Is there something valuable in Soc.-Dem. after 1917?

[Noa Rodman]

or after 1922, when Kautsky returned to the SPD? Let's take 1938 as the end of Social-democracy in Europe. In these 2 decades what did the marxists in the socialist camp (Hilferding, Kautsky, Julian Besteiro, Otto Bauer) argue about which matters today?

I'm still trying to formulate the question properly. This period comes after the revolutionary wave waned and is marked by severe economic crisis. Considering these objective limitations on class struggle, maybe the question is what do we expect they (mainly Kautsky) should have said or done?

Calling them Marxists "in name only" is a type of critique based on a problematic actionism. Perhaps it's easier to say what they should not have done.

Maybe they should just have disappeared from politics all together? At least that way they would not do extra damage. I don't think that these Marxists in fact said nothing for 2 decades about issues involving politics, as if their once powerful theoretical brain just melted away.

What was valuable is remembering, defending and yes, developing orthodox Marxism.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Social democracy is just another captialist ideology. It is a bourgeois leftist ideology and should be opposed at all costs. It advocates class collaboration and rejects the revolutionary path the proletariat should take. I treat it like any other form of captialism. The only difference between social democracy and other capitalist ideologies is that social democracy looks to reform and advance capitalism into the future; to give it a more comfortable feel in order to trick the proletariat into accepting it.

[Yuppie Grinder]

The whole bit the ICC goes on about where the working class has no more reforms to win is simply not true and is rather eurocentric. Institutionalized racism is as much an instrument of class warfare as always, and across much of the world, universal healthcare and education still do not exist, reproductive rights are not recognized by the state, etc.
That being said, the health (mental health, especially) and education systems are still methods of social control. They indoctrinate, subjugate, make-dependent upon the state. When in bourgeois hands, anything will be turned into a weapon of class warfare. It is only natural and organic.
While history has proven that in the hands of capital these reforms will be turned into tools of oppression, and entry into the bourgeois state apparatus will corrupt invariably, these reforms are life-or-death things for many workers around the world.

[Yuppie Grinder]

All that aside, Social Democracy today is a bourgeois ideology far-removed from Marxism, different from social liberalism only in lingo and presentation. I don't support entry into the bourgeois state apparatus, but rather direct class struggle to assure that workers get the education and healthcare they need to live.

[Zederbaum]

or after 1922, when Kautsky returned to the SPD? Let's take 1938 as the end of Social-democracy in Europe. In these 2 decades what did the marxists in the socialist camp (Hilferding, Kautsky, Julian Besteiro, Otto Bauer) argue about which matters today?

I'm still trying to formulate the question properly. This period comes after the revolutionary wave waned and is marked by severe economic crisis. Considering these objective limitations on class struggle, maybe the question is what do we expect they (mainly Kautsky) should have said or done?
Well, I think Kautsky was essentially correct in his analysis so I'm not sure he should have made any major changes. He had always seen the revolution as being directed against the military-empires of continental Europe and that when the post-war revolutions had established stable democratic states, the class struggle would progress along favourable lines to the working class (since it was a majority of the population); hence no violent revolution would be necessary to crush the democratic state the way it was necessary to destroy the Kaiser's or Czar's regime.

The utter lack of social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries indicates that Kautsky was onto something with his prognosis of the stability of the democracies, the aberration of fascism notwithstanding. Following on from this, he correctly saw the necessity for the labour movement to rely on its capacity to win a majority at the polls rather than pin its hopes on an insurrection a la St Petersburg in February or October 1917. The left's focus on insurrection as the method of ushering in socialism is singularly ill suited to the advanced capitalist countries; it treats their democratic states as essentially the same as the old Habsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollern regimes. The context has changed vastly since then. We could learn quite a bit from Kautsky on that front.

In Europe, something akin to the 1789, where democratic legitimacy gained via elections can be used to set the ball rolling in a radical direction, is more likely than 1917.

On the downside, he underestimated the difficulty of the labour movement surviving a prolonged period of capitalist domination including the integrative effects on the Social Democrats of administering a capitalist economy. This is understandable at a time when the left had a massive press and cultural apparatus, such that they were competitive with the capitalist propaganda machine as well as looking like it could be permanently in power due to the sheer numbers of workers. That is no longer the case of course and capitalism has greatly altered the social structure, both in terms of the state but also in terms of how companies are organised. The socialists' base has been hollowed out and integrated into society in a way that is quite different from pre-1918.


Calling them Marxists "in name only" is a type of critique based on a problematic actionism. Perhaps it's easier to say what they should not have done. There is no reason to say that they threw Marxism overboard any more than one would say it of Marx and Engels, both of whom entertained the possibility that socialism could emerge victorious in the democratic capitalist societies via universal suffrage, i.e. without needing a violent revolution.

[kashkin]

I think social democracy is pretty much dead. It was heavily discredited in 1914, and we are no seeing the collapse of social democratic parties world wide. There are people who think it can work (many liberals, and I did as well).

As for being opposed at all costs, I agree and disagree. Yes, it is (in practise) a capitalist ideology that eventually always supports business over workers, however if there was a real social democratic party, I would support it simply so no right-wing party could come in and attack workers (obviously, people think many s-d parties will help workers, then thay turn around and cut budgets as heavily as conservative parties).

Obviously I recognise that it is not a revolutionary theory and not a practise that will lead to socialism, however it is possible to turn social democrats to Marxism and socialism, I don't think we should right off rank and file members entirely.

[Die Neue Zeit]

or after 1922, when Kautsky returned to the SPD? Let's take 1938 as the end of Social-democracy in Europe. In these 2 decades what did the marxists in the socialist camp (Hilferding, Kautsky, Julian Besteiro, Otto Bauer) argue about which matters today?

I'm still trying to formulate the question properly. This period comes after the revolutionary wave waned and is marked by severe economic crisis. Considering these objective limitations on class struggle, maybe the question is what do we expect they (mainly Kautsky) should have said or done?

Calling them Marxists "in name only" is a type of critique based on a problematic actionism. Perhaps it's easier to say what they should not have done.

Maybe they should just have disappeared from politics all together? At least that way they would not do extra damage. I don't think that these Marxists in fact said nothing for 2 decades about issues involving politics, as if their once powerful theoretical brain just melted away.

What was valuable is remembering, defending and yes, developing orthodox Marxism.

Post-WWI Social Democracy per se was a mixed bag at best.

A more durable Independent Social Democracy would have been more credible.

However, even the "Marxists" ended up supporting anti-communist Democratic Front antics, so the Social Fascism reaction was quite justified. As for the Russian question, real Orthodox Marxism didn't shift to the Menshevik positions (to the point of supporting the Defencists running Georgia) as easily as German Social Democracy did.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, I think Kautsky was essentially correct in his analysis so I'm not sure he should have made any major changes. He had always seen the revolution as being directed against the military-empires of continental Europe and that when the post-war revolutions had established stable democratic states, the class struggle would progress along favourable lines to the working class (since it was a majority of the population); hence no violent revolution would be necessary to crush the democratic state the way it was necessary to destroy the Kaiser's or Czar's regime.

The utter lack of social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries indicates that Kautsky was onto something with his prognosis of the stability of the democracies, the aberration of fascism notwithstanding. Following on from this, he correctly saw the necessity for the labour movement to rely on its capacity to win a majority at the polls rather than pin its hopes on an insurrection a la St Petersburg in February or October 1917. The left's focus on insurrection as the method of ushering in socialism is singularly ill suited to the advanced capitalist countries; it treats their democratic states as essentially the same as the old Habsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollern regimes. The context has changed vastly since then. We could learn quite a bit from Kautsky on that front.

Yeah, the renegade Kautsky got it so wrong by sticking to legalism, rule-of-law constitutionalism, etc. When somebody says to merely go to the polls instead of conducting mass civil disobedience campaigns, something's wrong. That's to say nothing about merely going to the polls instead of active party-movement membership.

The real Orthodox Marxism of old paved the way for institutional approaches to class struggle and social revolution by going against left fetishes and reform collaborationism (negative strategy, logically), but as comrade Macnair pointed out in his book, did not entirely present a logically positive strategy.

That strategy, today, is one for a more institutional approach, but one free of legal fetishes (so no, to hell with current bourgeois institutions, but hell yeah to workers building new institutions "this side of revolution," and non-party councils don't count).


There is no reason to say that they threw Marxism overboard any more than one would say it of Marx and Engels, both of whom entertained the possibility that socialism could emerge victorious in the democratic capitalist societies via universal suffrage, i.e. without needing a violent revolution.

Again, the more fundamental problem is legalism. "Violent revolution" and "Riots!" tend to be strawmen for those clinging to legalist fetishes.

[Noa Rodman]

The task also for socialist parties was knowing how to retreat properly and that is where I think the modest contribution, if you can call it that, of a Kautsky was, in critiquing Social-Democracy as it existed between the two world wars.

[Ocean Seal]

Yes, knowing what not to do.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The task also for socialist parties was knowing how to retreat properly and that is where I think the modest contribution, if you can call it that, of a Kautsky was, in critiquing Social-Democracy as it existed between the two world wars.

Both the renegade Kautsky and the eventual lesser renegade Lenin didn't get things spot on about retreating properly. [I say "lesser renegade" because Lenin suggested that peasants join the party, while the renegade upheld the SPD's class-restrictive membership policy.]

[Noa Rodman]

On the downside, he underestimated the difficulty of the labour movement surviving a prolonged period of capitalist domination including the integrative effects on the Social Democrats of administering a capitalist economy. This is understandable at a time when the left had a massive press and cultural apparatus, such that they were competitive with the capitalist propaganda machine as well as looking like it could be permanently in power due to the sheer numbers of workers. That is no longer the case of course and capitalism has greatly altered the social structure, both in terms of the state but also in terms of how companies are organised. The socialists' base has been hollowed out and integrated into society in a way that is quite different from pre-1918.

Julian Besteiro still was advocating the strategy laid in Road to power (he even met Kautsky in Germany around the time this book came out); stay out of power (and don't unite with the Stalinists). Austrian Soc.-Dem. mostly were a party who stayed in opposition to government. And even in places where the socialist parties participated in a coalition there was a clear awareness of its limitations and pitfalls.

But I want to add something to the analysis of Kautsky and a few other leaders, about being in a period of retreat. There is indeed more at stake for the working class, so this makes the very nature of struggle more defensive, for example the strike against the Kapp-putsch. Whereas "street violence" by the socialists in Spain or Austria (1934) ended in failure.

Okay, but leaving aside disputations about details, this I fear is not a productive or inspiring lesson to "forward-moving" people.

[Zederbaum]

However, even the "Marxists" ended up supporting anti-communist Democratic Front antics, so the Social Fascism reaction was quite justified.Ah, DNZ, come on. "Social Fascism" was a stupidly wrong description of the SDP; whatever one thinks of their stance in the 1920s, it wasn't remotely fascist and descriptions of them as such just empty the concept of fascism of all content. Were the Communist Parties of the Popular Front and later eras "Social Fascists"?

The SDP's, and more particularly Kautsky's, pro-democratic policies remained consistent, therefore Kautsky was no renegade; it was Lenin, not Kautsky, who being contaminated with anarchist heresies, departed from Orthodoxy :).

The SPD were hardly to blame for the German Communist Party's bizarre adventurist and anti-democratic policies which made allying with them very difficult nor, for that matter, the Russian Party's attempt at the impossible and their consequent resort to terror, which was hardly a great propaganda coup for socialism.


Yeah, the renegade Kautsky got it so wrong by sticking to legalism, rule-of-law constitutionalism, etc. When somebody says to merely go to the polls instead of conducting mass civil disobedience campaigns, something's wrong. That's to say nothing about merely going to the polls instead of active party-movement membership.

The real Orthodox Marxism of old paved the way for institutional approaches to class struggle and social revolution by going against left fetishes and reform collaborationism (negative strategy, logically), but as comrade Macnair pointed out in his book, did not entirely present a logically positive strategy.

That strategy, today, is one for a more institutional approach, but one free of legal fetishes (so no, to hell with current bourgeois institutions, but hell yeah to workers building new institutions "this side of revolution," and non-party councils don't count).

Again, the more fundamental problem is legalism. "Violent revolution" and "Riots!" tend to be strawmen for those clinging to legalist fetishes.
It's not a fetish; it's a question of what is likely to work.

Socialism is the goal. Electoralism, civil disobedience, revolution, even the focus on the working class itself are mere strategies. Democratic legitimacy, for better or for worse, is necessary in the advanced capitalist countries. There is no contradiction between going to the polls and having an active party-movement. In any case I doubt that a mass socialist movement can be sustained for any length of time in the West if it avoids elections. The last great one was the CNT, but the day of the syndicalist unions in Europe seems to have passed.

The far left, from anarchist to Trotskyist to Left Communist are really, really small compared to the old Social Democratic and Communist Parties and the latter had to morph into Kautskyist parties in order to remain a mass movement in Western conditions. History is telling us something here.

[Zederbaum]

Okay, but leaving aside disputations about details, this I fear is not a productive or inspiring lesson to "forward-moving" people.
To pare it down to essentials and avoid details, we can learn from the Centrists the following:

1. To not regard whatever era we live in as the final evolution of history or even capitalism. For example, the Leninist doctrine of Imperialism being the last stage of capitalism was applicable to 1914, but Kautsky's more flexible insight divined that while correct for that era, it was not necessarily the last stage and that capitalism could progress to a cartelization of the world under a hegemonic order. Historical materialism is a method rather than a set of specific theses about this or that society. Hence, dogmatic analyses, particularly those emanating from the 1914 split, need to be treated with skepticism and caution.

2. To not to rely on catastrophe as a way to build socialism since socialism will supplant an advanced capitalism, not a broken one.

3. The necessity of winning majority support for socialism. A purely insurrectionist strategy will fail because a) insurrections depend on a minority and b) are most likely to arise out of catastrophe. For which see point #2.

4. Elections are as good a way as any at measuring whether a movement has majority support. So the democratic system in the capitalist countries should be respected and used, not treated with disdain.

5. To resurrect the old SPD and Eurocommunist interest in an ecosystem of alternative socialist projects, e.g. a large and varied press, deep roots in the unions, a massive co-operative sector all contribute to the capacity of the socialist movement to supplant capitalism. Again, waiting til after the insurrection leaves too much construction work to be done.

[Leo]

The whole bit the ICC goes on about where the working class has no more reforms to win is simply not true and is rather eurocentric.

Nor is it what the ICC goes on about, actually. The point made by the ICC is that reforms that are meaningful, permanent and generalized are not possible, and that because of the fact that capitalism in all parts of the world is no longer a rising star but a system in basically constant crisis.

Our conclusion from this is not that workers' struggles to improve their living and working conditions is meaningless, quite the contrary we believe that the proletarian revolution itself will develop out of these struggles as capitalism proves over and over again and with every struggle its inability to grant meaningful, permanent and generalized reforms, making revolution a necessity for the working class. This dynamic is what makes the world revolution a realistic possibility.


Institutionalized racism is as much an instrument of class warfare as always, and across much of the world, universal healthcare and education still do not exist, reproductive rights are not recognized by the state, etc.

Exactly. In fact, we can add many other similar issues to this list, including a great majority of the reforms once won by the social democratic movement in the capitalist world yet are now lost again, such as the abolition of child labor or the eight hour day. And so long as capitalism remains, these issues will not be really gone for the general population permanently.

