshevik leader who actually did directly advocate a single party state after Lenin died, was the main organizer for Lenin's faction.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

18th March 2012, 21:23

Question for anybody who supports a single-party state:

What if the people (the working class) do not want a single-party state? Here is my understanding:

If you have the political power of the state, you overrule the people because, as materialists, we understand that class struggle is all about power (wealth, income, living standards can be seen as functions of power, rather than its entire encapsulation). Thus, the creation of the single-party state, in most cases, can be seen as a failure to either understand or abide by principles of Socialist democracy.

This does remind one of the famous poem by Bertold Brecht, written at the time of the 1953 working class rebellion in East Germany.

"The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of JuneThe Secretary of the Writers UnionHad leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeStating that the peopleHad forfeited the confidence of the governmentAnd could win it back onlyBy redoubled efforts. Would it not be easierIn that case for the governmentTo dissolve the peopleAnd elect another?"Of course, I suppose this is not the immediate issue at hand, as our advocates here of a single party state as the ideal are under the impression that this is in fact what the people would want.

Which might even be true on occasion, I rather expect that during the 1920s the majority of the population of the USSR were perfectly happy with a single party state. Indeed, possibly the majority of the Chinese population are still in favor of single party CCP rule right now, it's hard to tell.

But that's besides the point as to whether it's a good idea or not. I think it was fairly inevitable in the particular situation of the 1920s in the USSR, but a bad idea as a general proposition.

-M.H.-

Vladimir Innit Lenin

19th March 2012, 14:41

Generally, if a group of people improve the economic situation for the majority, then the majority will probably - initially - put up with a democratic deficit.

But if we are talking of the developed nations, clearly one can see that a single party state would actually be a backwards step in this regard. There is little chance that Socialist revolution in developed nations will improve AVERAGE living standards (i.e. GDP per capita) immensely; rather just implement a more democratic economic and political sphere.

Threetune

19th March 2012, 17:56

Threetune, this is a total nosequitur.

Especially since Zinoviev, the Bolshevik leader who actually did directly advocate a single party state after Lenin died, was the main organizer for Lenin's faction.

-M.H.-
Ha, it’s you’re comment that is the ‘non sequitur’. I was simply responding to an earlyer lame attempt on this thread at painting Trotsky as the ‘good guy’ who was allegedly so democratic etc. But you now attempt to sidetrack away from Trotsky’s “shake-up” bureaucratic idiocy, wanting as he did, to militarise the trades unions.

The bloke was an insufferable little bureaucrat who got told to piss-off by the democratic Bolsheviks on this trade unions issue, and many other issues before that, regardless of his necessary usefulness as an ultra authoritarian figure in the war when militarisation was required.

As Lenin correctly said: “The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions.”

eyeheartlenin on this thread said:

“Trotsky had a different idea. In his Transitional Program, there is a proposal for multiple parties in a workers' state, on the condition that each party support the conquests of the working class, the revolutionary advances. I think Trotsky's proposal has merit.”
Could he have been referring to this passage in Part Two of the TP?

‘Workers’ and Farmers’ Government’

“Of all parties and organizations which base themselves on the workers and peasants and speak in their name, we demand that they break politically from the bourgeoisie and enter upon the road of struggle for the workers’ and farmers’ government. On this road we promise them full support against capitalist reaction. At the same time, we indefatigably develop agitation around those transitional demands which should in our opinion form the program of the “workers’ and farmers’ government.”

“Is the creation of such a government by the traditional workers’ organizations possible? Past experience shows, as has already been stated, that this is, to say the least, highly improbable. However, one cannot categorically deny in advance the theoretical possibility that, under the influence of completely exceptional circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash, mass revolutionary pressure, etc.), the petty bourgeois parties, including the Stalinists, may go further than they wish along the road to a break with the bourgeoisie. In any case one thing is not to be doubted: even if this highly improbable variant somewhere at some time becomes a reality and the “workers’ and farmers’ government” in the above-mentioned sense is established in fact, it would represent merely a short episode on the road to the actual dictatorship of the proletariat.”

If so, this “proposal” only has any “merit” because Trotsky lifted it straight from the Leninist Bolsheviks program which most of the contributors on here have been sagging off. What a farce!

grendalsbane

19th March 2012, 20:56

I say no to a one party state the same as I would say no to multiple parties.

I would retain a government but each member would represent the interests of their respective county/state/etc. Their powers would restricted to the role of just an organiser, implementing any actions raised by the majority within their county/state unlike the current system of the minority making the decisions for us.

lombas

19th March 2012, 22:33

I genuinely support a no-party state.

KlassWar

19th March 2012, 22:39

I support direct worker power through genuine Soviets, One Big Union or similar institutions of proletarian rule.

Hard Left factions should have freedom of agitation, organization and propaganda, but the parties themselves shouldn't hold direct power. That's the workers' role.

Vanguard parties ought to be teachers, advisors and organizers for the working class, not their masters.

Yefim Zverev

20th March 2012, 01:45

Yes votes are "red" and blue votes are "no" for a reason....

Red : True communists

A Marxist Historian

20th March 2012, 08:19

Ha, it’s you’re comment that is the ‘non sequitur’. I was simply responding to an earlyer lame attempt on this thread at painting Trotsky as the ‘good guy’ who was allegedly so democratic etc. But you now attempt to sidetrack away from Trotsky’s “shake-up” bureaucratic idiocy, wanting as he did, to militarise the trades unions.

The bloke was an insufferable little bureaucrat who got told to piss-off by the democratic Bolsheviks on this trade unions issue, and many other issues before that, regardless of his necessary usefulness as an ultra authoritarian figure in the war when militarisation was required.

As Lenin correctly said: “The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions.”

Nope, total nosequitur, as you dragged the "militarization of labor" idea, which by the way Lenin at first supported, into an entirely different discussion altogether. If you don't know what that discussion is, reread the OP. Apples and oranges.

I think Trotsky was off on that one, but elevating this temporary disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky, which only lasted 2-3 months, into some sort of big deal was just one of Stalin and Zinoviev's factional ploys. That happy pair are the "Bolshevik democrats" you are praising.

Basically, until NEP was adopted the party was going in circles trying to do the impossible, and if one follows the "war communism" ultraleft path, which by the way is exactly what all our "left coms" here on Revleft advocate, something like militarizing labor would be the only way to make it work, temporarily.

The solution was the NEP, which as it happens Trotsky was the first Bolshevik leader to advocate. The peasant uprisings and finally Kronstadt made that step back towards capitalism unavoidable in the eyes of Lenin as well.

-M.H.-

Kornilios Sunshine

20th March 2012, 08:51

lombas

20th March 2012, 09:07

Brosip Tito

20th March 2012, 14:01

We are having a double party goverment here in Greece and it's crap. I would prefer a single party goverment but NOT from parties such as PASOK and ND or LAOS who have destroyed our people and workers!
So, you want a single party capitalist state.

What about during the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Should a Left-Communist party, a Luxemburgist party and a Trotskyist Party be able to contend for the government positions? Or should it just be the one party?

Threetune

21st March 2012, 21:15

Nope, total nosequitur, as you dragged the "militarization of labor" idea, which by the way Lenin at first supported, into an entirely different discussion altogether. If you don't know what that discussion is, reread the OP. Apples and oranges.

I think Trotsky was off on that one, but elevating this temporary disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky, which only lasted 2-3 months, into some sort of big deal was just one of Stalin and Zinoviev's factional ploys. That happy pair are the "Bolshevik democrats" you are praising.

Basically, until NEP was adopted the party was going in circles trying to do the impossible, and if one follows the "war communism" ultraleft path, which by the way is exactly what all our "left coms" here on Revleft advocate, something like militarizing labor would be the only way to make it work, temporarily.

The solution was the NEP, which as it happens Trotsky was the first Bolshevik leader to advocate. The peasant uprisings and finally Kronstadt made that step back towards capitalism unavoidable in the eyes of Lenin as well.

-M.H.-

Well well well, and I even went to the bother of digging out the Trotsky quote that ‘eyeheartlenin’ was alluding to in order to clarify the matter, never mind, I won’t quibble.

You say: “I think Trotsky was off on that one, but elevating this temporary disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky, which only lasted 2-3 months, into some sort of big deal was just one of Stalin and Zinoviev's factional ploys. That happy pair are the "Bolshevik democrats" you are praising.

Oh, he was “off on that one” was he? Do you mean he was having a bad day?
Oh no, you think he was having a bad 3 months – try 24 years! Between 1903 and 1927 when he was finally expelled from the party after nearly a quarter of a century of carping opposition Trotsky was relentlessly hammered by Lenin.

Once again, this is what Lenin had to say about the man you want to defend for his claimed ‘meritorious’ ideas about the party. What a Joke.

************************************************** *************

LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY</SPAN>

1)

It is very important to note that the following statements about Trotsky’s ideas, tactics, and personality were made by Lenin, not Stalin.

At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P in 1903 Lenin said in the Third Speech in the Discussion on the Agrarian Programme,
“Therein lies the fundamental difference between us and the liberals, whose talk about changes and reforms ‘pollutes’ the minds of the people. If we were to set forth in detail all the demands for the abolition of serf-ownership, we should fill whole volumes. That is why we mention only the more important forms and varieties of serfdom, and leave it to our committees in the various localities to draw up and advance their particular demands in development of the general programme. Trotsky’s remark to the effect that we cannot concern ourselves with local demand is wrong, for the question...is not only a local one.”

At the same Congress Lenin made an extremely important and farsighted comment with respect to Trotsky’s theoretical wisdom. He stated,

“To come to the main subject, I must say that Comrade Trotsky has completely misunderstood Comrade Plekhanov’s fundamental idea, and his arguments have therefore evaded the gist of the matter. He has spoken of intellectuals and workers, of the class point of view and of the mass movement, but he has failed to notice a basic question: does my formulation narrow or expand the concept of a Party member? If he had asked himself that question, he would have easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov’s expands it, for (to use Martov’s own correct expression) what distinguishes his concept is its ‘elasticity.’ And in the period of Party life that we are now passing through it is just this ‘elasticity’ that undoubtedly opens the door to all elements of confusion, vacillation, and opportunism. To refute this simple and obvious conclusion it has to be proved that there are no such elements; but it has not even occurred to Comrade Trotsky to do that. Nor can that be proved, for everyone knows that such elements exist in plenty, and they are to be found in the working class too....
Comrade Trotsky completely misinterpreted the main idea of my book, What Is To Be Done? when he spoke about the Party not being a conspiratorial organization. He forgot that in my book I propose a number of various types of organizations, from the most secret and most exclusive to comparatively broad and ‘loose’ organizations. He forgot that the Party must be only the vanguard, the leader of the vast masses of the working class, the whole (or nearly the whole) of which works ‘under the control and direction’ of the Party organizations, but the whole of which does not and should not belong to a ‘party.’ Now let us see what conclusions Comrade Trotsky arrives at in consequence of his fundamental mistake. He had told us here that if rank after rank of workers were arrested, and all the workers were to declare that they did not belong to the Party, our Party would be a strange one indeed! Is it not the other way round? Is it not Comrade Trotsky’s argument that is strange? He regards as something sad that which a revolutionary with any experience at all would only rejoice at. If hundreds and thousands of workers who were arrested for taking part in strikes and demonstrations did not prove to be members of Party organizations, it would only show that we have good organizations, and that we are fulfilling our task of keeping a more or less limited circle of leaders secret and drawing the broadest possible masses into the movement.”

In an article written in 1905 entitled “Social-Democracy and the Provisional Revolutionary Government” Lenin spoke of Parvus and said,
“He openly advocated (unfortunately, together with the windbag Trotsky in a foreward to the latter’s bombastic pamphlet ‘Before the Ninth of January’) the idea of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, the idea that it was the duty of Social-Democrats to take part in the provisional revolutionary government after the overthrow of the autocracy.”

Later in the same article Lenin stated,
“It would be extremely harmful to entertain any illusions on this score. If that windbag Trotsky now writes (unfortunately, side by side with Parvus) that a Father Gapon could appear only once,’ that ‘there is no room for a second Gapon,’ he does so simply because he is a windbag. If there were no room in Russia for a second Gapon, there would be no room for a truly ‘great’ consummated democratic revolution.”

In a 1904 letter to Stasova, Lengnik, and others Lenin stated,
A new pamphlet by Trotsky came out recently, under the editorship of *Iskra*, as was announced. This makes it the “Credo” as it were of the new Iskra. The pamphlet is a pack of brazen lies, a distortion of the facts.... The pamphlet is a slap in the face both for the present Editorial Board of the C.O. and for all Party workers. Reading a pamphlet of this kind you can see clearly that the “Minority” has indulged in so much lying and falsehood that it will be incapable of producing anything viable....”

In a 1905 article entitled “Wrathful Impotence” Lenin stated,
‘We shall remind the reader that even Mr. Struve, who has often voiced sympathy in principle with Trotsky, Starover, Akimov, and Martynov, and with the new-Iskra trends in general and the new-Iskra Conference in particular--even Mr. Struve was in his time obliged to acknowledge that theirstand is not quite a correct one, or rather quite an incorrect one.”

At the 1907 Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P Lenin stated,
“A few words about Trotsky. He spoke on behalf of the ‘Centre,’ and expressed the views of the Bund. He fulminated against us for introducing our ‘unacceptable’ resolution. He threatened an outright split, the withdrawal of the Duma group, which is supposedly offended by our resolution. I emphasize these words. I urge you to reread our resolution.... When Trotsky stated: ‘Your unacceptable resolution prevents your right ideas being put into effect,’ I called out to him: ‘Give us your resolution!’ Trotsky replied: ‘No first withdraw yours.’ A fine position indeed for the ‘Centre’ to take, isn’t it? Because of our (in Trotsky’s opinion) mistake (‘tactlessness’) he punishes the whole Party.... Why did you not get your resolution passed, we shall be asked in the localities. Because the Centre (for whom Trotsky was speaking) took umbrage at it, and in a huff refused to set forth its own principles! That is a position based not on principle, but on the Centre’s lack of principle.”