We are revolutionaries, however we would be fools if we thought the only requirement of the revolution was whether people simply make a rational conclusion that its a good idea. Had reforms actually been truly possible for the general population for good at least for the current epoch, then materially it wouldn't be possible for an actually revolutionary struggle to develop for it wouldn't have a material basis in the real world. This was the case in the 19th century, and even the communist revolutionaries who had nothing less than the overthrow of capitalism as their perspective walked and fought side by side with the reformists.

Yet, to go back to the original topic, the practice of reformism developed a dynamic of its own. The role of mediation they had assumed ended up bringing them so close to the ruling class that eventually, when World War 1 broke out they betrayed the workers' movement by supporting the war. So no, there is nothing valuable in social democracy after its betrayal, except those who split from and condemned it. Ever since these social democratic parties have been vicious enemies of the proletarian revolution and the interests of the working class.

[gorillafuck]

Nor is it what the ICC goes on about, actually. The point made by the ICC is that reforms that are meaningful, permanent and generalized are not possible, and that because of the fact that capitalism in all parts of the world is no longer a rising star but a system in basically constant crisis.

Our conclusion from this is not that workers' struggles to improve their living and working conditions is meaningless, quite the contrary we believe that the proletarian revolution itself will develop out of these struggles as capitalism proves over and over again and with every struggle its inability to grant meaningful, permanent and generalized reforms, making revolution a necessity for the working class. This dynamic is what makes the world revolution a realistic possibility.



Exactly. In fact, we can add many other similar issues to this list, including a great majority of the reforms once won by the social democratic movement in the capitalist world yet are now lost again, such as the abolition of child labor or the eight hour day. And so long as capitalism remains, these issues will not be really gone for the general population permanently.

We are revolutionaries, however we would be fools if we thought the only requirement of the revolution was whether people simply make a rational conclusion that its a good idea. Had reforms actually been truly possible for the general population for good at least for the current epoch, then materially it wouldn't be possible for an actually revolutionary struggle to develop for it wouldn't have a material basis in the real world. This was the case in the 19th century, and even the communist revolutionaries who had nothing less than the overthrow of capitalism as their perspective walked and fought side by side with the reformists.

Yet, to go back to the original topic, the practice of reformism developed a dynamic of its own. The role of mediation they had assumed ended up bringing them so close to the ruling class that eventually, when World War 1 broke out they betrayed the workers' movement by supporting the war. So no, there is nothing valuable in social democracy after its betrayal, except those who split from and condemned it. Ever since these social democratic parties have been vicious enemies of the proletarian revolution and the interests of the working class.the left communist distinction between when it was acceptable to work in reformists and engage in reformist struggles and when it was not okay seems really hazy to me.

[Leo]

Perhaps that might be because that is not the distinction I am making? It is pretty simple really although I will try to make it simpler.

Reforms are one thing, reformists are another.

A reform is any improvement in the living and working conditions of the proletariat.

A reformist is someone who believes either that obtaining enough of such reforms will lead to socialism, or a humane capitalism.

When permanent, generalized and meaningful reforms are possible under capitalism, it is natural that revolutionaries work in the same organizations with the reformists.

When such reforms are not possible, then this means that revolution is actually a possibility and this means that the reformists, by holding on to their old position, end up counter-revolutionaries spreading false consciousness.

Under all circumstances, revolutionaries have the duty to participate in the workers' struggles for their living and working conditions.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Julian Besteiro still was advocating the strategy laid in Road to power (he even met Kautsky in Germany around the time this book came out); stay out of power (and don't unite with the Stalinists). Austrian Soc.-Dem. mostly were a party who stayed in opposition to government. And even in places where the socialist parties participated in a coalition there was a clear awareness of its limitations and pitfalls.

And therein lies the fundamental problem, comrade. There was refusal to engage in joint opposition with said Stalinists. There weren't even joint opposition efforts with whatever independents were left from the International Working Union of Socialist Parties ("Two-and-a-Half International").


Ah, DNZ, come on. "Social Fascism" was a stupidly wrong description of the SDP; whatever one thinks of their stance in the 1920s, it wasn't remotely fascist and descriptions of them as such just empty the concept of fascism of all content. Were the Communist Parties of the Popular Front and later eras "Social Fascists"?

Did you read my programmatic commentary on economic rent? It would be more accurate to call them Social-Corporatists:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&gmid=33806


The SDP's, and more particularly Kautsky's, pro-democratic policies remained consistent, therefore Kautsky was no renegade; it was Lenin, not Kautsky, who being contaminated with anarchist heresies, departed from Orthodoxy

I'll have to disagree with you there. Left-Wing Communism was an attempt at reasserting the best things to take out of the Marxist Center, against the "anarchist heresies" you mentioned. Even in State and Revolution, Lenin was skeptical about soviets.


The SPD were hardly to blame for the German Communist Party's bizarre adventurist and anti-democratic policies which made allying with them very difficult nor, for that matter, the Russian Party's attempt at the impossible and their consequent resort to terror, which was hardly a great propaganda coup for socialism.

You really need to re-examine the history of the USPD.


It's not a fetish; it's a question of what is likely to work.

The DeLeonist Socialist Labor Party and the World Socialist Movement have tried this for centuries now, without much results. They were absent from things like the anti-Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights movement, etc. to say nothing about their absence from Alternative Culture.

Today's contemporaries would be called "social movements."


Socialism is the goal. Electoralism, civil disobedience, revolution, even the focus on the working class itself are mere strategies.

That's wrong, too. There are goals, there are strategies, and there are tactics. Electoral participation (not electoralism), mass spoilage campaigns, civil disobedience campaigns, political strikes, revolution, etc. are tactics. They, alas, can confused quite easily with strategies (reform coalitions).


Democratic legitimacy, for better or for worse, is necessary in the advanced capitalist countries.

I agree and disagree. As I stated to comrade Q, majority political support from the working class is necessary. Whether this majority is the overall electoral majority is irrelevant.

There can be majority political support from the working class that has only an electoral minority, and it would still be OK for this "minority" to sidestep legalist fetishes and seize power.

There can also be only minority political support from the working class as part of some bigger electoral majority, but I would not consider it OK at all for this "majority" to proclaim itself the dictatorship of the proletariat.


There is no contradiction between going to the polls and having an active party-movement. In any case I doubt that a mass socialist movement can be sustained for any length of time in the West if it avoids elections.

If political activity in general is avoided, yes. However, like I said earlier, political activity takes on many forms. Many things were achieved without "going to the ballot box" or running for elections, most notably the Civil Rights movement.

I will agree with you on this, though (unlike an ultra-leftist or two posting here in this thread): if voting and running in elections is a no-go, then at least consider mass spoilage campaigns. Political abstentionism in any way, shape, or form, is not the way to go.

[Die Neue Zeit]

To pare it down to essentials and avoid details, we can learn from the Centrists the following:

1. To not regard whatever era we live in as the final evolution of history or even capitalism. For example, the Leninist doctrine of Imperialism being the last stage of capitalism was applicable to 1914, but Kautsky's more flexible insight divined that while correct for that era, it was not necessarily the last stage and that capitalism could progress to a cartelization of the world under a hegemonic order. Historical materialism is a method rather than a set of specific theses about this or that society. Hence, dogmatic analyses, particularly those emanating from the 1914 split, need to be treated with skepticism and caution.

2. To not to rely on catastrophe as a way to build socialism since socialism will supplant an advanced capitalism, not a broken one.

That's all true so far.


3. The necessity of winning majority support for socialism. A purely insurrectionist strategy will fail because a) insurrections depend on a minority and b) are most likely to arise out of catastrophe. For which see point #2.

Again, this one's more muddled. Majority support from where? Where's the class basis?


4. Elections are as good a way as any at measuring whether a movement has majority support. So the democratic system in the capitalist countries should be respected and used, not treated with disdain.

And this is where I differ with you. A much more reliable way of measuring political support is honest voting membership or what I call honest party-movement "citizenship."


5. To resurrect the old SPD and Eurocommunist interest in an ecosystem of alternative socialist projects, e.g. a large and varied press, deep roots in the unions, a massive co-operative sector all contribute to the capacity of the socialist movement to supplant capitalism. Again, waiting til after the insurrection leaves too much construction work to be done.

I definitely agree here, but personally I don't like the "ecosystem" direction as opposed to one huge institutional approach. The press should be of the party-movement. Unions should be shunned in favour of a syndicalism that is immediately sociopolitical. Approaches to cooperative activity need to be made with clear heads, especially on the for-profit vs. non-profit business models.



Oh, and ad hoc council/soviet fetishes be damned.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Perhaps that might be because that is not the distinction I am making? It is pretty simple really although I will try to make it simpler.

Reforms are one thing, reformists are another.

A reform is any improvement in the living and working conditions of the proletariat.

A reformist is someone who believes either that obtaining enough of such reforms will lead to socialism, or a humane capitalism.

When permanent, generalized and meaningful reforms are possible under capitalism, it is natural that revolutionaries work in the same organizations with the reformists.

When such reforms are not possible, then this means that revolution is actually a possibility and this means that the reformists, by holding on to their old position, end up counter-revolutionaries spreading false consciousness.

Under all circumstances, revolutionaries have the duty to participate in the workers' struggles for their living and working conditions.

The problem with your catastrophist approach is that it also ignores politics (and "the struggle for socialism" is really itself economic and not political). Revolutionaries have the duty to politicize the working class by all means necessary, and not a lot of avenues (if any) for this exist within mere labour disputes.

[Rowan Duffy]

Again, this one's more muddled. Majority support from where? Where's the class basis?


If the working class can constitute itself as a majority than the class basis should be obvious. If the working class is unlikely to get this distinction then perhaps there is a question about what the revolutionary subject should be. A dictatorship of a minority proletariat is going to be an abject failure.

[Zederbaum]

Okay, but leaving aside disputations about details, this I fear is not a productive or inspiring lesson to "forward-moving" people.
I should add that one useful tendency that Kautsky, at least, embodied was the general lack of interest in Hegel and his inclination towards empiricism and Darwinism. Modern-Marxists are far more appreciative of the Lukacs, Korsch and the essentially Hegelian strand of Marxism, which is, in my view, very obscurantist and altogether less impressive than Kautsky's empirical orientation.

[Zederbaum]

I'll have to disagree with you there. Left-Wing Communism was an attempt at reasserting the best things to take out of the Marxist Center, against the "anarchist heresies" you mentioned. Even in State and Revolution, Lenin was skeptical about soviets.
Too late! Lenin grabbed Bakunin's crown in 1917 and all the backtracking in that book couldn't get him out of the fire he had leapt into.


The DeLeonist Socialist Labor Party and the World Socialist Movement have tried this for centuries now, without much results. They were absent from things like the anti-Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights movement, etc. to say nothing about their absence from Alternative Culture.The SPGB were and are impossiblists; very different from the SPD and the Eurocommunists.



That's wrong, too. There are goals, there are strategies, and there are tactics. Electoral participation (not electoralism), mass spoilage campaigns, civil disobedience campaigns, political strikes, revolution, etc. are tactics. They, alas, can confused quite easily with strategies (reform coalitions).Sure there are tactics too. The point is that it is necessary to remain strategically (and tactically!) flexible. Pinning all one's hopes on elections would be naive in the utmost. But it would be equally silly to disregard the need to attain a majority and condemn participation as reactionary.

Re: Democratic legitimacy.

I agree and disagree. As I stated to comrade Q, majority political support from the working class is necessary. Whether this majority is the overall electoral majority is irrelevant.Whether we like it or not, it is relevant.


There can be majority political support from the working class that has only an electoral minority, and it would still be OK for this "minority" to sidestep legalist fetishes and seize power.It might be morally okay, but this point is not merely a moral one; it's a pragmatic one, i.e. it's not going to work in terms of creating a stable basis from which to transition to socialism. Given that the majority of people in the advanced capitalist countries are workers, this should not pose a problem for socialists.


If political activity in general is avoided, yes. However, like I said earlier, political activity takes on many forms. Many things were achieved without "going to the ballot box" or running for elections, most notably the Civil Rights movement.As fine as the Civil Rights movement was, it was not a socialist movement. Both anti-racism and anti-sexism are logical extensions of bourgeois civil liberties (a category not to be sneezed at). They are obviously welcome, long-term gains. But they are gains which flow with the tide of democratic capitalism. They are not specifically socialist.

It is much harder for socialists to create long-term mass organisations which have a clear socialist goal. It is even harder to do so on a non-electoral basis. The CNT seem to be the last great one in the West. The modern anti-globalisation movement, insofar as it has a socialist goal, is far too loose to be described as an organisation and as such punches well below its weight.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If the working class can constitute itself as a majority than the class basis should be obvious. If the working class is unlikely to get this distinction then perhaps there is a question about what the revolutionary subject should be. A dictatorship of a minority proletariat is going to be an abject failure.

Yes, comrade, but that distinction between proletarian demographic majorities and proletarian demographic minorities isn't being debated here. It is between a proletarian demographic majority and some ill-defined (class-wise) electoral majority.


It might be morally okay, but this point is not merely a moral one; it's a pragmatic one, i.e. it's not going to work in terms of creating a stable basis from which to transition to socialism. Given that the majority of people in the advanced capitalist countries are workers, this should not pose a problem for socialists.

I think it's quite pragmatic, actually. I mean, if bourgeois regimes can survive quite nicely on first-past-the-post and other disproportional setups, it wouldn't be a big fuss for a proletarian demographic majority to sidestep a non-proletarian electoral majority, seize power, fully introduce public-sector wage labour into agricultural relations (i.e., run roughshod over those who aren't farm workers and who didn't support said proletarian demographic majority), stigmatize those who worked in the former security apparatus, embed political supervision into the military, etc. Any civil strife resulting would be easily swift and can be blamed on the other side.

It's the combination of a proletarian demographic majority with a non-proletarian electoral majority that isn't pragmatic in the long run.


As fine as the Civil Rights movement was, it was not a socialist movement. Both anti-racism and anti-sexism are logical extensions of bourgeois civil liberties (a category not to be sneezed at). They are obviously welcome, long-term gains. But they are gains which flow with the tide of democratic capitalism. They are not specifically socialist.

It was nonetheless a political struggle, and since genuine class struggle emerges from broader political struggles, that should be applauded.


It is much harder for socialists to create long-term mass organisations which have a clear socialist goal. It is even harder to do so on a non-electoral basis. The CNT seem to be the last great one in the West. The modern anti-globalisation movement, insofar as it has a socialist goal, is far too loose to be described as an organisation and as such punches well below its weight.

That "movement" isn't really a movement, because it has no institutional punch whatsoever. Today's "parties" aren't really parties, either, because they're mere electoral machines.

[gorillafuck]

When permanent, generalized and meaningful reforms are possible under capitalism, it is natural that revolutionaries work in the same organizations with the reformists.this seems possible in a lot of the world today, but the position I've always heard is that this time is over...

[Noa Rodman]

comrade Die Neue Zeit, have you engaged with the 1926 Linz program before (on MIA Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschösterreichs: Das Linzer Programm); do you think it's any good?

[Grenzer]

this seems possible in a lot of the world today, but the position I've always heard is that this time is over...

Well naturally it would appear to be over.

For the last 80 years socialists have been obsessing over mere labour disputes, rather than actually organizing in any meaningful way and building the party of the working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

comrade Die Neue Zeit, have you engaged with the 1926 Linz program before (on MIA Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschösterreichs: Das Linzer Programm); do you think it's any good?

Alas, I haven't heard of it before. Link? Translation?


Well naturally it would appear to be over.

For the last 80 years socialists have been obsessing over mere labour disputes, rather than actually organizing in any meaningful way and building the party of the working class.

True, but I'm sure here you were referring to collaborating with reformists as opposed to radical, structural, pro-labour reform that was debated between Leo and Zeekloid. Alas, Leo includes under "reforms" gains achieved within mere labour disputes.

[Grenzer]

True, but I'm sure here you were referring to collaborating with reformists as opposed to radical, structural, pro-labour reform that was debated between Leo and Zeekloid. Alas, Leo includes under "reforms" gains achieved within mere labour disputes.

That's true, but we haven't seen such meaningful, radical change since the collapse of the Erfurtian socialists into modern social-democracy. Of course, the left-com types use this and take the theory of decadence to say that such meaningful reforms are no longer possible; but I think the problem with this is that they don't consider that it may have to do more with the loss of Erfurtian strategies and organizational principles.

Of course this also risks the danger of falling into a Kautsky-esque legalist fetish. Reforms can never be anything other than a tool to advance revolution, not an end in and of themselves. I think that, among other reasons, the Second International's failure may be due in part to the overly teleological view of history which was shared by most Marxists of that time. They took for granted the idea that socialism was "inevitable" and didn't put enough emphasis on pushing for revolution.

Then of course, there is the issue of working class independence..

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's true, but we haven't seen such meaningful, radical change since the collapse of the Erfurtian socialists into modern social-democracy. Of course, the left-com types use this and take the theory of decadence to say that such meaningful reforms are no longer possible; but I think the problem with this is that they don't consider that it may have to do more with the loss of Erfurtian strategies and organizational principles.

That's because they explicitly reject said strategies and principles.


Of course this also risks the danger of falling into a Kautsky-esque legalist fetish. Reforms can never be anything other than a tool to advance revolution, not an end in and of themselves.

Even with the most radical, structural, and pro-labour reforms, I agree with you here. That doesn't spare them from indictments of not thinking outside the box.


I think that, among other reasons, the Second International's failure may be due in part to the overly teleological view of history which was shared by most Marxists of that time. They took for granted the idea that socialism was "inevitable" and didn't put enough emphasis on pushing for revolution.

Then of course, there is the issue of working class independence..

What I wrote in my earlier pamphlet and in my work-in-progress suggests quite a contradiction: there was the "inevitability" belief relative to advanced capitalism, which led to legalist fetishes, and yet they emphasized political activity. On the other hand, there's also an "inevitability" belief on the downside (ahem, crisis, decadence, etc.), which leads to strike fetishes, and dismissal of political activity.

Isn't the "belief" that capitalism has already developed enough productive forces for socialist transformation, crisis or no crisis, technological "revolution" or no such thing, enough of an "objective" factor to leave everything else to "subjective" factors? The stage is set, but the strings need to be pulled.

[Grenzer]

That's because they explicitly reject said strategies and principles.

As you know, I considered the matter extensively, and came to the conclusion that there was no merit to their argument. Despite his failings in other regards, I think you are right to emphasize Lassalle's hostility to mere labour disputes, something that "ultra-left" types have been able to get away with without criticism since the contemporary "Leninists" lack the strategic cognizance.



Even with the most radical, structural, and pro-labour reforms, I agree with you here. That doesn't spare them from indictments of not thinking outside the box.

I think they are largely able to get away with this because of the relative obscurity of Erfurtian principles in the contemporary socialist movement. Whether it is Left Communists, Impossibilists, or anarchists; they all tend to have the same vague argument: it is these organizational principles and strategies which lead to the inevitable subjugation of the party to the bourgeois state, but the actual material process by which this happened is left curiously unexamined. On further reflection, the essence of their argument boils down to the idealist principle of power corrupts. This is what prompted my curiosity regarding the thesis that the "taint" of Bakunin has been passed down..



What I wrote in my earlier pamphlet and in my work-in-progress suggests quite a contradiction: there was the "inevitability" belief relative to advanced capitalism, which led to legalist fetishes, and yet they emphasized political activity. On the other hand, there's also an "inevitability" belief on the downside (ahem, crisis, decadence, etc.), which leads to strike fetishes, and dismissal of political activity.

I hope to be able to explore that as soon as I go on vacation in the next week. It is interesting that such a dichotomy of conclusions resulted from the presumption of inevitability; but as I'm sure we can both agree, there is more merit to the former, as it is only wrong on one significant count(inevitability); whereas the latter is wrong on both counts(inevitability and economism).



Isn't the "belief" that capitalism has already developed enough productive forces for socialist transformation, crisis or no crisis, technological "revolution" or no such thing, enough of an "objective" factor to leave everything else to "subjective" factors? The stage is set, but the strings need to be pulled.

I agree.

Although as materialists, we recognize the futility of entertaining "alternate history" scenarios, it seems to me that the productive forces were developed well enough for the material basis of sustainable proletarian dictatorship one-hundred years ago, and that it was the communist/labour(which at the time, were one) movement which was unprepared.

[Zederbaum]

That's true, but we haven't seen such meaningful, radical change since the collapse of the Erfurtian socialists into modern social-democracy. Of course, the left-com types use this and take the theory of decadence to say that such meaningful reforms are no longer possible; but I think the problem with this is that they don't consider that it may have to do more with the loss of Erfurtian strategies and organizational principles.
I dunno, I'd say there has been a lot meaningful change since 1938 and some of it, when viewed through the very long-term lens of history - say 3,000 years - is fairly radical. In the advanced capitalist countries, workers have gained holidays, women's rights (a truly vast change), weekends, health and safety regulation, some say in how to run companies; extension of civil rights (African-Americans, Irish Catholics); full abolition of the aristocratic states and instigation of representative democracy; the defeat of colonialism and, not least, the welfare state.

In some countries, more was achieved than in others, depending on the balance of forces in the class struggle. Sure, none of them amount to socialism and some are even being pushed back but taken together they amount to a substantial body of gains for the population of the advanced countries, which is why it is better to live in one of them than in, say, the Congo. They also serve as positive examples of what can be achieved by collective struggle, which is important if we are to inspire confidence that socialism itself can be achieved.


Of course this also risks the danger of falling into a Kautsky-esque legalist fetish. Reforms can never be anything other than a tool to advance revolution, not an end in and of themselves.To be honest, I question the usefulness of the concept of "fetish". Or at least, I think Marxists overuse it. In this case, in fairness to Kautsky, he didn't make a fetish out of legalism; he provided a rationale as to why it was in the interests of the labour movement and of socialists to use the democratic institutions that they themselves had won as a means to develop socialism. Of course, he may have been wrong. But being wrong is no sin. I just don't see the fetishism there. If anything, the Leninists and anarchists have made a fetish out of revolution. Unlike Kautsky, they never adjusted to the destruction of the military-empires of Europe and the rise of capitalist democracy.


I think that, among other reasons, the Second International's failure may be due in part to the overly teleological view of history which was shared by most Marxists of that time. They took for granted the idea that socialism was "inevitable" and didn't put enough emphasis on pushing for revolution.There's probably a lot of truth in that...and yet I wonder. Kautsky did have a liking for thinking teleologically all right, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be useful if one wants to tease out underlying trends. In any event, the more capitalism develops the world, the more the spectre of socialism will haunt it. History isn't over yet.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Nor is it what the ICC goes on about, actually. The point made by the ICC is that reforms that are meaningful, permanent and generalized are not possible, and that because of the fact that capitalism in all parts of the world is no longer a rising star but a system in basically constant crisis.


I stand corrected.

[Grenzer]

I dunno, I'd say there has been a lot meaningful change since 1938 and some of it, when viewed through the very long-term lens of history - say 3,000 years - is fairly radical. In the advanced capitalist countries, workers have gained holidays, women's rights (a truly vast change), weekends, health and safety regulation, some say in how to run companies; extension of civil rights (African-Americans, Irish Catholics); full abolition of the aristocratic states and instigation of representative democracy; the defeat of colonialism and, not least, the welfare state.

In some countries, more was achieved than in others, depending on the balance of forces in the class struggle. Sure, none of them amount to socialism and some are even being pushed back but taken together they amount to a substantial body of gains for the population of the advanced countries, which is why it is better to live in one of them than in, say, the Congo. They also serve as positive examples of what can be achieved by collective struggle, which is important if we are to inspire confidence that socialism itself can be achieved.

I think you bring up a good point here. The left communists say that no meaningful change can occur and that it is "a system in constant crisis"(hasn't this always been the case though, from the very beginning?), but upon further reflection, their statement seems to be little more than a self-serving myth. Although patriarchy and racism are quite far from having been eliminated, it is undeniable that significant and lasting change has been made in those regards; but at the same time, I think it would be a mistake to overemphasize this.

For example, most of the positive changes has been social, rather than economic. In certain places, like the United States, the benefits of the welfare state have been particularly meager; and even those are rapidly being discarded. Perhaps these gains would be sustainable, and further more, prove as a base for permanent, radical change as well as a stepping stone for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat in the presence of a party organized along Erfurtian principles. The problem is that no such party(well, there seems to be on notable modern exception to this) exists today.

I would also be hesitant about using Congo as an analogy. The relatively poor living conditions there probably have more to do with the lack of development of the productive forces that anything else. In addition, I don't put much stock in representative democracy. It is still just a front for bourgeois dictatorship, it's key to remember that.



To be honest, I question the usefulness of the concept of "fetish". Or at least, I think Marxists overuse it. In this case, in fairness to Kautsky, he didn't make a fetish out of legalism; he provided a rationale as to why it was in the interests of the labour movement and of socialists to use the democratic institutions that they themselves had won as a means to develop socialism. Of course, he may have been wrong. But being wrong is no sin. I just don't see the fetishism there. If anything, the Leninists and anarchists have made a fetish out of revolution. Unlike Kautsky, they never adjusted to the destruction of the military-empires of Europe and the rise of capitalist democracy.

I am going to have to respectfully disagree here to a certain point.

It's true, Kautsky did realize the value of working within existing institutions; but the problem is that he ended up being confined by these institutions. We should be able to use these institutions, while at the same time while going outside the bourgeois framework. It will be absolutely critical to explore avenues beyond what is offered by the bourgeois state if revolutionary re-ordering of the economic system and society is to be achieved. It's fetishism because he became so confined by his views that he was unable to see the need of never becoming attached to parliamentarism as a principle.

As Comrade Die Neue Zeit pointed out, the anarchists and Left-communists took the wrong lessons from the failure of the Orthodox Marxist parties. A part of it did have to do with their inability to escape the framework of the bourgeois state. What must be of paramount concern is working class independence, and the ability of the party to utilize whatever tactic is most appropriate for the time. This is not always going to be electoralism; Kautsky was unable to realize this, and should be criticized for it.

Kautsky got it partially right, his problem was that he fetishized legalism into a principle rather than something that should be viewed as a mere avenue of struggle.

I would agree with you that certain portions of the left fetishize revolution and focus on revolutionary sloganeering rather than actually building the party of the working class. In particular, the likes of the Stalinists use this as a smokescreen to conceal their fundamentally right-wing and class collaborationist policies(i.e. popular frontism, coalitionism, etc). In 1939, Stalin was to the right of renegade Kautsky, a self described anti-communist. It's certainly true that most Leninists today are more concerned with revolutionary posturing, when we should be organizing the working class as a class for itself.



There's probably a lot of truth in that...and yet I wonder. Kautsky did have a liking for thinking teleologically all right, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be useful if one wants to tease out underlying trends. In any event, the more capitalism develops the world, the more the spectre of socialism will haunt it. History isn't over yet.

True, but history has shown that socialism won't come "organically"(which is buzzword of spontaneity fetishists these days). If it were true, then capitalism would be dead by now. For a system that is supposedly "in constant crisis" it has proven surprisingly resilient, and socialism is practically less popular than ever. As I'm sure you've realized, we need to dump ultra-revolutionary sloganeering and posturing, and start building the party of the working class; essence is more important than form.

Although all this pissing in the water over the need for spontaneous and "organic" action displayed by some may seem to prove "prole cred", it is neither particularly revolutionary nor practical. We need to build the party of the working class, and it is only through the merger of Marxism and the workers' movement that revolutionary change can occur. Those that fail to acknowledge that are simply irrelevant. This is probably the most valuable lesson we can draw from the movements of the past, though it's only tangentially related as this realization came about on the part of Marxists about two and half decades before 1917.

In any case, you seem to have some interesting opinions.. certainly bold on a site like this where rhetoric is valued over essence.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

I've been reading a bit that DNZ sent me on this and it's actually quite interesting.

Kautsky was a very good Marxist who contributed and influenced most Marxists quite a bit in the period before the early 1910s. By then, though, he began to abandon his prior views under the pressure of World War I. By 1917 he'd abandoned Marxism. I disagree with his criticisms of the bolsheviks post-1917.

However, I'm sure at some point or another post-1917, he wrote something or another that's valuable to Marxism.

[Grenzer]

I've been reading a bit that DNZ sent me on this and it's actually quite interesting.

Kautsky was a very good Marxist who contributed and influenced most Marxists quite a bit in the period before the early 1910s. By then, though, he began to abandon his prior views under the pressure of World War I. By 1917 he'd abandoned Marxism. I disagree with his criticisms of the bolsheviks post-1917.

However, I'm sure at some point or another post-1917, he wrote something or another that's valuable to Marxism.

That's correct. By 1910, Kautsky had begun to break fundamentally from his previous views. A common myth is that it was Lenin who broke from Kautsky, but the truth it was Kautsky who broke from himself and Lenin.

His criticisms of the Bolsheviks are a bit hollow, and reflective of his legalistic fetishism. The nasty business of the Civil War could not be stomached by Kautsky, who was now fully enamored with examining things solely through the framework of bourgeois legalism.. a characteristic that has defined the post-war Social-democracy movement ever since.

There may be something of value in his post-war works, but I have not looked through them in detail. Someone else might be able to tell you more about that though.

[Die Neue Zeit]

When someone criticizes the disbandment of the Constituent Assembly yet completely ignores actual coups that occurred later on (disbanding various soviets themselves), be they right or left (the renegade and Luxemburg, respectively), one has to wonder.

[Grenzer]

When someone criticizes the disbandment of the Constituent Assembly yet completely ignores actual coups that occurred later on (disbanding various soviets themselves), be they right or left (the renegade and Luxemburg, respectively), one has to wonder.

You would consider the dissolution of the Soviets to be a coup?

You may be right, but it seems as though it was the fundamentally correct action.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It wasn't the correct action at all. At that time the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs were not opposed to the revolution.

[Zederbaum]

I think you bring up a good point here. The left communists say that no meaningful change can occur and that it is "a system in constant crisis"(hasn't this always been the case though, from the very beginning?), but upon further reflection, their statement seems to be little more than a self-serving myth. ...

I would also be hesitant about using Congo as an analogy. The relatively poor living conditions there probably have more to do with the lack of development of the productive forces that anything else. In addition, I don't put much stock in representative democracy. It is still just a front for bourgeois dictatorship, it's key to remember that.

That's exactly why I used Congo as an analogy: capitalism is weakly developed there and that shows in both the level of development of both the productive forces and in terms of the social structure, civil rights etc. It's hard to argue that capitalism brings no benefits when the situation in the pre-capitalist countries is so bad and was just as bad in pre-capitalist Europe.

And far from having peaked, capitalism is still expanding, both in terms of geographical reach, as when it continues to penetrate Africa, Asia and South America, but also in the West in terms of the tendency to commodify areas such as public services previously considered the domain of the non-capitalist sector.