Speaking at the same Congress Lenin objected to Trotsky’s amendments to the Bolshevik resolution on the attitude towards bourgeois parties by saying,
“It must be agreed that Trotsky’s amendment is not Menshevik, that it expresses the ‘very same,’ that is, bolshevik, idea. But Trotsky has expressed this idea in a way that is scarcely better (than the Menshevik--Ed.).... Trotsky’s insertion is redundant, for we are not fishing for unique cases in the resolution, but are laying down the basic line of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois Russian revolution.”

While later discussing the same issue (the attitude the party should have toward bourgeois parties) Lenin said,
“The question of the attitude of Social-Democracy towards bourgeois parties is one of those known as ‘general’ or ‘theoretical’ questions, i.e., such that are not directly connected with any definite practical task confronting the Party at a given moment. At theLondon Congress of the R.S.D.L.P, the Mensheviks and the Bundists conducted a fierce struggle against the inclusion of such questions in the agenda, and they were, unfortunately, supported in this by Trotsky, who does not belong to either side. The opportunistic wing of our Party (notice that that is the group with which Trotsky allied himself--Ed.) like that of other Social-Democratic parties, defended a ‘business-like’ or ‘practical’ agenda for the Congress. They shied away from ‘broad and general’ questions. They forgot that in the final analysis broad, principled politics are the only real, practical politics. They forgot that anybody who tackles partial problems without having previously settled general problems, will inevitably and at every step ‘come up against’ those general problems without himself realizing it. To come up against them blindly in every individual case means to doom one’s politics to the worst vacillation and lack of principle.”
And it is quite clear to which philosophy Trotsky adhered.

************************************************** *************

LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY

2)
List of statements about Trotsky by Lenin:

In 1909 Lenin wrote an article entitled “The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in our Revolution” and said the following,
“As for Trotsky, whom Comrade Martov has involved in the controversy of third parties which he has organized...we positively cannot go into a full examination of his views here. A separate article of considerable length would be needed for this. By just touching upon Trotsky’s mistaken views, and quoting scraps of them, Comrade Martov only sows confusion in the mind of the reader.... Trotsky’s major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. This major mistake leads to those mistakes on side issues which Comrade Martov repeats when he quotes a couple of them with sympathy and approval. Not to leave matters in the confused state to which Comrade Martov has reduced them by his exposition, we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky which have won approval of Comrade Martov.”

Later in the same article Lenin states,
“Trotsky’s second statement quoted by Comrade Martov is wrong too. It is not true that ‘the whole question is, who will determine the government’s policy, who will constitute a homogeneous majority in it,’ and so forth. And it is particularly untrue when Comrade Martov uses it as an argument against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Trotsky himself, in the course of his argument, concedes that ‘representatives of the democratic population will take part’ in the ‘workers’ government,’ i.e., concedes that there will be a government consisting of representatives of the proletariat AND the peasantry.
On what terms the proletariat will take part in the government of the revolution is quite another question, and it is quite likely that on this question the Bolsheviks will disagree not only with Trotsky, but also with the Polish Social-Democrats.”
Notice how Lenin does not consider Trotsky to be a bolshevik.

And finally, Lenin also states in the same article,
“In any case, Comrade Martov’s conclusion that the conference agreed with Trotsky, of all people, on the question of the relations between the proletariat and the peasantry in the struggle for power is an amazing contradiction of the facts, is an attempt to read into a word a meaning that was never discussed, not mentioned, and not even thought of at the conference.”

In 1910 Lenin wrote several articles in which he said the following:
Article= “Faction of Supporter of Otzovism and God-Building” in which he said,
“The ‘point’ was that the Mensheviks (through the mouth of Trotsky in 1903-04) had to declare: the old Iskra and the new ones are poles apart.”

Article= “Notes of a Publicist” in which he said,
“With touching unanimity the liquidators and the otzovists are abusing the Bolsheviks up hill and down dale. The Bolsheviks are to blame, the Bolshevik Centre is to blame.... But the strongest abuse from Axelrod and Alexinsky only serves to screen their complete failure to understand the meaning and importance of Party unity. Trotsky’s resolution only differs outwardly from the ‘effusions’ of Axelrod and Alexinsky. It is drafted very ‘cautiously’ and lays claim to ‘above faction’ fairness. But what is its meaning? The ‘Bolshevik leaders’ are to blame for everything--this is the same ‘philosophy of history’ as that of Axelrod and Alexinsky....

This question needs only to be put for one to see how hollow are the eloquent phrases in Trotsky’s resolution, to see how in reality they serve to defend the very position held by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co.... In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, “conciliation” in inverted commas, or a sectarian and philistine conciliation....

It is in this that the enormous difference lies between real partyism, which consists in purging the Party of liquidationism and otzovism, and the‘conciliation’ of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most faithful service to the liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore *an evil* that is all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly, artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-Party, professedly anti-factional declamations.”
Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. 16, pages 209-211

Later Lenin stated, “The draft of this resolution was submitted to the Central Committee by myself, and the clause in question was altered by the plenum itself after the commission had finished its work; it was altered on the motion of Trotsky, against whom I fought without success.”
Ibid. page 215

And this was later followed by,
“Here you have the material--little, but characteristic material--which makes it clear how empty Trotsky’s and Yonov’s phrases are.”

Referring to Trotsky’s stance while discussing liquidationism Lenin says,
“Of this we shall speak further on, where it be our task to demonstrate the utter superficiality of the view taken by Trotsky....”

In another stinging indictment in the same article Lenin says,
“Hence the ‘conciliatory’ efforts of Trotsky and Yonov are not ridiculous and miserable. These efforts can only be explained by a complete failure to understand what is taking place. They are harmless efforts now, for there is no one behind them except the sectarian diplomats abroad, except ignorance and lack of intelligence in some out-of-the-way places.”

Continuing in the same vein, Lenin states,
“The heinous crime of *spineless ‘conciliators’* like Yonov and Trotsky, who defend or justify these people, is that they are causing their ruin by making them more dependent on liquidationism....
That this position of Yonov and Trotsky is wrong should have been obvious to them for the simple reason that it is refuted by facts.”

In an article entitled “How certain Social-Democrats Inform the International About the State of Affairs in the R.S.D.L.P.” Lenin stated,
“Yes, it is the ‘non-factional’ Comrade Trotsky, who has no compunction about openly advertising his faction’s propaganda sheet.”

In an article written in 1910 entitled “An Open Letter to All Pro-Party Social-Democrats” Lenin said about Trotsky,
“If Trotsky and similar advocates of the liquidators and otzovists declare this rapprochement ‘devoid of political content,’ such speeches testify only to Trotsky’s *entire lack of principle*, the real hostility of his policy to the policy of the actual (and not merely confined to promises) abolition of factions.”

************************************************** *************
LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY

3)
List of denunciations of Trotsky by Lenin continues:

In a 1911 letter “To the Central Committee” Lenin said,
“We resume our freedom of struggle against the liberals and *anarchists*, who are being encouraged by the leader of the ‘conciliators,’ Trotsky. The question of the money is for us a secondary matter, although of course we do not intend to hand over the money of the faction to the bloc of liquidators+anarchists+Trotsky, while in no way renouncing our right to expose before the international Social-Democratic movement this bloc, its financial ‘basis’ (the notorious Vperyodist ‘funds’ safeguarded from exposure by Trotsky and the Golosists).”

Later Lenin says,
“There has been a full development of what was already outlined quite clearly at the plenum (for instance, *the defence of the anarchist school, by Trotsky* + the Golosists). The bloc of liberals and anarchists with the aid of the conciliators is shamelessly destroying the remnants of the Party from outside and helping to demoralize it from within. The formalistic game of ‘inviting’ the Golosists and Trotskyists on to the central bodies is finally reducing to impotence the already weakened pro-Party elements.”

In a 1911 article entitled “Historical Meaning of Inner-Party Struggle in Russia” Lenin commented,
“The theory that the struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is a struggle for influence over an immature proletariat is not a new one. We have been encountering it since 1905 in innumerable books, pamphlets, and articles in the liberal press. Martov and Trotsky are putting before the German comrades *liberal views with a Marxist coating*....”
Trotsky declares: ‘It is an illusion’ to imagine that Menshevism and Bolshevism ‘have struck deep roots in the depths of the proletariat.’ This is a specimen of the resonant but empty phrases of which our Trotsky is a master. The roots of the divergence between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks lie, not in the ‘depths of the proletariat,’ but in the economic content of the Russian revolution. By ignoring this content, Martov and Trotsky have deprived themselves of the possibility of understanding the historical meaning of the inner-Party struggle in Russia.”

Later in the same article Lenin states,
“For the same reason Trotsky’s argument that splits in the International Social-Democratic movement are caused by the ‘process of adaptation of the social-revolutionary class to the limited (narrow) conditions of parliamentarism,’ while in the Russian Social-Democratic movement they are caused by the adaptation of the intelligentsia to the proletariat, is *absolutely false*.
Trotsky writes.... This truly ‘unrestrained’ phrase-mongering is merely the ‘ideological shadow’ of liberalism. Both Martov and Trotsky mix up different historical periods and compare Russia, which is going through her bourgeois revolution, with Europe, where these revolutions were completed long ago.”

Subsequently Lenin says,
“As regards boycotting the trade unions and the local self-government bodies, what Trotsky says is *absolutely untrue*. It is equally untrue to say that boycottism runs through the whole history of Bolshevism.... *Trotsky distorts Bolshevism*, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution.”

In the same article Lenin said regarding Trotsky,
“It is not true. And this untruth expresses, firstly, *Trotsky’s utter lack of theoretical understanding*. Trotsky has absolutely failed to understand why the plenum described both liquidationism and otzovism as a ‘manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat’.
Secondly, in practice, this untruth expresses the ‘policy’ of advertisement pursued by Trotsky’s faction. That Trotsky’s venture is an attempt to create a faction is now obvious to all, since Trotsky has removed the Central Committee’s representative from Pravda. In advertising his faction Trotsky does not hesitate to tell the Germans that the Party is falling to pieces, that both factions are falling to pieces and that he, Trotsky, alone, is saving the situation. Actually, we all see now--and the latest resolution adopted by the Trotskyists in the name of the Vienna Club, on November 26, 1910 proves this quite conclusively--that *Trotsky enjoys the confidence exclusively of the liquidators and the Vperyodists*.

The extent of *Trotsky’s shamelessness* in belittling the Party and exalting himself before the Germans is shown, for instance, by the following. Trotsky writes that the ‘working masses’ in Russia consider that the ‘Social-Democratic Party stands outside their circle’ and he talks of ‘Social-Democrats without Social-Democracy.
How could one expect Mr. Potresov and his friends to refrain from bestowing kisses on Trotsky for such statements?
But these statements are refuted not only by the entire history of the revolution, but even by the results of the elections to the Third Duma from the workers’ curia....

That is what Trotsky writes. But the facts are as follows....
When Trotsky gives the German comrades a detailed account of the stupidity of ‘otzovism’ and describes this trend as a ‘crystallization’ of the boycottism characteristic of Bolshevism as a whole...the German reader certainly gets no idea how much subtle *perfidy* there is in such an exposition. Trotsky’s Jesuitical ‘reservation’ consists in omitting a small, very small ‘detail.’ He ‘forgot’ to mention that at an official meeting of its representatives held as far back as the spring of 1909, the Bolshevik faction repudiated and expelled the otzovists. But it is just this ‘detail’ that is inconvenient for Trotsky, who wants to talk of the ‘falling to pieces’ of the Bolshevik faction (and then of the Party as well) and not of the falling away of the non-Social-Democratic elements!....

...Trotsky, on the other hand, represents only his own personal vacillations and nothing more. In 1903 he as a Menshevik; he abandoned Menshevism in 1904, returned to the Mensheviks in 1905 and merely flaunted ultra- revolutionary phrases; in 1906 he left them again; at the end of 1906 he advocated electoral agreements with the Cadets (i.e., he was in once more with the Mensheviks); and the spring of 1907, at the London Congress, he said that he differed from Rosa Luxemburg on “individual shades of ideas rather than on political tendencies”. One day Trotsky *plagiarizes* from the ideological stock-in-trade of one faction; the next day he plagiarizes from that of another, and therefore declares himself to be standing above both factions. In theory Trotsky is on no point in agreement with either the liquidators or the otzovists, but in actual practice he is in entire agreement with both the Golosists and the Vperyodists.

Therefore, when Trotsky tells the German comrades that he represents the ‘general Party tendency,’ I am obliged to declare that Trotsky represents only his own faction and enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators. The following facts prove the correctness of my statement.”

After listing his facts and referring to ‘Trotsky’s anti-Party policy’ Lenin states,
“Let the readers now judge for themselves whether Trotsky represents a ‘general Party,’ or a ‘general anti-Party’ trend in Russian Social-Democracy.”

************************************************** *************
LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY
(4

On-going expose of Lenin’s Opinion of Trotsky continues:

In an article entitled “Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin attacked Trotsky by saying,
“Trotsky’s call for ‘friendly’ collaboration by the Party with the Golos and Vperyod groups is *disgusting hypocrisy and phrase-mongering*. Everybody is aware that for the whole year since the Plenary Meeting the Golos and Vperyod groups have worked in a ‘friendly’ manner against the Party (and were secretly supported by Trotsky). Actually, it is only the Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group who have for a whole year carried out friendly Party work in the Central Organ. Trotsky’s attacks on the bloc of Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group are not new; what is new is the outcome of his resolution: the Vienna Club (read “Trotsky”) has organized a ‘general Party fund for the purpose of preparing and
convening a conference of the RSDLP

This indeed is new. It is a direct step towards a split. It is *a clear violation of Party legality* and the start of an adventure in which Trotsky will come to grief. This is obviously a split.... It is quite possible and probable that ‘certain’ Vperyod ‘funds’ will be made available to Trotsky. You will appreciate that this will only stress the adventurist character of his undertaking.
It is clear that this undertaking violates Party legality, since not a word is said about the Central Committee, which alone can call the conference. In addition, Trotsky, having ousted the C.C. representative on Pravda in August 1910, himself *lost all trace of legality*, converting Pravda from an organ supported by the representative of the C.C. into a purely factional organ....
Taking advantage of this, ‘violation of legality,’ Trotsky seeks an organisational split, creating ‘his own’ fund for ‘his own’ conference.”

After this critique of Trotsky, Lenin really comes down solid on him by stating,
“You will understand why I call Trotsky’s move an adventure; it is an adventure in every respect. It is an adventure in the ideological sense. *Trotsky groups all the enemies of Marxism*, he unites Potresov and Maximov, who detest the ‘Lenin-Plekhanov’ bloc, as they like to call it. *Trotsky unites all to whom ideological decay is dear*, *all who are not
concerned with the defence of Marxism*; *all philistines* who do not understand the reasons for the struggle and who do not wish to learn, think, and discover the ideological roots of the divergence of views. At this time of confusion, disintegration, and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the ‘hero of the hour’ and *gather all the shabby elements around himself*. The more openly this attempt is made, the more spectacular will be the defeat.

It is an adventure in the party-political sense. At present everything goes to show that the real unity of the Social-Democratic Party is possible only on the basis of a sincere and unswerving repudiation of liquidationism and otzovism. It is clear that Potresov and the Vperyod group have renounced neither the one nor the other. Trotsky unites them, basely deceiving himself, *deceiving the Party, and deceiving the proletariat*. In reality, Trotsky will achieve nothing more than the strengthening of Potresov’s and Maximov’s anti-Party groups. The collapse of this adventure is inevitable.”

And Lenin concludes by saying,
“Three slogans bring out the essence of the present situation within the Party:...
3. Struggle against the splitting tactics and the *unprincipled adventurism of Trotsky* in banding Potresov and Maximov against Social-Democracy.”

In a 1910 article entitled “The State of Affairs in the Party” Lenin again attacks Trotsky’s anti-Party stance by saying,
“...Trotsky’s statement of November 26, 1910...completely distorts the essence of the matter. Martov’s article and Trotsky’s resolution conceal definite practical actions--actions directed against the Party....
Trotsky’s resolution, which calls upon organizations inthe localities to prepare for a “general Party conference” independent of, and against, the Central Committee, expresses the very aim of the Golos group--to destroy the central bodies so detested by the liquidators, and with them, the Party as an organization. It is not enough to lay bare the anti-Party activities of Golos and Trotsky; they must be fought.

In the same article Lenin states,
“When Trotsky, in referring to the Meeting’s decisions on Pravda, fails to mention this fact, all one can say about it is that *he is deceiving the workers*. And this deception on the part of Trotsky is all the more *malicious*, since in August Trotsky removed the representative of the Central Committee from Pravda....
Therefore, we declare, in the name of the Party as a whole, that Trotsky is pursuing an anti-Party policy....
Trotsky is trying again and again to evade the question by passing it over in silence or by phrase-mongering; *for he is concerned to keep the readers and the Party ignorant of the truth*, namely that Potresov’s group, the group of sixteen, are absolutely independent of the Party, represent expressly distinct factions, are not only doing nothing to revive the illegal organization, but are obstructing its revival, and are not pursuing any Social-Democratic tactics.

*Trotsky is concerned with keeping the Party ignorant of the truth*, namely, that the Golos group represent a faction abroad, similarly separated from the Party, and that they actually render service to the liquidators in Russia....
Trotsky maintains silence on this undeniable truth, because *the truth is detrimental to the real aims of his policy*. The real aims, however, are becoming clearer and more obvious even to the least far-sighted Party members. They are” an anti-Party block of the Potresovs with the Vperyod group--a bloc which Trotsky supports and is organizing.”

Lenin later states,
“We must again explain the fundamentals of Marxism to these masses; the defence of Marxist theory is again on the order of the day. When Trotsky declares that the rapprochement between the pro-Party Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks is ‘devoid of political content’ and ‘unstable,’ he is thereby merely revealing *the depths of his own ignorance*, he is thereby demonstrating *his own complete emptiness*.”

Lenin later follows this up with,
“...Trotsky, who is in the habit of joining any group that happens to be in the majority at the moment....
Trotsky’s policy is adventurism in the organisational sense; for, as we have already pointed out, it violates Party legality....”

************************************************** *************
LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY
(5

Continuing revelation of Lenin’s Opinion of Trotsky proceeds apace:

In a 1911 article entitled “Judas Trotsky’s Blush of Shame” Lenin states,
“At the Plenary Meeting *Judas Trotsky* made a big show of fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore that he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy....
Judas expelled the representative of the Central Committee from Pravda and began to write liquidationist articles....
And it is this Judas who beats his breast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators.
Such is Judas Trotsky’s blush of shame.”

In a leaflet published in 1911 entitled “Resolution Adopted by the Second Paris Group of the R.S.D.L.P. on the State of Affairs in the Party” Lenin addressed this same theme by saying,
“People like Trotsky, with his inflated phrases about the R.S.D.L.P. and his *toadying* to the liquidators, who have nothing in common with the R.S.D.L.P., today represent ‘*the prevalent disease*.’ They are trying to build up a career for themselves by cheap sermons about ‘agreement’--agreement with all and sundry, right down to Mr. Potresov and the otzovists.... Actually they preach surrender to the liquidators who are building a Stolypin labour party.”

And in the 1911 article entitled “From the Camp of the Stolypin Labour Party” Lenin revisits this issue by saying,
“Hence it is clear that Trotsky and the ‘Trotskyites and conciliators’ like him are *more pernicious than any liquidators*; the convinced liquidators state their views bluntly, and it is easy for the workers to detect where they are wrong, whereas the *Trotskys deceive the workers*, *cover up the evil*, and make it impossible to expose the evil and to remedy it. *Whoever supports Trotsky’s puny group supports a policy of lying and of deceiving the workers*, a policy of shielding the liquidators. Full freedom of action for Potresov and Co. in Russia, and the shielding of their deeds by ‘revolutionary’ phrase-mongering abroad--there you have the essence of the policy of ‘Trotskyism’.”

In an article entitled “The New Faction of Conciliators, or the Virtuous” Lenin stated,
Trotsky expressed conciliationism more consistently than anyone else. He was probably the only one who attempted to give the trend a theoretical foundation, namely: factions and factionalism express the struggle of the intelligentsia “for influence over the immature proletariat”.... For a long time now, Trotsky--who at one moment has wavered more to the side of the Bolsheviks and at another more to that of the Mensheviks--has been persistently carrying on propaganda for an agreement (or compromise) between all and sundry factions.

“But after it, every since the spring of 1910 Trotsky has been *deceiving the workers in a most unprincipled and shameless manner* by assuring them that the obstacles to unity were principally (if not wholly) of an organizational nature. This deceit is being continued in 1911 by the Paris conciliators; for to assert now that they organizational questions occupy the first place is sheer mockery of the truth. In reality, it is by no means the organizational question that is now in the forefront, but the question of the entire programme, the entire tactics and the whole character of the Party.... The conciliators call themselves Bolsheviks, in order to repeat, a year and a half later, *Trotsky’s errors* which the Bolsheviks had exposed. Well, is this not an abuse of established Party titles? Are we not obliged, after this, to let all and sundry know that the conciliators are not Bolsheviks at all, that they have nothing in common with Bolshevism, that they are simply inconsistent Trotskyites?
The only difference between Trotsky and the conciliators in Paris is that the latter regard Trotsky as a factionalist and themselves as non-factionalist, whereas Trotsky holds the opposite view....
Trotsky provides us with an abundance of instances of scheming to establish unprincipled “unity....
Trotsky was merely revealing the plan of the liquidators whom he serves faithfully....”

In a 1911 article on the same theme entitled “Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a certain Party Platform,” Lenin states,
“Trotsky’s particular task is to conceal liquidationism by throwing dust in the eyes of the workers.
It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because *Trotsky holds no views whatever*. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists;; but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide errors of both these trends; in his case the thing to do is to expose him as a *diplomat of the smallest caliber*.”

In an article entitled “Fundamental Problems of the Election Campaign” Lenin states,
“There is nothing more repugnant to the spirit of Marxism than phrase-mongering....”

And later on he states,
“But there is no point in imitating Trotsky’s inflated phrases.”

In a 1912 pamphlet entitled “The Present Situation in the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin stated,“
This is incredible, yet it is a fact. It will be useful for the Russian workers to know how *Trotsky and Co. are misleading our foreign comrades*.”

In another 1912 pamphlet entitled “Can the Slogan ‘Freedom of Association’ Serve as a Basis for the Working-Class Movement Today?” Lenin responds by saying,
“In the legal press, the liquidators headed by Trotsky argue that it can. They are doing all in their power to distort the true character of the workers’ movement. But those are hopeless efforts. The drowning of the liquidators are clutching at a straw to rescue their unjust cause.”

In a 1912 pamphlet entitled “Platform of the Reformists and the Platform of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats” Lenin stated,
“Look at the platform of the liquidators. Its liquidationist essence is artfully concealed by Trotsky’s revolutionary phrases.”
“The revolutionary Social-Democrats have given their answer to these questions, which are more interesting and important than the *philistine-Trotskyist* attitude of uncertainty; will there be a revolution or not, who can tell?....
Those, however, who preach to the masses their *vulgar, intellectualist, Bundist-Trotskyist scepticism*--’we don’t know whether there will be a revolution or not, but the current issue is reforms’--are already *corrupting the masses, preaching liberal utopias to them*.”

In the 1912 pamphlet entitled “The Illegal Party and Legal Work” Lenin again referred to Trotsky by saying,
“We have studied the ideas of liberal labour policy attired in Levitsky’s everyday clothes; it is not difficult to recognize them in *Trotsky’s gaudy apparel* as well.”

In a letter to the Editor of Pravda in 1912 Lenin said,
“I advise you to reply to Trotsky throught the post: ‘To Trotsky. We shall not reply to disruptive and slanderous letters.’ Trotsky’s dirty campaign against Pravda is one mass of lies and slander. The well-known Marxist and follower of Plekhanov, Rothstein, has written to us that he received Trotsky’s slanders and replied to him: I cannot complain of the Petersburg Pravda in any way. But this intriguer and liquidator goes onlying, right and left.
P.S. It would be still better to reply in this way to Trotsky through the post: ‘To Trotsky. You are wasting your time sending us disruptive and slanderous letters....”

In a 1913 article in Pravda Lenin really blistered Trotsky on the question of Party unity by saying,
“It is amazing that after the question has been posed so clearly and squarely we come across Trotsky’s old, pompous but perfectly meaningless phrases in Luch No. 27 (113). Not a word on the substance of the matter! *Not the slightest attempt to cite precise facts and analyze them thoroughly!* Not a hint of the real terms of unity! Empty exclamations, high-flown words, and haughty sallies against opponents whom the author does not name, and impressively important assurances--that is *Trotsky’s total stock-in-trade*.
That won’t do gentlemen.... The workers will not be intimidated or coaxed. They themselves will compare Luch and Pravda...and simply shrug off Trotsky’s verbiage....
You cannot satisfy the workers with mere phrases, no matter how ‘conciliatory’ or honeyed.
‘Our historic factions, Bolshevism and Menshevism, are purely intellectualist formations in origin,’ wrote Trotsky. This is the *repetition of a liberal tale*....
It is to the advantage of the liberals to pretend that this fundamental basis of the difference was introduced by ‘intellectuals.’ But *Trotsky merely disgraces himself by echoing a liberal tale*.

In a 1913 article entitled “Notes of a Publicist” Lenin states,
“Trotsky, doing faithful service to liquidators, assured himself and the naive ‘Europeans’ (lovers of Asiatic scandal-mongering) that the liquidators are ‘stronger’ in the legal movement. And this lie, too, is refuted by the facts.”

Lenin again blasted Trotsky in an article published in 1914 entitled “Break-up of the ‘August’ Bloc” by stating,
“Trotsky, however, has never had any ‘physiognomy’ at all; *the only thing he does have is a habit of changing sides*, of *skipping from the liberals to the Marxists and back again*, of mouthing scraps of catchwords and bombastic parrot phrases....
Actually, under cover of high-sounding, empty, and obscure phrases that confuse the non-class-conscious workers, Trotsky is defending the liquidators....
But *the liquidators and Trotsky...are the worst splitters*.”

And in an article entitled “Ideological Struggle in Working-Class Movement” Lenin states,
“People who (like the liquidators and Trotsky) ignore or falsify this twenty years’ history of the ideological struggle in the working-class movement do tremendous harm to the workers.”

************************************************** *************
LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY
(6

Ongoing revelation of what Lenin thought of Trotsky proceeds on schedule.

In a 1914 article named “Disruption of Unity” Lenin stated,
“Trotsky’s ‘workers’ journal’ is Trotsky’s journal for workers, as there is not a trace in it of either workers’ initiative, or any connection with working-class organizations....
The question arises: what has ‘chaos’ got to do with it? Everybody knows that *Trotsky is fond of high-sounding and empty phrases*.... If there is any ‘chaos’ anywhere, it is only in the heads of cranks who fail to understand this....
And that fact proves that we right in calling Trotsky a representative of the ‘worst remnants of factionalism’. Although he claims to be non-factional, Trotsky is known to everybody who is in the least familiar with the working-class movement in Russia as the representative of ‘Trotsky’s faction’.
Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for ‘non-factionalism’, as we shall soon see in greater detail,is merely a patent to flit freely to and fro, from one group to another.