We can expect more modern (bourgeois) revolutions that expand representative democracy and civil liberties in the Middle East, China etc. The situation in the West is harder to predict given the lack of precedent. The worrying aspect for Europeans is that it will mutate into the harsher American version of capitalism. In short, capitalism is in a very complex state of flux right now and there are likely to be positives and negatives for the working class when viewed at a global perspective. I see no evidence that capitalism peaked in 1914 or that no meaningful change can occur and therefore see no reason to adopt a catastrophist posture.


It's true, Kautsky did realize the value of working within existing institutions; but the problem is that he ended up being confined by these institutions. We should be able to use these institutions, while at the same time while going outside the bourgeois framework. It will be absolutely critical to explore avenues beyond what is offered by the bourgeois state if revolutionary re-ordering of the economic system and society is to be achieved. It's fetishism because he became so confined by his views that he was unable to see the need of never becoming attached to parliamentarism as a principle.A principle only becomes a fetish if it's wrong. And a strategy which emphasizes the value of a democratic republic is only a fetish if it is the wrong strategy.

Kautsky considered the democratic republic as being a suitable form for socialism, a view he held, incidentally, well before he is alleged to have become a renegade. I'm not so sure that he was wrong, i.e. the problem isn't so much with the form of a democratic republic as with the fact that socialists haven't been able to win majority support for socialism.

Kautsky thought that the preponderant weight of the working class in capitalist countries would entail a socialist victory in a democratic system. That hasn't been so. And socialists have over time watered down the socialist aspect in order to win at the polls. This gives rise to the very interesting question as to why they have been unable to win on a programme of socialist transformation and whether it must always be so. One answer to that question is that Kautsky et al were wrong and that the form of a democratic republic is in itself a hindrance to socialism. Proponents of soviets tend to that view. I myself do not.


As Comrade Die Neue Zeit pointed out, the anarchists and Left-communists took the wrong lessons from the failure of the Orthodox Marxist parties. A part of it did have to do with their inability to escape the framework of the bourgeois state.The state may well be the lesser problem. A sufficiently organised socialist party should be able to dominate the state apparatus, up to and including dismantling the security state. The larger problem, I suspect, is the framework of capitalism itself. That is, the state is better seen as less a bourgeois state (useful though that shorthand description is) than as an entity with its own particular history and interests. In the current era, the state's interests are allied to that of capitalism, since that is the dominant and most efficient mode of production and thus the mode that will lead to the maximisation of state power. But it wasn't always like that in the past and it won't necessarily always be like that in the future either.

But at the moment it is like that and no state can afford to move outside that framework without finding itself the target of, at best, a withdrawal of capital or, at worst, an invasion.

Following on from that, for a Socialist Party to be able to implement an actually socialist programme it has to be able to foster a superior mode of production, call it co-operation, socialism, communism, whatever. It seems to be extraordinarily difficult to create such a mode of production in the midst of a revolutionary change or even when having won power legally. Even today, most socialist and communist parties do not have a detailed plan as to how to do so. There are useful suggestions from individuals (e.g. Schweickhart, Cockshott, Albert), but they do not form the basis for a programme of any political party, even less of a political party likely to come to power.

Socialism will not emerge simply because it is a better idea than capitalism, but because it proves itself a superior mode of production than capitalism. This has failed to occur. So far.

There are a lot of implications in the above thesis, some of which are: the need to develop in advance of taking power highly efficient co-operative forms of production that are superior to capitalism; the downgrading (but not abolition of the idea of) political power as the lever of creating socialism and consequently the lessening of the far left's obsession with the forms of state power.



What must be of paramount concern is working class independence, and the ability of the party to utilize whatever tactic is most appropriate for the time. This is not always going to be electoralism; Kautsky was unable to realize this, and should be criticized for it.

Kautsky got it partially right, his problem was that he fetishized legalism into a principle rather than something that should be viewed as a mere avenue of struggle.There aren't too many ways of gaining power. There are insurrections and there are elections. Trotsky says somewhere that the masses respond when they perceive their rights and institutions as being under illegitimate attack. Elections might well not remove the need for decisive action, up to and including serious violence against pro-capitalist forces but a democratically legitimate government would make exerting that violence a lot easier because it would divide the ruling class and their forces, as in Spain in 1936, and give it the aura of acting defensively, thus provoking widespread support.

I would suggest, therefore, that even the most hardened skeptic regarding the utility of elections should seriously consider the benefits of attaining a majority at the polls. The French Revolution, the Paris Commune, and the Spanish Revolution all followed on from elections after all.



True, but history has shown that socialism won't come "organically"(which is buzzword of spontaneity fetishists these days). If it were true, then capitalism would be dead by now. I realise that is the conventional view of the far left, but what if it is not true? What if capitalism is still expanding, still deepening its reach on society? If that is the case, then we shouldn't expect to have achieved socialism by now. Its day lies in the future. The old-school 2nd International lads might still be proven right!

I think teleological approaches are okay when considering things in the abstract, e.g. the evolution of a mode of production over two or three centuries. It serves as an instrumental shorthand. It's not particularly useful when considering practical questions regarding what to do next because then we have to take into account the specific attributes of the individuals involved, with all their psychological idiosyncrasies, individual thoughts, and unique social pressures.

Because of Kautsky's position as a party theoretician he tends to move between these levels of abstraction and I suspect that his readers confused the two more than he did himself. Both levels have their uses and it is worth bearing in mind that seeming contradictions between them (socialism is inevitable; individuals have to struggle to create socialism) are not really such when considered at their appropriate level.


For a system that is supposedly "in constant crisis" it has proven surprisingly resilient, and socialism is practically less popular than ever. I totally agree. And given it wasn't supposed to have turned out like this, either reality is wrong or the theory is wrong in some crucial aspect. As a non-Hegelian, Kaustykian empiricist I reckon it's time to rethink the theory :)

[Grenzer]

@Zederbaum

That's quite the post! I'll respond later when I have the time to address your points in a proper fashion, but I think you raise some interesting questions.



It wasn't the correct action at all. At that time the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs were not opposed to the revolution.

So what is more significant: That the Bolsheviks dismantled the councils; or that they failed to incorporate the SRs and Menshevik-Internationalists?

I am tempted to say that it is the latter which is significant; and I am not a huge fan of non-party organs as you know.

[Noa Rodman]

In 1887 Kautsky together with Engels wrote a text against Juridical Socialism (it appears unfortunately also not to be available online in English).

For Lenin the problem with Kautsky was that he didn't want to turn the soviets into state-organs. Kautsky on the other hand didn't think that even having a constitution which recognizes soviets as highest body, could guarantee a victory for revolution.

[Die Neue Zeit]

@Zederbaum

That's quite the post! I'll respond later when I have the time to address your points in a proper fashion, but I think you raise some interesting questions.

So what is more significant: That the Bolsheviks dismantled the councils; or that they failed to incorporate the SRs and Menshevik-Internationalists?

I am tempted to say that it is the latter which is significant; and I am not a huge fan of non-party organs as you know.

The bigger mistake occurred earlier, with the Bolshevik call for "All Power to the Soviets!" in the first place.

The Bolsheviks should have gathered working-class political support explicitly for the party. Had that happened, then whatever happened next to the soviets would have been irrelevant. That's one alternative.

Another, sandwiched in between the party and the soviets, is the Revolutionary Provisional Government slogan (if you recall).

[Luís Henrique]

It is a bourgeois leftist ideology

I disagree. I think it is a right wing working class ideology.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The whole bit the ICC goes on about where the working class has no more reforms to win is simply not true and is rather eurocentric.

The point would be that capitalism is no longer able to concede such reforms any more.

Luís Henrique

[Grenzer]

The bigger mistake occurred earlier, with the Bolshevik call for "All Power to the Soviets!" in the first place.

The Bolsheviks should have gathered working-class political support explicitly for the party. Had that happened, then whatever happened next to the soviets would have been irrelevant. That's one alternative.

Another, sandwiched in between the party and the soviets, is the Revolutionary Provisional Government slogan (if you recall).

It's true that they should have opposed the Soviets from the beginning, but I was speaking more from the point of the given circumstances they faced at the time, having already previously accepted the Soviets. I remember you mentioning the possibility of a Provisional Government at one point, but I never heard many of the details. How would this solve the problem of the Soviets?


I disagree. I think it is a right wing working class ideology.

You may be right, but unfortunately all Social-Democratic parties seem to be led by bourgeois; and in addition, there seem to be significant numbers of petit-bourgeois in such movements. The working class needs to be able to retain it's politico-social independence, and it's impossible under such circumstances.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In 1887 Kautsky together with Engels wrote a text against Juridical Socialism (it appears unfortunately also not to be available online in English).

For Lenin the problem with Kautsky was that he didn't want to turn the soviets into state-organs. Kautsky on the other hand didn't think that even having a constitution which recognizes soviets as highest body, could guarantee a victory for revolution.

What source do you have for the 1887 work? Maybe you have German connections who can translate that?

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's true that they should have opposed the Soviets from the beginning, but I was speaking more from the point of the given circumstances they faced at the time, having already previously accepted the Soviets. I remember you mentioning the possibility of a Provisional Government at one point, but I never heard many of the details. How would this solve the problem of the Soviets?

The disbandment of the soviets amounted to coups d'etat because the Bolsheviks lost majority political support from the working class (if they weren't flocking over to the Left-SRs, they certainly were flocking over to the Menshevik-Internationalists). The details of the Revolutionary Provisional Government can be found in my recent WW letter (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=911), as well as in my old thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

Said RPG should have been a precedent for Mao's Central People's Government (1949-1954) and also for Castro's pre-1976 Council of Ministers (an extra-constitutional body). There could have been a Revolutionary Convention a la Bukharin to replace the Constituent Assembly, but the RPG would have had "All Power" (not to disband the Revolutionary Convention, of course, but simply the ability to decree and legislate entirely on its own, leaving constitutional drafting to the Revolutionary Convention).

[Grenzer]

That's exactly why I used Congo as an analogy: capitalism is weakly developed there and that shows in both the level of development of both the productive forces and in terms of the social structure, civil rights etc. It's hard to argue that capitalism brings no benefits when the situation in the pre-capitalist countries is so bad and was just as bad in pre-capitalist Europe.

And far from having peaked, capitalism is still expanding, both in terms of geographical reach, as when it continues to penetrate Africa, Asia and South America, but also in the West in terms of the tendency to commodify areas such as public services previously considered the domain of the non-capitalist sector.

We can expect more modern (bourgeois) revolutions that expand representative democracy and civil liberties in the Middle East, China etc. The situation in the West is harder to predict given the lack of precedent. The worrying aspect for Europeans is that it will mutate into the harsher American version of capitalism. In short, capitalism is in a very complex state of flux right now and there are likely to be positives and negatives for the working class when viewed at a global perspective. I see no evidence that capitalism peaked in 1914 or that no meaningful change can occur and therefore see no reason to adopt a catastrophist posture.

I think that it may be a mistake to put too much stock into the development of the productive forces as a remedy for the problems capitalism inflicts on the working class. While it is true that it can lead to an improvement of kinds, only the replacement of capitalism with socialism can truly solve the problems of capitalism. In addition, we've seen a steady decline in the west over the past few decades; so the productive forces are not the only relevant factor.

In addition, I also think it would be a mistake to put too much stock in bourgeois democracy. The entire point of it is to serve as a smokescreen for their dictatorship. However, it may be possible to make some use of it. I don't think it is possible for the final victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie's political hegemony can occur entirely through parliamentary means. They have control over the system, and I just can't see why they would willing let it slip from their grasp.

I agree with you that capitalism did not reach its peak in 1914. It is expanding even today; however, I think it would be a mistake to say that capitalism still has a progressive role to play. Critical in understanding this is to examine capitalism in its totality as a global system. Capitalism stopped playing a progressive role at the same moment that the material basis for socialism came into existence. It's key to remember that.



A principle only becomes a fetish if it's wrong. And a strategy which emphasizes the value of a democratic republic is only a fetish if it is the wrong strategy.

Kautsky considered the democratic republic as being a suitable form for socialism, a view he held, incidentally, well before he is alleged to have become a renegade. I'm not so sure that he was wrong, i.e. the problem isn't so much with the form of a democratic republic as with the fact that socialists haven't been able to win majority support for socialism.

Kautsky thought that the preponderant weight of the working class in capitalist countries would entail a socialist victory in a democratic system. That hasn't been so. And socialists have over time watered down the socialist aspect in order to win at the polls. This gives rise to the very interesting question as to why they have been unable to win on a programme of socialist transformation and whether it must always be so. One answer to that question is that Kautsky et al were wrong and that the form of a democratic republic is in itself a hindrance to socialism. Proponents of soviets tend to that view. I myself do not.

I would say that something becomes a fetish when it is made into a principle which cannot be deviated from. This was part of Kautsky's problem. The numerical superiority of the working class has been unable to secure the victory of a socialist programme from within the context of electoralism because, ultimately, a democratic republic is a form of dictatorship most well suited to the bourgeoisie. This was another one of Kautsky's problems. He was unable to realize that a democratic republic is specifically a state form devised by the bourgeoisie which is most well suited to their rule.

Perhaps a proletarian state would be considered a "democratic republic", but it would have to be one that is much different from the current bourgeois republics. I would have no problem with a one-party state, so long as that party is a real movement of the working class(which is what I advocate). A multi-party state could also work, so long as only proletarian parties are allowed. It absolutely critical that any movements which represent the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie(and perhaps the peasantry, if relevant) should be vigorously suppressed, and needless to say, outlawed.

Of course, one might argue that this is unnecessary; but looking at historical example, I would disagree. When the bourgeoisie first began toppling the old feudal monarchies, did they not establish a certain framework which would prevent the old order from rising again, and did not this fear prove, from time to time, not to be unfounded? While still in its nascent state, the socialist mode of production may not be enough to prevent the vestiges of the old ruling class from coming to power again.


The state may well be the lesser problem. A sufficiently organised socialist party should be able to dominate the state apparatus, up to and including dismantling the security state. The larger problem, I suspect, is the framework of capitalism itself. That is, the state is better seen as less a bourgeois state (useful though that shorthand description is) than as an entity with its own particular history and interests. In the current era, the state's interests are allied to that of capitalism, since that is the dominant and most efficient mode of production and thus the mode that will lead to the maximisation of state power. But it wasn't always like that in the past and it won't necessarily always be like that in the future either.

But at the moment it is like that and no state can afford to move outside that framework without finding itself the target of, at best, a withdrawal of capital or, at worst, an invasion.

Following on from that, for a Socialist Party to be able to implement an actually socialist programme it has to be able to foster a superior mode of production, call it co-operation, socialism, communism, whatever. It seems to be extraordinarily difficult to create such a mode of production in the midst of a revolutionary change or even when having won power legally. Even today, most socialist and communist parties do not have a detailed plan as to how to do so. There are useful suggestions from individuals (e.g. Schweickhart, Cockshott, Albert), but they do not form the basis for a programme of any political party, even less of a political party likely to come to power.

Socialism will not emerge simply because it is a better idea than capitalism, but because it proves itself a superior mode of production than capitalism. This has failed to occur. So far.

There are a lot of implications in the above thesis, some of which are: the need to develop in advance of taking power highly efficient co-operative forms of production that are superior to capitalism; the downgrading (but not abolition of the idea of) political power as the lever of creating socialism and consequently the lessening of the far left's obsession with the forms of state power.