To sum up:
(1) Trotsky does not explain, *nor does he understand, the historical significance of the ideological disagreements among the various Marxist trends and groups*, although these disagreements run through the twenty years’ history of Social-Democracy and concern the fundamental questions of the present day (as we shall show later on);
(2) Trotsky fails to understand that the main specific features of group-division are nominal recognition of unity and actual disunity;
(3) Under cover of ‘non-factionalism’ Trotsky is championing the interests of a group abroad which particularly lacks definite principles and has no basis in the working-class movement in Russia.
All that glitters is not gold. *There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky’s phrases, but they are meaningless*....
But joking apart (although joking is the only way of retorting mildly to Trotsky’s insufferable phrase-mongering). ‘Suicide’ is a mere empty phrase, mere ‘Trotskyism’....

If our attitude towards liquidationism is wrong in theory, in principle, then Trotsky should say so straightforwardly, and state definitely, without equivocation, why he thinks it is wrong. But Trotsky has been evading this extremely important point for years....
Trotsky is very fond of using, with the learned air of the expert, *pompous and high-sounding phrases* to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky. Since ‘numerous advanced workers’ become ‘active agents’ of a political and Party line which does not conform to Trotsky’s line, Trotsky settles the question unhesitatingly, out of hand: these advanced workers are ‘in a state of utter political bewilderment,’ whereas he, Trotsky, is evidently ‘in a state’ of political firmness and clarity, and keeps to the right line! And this very same Trotsky, beating his breast, fulminates against factionalism, parochialism, and the efforts of intellectuals to impose their will on the workers!”
“Reading things like these, one cannot help asking oneself; *is it from a lunatic asylum that such voices come*?
Trotsky is trying to disrupt the movement and cause a split.

Later in the same article Lenin states,
“Those who accused us of being splitters, of being unwilling or unable to get on with the liquidators, were themselves unable to get on with them. The August bloc proved to be a fiction and broke up.
By concealing this break-up from his readers, *Trotsky is deceiving them*.”

Still later, Lenin confronted a problem I have often encountered by stating,
“*The reason why Trotsky avoids facts and concrete references is because they relentlessly refute all his angry outcries and pompous phrases*.... Is not this weapon borrowed from the arsenal of the period when Trotsky posed in all his splendor before audiences of high-school boys?”

And finally, in the same article Lenin shatters Trotsky, his theory of Permanent Revolution, and his all consuming equivocating, with which I am thoroughly familiar, by saying,
“Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist in 1901-03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as ‘Lenin’s cudgel.’ At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i.e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that ‘between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf’. In 1904-05, he deserted the Mensheviks and
occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his **absurdly Left permanent revolution theory**. In 1906-07, he approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg.
In the period of disintegration, after long ‘non-factional’ vacillation, he again went to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with the liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although in substance he reiterates their shoddy ideas.”

In another 1914 article entitled “Objective Data on the Strength of Various Trends” Lenin commented,
“One of the greatest, if not the greatest, faults (or crimes against the working class) of the Narodniks and liquidators, as well as of the various groups of intellectuals such as the Vperyodists, Plekhanovites and Trotskyists, is their subjectivism. At every step they try to pass off their desires, their ‘views’, their appraisals of the situation and their ‘plans’, as the will of the workers, the needs of the working-class movement.”

In a article published in 1914 entitled “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” Lenin stated,
“**The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy!** Trotsky could produce no proof, except ‘private conversations” (i.e., simply *gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists*), for classifying ‘Polish Marxists’ in general as supporters of every article by Rosa Luxemburg....
Why did Trotsky withhold these facts from the readers of his journal? Only because it pays him to speculate on fomenting differences between the Polish and the Russian opponents of liquidationism and to *deceive the Russian workers* on the question of the programme.”

And now comes another comment that blows off Trotsky’s doors.
“**Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism**. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned.”

In an article first published in 1917 Lenin noted that Trotsky made a number of errors by saying,
“A number of Trotsky’s tactical and organizational errors spring from this fear....”

Still later, Lenin confronted a problem I have often encountered by stating,
“*The reason why Trotsky avoids facts and concrete references is because they relentlessly refute all his angry outcries and pompous phrases*.... Is not this weapon borrowed from the arsenal of the period when Trotsky posed in all his splendor before audiences of high-school boys?” It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany.... To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution made it clear that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth....

*Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky done a little thinking, they would have realized that they have adopted the viewpoint on the war held by governments and the bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe to the ‘political methodology of social-patriotism’, to use Trotsky’s pretentious language*.
Whoever is in favour of the slogan of ‘neither victory nor defeat’ [Trotsky] is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes....
Those who stand for the ‘neither-victory-nor-defeat’ slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of international revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments, and do not wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist task.”

And in another 1915 article labeled “The State of Affairs in Russian Social-Democracy” Lenin comments,
“Trotsky, who as always entirely disagrees with the social-chauvinists in principle, but agrees with them in everything in practice....”

In the article entitled “Socialism and War” Lenin states,
“In Russia, Trotsky, while rejecting this idea, also defends unity with the opportunist and chauvinist Nasha Zarya group.

************************************************** *************
LENIN DENOUNCES TROTSKY
(7

More on Lenin’s Opinion of Trotsky will now be presented.

In 1915 article in the Social Democrat entitled “On the Two Lines in the Revolution” Lenin comments on Trotsky’s failure to realize the importance of the peasantry by saying,
“This task is being wrongly tackled in Nashe Slovo by Trotsky, who is repeating his ‘original’ 1905 theory and refuses to give some thought to the reason why, in the course of ten years, life has been bypassing this splendid theory. From the Bolsheviks Trotsky’s original theory has borrowed their call for a decisive proletarian revolutionary struggle and for the conquest of political power by the proletariat, while from the Mensheviks it has borrowed ‘repudiation’ of the peasantry’s role. The peasantry, he asserts, are divided into strata, have become differentiated; their potential revolutionary role has dwindled more and more; in Russia a ‘national’ revolution is impossible; ‘we are living in the era of imperialism,’ says Trotsky, and ‘imperialism does not contrapose the bourgeois nation to the old regime, but the proletariat to the bourgeois nation.

...The length *Trotsky’s muddled thinking* goes to is evident from his phrase that by their resoluteness the proletariat will attract the ‘non-proletarian popular masses’ as well! Trotsky has not realized that if the proletariat induce the non-proletarian masses to confiscate the landed estates and overthrown the monarchy, then that will be the consummation of the ‘national bourgeois revolution’ in Russia; it will be a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry!.... This is such an obvious truth that not even the thousands of phrases in scores of Trotsky’s Paris articles will ‘refute’ it. *Trotsky is in fact helping the liberal-labour politicians* in Russia, who by ‘repudiation’ of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution!”

In a 1921 pamphlet entitled “The Trade Unions, the Present Situation and Trotsky’s Mistakes” Lenin drops a whole series of bombs on Trotsky’s theoretical analyses by saying,
“My principal material is Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions. When I compare it with the theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and go over it very carefully, I am amazed at the number of *theoretical mistakes and glaring blunders* it contains. How could anyone starting a big Party discussion on this question produce *such a sorry excuse for a carefully thought out statement*? Let me go over the main points which, I think, contain the original *fundamental theoretical errors*.

Trade unions are not just historically necessary; they are historically inevitable as an organization of the industrial proletariat, and, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, embrace nearly the whole of it. This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky keeps forgetting it; he neither appreciates it nor makes it his point of departure.... Within the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the trade unions stand, if I may say so, between the Party and the government. In the transition to socialism the dictatorship of the proletariat is inevitable, but it is not exercised by an organization which takes in all industrial workers. Why not?.... What happens is that the Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat.... But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organization embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organization taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class.... From this alone it is evident that there is something fundamentally wrong in principle when Comrade Trotsky points, in his first thesis, to ‘ideological confusion’, and speaks of a crisis as existing specifically and particularly in the trade unions.... *It is Trotsky who is in ‘ideological confusion’*, because in this key question of the trade unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organization. It cannot work without a number of ‘transmission belts’ running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people.

...When I consider the role of the trade unions in production, I find that Trotsky’s basic mistake lies in his always dealing with it ‘in principle,’ as a matter of ‘general principle.’ All his theses are based on ‘general principle,’ an approach which is in itself fundamentally wrong.... In general, Comrade Trotsky’s great mistake, his mistake of principle, lies in the fact that by raising the question of ‘principle’ at this time he is dragging back the Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank heaven, done with principles and have gone on to practical business. We chatted about principles--rather more than we should have--at the Smolny.

lombas

21st March 2012, 22:18

There goes the thread. Is it really necessary to quote pages and pages of other work to prove a point you already considered proven?

Threetune

21st March 2012, 22:57

manic expression

22nd March 2012, 00:15

It's quite evident that all proponents of a one party state only want "their" party in power.

However, regretfully, that's not how things work. Even in a multi party state concentration of power is the order of the day. Robert Michels wrote a nice book about such practices when describing the internal affairs of socialist parties. However, Michels didn't seem to bother with his own theses as he joined the fascists in the end.

"Your" ideal party doesn't exist because "parties" don't exist, the people behind it do. And people can change opinions, disappear, throw in their luck with someone else, &c.
I think just about anyone who feels any conviction about their political views would want their party in power as well. That is hardly a charge specific to those who promote a one-party state, it could fairly be applied to every poster on this forum.

I would, though, slightly shift your postulation on people and parties. Parties do exist, but only so much as they are organized groups of people. If we had a society with no parties, people with similar views would inevitably congregate, and then they would inevitably get together and organize themselves in a more coherent manner, and then they'd be a party even if they called themselves something else. So long as there has been politics there have been factions, no?

Geiseric

22nd March 2012, 00:54

I support a workers party to rise to power, and the workers party can compose of anybody who strives for proletarian democracy and an end to capitalism with a system based around collective ownership. That is the one party state that I support, not a one party bourgeois, monarchist, or non proletarian one.

lombas

22nd March 2012, 09:54

I think just about anyone who feels any conviction about their political views would want their party in power as well. That is hardly a charge specific to those who promote a one-party state, it could fairly be applied to every poster on this forum.

I would, though, slightly shift your postulation on people and parties. Parties do exist, but only so much as they are organized groups of people. If we had a society with no parties, people with similar views would inevitably congregate, and then they would inevitably get together and organize themselves in a more coherent manner, and then they'd be a party even if they called themselves something else. So long as there has been politics there have been factions, no?

There is a tad little bit of difference between optimates and populares on the one side, and the Republican and Democratic Parties on the other side. Factions have always existed, that is true, but they were never as institutionalized, "socialized" as in modern times (say, after WWII). There is also a difference between allying yourself with likeminded people, and having those people running an organization with a centralized, obligatory stream of theory.

Political parties nowadays run businesses, parliaments are a mockery because of party voting lines --- a very small group of people control what hundreds, thousands of people should do and say. In my country, they don't even pretend to hide this. There are party bureaus, for sure, of some tens of people --- but everyone knows they don't decide anything. True power comes from what the media cheerfully call "The Triumvirate" of party A, &c.

As for people's desire for their party being in control - yes, maybe this is a consequence of the logic that a pillarized party in society should control all aspects of government; but is that a right or good consequence? You can never have it "your" way, people change opinions &c. that will never reflect ONE party (that's why they change who they're voting for from time to time)... People voting for the same party whole their life are very rare, marginally rare. So obviously either their interests change, or parties are too flexible. Whatever the case: it would be impossible for one party to embody this flexibility if it is already impossible for the tons of parties that exist in every ("democratic") country today...

I would also like to add that for me it is very important to seperate the "party" from its "leaders". While the same party may be in control of a country for almost a century (let's take the Soviet Union), the people in and behind it change quite often. Stalin's CPSU certainly was very different from Gorbatshov's CPSU, &c. How does this flexibility in reality correspond with a desire that "one party" should remain in control?

Vladimir Innit Lenin

22nd March 2012, 10:47

I would, though, slightly shift your postulation on people and parties. Parties do exist, but only so much as they are organized groups of people. If we had a society with no parties, people with similar views would inevitably congregate, and then they would inevitably get together and organize themselves in a more coherent manner, and then they'd be a party even if they called themselves something else. So long as there has been politics there have been factions, no?

So what you're saying is that the one-party dictatorships of the 20th century were historically inevitable? C'mon.

We all know the quote about the repetition of history being a farce. But we can also see that parties have evolved. We in the UK bemoan that there are only a few hundred thousand members at most in the Labour and Tory parties, but only 200-300 years ago, such memberships would have been unthinkable. The idea of the political party has changed; people don't want to be ruled over, even if they have not come together in unity to express this sentiment yet, there have been intimations of this for some time: the UK riots, the greek resistance, Occupy, the Russian demonstrations and of course the biggest event of recent times, the Arab Spring.

So yeah, of course parties have always been composed of people, but that doesn't mean that every party has had the same make-up, decision making process, membership participation and democracy. Parties will evolve until eventually they are broad churches that facilitate participation, rather than rule. In other words, they'll become genuine mass movements, not distinct entities.

A Marxist Historian

23rd March 2012, 08:46

I understand your point and can sympathise with is to some extent. However when someone sailing under the flag of ‘Marxist Historian’ makes the lying statement that the disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky was a “temporary disagreement” …” which only lasted 2-3 months”, it is the duty of every honest revolutionary communist of whatever tendency, to put the record straight. I have done that fully for ‘the avoidance of doubt’.

Yes of course, Trotsky and Lenin were in opposite camps from 1903 until 1917, that is not exactly a secret. In the course of the 1917 Revolution, they came together, and from then on, except during the minor tiff over the trade union question in the winter of 1920-21, they were closely allied, "Lenin-Trotsky" was almost a single word in the eyes of the Russian people and the communist world. They were the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution, as everybody knew.

Whereas your "democratic Bolsheviks," Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, damn near failed the test of the 1917 Revolution altogether. Z and K's perfidy is well known, what is less well know, though thoroughly documented, is Stalin backing them behind the scenes, even advocating in spring 1917 before Lenin made it to Russia that Mensheviks and Bolsheviks should unite.

What's more, the disagreement over trade unions between Lenin and Trotsky, which became absolutely irrelevant once the NEP was adopted and forgotten, had absolutely zero to do with the earlier political warfare between Lenin and Trotsky, which had one, very simple axis.

Lenin believed, rightly, that the Bolsheviks were the revolutionary wing of Russian Social Democracy and that the Mensheviks were no damn good. Trotsky, although pretty close to the Bolsheviks and quite distant from the Mensheviks on all political questions, believed that the Russian Social Democracy needed to be one single united party.

All of Lenin's quite justified invective vs. Trotsky, and Trotsky's not at all justified invective vs. Lenin in this period, boiled down to that. So once Trotsky realized that Lenin was right, and that the Mensheviks were just no damn good, the entire basis for disagreement disappeared.

Why hadn't Trotsky realized this earlier? Because history had not yet indisputably proven this to be the case. In 1905 the Mensheviks by and large played a revolutionary role, and even during WWI, Menshevik leader Martov was an opponent of the war, unlike most socialists in the world. It wasn't really until the overthrow of the Tsar that just how counterrevolutionary the Menshevik line really was came clear.

Lenin was of course much more farsighted than Trotsky.

-M.H.-

Alan OldStudent

24th July 2013, 10:34

Whew!

I tried to slog my way through all of this. But I confess that some of it was pretty tedious to me. That clicking sound was my eyeballs rolling up into my forehead.

What really stands out to me in this thread is the variety of different opinions and positions among those on the revolutionary left. Everybody posting here considers him/herself to be a revolutionary, and I’m the last person to deny revleft participant the right to use that label.

Isn’t it ironic that so many right-wing commentators consider the left to be some kind of vast conspiratorial conspiracy of mindless robots marching in lockstep? They simply can’t imagine how fractious we leftists are.

So here’s a question for you all. When the revolution comes, if the result is a one-party state, who gets to name which one of these dozens of parties and tendencies is the true party of the proletariat?

So who’s going to be the red pope, speaking in the name of the red Ummah? Who’s going to be the one who judges? Moreover, from where does the right to define what tendency is the genuine voice of the proletariat come? Because, let me tell you, the revolutionary masses will not be purists, and they may not take too kindly to the talmudic pronouncements of any self-appointed grand poobahs.

It’s easy to say it will be masses of the working class who make that determination. But what if the masses of the working class are divided into as many sincere revolutionary tendencies as we who post here today are?

At most, only one of the ML tendencies can genuinely be the one pure ML tendency. The same with all those Trotskyists groups seeking to claim the mantle of Trotsky, Cannon, and the early Left Oppositionists. Why, decades after Hoxha’s death, are there so many Hoxhaists? Likewise, why so many Maoists, and so on? Will the real Karl Marx, the real Proudhon, the real Bakunin, the real Trotsky, the real De Leon please stand up?

Does anyone here really imagine that the masses who support the revolution will all be in ideological lockstep with just one of the thousands of revolutionary groups or tendencies which exist today? Most likely not.

It is said that political parties represent classes, and as there is only one working class, there really is need only for one working class party. I wholeheartedly agree that parties are based on class interests. But why does that mean there has to be only one party per class?

After all, here in the United States, we have 2 capitalist parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. They both definitely support capitalism and US imperialism. But they hate each other! Partly that’s because the controllers of those parties represent different factions of the capitalist class. Partly it’s because various supporters of capitalism have genuine differences of opinion about which policies best ensure the security and existence of the capitalist system.

Many Republicans accuse the Democratic Party of being socialists, and many Democrats accuse the Republican Party of being fascist. That just goes to show that many Republicans don’t know what socialism is, and many Democrats (and radicals too) don’t know what fascism really is (in the sense of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco).

All who post here presumably support some form of socialism, communism, or anarchism. We all are sincere in wanting socialism. So when the revolution comes, we’re going to have to find a way of talking with each other and working out our differences, finding some kind of compromise, because we’re all going to want to contribute, will have something to contribute.

The purists and sectarians will isolate themselves off in some corner talking to themselves while the revolutionary masses of the working class and those parties not riven with sectarianism sort out the policies to be followed. You can be sure not many who sacrificed in making the revolution will take kindly to following orders from some doctrinaire grouping of purists unless civil war and great suffering have crushed their spirits first.

We on the left simply must find a way of avoiding the trap of sectarianism, as well as sectarianism’s evil twin—elitism. The future of socialism in part depends on it.

Speaking of which, in my understanding, the last 100 years of attempts to organize democratic centralist parties have spawned far more sectarian errors than successes. The Bolsheviks were the most successful party of democratic centralism in the early days, but under the hammer-blows of famine, counterrevolution, intrigue, and economic backwardness, democratic centralism did not fare too well.

The Bolshevik revolution was not really history’s first socialist revolution. Rather, it was the second. The first socialist revolution, which was the Paris Commune of 1871, was not led by a vanguard party organized along democratic centralist lines.

Democratic centralism may (may) have a role to play in a revolutionary party before the revolution or during a period of counterrevolution under specific circumstances.

Democratic centralism, at its best, is a tool of a vanguard party seeking to challenge the capitalist government. It allows comrades to discuss and settle internal differences within the party itself while allowing the party to have a unified line when facing outward and acting politically.

But democratic centralism is the wrong tool to use in running a socialist democracy, which is far broader than any vanguard party can possibly be. I don’t think that democratic centralism can be the method in the running of a socialist society. A socialist society should not be run by a central committee that has a unified line arrived at after an internal discussion. Rather, the discussion should be democratic and mass based. I don’t claim to have the answer to this, but I wonder how much better the soviets would have fared if there was not an attempt to run the Soviet government via “democratic centralism,” which proved to be too easily subverted into its opposite.

A socialist society must allow for the broadest range of political activity and organization as long as political parties are not engaged in restorationist or counterrevolutionary conspiracies. A socialist society should not enforce rigidity or conformism. It should be a wellspring for the fullest flowering of popular involvement in the running of human affairs.

Although I am not a Trotskyist, I think the lengthy quote in this message has a large measure of validity, despite the wooden quality of the formulations:

(Please click the little arrow to see the quote in Blake's original post) Apologies for the long quote. It's from the Fourth International document, Socialist Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat adopted in 1985.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

Ismail

24th July 2013, 18:31

The Bolshevik revolution was not really history’s first socialist revolution. Rather, it was the second. The first socialist revolution, which was the Paris Commune of 1871, was not led by a vanguard party organized along democratic centralist lines."Perhaps you will point to the Paris Commune; but apart from the fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be." - Marx.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/letters/81_02_22.htm)
The Paris Commune was, however, the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

As for one of your other comments:

At most, only one of the ML tendencies can genuinely be the one pure ML tendency. The same with all those Trotskyists groups seeking to claim the mantle of Trotsky, Cannon, and the early Left Oppositionists. Why, decades after Hoxha’s death, are there so many Hoxhaists? Likewise, why so many Maoists, and so on? Will the real Karl Marx, the real Proudhon, the real Bakunin, the real Trotsky, the real De Leon please stand up?Because there are clear differences between the Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and Trotskyist lines on revolution, and on many other subjects. These are not mere personality clashes, nor are they irrelevant. How can you reconcile the Maoist who claims that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was the furthest advance of socialism in history which must be practiced in other countries, with the Trotskyist view of Maoist China as a "deformed workers' state," and the Marxist-Leninist view that it had no proletarian revolution to begin with?

Comrade Jacob

24th July 2013, 21:21

Watch kind of Marxist-Leninist wouldn't agree with a Marxist vanguard party.
(I clicked 1 just in case you haven't figured it out)

Alan OldStudent

25th July 2013, 06:58

Hello Comrade Ismail,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I found it interesting and well stated.

You quoted me thus:

The Bolshevik revolution was not really history’s first socialist revolution. Rather, it was the second. The first socialist revolution, which was the Paris Commune of 1871, was not led by a vanguard party organized along democratic centralist lines.
To which you responded, quoting Marx:

"Perhaps you will point to the Paris Commune; but apart from the fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be." - Marx.

The Paris Commune was, however, the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
You’re quite correct, of course, when you say that the Paris Commune was not socialist. However, as you implied, it was a workers’ state (dictatorship of the proletariat).

Of note, the Paris Commune did claim the authority to rule all of France and inspired several other uprisings in other French cities, and in the sense that the Paris Commune was an uprising of the working class to create a workers’ state and abolish the capitalist state, it was a "socialist" revolution in the making. Perhaps it would have "expropriated the expropriators" as their radicalism deepened had not the German and French ruling classes, who hated each other, found it expedient to cooperate in the mass murder of the communards.

Then, you quoted me again:

At most, only one of the ML tendencies can genuinely be the one pure ML tendency. The same with all those Trotskyists groups seeking to claim the mantle of Trotsky, Cannon, and the early Left Oppositionists. Why, decades after Hoxha’s death, are there so many Hoxhaists? Likewise, why so many Maoists, and so on? Will the real Karl Marx, the real Proudhon, the real Bakunin, the real Trotsky, the real De Leon please stand up?
To which you respond:

Because there are clear differences between the Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and Trotskyist lines on revolution, and on many other subjects. These are not mere personality clashes, nor are they irrelevant. How can you reconcile the Maoist who claims that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was the furthest advance of socialism in history which must be practiced in other countries, with the Trotskyist view of Maoist China as a "deformed workers' state," and the Marxist-Leninist view that it had no proletarian revolution to begin with?

You make my point by missing my point.:)

I was not trying to reconcile the "clear" differences between these tendencies. Most of these tendencies have many parties and groups, each contending for the mantle of being true to the tradition. Look how many Trotskyist groups claim to be the authentic group.

How many tendencies claim they are the true Trotskyists, the true Marxist-Leninist, the true Maoist? Many dozens.

At best, these groups are all isolated groups, and at worst, they are sects. Isolation is the fertile garden bed of sectarianism.

There’s not one of them that I would trust to be the one party in a one-party state, although I find the Trotskyist internationals to be the least objectionable because, at least, they give lip service to allowing for multiple tendencies and parties in a revolutionary workers’ state.

Moreover, I don’t imagine that the masses of workers are going to be overly interested in the internecine arguments between these gaggles of groups.

No significant segment of the working class is going to storm the barricades because the passionately believe in Hoxha’s interpretation of Stalin’s interpretation of Lenin’s interpretation of what authentic Marxism is. Believe it or not, in most parts of the world, the working class is not going to be attracted to the magnetic personality of the charismatic Stalin or Ceaușescu. No doubt you've noticed that the most popular "leftist" leadership figures among the masses of workers worldwide today are actually Castro and Chavez, and I don’t imagine you like either one of them very well.

Instead, revolutionary workers will have differences of opinion about how to defend the gains of the revolution, how to feed the hungry, how to clean up the environment, how to abolish the military, how to educate the unlettered, how to provide our children with food that's not poison, how to care for our elderly--in short, how to create a society based on serving the needs of the human race instead of the profits of the capitalist class.

Workers will be interested in how to mitigate the environmental disaster that threatens to poison our mother, the planet earth. Those differences will need to be worked out in discussion and political struggle, because sincere revolutionaries will have sincere differences of opinion. That’s why a revolutionary workers’ state must not be a one-party state.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

So then, what's the role of a vanguard party organized on the principles of democratic socialism in all this?

At its best, any "vanguard" party organized along principles of democratic centralism would allow for internal discussion among the membership, even to the extent of tolerating a disciplined faction, with the understanding that once the majority of the membership have determined what the overall party line will be, all members would be bound by it. Between decision-making conventions, a central committee could make day-to-day decisions.

Perhaps you've noticed that this model has not worked very well over the last 90-plus years in actually accomplishing revolutions, which is why I’m skeptical of it. But a workers’ state, a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as Engels called it, is a state that communes, soviets, or (using the recent Occupy Wall Street terminology) General Assemblies run.

There’s no reason for some kind of central committee to usurp the role of popular control. Such an organ risks replacing popular rule, as happened in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. It is patronizing, elitist, and authoritarian to assume such a central committee can act on behalf of the masses, to help them avoid making errors, as a substitute for the voice of the masses.

So let there be various "vanguard parties" operating in a workers' state, in these soviets or communes or whatever similar organs the revolutionary masses themselves set up. Let there also be various anarchist, communist, socialist, green, even religious parties operating in these organs.

Let them all put out their ideas for consideration. What the masses end up accepting will be a bit from one group, a bit from another, and in addition, most likely some creative and original ideas that no group thought of before. The politically mature groups will learn from this. No one can gain an audience unless he or she is willing to listen. No one can teach the masses who is not willing to learn from them. It's a dialectical process.

But let’s not have some group that calls itself a "vanguard" to substitute itself for democratic control of a workers’ state.

That was my point.

Regards,
Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

RedCloud

25th July 2013, 07:26

I support the working class and believe that I have no right to impose a single party upon the workers of the world. My individual opinion is that allowing a single party to lead the state would lead to a dictatorship of that party over the working class and the entire polity and society. Granting such a special status to one party seems like it would be an invitation to abuse of that power, and since that single party would have power over the state and its repressive apparatus the results would likely be tragedy rather than socialism.

I meant to vote no, accidentally hit yes and didn't realize it. Basically this.

Single party could probably be nice at first but would probably be used for people who want more power to give themselves that and ending up like a dictatorship. Really the name "single party" sounds too controlling to begin with.

International_Solidarity

25th July 2013, 07:31

I support a one-party state under the Vanguard for the Revolutionary and post-revolutionary situation. Although I think one of the important parts of the continuing revolution would be to allow for opposition parties.
So no, I don't support a continual one-party state. Although I think it is an essential stage in revolutionary development. IE: a single-party state was definitely necessary in Revolutionary Russia and the following civil war. Opposition parties should not be allowed until there is stability. At the chaotic beginnings of a revolutionary state, there can only be one party.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

25th July 2013, 07:43

So here’s a question for you all. When the revolution comes, if the result is a one-party state, who gets to name which one of these dozens of parties and tendencies is the true party of the proletariat?