I agree with you on the subject of a state. Many so-called "Marxists" have a tendency to attach a kind of metaphysical, corruptive nature to the state. I would attribute this to the far left's general capitulation to Bakuninism. The specific form of the state, the bourgeois democratic republic, I think will have to be destroyed. Despite this, I think it would be a huge mistake, as you would well agree, to discount the avenue of Parliament as a means to advance the political struggle of the proletariat. Even the impossibilists of old, of which a hollow, skeletal form still seems to exist in the form of the SPGB, do not discount the use of Parliament. There was the DeLeonist SLP as well, but that has been dead in a de fact sense for a number of years.

So I would disagree with you on the matter of the bourgeois democratic republic as being the ideal state form, but I would agree with you that councilism is certainly something that should be avoided. Of course this may come to an issue of semantics: how would you define a democratic republic in a proletarian context?

I don't think socialism can prove itself to be a superior system to capitalism within the context of capitalism since socialism can only be achieved with the destruction of capitalism in its totality as a global system and the hegemony of bourgeois dictatorship.


There aren't too many ways of gaining power. There are insurrections and there are elections. Trotsky says somewhere that the masses respond when they perceive their rights and institutions as being under illegitimate attack. Elections might well not remove the need for decisive action, up to and including serious violence against pro-capitalist forces but a democratically legitimate government would make exerting that violence a lot easier because it would divide the ruling class and their forces, as in Spain in 1936, and give it the aura of acting defensively, thus provoking widespread support.

I would suggest, therefore, that even the most hardened skeptic regarding the utility of elections should seriously consider the benefits of attaining a majority at the polls. The French Revolution, the Paris Commune, and the Spanish Revolution all followed on from elections after all.

I agree with you entirely here. It's absolutely critical to make use of elections; and I am unable to take seriously any party which refuses to do so.


I realise that is the conventional view of the far left, but what if it is not true? What if capitalism is still expanding, still deepening its reach on society? If that is the case, then we shouldn't expect to have achieved socialism by now. Its day lies in the future. The old-school 2nd International lads might still be proven right!

I think teleological approaches are okay when considering things in the abstract, e.g. the evolution of a mode of production over two or three centuries. It serves as an instrumental shorthand. It's not particularly useful when considering practical questions regarding what to do next because then we have to take into account the specific attributes of the individuals involved, with all their psychological idiosyncrasies, individual thoughts, and unique social pressures.

Because of Kautsky's position as a party theoretician he tends to move between these levels of abstraction and I suspect that his readers confused the two more than he did himself. Both levels have their uses and it is worth bearing in mind that seeming contradictions between them (socialism is inevitable; individuals have to struggle to create socialism) are not really such when considered at their appropriate level.

I don't think socialism is inevitable, it is possible that without decisive action, an alternative to socialism which involves the bourgeoisie, or more accurately, the class that may emerge from it, may arise. I don't think we should discount this possibility.

The only way socialism can be achieved is by building the party of the working class, which will not come about "organically"(i.e. spontaneously and with no organizing on the part of the most class conscious workers), but by the conscious, deliberate actions of its vanguard.

You are right that capitalism's development of the productive forces is not yet complete, but I think that it may be a mistake to conflate this with capitalism being progressive. I would argue that capitalism ceased being progressive in a meaningful sense as soon as the material basis for the socialist mode of production came into being. Of course, this depends on how you define 'progressive', and I get the impression you may well be using it in a different sense than I am.


I totally agree. And given it wasn't supposed to have turned out like this, either reality is wrong or the theory is wrong in some crucial aspect. As a non-Hegelian, Kaustykian empiricist I reckon it's time to rethink the theory :)

A non-Hegelian! Good to see another around here, as well as a fan of Kautsky. There has been a definite and undeniable resurgence in Hegelian thinking in certain portions of the left. There are definitely many crises of theory in the left today; and in part, I think that these can be solved in party by returning to the theories of the pre-October Marxists. Of course, it will take more than that as these theories were not perfected, and there are gaps. In addition, the world is ever-changing so it would be anachronistic to take long dead theories out of their historical context, unmodified and try to apply them today. We still have much theoretical development of our own to do.

I am curious as to why you think the pre-war Social Democratic parties failed in the first place. As Marxists, we recognize that their support(excepting the RSDLP) for World War I was by non means spontaneous, and it must have its roots further back in some error of praxis and theory, which in turn would be a reflection of the material conditions.



The disbandment of the soviets amounted to coups d'etat because the Bolsheviks lost majority political support from the working class (if they weren't flocking over to the Left-SRs, they certainly were flocking over to the Menshevik-Internationalists). The details of the Revolutionary Provisional Government can be found in my recent WW letter (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=911), as well as in my old thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

Said RPG should have been a precedent for Mao's Central People's Government (1949-1954) and also for Castro's pre-1976 Council of Ministers (an extra-constitutional body). There could have been a Revolutionary Convention a la Bukharin to replace the Constituent Assembly, but the RPG would have had "All Power" (not to disband the Revolutionary Convention, of course, but simply the ability to decree and legislate entirely on its own, leaving constitutional drafting to the Revolutionary Convention).


The last few months, I have been spending most of my research time in the realm of theory, which has left my historically knowledge, particularly in regards to the October Revolution and the Civil war, woefully lacking. What were the precise programmatic differences between the Bolsheviks and the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left Socialist Revolutionaries?

[Luís Henrique]

You may be right, but unfortunately all Social-Democratic parties seem to be led by bourgeois;

The SD parties are evidently not static, they have a history. And that history usually leads to their working class links vanishing as the party becomes more and more integrated into the logic of capitalist rule.

But the SPD was still very much a working class party when it supported German war effort, or when it suppressed the 1918 revolution.


The working class needs to be able to retain it's politico-social independence, and it's impossible under such circumstances.

I think you get it backwards. It is not the existence of SD parties that hinders the political independence of the working class, but the lack of political independence of the working class that makes SD degenerative processes possible.

Luís Henrique

[Grenzer]

The SD parties are evidently not static, they have a history. And that history usually leads to their working class links vanishing as the party becomes more and more integrated into the logic of capitalist rule.

But the SPD was still very much a working class party when it supported German war effort, or when it suppressed the 1918 revolution.

I never said otherwise. I am using social-democracy in its modern context, which is certainly bourgeois, not pre-war.

I'm not sure what point you're tryin to make here. Using your definition, nearly all western parties are proletarian given that most of their voters are likely proletarian.




I think you get it backwards. It is not the existence of SD parties that hinders the political independence of the working class, but the lack of political independence of the working class that makes SD degenerative processes possible.

Luís Henrique

I don't think I got anything backwards, an that's not what I said. Most social-democratic parties in existence today didn't "degenerate", as most were founded explicitly as social-democratic, reformist parties. Parties which began Marxist, as the SPD did are the exception, not the rule in the modern age.

I was saying that the working class cannot retain independence when it allows non-proletarian elements into the party, and I doubt I'm wrong on this point. Perhaps we've misunderstood one another.

I'm not sure what I mentioned is responsible for the fate of the SPD though. Social-democratic parties organized along Erfurtian principles were proletarian and revolutionary. I think we should return to Erfurtian principles and correct its errors and adapt them to modern reality. That is what I am(or have tried) arguing. I apologize if I misunderstood you at some point, or if you have misunderstood me.

I think what I was talking about was Social-Democracy as an ideology(which has it's origins as a reformist ideology distinct from Orthodox Marxism in the First World War) while you are talking about the historical phenomenon of Social-Democracy which includes its revolutionary beginnings in the 19th century up to its capitulation to reformism in the First World War.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The last few months, I have been spending most of my research time in the realm of theory, which has left my historically knowledge, particularly in regards to the October Revolution and the Civil war, woefully lacking. What were the precise programmatic differences between the Bolsheviks and the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left Socialist Revolutionaries?

That's a good question, comrade, though I'm sure the Left-SRs didn't have, say, a workers-only voting membership policy. The Bolsheviks and MIs seemed to have had a workers-and-"intellectuals" voting membership policy, and there was conflict between the two bases (domestic vs. abroad, for example).

Only the Left-SRs opposed what comrade Rowan Duffy above called a "dictatorship of the minority proletariat."

The question of land was subject to debate, though Lenin adopted the Left-SR position as early as 1905 itself (Macnair).

Also, I don't think they had differences in immediate labour policy.

[Noa Rodman]

What source do you have for the 1887 work? Maybe you have German connections who can translate that?

Die Neue Zeit. It's online in English but not for free ("Juristensozialismus" in German is - can't post the link till I reach 50 posts).

The successor journal was Die Gesellschaft (Internationale Revue für Sozialismus und Politik), edited by Hilferding. Kautsky was a contributor of course (there is particularly his polemic with Upton Sinclair which I'd like to read).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Die Neue Zeit. It's online in English but not for free ("Juristensozialismus" in German is - can't post the link till I reach 50 posts).

The successor journal was Die Gesellschaft (Internationale Revue für Sozialismus und Politik), edited by Hilferding. Kautsky was a contributor of course (there is particularly his polemic with Upton Sinclair which I'd like to read).

Where's the subscription document, anyway?

[Paul Cockshott]

it seems to me that the productive forces were developed well enough for the material basis of sustainable proletarian dictatorship one-hundred years ago, and that it was the communist/labour(which at the time, were one) movement which was unprepared.
In which parts of the world?

[Grenzer]

In which parts of the world?

Good question, comrade.

Although many stress looking at capitalism in its totality as a global system, it is still undeniable that the material basis for socialism will not be equal in all areas; there will be some areas that are better suited for socialism, and therefore will undergo revolutions first. I think part of it is how you interpret things; if one believes that Russia in fact was building socialism, then the answer may vary.

The Western European countries(France, Germany, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, and the like) in addition to the United States(and perhaps Canada, I don't really know much about Canadian industrialization circa 1910) had the material basis for the construction of Socialism. Had revolutions established the dictatorship of the proletariat and destroyed the bourgeoisie in these countries, the hegemony of capital likely would have been brought to a halt. These countries could then aid the development of the other countries. in addition, a soviet style "joint dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" probably could have been established in places like Spain and Italy.

The main problem is in regions which have an extremely small or nonexistent proletariat, there is no material basis for the dictatorship of the proletariat, let alone the construction of Socialism. An example of this would have been the so-called "People's" Republic of Mongolia, which in fact had no dictatorship of the proletariat, and underwent a phase of bourgeois development. The problems with this should be obvious; the bourgeois begin gaining influence and start to turn the state into a reflection of their interests. Under the patronage of the Soviets; however, a wide scale purge was conducted in which the bourgeoisie were "trimmed away". The inefficiency and dangers of simply allowing normal bourgeois development are obvious, as this historical example has shown us.

Most people think DNZ's idea of Third World Caesarean Socialism is crazy, but its intent is to answer the question posed here: how does one lay the basis for a future dictatorship of the proletariat without creating conditions in which the bourgeoisie can thrive and consolidate their political power?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Most people think DNZ's idea of Third World Caesarean Socialism is crazy, but its intent is to answer the question posed here: how does one lay the basis for a future dictatorship of the proletariat without creating conditions in which the bourgeoisie can thrive and consolidate their political power?

As an aside for another answer to the OP but related to this (in light of the pro-Chavez militias article), organizationally the inter-war SPD had militias, something which it didn't have before WWI. I'm not sure the USPD had militias, either.

[Grenzer]

As an aside for another answer to the OP but related to this (in light of the pro-Chavez militias article), organizationally the inter-war SPD had militias, something which it didn't have before WWI. I'm not sure the USPD had militias, either.

That is interesting. Did these militias do any good at holding off the SA thugs in the thirties? I don't know much about the USPD, but I think I can assume that they were probably a split of the SPD that was unsatisfied with their decision to dump the idea of revolution and embrace the war.

If there is a place to look for something worthwhile in post-war social-democratic movements, it would probably be in Germany. It seems that the Social-democratic parties across the rest of the world very quickly dumped any remaining vestiges of Marxism, but I've heard that the SPD didn't dump marxism de jure until the 1960's. It probably stopped adhering to Marxism de facto much earlier than that, however.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That is interesting. Did these militias do any good at holding off the SA thugs in the thirties?

They were more notoriously employed in Democratic Front antics against the KPD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbanner_Schwarz-Rot-Gold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiserne_Front
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_paramilitary_groups#Groups_affiliated_to_po litical_parties


I don't know much about the USPD, but I think I can assume that they were probably a split of the SPD that was unsatisfied with their decision to dump the idea of revolution and embrace the war.

Here are my old threads on the USPD:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/unabhaengige-sozialdemokratische-partei-t95038/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/uspd-vs-kpd-t103415/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/uspd-tendencies-kpd-t118549/index.html

[black magick hustla]

The far left, from anarchist to Trotskyist to Left Communist are really, really small compared to the old Social Democratic and Communist Parties and the latter had to morph into Kautskyist parties in order to remain a mass movement in Western conditions. History is telling us something here.

yea it tells us the bourgeosie won and the counterrevolution was complete

[black magick hustla]

Perhaps these gains would be sustainable, and further more, prove as a base for permanent, radical change as well as a stepping stone for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat in the presence of a party organized along Erfurtian principles. The problem is that no such party(well, there seems to be on notable modern exception to this) exists today.

this is all wishful thinking really. i don't think that "principles" make a party, and that just having the correct formula will bring it about. the time of social democratic mass parties is long gone and the u.s. never had that tradition. the social democracy that survived did so by integrating itself to the state and proving itself to be a party of traitors and the labor lieutenants of the bosses. but social democracy today is moribund (see europe lol)and anyone calling for a social democratic program today is a museum piece.



I would also be hesitant about using Congo as an analogy. The relatively poor living conditions there probably have more to do with the lack of development of the productive forces that anything else. In addition, I don't put much stock in representative democracy. It is still just a front for bourgeois dictatorship, it's key to remember that.

actually, africa is even worse now that it was, lets say, five decades before. i don't think "the productive forces" of africa can be developed through capitalism.







It's true, Kautsky did realize the value of working within existing institutions; but the problem is that he ended up being confined by these institutions. We should be able to use these institutions, while at the same time while going outside the bourgeois framework. It will be absolutely critical to explore avenues beyond what is offered by the bourgeois state if revolutionary re-ordering of the economic system and society is to be achieved.

this shit has been tried by a lot of people before. trotskyism has a long tradition of sticking itself to labor parties and unions and they still are a tiny insignificant current.




rather than actually building the party of the working class.

lol tell me how that goes. a lot of people think you just will parties into existence by the hard work of revolutionaries or w.e,




True, but history has shown that socialism won't come "organically"(which is buzzword of spontaneity fetishists these days). If it were true, then capitalism would be dead by now. For a system that is supposedly "in constant crisis" it has proven surprisingly resilient, and socialism is practically less popular than ever. As I'm sure you've realized, we need to dump ultra-revolutionary sloganeering and posturing, and start building the party of the working class;

"spontaneity feithsist" lol stop talking to dnz. trying to build a "party" just cuz' u feel you have the correct solution to the world ills is not very different as building a larping club. in fact that is why there are so many left sects that are basically the equivalent of chess clubs.






Although all this pissing in the water over the need for spontaneous and "organic" action displayed by some may seem to prove "prole cred", it is neither particularly revolutionary nor practical. We need to build the party of the working class, and it is only through the merger of Marxism and the workers' movement that revolutionary change can occur.

i love how you think this ideas are novel or something and nobody else have tried them. what workers' movement? the workers' movement in the west as known traditionally as the labor unions and labor parties are in steady decline. you want to merge with something that is about to die? anyway, you keep railing on about "building the party" like trust me, a billion other nerds have done in this forum.




Those that fail to acknowledge that are simply irrelevant. This is probably the most valuable lesson we can draw from the movements of the past, though it's only tangentially related as this realization came about on the part of Marxists about two and half decades before 1917.

there are no "lessons" to be learned and be put in a treasure chest. capitalism of the nineteenth century was of a different form that allowed the existence of a civil society, and in germany it took the form of social democracy. anyone calling for that experiment of the nineteenth century again belongs 6 feet under the ground with the people that already attempted that.

[Noa Rodman]

Where's the subscription document, anyway?

pas.sagepub.com/content/7/2/203.extract

Politics & Society June 1977 vol. 7 no. 2 203-220

[Zederbaum]

I don't know much about the USPD, but I think I can assume that they were probably a split of the SPD that was unsatisfied with their decision to dump the idea of revolution and embrace the war.
That was of course the major underlying point of disagreement, but the split itself arose out dissatisfaction regarding party democracy. Recall that Kautsky, Haase and the rest refused to split in 1914 as they hoped to win the party base around to their view. However, as the war went on, the majority leadership of Ebert, David etc, which by that point was very close to the state's top leaders, suppressed the opposition's access to the party press, insisted on voting discipline in the Reichstag, and generally restricted their room to articulate their opposition.

The opposition was forced to organise separately and this led to a de facto split in early 1917 and then a couple of months later the opposition were declared to have separated themselves off from the main party.

It is interesting to note the opposition's reluctance to split and their confidence that, given time, that their views would prevail amongst the party base. Kautsky and Hilferding never really wanted to split and once the war was over were anxious to reunite the party. The majority leadership were worried about that too. Lenin on the other hand took a very moralistic position of condemning the centrists for not irrevocably splitting with the majority.

Given the leftward trajectory of the base from 1917 to 1920 it seems to me unfortunate that Kautsky's strategy wasn't followed. The subsequent splits from the USPD (the Sparticists, the Halle Congress) were pretty unproductive examples of purist isolationism. A united party would have received a hefty bias towards the left, perhaps not to the degree that the nationalist leadership could have been replaced, but certainly it would have made that a realistic possibility, which would have been a gigantic pay-off compared to having a sizeable but inherently limited, not to mention slightly bizarre, KPD.

[Zederbaum]

I don't think socialism is inevitable, it is possible that without decisive action, an alternative to socialism which involves the bourgeoisie, or more accurately, the class that may emerge from it, may arise. I don't think we should discount this possibility.I agree and it's a worrying thought indeed. As capitalism develops more and more into an information economy it's going to have trouble profiting from scarcity, giving rise to attempts to revert to a neo-feudal rent economy. That's a definite short and medium term possibility. Still, to look on the positive side, it will mean that it would be the ruling class who are swimming against the tide of history. In the past it was the socialists who were trying to create socialism in a capitalist epoch. As capitalism develops automation to such a high degree the tide turns in socialism's favour.

And of course in the longer-term, say 500 or even 5,000 years, the ruling class will have to work very hard indeed to avoid socialism. “Inevitability” depends on your time-scale.



I think that it may be a mistake to put too much stock into the development of the productive forces as a remedy for the problems capitalism inflicts on the working class. While it is true that it can lead to an improvement of kinds, only the replacement of capitalism with socialism can truly solve the problems of capitalism. It's always a mistake to put too much of anything into anything :) But what constitutes too much?


In addition, we've seen a steady decline in the west over the past few decades; so the productive forces are not the only relevant factor.I'm not so sure that there has been a decline in the west. There has been a localised decline in the industrial production in certain areas (the rust belt in the USA, the mines in England), but as a whole the productive capacity of the advanced capitalist states is probably higher than ever. Of course, the previously backward countries like China are developing and therefore catching up, so the relative lead of the West is shrinking. But I'm not sure that constitutes a steady decline for the West.


In addition, I also think it would be a mistake to put too much stock in bourgeois democracy. The entire point of it is to serve as a smokescreen for their dictatorship. However, it may be possible to make some use of it. I don't think it is possible for the final victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie's political hegemony can occur entirely through parliamentary means. They have control over the system, and I just can't see why they would willing let it slip from their grasp.I agree that socialism can't be achieved entirely through parliamentary means. To plagiarise from our beloved philosophers, victory at the polls is a necessary but not sufficient condition for final victory. We can't win without them, but we can't win with just them.


Perhaps a proletarian state would be considered a "democratic republic", but it would have to be one that is much different from the current bourgeois republics. I would have no problem with a one-party state, so long as that party is a real movement of the working class(which is what I advocate). A multi-party state could also work, so long as only proletarian parties are allowed. It absolutely critical that any movements which represent the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie(and perhaps the peasantry, if relevant) should be vigorously suppressed, and needless to say, outlawed.
Both the one-party state or multi-proletarian party state will face serious problems. They might not be fatal of course, but it is worth considering them. The big one is that parties represent underlying tendencies in society which can't actually be suppressed. The tendencies will worm their way into the party, as happened in Russia in the 1920s. Vigorous suppression will then have to move to being internal to the party and essentially follow the same logic that boxed in Stalin.

Of course circumstances (international isolation, looming invasion by Nazis) might not be so dire and therefore the pressures not so great, but nevertheless I don't see a system based on vigorous suppression working all that well in the medium term.

It will be better to politically defeat the bourgeoisie and the petit-bourgeoise and the best way to do this is via a mass party approach with victory at elections being an indispensable component of the campaign. We need a democratic republic not just because it is a relatively nicer form, but because it is a vehicle for politically defeating the capitalists. If we torch that vehicle we have no method of politically defeating them and that will give rise to ongoing problems. The fact that a democratic republic is the form best suited to advanced capitalism doesn't make it ill-suited for socialism. I'm not a believer in guilt by association.


Of course, one might argue that this is unnecessary; but looking at historical example, I would disagree. When the bourgeoisie first began toppling the old feudal monarchies, did they not establish a certain framework which would prevent the old order from rising again, and did not this fear prove, from time to time, not to be unfounded? While still in its nascent state, the socialist mode of production may not be enough to prevent the vestiges of the old ruling class from coming to power again.There's some truth to that all right. But the bourgeoisie were acting on the basis of fairly developed – and rapidly developing – capitalist social relations. In other words, they were building on a real-world material foundation. The worry behind the argument that in “its nascent state, the socialist mode of production may not be enough to prevent the vestiges of the old ruling class from coming to power again” is that the socialist mode of production is not as strong as the capitalist mode of production. If that is the case, it is inevitable that socialism will fail sooner or later.

Building a demonstrably superior mode of production needs to commence well in advance of taking power so that when we do have power we can build on the solid foundation and demonstrate the superiority of socialism, even in the midst of the transition. Socialism doesn't have to be the dominant mode, but it does have to be the rising one.


I agree with you that capitalism did not reach its peak in 1914. It is expanding even today; however, I think it would be a mistake to say that capitalism still has a progressive role to play. Critical in understanding this is to examine capitalism in its totality as a global system. Capitalism stopped playing a progressive role at the same moment that the material basis for socialism came into existence. It's key to remember that.I'm not sure I agree with this way of framing the question. Or at least, the question of whether it is “progressive” can be a bit of confusing since it mixes up a moral category with a scientific analysis of whether it has a role to play in modernising the world.

Capitalism still has a role to play in the latter; it is working its magic in India, China, and South America and will yet do the same to Africa and Central Asia. Capitalism starts with certain types of economic relations and, over time – the length of which depends on a whole host of factors – wrenches the wider social fabric into conformity with them. Hence the phenomenon of classically bourgeois revolutions from France in 1789 to Egypt in 2012 with their emphasis on civil equality, abolition of privilege, free wage-labour etc etc. As capitalist economic relations extend their grip on China it is likely that pressure for similar reforms wills build there, most likely leading to its emergence as a fully democratic capitalist country as in Europe or North America (unless of course there is a socialist revolution from below).

So, in the sense that capitalism drags in its wake the prospect of specifically democratic capitalist civil liberties, it is a not unreasonable simplification to view it as a progressive force, in the moral sense, for the pre-capitalist countries, such as the aforementioned Congo. Of course, reality, particularly short-term reality, is more complicated, and I'm outlining a rather teleological scenario here, one which is more applicable over the next five or six decades than over than over the next five or six months.

In the short-term, there are the relative strengths of purely extractive states, such as the ultra-reactionary Saudi Arabia, religion, the military strength of the US and myriad of other factors to take into account. But over the longer-term the co-evolution of capitalist relations of productions and wider relations of civic (as opposed to social) equality seems to be a trend.

But the question of whether capitalism constitutes a progressive force is not just a moral one, not just a question of whether it will create the conditions for bourgeois civil liberties but a question of whether there is another mode of production which can produce more efficiently than it. In large parts of the world, I doubt that there is. The situation in the West is more complicated.

Furthermore, “progressive” is a relative concept. Capitalism is progressive relative to the Congo and regressive compared to...what? An idealised and as yet hypothetical socialism? That is an analytic category that can only impress the communist faithful.

For us to successfully argue that capitalism no longer plays a progressive role we have to prove that another mode of production would be superior, both in terms of its productive capacity and its moral characteristics. Part of that proof is intellectual (one reason why it would be useful for leftist inclined undergrads to junk Hegel and, say, build a robust edifice around the LTV). But part of it has to be based on empirical evidence, i.e. real-world examples of socialist superiority, which is where co-operatives have a big role to play.

It is not enough to claim that socialism would be better if it could get a foothold; it has to be sufficiently better that it can win that foothold. Socialism has to prove itself. At any given moment in history it is conceivable that society could have been organised along communist lines. We know this because it has been conceived of in the past and has even flickered into existence from time to time. It has been a focal point of many movements and struggles in the past, from the Greek Cynics to the Early Christians, to the Medieval Heresies. The list is legion.


it seems to me that the productive forces were developed well enough for the material basis of sustainable proletarian dictatorship one-hundred years ago, and that it was the communist/labour(which at the time, were one) movement which was unprepared.There is no particular reason to think that socialism in 1914 was much more possible than in 1814; it's more of a revolutionary article of faith than is something that is actually proven. Yes, the productive forces had been developed a hell of a lot, but there was still a lot of poverty, even in the western world. Housing, food, education were all at a fairly low level in 1914 and have improved dramatically since then, not least due to the collective struggle of the labour movement. We often forget the extent of the improvement over the last century, which is a pity since so much of it is the result of the class struggle. If nothing else, it's just bad propaganda to throw all that down the memory hole.

The conditions in the West are today vastly more favourable to socialism than in 1914. And given that so much destruction and chaos ensued from the World War, I think it's fair to say that the immediate post-war situation was not particularly favourable for building socialism then either.


I am curious as to why you think the pre-war Social Democratic parties failed in the first place.Given that the SD's – and the post WWII CP's – failed in many different countries, it is worth probing for a common reason, rather than blaming the German Party's descent in nationalism or whatever.The SD's big problem was the transition. While socialism may objectively be stronger once established, this is not much use if we can't establish it in the first place. When the SD's got to power in various European Countries their bluff was effectively called. They were unable to effect any sort of transition and that wasn't because they were traitors, but because they couldn't see an effective way to do so. Whether that was simply a case of capitalism not having developed the continent sufficiently or just an intellectual failing on the part of the socialists I'm not so sure. Both, most probably, but I'd place the greater weight on the wider conditions than the individual failings of the politicians.

They didn't have a programme for the transition that would be able to retain mass support. Any possible route to socialism was going to make the country weaker than the capitalist ones and was going to lead to a long-term decline in living standards for the masses. It wasn't therefore in their interests to make that journey, which became the property of the true believers, the ever dwindling and ever more mystical communist faithful. In other words, for most workers, capitalist exploitation was preferable to risking all in the transition. The SD's, being democratic mass parties, responded to their wishes of the base and moderated their programme.

One of the key tasks of modern socialists is to create conditions where continued capitalist exploitation is no longer in most people's interests compared to transitioning to socialism. Again, this is where co-operatives can play an indispensable role. Hopefully capitalism itself will assist in that project, e.g. through the undermining of the value form, the creation of a digital economy etc. But however much capitalism helps us in that regard, we'll still have to take advantage of it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That was of course the major underlying point of disagreement, but the split itself arose out dissatisfaction regarding party democracy. Recall that Kautsky, Haase and the rest refused to split in 1914 as they hoped to win the party base around to their view. However, as the war went on, the majority leadership of Ebert, David etc, which by that point was very close to the state's top leaders, suppressed the opposition's access to the party press, insisted on voting discipline in the Reichstag, and generally restricted their room to articulate their opposition.

The opposition was forced to organise separately and this led to a de facto split in early 1917 and then a couple of months later the opposition were declared to have separated themselves off from the main party.

It is interesting to note the opposition's reluctance to split and their confidence that, given time, that their views would prevail amongst the party base. Kautsky and Hilferding never really wanted to split and once the war was over were anxious to reunite the party. The majority leadership were worried about that too. Lenin on the other hand took a very moralistic position of condemning the centrists for not irrevocably splitting with the majority.

Given the leftward trajectory of the base from 1917 to 1920 it seems to me unfortunate that Kautsky's strategy wasn't followed. The subsequent splits from the USPD (the Sparticists, the Halle Congress) were pretty unproductive examples of purist isolationism. A united party would have received a hefty bias towards the left, perhaps not to the degree that the nationalist leadership could have been replaced, but certainly it would have made that a realistic possibility, which would have been a gigantic pay-off compared to having a sizeable but inherently limited, not to mention slightly bizarre, KPD.

It was liquidationism on the right and left that doomed the USPD. Unity with the MSPD was quite worthy of Bolshevik condemnation. You're right about the KPD, though; the only realistic revolutionary scenario was a USPD-led one (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-power-independent-t155105/index.html).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Both the one-party state or multi-proletarian party state will face serious problems. They might not be fatal of course, but it is worth considering them. The big one is that parties represent underlying tendencies in society which can't actually be suppressed. The tendencies will worm their way into the party, as happened in Russia in the 1920s. Vigorous suppression will then have to move to being internal to the party and essentially follow the same logic that boxed in Stalin.

The developed bourgeois states don't have much electoral and media trouble keeping out the left parties (lack of proportional representation and corporate media "punditry"). How did George Galloway put it recently? That there hasn't been, before him (a slight exaggeration, but there are only a handful of exceptions), a left-of-Labour opposition in the House of Commons when the class-collaborationist Labour was in opposition?

[This doesn't say anything about inhibitive US electoral laws or about Putin's "sovereign democracy."]

The DOTP is the highest form of managed, not liberal, democracy for the working class (http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-power-rule-t160796/index.html).

[Noa Rodman]

That photo of Kautsky in your avatar DNZ originates from his magnum opus published in 1927 (available at archive.org/details/DieMaterialistischeGeschichtsauffassung ).

p.s. Notice his lack of eyebrows.

[Paul Cockshott]

The Western European countries(France, Germany, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, and the like) in addition to the United States(and perhaps Canada, I don't really know much about Canadian industrialization circa 1910) had the material basis for the construction of Socialism.
This is an anachronistic view of the world in 1910. The British state then had a population of some 450 million the greater number of whom were poor peasants.

[Grenzer]

This is an anachronistic view of the world in 1910. The British state then had a population of some 450 million the greater number of whom were poor peasants.

I don't really see how it's anachronistic. I'm simply stating that the basis for a proletarian dictatorship existed; and consequently, the construction of socialism. I never claimed they were super industrialized powerhouses. In addition, that seems to be a bit of a distortion given that that figure probably includes Ireland, which may well be in even worse shape than Italy and Spain. Under the doctrine of Lenin, it would have gained it's independence following a proletarian revolution in England, as would Scotland, if it desired it.

[Grenzer]

this is all wishful thinking really. i don't think that "principles" make a party, and that just having the correct formula will bring it about. the time of social democratic mass parties is long gone and the u.s. never had that tradition. the social democracy that survived did so by integrating itself to the state and proving itself to be a party of traitors and the labor lieutenants of the bosses. but social democracy today is moribund (see europe lol)and anyone calling for a social democratic program today is a museum piece.

If anyone has wishful thinking here, it's you. I don't think that a movement which will topple capitalism will just appear out of thin air. Anyone echoing the Bakuninist line of rejection of political struggle and economic apocalyptic determinism became a relic in 1917.




actually, africa is even worse now that it was, lets say, five decades before. i don't think "the productive forces" of africa can be developed through capitalism.

I agree with you here.




this shit has been tried by a lot of people before. trotskyism has a long tradition of sticking itself to labor parties and unions and they still are a tiny insignificant current.

This isn't what I've suggested though.



a lot of people think you just will parties into existence by the hard work of revolutionaries or w.e,

Good thing I'm not one of them. This is why I say that the revolutionary movement shouldn't be exclusive from the worker's movement, since it takes more than just class conscious revolutionary workers to build a mass movement.

There are some people, on the other hand, who think that a mass revolutionary movement will come about through sitting around focusing on mere labor disputes, eschewing actual political struggle. History has shown that this kind of neo-Bakuninism has proven to be a failure.



"spontaneity feithsist" lol stop talking to dnz. trying to build a "party" just cuz' u feel you have the correct solution to the world ills is not very different as building a larping club. in fact that is why there are so many left sects that are basically the equivalent of chess clubs.

I'll ignore the childish jab for a moment. No successful revolutionary movement has ever come about through broad economism. If you do want to have a revolutionary movement, you have to have a revolutionary party that is really a movement of the working class for itself. The reason why there are so many left sects is 1. They focus on pointless shit like whether Trotsky was better than stalin. Workers don't give a shit about that. 2. The focus on ultra-revolutionary sloganeering and posturing, workers don't give shit about that either. 3. they simply allow the workers movement to be co-opted by the bourgeoisie.



i love how you think this ideas are novel or something and nobody else have tried them. what workers' movement? the workers' movement in the west as known traditionally as the labor unions and labor parties are in steady decline. you want to merge with something that is about to die? anyway, you keep railing on about "building the party" like trust me, a billion other nerds have done in this forum.

Ignoring the petty arrogance here, the ideas are not novel; and they haven't really been seriously put in practice for decades. Bourgeois parties and modern trade unions are not the worker's movement, they've co-opted the worker's movement. Have you considered they might be in decline because they don't reflect the workers' interests.

I'm going to keep railing on about building the party of the working class so long as people keep railing on about quasi-religious apocalyptic forecasts of Capital's "inevitable" demise.



there are no "lessons" to be learned and be put in a treasure chest. capitalism of the nineteenth century was of a different form that allowed the existence of a civil society, and in germany it took the form of social democracy. anyone calling for that experiment of the nineteenth century again belongs 6 feet under the ground with the people that already attempted that.

Ignoring the childish parting shot, what the "ultra-left" seems to be proposing is just the same old Bakuninist shit which has been tried over and over and proven to be a failure repackaged with an overly philosophical and pseudo-Marxist veneer. The so-called "experiment" of the 19th century gave birth to the October Revolution, which has been the only successful proletarian revolution so far. I don't see what makes the organizational basis of the Bolsheviks so obsolete today. They did have a maximum-minimum programme, as we propose. They had genuine democratic centralism, as we propose, rather than the bureaucratic centralism of the 1920's.

Economism has plagued the far-left since its inception. First it was the Bakuninists; then it was the Mensheviks; and today it seems it is the "ultra-left". They are a dead weight which argues that we should basically sit on our ass doing nothing aside from parasitism of spontaneous labor struggles and the likes of occupy, since demise of capitalism is "inevitable".

You've just been throwing stones here, and poorly at that, without even providing a credible alternative; but we already know what that is: economism. The problem with the neo-Bakuninists is that they reject political action, which makes them irrelevant by default.

The idea that the masses will just spontaneously decide to topple the bourgeois order because they're fed up with capitalism is just as delusional as those who think that somehow, people will suspend common sense and acknowledge Stalin as the revolutionary messiah to be honest. Without solid, concrete, and deliberate political action, the bourgeoisie will simply adapt as they've always done.

[Die Neue Zeit]

They are a dead weight which argues that we should basically sit on our ass doing nothing aside from parasitism of spontaneous labor struggles and the likes of occupy, since demise of capitalism is "inevitable".

Don't be too dismissive of Occupy, comrade. Genuine class struggle emerges from broader political struggle, and Occupy, no matter how spontaneous, is an exhibition of the latter (I'm in the middle of Binh's over-enthusiasm and Macnair's dismissiveness on this subject). It's leaps and bounds ahead of mere labour disputes.

[Grenzer]

Don't be too dismissive of Occupy, comrade. Genuine class struggle emerges from broader political struggle, and Occupy, no matter how spontaneous, is an exhibition of the latter (I'm in the middle of Binh's over-enthusiasm and Macnair's dismissiveness on this subject). It's leaps and bounds ahead of mere labour disputes.

I agree that, overall, Occupy is a positive development; but at the same time, I would caution the left against forming an opportunistic, parasitic relationship with such movements. Ideally, we want such movements to emanate from the party itself, not latch on to spontaneous occurrences. Without a party affiliation, the movement has no direction, so it's unsurprising that it's fizzling out without having too big of a long term political impact. It needs a party to channel its demands, in my opinion. It is the lack of this that makes me pessimistic.

We need to have real parties as real movements. Take the Tea Party phenomenon, which was from the very outset an extension of the Republican Party. They were able to utilize it quite well. If only we could do the same..

However, this seems to be the exception. Generally, bourgeois parties function simply as electoral machines, not movements.

[Paul Cockshott]

not Ireland and Scotland, they were well developed Nigeria, Kerala, Gold coast, etc etc.

[black magick hustla]

If anyone has wishful thinking here, it's you. I don't think that a movement which will topple capitalism will just appear out of thin air. Anyone echoing the Bakuninist line of rejection of political struggle and economic apocalyptic determinism became a relic in 1917.

i don't know why you keep calling me a bakuninist bro. in fact bakunin was all about international conspiracies and sad caricatures of ascetic militants, and i am not an "economic apocalyptic determinist". i just have a lot of common sense.






Good thing I'm not one of them. This is why I say that the revolutionary movement shouldn't be exclusive from the worker's movement, since it takes more than just class conscious revolutionary workers to build a mass movement.

There are some people, on the other hand, who think that a mass revolutionary movement will come about through sitting around focusing on mere labor disputes, eschewing actual political struggle. History has shown that this kind of neo-Bakuninism has proven to be a failure.

that is not bakuninism. i don't know where the hell you got that. you know who was one of bakunin's biggest pals? nechayev, the boneheaded murderer that wrote "catechisms of the revolutionary", which was a bible for tight knit, organized revolutionary terror.

the whole idea that revolutionaries in the "present" can develop lessons from the "past" and keep them in treasure chests just so that they can concoct the best program is a strange myth. you know, the idea that "if people have done this in 1936 maybe we will be in world communism!" and all those stupid counterfactual fatnasies has no basis on anything. if anything, history shows that capital is very dynamic and the fight against is dynamic too and it takes specific forms in relation to the material conditions. in the 19th century, the working class organized as mass social democratic parties. in the USSR, the working class organized itself as soviets, etc. there is no "discovered form" of working class struggle, it changes.



The relation between militants and the working class is very complicated and cannot be summarized as just voluntarism vs spontaneism. However, some relations can be described as organic and artificial. There is a world of difference to what happened in Wisconsin in the education strikes of 2011 viz student cadre in anti-war marches. An organic program doesn't come out from the strange minds of strange people like DNZ, intellectually synthetizing the "lessons" of a party and tendency that is long dead. A program comes out from class activity and struggle.







No successful revolutionary movement has ever come about through broad economism. If you do want to have a revolutionary movement, you have to have a revolutionary party that is really a movement of the working class for itself. The reason why there are so many left sects is 1. They focus on pointless shit like whether Trotsky was better than stalin. Workers don't give a shit about that. 2. The focus on ultra-revolutionary sloganeering and posturing, workers don't give shit about that either. 3. they simply allow the workers movement to be co-opted by the bourgeoisie.
i don't get why you keep calling me an "economist". i don't even know if you understand the bizarre slurs you are throwing at me. you are making a very boring caricature of trotskyism, a tendency that you obviously lack knowledge of its history. A lot of the trade unions have been actually infiltrated by trotskyists, on the premise that they should go to where "workers are" and talk about what "workers give a shit about" (are you the mouthpiece of the working class or something, srsly?). Just in the US, the International Socialists had what they called an "industrial turn", where many middle class college kids in the 1970s took positions in union jobs. Labor notes, which is widely read, actually came out of that. The whole premise of entryism was to avoid just "talking about trotskyism vs stalin" and instead, engaging real "working class people", as if they are this strange babies that you need to educate or something. Solidarity in the US has a lot of cadre in management positions in unions too. These groups, are still sects though.


What do "workers care about"? Could you be more specific about it?





Ignoring the petty arrogance here, the ideas are not novel; and they haven't really been seriously put in practice for decades.

Of course they have been, as I mentioned before. There are plenty of other examples, like the BPP starting a breakfast program and other "cater the working class" patronizing type of bullshit. of course the bpp never exceeded more than 5k people and they were still a marginal group. I don't want to give more examples because I would have to write a book about them. Do your research.

The "petty arrogance" comes from the fact that you are dismissing ideas and positions with bullshit slurs like "economism and bakuninism", if you are going to behave that well expect other people to be like that with you.





Bourgeois parties and modern trade unions are not the worker's movement, they've co-opted the worker's movement. Have you considered they might be in decline because they don't reflect the workers' interests.

so what is the workers' movement? what movement do we need to engage?




I'm going to keep railing on about building the party of the working class so long as people keep railing on about quasi-religious apocalyptic forecasts of Capital's "inevitable" demise.
more strawman after strawman. even the icc doesn't say that, they say its either socialism or barbarism.




Ignoring the childish parting shot, what the "ultra-left" seems to be proposing is just the same old Bakuninist shit which has been tried over and over and proven to be a failure repackaged with an overly philosophical and pseudo-Marxist veneer. The so-called "experiment" of the 19th century gave birth to the October Revolution, which has been the only successful proletarian revolution so far. I don't see what makes the organizational basis of the Bolsheviks so obsolete today. They did have a maximum-minimum programme, as we propose. They had genuine democratic centralism, as we propose, rather than the bureaucratic centralism of the 1920's.
everything about the bolshevik revolution was a failure.




Economism has plagued the far-left since its inception. First it was the Bakuninists; then it was the Mensheviks; and today it seems it is the "ultra-left". They are a dead weight which argues that we should basically sit on our ass doing nothing aside from parasitism of spontaneous labor struggles and the likes of occupy, since demise of capitalism is "inevitable".
whatever man. i already explained why you don't really understand those concepts.




You've just been throwing stones here, and poorly at that, without even providing a credible alternative; but we already know what that is: economism. The problem with the neo-Bakuninists is that they reject political action, which makes them irrelevant by default.
actually, that is the point you don't really get. it is not my responsability to offer a "credible alternative" to the class. its a pretty dumb excersize and generally winds up with dumb phds building their stupid utopian socialist fictitious universes (parecon, for example).





The idea that the masses will just spontaneously decide to topple the bourgeois order because they're fed up with capitalism is just as delusional as those who think that somehow, people will suspend common sense and acknowledge Stalin as the revolutionary messiah to be honest. Without solid, concrete, and deliberate political action, the bourgeoisie will simply adapt as they've always done.
nobody is arguing about "spontaneity", goddamn read a book

[Die Neue Zeit]

i don't know why you keep calling me a bakuninist bro. in fact bakunin was all about international conspiracies and sad caricatures of ascetic militants, and i am not an "economic apocalyptic determinist". i just have a lot of common sense.

that is not bakuninism. i don't know where the hell you got that. you know who was one of bakunin's biggest pals? nechayev, the boneheaded murderer that wrote "catechisms of the revolutionary", which was a bible for tight knit, organized revolutionary terror.

Yes it is neo-Bakuninism. The other half of Bakunin's crap was to organize around economic issues, with small groups raising them to drive the wheel as the cog, while keeping politics low.


The relation between militants and the working class is very complicated and cannot be summarized as just voluntarism vs spontaneism. However, some relations can be described as organic and artificial. There is a world of difference to what happened in Wisconsin in the education strikes of 2011 viz student cadre in anti-war marches. An organic program doesn't come out from the strange minds of strange people like DNZ, intellectually synthetizing the "lessons" of a party and tendency that is long dead. A program comes out from class activity and struggle.

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. Without a class program there can be no class movement.


i don't get why you keep calling me an "economist". i don't even know if you understand the bizarre slurs you are throwing at me. you are making a very boring caricature of trotskyism, a tendency that you obviously lack knowledge of its history.

Oh, we know about it more than you do, considering one of our main sources is an ex-Trot.


A lot of the trade unions have been actually infiltrated by trotskyists, on the premise that they should go to where "workers are" and talk about what "workers give a shit about" (are you the mouthpiece of the working class or something, srsly?).

That's the other half of Bakuninism which we referred to, actually: "revolutionaries" infiltrating the economic struggles so as to grow political struggles, despite the fact that not a lot of political issues are raised. The typical Bakuninist cry here is "The economic is political!"


Of course they have been, as I mentioned before. There are plenty of other examples, like the BPP starting a breakfast program and other "cater the working class" patronizing type of bullshit. of course the bpp never exceeded more than 5k people and they were still a marginal group. I don't want to give more examples because I would have to write a book about them. Do your research.

What you call "patronizing" I call actual organizing the working class. You don't have an alternative for the working class organizing itself. Hell, you're on the record here stating that class consciousness can only be achieved during "revolutionary periods," with support outside such times being purely "moralistic."


so what is the workers' movement? what movement do we need to engage?

We just gave you historical examples of nation-based workers movements. The pre-WWI German one was exclusively the SPD. Volunteers are needed to build the class movement, not to engage perceived but hollow "movements."


actually, that is the point you don't really get. it is not my responsability to offer a "credible alternative" to the class. its a pretty dumb excersize and generally winds up with dumb phds building their stupid utopian socialist fictitious universes (parecon, for example).

You're creating strawmen here for both maximum programs and minimum programs. As a worker, it is your responsibility (assuming you are even one, of course). As a worker, it is my responsibility.


nobody is arguing about "spontaneity", goddamn read a book

But you are arguing spontaneism. Who develops the "credible alternative," then?


The "petty arrogance" comes from the fact that you are dismissing ideas and positions with bullshit slurs like "economism and bakuninism", if you are going to behave that well expect other people to be like that with you.

As we just explained, that's not bullshit. That's far less BS than "voluntarism," coined as a means of insulting left sects and now even those trying to adapt Orthodox Marxism to modern circumstances ("Kautsky Revival"), but I'm sure we comrades can wear that insult as a badge of pride.

[black magick hustla]

Yes it is neo-Bakuninism. The other half of Bakunin's crap was to organize around economic issues, with small groups raising them to drive the wheel as the cog, while keeping politics low.
everyone, including the spd also organized around economic issues. there are trade unions associated with social democratic parties, you know that right?




Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. Without a class program there can be no class movement.


and where those the program come from? out of your forum posts?







That's the other half of Bakuninism which we referred to, actually: "revolutionaries" infiltrating the economic struggles so as to grow political struggles, despite the fact that not a lot of political issues are raised. The typical Bakuninist cry here is "The economic is political!"
you have no understanding of the shitty slurs you use. every socialist of every type "inflitrates economic struggles".




What you call "patronizing" I call actual organizing the working class. You don't have an alternative for the working class organizing itself. Hell, you're on the record here stating that class consciousness can only be achieved during "revolutionary periods," with support outside such times being purely "moralistic."
i didn't say revolutionary periods, and if i said that i mean't periods of struggle. and yes, class consciousness is not created by evangelization.




We just gave you historical examples of nation-based workers movements. The pre-WWI German one was exclusively the SPD. Volunteers are needed to build the class movement, not to engage perceived but hollow "movements."
yep, real struggles organize itself into a "party" blahblahblah lets all ahve a chubby for chavez blahblahblah its pretty hard to not know what you are on about when you spam the forum with your intolerable, barroque and bizarre diatribes




[


As we just explained, that's not bullshit. That's far less BS than "voluntarism," coined as a means of insulting left sects and now even those trying to adapt Orthodox Marxism to modern circumstances ("Kautsky Revival"), but I'm sure we comrades can wear that insult as a badge of pride.
nobody except a few baffoons in the internet takes seriously the whole kautsky revival bullshit, so paradoxically, your attempts to cater at what the working class wants fall to deaf ears.

[Die Neue Zeit]

everyone, including the spd also organized around economic issues. there are trade unions associated with social democratic parties, you know that right?

The tred-iunionisty came after. That's a huge difference. The SPD organized first and foremost around political issues, things like militias, universal suffrage, proportional representation, tax plebiscities, free legal services, etc.

The problem with left-com and syndicalist types is that they like to "organize" around "more relevant" issues first (i.e., purely or most economic ones).


and where those the program come from? out of your forum posts?

The Eisenach program was developed by, ahem, "volunteers" (Bebel and W. Liebknecht founding the Social-Democratic Workers Party, an SPD precursor). The (Immediate) Demands of the Communist Party in Germany were developed by, ahem, "volunteers" (the Communist League, to whom both Marx and Lassalle belonged in 1848). The Program of the French Workers Party was developed by "volunteers," too (Marx and especially Guesde.)

"Out of my forum posts" only follows the continuity established much earlier in the precedents above (no, it's not "invariant" or static).


you have no understanding of the shitty slurs you use. every socialist of every type "inflitrates economic struggles".

There's a difference between individual socialists becoming involved in union activism but sticking to union issues (which is not "infiltration") and those who don't. The former, if not reformists, have an understanding that politicization has better avenues.


i didn't say revolutionary periods, and if i said that i mean't periods of struggle. and yes, class consciousness is not created by evangelization.

That's another "shitty slur" that I'm sure we comrades can wear as another badge of pride.


nobody except a few baffoons in the internet takes seriously the whole kautsky revival bullshit, so paradoxically, your attempts to cater at what the working class wants fall to deaf ears.

You don't have a positive theory on how "class struggle" emerges (I'll put this in quotes here only because many include mere labour disputes in this stuff). If class awareness emerges from "class struggle," how does the latter emerge in detail?

You might have a cheaply sloganized "maximum program," but you have no strategy on offer. I mean, you haven't responded yet to my thread reference to the Greek far right.

[Noa Rodman]

I wonder if anyone has a preference in seeing some articles from 'Under the Banner of Marxism' against Kautsky translated. There are quite a number, almost all dating from the 1928-1933 period (I counted 13): dealing with his book on War and democracy, his critique of the new SD 1933 program, dialectical materialism, crisis theory, origins of Christianity, state and classes, Marx's economic teachings, his distortion of Lenin's doctrine, his theory of proletarian revolution, etc.

And if anyone finds a particular article from Under the Banner of Marxism of interest more in general, feel free to ask.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"'Under the Banner of Marxism' against Kautsky"? "His distortion of Lenin's doctrine"? Who's the author of those articles?

[Noa Rodman]

To phrase it better; articles against Kautsky which appeared in that journal. The one about Kautsky's misrepresentation of Lenin's views is by Razumovskij, many are by P.E. Vyshinskij (Петр Ефимович Вышинский), and the rest by other unknown authors. You mentioned third period Stalinism, and now it strikes me that most of the anti-Kautsky articles in 'Under the Banner of Marxism' date from this period.

Of course all the articles are interesting and should be translated, but so far I've done 4 (click the history tracker of my name on the libcom site to find them in the library) and want to do so more, but they're all interesting, so where to start?

Some relevant (to this discussion) titles were:

"Theory of revolution of the Austrian 'left' social-democrats"

"Running struggles in German social-democracy during the first years after the lifting of the exclusionary law (1890-1895 years)"

[Noa Rodman]

When I said Kautsky's critique of Soc.-Dem. was valuable I meant his critique of the Görlitz program and of the 1933 new program. He discusses the Görlitz program in the first (almost 60 pages long) chapter of his "Labour revolution" (1922), though this chapter wasn't translated ( marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/index.htm ).

I think this book should be the starting point of discussion. Viktor Chernov, leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (which became member of the LS International and counted for almost half the membership if you count by election results) quotes from it here and takes it as a starting point: libcom.org/library/der-wende-zweier-epochen-victor-chernov

[Die Neue Zeit]

The material in Labour Revolution is very questionable at best. The renegade basically turns his back on what he wrote in The Road to Power, Republic and Social Democracy in France, and The Social Revolution - in that order!

The Road to Power: reform coalitionism

Republic and Social Democracy in France: the Paris Commune, the political features of the DOTP, etc.

The Social Revolution: One example is the "confiscation or compensation" discussion, and this brings to mind a Learning thread on Mao paying the "national bourgeoisie" dividends.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-did-mao-t171070/index.html

Compare this crap preceding both Mao and Venezuelan fiscal problems (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/when-chvez-seizes-bondholders-profit-12152011.html):

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_d.htm#sc

But many will ask, if the capitalists are to be fully compensated, what is all the bother about? The most suitable method of compensating the expropriated capitalists will be to allot to them State bonds, the interest on which would be equal to the total former profits of the socialized undertakings. They could also be paid in cash from the proceeds of a loan which the State would raise. To meet the service of this loan the State would be obliged to earmark such portion of the proceeds of the socialized undertakings as would be equal to the profits they formerly yielded. In this case it would seem that no change in the exploitation of the worker by capital had been effected. Now the State would have to conduct the business of exploitation on behalf of the capitalists, who had hitherto conducted it directly. This is true, but the following considerations must be borne in mind.

With a combination of aggressive transition and better fiscal prudence in The Social Revolution, what I call "tax-to-nationalize" via compulsory purchase/eminent domain:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-1.htm#s3

Direct confiscation would complete this quickly, often at one stroke, while confiscation through taxation permits the disappearance of capitalist property through a long drawn out process proceeding in the exact degree in which the new order is established and its benevolent influence made perceptible […] Confiscation in this way loses its harshness, it becomes more acceptable and less painful. The more peaceably the conquest of the political power by the proletariat is attained and the more firmly organized and enlightened it is, the more we can expect that the primitive forms of confiscation will be softened.

The latter scheme entails special taxes on business profits, certain financial assets, etc. (comrade Cockshott enlightened me on Chartalist preferences for the latter) and then those same proceeds are used to exercise compulsory purchase or eminent domain over various private-sector corporate shares at market value.

[Noa Rodman]

It seems he preferred compensation already in The Social Revolution (and what Mao did is different, because it occurred after a bloody civil war already had taken place, and by a bureaucratic regime). On recall of deputies I think you would agree with 'renegade Kautsky' that this is a party matter. About reform coalitionism, which I think is the most controversial issue, he only says that it should be debatable. Any serious critique of Soc.-Dem. should engage with this book, yet one finds not even an article on this major work, neither by anarchists, nor by the SPGB (nor by communists) at the time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It seems he preferred compensation already in The Social Revolution (and what Mao did is different, because it occurred after a bloody civil war already had taken place, and by a bureaucratic regime).

All options should be open, but the form of compensation he suggested earlier was different from what he suggested later. Have you heard of the aborted Meidner Plan in Sweden?


On recall of deputies I think you would agree with 'renegade Kautsky' that this is a party matter.

Not really. In EqualityByLot.org, I have argued for multiple avenues of recall. Over there I have had to stress party-based recalls whenever a demarchist has issues with another form of recall (that being popular recall), and there I've also had to advocate recall of randomly selected officials by another body of randomly selected officials checking on the former group's mandates.

So, there are at least three recall avenues I've suggested, and all should be legit.


About reform coalitionism, which I think is the most controversial issue, he only says that it should be debatable. Any serious critique of Soc.-Dem. should engage with this book, yet one finds not even an article on this major work, neither by anarchists, nor by the SPGB (nor by communists) at the time.

On a more practical note, why don't we apply a critique of this book to... the situation in Greece? :)

[Noa Rodman]

There are some differences in the translation (German original: archive.org/stream/dieproletarische00kaut#page/98/mode/2up) of this chapter on coalition policy in The Labour Revolution. Here are some examples (part in bold was dropped from the translation):


Given the stage at which the capitalist countries have now arrived, the idea of coalition, in spite of all opposition, will gain ground and tend to dominate Labour [/proletarian] politics, not as substitute for the Labour Revolution, as it has been widely touted, which was not very conducive to the propagation of the coalition idea [als der sie vielfach angepriesen wurde, was der propagierung der Koalitionidee nicht gerade förderlich war], but as [prelude/Einleitung and] preparation for this Revolution, that is to say, the sole political rule of the workers through the agency of a purely Socialist [, supported by a proletarian predominance (von einer proletarischen übermacht getragenen)] Government.Another line from this same chapter on coalition policy:

Of course, if I have allies, I must take them into account, and this might prevent me from imposing such severe conditions on the beaten foe as I could do if I defeated him alone.But what does this "could" help me, when in reality without allies I would be defeated! (Aber was hilft mir dieses "hatte", wenn ich in Wirklichkeit ohne den Allierten geschlagen wurde!)This passage was dropped:


Otto Bauer, whose radicalism after all will not be doubted, has not rejected the coalition policy on principle then, but even himself gone through it for a period in practice. Of course one must distinguish between coalition and coalition. Only under certain conditions will it be of benefit. ( Otto Bauer, dessen Radikalismus doch nicht bezweifelt werden wird, hat denn auch die Koalitionspolitik keineswegs grundsätzlich verworfen, sondern sie sogar eine Zeitland selbst praktisch mitgemacht. Näturlich mus mann zwischen koalition und koalition unterscheiden. Nur unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen wird sie von Vorteil sein.)This passage was also dropped:

Once coalition policy becomes unavoidable, the Labour movement should be made as powerful as possible, in order to extract the fullest advantages for the workers from this policy.
But his requires above all: unity of the proletariat. Who wants to reduce the dangers of coalition policy to a minimum, has primarily the task, of working towards socialist unity. Anyone who opposes this (unity), eliminates not the need of coalition politics, he causes only, that it happens under less favorable conditions, as it would otherwise be.

(Das aber erheischt vor allem: Geschlossenheit des proletariats. Wer die gefahren der koalitionspolitik auf ihr Minimum reduzieren will, hat vor allem die Aufgabe, auf die sozialistische Einigkeit hinzuwirken. Wer dieser entgegenwirkt, der beseitigt damit nicht die Notwendigkeit der Koalitionspolitik, er bewirkt blos, das sie unter ungünstigeren Bedingungen vor sich geht, als es sonst der Fall wäre.) One more;

None of the middle class parties is a pure class party, but each is comprised of an assemblage of various class elements. Only the Labour Party is a purely class party.This fact makes the proletariat resist even more than other classes a temporary combination of various parties into a coalition (Dieser Umstand lässt das Proletariat auch mehr als andere Klassen einer zeitweiligen zusammenfassung verschiedener Parteien zu einer koalition widerstreben.)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Has the renegade actually put forward his independently developed version of what the Comintern debated re. "workers governments"? :w00t:

[Noa Rodman]

It's a repeat of the Bebel-Kautsky resolution of 1900 (and 1903,1904) according to Arthur Crispien, speaking at the 1922 Gera USDP congress (where the majority was against coalition policy). Ledebour served him of reply.

So it's not about workers governments. I just find it hard to reconcile with what Kautsky wrote in Road to power;


Incalculable are our statesmen. Their personalities change rapidly and their views more rapidly still. They no longer have any logical, definite policy.
Incalculable also are the small capitalist masses that, now here, now there, throw their weight into the scale, balancing it up and down.
Furthermore, the insanity of foreign politics, which involves so many nations, is still incalculable, so that the incalculableness of the internal politics of such states is increased manifold by the complications of its foreign relations.
All these factors are now in the closest and most continuous interrelation, so that it is impossible to come to any conclusions concerning them.
The Socialists will be able to assert themselves in the midst of this universal uncertainty just in proportion as they do not waver and as they remain true to themselves.
In the midst of this constant wavering policy they will increase the conscious strength of the laboring masses just in proportion as their theory makes possible a logical, definite practice. The more the Socialist party maintains an indestructible power in the midst of the destruction of all authority, the more the Socialists will increase their authority. And the more they persevere in their irreconcilable opposition to the corruption of the ruling class the more complete the trust that will be vested in them by the great masses of the population in the midst of the universal rottenness which has today seized the bourgeois democracy, which has completely surrendered its principles for the purpose of gaining governmental favors.
The more immovable, logical and irreconcilable the Socialists remain, the sooner will they conquer their opponents.
It is to ask the Socialists to commit political suicide to demand that they join in any coalition or “bloc” policy, in any case where the words “reactionary mass” are truly applicable. It is demanding moral suicide of the Socialists to ask them to enter into an alliance with capitalist parties at a time when, these have prostituted themselves and compromised themselves to the very bottom. Any such alliance would only be to join in furthering that prostitution.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's a repeat of the Bebel-Kautsky resolution of 1900 (and 1903,1904) according to Arthur Crispien, speaking at the 1922 Gera USDP congress (where the majority was against coalition policy). Ledebour served him of reply.

So it's not about workers governments. I just find it hard to reconcile with what Kautsky wrote in Road to power;

That's good to know, comrade.

[Noa Rodman]

Yeah, Ledebour reminds Crispien of how he had argued for the exclusion of Kautsky only in the recent past (while Ledebour had opposed this), and now Crispien flipflopped completely. Crispien uses the typical arguments of liquidationism; unity, going to the masses, etc. while Ledebour defends the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc.


BTW, the archive of the Arbeiter Zeitung (Vienna) is online for the years 1915-27: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=aze


With articles by Kautsky on coalition policy, unity of USPD with SPD, Bolshevik invasion of Georgia, Paul Levi's alliance with Russia idea, the Czech state, German election of 1924, the meaning of having a workers's press, etc.

[Noa Rodman]

Die Gesellschaft. Internationale Revue für Sozialismus und Politik. (1924-1933) is now online: http://library.fes.de/gesellschaft/ges-chro.html (in readable German typeface)



It was the theoretical journal of the SPD, successor to Die Neue Zeit. Hilfderding was its editor.

(for convenience's sake, an incomplete table of contents is found here (http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/d-man/4374/literature-random-comments#comment-3142))