Yes, precisely. Communists of all flavors acknowledge that social Revolutions are based on one Class overthrowing another Class. Yet, as you pointed out, the 57 different sects of Communism all provide our class with its own vehicle towards political power and social revolution.

But why does that mean there has to be only one party per class?

There can only be one party per class because: historically Classes have organized into political parties for their material and social independence and freedom in order to gain as much strength against their class enemies. The struggle for Political Unity of a class focuses around common economic interests, which are objective. Unity in politics means strength.

The argument for any ideological and not class based political organization, is revisionist and indeed anti-marxist.

Alan OldStudent

25th July 2013, 09:05

Hello Comrade Redcloud,

You wrote:

Really the name "single party" sounds too controlling to begin with.
That’s the whole point. A revolutionary upsurge, especially nowadays in an advanced capitalist society, would be antiauthoritarian. All the mass upsurges of the last couple of decades have had a strong antiauthoritarian component, even if there has been a minority of authoritarian currents.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
And Comrade International Solidarity, you write

I support a one-party state under the Vanguard for the Revolutionary and post-revolutionary situation. Although I think one of the important parts of the continuing revolution would be to allow for opposition parties.
So no, I don't support a continual one-party state. Although I think it is an essential stage in revolutionary development. IE: a single-party state was definitely necessary in Revolutionary Russia and the following civil war. Opposition parties should not be allowed until there is stability. At the chaotic beginnings of a revolutionary state, there can only be one party

Which one of the “vanguard parties do you have in mind? Who gets to decide which of the dozens of parties claiming to be the vanguard is going to speak on behalf of the masses in place of letting the masses speak for themselves? Do you think the other parties will agree to be suppressed until the vanguard decides there's enough stability to grant them legal status? More importantly, do you think the revolutionary masses will support this? Doesn't this smack of lack of confidence in the revolutionary masses?

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
And Comrade Workers-Control-Over-Prod, you say the following:

There can only be one party per class because: historically Classes have organized into political parties for their material and social independence and freedom in order to gain as much strength against their class enemies.
Ah, it's all very nice to say that historically, classes can only have one party. What specifically, pray tell, are the historical precedents are you referring to?

The truth is historically, classes often have more than one political party claiming to defend their material interests. I cited the example of the Republican and Democratic parties in the USA which both try to defend the capitalist class interest. And all countries with any kind of working class have many parties claiming to represent the interests of the working class.

The argument for any ideological and not class based political organization, is revisionist and indeed anti-marxist.

Maybe I haven’t read this thread thoroughly enough. It’s tough for me to get through all the rhetoric, finger-flipping, spitball fights, and phraseology. But I have not noticed anyone here arguing for non-class-based political parties.

Did I miss something? Maybe you can provide a link to the miscreant who espouses such views.

Believe me, the revolutionary masses are not likely to pay much heed to anyone who argues for a one-party state or any kind of conformity of thought as a prerequisite for participating in the revolution. Advocates of such will likely be ignored by the masses or thought of as being noodges.

And when the revolution comes, any tendency or "vanguard" party that the revolutionary masses don't take seriously will be isolated, marginalized, and lonely prophets high on a hill, no doubt scolding the masses for being revisionist and anti-Marxist.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

Questionable

25th July 2013, 13:30

This isn't my debate but I haven't participated in one in a while so here goes.

Of note, the Paris Commune did claim the authority to rule all of France and inspired several other uprisings in other French cities, and in the sense that the Paris Commune was an uprising of the working class to create a workers’ state and abolish the capitalist state, it was a "socialist" revolution in the making. Perhaps it would have "expropriated the expropriators" as their radicalism deepened had not the German and French ruling classes, who hated each other, found it expedient to cooperate in the mass murder of the communards.

So is your argument basically "it would have became a socialist revolution eventually"? Because that's what I'm getting from this.

If anything, the Commune's lack of a vanguard offering disciplined leadership can be considered one of the contributing reasons for its failure.

You make my point by missing my point.

If anything, you've missed Ismail's point.

He is trying to state how, contrary to your claim that these groups hate each other because of petty issues like irrelevant historical debates and which mascot they picked, their differences result from real theoretical disagreements, which, I might add, generally results from the different class base that these ideologies appeal to, with Maoism appealing primarily to the peasant base, Trotskyism to the petty-bourgeois, etc.

Rather than addressing his argument at all, you continue your post by reiterating your view that these groups dislike each other because of irrelevant differences. Even worse, you resign yourself to a kind of political agnosticism, claiming that since all these groups claim their theory to be the most valid, there's no way we can tell them apart, thus we must discard them all.

That sentiment will no doubt appeal to some self-described 'leftists,' but I find it ridiculous.

At best, these groups are all isolated groups, and at worst, they are sects. Isolation is the fertile garden bed of sectarianism.

The vast majority of these parties are isolated because their bad theory leads them to discard active participation amongst the workers' struggle in favor of intellectual wankery and petty-bourgeois-style activism, not because they value theory in the first place.

Moreover, I don’t imagine that the masses of workers are going to be overly interested in the internecine arguments between these gaggles of groups.

Depends on what you're referring to. I'm guessing that, in your eyes, the arguments between these groups amounts to whether Trotsky or Stalin was Lenin's pick for leader or other historically-particular topics. However, in the midst of a revolution, the theoretical differences between these groups will take prime importance. The Maoist model of waging revolutionary class struggle differs very strongly from the Trotskyist or Marxist-Leninist models, which in turn differ very strongly from each other. These differences, the theoretical analyses of these groups, will matter very greatly when it comes to choosing which line of struggle to follow.

No significant segment of the working class is going to storm the barricades because the passionately believe in Hoxha’s interpretation of Stalin’s interpretation of Lenin’s interpretation of what authentic Marxism is.

This is asinine. It is a continuation of the caricature of Marxism-Leninism, that we believe we're going to bring about revolution by barking Hoxha quotes at people. The reason we hold the words of these men in high regard is because all three of them (Hoxha, Stalin, Lenin) stood over the construction of the world's first socialist states, and their experience in waging class struggle is invaluable to those seeking a similar route in the future. No Marxist-Leninist will tell you that the sheer presence of an icon will bring about a revolution, it is only active struggle with the leadership of a party armed with the correct theory that will march us down that right.

Believe it or not, in most parts of the world, the working class is not going to be attracted to the magnetic personality of the charismatic Stalin or Ceaușescu.

I'm beginning to believe you're actually somewhat, or totally, ignorant in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, if you place Stalin and Ceausescu side-by-side as you've done here. Ceausescu actively rejected many of the principals that Stalin stood for in his life, and became one of the West's best buddies in the process. He is a fine example of the road rejecting theory leads us down.

No doubt you've noticed that the most popular "leftist" leadership figures among the masses of workers worldwide today are actually Castro and Chavez, and I don’t imagine you like either one of them very well.

Actually, it is the lack of a revolutionary leadership with strong theory the leads the working classes to view social-democratic capitalist states as the alternative to their situation. It reflects a low level of theoretical knowledge amongst the masses, not an overabundance of it.

Interestingly enough, it is primarily Trotskyist, Maoist, and Brezhnevite parties that ride the coat tails of romanticized bourgeois figures in South America, the groups you claim distance themselves from the proletariat by clinging to history.

Instead, revolutionary workers will have differences of opinion about how to defend the gains of the revolution, how to feed the hungry, how to clean up the environment, how to abolish the military, how to educate the unlettered, how to provide our children with food that's not poison, how to care for our elderly--in short, how to create a society based on serving the needs of the human race instead of the profits of the capitalist class.

Workers will be interested in how to mitigate the environmental disaster that threatens to poison our mother, the planet earth. Those differences will need to be worked out in discussion and political struggle, because sincere revolutionaries will have sincere differences of opinion. That’s why a revolutionary workers’ state must not be a one-party state.

I don't see the disconnect. There were many discussions between differing viewpoints within the CPSU without different parties existing. It was not, as bourgeois and ultra-left critics claim, a monolithic hivemind entity. In fact many of the disagreements were quite fierce of you look at party transcripts.

piet11111

25th July 2013, 14:31

No matter what number of party's in government they can still end up useless and hostile to the working class.

Alan OldStudent

25th July 2013, 23:59

Hello Comrade Questionable:

I almost decided not to participate in this thread anymore. I’m pretty busy right now with my writing and making some videos. I’m new to revleft, and I must confess I’m a bit surprised at how many partisans of people like Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, and so on there are around here. Nevertheless, I appreciate your taking time to respond to my somewhat lengthy posts.

You characterize my position on the Paris Commune as saying:

So is your argument basically "it would have became a socialist revolution eventually"? Because that's what I'm getting from this.
No. That wasn’t my position. I tried to be clear.

About the Paris Commune, I said:

Perhaps it would have "expropriated the expropriators....(emphasis added) had the German and French rulers not drowned it in blood.

I try to avoid the kind of mechanistic arguments you attributed to me. As the poet John Greenleaf Whittier famously said:
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.' **************
Moreover, I am skeptical of the claim that a lack of a vanguard party had much to do with the defeat of the Paris Commune. Those not blinded by sectarian dogmatism will likely notice that vanguard parties have not had much notable success in leading revolutions over the last 90 or so years, except in Russia.

He is trying to state how, contrary to your claim that these groups hate each other because of petty issues like irrelevant historical debates and which mascot they picked, their differences result from real theoretical disagreements, which, I might add, generally results from the different class base that these ideologies appeal to, with Maoism appealing primarily to the peasant base, Trotskyism to the petty-bourgeois, etc.
I think they hate each other because of sectarianism.

The reason we hold the words of these men in high regard is because all three of them (Hoxha, Stalin, Lenin) stood over the construction of the world's first socialist states, and their experience in waging class struggle is invaluable to those seeking a similar route in the future. No Marxist-Leninist will tell you that the sheer presence of an icon will bring about a revolution, it is only active struggle with the leadership of a party armed with the correct theory that will march us down that right.
I hold Lenin in high regard, although I don't agree with much of what he said. I don't hold Stalin or Hoxha in such high regards. I hope that's not blasphemy.

Lenin was not into personality cults, but Stalin and Hoxha definitely were, and Stalin created a personality cult around Lenin. I suspect Lenin would have been horrified at the idea of the Lenin mausoleum. Hoxha and Stalin purged their opponents, and Stalin’s line changed all the time. A majority of the old Bolsheviks were either framed up and shot after show trials or died under mysterious circumstances.

You don't really believe that Bukharin and a gaggle of Old Bolsheviks conspired to assassinate Stalin's popular frenemy Sergey Kirov, do you?

I'm beginning to believe you're actually somewhat, or totally, ignorant in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism
Well, I'll grant you that I’m not a Leninist.

No doubt I’m somewhat "ignorant" about various aspects of what you call “Marxism-Leninism.” But has it occurred to you that maybe there's a difference between being ignorant and just having a different opinion?

Are your interpretations of Marxism-Leninism the only authentic interpretation? Do you think your take on ML is the possible yardstick for measuring revolutionary theory? Do you think Marxism-Leninism is an exact and unambiguous science? Do you imagine that the poor zhlub who doesn't agree with your views must either be misinformed, ignorant, stupid, or an agent of foreign class interests? Are you that certain of the infallibility of your belief system?

If the working class all immediately understand what their "objective interests" are as soon as some ML proponent explains them, then what's the need for workers' democracy? Ask yourself this: Why do you think Marx, Engels, and to a great degree Lenin supported the concept of workers' democracy if they think their theories are an exact science and a rigid blueprint?

Look, I’ve been involved with socialist politics to one degree or another for over 50 years and have done my share of reading, writing, giving classes, and so on, as well as having been active in the anti Jim Crow movement, the antiwar movement, and in union activity. I've also been investigated and arrested for political activity as well as being blacklisted for a number of years. It’s entirely possible I was reading Lenin before you were born if you were born after the late 1950s.

You know, the Trotskyists consider themselves Marxist-Leninists too. They also read Marx and Lenin. A lot of them are as smart and educated in the classics of Marx and Lenin as you. There are other tendencies of sincere revolutionaries who call themselves Marxist-Leninists too, but they have a different take on it than yours.

But then maybe your riposte to the Trotskyists and other schlemiels claiming the mantle of ML is that they're petite-bourgeois, which would be an improvement on Comrade Stalin who said they were counterrevolutionary schmucks, agents of fascism and Hitlerism.

Not everyone who says they’re a Marxist-Leninist agrees with your version of Marxism-Leninism. Intelligent people can have honest disagreements. And to say they don’t have your unique vision of true Marxism-Leninism because of petite-bourgeois influences is hogwash. Marxism is not some scripture from which we deduce conclusions through syllogism and Talmudic study.

Marx’s whole approach was dialectical, and he was open to refining his views, was able to be influenced by argument. He did not consider his works to be revelation from which there could be no deviation. Lenin, likewise, was open to persuasion and likewise did not believe God whispered the truths of Marxism-Leninism into his ears. He did a great deal of serious study and was probably a genius.

Lenin built a party of intellectuals-activists and felt that by themselves, the working class could only achieve trade-union consciousness. It is said that Lenin promoted vanguardism because of that. I greatly respect Lenin, but I disagree with him on that score.

Vanguardism has the potential to lead to bureaucratic elitism, as Lenin himself no doubt recognized. He seemed quite worried about bureaucratization of the CPSU in the letter he wrote about Trotsky and Stalin.
**********

There were many discussions between differing viewpoints within the CPSU without different parties existing. It was not, as bourgeois and ultra-left critics claim, a monolithic hivemind entity.

Oh come on, Comrade. As I mentioned above, a sizable percentage, likely the majority, of the original Old Bolsheviks were shot or died under mysterious circumstances. Many were framed up on phony charges and fell victim to the purges. Do you imagine the world working class is going to be won over to that kind of "workers' democracy"?

We need to be honest about our history or we won’t learn from it. Nothing is ever black-or-white. Despite the undeniable accomplishments of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, many tragic mistakes were made, and the leaderships made many blunders, like the purges, like the Hitler-Stalin pact, like the doctrine of socialism in one country, like Kronstadt, like the alliance with the Kuomintang, and so on.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

Ismail

26th July 2013, 00:45

As I mentioned above, a sizable percentage, likely the majority, of the original Old Bolsheviks were shot or died under mysterious circumstances. Many were framed up on phony charges and fell victim to the purges. Do you imagine the world working class is going to be won over to that kind of "workers' democracy"?It is rather strange to claim that vanguards are "elitist" and whatnot on one hand, and yet attach so much importance to various "Old Bolsheviks" being shot on the other, as if one should judge someone by the amount of time they spent inside a party and not their actual policies, and as if these trials somehow changed the character of a state in any case. After all, what did the execution of Zinoviev (who spoke positively about a "dictatorship of the party" in the 20's, which was condemned by Stalin) do to dampen democracy in the USSR?

The fact is that under Stalin came the Stalin Constitution, and that under this Constitution was certainly the most lively election campaign (held in 1937) since Soviet power was established 20 years prior. Both scholarly bourgeois (such as J. Arch Getty and Sarah Davies) and eyewitness accounts note this.

Two which are online:
* http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv11n2/darcy.htm
* http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmQSovietUnion-1938oct-00059

In fact, the purges saw workers rise to assert themselves against management in various places, while in the Party secret ballot elections were held in 1937 in an effort to shake up local vested interests. Getty, Robert W. Thurston and others note these things.

International_Solidarity

26th July 2013, 03:21

Which one of the “vanguard parties do you have in mind? Who gets to decide which of the dozens of parties claiming to be the vanguard is going to speak on behalf of the masses in place of letting the masses speak for themselves? Do you think the other parties will agree to be suppressed until the vanguard decides there's enough stability to grant them legal status? More importantly, do you think the revolutionary masses will support this? Doesn't this smack of lack of confidence in the revolutionary masses?

The Vanguard Party would have to be, as another Comrade stated, a class party. Perhaps an amalgamation of these "dozens of parties claiming to be the vanguard". The Vanguard would still have to be limited and under the control of the Proletariat. However, it is difficult to quickly move forward when opposition parties begin to make trouble. Take, for example, Venezuela. The reforms of Chavez could have been undone when Maduro nearly lost the election! And in Russia, could the Civil War have been won if many parties had fought over exactly how to approach the conflict, rather than the Bolshevik's rapid approach to the issue?
As for a "distrust of the masses"? Isn't the point of the Vanguard that the majority of the masses do not yet have the education to move revolutionary activity forward? It's not that I am distrustful of the masses, it's that many of the masses require more knowledge before opposition parties be allowed. Keep in mind that every Capitalist state on earth will be attempting to sabotage the revolution in any way possible! This must be taken into account when thinking of the political structure of a post-revolutionary state, rather than thinking of our exact ideal. I wish that a vanguard was unnecessary, but history tells me otherwise.

International_Solidarity

26th July 2013, 03:23

Alan OldStudent

26th July 2013, 04:28

Hello Comrade International Solidarity,

You write:

The Vanguard Party would have to be, as another Comrade stated, a class party. Perhaps an amalgamation of these "dozens of parties claiming to be the vanguard". The Vanguard would still have to be limited and under the control of the Proletariat.

How can the vanguard be "limited" and "under control of the Proletariat" if said proletariat's ignorance so hampers the revolutionary process that the proletariat requires the vanguard’s fatherly guiding hand? Apart from being a bit paternalistic, doesn't this seem a bit contradictory to your very next statement quoted below?

Isn't the point of the Vanguard that the majority of the masses do not yet have the education to move revolutionary activity forward?
***************
Aware of the tone of your statement, you hasten to assure us that you really don't distrust the masses after all:

It's not that I am distrustful of the masses, it's that many of the masses require more knowledge before opposition parties be allowed.

It’s nice you are not distrustful of the masses as long as they don't act ignorant. :confused:

I'm sure you're a sincere and dedicated revolutionary and want for the very best for the human race. But can you see how paternalistic that can sound to the masses you want to reach out to and educate in the need for revolution?

Who gets to determine when the masses have acquired enough knowledge to allow opposition parties? Who determines when the masses can be allowed to dine at the grown-ups' table? How will this unspecified guardian of revolutionary theory know that the great unwashed masses have outgrown their klutziness enough to be trusted not to spill their soup in their laps like complete schlemazels and bugger up the revolution? Would that be the amalgam of vanguard parties, who (as you put it) "would still have to be limited and under the control of" those selfsame unwashed masses lacking "the education to move revolutionary activity forward"?

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

MarxSchmarx

26th July 2013, 04:36

Questionable

26th July 2013, 04:41

Moreover, I am skeptical of the claim that a lack of a vanguard party had much to do with the defeat of the Paris Commune. Those not blinded by sectarian dogmatism will likely notice that vanguard parties have not had much notable success in leading revolutions over the last 90 or so years, except in Russia.

What? The vanguard model was implemented in various other countries where it resulted in success. Albania is a fine example, particularly since it achieved its revolution without any assistance from the Red Army, unlike many other Eastern European countries.

I think they hate each other because of sectarianism.

Oh, my bad. I feel foolish now, trying to use a class analysis to explain things.

I hold Lenin in high regard, although I don't agree with much of what he said. I don't hold Stalin or Hoxha in such high regards. I hope that's not blasphemy.

Lenin was not into personality cults, but Stalin and Hoxha definitely were, and Stalin created a personality cult around Lenin. I suspect Lenin would have been horrified at the idea of the Lenin mausoleum. Hoxha and Stalin purged their opponents, and Stalin’s line changed all the time. A majority of the old Bolsheviks were either framed up and shot after show trials or died under mysterious circumstances.

You don't really believe that Bukharin and a gaggle of Old Bolsheviks conspired to assassinate Stalin's popular frenemy Sergey Kirov, do you?

Eh? I don't even know what this has to do with what I've said. I was saying that the image of a fanatical Stalin worshiper is a caricature of actual Marxist-Leninists, and now you're talking about personality cults still.

But has it occurred to you that maybe there's a difference between being ignorant and just having a different opinion?

Yes, but if you think Stalin can be placed firmly in the same category as a revisionist who imposed austerity measures on his country to pay back loans to the West, then it means you're the former.

The bitter irony in this discussion is that you and Ceausescu share common ground on your rejection of "Stalinism." Ceausescu openly denounced the dictatorship of the proletariat as "outdated," and probably held a similar opinion of vanguardism.

If the working class all immediately understand what their "objective interests" are as soon as some ML proponent explains them, then what's the need for workers' democracy? Ask yourself this: Why do you think Marx, Engels, and to a great degree Lenin supported the concept of workers' democracy if they think their theories are an exact science and a rigid blueprint?

Because the self-governance of the proletariat is a key part of the DotP, socialism, and communism, as well as a key part of Marxism-Leninism that many ML leaders strove to strengthen?

This only works by creating a total misrepresentation of my views. I never claimed to have an "exact and rigid" blueprint of anything. Lenin and Stalin were never opposed to the creative development of Marxism, and each made their own contributions to the theory. I'm just against revisionist trends that rob Marxism of its revolutionary character. Self-criticism, discussion, workers' democracy - none of these concepts you hold dear are contrary to Marxism-Leninism, in theory or in practice.

But then maybe your riposte to the Trotskyists and other schlemiels claiming the mantle of ML is that they're petite-bourgeois, which would be an improvement on Comrade Stalin who said they were counterrevolutionary schmucks, agents of fascism and Hitlerism.

In some cases they did act as allies of fascism and Hitlerism. The development of Trotskyism into a petty-bourgeois ideology happened with time, primarily in America.

Not everyone who says they’re a Marxist-Leninist agrees with your version of Marxism-Leninism. Intelligent people can have honest disagreements. And to say they don’t have your unique vision of true Marxism-Leninism because of petite-bourgeois influences is hogwash. Marxism is not some scripture from which we deduce conclusions through syllogism and Talmudic study.

This, along with the paragraphs of you flaunting your revolutionary credentials, aren't really worth an answer, because they're basically you painting me as a zealot who is unwilling to listen to anything new. It is a strawman. I never claimed, and am not, against developing Marxism for new times. I'm just against developing it in the wrong direction, like your rejection of the vanguard party as a method of struggle.

Vanguardism has the potential to lead to bureaucratic elitism, as Lenin himself no doubt recognized. He seemed quite worried about bureaucratization of the CPSU in the letter he wrote about Trotsky and Stalin.

Stalin and Hoxha also recognized the potential for bureaucratic encroachment, and actively struggled against that trend in their respective national parties.

Alan OldStudent

26th July 2013, 04:59

Alan OldStudent

In general we try to minimizing necroing around here.

There seems to be a bit going on here already so I'm letting this proceed, but in the future please open a new thread summarizing and linking to earlier thread.

Thanks,
MS

Hello Comrade MarxSchmarx,

I'm really new here and just getting my feet wet in this forum. So I appreciate the guidance.

I'm not sure what "necroing" is or what I've done that might be "necroing." If you could let me know so I can be on the lookout, I'd be grateful.

I think I've already said what I want to say in this thread, and I've had a good and vigorous debate with other comrades. We've all been pretty clear, I think. Despite sharp differences of opinion, we seem to have not degenerated into flaming, which is good.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living--Socrates

Ismail

26th July 2013, 05:35

I'm not sure what "necroing" is or what I've done that might be "necroing." If you could let me know so I can be on the lookout, I'd be grateful."Necroing" means posting in a thread that hasn't been posted in for some time, usually months or, especially, years.

But most don't see anything wrong with "necroing" anyway so long as the post that "resurrects" the thread contributes to the discussion, as yours does.

Alan OldStudent

26th July 2013, 05:59

"Necroing" means posting in a thread that hasn't been posted in for some time, usually months or, especially, years.

But most don't see anything wrong with "necroing" anyway so long as the post that "resurrects" the thread contributes to the discussion, as yours does.

Thanks Comrade Ismail,

It won't be a big deal for me to remember to start a new thread and reference the older thread. It might be slightly tricky because one has to have 25 posts before one can include links in their posts, and I fall far short of that goal.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living--Socrates

International_Solidarity

26th July 2013, 09:07

How can the vanguard be "limited" and "under control of the Proletariat" if said proletariat's ignorance so hampers the revolutionary process that the proletariat requires the vanguard’s fatherly guiding hand? Apart from being a bit paternalistic, doesn't this seem a bit contradictory to your very next statement quoted below?
Looking back at my post I don't know where I was going with that. You make a good point here. I do still feel like there needs to be some balance between control by the Proletariat and education of the Proletariat, what would you propose?

It’s nice you are not distrustful of the masses as long as they don't act ignorant. :confused:

What I was saying here was that the Masses can be swayed against their own interests. I'll recycle my example of Venezuela. A lot of propaganda made by the opposing party almost halted the Socialist development in the country, how would you propose to resist things like this?

can you see how paternalistic that can sound to the masses you want to reach out to and educate in the need for revolution?

You're right about this one, as I stated above.

Thanks for making me think, Comrade. :)

MarxSchmarx

27th July 2013, 03:05

Thanks Comrade Ismail,

It won't be a big deal for me to remember to start a new thread and reference the older thread. It might be slightly tricky because one has to have 25 posts before one can include links in their posts, and I fall far short of that goal.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living--Socrates

Ismail is correct. It's not so much an issue in this thread but in general is considered suboptimal because some to a lot of the original posters have either moved on or are otherwise not really in a position to contribute. This creates a bit of awkward asymmetry for various regions so that, as best I gather, is why necroing is generally discouraged.

Like I said, I'm keeping this particular thread open, but one strategy for other new users to adopt is to contribute to ongoing threads to reach the 25 post count (it happens pretty quickly for most folks).

Alan OldStudent

28th July 2013, 10:29

Hello Comrade International_Solidarity,

Please forgive the length of this response. Your questions were quite thought-provoking, and it gave me a chance to reconsider and really think through a few things. Like Brutus, I'm giving your message a thank you, because I'm grateful you challenged me.

Looking back at my post I don't know where I was going with that. You make a good point here. I do still feel like there needs to be some balance between control by the Proletariat and education of the Proletariat, what would you propose?"

I think I know where you were going with this. You were attempting to think critically, to think creatively about a question that you find puzzling. For that, you are to be congratulated. Critical thinking and self-education are revolutionary duties.

The question you asked in this first part of your post is how can we educate the proletariat about the necessity for socialism. Here are a few thoughts that have occurred to me over the years.

Clarity in communication is the supreme prerequisite in both teaching and learning, speaking and listening. We must find ways of communicating our ideas honestly and forthrightly without letting our terminology cloud the meaning of our ideas.
We must help the masses understand why they must and how they can take control of the political process.

I'll talk about clarity in communication here and in a later post comment about helping the masses to understand about taking control. I'll also share some of my thoughts about your interesting and provocative question about Venezuela in a later post.

CLARITY IN COMMUNICATION
Some comrades will probably throw brickbats at me for saying this. But here it goes. :o
Often when we Marxists use traditional Marxian terminology, instead of educating, we actually create confusion.

We must avoid using formulations that are ambiguous in their modern meanings and that cause our listeners to tune us out. We must use language the masses understand if we hope to talk socialism to them. So many comrades use 19th century terminology that meant one thing in Marx's day and has a rather different connotations today. After all, language changes, doesn't it?. And the ways we express ourselves need to be updated if we are to present our ideas forcefully and clearly.

We can either find a clearer and more modern way of explaining our ideas, or we can stick with our 19th-century formulations. But we can't do both. Quite often, it's a zero-sum game.

If we insist on sticking with certain 19th-century terms, because they are the same ones Marx used, and we end up confusing our listeners about what Marx actually meant by those terms, our words have become nothing more than shibboleths, (in case you don't know, shibboleths are in-group words or phrases that outsiders don't use often but which sound cool to the in-group).

Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1: One such term is "proletariat." To the modern ear, that conjures up an oversimplified stereotype of some cranky old geezer spouting conspiracy theories about democracy and workers. I don't like that fact, because I think "proletariat" is a perfectly good English term.

You and I, as well as the other comrades posting on revleft, understand that "proletariat" refers to that class of people who sell their labor power to an employer for money. That's how Marx and Marxists have traditionally used that term. However, because of its connotations, the word "proletariat" is simply unclear to most modern workers and is thus ineffective in communicating a core concept of revolutionary politics.

Compare the word "proletariat" to more modern words like "the class of employees," or the "wage-earning class," or even the "working class." These formulations mean the same thing as "proletariat" and communicate the same precise meaning without needlessly grating on the modern ear.

Example 2: The same thing is true of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat." To the modern ear, the word "dictatorship" has the strong connotation of "totalitarian rule" or even a "one-person authoritarian dictatorship," a meaning entirely different than Marx or Lenin intended to communicate. Marx and Lenin's ideas of "dictatorship" in general and "dictatorship of the proletariat" in particular were far more nuanced and subtle than the modern interpretation most workers might give to these terms today, or actually since World War II.

By "dictatorship," Marx and Lenin meant something more like "directorship." They understood that an authoritarian or totalitarian regime might have one person as a figurehead, but such a figurehead cannot function without a bureaucracy. Hitler and Mussolini could not have exercised their power without their body of armed men supporting them. They exercised control only because they could muster much more power than they had in their muscles or in whatever personal weapons they owned. They had their goons and thugs to enforce their diktat. When comrades use the word "dictatorship," Hitler or Mussolini are the prototypes for this word in the minds of modern workers.

Marx and Lenin also understood the word "dictatorship" to mean not just any old kind of directorship, but a class-based directorship. Moreover, to Marx and Lenin, dictatorship (directorship) and democracy were not necessarily polar opposites. They often exist together in some kind of dialectical balance.,

For example, using the terms of their day, Marx and Lenin might say that the bourgeois governments of France, the UK, and the United States are "democratic dictatorships of the capitalist class," by which they'd mean that there is a capitalist class-based directorship of the state, whose administrators are selected by a limited type of democracy, and that these representatives themselves set state policy by a parliamentary type of vote.

Another example: Ancient Athenian democracy (ancient Greece) was a democracy, as all male citizens had a vote. But more than half of Athenian residents were slaves, not citizens, and slaves or non-citizens could not vote. That made Athenian democracy a "democratic dictatorship of the slave-owner class.". The catch was, of course, more than half of the general population were slaves and had no vote. You could call it a democratic directorship of the slave owners.

When Marx and Lenin talk about a dictatorship of the proletariat, what they mean is a society administered by a democratically-controlled directorship of the working class. This means that the working class would democratically administer the affairs of state under a more democratic system than the present parliamentary system. Such a workers' directorship would be a new form of democracy far more democratic than anything the world has seen.
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So when explaining socialism to those who don't know much about it, I don't use the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" unless someone says they heard some Marxist used the phrase and they wonder if that means Marxian socialism advocates totalitarianism. Then I explain what Marx and Lenin meant by democracy, dictatorship, and so on.

I tend to use words that are less confusing and more understandable, terms like "worker's democracy," "economic democracy," and I talk about breaking the political stranglehold that the corporations hold over us.

I talk about socialism giving us workers the right to vote on real issues that impact upon our lives. Socialist democracy gives us control over the conditions of life. For example, we could vote on ending homelessness, guaranteeing employment at decent compensation to all who want to work. I talk about us workers being able to vote on questions of war, on health care, on environmental protection. We don't get to vote on any of that now because that threatens the interests of the corporatocracy/ruling class (capitalist class). I explain that capitalist democracy is quite limited and elementary because our votes don't determine much.

I argue that in general, in any society, those who control the wealth have a monopoly on meaningful political power. For socialism to actually work, we need a new form of democracy, a workers' democracy. That's why the wealth needs to be put under public ownership and democratic control.

I explain this comes from the socialist golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules, and today, as the wealth becomes more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, capitalism becomes less and less compatible with any kind of popular input into the democratic process. I then explain that socialism can only work by having the greatest degree of democracy—the democracy of the working class running society.
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I have been emphasizing that clarity of communication is paramount, but clarity of communication entails more than just terminology. We need to bear something else in mind:

If we are to teach, we must be willing to learn.
If we wish to be heard, we must willing to listen.
If we want to change people's minds about something, we must be open to changing our minds about things too.

Educating the masses requires that kind dialectical process and cannot happen without it.

People resent it if they feel they are being talked at, or talked down to, instead of being engaged with. Communicating socialist ideas to the masses can only happen with respectful dialog. We can't teach anything to the masses if our actions make them unwilling to consider what we have to say.

If Marx could learn from experience (which he most certainly did)—if Marx could learn from people who saw things differently than he—(which he also most certainly did)—if Marx could revise certain of his views as he matured and learned more—(which most certainly was the case), can we do anything less?

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates

International_Solidarity

28th July 2013, 11:32

Please forgive the length of this response.

There is no need to apologize here. I am actually very appreciative that you took the time to give me such a lengthy and detailed response to a few of my questions. I agree with many, if not all, of the points you made, and your post was very thought provoking for me. You actually touched on something that has been hurting my efforts in spreading Socialism, my clarity and terminology. That has been a huge problem for me in the past, and you are correct in stating that people often respond with confusion. I thank you for pointing this out and helping me with my own struggle.
I also strongly agreed with what you said about being both willing to learn and to teach. I feel that always being open to listen is important, and I just wanted to point out that we are in strong agreement here. Thank you for the useful post!

Alan OldStudent

3rd August 2013, 10:09

Hello Comrade International_Solidarity,

I'm sorry I haven't followed up my last post until just now. Again, forgive the length. I hope your eyes don't glaze over looking at how long it is.

In my last post to you, I talked about the importance of clear and unambiguous communication when sharing our ideas about socialism with the masses.

Why is this important? Because socialism cannot come about until the majority of the population support it. In a modern society, that means the majority of the working class must support it. For that to happen, several prerequisites have been fulfilled.

Prerequisites:

The majority of the masses must understand why we need to replace capitalism with socialism.
The majority of the masses must feel replacing capitalism with socialism is feasible and possible.
The majority of the masses must know how to replace capitalism with socialism.

That means we have a big job ahead of us. To do this job, we need to see how to overcome the roadblocks and obstacles to these prerequisites listed below:

Roadblocks to achieving socialism:

One roadblock is a certain lack of class consciousness, understanding that we are an economic class that has interests that are incompatible with the profits of the capitalist class. This problem is diminishing, as I point out below.
A majority of working class people must understand why socialism is necessary if the human race is to survive. Presently, they do not. Nevertheless, a sizable minority are more favorable owing to the economic and environmental disasters facing the human race.
Many of us workers feel powerless to make effective change, resulting in a certain level of apathy and even cynicism.
Many of us workers have illusions that it is possible to make substantial change through capitalist electoral politics.
Many fear that revolution will bring about civil war, gulags, repression, show trials, privation and that revolutionary politics is unacceptably risky.
Many of us lack of confidence in ourselves, in our ability to run society better, or even as well, as the bankers, industrialists, and war profiteers.
Fear of "others and outsiders," such as China, Russia, Muslims, immigrants, along with fear of overstated or imaginary conspiracies like the so-called homosexual agenda, the Bilderberg group, Elders of Zion, extraterrestrials, various Muslim conspiracy theories, the End Times, or the Antichrist. People like Glenn Beck whip up a lot of this type of hysteria. Much of this fear is based on plain old racism, homophobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, and so on. Such conspiracy theories are tools that fascists rely upon to create mass support for their reactionary violence.
And the MOST IMPORTANT block: Fear at the idea of confronting what amounts to the most powerful and relentless ruling class in human history. Fear that engaging in this fight is suicide for our class or even our society.

These roadblocks are real, and we must confront them as we seek to develop strategy and tactics.

Overcoming the obstacles:
We need to be truthful to ourselves. We have to make a serious and sober assessment of the actual political stage of our working class colleagues. We mustn't confuse our level of consciousness as socialists with where the masses' heads are at. Any plan of action must be based on a sober assessment of reality. We need to analyze in order to develop strategy that meets these obstacles. Later I list some ideas for overcoming some of these obstacles listed above.

Notwithstanding the above, the situation is by no means hopeless. Indeed, things are beginning to turn in our favor. We are at the cusp of a very deep radicalization, the very beginning of a sea-change in popular consciousness. We're not there yet, but we've come a long way, as the old saying goes. We must begin with understanding how popular consciousness is evolving and seize the opportunities such changes can bring us.

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The events of late 2011 (Occupy Wall Streetin the USA and other places, Indignados in Spain, Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East) herald a large step forward for the masses: Our class is beginning to develop a class consciousness in several advanced capitalist countries, notably the United States, and class consciousness is deepening elsewhere. Our class is just now beginning to understand the power we have as a class if we engage in the strategy of independent mass action.

In the United States, there has been a remarkable start towards class consciousness on the part of the American masses. Before just a few years ago, Americans believed that most of us were "middle class," and that America was not really a class society. This had been the case for at least 80 years or more. This lack of class consciousness has been a real hindrance for socialists.

But today, we are at a new stage, the beginning of class consciousness.

The masses generally lacked class consciousness even during the big radicalization of the 1960s, even during the civil rights and antiwar struggles. Sure, a part of the leadership of these movements were socialists, anarchists, and communists, and they certainly were class conscious. But anarchists, socialists, and communists were only a minority part of the leadership, although we radicals had a disproportionally larger level of influence than our numbers might indicate.

Nevertheless, the majority of the leadership in these struggles, such as the anti Jim Crow and antiwar movements, were what we in the USA call liberals. Among the masses themselves, there was, by and large, very little or no class consciousness at all! Moreover, there were deep illusions in the Democratic Party and capitalist elections, illusions that are rapidly beginning to crumble today.

I can't emphasize the importance of that fact enough for us revolutionary socialists. Here's how that class consciousness arose with such unexpected speed.

In 2008, the American housing market suddenly collapsed, and millions faced the prospect of losing their homes. Unemployment shot up, and millions lost their pensions and savings. This 2008 crisis came on the heels of many so-called middle-class jobs moving off shore. The government started shoveling buckets of our tax-payer money into the coffers of corporations, the "too big to fail" institutions, many of which promptly gave huge bonuses to the CEOs. Americans were feeling war weary, tired of expensive wars that seemed never to end while there was no money for social services or local infrastructure.

Americans began to see that a tiny minority controlled both the political process and the wealth of this country, and popular anger at the brigands, thieves, financial hustlers, and war profiteers reached a boiling point. The Occupy Wall Street movement championed slogans that summed up this frustration. Tens of thousands marched in the streets chanting "Banks got bailed out; we got sold out," and "We are the 99%." The bankers were "banksters." For the first time in a century, anticapitalism gained a new respectability.
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It's true that this 99% meme lacks the depth of a Marxian understanding of class. Nevertheless, this giant step in class consciousness should not be dismissed or trivialized.

When the ruling class dismantled the encampments, there began a lull in activity, although many Occupy groups still exist and are active to one degree or another. Beneath the present veneer of inactivity and social calm, the resentment of the masses still smolders, waiting for the next gust of social wind to set it off. Americans and others are beginning to see just what class means in an advanced capitalist society.

We should remember what it was like before Occupy Wall Street. In September of 2011, a few scruffy protestors took over a park in New York and proclaimed they were the 99%. As they were doing that, the punditry and the politicians were arguing about how fast to attack Social Security, unemployment benefits, and all other social programs so as to finance the bailout. No one questioned the legitimacy of that attack. The only acceptable and legitimate topic in the national political dialog was how far to go and how fast.

So the establishment paid little attention to that tiny handful of protestors in Zucchotti Park. After all, these protestors seemed marginalized, unorganized, and they had no program or list of demands. The ruling class did not feel threatened by this handful of young and seemingly marginal folks, many of whom were homeless and minorities.

But within a few months, the ruling class felt plenty threatened. With bewildering rapidity, there were thousands of encampments and hundreds of thousands of protestors, demonstrating, mic-checking, occupying, and disrupting. It was clear that the Occupy activists articulated the rage of a socially significant layer of the masses, and those masses threatened to upset the apple cart.

Quite abruptly, the acceptable topics of political conversation shifted from how fast to attack our standard of living to the very legitimacy of such an attack.

Politicians noticed that, and the more conservative ones started yammering about the dangers of preaching "class warfare," while the more liberal politicians sought to channel the discontent into their campaigns.

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As stated, currently, there is a lull in activity, but in the not-too-distant future, there will be another social upsurge. It is only a matter of time. That upsurge will present us with an opportunity to organize, to further the cause of socialism.

We must seize every opportunity to organize at each mass upsurge. It is important for us to be among the best builders of these protest movements, especially those that make specific demands. This is true for several reasons:

Achieving reforms via mass action will temporarily improve life for a large portion of our class. That in itself is worthwhile.
More importantly, it helps us demonstrate that independent mass action puts power into the hands of the masses. It is a school of social struggle, of popular power, of revolution. It builds confidence and educates the masses in the principles of organizing.
If we are among the best builders of these movements, it gives us a certain credibility in discussing socialism, in discussing the ecological damage of capitalism and the economic crises capitalism brings in its wake, the necessity of replacing capitalism.
It provides us the opportunity to learn from those we work with. Remember, we can't educate people without being willing to learn from them. We can't expect people to listen to us unless we listen to them. Revolutionary organizing is a dialectic process that makes this dynamic a reality.

Winning even minor concessions as a result of mass action helps give our class confidence, education, and experience. It diminishes the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness, gives us confidence in our abilities. It also helps to undercut the illusions so many in our class have about capitalist "democracy" and the capitalist system. It is an antidote to resignation, cynicism, and apathy. But to do this, we have to avoid the pitfall of sectarianism.

I'll expand on these topics later on when I have more time.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates