Marxism & Leninism combined [Archive]

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justmenomorenoless

21st August 2012, 21:54

What parts of Leninism are included in Marxism-Leninism? Most of the people I've heard about call themselves ML, but I can't get anyone to explain to me the two combined.

robbo203

22nd August 2012, 10:01

Jimmie Higgins

22nd August 2012, 10:57

It would be better to conceive of "Marxism" and "Leninism" as two quite separate and, to an extent, opposed political paradigms.This is simply untrue. Even if one believed, as many do, that Leninism was a diviation from classical marxist techniques and strategies... "separate" is a huge overstatement. Lenin's ideas came out of the Marxist movement regardless of the value or worth of them. I am completely opposed to Stalinist ideas of socialism and the state and the vanguard and reject these, but they are a development of (and I'd argue, away from) Marxism and specifically the Bolsheviks. Are either of these developments the "natural" or "only" way these ideas could develop - obviously not, there are many trends that have existed and are possible under various conditions.

Second, to counter-pose Marx's ideas (or paradigm) with Lenin's vanguard ideas is again just false regardless of what one thinks the worth of that ideas is. The ideas often associated with Lenin such as the Vanguard Party are not "opposing" Marxist ideas, they are an attempt (again valuable or not) at finding a way to implement Marx's ideas. Specifically how to have a movement of the class when the "Socialist Movement" by that point, in the view of many Bolshevik-leaning radicals was that the organizations had been pulled away from working class politics in the 2nd International Parties. Lenin's famous contributions were over how to develop specific strategies based on "scientific socialist" ideas developed by Marx and many others including Kautsky.

Manic Impressive

22nd August 2012, 12:33

Second, to counter-pose Marx's ideas (or paradigm) with Lenin's vanguard ideas is again just false regardless of what one thinks the worth of that ideas is. The ideas often associated with Lenin such as the Vanguard Party are not "opposing" Marxist ideas, they are an attempt (again valuable or not) at finding a way to implement Marx's ideas.
When Marx and Engels both say that minority groups attempting to impose revolution on a population is utopian and can not lead to a DoTP then yeah it is diametrically opposed to the Marxist view.

Jimmie Higgins

22nd August 2012, 13:24

When Marx and Engels both say that minority groups attempting to impose revolution on a population is utopian and can not lead to a DoTP then yeah it is diametrically opposed to the Marxist view.It would be opposed to the Bolshevik view too - and to the concept of a Vanguard organization. A vanguard is the forward-section, implying the vanguard individuals are just the ones who've already come to revolutionary conclusions and that they are charting a path forward with the expectation the rest of the class will join them soon. This is all that the vanguard party is about in it's non-stalinized form: the people who know that the only way forward is working class revolution, coordinating with each-other and developing common strategies and pooling information and networks of other people in the struggle. It is not in opposition to working class self-emancipation, it's in opposition to general-membership parties, who, in the Bolshevik critique tend towards conservationism and reformism because they organize by gathering supporters rather than political agreement and so this leads to only taking more popular positions or to a detached party leadership.

When did Lenin propose a revolution on behalf of workers as opposed to a working class revolution? You are using the concept of "vanguard" as it evolved later (rather than being a group dedicated to the furthering of the local class struggle at hand, to one dedicated to supporting the USSR as the world vanguard of socialism and therefore the need to clamp down on internal-democracy and debate since the needs of the USSR changed depending on the needs of the bureaucracy) and as both the Stalinist-offshoots and Western anti-communists represented it.

The whole conception was how to overcome the basic tendency of movements to be pulled by petty-bourgeois ideas and how to create a base for revolutionary politics so that these views could go from being held by a minority of workers to mass numbers of workers. Again, the 2nd internationalist answer was to build up reforms and a base of support among workers; and in addition to what I said above, the Bolsheviks argued that as a way of organizing, it leads to a party of leaders and passive followers rather than a party of fully engaged fighters who can come up with a common strategy and some common political ideas. Russia already had models of conspiratorial organizations and coup-plotters and this is what the socialist movement came out of and what Lenin both admired on a romantic level but also ruthlessly criticized for not having a self-emancipatory strategy.

Material arguments of how the revolution failed and the conditions to why the party began subsituting itself and going down a road that eventually (not necessarily inevitably IMO) led to the institutionalization of something quite different from any attempt at Socialism, make total sense to me historically. The idea that the Bolsheviks or Lenin's ideas were just a plot to rule over workers all along makes no sense to me and I don't know of any material explanation for this other than those who argue that it was because the party was organized largely by intellectuals - but then again so was every radical group in non-revolutionary times back then, so it's sort of a moot point as to an argument for why specifically "Leninism" led inevitably to "Stalinism" (the argument of some anarchists that any kind of organization leads to undemocratic bureaucracy, is at least logically consistent even though I don't agree with that). The only way these "original sin" arguments for the development of the Revolution into the non-revolutionary USSR, are if you read history in reverse and make an assumption that what happened invariably had to happen.

There are plenty of critics of Lenin and the Bolsheviks who, even when I disagree with them, have a pretty sound arguemt that doesn't rely on reading history backwards... mostly anarchist arguments. But I totally reject the idea that the Revolution failed as it did because of "some bad ideas" in 1902. Hell, Stalinism wasn't caused by "bad ideas" it was caused by revolutionary failure and a non-working class alternative developing materially as the situation changed from "world revolution" to building Russia and keeping out Western Imperialism.

justmenomorenoless

22nd August 2012, 13:43

Ok...Well, thank you all. But I see we have some conflicting opinions here. It seems like the main differences between Marxism & Leninism is 1 the idea of the vanguard party & 2 the idea that communism can be effective in one state. Am I right in saying this? And would I also be right in saying that because these differences, ML sometimes conflicts with just Marxist theory?

Art Vandelay

22nd August 2012, 16:45

Ocean Seal

22nd August 2012, 17:03

When Marx and Engels both say that minority groups attempting to impose revolution on a population is utopian and can not lead to a DoTP then yeah it is diametrically opposed to the Marxist view.
I'm pretty sure that this has been covered in another thread. In fact several times over, if you are going to say something like this you should probably back it up with evidence. Evidence that the DotP was implemented by a minority group rather than the most radical and organized sectors of the working class with the Bolshevik party leading the focal point. Who was taking to the streets? The working class, the peasantry. Who was taking control of the means of production? The most militant sectors of the working class. Who took control of the instruments of power? The militant unions, the factory committees, the Soviets. And do you really expect anyone to believe that a minority party of intellectuals would strip the workers of their power just by decree, and as a result attempt to push DotP in the utopian mode which you claim they did? Or is it in fact that the workers did create a DotP in tandem with their revolutionary party? If you do believe that it is the former, then I would argue that you conception of history is idealist.

Peoples' War

22nd August 2012, 17:57

When Marx and Engels both say that minority groups attempting to impose revolution on a population is utopian and can not lead to a DoTP then yeah it is diametrically opposed to the Marxist view.
This is a very incorrect assessment of Lenin's idea of a vanguard, not surprising coming from a SPGB member. The Bolsheviks were not a "minority", or Blanquist party. Nor were they "imposing revolution". The Bolsheviks were the leadership of the revolution. Their purpose was to represent, educating and guide the workers in the right direction. The workers, as you can tell from elections in the councils, supported them with a majority.

Even Rosa Luxembourg, in Germany, viewed the SPD -- and later the Spartakusbund -- as the vanguard of the proletariat. The leadership, the guide of the working class, the most advanced.

If we want to discuss what Marx and Engels stood for, we can certainly critique the Kautskyist SPGB, and their idea of "revolution by winning the parliament".

Manic Impressive

22nd August 2012, 18:01

I'm pretty sure that this has been covered in another thread. In fact several times over, if you are going to say something like this you should probably back it up with evidence.
Yes it has and Yes I have many many many times. I'm one of the only people on this forum who consistently back up what they say with quotes from Marx, Engels, Lenin and any other fucker who had something to say on the matter.

Evidence that the DotP was implemented by a minority group

rather than the most radical and organized sectors of the working class with the Bolshevik party leading the focal point.
OK so the most advanced and radical parts of the working class this is in fact a minority isn't it? For a revolution to be possible the Immense Majority must be class conscious. Marx makes this perfectly clear.

Who was taking to the streets? The working class, the peasantry. Who was taking control of the means of production? The most militant sectors of the working class. Who took control of the instruments of power? The militant unions, the factory committees, the Soviets.
Who fights in any revolution? The workers. Who strikes? the workers. Are you suggesting that every fighter or every striker is doing so because they understand what communism is? Are you suggesting that they are class conscious. The workers had been revolting for decades in Russia as would be expected of a country stuck in feudal production. Are you claiming that they were always class conscious?

Just as the French revolution was made by a minority, it was not won by a minority. It was fought for by workers.

And do you really expect anyone to believe that a minority party of intellectuals would strip the workers of their power just by decree, and as a result attempt to push DotP in the utopian mode which you claim they did?
I don't remember saying the workers ever held power for the bolsheviks to strip. But since you mention it.

Reality has cruelly shattered all these illusions. The ‘Soviet State’ has not established in any instance electiveness and recall of public officials and the commanding staff. It has not suppressed the professional police . . . It has not done away with social hierarchy in production . . . On the contrary, in proportion to its evolution, the Soviet State shows a tendency in the opposite direction. It shows a tendency toward the utmost possible strengthening of the principles of hierarchy and compulsion. It shows a tendency toward the development of a more specialised apparatus of repression than before . . . It shows a tendency toward the total freedom of the executive organisms from the tutelage of the electors

In Russia the evolution of the ‘Soviet State’ has already created a new and complicated State machine, based on the ‘administration of persons’ as against the ‘administration of things’ based on the opposition of . . . The functionary (official) to the citizen. These antagonisms are in no way different from the antagonisms that charaterise the capitalist state

To put the whole matter briefly, after the Russian upheaval of 1917, as before it, the State Power continued to be in the hands of a minority, though it was a different minority

Or is it in fact that the workers did create a DotP in tandem with their revolutionary party? If you do believe that it is the former, then I would argue that you conception of history is idealist.
Idealist how, do you even know what the word means? I post quotes many many quotes endlessly posting quotes from everyone and anyone to back up what I say. Yet evidence is dismissed because you don't like it. It doesn't fit in with what you want to hear. That is not scientific, that is not materialist. It is ideological demagoguery.

Manic Impressive

22nd August 2012, 18:04

Once again we see Manic regurgitating his old caricatures of Leninism.....

The vanguard party was an innovation (or as some claim an extension) to Marxism created by Vladmir Lenin. Basically the belief was (I am no authority on the subject so I could be wrong) that workers could not fully develop class consciousness, which up until that point had been considered a pre-requisite for revolution. Lenin claimed that the average worker would be unable to become class conscious, which is shown through his famous quote:

:crying:

Manic Impressive

22nd August 2012, 18:10

If we want to discuss what Marx and Engels stood for, we can certainly critique the Kautskyist SPGB, and their idea of "revolution by winning the parliament".
Where does Kautskyite come from? seriously I've never understood this. Lenin was influenced by Kautsky and the reformist 2nd international.

The SPGB attended the 2nd international once and said they would not return as long as reformists were admitted entry.

You Leninists need to make your mind up whether Kautsky is the main person who formed your (un)scientific version of socialism or an evil renegade.

Peoples' War

22nd August 2012, 18:28

Where does Kautskyite come from? seriously I've never understood this. Lenin was influenced by Kautsky and the reformist 2nd international.

The SPGB attended the 2nd international once and said they would not return as long as reformists were admitted entry.

You Leninists need to make your mind up whether Kautsky is the main person who formed your (un)scientific version of socialism or an evil renegade.
You, first, avoid the point. The SPGB advocating the blatant reformist, and Kautskyist idea -- yes, this was Kautsky's believe, that the SPD/USPD could win the Reichstag, and institute socialism --, of revolution by winning parliament.

To answer your question on Kautsky: Yes, he was influential on Lenin, and many. There is no doubt. However, this was prior to his 1914 support of imperialism. We recognize his contributions, as well as his MAJOR flaws, and his opportunism. Lenin is quoted as saying he hated Kautsky more than anyone, after 1914.

Kautsky wasn't always a revisionist and opportunist, but he did become one.

How precisely is Leninism "unscientific"?

Dave B

22nd August 2012, 18:57

Bolshevik Russia was a one party state capitalist dictatorship of a ‘party’ or a ‘new’ state capitalist ruling class that never comprised more than 1% of the population.

The other 99% or mass of proleterians, or 'casual factory workers' had to work and obey.

V. I. Lenin Speech At The First All-Russia Congress Of Workers In Education and Socialist Culture July 31, 1919

When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won, .

http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works//1919/aug/05.htm

V. I. Lenin THE CONDITIONS FOR ADMITTING NEW MEMBERS TO THE PARTY

In view of the lackadaisical and unsystematic methods that prevail in our ranks, short probation periods will actually mean that no real test will be made to ascertain whether the applicants are really more or less tried Communists. If we have 300,000 to 400,000 members in the Party, even that number is excessive, for literally everything goes to show that the level of training of the present Party membership is inadequate. That is why I strongly insist on longer probation periods, and on instructing the Organising Bureau to draw up and strictly apply rules that will really make the period of probation a serious test and not an empty formality.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/CNM22.html

V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation
And Trotsky’s Mistakes

. But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels………….for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people.

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

as from the origin of the idea in 1918

"LEFT-WING" CHILDISHNESS AND THE PETTY-BOURGEOIS MENTALITY

our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.

Our task is to hasten this copying even more than Peter hastened the copying of Western culture by barbarian Russia, and we must not hesitate to use barbarous methods in fighting barbarism. If there are anarchists and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (I recall off-hand the speeches of Karelin and Ghe at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee) who indulge in Narcissus-like reflections and say that it is unbecoming for us revolutionaries to "take lessons" from German imperialism, there is only one thing we can say in reply: the revolution that took these people seriously would perish irrevocably (and deservedly).

http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/LWC18.html

it wasn’t Marxism either as;

V. I. Lenin Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.)March 27-April 2, 1922

On the question of state capitalism, I think that generally our press and our Party make the mistake of dropping into intellectualism, into liberalism; we philosophise about how state capitalism is to be interpreted, and look into old books. But in those old books you will not find what we are discussing; they deal with the state capitalism that exists under capitalism. Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on thissubject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

And turning black into white; and the ruling state capitalist class into real proletarians and factory workers into a new class of casual elements! From the same.

Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1879 Marx and Engels to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Bracke and others

When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who say that the workers are too uneducated.. (or corrupted and degraded)…. to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois ..[or a vanguard of the bourgeois intelligentsia ]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/letters/79_09_15.htm

Jimmie Higgins

22nd August 2012, 19:25

Ahh yes, the famous Lenin quote blast lacking any context of the point he was making (generally if you've read Lenin, he NEVER makes a concise point that can be summed up in one sentence like all these quotes) let alone the historical context of the quotes.

Someone could easily take similar quotes devoid of context from George W. Bush and make him sound like the founder of the idea of Democracy... he talked about it a lot of course.

So the quote-blast is designed to obfuscate because who the hell has the time to look up and read each of those articles. I've read enough that I can tell some of them are just totally out of context from the top of my head.

Please read some Lars Lih's writings on these issues - he puts them into proper context AND is a hard critic of the Bolsheviks. If you have to be anti-Leninism, please at least don't be a sloppy one who lines up quotes like in "the Black Book of Communism" or something.

Dave B

22nd August 2012, 19:31

I provided the links for you.

Please, please analyse the context for me.

Rafiq

22nd August 2012, 20:01

It would be better to conceive of "Marxism" and "Leninism" as two quite separate and, to an extent, opposed political paradigms. For instance, the concept of vanguardism, so central to Leninism, is no part of the Marxian outlook. Even the very terminology is different - Lenin's depiction of "socialism" as "state capitalism" run in the interests of the "whole people" is a radical departure from Marxian usage which regarded socialism as more or less synonymous with "communism".

Absolute garbage. The conception of Vanguardism existed long before Lenin, i.e. the Pre-war SPD utilized vanguardism, etc.

And the second component of this little snip, regarding Socialism as state capitalism is, let's just be honest, taken out of context. Leninism (Trotskyism, Marxism Leninism) uniquely can be described as a vulgarization of Marxist theory, at best. A reflection of the degeneration of the October Revolution and the solidification of capital as such.

Marxism however is the political outlook appropriate for a genuinely post capitalist world and, as such is the genuine expression of a modern revolutionary intent. In many respects Marx's ideas were way ahead of his time. Lenin's by contrast have long passed their sell-by date

Again, this is garbage, and it does nothing but give the Leninists what they want: Lenin.

Marxism isn't at all a "Political outlook appropriate for a genuinely capitalist world". Such a thing existed long before the word Marxism was even used in a sentence. Marxism is a mode of analysis, an analysis of both human history and the capitalist mode of production alike. The only reason Marx was a communist was not because he had this grand idea for a future society which he thought was necessary to be actualized, but that he came to understand the dynamics and complexities of the capitalist mode of production, and with that, it's many contradictions. For Marx, Communism was a mere process, it was the embodiment of the interests of a class existent in capitalism. The more I think about it, the more I believe Althuissiar was right to say that so called "Marxists" have greatly underestimated what Marx was, and why he was important, in contrast with Anarchist or Utopian thinkers alike.

As for Lenin, hell, Lenin was one of the most important Marxists to ever exist, perhaps, maybe, he's up there with Marx, Engels, and Kautsky. For the first time, a massive offensive was made by Lenin against the vulgarists of Marxism from subjects regarding Materialism (both metaphysical, dialectical, and historical) to revolutionary strategy. Before Lenin, you had so called "Marxists" who asserted that Historical materialism was not a science devoid of ideology, but the ideological interperitation of history from a proletarian perspective, in other words, that Historical materialism was subjective.Lenin destroyed this. It was Lenin, not the menshevik scum, not the "Libertarian Marxists" who carried out what little legacy Kautsky left behind before he proved himself a traitor, by destroying this conception of "spontaneity", that the proletariat cannot realize the highest form of class consciousness without the help from external classes (The intelligentisa). It was Lenin who fought against Plekhanov's bastardizations of materialism. It was Lenin who was called a madman by his own comrades for seizing the opportunity to take action, unlike the Mensheviks and other psuedosocialists who called for the development of the Bourgeois class in Russia. It was Lenin who even realized the problems in postrevolution Russia, without his head up his ass (Unlike Stalin), who knew him and his party were fucked (As the revolution didn't spread).

Is Lenin to be credited for the October Revolution? Of course not. But as a distinguished theoretician he was the savior of Marxism. Just as Kautsky was the rightful extension of Marx and Engels, when Kautsky betrayed the movement, Lenin succeeded him. It's nothing short of absurd to draw this ridiculous conclusion, "Bad Lenin, Good Marx". Marx was incredible, but Marxism doesn't amount Marx. Marx realized himself with uttermost conviction that he was constrained by his time, and that material conditions would eventually change. And it was Lenin who rightfully succeeded the legacy of Marxism in his according conditions. Now, today, Leninists make the same mistake those who Lenin fought against are. They are clinging to a Marxism which is only applicable during the 20th century. Perhaps, today, we need a new Lenin more than ever, not for the revolution (I'm not an Idealist), but for Marxism, and what remains of it today, in the 21st century.

Rafiq

22nd August 2012, 20:09

Where does Kautskyite come from? seriously I've never understood this. Lenin was influenced by Kautsky and the reformist 2nd international.

There's no question of whether Lenin was influenced by Kautsky, he was, or, to say it in a more precise manner, he was the spiritual successor of the Marxist Kautsky (Not the vulgarizer Kautsky). But you're acting like a moron. Don't you know that it was Lenin who denounced this reformism, it is what distinctively made him unique apart from the rest of the Marxist camp? Lenin was a revolutionary, a radical in the purest sense of the word. The Bourgeoisie called Lenin an Anarchist, and Anarchists (or "libertarians) called him an authoritarian monster. As far as I'm concerned, the combination of those two accusations is the highest manifestation of a compliment.

robbo203

22nd August 2012, 20:46

This is simply untrue. Even if one believed, as many do, that Leninism was a diviation from classical marxist techniques and strategies... "separate" is a huge overstatement. Lenin's ideas came out of the Marxist movement regardless of the value or worth of them. I am completely opposed to Stalinist ideas of socialism and the state and the vanguard and reject these, but they are a development of (and I'd argue, away from) Marxism and specifically the Bolsheviks. Are either of these developments the "natural" or "only" way these ideas could develop - obviously not, there are many trends that have existed and are possible under various conditions.

I dont claim Leninism is completely divorced from Marxisim but I do consider that they are sufficiently differentiated in terms of certain key conceptual components as to constitute, in effect, separate and indeed in certain respects opposed political paradigms. Their prescriptions are very different as is their way of looking at the world

I dont mean by that that Lenin and Leninists would necessarily see themselves as self consciously setting up a separate political paradigm which is I think the view that you are trying to impute to me. They would clearly see themselves and their thought as a development or elaboration of Marxism in a moden context. There is also the complicating factor that in some in the "Marxist movement" you speak of - I presume you are alluding to the Second International and the Social Democratic parties - were clearly drifting away from a revolutionary position . There were elements of Kautsky's thinking - the "Pope of Marxism" as he was called at the time - such as his vanguardism that resonated with Lenin's and though Kautsky is often counterposed to Bernstein and his revisionist thinking, in practice they were not that far apart in their outlook. So it is not just Leninism Im critical of but also those aspects of the "Marxist movement" that gave some succour to Leninism

Ironically while you seem reluctant to accept that Leninism deviated markedly from Marxism in several important respects (or, at least the Marxism of Marx rather than some "Marxists") you dont seem to have that problem when it comes to discussing Stalinism. I would have thought there was far greater continuity of thinking between Leninism and Stalinism than there is between Leninism and Marxism

Second, to counter-pose Marx's ideas (or paradigm) with Lenin's vanguard ideas is again just false regardless of what one thinks the worth of that ideas is. The ideas often associated with Lenin such as the Vanguard Party are not "opposing" Marxist ideas, they are an attempt (again valuable or not) at finding a way to implement Marx's ideas. Specifically how to have a movement of the class when the "Socialist Movement" by that point, in the view of many Bolshevik-leaning radicals was that the organizations had been pulled away from working class politics in the 2nd International Parties. Lenin's famous contributions were over how to develop specific strategies based on "scientific socialist" ideas developed by Marx and many others including Kautsky.

I dont get this at all. How can you claim there is no opposition between the Marxian idea that socialist revolution has to be accomplished consciously and politically by the working class as a whole and the Leninist idea that the working class is unable to do this of its own accord and that it requires a small vanguard first to first capture political power on behalf of the working class in order to socially engineer society in a supposedly socialist direction. There is a world of a difference between these two perspective and it is to be noted that Marx and Engels both explictly repudiated in advance what is now called the Leninist theory of the Vanguard Party.

BTW, this is not to be confused with the empirical observation that only a small section of the working class may be militant and revolutionary in their outlook at a given time. It is what is being proposed that this small vangurd should do - i.e. capture power in advance of the working class becoming socialist - that distinguishes the Leninist approach from the Marxian approach

JPSartre12

22nd August 2012, 21:02

robbo203

22nd August 2012, 21:21

There's no question of whether Lenin was influenced by Kautsky, he was, or, to say it in a more precise manner, he was the spiritual successor of the Marxist Kautsky (Not the vulgarizer Kautsky). But you're acting like a moron. Don't you know that it was Lenin who denounced this reformism, it is what distinctively made him unique apart from the rest of the Marxist camp? Lenin was a revolutionary, a radical in the purest sense of the word. The Bourgeoisie called Lenin an Anarchist, and Anarchists (or "libertarians) called him an authoritarian monster. As far as I'm concerned, the combination of those two accusations is the highest manifestation of a compliment.

Hold on - this is a bit unfair to Manic. Lenin may have denounced reformism but in practice what did the Bolsheviks base their appeal to the Russian workers? Thats right - reforms! Slogans such as "Peace Land and bread"
In point of fact there was no real alternative to doing this. By and large as Lenin himself constantly reiterated, the Russian workers were not socialist minded. (this is to say nothing of the Russian population as a whole of which the Russian working class constituted a tiny minority - perhaps 10%). There was absolutely zero chance of a socialist revolution happening and yet Lenin pronounced that this was precisely what happened.

Any Marxist worth their salt could have told Lenin he was living in a fools paradise and one in particular did - Julius Martov. Martov's analysis of the Russian Revolution was one of the most crushing demolition jobs ever inflicted on the pretensions of Leninism yet few seem to know of it

Lenin's fate was to be a bourgeoisie revolutionary, to use the growing prestige of socialism and socialist thinking at the time among the advanced western nations as a means to advance his own state capitalist agenda by clothing it in the rhetoric of socialist revolution

robbo203

22nd August 2012, 21:30

Absolute garbage. The conception of Vanguardism existed long before Lenin, i.e. the Pre-war SPD utilized vanguardism, etc.

.

But I dont deny that. You should check your facts first before spouting nonsense such as this. I fully accept that there is a certain continuity between Lenin's vanguardism and the kind of vanguardist outlook of the SPD and individuals like Kautsky

I simply assert that this vanguardism is incompatible with the model of revolution proposed by people like Marx and Engels. Incidentally, Engels in particular, was pretty scathing about the elitist tendencies he saw emerging in the German SDP and declared his opposition to it in the most forthright terms

Crux

22nd August 2012, 21:49

I was under the impression that "Marxist-Leninism" is just another way of saying "Stalinism", because the former doesn't have as bad a connotation as Stalin himself does.

Is Marxist-Leninism just another name for Stalinism, or are the two different? Is it possible to have a non-Stalinist Marxist-Leninism?
Marxist-leninism, when it was launched as a concept in the USSR under stalin was certainly another way of saying stalinism.

As for non-stalinist Marxist-leninism, while that would seem like a contradiction in terms, I suppose it is possible for groups emerging out of Marxist-leninist groups or mileus to approach non-stalinist tactics or theory, in the same way groups and individuals can move from reformism to revolutionary ideas and vice versa.

Peoples' War

22nd August 2012, 21:49

Hold on - this is a bit unfair to Manic. Lenin may have denounced reformism but in practice what did the Bolsheviks base their appeal to the Russian workers? Thats right - reforms! Slogans such as "Peace Land and bread"
In point of fact there was no real alternative to doing this. By and large as Lenin himself constantly reiterated, the Russian workers were not socialist minded. (this is to say nothing of the Russian population as a whole of which the Russian working class constituted a tiny minority - perhaps 10%). There was absolutely zero chance of a socialist revolution happening and yet Lenin pronounced that this was precisely what happened.

Any Marxist worth their salt could have told Lenin he was living in a fools paradise and one in particular did - Julius Martov. Martov's analysis of the Russian Revolution was one of the most crushing demolition jobs ever inflicted on the pretensions of Leninism yet few seem to know of it

Lenin's fate was to be a bourgeoisie revolutionary, to use the growing prestige of socialism and socialist thinking at the time among the advanced western nations as a means to advance his own state capitalist agenda by clothing it in the rhetoric of socialist revolution
Reforms =/= Reformism

Conscript

22nd August 2012, 22:14

There was absolutely zero chance of a socialist revolution happening and yet Lenin pronounced that this was precisely what happened.Lenin never denied the revolution had a 'bourgeois character' (since they were marching with peasants), but claimed that it had a socialist character because of the special relationship of imperialism to the russian empire made it possible. Russian workers were unusually politically conscious, and formed soviets at a time western workers were engaging in simple trade unionism.
(
Russia needed a completion of the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, but it couldn't stop there. The bourgeoisie was not revolutionary and capitalism had developed the world to a point it was ripe for socialism and was becoming reactionary, rather than progressive. In addition, the misery and upheaval WW1 created revolutionary conditions all over europe, and it was especially intense in the tsarist empire. Russia was the 'weak link', and its disenfranchised peasantry and advanced workers had no interest in the next step from aristocratic semi-feudalism, bourgeois liberalism.

October unleashed the fires of socialist revolution and made world revolution a possibility. It was a signal for revolution in the west (and this isn't unpunprecedented with marx, see the preface to the russian edition of the manifesto), and performed by people too advanced (or living in a time too advanced) for a bourgeois revolution.

There is no doubt in 1917 there was a socialist revolution. The only thing disputable is whether socialism was established (in one country), or whether it was feasible after the revolution in europe died. I'll leave that to marxist-leninists to debate with you.

Dave B

22nd August 2012, 22:28

....unlike the Mensheviks and other psuedosocialists who called for the development of the Bourgeois class in Russia...........

READ YOUR LENIN. PLEASE!

V. I. LENIN TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION

page 44

All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.

That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. The more complete and determined, the more consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie for Socialism. Only those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scientific Socialism can regard this conclusion as new or strange, paradoxical. And from this conclusion, among other things, follows the thesis that, in a certain sense, a bourgeois revolution is more advantageous to the proletariat than to the bourgeoisie.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TT05.html#c6

Left-Wing Narodism and Marxism Published: Trudovaya Pravda No. 19, June 19, 1914.

The economic development of Russia, as of the whole world, proceeds from feudalism to capitalism, and through large-scale, machine, capitalist production to socialism.

Pipe-dreaming about a “different” way to socialism other than that which leads, through the further development of capitalism, through large-scale, machine, capitalist production, is, in Russia, characteristic either of the liberal gentlemen, or of the backward, petty proprietors (the petty bourgeoisie). These dreams, which still clog the brains of the Left Narodniks, merely reflect the backwardness (reactionary nature) and feebleness of the petty bourgeoisie.

Can it be that Mr. Rakitnikov has not read Capital, or The Poverty of Philosophy, or The Communist Manifesto? If he has not, then it is pointless to talk about socialism. That will be a ridiculous waste of time.

If he has read them, then he ought to know that the fundamental idea running through all Marx’s works, an idea which since Marx has been confirmed in all countries, is that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm

Karl Marx The Class Struggles In France Introduction by Frederick Engels Written: 1895

And yet the movement was there, instinctive, spontaneous, irrepressible. Was not this just the situation in which a revolution had to succeed, led certainly by a minority, but this time not in the interests of the minority, but in the real interests of the majority? If, in all the longer revolutionary periods, it was so easy to win the great masses of the people by the merely plausible and delusive views of the minorities thrusting themselves forward, how could they be less susceptible to ideas which were the truest reflex of their economic position, which were nothing but the clear, comprehensible expression of their needs, of needs not yet understood by themselves, but only vaguely felt? To be sure, this revolutionary mood of the masses had almost always, and usually very speedily, given way to lassitude or even to a revulsion to its opposite, so soon as illusion evaporated and disappointment set in. But here it was not a question of delusive views, but of giving effect to the very special interests of the great majority itself, interests, which at that time were certainly by no means clear to this great majority, but which must soon enough become clear in the course of giving practical effect to them, by their convincing obviousness…………..was there not every prospect here of turning the revolution of the minority into the revolution of the majority?

History has proved us, and all who thought like us, wrong. ………

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm

Manic Impressive

22nd August 2012, 22:40

Peoples' War

23rd August 2012, 00:02

Yes I did know that. It's one of the few things that Lenin did right. But I was under the impression that was after Kautsky took sides during WW1. However Lenin is hardly unique, as I said the SPGB went once and denounced it. The question being what the fuck do I have to do with Kautsky and why is a Leninist calling me a Kautskyist when it is he who's politics have come from the Kautskyist branch?
Is reading not your forte?

Again, Kautsky theorized that by winning a majority in parliament, we can achieve socialism.

The SPGB believes the same thing.

It's the believing in HIS revisionist theory, and not just being influenced by his earlier days, that makes you a Kautskyist, and me not.

Art Vandelay

23rd August 2012, 01:04

:crying:

So you pull up a quote from 4 months ago, from before my politics shifted and when I had similar views to yours, and then bold the part where I admit I didn't know what I was talking about? I don't know if you realize this, but that doesn't help your argument; once again we see a display of the lack of critical thinking it takes for one to hold your politics.

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 01:05

Is reading not your forte?

Again, Kautsky theorized that by winning a majority in parliament, we can achieve socialism.

The SPGB believes the same thing.

It's the believing in HIS revisionist theory, and not just being influenced by his earlier days, that makes you a Kautskyist, and me not.
How is it revisionist? It comes from Marx & Engels. Hague conference and preface to the English edition of Capital. So no the inspiration for my politics come straight from the classical Marxist one. The difference being that Kautsky wanted to use parliament to pass reforms. Are you suggesting that I want to do the same? If so then you've never read a single one of my posts or know anything about the party which I'm a member of. What's funny though is by trying to attack me with accusations of kautskyism you only end up attacking the Leninist tradition who do follow Kautsky by standing in parliament in order to pass reforms :lol:

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 01:06

So you pull up a quote from 4 months ago, from before my politics shifted and when I had similar views to yours, and then bold the part where I admit I didn't know what I was talking about? I don't know if you realize this, but that doesn't help your argument; once again we see a display of the lack of critical thinking it takes for one to hold your politics.
You didn't and don't have an argument. You just went for a personal attack so you can fuck right off.

Caj

23rd August 2012, 01:51

You didn't and don't have an argument. You just went for a personal attack so you can fuck right off.

Pointing out that your argument is a strawman and based on a caricature of Leninism is not "a personal attack."

Art Vandelay

23rd August 2012, 02:01

You didn't and don't have an argument. You just went for a personal attack so you can fuck right off.

I simply pointed out that your argument is based on out of context quotes from years before the October Revolution.

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 02:02

Pointing out that your argument is a strawman and based on a caricature of Leninism is not "a personal attack."
He didn't point out shit. And certainly nothing about a strawman. Which is when you purposefully misrepresent someones argument. So same response to you post an actual argument or fuck off.

and how about backing it up with some quotes for a change.

Caj

23rd August 2012, 02:11

He didn't point out shit. And certainly nothing about a strawman. Which is when you purposefully misrepresent someones argument.

You misrepresented the position of Leninists, as NRZ pointed out.

Art Vandelay

23rd August 2012, 02:13

He didn't point out shit. And certainly nothing about a strawman. Which is when you purposefully misrepresent someones argument. So same response to you post an actual argument or fuck off.[/I]

One of either two things is true, (1) you were purposely misrepresenting Lenin's theories (which by your own definition is a strawman), or (2) you simply lack the ability to understand them. The quotes you consistently post on this site to support your stance are out of context and usually from around 1905.

Given your usually clamoring about the need for socialist consciousness (which apparently was lacking in Russia at the outbreak of the October Revolution) it would follow that you would have supported the Mensheviks?

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 02:21

You misrepresented the position of Leninists, as NRZ pointed out.
How about actually proving me wrong come on get your quotes out.

As for the the oh Lenin wrote that a long time ago crap lemmie go get my Zinoviev quote. One of my personal favorites from 1920.

"Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members of the right to vote at the Congress of the party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to assure the homogenous unity of the Communists So that in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom."
Workers self emancipation? or the dictatorship of a minority

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 02:27

One of either two things is true, (1) you were purposely misrepresenting Lenin's theories (which by your own definition is a strawman), or (2) you simply lack the ability to understand them. The quotes you consistently post on this site to support your stance are out of context and usually from around 1905.
Come on prove it show what you've learned in the last four months. Show some quotes explain the real context. I could do with a laugh.

Given your usually clamoring about the need for socialist consciousness (which apparently was lacking in Russia at the outbreak of the October Revolution) it would follow that you would have supported the Mensheviks?
No I'd have realized that any revolution in Russia at the time would have to first develop the means of production. Which in fact makes it a capitalist revolution.

Caj

23rd August 2012, 02:33

How about actually proving me wrong come on get your quotes out.

You've already been shown to be wrong in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2499112&postcount=5) post, which you seem to have conveniently ignored.

Peoples' War

23rd August 2012, 02:53

How is it revisionist? It comes from Marx & Engels. Hague conference and preface to the English edition of Capital. So no the inspiration for my politics come straight from the classical Marxist one.Surely, you can quote it in full, right?

The difference being that Kautsky wanted to use parliament to pass reforms.Yes, but my point is that he believed that by winning a majority in parliament, we could then have socialism. THIS is the specific point I was making about the Kautsky-SPGB connection.

Are you suggesting that I want to do the same? No, again, reading isn't your strong suit. Stop changing the subject.

If so then you've never read a single one of my posts or know anything about the party which I'm a member of.Again, strawman.

What's funny though is by trying to attack me with accusations of kautskyism you only end up attacking the Leninist tradition who do follow Kautsky by standing in parliament in order to pass reforms :lol:Am I talking to a sodding goat?

First off, the accusation of Kautskyism is issued because you/the SPGB believe you can achieve socialism by parliamentary majority. I've said nothing about "reform" to you.

Second, more than those in the "Leninist tradition" have been influenced by early Kautsky....INFLUENCED I said....INFLUENCED. Doesn't make one a Kautskyist, anymore than it makes an Anarchist influenced by Rosa Luxembourg a "Luxembourgist".

The problem with Kautsky is the later Kautsky, in which he revises Marx/Engels and shows his opportunist stripes. In particular after 1914, though many have issue with prior to that, but not far enough to consider it revisionism, opportunism or whatever.

Drosophila

23rd August 2012, 02:54

No I'd have realized that any revolution in Russia at the time would have to first develop the means of production. Which in fact makes it a capitalist revolution.

This is stupid.

If the Bolshevik Revolution was a capitalist revolution then they would not have done it with the intention of building socialism. Instead they would have cheered on the Mensheviks and never have called themselves Communists.

Lev Bronsteinovich

23rd August 2012, 03:01

Yes it has and Yes I have many many many times. I'm one of the only people on this forum who consistently back up what they say with quotes from Marx, Engels, Lenin and any other fucker who had something to say on the matter.

OK so the most advanced and radical parts of the working class this is in fact a minority isn't it? For a revolution to be possible the Immense Majority must be class conscious. Marx makes this perfectly clear.

Who fights in any revolution? The workers. Who strikes? the workers. Are you suggesting that every fighter or every striker is doing so because they understand what communism is? Are you suggesting that they are class conscious. The workers had been revolting for decades in Russia as would be expected of a country stuck in feudal production. Are you claiming that they were always class conscious?

Just as the French revolution was made by a minority, it was not won by a minority. It was fought for by workers.

I don't remember saying the workers ever held power for the bolsheviks to strip. But since you mention it.

Idealist how, do you even know what the word means? I post quotes many many quotes endlessly posting quotes from everyone and anyone to back up what I say. Yet evidence is dismissed because you don't like it. It doesn't fit in with what you want to hear. That is not scientific, that is not materialist. It is ideological demagoguery.
Your ignoring the circumstances of the Russian Revolution to tar Lenin as some sort of anti-Marxist is ridiculous. Part of the ABC of Leninism is internationalism, and his willingness to subordinate the Russian Revolution the the German and international revolution. It is also telling that you quote Martov, a freaking Menshevik, to bolster your point. You are clearly an anti-communist. Gee quoting Martov to impugn Lenin's Marxism is kind of like quoting Idi Amin to criticize lack of free speech in Tanzania.

Lenin's most important contribution to Marxist theory is the concept of the Vanguard Party. He was moving in that direction as early as 1903, but the enormous betrayal by the vast majority of the parties of the Second International, in voting war credits for their own bourgeoisies in 1914 crystallized his views. No more "mass parties of the whole class" that would be too coopted, too dilute, too wed to reformist and electoral strategies. Kautsky, Martov and their ilk, while accomplished academics of Marx, never understood (or accepted) the implications of the massive betrayal of Marxism of August 1914. It meant that their model was dead; useless against imperialism.

According to your Menshevik logic, the Bolsheviks should have handed over power to whom? The peasantry? Well that would have lasted about ten minutes until the Whites managed to come back to power and return land to the landlords and political power to the bourgeoisie (or, perhaps more likely, to the sclerotic aristocracy). And it misses the picture of the fight for international revolution.

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 03:11

It would be opposed to the Bolshevik view too - and to the concept of a Vanguard organization. A vanguard is the forward-section, implying the vanguard individuals are just the ones who've already come to revolutionary conclusions and that they are charting a path forward with the expectation the rest of the class will join them soon. This is all that the vanguard party is about in it's non-stalinized form: the people who know that the only way forward is working class revolution, coordinating with each-other and developing common strategies and pooling information and networks of other people in the struggle. It is not in opposition to working class self-emancipation, it's in opposition to general-membership parties, who, in the Bolshevik critique tend towards conservationism and reformism because they organize by gathering supporters rather than political agreement and so this leads to only taking more popular positions or to a detached party leadership. This is all just conjecture with no material basis. I've been asked for proof so same to you back it up.

When did Lenin propose a revolution on behalf of workers as opposed to a working class revolution? You are using the concept of "vanguard" as it evolved later (rather than being a group dedicated to the furthering of the local class struggle at hand, to one dedicated to supporting the USSR as the world vanguard of socialism and therefore the need to clamp down on internal-democracy and debate since the needs of the USSR changed depending on the needs of the bureaucracy) and as both the Stalinist-offshoots and Western anti-communists represented it.
So I'm wrong because I'm using what has existed historically rather than as just theory?

The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative

So it didn't work in practice as you admit and it's in complete contradiction in theory.

The whole conception was how to overcome the basic tendency of movements to be pulled by petty-bourgeois ideas and how to create a base for revolutionary politics so that these views could go from being held by a minority of workers to mass numbers of workers. Again, the 2nd internationalist answer was to build up reforms and a base of support among workers; and in addition to what I said above, the Bolsheviks argued that as a way of organizing, it leads to a party of leaders and passive followers rather than a party of fully engaged fighters who can come up with a common strategy and some common political ideas. Russia already had models of conspiratorial organizations and coup-plotters and this is what the socialist movement came out of and what Lenin both admired on a romantic level but also ruthlessly criticized for not having a self-emancipatory strategy.
quotes please back up your arguments.

Material arguments of how the revolution failed and the conditions to why the party began subsituting itself and going down a road that eventually (not necessarily inevitably IMO) led to the institutionalization of something quite different from any attempt at Socialism, make total sense to me historically. The idea that the Bolsheviks or Lenin's ideas were just a plot to rule over workers all along makes no sense to me and I don't know of any material explanation for this other than those who argue that it was because the party was organized largely by intellectuals - but then again so was every radical group in non-revolutionary times back then, so it's sort of a moot point as to an argument for why specifically "Leninism" led inevitably to "Stalinism" (the argument of some anarchists that any kind of organization leads to undemocratic bureaucracy, is at least logically consistent even though I don't agree with that). The only way these "original sin" arguments for the development of the Revolution into the non-revolutionary USSR, are if you read history in reverse and make an assumption that what happened invariably had to happen.
Not at all. This seems completely false. From what I've read there seems to be more intellectuals now than there were in the early 20th century especially in Britain and the US.
On the material conditions causing the failure of the vanguard party I'd completely agree. Material conditions had lead to the failure of every attempt at a minority lead revolution throughout the 19th century. The only reason to think it could work is to ignore history. Reminds me of the old idiom the definition of madness to keep trying the same thing and each time expecting a different result.

There are plenty of critics of Lenin and the Bolsheviks who, even when I disagree with them, have a pretty sound arguemt that doesn't rely on reading history backwards... mostly anarchist arguments. But I totally reject the idea that the Revolution failed as it did because of "some bad ideas" in 1902. Hell, Stalinism wasn't caused by "bad ideas" it was caused by revolutionary failure and a non-working class alternative developing materially as the situation changed from "world revolution" to building Russia and keeping out Western Imperialism.
Nah man it's not historically backwards the problem seems to be disregarding evidence which contradicts your views. Just like all the rest. I've never said that the only reason for the failure of the Russian revolution was the vanguard. That be a strawman. Obviously being a backward feudal economy played a big part. The Russian revolution achieved as much as it ever could. the development of capitalism. The correct material conditions were not in place, in Russia or in the rest of the world. That's why it could never have succeeded in the destruction of capitalism.

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 03:13

You've already been shown to be wrong in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2499112&postcount=5) post, which you seem to have conveniently ignored.
Your turn.

And I want quotes lots of quotes

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 03:16

Surely, you can quote it in full, right?
I can thanks. Surely you can use a search function and read it for yourself right?
The rest is just incoherent rubbish go read Marx and realize you're wrong then come back and apologize.

Prof. Oblivion

23rd August 2012, 03:49

If the Bolshevik Revolution was a capitalist revolution then they would not have done it with the intention of building socialism. Instead they would have cheered on the Mensheviks and never have called themselves Communists.

Lenin viewed the revolution as one of a proletarian political party taking power over a capitalist state. He sometimes used the term "state capitalism" to refer to this. This is different, of course, to how some Trotskyists and anarchists use the term.

Art Vandelay

23rd August 2012, 06:02

Nah man it's not historically backwards the problem seems to be disregarding evidence which contradicts your views. Just like all the rest. I've never said that the only reason for the failure of the Russian revolution was the vanguard. That be a strawman. Obviously being a backward feudal economy played a big part. The Russian revolution achieved as much as it ever could. the development of capitalism. The correct material conditions were not in place, in Russia or in the rest of the world. That's why it could never have succeeded in the destruction of capitalism.

You have cast your historical side with that of the development of capitalism; that is a betrayal of the proletarian cause and nothing else. I guess you also wouldn't have supported the Paris Commune either then, huh? Since if the material conditions were not ripe, globally, in 1917; surely they weren't in 1871?

robbo203

23rd August 2012, 08:48

This is stupid.

If the Bolshevik Revolution was a capitalist revolution then they would not have done it with the intention of building socialism. Instead they would have cheered on the Mensheviks and never have called themselves Communists.

But there was no "intention of building socialism" - least not as the term was traditionally understood as a synonym for communism. Of course elements within the Bolsheviks and others outside of the Party would have known what socialism meant and would no doubt have supported the goal of a socialist society. But these were a distinct minority of the Russian working class and the Russian working class was a distinct minority of the total popilation.

It is absolutely fundamental to Marxist thought that a socialist (or communist) revolution has to be a conscious majoritarian one You cannot have socialism otherwise and if what you have achieved is not socialism then it is preposterous to call the revolution that led up to what you achieved, a "socialist revolution". As the Communist Manifesto proclaims:

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority (Chapter 1. "Bourgeois and Proletarians" Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848)

I have challenged people on this list many times before to come up with even the slightest shred of evidence to suggest that there was majority support for socialism among Russian workers let alone the population as a whole. None has ever been produced. Nor can it ever be for the simple reason that there never was such a thing.

Lenin himself admitted this in the plainest possible terms. In April 1917 at the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P he said "We cannot be for "introducing" socialism—this would be the height of absurdity. We must preach socialism. The majority of the population in Russia are peasants, small farmers who can have no idea of socialism". A month later he was saying that the "proletariat and semi proletariat", had "never been socialist, nor has it the slightest idea about socialism, it is only just awakening to political life (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/7thconf/24c.htm). Even after the October revolution, in an addresss to trade unionists in June 1918 Lenin pointed out "there are many...who are not enlightened socialists and cannot be such because they have to slave in the factories and they have neither the time nor the opportunity to become socialists (Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 466). And in another speech, this time at the Second All-Russia Congress Of Commissars For Labour May 22, 1918 he frankly admitted "We know how small is the section of advanced and politically conscious workers in Russia".

The only way in which the Bolshevik revolution could be described as a socialist revolution is by radically redefining what is meant by socialism and that is precisely what Lenin did. In The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,(1917) he now argued that "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly".

Just how far removed Lenin's conception of socialism was from anything remotely to do with a traditional Marxist understanding of the term is best summed up by this truly astonishing claim: "Without big banks socialism would be impossible. The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism;..A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" (Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? October 1, 1917 Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972, pp. 87-136). The notion that there would be banks and money in a socialist society would have been laughed out of any Marxist court, so to speak

Of course Lenin knew enough about Marxism to realise this. A key Bolshevik text was A Short Course of Economic Science, written by A Bogdanoff, talked of socialism being “the highest stage of society we can conceive”, in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which “there will not be the market ,buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution.”. This book was published in 1897 and a revised edition, published in August 1919, was used as a textbook in schools and study circles of the Russian Communist Party . Stalin had also described socialism in these terms as a moneyless stateless system without markets or wage labour in his 1905 pamphlet. Bogdanoff, Stalin and many others were simply reflecting the pre-Leninist or classical Marxist understanding of the term at that time

Lenin's redefintion of the term socialism was thus a disingenuous and opportunist move on his part. It was an attempt to square the circle. He knew damn well that socialism was simply not on the cards but nevertheless sought to cash in on the growing prestige that the term socialism attracted by linking it with developments in Russia and by declaring the Bolshevik Revolution to have been a "socialist revolution". It was nothing of the sort and Lenin's claim was simply an ideological smokescreen to make more palatable the Bolsheviks own state capitalist agenda

None of what Ive said above is to deny that the Bolshevik Revolution was carried out by millions of workers or that the Bolsheviks enjoyed considerable support from the workers - though this support was based on the reforms that the Bolshevik offered encapsulated by such slogans as "peace land and bread". It had nothing really to with supporting socialism as such. Though Lenin decried the reformism to which the Second International had succumbed it needs to be clearly understood that in practice he was just as much of a "reformist" as his erstwhile Social Democratic comrades elsewhere. In fact the Bolshevik programme was from start to finish a programme of far reaching capitalist reforms. The Bolsheviks were "revolutionary" only insofar as they finally completed the capitalist revolution, commenced under Kerensky, which they has always seen as a necessary prelude to a socialist revolution. Once they had suceeded in their capitalist revolution they became "reformist" -automatically

What needs to be clearly grasped here is that a revolution carried out by the workers does not in any way make this revolution necessarily a socialist revolution . If the workers lack socialist consciousness then by default the revolution they carry out can only be a capitalist one. You judge the character of a revolution by its outcome not the ideology in which it is dressed up. Just as the French capitalist Revolution had cloaked its class nature in the universalistic appeal of Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité and led to a society that was far removed from these ideals so the Bolsheviks sought to garner support for their state capitalist project though the idiom of socialist emancipation.

Marx was very clear on this point:

"If the proletariat destroys the political rule of the bourgeosie, that will only be a temporary victory, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in 1794, so long as in the course of history, in its movement, the material conditions are not yet created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and thus the definitive overthrow of bourgeois political rule ("Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality", 1847 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm).

Of course there were nonethless some positive things to come out the revolution - particularly centered on the Factory Committees which were set up in early 1917 as alternative grassroot forms of organisation to the Soviets and the industrial unions. In the Introduction to Maurice Brinton's The Bolsheviks and workers' control: the state and counter-revolution it is stated:

"Between March and October the Bolsheviks supported the growth of the Factory Committees, only to turn viciously against them in the last few weeks of 1917, seeking to incorporate them into the new union structure, the better to emasculate them. This process, which is fully described in the pamphlet, was to play an important role in preventing the rapidly growing challenge to capitalist relations of production from coming to a head (Solidarity Pamphlet London 1970).

Well, the FCs were not quite the challenge to "capitalist relations of prpduction" as this suggests. The important thing to note here is that while the Factory Committess were a positive step in many ways they were emphatically not some kind of proto-socialist alternative to the Bolsheviks and their policy of state capitalism. The Factory Committes themselves were run by individuals many of whom were Bolsheviks and, indeed, often voted in favour Bolshevik policy resolutions. Not only that , it was far from being the case that the FCs sought to fiercely resist incorporation into the unions in order to maintain their independence at all cost. At the the Sixth Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees (Jan 1918), for example, the basic principle of a merger was endorsed but with certain conditions being attached. And as early as October (old calender)1917 the All-Russian Council of Factory Committees came down firmly in support of a centralised state planning system - again fully in line with the whole thrust of Bolshevik policy

This last point is worth elaborating upon and it brings to light an important factor behind the spate of worker takeovers of factories in Russia at the time - namely , the fear of large scale job losses resulting from factory closures under conditions of economic breakdown. According to Paul Blewers:

Modern scholars do not overlook the less positive features of the workers’ movement. They would not dispute Keep’s statement that some committees tried to keep their factories open by preventing work being sent to provincial enterprises. But they would not move on, as Keep does, from this example to say that the committees in general were only interested in their own factory and not with the working class as a whole. Even if some factory committees were parochially minded, many were forced by necessity to take a broader view. Many workers drew political conclusions from this. Ziva Galili says:
‘These actions implied a two-part position: first, that the state could and should take over the economy in order to regulate it, ensure production and jobs, and redress the imbalance in the apportionment of wealth between workers and employers; and second, that only under the guidance of a government dedicated to the interests of the revolution and democracy would the state perform these functions.
These workers recognised that their control of an individual factory would be pointless if there was no overall state administration of industry as a whole:’
("Did the Bolsheviks Seize Power by Deception?" Paul Flewer http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/supplem/decept.html)

This, as Blewers points out, is precisely what made these workers receptive to Bolshevik ideas and which was ultimately - and ironically - to prove the undoing of the Factory Committees themselves. Not having any clear idea of the way ahead they succumbed to the blandishments of others. The limits of what the workers movement could achieve was, in part, a consequence of its own limited outlook which had by no means yet transcended the framework set by capitalist relations of production - however promising this development might have been in itself

Manic Impressive

23rd August 2012, 10:23

You have cast your historical side with that of the development of capitalism; that is a betrayal of the proletarian cause and nothing else. I guess you also wouldn't have supported the Paris Commune either then, huh? Since if the material conditions were not ripe, globally, in 1917; surely they weren't in 1871?
This is crazy what do you people mean by support? If I were in Paris in 1871 would I have manned the barricades. Yeah I probably would. Something to do innit. Do I think the Paris commune had the potential to end global capitalism no I don't. For exactly the reason you state however the mode of production was at least capitalist in Paris in 1871. It wasn't in Russia in 1917.
My historical side? What the fuck? Capitalism must be developed before communism can exist. The bourgeoisie in Russia were never strong enough to do this for themselves. So the Bolsheviks found themselves compelled to do what the bourgeoisie could not, to develop capitalism.

no social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room within it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society

citizen of industry

23rd August 2012, 12:03

It is absolutely fundamental to Marxist thought that a socialist (or communist) revolution has to be a conscious majoritarian one You cannot have socialism otherwise and if what you have achieved is not socialism then it is preposterous to call the revolution that led up to what you achieved, a "socialist revolution". As the Communist Manifesto proclaims:

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority (Chapter 1. "Bourgeois and Proletarians" Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848)

Where was the Bolshevik leadership during the February revolution? In prison or exile. Who made the revolution? Class-conscious workers, tempered by years of struggle, mass strikes, the 1905 revolution, etc. How was the February revolution sparked? By women textile workers, going against the directives of party leaderships.

The peasantry was organized in the army, was tired of the war, tired of the landowners and kulaks. The revolution overwhelmed the police, and what happened when the army, the peasantry, was called in to supress the revolution? They turned their guns on their masters and joined the workers, and they immediately formed soviets.

This was a self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. And while they were mopping up the streets and creating soviets, the Mensheviks tried to turn over power to the bourgeoisie. Enter the Bolsheviks.

Jimmie Higgins

23rd August 2012, 15:30

Your turn.

And I want quotes lots of quotesYes you are demanding that everyone provide quotes. Sounds like you need to read a book then:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31FiSB1VQmL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
http://londonbookclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/lenin-5-200x300.jpg

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1931859582 | ISBN-13: 978-1931859585

What Is to Be Done? has long been interpreted as evidence of Lenin’s “elitist” attitude toward workers. Lih uses a wide range of previously unavailable contextual sources to fundamentally overturn this reading of history’s most misunderstood revolutionary text. He argues that Lenin’s polemic must be seen within the context of a rising worker’s movement in Russia, and shows that Lenin’s perspective fit squarely within the mainstream of the socialist movement of his time.

Rather than the manifesto of an authoritarian leader, Lih reveals a guide to action to help cohere and strengthen a promising movement, which still maintains remarkable relevance to today’s world.

“Clearly written, well-reasoned, and effectively documented, it is a work that no scholar seriously examining the life and thought of Lenin will be able to ignore.”
—Paul Le Blanc, author of Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience: Studies of Communism and Radicalism in the Age of Globalization

“If we are honestly to assess the lessons of the Russian Revolution, then it is essential that we unpick the real Lenin from this shared Stalinist and liberal myth of ‘Leninism’. It would be difficult to praise too highly Lars Lih’s contribution to such an honest reassessment of Lenin’s thought. At its heart, Lih’s book aims to overthrow, and succeeds in overthrowing, what he calls the ‘textbook interpretation’ of Lenin’s What is to be done? Lih thus adds to and deepens the arguments of those who have sought to recover the real Lenin from the Cold War mythology.”
—Paul Blackledge, author, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution

robbo203

23rd August 2012, 15:48

Where was the Bolshevik leadership during the February revolution? In prison or exile. Who made the revolution? Class-conscious workers, tempered by years of struggle, mass strikes, the 1905 revolution, etc. How was the February revolution sparked? By women textile workers, going against the directives of party leaderships.

The peasantry was organized in the army, was tired of the war, tired of the landowners and kulaks. The revolution overwhelmed the police, and what happened when the army, the peasantry, was called in to supress the revolution? They turned their guns on their masters and joined the workers, and they immediately formed soviets.

This was a self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. And while they were mopping up the streets and creating soviets, the Mensheviks tried to turn over power to the bourgeoisie. Enter the Bolsheviks.

All that you say here is perfectly true but utterly irrelevant. I have never denied for one moment that this was a revolution carried out overwhemingly by the workers. I simply assert that it was emphatically not a revolution intended to establish a socialist system of society in the sense in which this this term was traditionally understood by Marxists. By defaullt therefore it could only pave the way to full blooded capitalism (which in Russia under the Bolsheviks took a statist form)

What happened there bears comparison with what is loosely called the anti-capitalist movement today In no way does anti-capitalism automatically translate into pro-socialism and it is a huge mistake to think that it does. Anti capitalism may be a necessary condition but is far from being a sufficient condition of the latter

The same applies to the situation in Russia in 1917. It was a strong and forthright reaction to the symptoms of a developing capitalism and the extreme economic hardships imposed on the Russian workers under conditions of near economic breakdown. I suppose had I been a Russian workers at the time I too would have thrown my energies behind my local factory Committee or whatever and would certainly have politically opposed both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and have held out for the best that my fellow workers and myself could have achieved uner the constrained circumstances of the time.

I am certainly not criticising the Russian workers for doing what they did - even though capitalism was the inevitable outcome of the revolution. I am simply stating as a matter of plain historical fact that the efforts of these millions of workers and the peasants and army units that supported them were overwhelmingly NOT informed by the desire to transcend the wage labour - capital relationship that is the very essense of capitalism and to establish Marxian socialism based on the complete elimination of the buying and selling system and all vestige of the state. This is what I mean by the self conscious majority - the desire of a class-for-itself to abolish the conditions of its own existence - wage slavery.

If you have any evidence whatsoever that this is what the mass of Russian workers wanted and fought for then lets hear it . Thats all I ask - show us this evidence and and then I will happily retract my statement. But if you cannot then you yourself will be obliged to fundamentally revise youi own assessment

What evidence i have suggests that what motivated the Russian workers overwhelmingly was things like jobs, wages, their employers going bust and them losing work and of course the constant problem of food availaibility and food prices. All legitimate concerns, no doubt, but far removed from any idea of establishing a radically different alternative to capitalism

Jimmie Higgins

23rd August 2012, 16:53

I dont mean by that that Lenin and Leninists would necessarily see themselves as self consciously setting up a separate political paradigm which is I think the view that you are trying to impute to me.Yes you are setting up a FALSE set of "opposing paradigms" IMO: You are arguing that the "break" was between a revolution by a minority of revolutionaries or a worker's revolution. I'm saying there is not break there.

There are two things here: 1) that in many of these debates (and often in the quotes cherrypicked by crude right-wing anti-Leninists), the "minority" that's being discussed is the working class itself, a minority within a country of a peasant majority 2) That the specific debates about party organization were NOT over the question of WHO makes the revolution (revolutionaries or workers), but of how to organize the party of revolutionaries. Do you organize based on just membership in the class even if someone has racist ideas, or do you organize around the set of ideas. The revolution would be made BY WORKERS either way, the debate was over how to organize. This played out on debates over Economism and if radicals should only talk to workers about capitalist v. worker bread and butter issues or if they should also take up political issues.

Ironically while you seem reluctant to accept that Leninism deviated markedly from Marxism in several important respects (or, at least the Marxism of Marx rather than some "Marxists") you dont seem to have that problem when it comes to discussing Stalinism. I would have thought there was far greater continuity of thinking between Leninism and Stalinism than there is between Leninism and MarxismOK, first, I DO think there are significant differences between Marxism and the Bolsheviks - the primary one being the question of if a revolution could be a worker's revolution in a backwards country.

But as I said, I don't think there was a theoretical difference on the question of who makes the revolution or who leads. The "break" comes later - first unintentionally and for reasons they considered necessary: party substitutionism and along with that bringing back in some bureaucrats. Then later it became intrenched and institutionalized and, in my view, developed into something of a class after the aim became focused on building socialism in Russia rather than world-wide working class self-emancipation.

When the early Bolsheviks used state-capitalism, it was "until the revolution happens in more advanced countries with larger and more stable working classes". Later state-capitalism was for the goal of building up the economy... it was an end to itself.

I dont get this at all. How can you claim there is no opposition between the Marxian idea that socialist revolution has to be accomplished consciously and politically by the working class as a whole and the Leninist idea that the working class is unable to do this of its own accord and that it requires a small vanguard first to first capture political power on behalf of the working class in order to socially engineer society in a supposedly socialist direction.BECAUSE THERE IS NO ACTUAL OPPOSITION. As a LENINIST, I believe socialism can only come via working class SELF-emancipation. No coups, not capturing parlement. I don't believe that the working class is unable to accomplish a revolution at all, I think an organize vanguard is essential for the working class to do this though. I think workers need to create a counter-hegemonic force and that organizing vanguard members of the class (or people sincerely convinced from other classes) is necessary for that to happen.

The debate in the russian socialist movement was not over WHO makes the revolution but how to organize: on a party based on class, no matter what political ideas or political involvement? Or a party based on action and collective agreement? The economists Lenin was debating were not suggesting class-revolution while he was insisting on a revolution of the elite. The economists were saying that in relation to the class movement, socialists should focus on strikes and bread and butter issues and not deal with the larger poltical questions when it comes to

BTW, this is not to be confused with the empirical observation that only a small section of the working class may be militant and revolutionary in their outlook at a given time. It is what is being proposed that this small vangurd should do - i.e. capture power in advance of the working class becoming socialist - that distinguishes the Leninist approach from the Marxian approachNo, this is a straw-man. The "minority" taking power was the working class. The call for "All Power to the Soviets" debunks your whole argument - for your argument to work, you necessarily have to believe that this strategy was a ploy and a lie. It wasn't "fight for socialism before workers are ready" it was "fight for socialism in Russia -because workers are ready and able- before socialism is materially realizable in Russia alone."

If you think that was a mistake, then that's a legitimate point of divergence, but the Bolsheviks were never some kind of coup plotters.

The issues that they were dealing with was a small and concentrated (but powerful) working class. First Lenin proposed that there be a peasant-worker democracy that basically would be a kind of populist bourgeois democratic revolution since Marxist orthodoxy was that a Revolution in Russia would necessarily be a capitalist one. While I disagree with this position, I think it shows even when he didn't think a socialist revolution was possible he was thinking about what would be the best result for the class if there is a democratic revolution, how can workers come out the other end with a better position from which to fight the new fully-bourgeois ruling class.

Peoples' War

23rd August 2012, 17:23

I can thanks. Surely you can use a search function and read it for yourself right?
The rest is just incoherent rubbish go read Marx and realize you're wrong then come back and apologize.
I can't ask you for quotes, but you can ask for "quotes, and lots of quotes".

A bit hypocritical, if you ask me.

Though, speaking of quotes:

"Parliamentary Cretinism", which "... is an incurable disease, an ailment whose unfortunate victims are permeated by the lofty conviction that the whole world, its history and its future are directed and determined by a majority of votes of just that very representative institution that has the honour of having them in the capacity of its members." - http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/germany/ch15.htm

robbo203

23rd August 2012, 17:29

Yes you are setting up a FALSE set of "opposing paradigms" IMO: You are arguing that the "break" was between a revolution by a minority of revolutionaries or a worker's revolution. I'm saying there is not break there.

To be quite honest I think the truth of the matter is somewhere in between. I can produce statements by Lenin which show that he believed in the notion of mass working class participation but equally I can produce statements that the reveal the oppsite. Like this, for instance:

In a speech to the Congress of Peasants’ Soviets on 27 November, 1917 he contended:

"If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…" (Quoted in John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World , Modern Library edition, 1960, p.15)

Moreover - and crucially - once the vanguard had seized power it was this vanguard alone which should govern, not the wider working class in whose name it had seized power:

"But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm)

Here incidentally is precisely the "break" you deny existed. It was the vanguard, not the workers as a whole , that would exercise power

A similar view was expressed by Trotsky:

The masses are held down with “compulsory general education”, kept “on the verge of complete ignorance”, exist in “spiritual slavery” and are terrorised to such a degree that the minority must seize power on their behalf. Then, and only then, can the “most ignorant, most terrorised sections of the nation” be slowly educated in the “meaning of socialist production” (L Trotsky Terrorism and communism,London 1975, pp58-59).

The point, though, is not so much what Lenin and co said but what they did in practice. In practice the Russian working class was not socialist in outlook however much one tries to evade this point. Consequently, the Bolsheviks supposed intent to take power in order to establish socialism could only amount to a vanguardist strategy that was doomed to failure. Inevitably, it could only lead to capitalism by default and in the absence of mass socialist consciousness

Inevitably, also, that could only mean that those who took power supposedly on behalf of the workers would evolve into a new ruling class opposed to the workers and opposed to everything that the emancipation of the working class stood for - namely socialism.

That in fact is what the Soviet Union became - arguably the single most formidable obstacle by far in history in the way of spreading socialist ideas by misidentifying socialism with state capitalism in the minds of millions upon millions of workers

Manic Impressive

24th August 2012, 00:02

Yes you are demanding that everyone provide quotes. Sounds like you need to read a book then:

oh no fucking way

Quotes were demanded of ME I provided now it's time for anyone who disagrees to conform to the same rules that I have by backing up their conjecture with quotes of their own.

citizen of industry

24th August 2012, 00:29

All that you say here is perfectly true but utterly irrelevant. I have never denied for one moment that this was a revolution carried out overwhemingly by the workers. I simply assert that it was emphatically not a revolution intended to establish a socialist system of society in the sense in which this this term was traditionally understood by Marxists. By defaullt therefore it could only pave the way to full blooded capitalism (which in Russia under the Bolsheviks took a statist form)

What happened there bears comparison with what is loosely called the anti-capitalist movement today In no way does anti-capitalism automatically translate into pro-socialism and it is a huge mistake to think that it does. Anti capitalism may be a necessary condition but is far from being a sufficient condition of the latter

The same applies to the situation in Russia in 1917. It was a strong and forthright reaction to the symptoms of a developing capitalism and the extreme economic hardships imposed on the Russian workers under conditions of near economic breakdown. I suppose had I been a Russian workers at the time I too would have thrown my energies behind my local factory Committee or whatever and would certainly have politically opposed both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and have held out for the best that my fellow workers and myself could have achieved uner the constrained circumstances of the time.

I am certainly not criticising the Russian workers for doing what they did - even though capitalism was the inevitable outcome of the revolution. I am simply stating as a matter of plain historical fact that the efforts of these millions of workers and the peasants and army units that supported them were overwhelmingly NOT informed by the desire to transcend the wage labour - capital relationship that is the very essense of capitalism and to establish Marxian socialism based on the complete elimination of the buying and selling system and all vestige of the state. This is what I mean by the self conscious majority - the desire of a class-for-itself to abolish the conditions of its own existence - wage slavery.

If you have any evidence whatsoever that this is what the mass of Russian workers wanted and fought for then lets hear it . Thats all I ask - show us this evidence and and then I will happily retract my statement. But if you cannot then you yourself will be obliged to fundamentally revise youi own assessment

What evidence i have suggests that what motivated the Russian workers overwhelmingly was things like jobs, wages, their employers going bust and them losing work and of course the constant problem of food availaibility and food prices. All legitimate concerns, no doubt, but far removed from any idea of establishing a radically different alternative to capitalism

What more evidence do you need of a radically different alternative to capitalism than soviets? They took political power and organized the economy by themselves. They elected socialists to leadership of the soviets, and supported the Bolsheviks when that leadership sold them out. In the factories, in the army, before February, they were saying "we don't need the tsar and we don't need the boss. We can do it ourselves." And it wasn't the first time soviets sprang up. They did in 1905 as well.

Art Vandelay

24th August 2012, 00:40

oh no fucking way

Quotes were demanded of ME I provided now it's time for anyone who disagrees to conform to the same rules that I have by backing up their conjecture with quotes of their own.

I never once demanded quotes from you, in fact I simply made a statement about the quotes I usually see you posting on the board, not once did I ask you to provide quotes. Convenient how you side stepped Lih's book though.

Manic Impressive

24th August 2012, 01:08

I never once demanded quotes from you, in fact I simply made a statement about the quotes I usually see you posting on the board, not once did I ask you to provide quotes. Convenient how you side stepped Lih's book though.

I'm pretty sure that this has been covered in another thread. In fact several times over, if you are going to say something like this you should probably back it up with evidence.
No you didn't but that's not important. It was demanded of me and so I demand it of anyone who wants to challenge what I've said.

Lars Lih is historical revisionism (http://thecommune.co.uk/2012/06/19/lars-t-lih-misinterprets-lenin/).

Let me make it easier for you and pose a question.

Do you think that a class conscious majority is a necessity for a successful revolution. If Yes then this is not a vanguard which by it's very definition means minority. If no then explain why and back up your points with evidence and quotes.

robbo203

24th August 2012, 02:13

What more evidence do you need of a radically different alternative to capitalism than soviets? They took political power and organized the economy by themselves. They elected socialists to leadership of the soviets, and supported the Bolsheviks when that leadership sold them out. In the factories, in the army, before February, they were saying "we don't need the tsar and we don't need the boss. We can do it ourselves." And it wasn't the first time soviets sprang up. They did in 1905 as well.

The word Soviet is just a Russian word for council. Its just a particular political form. Lets not make a fetish of it

Its not really a meaningful statement to suggest that the soviets represented a radically different alternative to capitalism since capitalism is a socio economic system not a particular political form. You are not comparing like with like in other words

The socio economic system that obtained under the political rule of the Soviets (while it lasted and such as it was before the soviets were turned into mere puppets of the Party) was unquestionably capitalism based on a system of wage labour and commodity production. You say "they" (by which I presume you mean the Soviets) organised the economy by themselves but that does not mean they did not organise it on a capitalist basis even if what you say was true

Some workers may well have been saying "we don't need the tsar and we don't need the boss. We can do it ourselves" But look at what they ended up with. A hierarchical authoritarian system of one man management in the factories ruthlessly imposed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks and a totally undemocratic one-party state capitalist dictatorship in the political sphere
whuchg crushed all opposition

Peoples' War

24th August 2012, 02:18

oh no fucking way

Quotes were demanded of ME I provided now it's time for anyone who disagrees to conform to the same rules that I have by backing up their conjecture with quotes of their own.
You didn't provide me with a quote, you basically said "FUCK YOU" to me. Stop being a hypocrite, mate.

Do you think that a class conscious majority is a necessity for a successful revolution. If Yes then this is not a vanguard which by it's very definition means minority. If no then explain why and back up your points with evidence and quotes.
Look! It's Marx supporting a vanguard:

"The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2.

Also, you falsely present Lenin's concept of a vanguard here. This is due to your false definition of a vanguard, or at least the misrepresentation of it's purpose. Nobody, not even Lenin, disagrees that we need a majority class conscious proletariat for a successful revolution. The vanguard is there to bring about that class consciousness, as they have already achieved it.

Conscript

24th August 2012, 04:42

It wasn't in Russia in 1917.Nonsense. By 1917 the whole world was capitalist and ready for expropriation, it was the era of imperialism and affluence.

There weren't any secluded nations that needed old style bourgeois revolutions (not that it was possible), where communists avoid proletarian revolution and support the 'progressive' bourgeoisie as some indirect means of revolution. This is rehashed menshevism.

robbo203

24th August 2012, 09:27

Look! It's Marx supporting a vanguard:

"The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2.

Also, you falsely present Lenin's concept of a vanguard here. This is due to your false definition of a vanguard, or at least the misrepresentation of it's purpose. Nobody, not even Lenin, disagrees that we need a majority class conscious proletariat for a successful revolution. The vanguard is there to bring about that class consciousness, as they have already achieved it.

I think one needs to distinguish between "the vanguard" as a sociological fact and "vanguardism" as a political theory.

The key thing about vanguardism as a political theory is the idea that a small minority as a small minority should capture power first on behalf of the great majority and then set about changing society supposedly in the interests of that majority. That may or may not involve professing to want to educate the majority into a socialist outlook in due course but, in any event, vanguardism as a political theory necessarily presupposes that this is done ex post facto - after the capture of political power by this minority in the first place.

The minority might have the support of the majority but the point is that this support is not based on an understanding of or desire for socialism which the minority profess to want to implement. The relationship between the minoroity and the majority becomes one of patronage and dependence in this event with seductively attractive reforms encapsulated in slogans like the old Bolshevik one of "land , peace and bread" being offered in exchange for political support

The above quote from the Communist Manifesto is NOT expressing support for vanguardism as a political theory. To the contrary it talks precisely "formation of the proletariat into a class" in terms that allow us to believe that this should precede the "conquest of political power by the proletariat" and not by a small fraction of the proletariat. We know from many other sources that Marx and Engels rejected vanguardism as a political theory perhaps the most famous quote being the one from the Preamble to the Constitution of the First International where Marx wrote of emancipation of the working class being the act of the working class itself

What in fact this entails is nothing less than the disappearance of the vanguard as a sociological fact prior to the capture of political power. There is no longer in the Marxian view one section of the proletariat that is "militant" and another that is not. It is the whole class that is unified and militant. Then and only then is it ready to capture political power and overthrow the supremacy of the bourgeoisie as the Manifesto puts it

But what of Lenin? Did Lenin support vanguardism as a political theory. As I said to Jimmy the evidence is mixed. Lenin was often very inconsistent on all sorts of things including what he meant by "socialism" but there is certainly strong evidence that he did support such a theory

For instance, here

"If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…" (Quoted in John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World , Modern Library edition, 1960, p.15)

And here :

"But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...920/dec/30.htm)

And here in the case of Trotsky:

The masses are held down with “compulsory general education”, kept “on the verge of complete ignorance”, exist in “spiritual slavery” and are terrorised to such a degree that the minority must seize power on their behalf. Then, and only then, can the “most ignorant, most terrorised sections of the nation” be slowly educated in the “meaning of socialist production” (L Trotsky Terrorism and communism,London 1975, pp58-59).

There are other quotes that support my argument but, more than any quote, there is the simple undeniable fact that the Bolsheviks did capture power in advance of the Russian working becoming socialist in outlook. Since socialism cannot be introduced without a majority wanting and understanding by default the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to push through a capitalist agenda. There is no such a thing as capitalism without a ruling class and in administering capitalism the Bolsheviks became that ruling class and like ruling classes everywhere they came to oppose the interests of the subordinate class - in this case the Russian workers. They came, in short. to develop an entrenched resistance to anything that would threaten or undermine their own ruling class privilege.

The emancipatory message of socialism was precisely what threatened the class privilege of the Soviet ruling class and for which reason soviet "socialism" (aka state capitalism) was offered as a mangled distorted alternative to the real thing as a way of ensuring hegemonic control over a brutalised Soviet working class. The workers had to be connned in to thinking the system in which they lived was some sort of workers paradise - socialism

The very praxis of Bolshevik vanguardism, in other words. brought about and perpetuated the "spiritual slavery" of which Trotsky spoke. If anything is a refutation of vanguardism as a political theory it is the experence of Soviet state capitalism and it is to be noted that those who were the driving force behind the overthrow of the old Soviet model at the end of the 1980s were precisely the nomenklatura, the esteemed members of Lenin's so called revolutionary vanguard.

These were the very people who so enthusiastically embraced corporate capitalism and economic liberalisation and some of them went on to morph in due course into some of the most stupendously wealthy oligarchs of modern Russia using their influence and cronyism to transform political power into yet more economic wealth

The irony could not be keener. The very people who were supposed to "lead the masses" to socialism are today sunnying themselves on their luxury yachts moored up in such Mediterranean fleshpots as Marbella. They couldn't care a toss about the workers back home and the truth is they never did.

The lesson is clear and we ignore it at our peril. Unless and until the great majority of our class want and understand socialism any attempt to capture and wield power in advance of this will inevitably lead to class betrayal

Dave B

24th August 2012, 21:18

The essence of what we call and criticise as Bolshevism today was in Karl’s and Fred’s day called and criticised as Blanquism, and Jacobinism.

But Karl & Fred denounced Blanquism, and therefore also its later Russian variant, Bolshevism; just as Trotsky the Menshevik denounced and predicted Bolshevism as the essence of Blanquism in 1905

Trotsky; Our Political Tasks (the last chapter) A Dictatorship Over The Proletariat

Thus we have charged our Ural Comrades with Blanquism. ……………..…… we consider it highly useful to quote Engels on the question of the role which the Blanquists ascribe to themselves at the moment of the socialist revolution.

“Trained in the conspiratorial school, accustomed to the strict discipline required in a conspiracy, they acted on the view that a relatively small number of determined and well organised people may, under favourable circumstances, not only capture the power, but through the application of powerful merciless energy maintain it until they succeed in rallying to the revolution ..[the support of] ...the masses of the people and grouping them around the small handful of leaders. This requires, above all, the strictest dictatorial centralization of power in the hands of the new government.”

(Marx “The Civil War in France”, Engels’ Preface to the third German Edition).

And from Works of Frederick Engels 1874
The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune

From Blanqui's assumption, that any revolution may be made by the outbreak of a small revolutionary minority, follows of itself the necessity of a dictatorship after the success of the venture. This is, of course, a dictatorship, not of the entire revolutionary class, the proletariat, but of the small minority that has made the revolution, and who are themselves previously organized under the dictatorship of one or several individuals.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/06/26.htm

Which is exactly what the Bolsheviks did, as opposed to ‘old Marxism’, thus;

V. I. Lenin THESES ON THE FUNDAMENTAL TASKS OF THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL

Published in July, 1920

On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties and the old leaders of the Second International, that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as well as deception of the workers.

In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat (the bolsheviks/blanquists), supported by the whole or the majority of this, the only revolutionary class, overthrows the exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists -- it is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute class struggle, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can be educated, trained and organised around.. (or more like under) ...the proletariat …(the ‘real proletariat’ that is that no longer work in factories any more and actually the bolshevik/blanquist state capitalist party)…, under whose influence and guidance, they can get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses engendered by private property; only then will they be converted into a free union of free workers.

http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/TSCI20.html

And again;

. But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class…… (or entire)……., because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

In fact Fred predicted in a letter to Vera Zasulich (later Menshevik) that Blanquism would appear and play a part in the forthcoming capitalist Russian Revolution.

The basic idea being that these kind of people would overthrow feudalism in Russia under a set of illusions and fantasies about what was achievable and end up introducing the inevitable capitalism or as it turned out the state capitalism.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1885 Engels to Vera Zasulich In Geneva

Well now, if ever Blanquism--the phantasy of overturning an entire society through the action of a small conspiracy--had a certain justification for its existence, that is certainly in Petersburg. Once the spark has been put to the powder, once the forces have been released and national energy has been transformed from potential into kinetic energy (another favourite image of Plekhanov's and a very good one)--the people who laid the spark to the mine will be swept away by the explosion, which will be a thousand times as strong as themselves and which will seek its vent where it can, according as the economic forces and resistances determine.

Supposing these people imagine they can seize power, what does it matter? Provided they make the hole which will shatter the dyke, the flood itself will soon rob them of their illusions. But if by chance these illusions resulted in giving them a superior force of will, why complain of that? People who boasted that they had made a revolution have always seen the next day that they had no idea what they were doing, that the revolution made did not in the least resemble the one they would have liked to make.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885/letters/85_04_23.htm

On the ‘parliamentary and constituent assembly road to socialism’

Works of Frederick Engels 1895 Introduction to Karl Marx’s The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in on it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are fighting for, body and soul.

…………and more that the old tactics must be revised. Everywhere the German example of utilising the suffrage, of winning all posts accessible to us, has been imitated; everywhere the unprepared launching of an attack has been relegated to the background….In France, where for more than a hundred years the ground has been undermined by one revolution after another, where there is not a single party which has not done its share in conspiracies, insurrections and all other revolutionary actions; in France, where, as a result, the government is by no means sure of the army and where the conditions for an insurrectionary coup de main are altogether far more favourable than in Germany — even in France the Socialists are realising more and more that no lasting victory is possible for them unless they first win over the great mass of the people, i.e. the peasants in this instance. Slow propaganda work and parliamentary activity are recognised here, too, as the immediate tasks of the party.

In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings. Of what avail was their Anti-Socialist Law to the government and the bourgeoisie when election campaigning and socialist speeches in the Reichstag continually broke through it?

With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, however, an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation, and this method quickly took on a more tangible form. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer the working class still further levers to fight these very state institutions. The workers took part in elections to particular diets, to municipal councils and to trades courts; they contested with the bourgeoisie every post in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had a say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers’ party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.

For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had changed fundamentally. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, had become largely outdated.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm

I am struggling a bit my computer as crashed and I having to find this stuff from memory.

Still got it all backed on a stick somewhere.

Peoples' War

25th August 2012, 01:27

Jimmie Higgins

26th August 2012, 11:50

The essence of what we call and criticise as Bolshevism today was in Karl’s and Fred’s day called and criticised as Blanquism, and Jacobinism.

You are either dogmatically blind, just lifting printed in left-wing anti-Leninist articles (hence you just don't know the context) or just not very good in reading comprehension.

Let's just look at the "Blanquism" of Lenin in this first quote you listed:

On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties and the old leaders of the Second International, that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as well as deception of the workers.

In other words: the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class. He is not arguing that worker's are "too stupid" to achieve socialist consciousness; in fact he often argues the exact opposite that it's intellectuals who want to soft-pedal revolutionary ideas when speaking with workers. He is arguing that people will tend to only go as far as reformist ideas - not too shocking, or shouldn't be for anyone whose ever been involved in a movement: anyone can and will draw revolutionary ideas all the time, they hardly ever stick because in the ABSENCE of a organized alternative dedicated to worker's power (like, say an organization built around that idea of the people who've already drawn revolutionary conclusions) these ideas probably won't stick or go anywhere because capitalist hegemony is all around us and likly to convince someone drawing "spontaneous" and individual conclusions that "it's unrealistic". Further, he's specifically talking about revolutionary organizations after the Russian Revolution and he's not concerned with "workers having too many bad ideas" he's actually concerned about communist groups ridding THEMSELVES of ideas that will hinder the working class movement: 2nd internationalist ideas, or (more sympathetically, and as reaction to the failures and betrayals of 2nf Int. reformist socialists) anarchists who want the right things in his view, but lack the ability to actually organize together to play an important role in worker revolution.

In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat (the bolsheviks/blanquists)Whoa Nelly! So you just changed the entire meaning of this passage through incorporating the very definition that is being debated here! It would be like a right winger saying: You guys want an all powerful one-party state and I'll prove it with Marx quotes: "The Communist [Totalitarian one-party state with a Nationalized Economy] Manifesto".

So Let's try this passage again with the definition of Vanguard that Lenin worked from:

In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat [those who've drawn revolutionary conclusions and are active in class struggle and have won through practice the trust of large numbers of other workers], supported by the whole or the majority of this, the only revolutionary class...So who are the revolutionary class - the revolutionaries or the workers? THE WORKERS. He's not arguing for a revolution by revolutionaries, only that those who are revolutionary and active should be organized together in order to then be able to unite the class. The vanguard isn't just anyone who is a Bolshevik - in fact in this document he repeatedly stresses (and it's his main argument in the piece) that Communist parties are worthless unless they can attract "the vanguard" to their organizations!

...overthrows the exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists -- it is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute class struggle, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can be educated, trained and organised around.. (or more like under) ...the proletariat …(the ‘real proletariat’ that is that no longer work in factories any more and actually the bolshevik/blanquist state capitalist party)…,No, he's not talking about "unworthy non-Bolshevik prols", he's talking about the prols rallying peasants and other non-prol toilers around the PROLETARIAT! He's saying that with worker's achieving revolution after siezing production and so on, workers then have to be organized so they can attract other non-class elements around the new working class rule.

So first of all, you should always put editorial comments in brackets rather than parentheses because they way you wrote this originally, made it sound like Lenin was making these statements. But regardless... your whole interpretation of this DEPENDS on this specific reading of the Bolsheviks as a top-down blanquist kind of coup-plotters group.

With my definition there is no way this could be interpreted that way. And actually, you don't need to take my word for it, let's see what Lenin writes about "the vanguard" in the VERY NEXT SECTION in this document:

4.Victory over capitalism calls for proper relations between the leading (Communist) party, the revolutionary class (the proletariat) and the masses, i.e., the entire body of the toilers and the exploited. Only the Communist Party, if it is really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it really comprises all the finest representatives of that class, if it consists of fully conscious and staunch Communists who have been educated and steeled by the experience of a persistent revolutionary struggle, and if it has succeeded in linking itself inseparably with the whole life of its class and, through it, with the whole mass of the exploited, and in completely winning the confidence of this class and this mass—only such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in a final, most ruthless and decisive struggle against all the forces of capitalism. On the other hand, it is only under the leadership of such a party that the proletariat is capable of displaying the full might of its revolutionary onslaught, and of overcoming the inevitable apathy and occasional resistance of that small minority, the labour aristocracy, who have been corrupted by capitalism, the old trade union and co-operative leaders, etc.—only then will it be capable of displaying its full might, which, because of the very economic structure of capitalist society, is infinitely greater than its proportion of the population. Finally, it is only after they have been really emancipated from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and of the bourgeois machinery of state, only after they have found an opportunity of organising in their Soviets in a really free way (free from the exploiters), that the masses, i.e., the toilers and exploited as a body, can display, for the first time in history, all the initiative and energy of tens of millions of people who have been crushed by capitalism. Only when the Soviets have become the sole state apparatus is it really possible to ensure the participation, in the work of administration, of the entire mass of the exploited, who, even under the most enlightened and freest bourgeois democracy, have always actually been excluded 99 per cent from participation in the work of administration. It is only in the Soviets that the exploited masses really begin to learn—not in books, but from their own practical experience—the work of socialist construction, of creating a new social discipline and a free union of free workers.

So your whole argument is based on misinformation/myths. It's understandable for people to read "vanguard" in this way. Afterall the straw-man "vanguard" as self-proclaimed leaders of revolution over workers, and as top-down organizations based on conforming to the party line rather than collectively developing common strategy through democratic-centralism (autocratic-centralism in many cold-war era groups) actually has existed often in parties and countries claiming to be using Leninist methods. But any organizing method any theory can be misused or consciously abused as the history of cold-war communism shows well. But "all-class" parties from the 2nd International have examples of as many autocratic cults of personality or top-down leaderships which crush dissent as 1970s "Leninism" do. Look at the history of the US Socialist Party - they just kicked out the Left wing whenever the Lefts won votes... yeah "mass party".

My analysis is that it isn't the style of organizing which "caused" some of these Maoist and CP parties to behave in this way - in fact they had to distort these methods of organizing quite a bit to get the kinds of "follow the leader" organizations that they ended up as. Really I think these parties acted in this way because they weren't rooted in the organic local class struggle, they had to take their cues from USSR or China's policy and when these countries often did things that seem very "un-socialist" well it's hard to keep a party together without stopping some democracy inside the group... "Oh you want to talk about those USSR tanks in Eastern Europe against that uprising... you're bourgeois, get out! Or sometimes, they just became leaderships who adapted to trade-union bureaucracies and whatnot... like with many of the 2nd internationalist parties before them.

Dave B

27th August 2012, 21:02

"The Communist [Totalitarian one-party state with a Nationalized Economy] Manifesto" Is the understanding of a considerable section of the global working class; don’t be too mean spirited and self effacing now and give all the credit to the capitalist media.

The idea is simple enough; a messianic self appointed elite on a historic mission to liberate the masses from their own degradation and corruption.

And exterminating anyone who gets in their way along the road of good intentions and the ends justify the means; be it a German or Italian fascist, the Jesuit Spanish conquistadors or the clever Bolshevik pigs on Animal Farm.

In fact for this power mad self appointed psychopathic elite, and frustrated bourgeois intelligentsia, the whole concept of an egalitarian society is an anathema, and would leave them purposeless and lost as in a void.

"Both communism (Leninism) and fascism claim, as do all the great social ideologies to speak for the people as a whole for the future of mankind. However it is interesting to notice that both provide even in their public words for an elite or vanguard. The elite is of course the managers and their political associates the rulers of the new society.

Naturally the ideologies do not put it this way. As they say it the elite represents, stands for, the people as a whole and their interests. Fascism is more blunt about the need for the elite, for `leadership'. Leninism worked out a more elaborate rationalisation. The masses according to Leninism are unable to become sufficiently educated and trained under capitalism to carry in their own immediate persons the burdens of socialism

The mases are unable to understand in full what their interests are. Consequently, the transition to socialism will have to be supervised by an enlightened vanguard which `understands the historic process as a whole' and can ably and correctly act for the interests of the masses as a whole; like as Lenin puts it, the general staff of an
army.

Through this notion of an elite or vanguard, these ideologies thus serve at once the two fold need of justifying the existence of a ruling class and at the same time providing the masses with anattitude making easy the acceptance of its rule.

This device is similar to that used by the capitalist ideologies when they argued that capitalist were necessary in order to carry on business and that profits for capitalists were identical with prosperity for the people as a whole…………….The communist and fascist doctrine is a device, and an effective one, for enlisting the support of the masses for the interests of the new elite through an apparent identification of those interests with the interests of the masses themselves." That is from a famous Leninist intellectual who later went on himself to demonstrate the validity of his own recently realised theory, that Leninism and fascism were the same thing, by becoming ‘one’ himself.

On font sizes I have got a big screen now and new 2nd hand PC, but still might think about the poor and poor of site.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

27th August 2012, 21:15

You didn't provide me with a quote, you basically said "FUCK YOU" to me. Stop being a hypocrite, mate.

Look! It's Marx supporting a vanguard:

"The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2.

Also, you falsely present Lenin's concept of a vanguard here. This is due to your false definition of a vanguard, or at least the misrepresentation of it's purpose. Nobody, not even Lenin, disagrees that we need a majority class conscious proletariat for a successful revolution. The vanguard is there to bring about that class consciousness, as they have already achieved it.

No better definition for a vanguard. Was about to got to page 48 and find that quote myself.

Lucretia

28th August 2012, 01:08

Jimmie Higgins

28th August 2012, 09:46

That is from a famous Leninist intellectual who later went on himself to demonstrate the validity of his own recently realised theory, that Leninism and fascism were the same thing, by becoming ‘one’ himself.Now you're off in tea-party territory.

I think the failure of the Revolution and the rise of a qualitatively new (non-socialist) society in Russia represented by Stalin and the idea of Socialism in One country frankly fucked us for decades and decades and we are only now beginning to pick up the pieces potentially. I think it would have taken a full new revolution in Russia for socialism to have happened... HOWEVER, I don't think even Stalinism is fascism even though both were repressive.

And Frankly I think this shows a lack of any real political argument that you just called, I don't know, a third of this website fascists. I know people who've been attacked by fascists and where I grew up there were violent neo-nazi gangs, so I find your line here offensive on a personal level.

Second, David Horowitz becoming a right-winger doesn't mean that the US new left or US Maoism were right-wing, Christopher Hitchens supporting Imperialism doesn't mean that Trotskyism is imperialist, me going from a Democratic union-supporter to revolutionary Marxist doesn't make Democrats revolutionary. And finally, considering that the prime example of Fascism in Italy, Mussolini, was a player in the kind of Socialist mass-party YOU support in opposition to an organized Vanguard party... well it's not a very well thought-out argument then is it.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

28th August 2012, 09:52

is the understanding of a considerable section of the global working class; don’t be too mean spirited and self effacing now and give all the credit to the capitalist media.

the idea is simple enough; a messianic self appointed elite on a historic mission to liberate the masses from their own degradation and corruption.

and exterminating anyone who gets in their way along the road of good intentions and the ends justify the means; be it a german or italian fascist, the jesuit spanish conquistadors or the clever bolshevik pigs on animal farm.

in fact for this power mad self appointed psychopathic elite, and frustrated bourgeois intelligentsia, the whole concept of an egalitarian society is an anathema, and would leave them purposeless and lost as in a void.

that is from a famous leninist intellectual who later went on himself to demonstrate the validity of his own recently realised theory, that leninism and fascism were the same thing, by becoming ‘one’ himself.

On font sizes i have got a big screen now and new 2nd hand pc, but still might think about the poor and poor of site.

use a smaller font!

Peoples' War

28th August 2012, 14:17

use a smaller font!
If he has poor eye sight, as he claims, then he can still use the large font....but then shrink it when he's finished writing it and editing it...honestly, if you need to type that big to see, how can you read everyone else's shit?

Oy Vey.

robbo203

29th August 2012, 01:05

Those of you anti-vanguard types who are so deeply distrubed at a socialist revolution occurring before the vast majority of the population have become committed Marxist-socialists seem to fail to understand the concept of hegemony -- actually nicely summed up by Marx's statement about the ruling ideas of the epoch being the ideas of the ruling class. The point is you are never going to gain cultural/ideological hegemony as a subordinate class, then use that ideological hegemony to have the revolution, because subordinate classes do not have the economic resources to acquire ideological hegemony. The process of socialist revolution is in part creating the conditions where a broad-based commitment to a full socialist program can begin to develop. As full of shit as I think Zizek is on some things, he points this underlying theme out brilliantly in his intro to Trotsky's Terrorism and Communism. And, no, this is not Blanquism.

Previous ruling classes could conquer state power by virtue of the power they had already acquired on the backs of more developed forces of production underlying the very private property forms and modes of exploitation that the previous ruling class had to protect as a means of maintaining its own surplus extraction (take the example of absolutist feudal states in the Middle Ages protecting the guilds and merchants in exchange for a portion of the surplus appropriated by those groups). Socialism, as the negation of private productive property, cannot do this. A new route to power is thus necessary, and that path can only lie through the vanguard of the working class.

If you dont have majority support and understanding for socialism then there is no way on earth that you can possibly have a socialist revolution. None at all. Those who try, albeit with the best of intentions, to foment a socialist revolution by capturing political power first in advance of the majority becoming socialist will inevitably by default be left to administer capitalism since there is no way you can impose socialism on a population which does not want it and does not understand it.

What happens then? Well, capitalism can really only be run in the interests of capital. Therefore those administering capitalism by default and in the absence of a socialist majority - the vanguard - will bit by bit find themselves being drawn into siding with capital against the workers in the class struggle. This too is inevitable - the dictatorship of capital over the proletariat

This is precisely what happened in the case of the Soviet Union. What happened to the glorious vanguard of the pseudo communist Party? Well, at the end of 1980s a good many of these red Fat cats decided enough was enough. Not content with the obscenely privileged lifestyle they enjoyed by comparsion with the Russian working class , some of them decided to opt for a different style of capitalism - corporate capitalism - in their so called "revolution from above". Quite a number of these erstwhile nomenklatutra - the old state capitalist class - can be found these days among the super rich oligarchs of modern Russsia (I believe the figure is just under half for Russia but much higher in some Eastern European countries)

There is a lesson in that which we ignore at our peril!

MEGAMANTROTSKY

29th August 2012, 01:41

(Tons of block quotes)
First that "Fight Social-Fascism" fool, and now you. I'm not against quoting in of itself, but what you're doing is annoyingly excessive. If you want to argue against Lenin, try doing it mainly in your own words, and quote him only if you need to.

I suppose I've found my first pet peeve here on RevLeft. People like you, who indulge that stupid "sloganeering" style, leave a really bad taste in my mouth.

Blake's Baby

29th August 2012, 12:21

If you dont have majority support and understanding for socialism then there is no way on earth that you can possibly have a socialist revolution. None at all. Those who try, albeit with the best of intentions, to foment a socialist revolution by capturing political power first in advance of the majority becoming socialist will inevitably by default be left to administer capitalism since there is no way you can impose socialism on a population which does not want it and does not understand it...

Who is 'you' here Robbo? Do you mean 'the vanguard'?

The SPGB is not a vanguard party. Or is it?

How does 'the majority' come to socialist consciousness? Us 'vanguardists' (of course, most Left Comms aren't 'vanguardists' if vanguardists must believe that the party captures state power - but the SPGB might well be) believe that the working class comes to consciousness through reflection on its material conditions. The SPGB believes (in good Lenin-Kautsky 1904 'What is to be Done?' fashion) that consciousness must be attained by reading the Socialist Standard and agreeing with socialist theory.

That's fair enough in so far as it goes. Some people will become socialists through an intellectual and contemplative process. But many people won't. Some people will become socialists because they work together with other people on campaigns, strikes etc, having gone into them with no appreciation of socialist theory.

The SPGB's schema that we need socialist consciousness first has never, will not, cannot work. Material conditions create consciousness, the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Socialist theory will develop as people take control of their lives, communities, creative powers. To put the cart before the horse, to declare the horse unnecessary because someone has imagined the perfect cart, is to indulge in the most utopian idealism. The process of revolution will bring a great many to socialist consciousness. Socialist consciousness doesn't create the revolution.

Of course, any putschists who take control of a state and proclaim 'socialism' will inevitably end up administering capitalism, you have no argument from me on that score. But even when the working class worldwide overthrows capitalism and seizes the means of production, it will also, inevitably (if I hope briefly) end up managing capitalism

What happens then? Well, capitalism can really only be run in the interests of capital. Therefore those administering capitalism by default and in the absence of a socialist majority - the vanguard - will bit by bit find themselves being drawn into siding with capital against the workers in the class struggle. This too is inevitable - the dictatorship of capital over the proletariat..

But not all of us see 'the vanguard' as being the group that takes hold of the reins of power. The working class administers what remains of the state. It is true that capitalism can only in the end be run in the interests of capital, but in the period between the beginning of the revolution in one country and the defeat of capitalism everywhere the working class in the first areas to liberate themselves - if only partially - must still administer the truncated capitalism that exists there in the interests, as far as possible, of the working class, both 'at home' and abroad.

This is precisely what happened in the case of the Soviet Union. What happened to the glorious vanguard of the pseudo communist Party? Well, at the end of 1980s a good many of these red Fat cats decided enough was enough. Not content with the obscenely privileged lifestyle they enjoyed by comparsion with the Russian working class , some of them decided to opt for a different style of capitalism - corporate capitalism - in their so called "revolution from above". Quite a number of these erstwhile nomenklatutra - the old state capitalist class - can be found these days among the super rich oligarchs of modern Russsia (I believe the figure is just under half for Russia but much higher in some Eastern European countries)...

No arguments from me that the soviet Union wasn't a state capitalist gangster republic. But you know, we've learned a lot from 1917-27, and from the failures of the 2nd International, about what revolutionary minorities can, should, shouldn't and can't do. What they shouldn't do is capture state power - either through the substitutionist logic of the Bolsheviks believing that they 'represented' the working class so it was OK to take control of the state, or the parliamentary logic of the SPGB that says as long as a majority vote for them it's OK to send socialist deputies into a bourgeois parliament.

There is a lesson in that which we ignore at our peril!

Agreed. But coming to the wrong conclusion is no more useful than ignoring the lesson. The Bolsheviks were wrong (among other things) because they thought that the task of the party, the vanguard, the revolutionary organisation (in other words, the most theoretically advanced section of the working class) was to take power on behalf of the working class as a whole. It isn't, and it isn't the job of the SPGB either.

robbo203

30th August 2012, 08:41

Who is 'you' here Robbo? Do you mean 'the vanguard'?

The SPGB is not a vanguard party. Or is it?

How does 'the majority' come to socialist consciousness? Us 'vanguardists' (of course, most Left Comms aren't 'vanguardists' if vanguardists must believe that the party captures state power - but the SPGB might well be) believe that the working class comes to consciousness through reflection on its material conditions. The SPGB believes (in good Lenin-Kautsky 1904 'What is to be Done?' fashion) that consciousness must be attained by reading the Socialist Standard and agreeing with socialist theory.

That's fair enough in so far as it goes. Some people will become socialists through an intellectual and contemplative process. But many people won't. Some people will become socialists because they work together with other people on campaigns, strikes etc, having gone into them with no appreciation of socialist theory.

The SPGB's schema that we need socialist consciousness first has never, will not, cannot work. Material conditions create consciousness, the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Socialist theory will develop as people take control of their lives, communities, creative powers. To put the cart before the horse, to declare the horse unnecessary because someone has imagined the perfect cart, is to indulge in the most utopian idealism. The process of revolution will bring a great many to socialist consciousness. Socialist consciousness doesn't create the revolution.

Of course, any putschists who take control of a state and proclaim 'socialism' will inevitably end up administering capitalism, you have no argument from me on that score. But even when the working class worldwide overthrows capitalism and seizes the means of production, it will also, inevitably (if I hope briefly) end up managing capitalism

But not all of us see 'the vanguard' as being the group that takes hold of the reins of power. The working class administers what remains of the state. It is true that capitalism can only in the end be run in the interests of capital, but in the period between the beginning of the revolution in one country and the defeat of capitalism everywhere the working class in the first areas to liberate themselves - if only partially - must still administer the truncated capitalism that exists there in the interests, as far as possible, of the working class, both 'at home' and abroad.

No arguments from me that the soviet Union wasn't a state capitalist gangster republic. But you know, we've learned a lot from 1917-27, and from the failures of the 2nd International, about what revolutionary minorities can, should, shouldn't and can't do. What they shouldn't do is capture state power - either through the substitutionist logic of the Bolsheviks believing that they 'represented' the working class so it was OK to take control of the state, or the parliamentary logic of the SPGB that says as long as a majority vote for them it's OK to send socialist deputies into a bourgeois parliament.

Agreed. But coming to the wrong conclusion is no more useful than ignoring the lesson. The Bolsheviks were wrong (among other things) because they thought that the task of the party, the vanguard, the revolutionary organisation (in other words, the most theoretically advanced section of the working class) was to take power on behalf of the working class as a whole. It isn't, and it isn't the job of the SPGB either.

Well let me explain first of all that I am not a member of the SPGB and, though I have considerable sympathy for the SPGB, I also have some very specific criticisms of the organisation - in particlar the traditional party view on how to achieve socialism. I think it is too one sided in its emphasis on abstract propaganda - necessary though this is.

However, I think you are presenting a bit of a caricature of the SPGB when you say "Socialist consciousness doesn't create the revolution" but rather that the "process of revolution will bring a great many to socialist consciousness". Here you are using the term revolution in one sense when clearly the SPGB is using it in another. The SPGB is talking about a change in the socio-economic basis of society. That certainly cannot happen without mass socialist consciousness . You cannot impose socialism on a population that neither understands it or wants it; it presupposes that the population is essentially socialist in outlook . To that extent, the SPGB is quite correct.

However, you seems to be using the term revolution in quite another sense - perhaps in the sense of a process of transforming the social outlook of the workers. If that is the case then I wouldnt disagree with you that the "process of revolution will bring a great many to socialist consciousness" - that as more and more workers become socialists it becomes progressively easier for the rest of our class to become socialists too as the entire social environment becomes "revolutionised" so to speak. Alternatively, what you might be getting at is that it needs a "revolutionary situation" to emerge - perhaps a crisis of such severity - to induce workers to become socialists. Im not sure I would agree with that. It is too mechanistic and reductionist as an explanation and it needs only to be pointed out the Great Depression of the 1930s produced not a growing socialist movement but fascism in the case of the Germany.

So I hesitate to responed fully to your claim abpout "revolution bringing consciousness" because it is not entirely clear to me what you mean by that. All I can say though is that if you think the SPGB argues that socialist consciousness develops simply though spreading socialist ideas or reading the Socialist Standard then you are quite mistaken. You are confusing two things - the need for mass socialist consciousness to effect a revolution in the sense of a fundamental change in the socio economic basis of society and how you go about getting that mass socialist consciousness. You are seemingly attibuting to the SPGB the view that you get it simply by "spreading ideas". That is simply not the case. The SPGB is pretty clear in its literature that it is material conditions that are decisive and that ideas arise out of material conditions. My criticisms of the SPGB is not that it is wrong to think this but that its perspective on what revolutionaries ought to be doing in the sphere of "material conditons" is too narrow and limiting and passivistic. We need to be more proactive in this sphere and I can happily elaborate on this point if you want

On another point - when I criticise the vanguard theory of revolution I mean quite specifically by this the idea that a minority (or vanguard) can or should capture political power first - and in advance of there being a conscious socialist majority - en route to transforming society along socialist lines. That is a certain recipe for disaster for the reasons I spelt out. You quite clearly dont support support this theory either so I think we are basically in accord on this. However it needs to be said that some Leninists do clearly support it as, indeed , did Lenin - nothwithstanding the fact that Lenin too paid lipservice to the idea of a socialist majority, Point is that he thought this would come after and not before the capture of political power and in point of fact, Bolshevik praxis was grounded in precisely this assumption. The Bolsheviks captured power way before there was, or could be, a socialist majority. Even if they wanted to introduce socialism they could not - they had absolutely no mandate to do so and anyone who thinks otheriwse is living in a fools paradise. Even Lenin understood this point but still went on about wanting to "introduce socialism". Of course by this time "socialism" for him meant something quite different to what it had originally meant. By "socialism" Lenin now meant state capitalism. This was a strategem to sugar-coat the capitalist agenda the Bolshevik were compelled to embark upon in the absence of a real socialist majority

There are a number of quotes that I, DaveB and others have produced that completely back up this interpretation. People can froth at the mouth in indignation at the suggestion that Lenin advocated a minority takeover in advance of a socialist majority but a fact is a fact. That is exactly what the he and the Bolsheviks both said and more importantly did. What some people dont seem to understand is that this fact is not altered in the least by Lenin saying, as he clearly did at times, that a socialist majority was required. The crucial thing here is the sequence of events. Does mass socialist consciousness (without which there most definitely cannot be socialism) come before the conquest of political power or afterwards. This is the point

Again and again some people on this list keep missing this point. If you hold that mass socialist consciousness can only come after the capture of political then you have completely boxed yourself into a corner. The vanguard will be doomed to administer capitalism by default and therefore to side with capital in class struggle against wage labour and therefore eventually to abandon socialism altogether as a goal. Thats what happened to the vanguard in the Soviet Union. It was this vanguard, not the ordinary Russian workers generally, that ended up pushing for an end to the old command style economy (misnamed socialism) and the introduction of market reforms and economiuc liberalisation. Some members of the old Soviet Vanguard ar,e today, billionaire oligarchs in what is modern Russia. This is where the logic of the vanguard theory of revolution inevitably leads to - a complete sellout. The vanguard will inevitably become nothing more than a capitalist vanguard since the very praxis of administering capitalism cannot produce any other outcome. Everything that happened in the Soviet Union completely bears out what I said about the vanguard theory of revolution yet you still have people here wanting to defend "vanguardism" in this sense without seemingly grasping that it has been completely and utterly discredited in practice

If anyone still has any doubts about what is meant by the vanguard theory of revolution here is a classic statement of it by Trotsky whose view on the matter Lenin clearly shared. Note well the point here that, according to Trotsky, the minority must seize power on behalf of the masses. That is what defines the vanguardist theory - not whether or not the masses need to become socialist minded in due course as some people seem to think on this list

The masses are held down with “compulsory general education”, kept “on the verge of complete ignorance”, exist in “spiritual slavery” and are terrorised to such a degree that the minority must seize power on their behalf. Then, and only then, can the “most ignorant, most terrorised sections of the nation” be slowly educated in the “meaning of socialist production” (L Trotsky Terrorism and Communism,London 1975, pp58-59).

This is completely at variance with the expressed by, for example, Engels in his introduction to Marx's Class Struggle in France:

"Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair"

Finally on the question of the vanguard, let me make my position clear. Im quite happy to acknowlege the existence of a vanguard and certainly do not reject it at all. The vanguard in this sense is simply a minority of workers who have become militant and revolutionary in their outlook. I regard myself as one of this "vanguard" - as a revolutionary - and feel no shame in saying so. Quite the contrary!

However this concept of the vanguard is simply a matter of empirical fact. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "vanguard theory of revolution" which is quite a different matter altogther. Why oh why do people here keep on getting these two things mixed up???

The vanguard theory of revolution presumes, as I said, that the vanguard takes power before the majority have become revolutiuonary. Those who reject this view argue instead that before we can even think of capturing political to abolish capitalism and the state, the vanguard needs to ensure it is no longer a vanguard but that its views and outlook are those of our class as a whole in which case it would be meaningless to talk any longer of a vanguard which by definition is an empirical minoroty on the cutting edge of social opinion. According to this view than vanguard needs to strive towards it own abolition; according to the Leninist view the vanguard needs in effect to strive towards it ownb consolidation and entrenchment. Lenin said as much here

"But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...920/dec/30.htm)

People need to keep clear in their heads this vital distinction otherwise we will be constantly talking at cross purposes

Lev Bronsteinovich

30th August 2012, 17:34

I think one needs to distinguish between "the vanguard" as a sociological fact and "vanguardism" as a political theory.

The key thing about vanguardism as a political theory is the idea that a small minority as a small minority should capture power first on behalf of the great majority and then set about changing society supposedly in the interests of that majority. That may or may not involve professing to want to educate the majority into a socialist outlook in due course but, in any event, vanguardism as a political theory necessarily presupposes that this is done ex post facto - after the capture of political power by this minority in the first place.

The minority might have the support of the majority but the point is that this support is not based on an understanding of or desire for socialism which the minority profess to want to implement. The relationship between the minoroity and the majority becomes one of patronage and dependence in this event with seductively attractive reforms encapsulated in slogans like the old Bolshevik one of "land , peace and bread" being offered in exchange for political support

The above quote from the Communist Manifesto is NOT expressing support for vanguardism as a political theory. To the contrary it talks precisely "formation of the proletariat into a class" in terms that allow us to believe that this should precede the "conquest of political power by the proletariat" and not by a small fraction of the proletariat. We know from many other sources that Marx and Engels rejected vanguardism as a political theory perhaps the most famous quote being the one from the Preamble to the Constitution of the First International where Marx wrote of emancipation of the working class being the act of the working class itself

What in fact this entails is nothing less than the disappearance of the vanguard as a sociological fact prior to the capture of political power. There is no longer in the Marxian view one section of the proletariat that is "militant" and another that is not. It is the whole class that is unified and militant. Then and only then is it ready to capture political power and overthrow the supremacy of the bourgeoisie as the Manifesto puts it

But what of Lenin? Did Lenin support vanguardism as a political theory. As I said to Jimmy the evidence is mixed. Lenin was often very inconsistent on all sorts of things including what he meant by "socialism" but there is certainly strong evidence that he did support such a theory

For instance, here

"If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…" (Quoted in John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World , Modern Library edition, 1960, p.15)

And here :

"But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...920/dec/30.htm)

And here in the case of Trotsky:

The masses are held down with “compulsory general education”, kept “on the verge of complete ignorance”, exist in “spiritual slavery” and are terrorised to such a degree that the minority must seize power on their behalf. Then, and only then, can the “most ignorant, most terrorised sections of the nation” be slowly educated in the “meaning of socialist production” (L Trotsky Terrorism and communism,London 1975, pp58-59).

There are other quotes that support my argument but, more than any quote, there is the simple undeniable fact that the Bolsheviks did capture power in advance of the Russian working becoming socialist in outlook. Since socialism cannot be introduced without a majority wanting and understanding by default the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to push through a capitalist agenda. There is no such a thing as capitalism without a ruling class and in administering capitalism the Bolsheviks became that ruling class and like ruling classes everywhere they came to oppose the interests of the subordinate class - in this case the Russian workers. They came, in short. to develop an entrenched resistance to anything that would threaten or undermine their own ruling class privilege.

The irony could not be keener. The very people who were supposed to "lead the masses" to socialism are today sunnying themselves on their luxury yachts moored up in such Mediterranean fleshpots as Marbella. They couldn't care a toss about the workers back home and the truth is they never did.

The lesson is clear and we ignore it at our peril. Unless and until the great majority of our class want and understand socialism any attempt to capture and wield power in advance of this will inevitably lead to class betrayal
Comrade, somehow you manage to take a position ostensibly favoring the interests of the proletariat as against the elitist vanguardists, and yet completely underestimate their consciousness where they did act in a conscious and revolutionary fashion. The overwhelming masses of the Russian proletariat knew that the Bolsheviks were the most radical of the socialist groups. And the Bolsheviks made it clear in their propaganda that they were fighting for world socialism and planned to overthrow capitalism in Russia. I think they might have guessed what slogans like, "down with the 10 capitalist ministers," and "All Power to the soviets," might have meant. So in the months leading up to the October Revolution, the workers were flocking to the Bolshevik Party.

Your views lead, on the ground, to fighting against revolution, unless conditions are just right. They are never just right. If you want to overthrow the bourgeoisie, you need strong and unified leadership -- that's where the Bolsheviks were different from the other parties of the Second International. As bad as the final outcome of the Russian Revolution might be -- your program would have lead to far worse. Victory of the White armies -- plunging Russia into decades of deep reaction. Perhaps Hitler wins in Europe without the Red Army to crush the Wehrmacht. And even if Hitler is eventually defeated, the US, with a nuclear monopoly and no counterbalance in the world engenders even more terror and slaughter throughout the world.

I think you hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks because they actually made a revolution that overthrew capitalism. Either that or you are a hopeless idealist who cannot view history and world events in their actual complexity. Perhaps reading Marx on Dialectical Materialism would actually be a good place for you to begin your "re-education."

robbo203

30th August 2012, 20:26

Comrade, somehow you manage to take a position ostensibly favoring the interests of the proletariat as against the elitist vanguardists, and yet completely underestimate their consciousness where they did act in a conscious and revolutionary fashion. The overwhelming masses of the Russian proletariat knew that the Bolsheviks were the most radical of the socialist groups. And the Bolsheviks made it clear in their propaganda that they were fighting for world socialism and planned to overthrow capitalism in Russia. I think they might have guessed what slogans like, "down with the 10 capitalist ministers," and "All Power to the soviets," might have meant. So in the months leading up to the October Revolution, the workers were flocking to the Bolshevik Party.

Your views lead, on the ground, to fighting against revolution, unless conditions are just right. They are never just right. If you want to overthrow the bourgeoisie, you need strong and unified leadership -- that's where the Bolsheviks were different from the other parties of the Second International. As bad as the final outcome of the Russian Revolution might be -- your program would have lead to far worse. Victory of the White armies -- plunging Russia into decades of deep reaction. Perhaps Hitler wins in Europe without the Red Army to crush the Wehrmacht. And even if Hitler is eventually defeated, the US, with a nuclear monopoly and no counterbalance in the world engenders even more terror and slaughter throughout the world.

I think you hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks because they actually made a revolution that overthrew capitalism. Either that or you are a hopeless idealist who cannot view history and world events in their actual complexity. Perhaps reading Marx on Dialectical Materialism would actually be a good place for you to begin your "re-education."

Actually I consider it rather insulting that you could even consider that what you call my "program" - do you even know what that is? - would have lent support to the White army. Ive made it quite clear where I would have stood were I hypothetically transported back to Russia 1917 in a time machine. I would have opposed both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and their respective capitalist agendas and would probably have aligned myself with the Factory Committee movement as probably the best one could hope to do under the extremely adverse circumstances of the time

Your claim that the Bolsheviks overthrew capitalism is patently ridiculous as is your suggestion that the Russian workers flocked to the Bolsheviks becuase of its alleged advocacy of world socialism (actually even the very term "socialism" had already begun to mean something totally different in Lenin's hands to what Marxists traditionally meant by this term) and not because of its clearly reformist progamme. This is to say nothing of the fact that even if the workers were socialist - that great majority were clearly not as Lenin himself admitted - the Russian working class was a tiny minority of the population - perhaps 10%. There was simply no way you could have socialism under these circumstances and only a rank idealist would think otherwise

You lecture me about re-education (do I get get a choice under your system, Mr Commissar, or is it a case of "compulsory rehabilitation"?) but if anyone is in dire need of education it is you. Not even Lenin went along with the ridiculous nonsense you are spouting here on this forum

Here's Lernin attacking the left Communists in 1918

It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm)

Last I checked, state capitalism was still a form of capitalism - capitalism run by the state

Or how about this nice juciy little quote from Mr Lenin in 1921

Get down to business all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them, Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running an economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. (Collected Works, Vol. 33 page 72).

Still certain the Bolsheviks "overthrew capitalism", eh? I can provide tons more evidence to pulverise this claim of yours if you so wish. It makes me think you have little clue of what capitalism means or socialism for that matter.

And to cap it all you have the nerve then to to assert that I am a "hopeless idealist who cannot view history and world events in their actual complexity". Really?

The basic argument I put forward in my last post to which, I take it , you are responding was that any attempt by a minority, however enlightened, to capture political poiwer to establish socialism on behalf of a majority that neither understands or wants socialism, is doomed to fail. That doesn't sound like an idealist argument but, on the contrary, pretty realistic. Such a minority, I said, will be compelled to administer capitalism by default since you cannot impose socialism on a majority that is not socialist-minded and has no idea of what socialism is about . Since capitalism can only operate in the interests of capital and against wage labour, I further argued, this minority must inevitably align itself with the interest of capital and thus oppose the interests of the workers.

Now that is is precisely what happened in the Soviet Union and that is why it was Lenin's glorious Vanguard Party that was centrallly involved in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union . It is why some of those very privileged members of the nomenklatura of the pseudo "Communist Party" of the Soviet Union are today among Russian billionaire class sunning themselves on their yachts in Marbella or some other fleshpot town along the Med and no doubt guffawing into the champagne glasses about how they managed to con the workers for so long that Russia was a "socialist society"

Far from being an idealist analysis of the collapse of the soviet state capitalism, this explains that collapse in terms of the changing intrerests of the soviet state capitalist class itself - Lenin's Vanguard party - and the realisation on their part that the old soviet model of running capitalism was no longer up to the job from the pointt of view of this ruling class - it was becoming increasingly uncompetitve and inflexible in an an increasingly competitive globalised capitalist market That is why they instigated what is called their "revolution from above" and embraced wholesale market reform.

Now instead of wittering on about my " idealism" perhaps you might care to come up with something remotely akin to a materialist analysis on why you imagine this argument is unsound. Or maybe it is just that you think the Soviet Vanguard party was infected by "revisionist ideas " or that the wrong set of leaders was in power or some some such nonsense like that that the Sovietr system was finally overthrown

In which case you might well want to ask yourself who exactly is being the idealist here

Blake's Baby

30th August 2012, 21:49

robbo203

31st August 2012, 02:05

Robbo, I know you're not an SPGBer, but I know you support them on a great many issues. You should know by now that I also support them on some issues but there some things about their distortions of history that really get up my nose. I also regard you - as I hope you know already - as a comrade with whom I have some disagreements. Frankly, I think you're on the same side as me even if you don't see it that way. If it comes to it, I'm going to defend your right to be an oppositionist right up to the desk of the First People's Commissar herself.

:) Well, Im relieved about that! The prospect of doing time on an extended rehabilitation programme to knock out all that "idealist" nonsense Ive been spouting here was getting a bit daunting

So let me get this straight. The Russian working class didn't support the Bolsheviks on the promise of 'all power to the soviets' (not originally a Bolshevik demand, it came from the co-operative movement if I recall correctly) or for their intransigent opposition to the war (except for Stalin and Kamanev who got a bit national-defencist), and the promise of 'peace - bread - land' (that they stole from the Social-Revolutionaries) - personally I think the 'land' bit was entirely for the peasants, I think the workers were much more interested in 'peace' and 'bread' - but because the Bolshevik programme was reformist?

I think you underestimate the anger and frustration of the Russian working class (and peasants, but that's by-the-by for the moment). There were plenty of reformist parties in Russia. The Mensheviks were reformist. The majority of the SRs were reformist. The Kadets were reformist. They were mostly losing support in the soviets. The working class really did turn to the Bolsheviks, and the only reasons I can see for that were because the Bolsheviks were the only consistently anti-war party (yes, Martov's 'Menshevik Internationalist' faction also came out against the war but really? Tiny, really tiny - not a party at all.)

There is little that I would disagree with here. As you say yourself, it was primarily because the Bolsheviks were consistently anti-war that the working class flocked to them and not because they stood for something called world socialism as suggested by Lev Bronsteinovich . I note from what you say below that you are aware the SPGB was one of the very first political parties in the world to congratulate the Bolsheviks for taking Russia out of the war. That may perhaps give people cause to hesitate before accusing the SPGB of exhibiting just blind prejudice against the Bolsheviks. One of thier members Harry Young was based in Moscow for a while I believe when he was a delegate of the British Young Communists (or something like that) and got to meet Lenin personally

The only other point I would make is that Bolsheviks like the SDP, clearly had their minimum or reformist programme, a significant aspect of which was its programme of nationalisation. You can get a strong flavour of this by reading through the party programme and reports of party congresses etc here
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/date/1917.htm

Second point, they didn't support them because they were 'socialist' even though Lenin was changing the definition of what 'socialism' meant? What bit of historical telescoping and great-men-of-history-theorising is that? I'm pretty sure that comes stright from the SPGB as I had the same argument with a member 10 years ago (or more).

Yes, Lenin came to use 'socialism' to mean 'the lower phase of communism' and then he mixed that up with the dictatorship of the proletariat and also claimed (I think believed, you might not believe that he believed) that the dictatorship of the proletariat could be excercised through the dictatorship of the party.

But the majority of the working class in Russia would be unaware of that. There were Marxist groups in Russia from the 1880s, and there were plenty of workers who understood what socialism is. The Russian working class was one of the most densely-concentrated in the world. In 1917, political ideas spread fast. Have you read 'Ten Days that Shook the World'?

The fate of the Revolution in Russia does not depend solely on Lenin and his ideas. That is not what history is about. The working class wasn't a dumb mass to be moulded by machiavellian Bolsheviks. Both the Bolsheviks, and the working class in Russia, were the products of their own histories, and had a series of dynamics of their own. It's not as simple as 'this was Lenin's wrong idea, that's where it all went wrong'.

Again, most of what you say here I wouldnt disagree with. I certainly was not trying to suggest that things went pear shaped because of Lenin's faulty reasoning. Far from it. And yes you are quire right about the working class not being some "dumb mass to be moulded by machiavellian Bolsheviks". Indeed, in the early days that Bolshevik leaders had very little control over their own party let alone the Russian workers. Robert Service in his The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organsational Change, 1917-1923 makes the interesting point that even by early 1918, "The image of a disciplined hierarchy of party committees was therefore but a thin, artificial veneer which was used by Bolshevik leaders to cover up the cracked surface of the real picture underneath. Cells and suburb committees saw no reason to kow-tow to town committees; nor did town committees feel under compulsion to show any greater respect to their provincial and regional committees than before."

But actually this lends weight to the argument Im making. Lenin's meanderings on the meaning of socialism, as you say, would have been largely unknown to the Russian workers. My only point in mentioning Lenin'sd reinterpretation of the word "socialism" is that insofar as there was talk about socialism at all it would to a large extent have been coloured lenin's idea of socialism as having something to do with the state i.e., state capitalism. You say there " were plenty of workers who understood what socialism is" (I assume by you mean by this what we called socialism aka communism). Ive not come aross any evidence of this Iva ecome acorss anacdotal evdidence from the time - diaries of foreignersetc - that flatly contradicts this. You mentioned Reeds book which I dipped into some years ago but did not read from cover to cover. Did he cite any evidence>? Lenin did not seem to think the Russian workers knew much about socialism (by which he meant in this instance socialism in our sense). Certainly large numbers of Russian workers were militant and radicalised but socialist in the sense of the wanting to do away with wage labour- capital relation? I dont think so. I would say a small core of longtime activists would have known something about socialism but the gtreay majority had quite other preoccupations.

This comes back to the 'process/event' dichotomy. Revolution is not an event. It's not 'on 7th November...', it's a process that real people go through. People will go into the process with one set of ideas and they'll emerge with different ideas. As material circumstances change people's consciousness will change too.

The working class, urban and rural, and a chunk of the poor peasantry, made the revolution, and the Bolsheviks, and the Left SRs, and the Anarchists, were all part of it. Lenin may have been the most forcefull of those calling for it and the leader of the largest and most disciplined revolutionary group (though not so disciplined even then) but Lenin didn't make the revolution.

See, it comes down to this - what are you talking about when you use the word revolution? Where you see proicess/event as a dictohotmy , I dont . I see it as possibly being a both a process and an event depending on how you define "revolution"

If you mean by revolution a fundamental change in the socio-economic basis of society then this lends itself to the idea of it being an event. Afterall what is there in between common ownership of the means of prodution and private ownership, between a moneyless society and a society that still requires money? Nothing really. Thats why the Communist Manifesto talks of communiusm/socialism being the mist "radical rupture" with existing property relationships. It is a system that is instituted consciously and politcally and, in this sense, revolutioncan indeed be seen as an event

If you mean by revolution a change in peoples outlook than this lends itself instead to the idea of a process. This seems to be the concept of revolution that you seem to favour and this shows itself in your statement that " it's a process that real people go through. People will go into the process with one set of ideas and they'll emerge with different ideas.". I wouldnt disagree with that but what if you saw revolution instead as signifying a fundamental change in the socioeconomic relationships of society. How would you see this coming about as a process and not an event?

But you've already said that Lenin had changed the definition of socialism. Were the workers unconvinced of communism, or unconvinced that dictatorship of the proletariat was the way to reach it? I no longer know which definition of 'socialism' you or Lenin was using at this point.

Can't even remember whether it was Lenin or Trotsky who said 'the Party was to the left of the Central Committee and the masses were to the left of the Party...' in the months before October.

I believe it was Trotsky who said this but then a lot of what Trotsky wrote i take with a pinch of salt.

But on your other point I dont think it was a case that workers were "unconvinced" by communusm . Rather it was that it didnt really figure to any great extent in their consciousness. The workers were much more concerned about things like the availability of food and keeping the factoriies open and their jobs secure

But this is equally 'inevitable' for the SPGB too. Unless workers in Britain and China and Bahrain and Peru and Thailand and Albania and Canada and Georgia and the Turks and Caicos Islands and Fiji and Ecuador and... simultaneously elect socialist deputies (even in those countries that don't have elections) then some socialists, somewhere are going to have to end up administering capitalism for a while.

What is the dictatorship of the proletariat? How is property organised? It's not socialism, you know that. The proletariat exists, so there are still classes, and it can't be worldwide simultaneously (that would be even more ridiculuous than a world revolution happing everywhere simultaneously), so it must exist in some places and not others at least for a time. So, it's class-based and there are still states. Looks like capitalism to me.

No I disagree strongly with you on this point. For one thing if workers in one part of the world are sufficiently strong to be in a position to get rid of capitalism then it is more than likely that the workers eslewhere will not be that far befind at all. Indeed, the world socialist movement itself is likely to work to pro-actively ensure that as far as possible the movement grows as evenly as possible throughout the world with the result that the revolutionary changeover occurs within as a short a time span as possible thoughout the world

Secobd I do bot beliecve that there will still be classes once the revolution has happend. Actually it wouldnt be a revolutiuon if class still existed since as you admit yourself capitalism would still exist. if capitalism still exists then ipsoi facto a socialist revolution could not yet have taken place. Thats pretty obvious. What you have done here is basically to have boxed yourself into a corner by insisting there will still be capitalism. So what, in that case, needs to be done for there no longer to be capitalism anywhere. Ultimately you would then be forced to accept the very view you had dismissed as "ridiculous " - that socialism would have to be introduced worlkdwide simulateneously

Of course a socialist revoltion has to start somewhere and wont literally happen on Thursday at 5pm (Greenwhich mean time) throughout the world on 24th August 2041. There will be a short time span between when it first happens and when the last remaining residual capitalsit states are mopped up and brought into the socialist fold so to speak.

However, when revolution first happoens - wherever it happens - capitalism will and must promptly cease to exist. There will be no more classes. No wage labour or capital. Insofar as the socialist part of the world is still reliant upon goods from elsewhere, there may possibly be some form of economic exchange between this part of the world and residual capitalist states. Most likely, this will take the form of a barter arrangement of some sort. Bearing in mind this residual capiitalist state will contain very significant minoriities of socialists which would have fundamentally altered the entire social climate, these capitalist states will be fundamentally constrained in what they can do in relation to this socialist part of the world. However, as far as the latter is concerned, the internal relations of this will be fundamentally socialist and not capitalist. And as more and more parts of the world become socialist so the area in which these socialist relationship obtaion, will expand accordingly

At least thats how I see it

Of course, I'm not going to argue that the Soviet Union was anything but state capitalist, nor that state capitalism in Russia was ultimately beneficial to the working class, hough some things undoubtedly improved after October - like getting out of the war, for instance, for which the SPGB praised 'Nicolai Lenin' in 1918. But state capitalism is all there is until the world civil war/world revolution is won. There is no 'socialism in one country' even if 100% of the population of that country is convinced. Socialism will only come when capitalism has been defeated worldwide. That didn't happen so of course there could never have been socialism in Russia.

The "socialism in one country" argumenbt is quite inapt in this case - precisly becuase here we are talking about a world in which there very significant socialist minorities almost everywhere. The stalinist idea of soculism in one country on the other hand, believes that you can have socialism in one country irrspective of the state of the socialist movement elsehwere. Thats definitely not what I am arguing for. Quite apart from that what existed in the SU was not socialism but state capitalism but then we concur on that point;)

Blake's Baby

31st August 2012, 11:21

OK, we're obviously in agreement about a number of things but there are still some things I think need examimining:

...
The only other point I would make is that Bolsheviks like the SDP, clearly had their minimum or reformist programme, a significant aspect of which was its programme of nationalisation. You can get a strong flavour of this by reading through the party programme and reports of party congresses etc here
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/date/1917.htm

...

I'm not disagreeing that the Bolshevik's programme was reforminst in large part. This was not only a problem for the Bolsheviks but for the whole of the Second International (one of the reasons I think it would have been better if the SPGB had stayed in it and fought their/our corner but that's an historical argument that's long been lost). What I'm trying to get is why you think that the reformist programme was a significant factor in attracting workers to the Bolsheviks, when other reformist parties were losing ground.

Secondly - not to be too blunt about - programmes, manifestoes and election promises don't mean anything unless you want them to. The Bolsheviks may have had a piece of paper that committed them to nationalising the banks, but they didn't have to carry it out. They did so because they thought (along with the rest of the Second International) that the task of the revolutionary party was to take over the running of the state and then manage the economy, in the period between taking power in one place and the revolutionaries of other states taking power until everywhere had a socialist government. So they did. They didn't do it to 'introduce socialism' they did it because they thought that the statisation of capital was a necessary holding-operation until the worldwide success of the revolution.

...
But actually this lends weight to the argument Im making. Lenin's meanderings on the meaning of socialism, as you say, would have been largely unknown to the Russian workers. My only point in mentioning Lenin'sd reinterpretation of the word "socialism" is that insofar as there was talk about socialism at all it would to a large extent have been coloured lenin's idea of socialism as having something to do with the state i.e., state capitalism. You say there " were plenty of workers who understood what socialism is" (I assume by you mean by this what we called socialism aka communism). Ive not come aross any evidence of this Iva ecome acorss anacdotal evdidence from the time - diaries of foreignersetc - that flatly contradicts this. You mentioned Reeds book which I dipped into some years ago but did not read from cover to cover. Did he cite any evidence>? Lenin did not seem to think the Russian workers knew much about socialism (by which he meant in this instance socialism in our sense). Certainly large numbers of Russian workers were militant and radicalised but socialist in the sense of the wanting to do away with wage labour- capital relation? I dont think so. I would say a small core of longtime activists would have known something about socialism but the gtreay majority had quite other preoccupations...

OK - I think we have to tease apart notions of class consciousness, socialist consciousness, radicalism etc.

I really believe some people (and I think I and probably many others who consider themselves revolutionaries) come to a 'socialist consciousness' by, for want of a better word, 'learning'. We grasp it in theory. I also believe that many other people come to 'socialist consciousness' by 'doing'. They may not be particularly concerned with theory but can come to the same conclusions in practice. Both of these routes to socialist consciousness rely on active engagement with the world and reflection on it, but they are essentially different strategies.

I don't believe that the working class is only capable of 'trade union consciousness' without the intervention of the revolutionary party; I believe the working class creates the revolutionary party from within itself. The revolutionary party = the vanguard here. Not in a 'seize the state' sense but in a 'clearest understanding of the line of march' sense.

Reed talks about how every street corner became a debating-ground. Politics and indeed policy was discussed everywhere. The working class as a whole was debating the whole conduct of society. I don't really care if, in that situation, only 10,000 people out of a couple of million workers in a country of 150 million had read Marx. Marx isn't a revealed prophet; we don't have to hear his word to be saved. What we have to do is practice the Marxist method whether we know that's what we're doing or not. Radical criticism and militant engagement. It doesn't matter if a few pseudo-intellectuals (like me) start spouting Marx or Luxemburg or whoever. When the working class is in the street debating the issues of the day and the organs that the working class has created (the soviets and factory committees) are taking those debates and shaping public policy from them, that's a revolution in progress. People are quite literally re-creating the world around themselves and re-creating themselves in it. 'Overthrow of all existing social conditions'? I think that's exactly what was happening in the early days - weeks - months.

...
See, it comes down to this - what are you talking about when you use the word revolution? Where you see proicess/event as a dictohotmy , I dont . I see it as possibly being a both a process and an event depending on how you define "revolution"...

Sure, but one is a human process and the other is a historical/legal redefinition of circumstances.

'The revolution' doesn't happen on Novemeber 7th unless you think that the revolution means 1-seizing the Palace or 2-issuing a proclaimation that all the land belongs to the people (or whatever).

...If you mean by revolution a fundamental change in the socio-economic basis of society then this lends itself to the idea of it being an event...

OK - but it can't be an instantaneous event. Socialism cannot be 'created' by decree, nor can capitalism be abolished by decree. So what do we call a long event with a dynamic structure? I think that's a 'process', isn't it?

... Afterall what is there in between common ownership of the means of prodution and private ownership, between a moneyless society and a society that still requires money? Nothing really. Thats why the Communist Manifesto talks of communiusm/socialism being the mist "radical rupture" with existing property relationships. It is a system that is instituted consciously and politcally and, in this sense, revolutioncan indeed be seen as an event...

But only, as I've indicated an 'event' that looks a lot like a process.

...If you mean by revolution a change in peoples outlook than this lends itself instead to the idea of a process...

A change in outlook can be sudden - it can be in that sense an event. But no, the revolution isn't a 'change in outlook' - it's a fundamantal transformation of society, but this is still a process. But there is adialectical relationship betweern the actors who are transforming their consciousness and the world they are simoultaneously inhabiting and transforming. Revolution is a transformative process both within and without. Honestly. Even those of us who have all the 'theory' we think necessary, even we will change our minds and learn new things in the process of making a revolution. We won't just change the world we'll change ourselves too. How could this not be the case?

... This seems to be the concept of revolution that you seem to favour and this shows itself in your statement that " it's a process that real people go through. People will go into the process with one set of ideas and they'll emerge with different ideas.". I wouldnt disagree with that but what if you saw revolution instead as signifying a fundamental change in the socioeconomic relationships of society. How would you see this coming about as a process and not an event?

Because the transformtions of socioeconomic relationships don't happen upon the instant. There is no Future Socialist World Council that says - 'right, as of 13 o'clock on the 43rd of Newvember, all your property is belong to everyone'. The working class will take some actions - say, an occupation of a particular factory (as and example only) and then some bright spark will say 'why don't we continue making stuff and distribute it to the community instead?' and that will be one particualr spark. The factory down the road is not occupied. They're just on strike. But the workers at Bloots might think 'that's a bloody good idea, we could occupy our factory, those guys at Argleworks are on to something'. The notion spreads, especially if the strikers from Bloots are debating the issues of the day with the occupiers at Argleworks. these things will be happening all over the world - like you I think that if the working class in one place is sufficiently advanced to 'make a revolution' then the workers in other places can't be so far behind them.

It's only an 'event' if there is a top-down power (like the Bolsheviks in control of the Russian state) making decrees about stuff. It's the real (ie messy) transormation of relationships that's the revolution, not the legal or historical 'on this day at this time this decision was taken that means this'. It's how decisions are implemented and the nitty-gritty of the revolution will be 'how this factory committee implemented this idea in this place' and 'what that workers' council did about that problem'. That's process. Or, 'a series of revolutionary events' that look like a process because there's billions of them influenceing each other and spreading out.

...

I believe it was Trotsky who said this but then a lot of what Trotsky wrote i take with a pinch of salt...

Why this in particular?

If one doesn't believe that the whole of the working class needs to be equipped with 'theory' (as I don't, because I have confidence in people's ability to learn and problem-solve on the job) then it's quite possible that the working class was well to 'the left' of the Bolsheviks, in that large numbers of workers wanted to take radical action.

...But on your other point I dont think it was a case that workers were "unconvinced" by communusm . Rather it was that it didnt really figure to any great extent in their consciousness. The workers were much more concerned about things like the availability of food and keeping the factoriies open and their jobs secure...

Maybe true. Don't forget the war though. Many many workers (and peasants) wanted an end to the war. That's a big 'macro-politics' thing that impacted directly on people's lives. They knew the Bolsheviks were against the war, and they knew that there were other socialists in other countries that were also opposing the war. OK, Lenin didn't realise the difference between the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the British Socialist Party but there was still the Serbian party and the majority of the Italian party and significant sections of the BSP and the SLP in Britain and sections of the Dutch and German parties as well as most of the Anarchists.

I don't think you can claim that the consciousness of the working class was limited to 'bread and butter' stuff even if most of the time that's what people are worried about. Again, you seem to be sneaking in a very Leninist-Kautskyist 'trade union consciousness' idea here. In times of crisis - and WWI was certainly a crisis even if one doesn't subscribe to 'crisis of capitalism' theories - people re-examine their situation. New situations compel people to reflect on the 'meaning of life'. This is what I mean about process and the relationship between situation and consciousness. Wars, disaters, economic crisies, compel people to think about the future, their place in the world etc, and this - especially when coupled with the free debates that were seen in the revolution - contributes to developments in class consciousness. 'Learning by doing' again.

...
No I disagree strongly with you on this point. For one thing if workers in one part of the world are sufficiently strong to be in a position to get rid of capitalism then it is more than likely that the workers eslewhere will not be that far befind at all...

Funny that you disagree with me, I agree with you!:)

... Indeed, the world socialist movement itself is likely to work to pro-actively ensure that as far as possible the movement grows as evenly as possible throughout the world with the result that the revolutionary changeover occurs within as a short a time span as possible thoughout the world...

a) this implies that you think it will retard the growth of consciousness/the movement if it 'gets ahead of itself';
b) I'm not saying that I think that I think the 'revolutionary changeover' should or will take decades - I too want the change to be "within as a short a time span as possible thoughout the world". But I think that the revolutionary seizure of power worldwide by the working class in a short period is more likely than the parliamentary seizure of power by the working class party in a short period, precisely because I think generalisation and raising of class consciousness is more likely in a revolutionary situation (I'm a approaching a tautology here) than it is in a series of elections (espocially in countries that don't have elections);
c) 'as short a period as possible' doesn't mean 'upon the instant'. Even if the SPGB's schema works (it won't, but I won't be unhappy if I'm proved wrong in the next, ooh, 5 years) then the Socialist Party in one place will still have to 'administer capitalism' until the election results are in everywhere else. Even if it's only weeks or months, they'll still have to run the show somewhere, for some time; simultaneous elections in ever country of the world is a ludicrous notion. Truly, if that's what's necessary, we won't see socialism for 500 years.

...Secobd I do bot beliecve that there will still be classes once the revolution has happend. Actually it wouldnt be a revolutiuon if class still existed since as you admit yourself capitalism would still exist...

Process not event.

... if capitalism still exists then ipsoi facto a socialist revolution could not yet have taken place. Thats pretty obvious...

Capitalism cannot be defeated in one place if it still exists elsewhere. The whole world must be in the hands of the working class before we can begin the real transformation of society. In the case where only some territory is in working class control, when either a 'Bolshevik' revolution has happened, or the Socialist Party has been elected, there will be other areas still controlled by the bourgeoisise. This is part of the revolutionary process. The revolution is the same as the world civil war, or if you like the whole series of elections between the first territory attaining a socialist majority and the final territory attaining a socialist majority, however long it takes.

...What you have done here is basically to have boxed yourself into a corner by insisting there will still be capitalism. So what, in that case, needs to be done for there no longer to be capitalism anywhere. Ultimately you would then be forced to accept the very view you had dismissed as "ridiculous " - that socialism would have to be introduced worlkdwide simulateneously.

I said it was ridiculous to think that simultaneous elections of socialists would take place. Socialism is not 'introduced'. Stop thinking like a (bad-)vanguardist!

There will still be capitalism! Until the world is in the hands of the working class, capitalism will continue to exist!

In the areas that the proletariat has seized (either by force, or by elections, assuming that it's possible) capitalism will have to be managed by the working class in its interests, as far as that is possible. What other choice is there? We can't create socialism, not in one state. Immediate replacement of money with rationing, the direction of resources to solving internal social problems and aiding the revolutionary process externally as far as possible... but it will still be a form of state capitalism. How else can the working class administer society when no all of the world is free?

...Of course a socialist revoltion has to start somewhere and wont literally happen on Thursday at 5pm (Greenwhich mean time) throughout the world on 24th August 2041. There will be a short time span between when it first happens and when the last remaining residual capitalsit states are mopped up and brought into the socialist fold so to speak...

I agree. And in this time-period, before society can be transformed fully, capitalism will still exist.

...However, when revolution first happoens - wherever it happens - capitalism will and must promptly cease to exist. There will be no more classes. No wage labour or capital. Insofar as the socialist part of the world is still reliant upon goods from elsewhere, there may possibly be some form of economic exchange between this part of the world and residual capitalist states. Most likely, this will take the form of a barter arrangement of some sort. Bearing in mind this residual capiitalist state will contain very significant minoriities of socialists which would have fundamentally altered the entire social climate, these capitalist states will be fundamentally constrained in what they can do in relation to this socialist part of the world. However, as far as the latter is concerned, the internal relations of this will be fundamentally socialist and not capitalist...

No. Absolutely wrong. You can't have 'socialism in one country' and you can't have 'socialist internal relations' with 'capitalist external relations' - that's one of the many things the Bolsheviks got wrong! Bordiga (who I also think was wrong on many things) used the Soviet Union's 'external capitalist relations' to demonstrate that the SU was capitalist - by your argument, it must have been socialist!

Classes and states will still exist elesewhere and unless you believe that socialism in one country is possible or that 'socialsit relations' pertain in a non-socialist but also non-capitalist economy (what sort of economy, if not socialist and not capitalist?) then the economy of the proletarian territories is capitalism.

... And as more and more parts of the world become socialist so the area in which these socialist relationship obtaion, will expand accordingly

At least thats how I see it

...

I'm sorry Robbo but I think this a fundamentally flawed bit of your analysis. Because there is no 'socialism in one country' there are no 'socialist relations in one country' either. Because 'socialist relations' cannot exist if there is not 'socialism'. There may be staes or areas or territories where the working class has assumed political control (by whatever method) but until capitalism is defeated everywhere 'socialism' cannot exist. All that can be done is using capitalism, as far as possible, to the benefit of the working class.

...
The "socialism in one country" argumenbt is quite inapt in this case - precisly becuase here we are talking about a world in which there very significant socialist minorities almost everywhere. The stalinist idea of soculism in one country on the other hand, believes that you can have socialism in one country irrspective of the state of the socialist movement elsehwere. Thats definitely not what I am arguing for. Quite apart from that what existed in the SU was not socialism but state capitalism but then we concur on that point;)

Sure. Socialism couldn't have existed in the SU even if the entire population had been socialist an had voted for the hypothetical Socialist Party of Great Russia. The state of the socialist movement elsewhere doesn't come into this. With or without strong socialist movements elsewhere, an isolated proletarian state (no matter how its new proletarian masters came to be there) cannot create socialism. Even if there had been strong socialist movements in other countries, the SPGR couldn't 'implement' socialism in Russia, because socialism isn't something to be 'implemented' by a party, it's something to be created by the working class, and it can't be created in a single territory. It will be the creation of the proletariat of the world.

robbo203

31st August 2012, 13:13

Peoples' War

31st August 2012, 13:54

Actually I consider it rather insulting that you could even consider that what you call my "program" - do you even know what that is? - would have lent support to the White army. Ive made it quite clear where I would have stood were I hypothetically transported back to Russia 1917 in a time machine. I would have opposed both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and their respective capitalist agendas and would probably have aligned myself with the Factory Committee movement as probably the best one could hope to do under the extremely adverse circumstances of the timeWhat is your actual critique of the Bolsheviks?

Your claim that the Bolsheviks overthrew capitalism is patently ridiculousI agree, because it was the workers in Russia who overthrew the capitalist order. The Bolsheviks were merely their spearhead, who they had chosen to hold positions in the new workers government. The Bolsheviks went from 2.5% of the total soviets, to holding a majority, and winning the St. Petersburg and Moscow Soviets.

As is your suggestion that the Russian workers flocked to the Bolsheviks becuase of its alleged advocacy of world socialism (actually even the very term "socialism" had already begun to mean something totally different in Lenin's hands to what Marxists traditionally meant by this term)This is actually one of many annoying points Left Communists tend to dig up. It's semantics, nothing more, nothing less. It's referring to the Marxist idea of the first phase (lower phase in Lenin's words) of communism.

The party grew significantly in a short amount of time. From a few thousand to a quarter million.

and not because of its clearly reformist progamme. Hahahaha WHAT? Do explain, please, I beg you to go in depth.

This is to say nothing of the fact that even if the workers were socialist - that great majority were clearly not as Lenin himself admitted - the Russian working class was a tiny minority of the population - perhaps 10%. There was simply no way you could have socialism under these circumstances and only a rank idealist would think otherwiseNobody is claiming you can have socialism...well, Stalinist are...but we are saying that you can have a workers' state, a Dictatorship of the proletariat! Lenin was banking on the success of the German revolution, and said that the Russian Revolution was doomed if it failed.

Now, you must realize something, to believe the totality of the working class, or even a solid majority of the working class, can become class conscious socialists is absurd. The prevailing ideas in society are those of the ruling class! This is why Lenin advocated the vanguard party, to educate the masses of workers, to aid them in becoming class conscious and socialist. The vanguard isn't some 10 or 12 petty-bourgeois intelligentsia telling the dirty stupid prole what they need to know, but a majority of already class conscious and socialist workers who agitate, and provide leadership and education on revolutionary matters and socialism.

Here's Lernin attacking the left Communists in 1918

It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm)

Last I checked, state capitalism was still a form of capitalism - capitalism run by the stateOh, look, it's THIS quote again.

Can you guys really stop using this? Honestly? I'm being 100% serious now, stop it, you make yourself look like an idiot.

Yes, what Lenin was suggesting WAS that State Capitalism, geared toward the workers, would be better than before and would likely be the form the TRANSITION ECONOMY first takes.

He WAS NOT saying "Look, State Capitalism, REVOLUTION COMPLETE, SUCCESS, STATE CAPITALISM IS SOCIALISM YAYYYYYYYY".

Or how about this nice juciy little quote from Mr Lenin in 1921

Get down to business all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them, Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running an economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. (Collected Works, Vol. 33 page 72).The part of your brain that develops the awareness of context must have not developed...

This was in the context of the NEP. A policy needed to bring about appeasement to the powerful peasantry, and to create a boom in production, which was NEEDED. You can find the article, as opposed to his collected works, here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm

If you read the entire article, you come to understand the context. You cannot just throw this quote out, without providing the context this article was written in, which is described in the article.

Do you understand what "material conditions" are? Do you understand what the material conditions of Russia were, at the time? Do you understand the concept of transition economy?

I urge YOU, robbo, to read the entire article, and not nitpick quotes.

Still certain the Bolsheviks "overthrew capitalism", eh?Nope, they did lead the workers who did, though.

I can provide tons more evidence to pulverise this claim of yours if you so wish.If it's anything like the out of context rubbish you've provided before, I'd advise against it. Making yourself look stupid isn't a way of winning a debate.

It makes me think you have little clue of what capitalism means or socialism for that matter.Avoiding...using...insult...here...

And to cap it all you have the nerve then to to assert that I am a "hopeless idealist who cannot view history and world events in their actual complexity". Really? Well, your use of out of context quotes tells us you can't come up with the context of the material conditions under which these policies, ideas, etc. had been used.

The basic argument I put forward in my last post to which, I take it , you are responding was that any attempt by a minority, however enlightened, to capture political poiwer to establish socialism on behalf of a majority that neither understands or wants socialism, is doomed to fail.Nobody is arguing that socialism can be established in those circumstance. Only arguing that a workers' state can, which it was.

Again, to expect a majority of workers, or the totality of workers, to be class conscious socialists is absolutely absurd.

That doesn't sound like an idealist argument but, on the contrary, pretty realistic. Such a minority, I said, will be compelled to administer capitalism by default since you cannot impose socialism on a majority that is not socialist-minded and has no idea of what socialism is about.Again, not what we are arguing. This would be nice if you were debating a Stalinist. DOTP =/= socialism.

Since capitalism can only operate in the interests of capital and against wage labour, I further argued, this minority must inevitably align itself with the interest of capital and thus oppose the interests of the workers. Capitalism is more than just a mode of production. Hence why a transition economy is necessary between capitalism and socialism.

Now that is is precisely what happened in the Soviet Union and that is why it was Lenin's glorious Vanguard Party that was centrallly involved in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union .Wait, what?

It is why some of those very privileged members of the nomenklatura of the pseudo "Communist Party" of the Soviet Union are today among Russian billionaire class sunning themselves on their yachts in Marbella or some other fleshpot town along the Med and no doubt guffawing into the champagne glasses about how they managed to con the workers for so long that Russia was a "socialist society"Yes, this all stems from Lenin and his concept of a vanguard party. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STALIN OR THE 65 YEARS FROM HIS DEATH TO THE COLLAPSE OF THE SU. Oh, and material conditions? The fuck are they?

Far from being an idealist analysis of the collapse of the soviet state capitalism, this explains that collapse in terms of the changing intrerests of the soviet state capitalist class itself - Lenin's Vanguard party - and the realisation on their part that the old soviet model of running capitalism was no longer up to the job from the pointt of view of this ruling class - it was becoming increasingly uncompetitve and inflexible in an an increasingly competitive globalised capitalist market That is why they instigated what is called their "revolution from above" and embraced wholesale market reform.OY FUCKING VEY.

Now instead of wittering on about my " idealism" perhaps you might care to come up with something remotely akin to a materialist analysis on why you imagine this argument is unsound. Or maybe it is just that you think the Soviet Vanguard party was infected by "revisionist ideas " or that the wrong set of leaders was in power or some some such nonsense like that that the Sovietr system was finally overthrown OY FUCKING VEY AGAIN.

In which case you might well want to ask yourself who exactly is being the idealist hereYou may want to as well.

Blake's Baby

1st September 2012, 02:35

I think there are basically just two or three points upon which we differ despite being in agreement on nearly everything else. I ll deal with these points very briefly as I am in a rush and might not be able to deal with them till later.

Just one clarification though - I dont subscribe to the idea that "workers are only capable of trade union consciousness". It is no reflection on workers capability to say that in fact the great bulk of Russian workers in 1917 were not actually thinking in terms of the communist goal of getting rid of the wage labour-capital relationship (capitalism) but, rather, of more mundane matters suich as food prices , job security and of course the ever looming problem of the war...

I think you have misunderstood the question of 'trade union consciousness' then. Lenin didn't think it had to do with the 'capability' of individual workers. So you and Lenin are in agreement on this one. It has to do with the limitations of the existence of the working class.It is precisely the 'mundane matters' that you think workers were interested in that Lenin is claiming prevent the development of socialist (revolutionary) consciousness as opposed to trade union (defensive) consciousness.

You are claiming that you don't believe in workers being limited to a trade union consciousness and then demonstrating why you think they only acheive trade union consciousness.

And you're ignoring the question of the war as a radicalising factor... perhaps not on purpose.

...One of things on which we seem to disagree is your characterisation of revolution as a process not an event. Perhaps Ive not made myself clear enough in asserting that it can actually be both of these things. Communism as a system of socioeconomic relationships cannot really be introduced peacemeal after all and in this strictly limited sense it can only be an "event"...

I agree that they can't be introduced piecemeal and that's why I don't think there can be 'socialist measures' in a world economy that is still capitalist.

But the formal point where something becomes something else doesn't (to borrow a phrase) fall from the sky. A revolution is not just a formal decree abolishing property.

...In fact Marx makes this very point in the German Ideology: "]Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism[/I]" Obviously there is a protracted process leading up to the point that communiusm is literally introduced - the "event" symbolised by the capture of political power - but if you accept the argument that comuniusm cannot be introduced peacemeal and involves the most radical rupture with traditional property relations (Communist Manifesto) then it hard to see how you can deny this is an "event" - something that happens more or less instantly - in that sense...

Really? I can't see how you can possibly see this as an 'event' that happens at a specific place and time.

The proletariat cannot do away with property in one place and time and expect it to stick. We cannot seize state power in one place and time and expect to be able to 'introduce' communism. There must be a place where the seizure of state power happens first, and a place where it happens last, and a bunch of places in between in time, until everywhere is in the hands of the proletariat.

There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last. In between there is everywhere else, where property is more or less quickly collectivised.

Once all the capitalists are expropriated 'the revolution' is complete and the task of transforming society begins. We can't have 'communism' during the revolutionary seizure of power, because until it is total, the seizure of power is partial, local, limited. No socialism in one country.

...There is nothing in between private or sectional ownership of the means of production and common ownership common ownershiip of the same...

But there is something in between the first seizure of any property and the last seizure of all property; and that's the process.

...Secondly there is the question of what happens when the working class captures political power in one country with a view to abolishing capitalism. Your argument is that this working class would still have to manage capitalism. But dont you see what that implies? It implies that a socialist revolution has still not yet happened becuase you still have capitalism...

Of course the socialist revolution hasn't happened. Didi you think I thought we were living in socialism?

Re-reading the earlier posts I think I see where the problem is here. The 'socialist revolution' (or, as I would say, the proletarian revolution, the process that establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat) will not have been completed while capitalism and capitalist states exist. By '...happened' I was reading you as 'been completed'. But, because you mean 'event' not 'process', you read 'happened' as a singular thing, I thnk.

It isn't. Process not event.

The revolution of 1917-23 was defeated. An attempt was made; it failed. The first part of the world where the bourgeoisie was overthrown was left isolated and rapidly degenerated. Not because Lenin was a bad man, or even a foolish man; but because no matter what 'socialist measures' one can think of, an isolated revolution is doomed. No 'socialism' or even 'socialist measures' in one country. You and Lenin I'm afraid have both been proved wrong by history.

... It makes no sense to talk of a socialist revolution that still leaves capitalism intact...

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'm not sure what you mean at any point in this, or what you think I mean.

I've avoided up until now using the term 'socialist revolution' because revolutions are both 'social' and 'political'.

'Intact' is a bit of a loaded term. I didn't say 'intact' - I don't think that capitalism will be intact. The bourgeoisie will, locally, have been expropriated. But the proletarian dictatorship in a revolutionary territory will have to administer the economy of that territory. While there is a proletariat (ie a class), while there is a proletarian territory opposed to capitalist territories (ie a state), while there is an 'economy' at all, capitalism (a world system) has not been defeated. I don't believe in socialism in one country, so the proletariat, bounded in time and space, must be engaged in the managemetn of another system. Even in truncated form, if it has classes and states in it, it must be capitalism. If the proletarian state is organising the economy, it must be state capitalism.

The seizure of power is a political action. In previous epochs of revolution, the 'political' revolution followed the 'social' revolution. The bourgeois revolution in England took place after capitalism had been developing for around 300 years. In France, 400 years.

Socialism isn't like that because we don't have a class to exploit, so we can't develop a 'proletarian economy' inside capitalism for 300 years. The socialist revolution, the transformation of capitalism into socialism, has to take place after the seizure of political power - worldwide. To think that the transformation could take place before capitalism is suppressed would mean that socialism in one country is possible.

... Neverthless you maintain that the working class in one country will still have to administer capitalism until the working class everywhere has captured political political with a view to introducing socialism. Then and then only, according to you, can you introduce socialism...

Absolutely. Couldn't have said it more clearly myself. Except I insist socialism isn't something that is 'introduced'.

To argue otherwise means that it is possible to 'implement socialism' in bounded territory. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not socialism! Again, you fall into a Leninist error!

...This is what I meant by the irony of your rejecting the idea of socialism being simultaneously introduced across the world as "ridiculous" when in fact your very own scenario presupposes just that! ...

No no no. You're still not getting it! I said that simultaneous elections of socialist deputies across the world was ridiculous. Socialism will be simultaneous across the world - once capitalism has been defeated across the world. The economic/social transformation of society must take place after the revolutionary seizure of power. Honestly.

...Every part of the world has to wait until a socialist majority has captured power everywhere and then together they introduce world socialism - simultaneously...

Yes! That's why you just called it 'world socialism' because that's what it has to be. To be otherwise would be 'national socialism' or maybe 'socialism in one country'.

...With I respect I think this is fundamneally wrong. We both accept that there is a need to develop socialist conscious as evenly - or in as balanced a manner - as possible across the world (incidentally by the world socialist movement acting proactively to ensure that I certainly dont mean "retarding" the growth of the movement in some places to allow other places to catch. That would be absurd. I mean in the positive sense of diverting resources to where it was most needed where consciousness was most conspicuously lagging). The more evenly socialist consciousness develops the shorter the time span before the entire world becomes socialist...

What if it develops evenly but very slowly, as opposed to very fast in some places but slowly in others? Then the fast developing plaeces can become an inspiration to the slowly-developing places. Consciousness is a question of the working class reflecting on its material conditions. No matter how much socialist propaganda you parachute in, or how many socialist propagandists, you can't overcome the historical conditions by will.

The notion of seeking to 'develop' class consciousness I think goes back to the mistaken Leninist notion that class consciousness comes from outside the working class. I really don't think it does. Revolutionaries, I believe should seek to be part of the process of the development of class consciousness; but we're not teachers or gurus. We don't 'devlop' the consciousness of a passive receptive mass. We involve ourselves in a process.

...My disagreement with you is over what the working class does in one part of the world when it has successfuly taken political power with the clear mandate to introduce socialism and abolish wage slavery. You say this will involve the immediate replacement of money with rationing, the direction of resources to solving internal social problems and aiding the revolutionary process externally as far as possible... but it will still be a form of state capitalism. How else can the working class administer society when no all of the world is free?

But with respect that is not capitalism! A moneyless society cannot be a capitalist society. There is rationing presumably for some goods - not necessarily, all - but that does not mean it is not a socialist system. Socialism presupposes common ownership of the means of production but that does not preclude some rationing . Marx made this pooint in relation to the lower phase of socialism/communism in the Critique of the Gotha programme

If you still have acapitalism what you are effectively saying is that you still have a working class being exploted and allowing the capitalist class to continue owning the means of prpduction despite the fact that working class has just captured political power with the clear intention to get rid of capitalism. This is simply not feasiable. There is just no way a capitalist system could function when the majority no longer want it . There is just no way they would want to put up with a system that of necessity exploits them when they have specifically organised to ger rid of that system...

So you do believe in socialism in one country?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not socialism! Socialism is a classless stateless communal society! If there are states and classes there is not socialism, and you think that one state, with the working class holding political power, can be socialist? So socialism exists with states and classes? Not even Lenin went that far! Though Stalin of course did.

You can't, and the working class can't, overleap the social conditions that they inherit. Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism, we have best attenuated capitalism. States depend on classes, classes on property; while property exists there will necessarily be classes and therefore there will necessarily be states because these are the unavoidable consequences of material conditions. Otherwise we could cure the world of capitalism by wishing.

It may not be capitalism as practiced by most western democracies but it is still a form of capitalism; the working class may (I hope would) try to remove as many aspects of commodity production and wage labour as possible, but unless you believe that socialism is possible in one country then socialism cannot happen until capitalism has been suppressed. Capitalism is a world system, it must be suppressed worldwide.

Effectively what I am saying that while you have classes (the working class, in control of society, but not introducing socialism, which is what the dictatorship of the proletariat must be) and states (because not all areas and economies are under workers' control) you cannot have socialism because socialism in one country is impossible. Stalin was wrong, and you're wrong for the same reason.

...What they will put in place immediately upon capturing political power may not be full free access communism but it will be some kind of communism neverthless. It certainly cannot still be capitalism. However as I indicated, this perspective is very different from the usual "socialism in one country argument". Where the latter falls down is that it assumes socialism (although the stalinist definition of socialism is actually state capitalism though we shall ignore that) can be established in one country irrespective of the level of support for socialism elsewhere.

I am saying, no, that can't happen . It depends completely on the level of support elsewhere so that where you have socialism (albeit, lower stage socialism) in one part of the world first, this presupposes that in other parts of the world there are already massive but not yet majoritarian socialist movements. In other words, it presupposes an enfeebled and compromised capitalism elsewhere incapable of offering serious resistance to the spread of socialism..

No, Lenin was wrong! The DotP is not socialism! The revolutionary seizure of power (necessarily bounded in space) introduces the DotP not socialism.

...In other words, it is this enfeeblement of capitalism elsewhere that allows for the establishment of socialism to begin first in certain parts of the world and then to rapidly spread outward in domino-fashion from there

No, again and again, you are not describing socialism you are describing the DotP. establishing socialism 'first' in one place means you accept that socialism in one country is possible. It is not, sorry - no matter what the class consciousness of anywhere else.

It seems to me that what you are doing is mixing up process and event, and the dictatorship of the proleatariat with socialism.

The revolution establishes the political power of the proletariat (ie, it's the process of the establishment of the DotP) - a process.

The 'establishment of socialism' is an 'event' in the sense that it has a specific point-in-time attached to the formal moment of 'now there is no more property anywhere' - in this sense is the quote from the German Ideology you refer to:
"Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism"

But this 'all at once' cannot take place without the seizure of the state and the expropriation of the capitalists worldwide. This is the 'dominant peoples' bit. The 'dominant peoples' must be the working class.

OK... time to stop now.

robbo203

1st September 2012, 09:46

I agree, because it was the workers in Russia who overthrew the capitalist order. The Bolsheviks were merely their spearhead, who they had chosen to hold positions in the new workers government. The Bolsheviks went from 2.5% of the total soviets, to holding a majority, and winning the St. Petersburg and Moscow Soviets.

Well you will have to take that up with Lev Bronsteinovich. It was his claim that I was responding to "I think you hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks because they actually made a revolution that overthrew capitalism". In any event neither the Bolsheviks nor the Russian workers "overthrew capitalism " as you both foolishly claim. Even your hero , Mr Lenin, did not think that. Are you seriously trying to suggest that the system of generalised wage labour and commodity production was brought to an end in Russia in 1917?

This is actually one of many annoying points Left Communists tend to dig up. It's semantics, nothing more, nothing less. It's referring to the Marxist idea of the first phase (lower phase in Lenin's words) of communism.

Except that Marxists dont make that distinction. For Marxists, "socialism" is just another word for "communism". It was lenin who made this distinction, identiying socialism with the lower phase of communism. Not only that Lenin then went on to contradict himself by providing yet another made-up definition of socialism. In The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,(1917) we now seem him arguing that "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly"
Hardly compatible with the "lower phase" of (stateless) comunism/socialism, is it now?

Hahahaha WHAT? Do explain, please, I beg you to go in depth.

Go to the link provided in my previous post responding to Blakes Baby. There are plenty of references to reports of Party congresses which clearly show the Party's attachment to a "minimum programme". If you dont know what that means, it is a direct reference to a programe of reforms which the German SDP - the flagship of the Second International - which programme was supposed to exist alongside the "maximum programme" of socialist transformation. In Germany the maximum programme was inevitably crowded out and abandoned. Exactly the same thing happened in the Russia

Nobody is claiming you can have socialism...well, Stalinist are...but we are saying that you can have a workers' state, a Dictatorship of the proletariat! Lenin was banking on the success of the German revolution, and said that the Russian Revolution was doomed if it failed.

If you agree there was no socialism in Russia then by implication you accept there was capitalism there. The so called Dictorrship of the Proletariat is NOT a mode of production; it is a political arrangement. I have my criticisms of the vey concept of the DOTP and believe Marx erred badly in coming up with this daft idea, but one thing is clear: the very existence of a proletariat presupposes the existence of a capitalist class and hence capitalism. Yet you claimed that capitalism has been "overthrown"

Now, you must realize something, to believe the totality of the working class, or even a solid majority of the working class, can become class conscious socialists is absurd. The prevailing ideas in society are those of the ruling class! This is why Lenin advocated the vanguard party, to educate the masses of workers, to aid them in becoming class conscious and socialist. The vanguard isn't some 10 or 12 petty-bourgeois intelligentsia telling the dirty stupid prole what they need to know, but a majority of already class conscious and socialist workers who agitate, and provide leadership and education on revolutionary matters and socialism.

Ive dealt with argument before. If the vanguard seizes power supposedly on on behalf of the majority it will, by default, have to administer capitalism. In administering capitalism it will necessarily come to side with the interests of capital against those of wage labour since there is no other way in which capitalism can be administered. Therefore, and quite logically, the vanguard theory of revolution is a recipe for ensurring the perpetuation of capitalism . Exactly what happened in the case of the Soviet Union where the Vanguard transmuted into the new rulling state capitalist class that opppressed the workers and installed its own dictatorship over the proletariat

Oh, look, it's THIS quote again.

Can you guys really stop using this? Honestly? I'm being 100% serious now, stop it, you make yourself look like an idiot.

Yes, what Lenin was suggesting WAS that State Capitalism, geared toward the workers, would be better than before and would likely be the form the TRANSITION ECONOMY first takes.

He WAS NOT saying "Look, State Capitalism, REVOLUTION COMPLETE, SUCCESS, STATE CAPITALISM IS SOCIALISM YAYYYYYYYY".

The part of your brain that develops the awareness of context must have not developed...

Instead of grunting away like some semi-literate buffoon - "OY FUCKING VEY" (WTF is that by the way?) - perhaps you might care to take your own advice and put what I said in context. I wasnt saying Lenin was suggesting state capitalism would be "complete success". Though he did indeed twist the meaning of the word socialism by identitying it with state capitalism, as we have seen. there is evidence that he also reverted at times to the old Marxian definition of socialism as a synonym for communism. This comes out in the Interview with Ransome towards the end of Lenin's life when I think Lenin was beginning to realise that the Bolsheviks had for it badly wrong (see also his Testament).

I have never doubted that probably a lot of the old Bolsheviks emotionally identified with the abstract goal of a communist socialist society. However the strategy they used proved in the end to be an absolute diaster from that point of view and was to culminate in the overthrew of the decrepit old soviet command economy model for running capitalism by the the very heirs of Lenin's glorious vanguard Party who opted for economic liberalisation amnd market reforms.

Some people here just dont want to learn from the lessons of history that are staring them in the face and, as somebody said, if you dont learn from history you are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The so called state capitalist road to socialism we now know is a complete dead end - a historical cul de sac. There can be no way of reaching socialism via nationalising the "commanding heights of the economy" and all that sort of crap.

We now need to move on from endlessly repeating the same tired old dogmas and shibboleths of a political paradigm that has comprehensively failed - Leninism - and look at the world with fresh eyes

Blake's Baby

1st September 2012, 11:36

...
Ive dealt with argument before. If the vanguard seizes power supposedly on on behalf of the majority it will, by default, have to administer capitalism. In administering capitalism it will necessarily come to side with the interests of capital against those of wage labour since there is no other way in which capitalism can be administered. Therefore, and quite logically, the vanguard theory of revolution is a recipe for ensurring the perpetuation of capitalism . Exactly what happened in the case of the Soviet Union where the Vanguard transmuted into the new rulling state capitalist class that opppressed the workers and installed its own dictatorship over the proletariat...

What if the majority seizes power 'on behalf' of themselves, but because of the messy conditions existing, this is only possible one area at first? What does the working class do then?

The Bolsheviks didn't become a new ruling class because their aim was to institute a state-capitalist dictatorship, they became a new ruling class because the working class failed to overthrow capitalism worldwide, and the Bolsheviks were left as the rulers of a territory that was then isolated. Can they move forward to socialism? No, socialism in one country is impossible. Can they retreat in good order and hand power back to the Old Order? Yes, which would have entailed massacres galore. Can they carry on and hope that the rest of world 'catches up'? Yes, but only at the expense of being the rulers of the Russian state, with all the horror and brutality that ensued.

Some individual decision need not have been taken,I'd argue that the whole concept of the party taking power (any party, this will include the SPGB) is a mistake; but having seized power on the expectation that revolutions were about to break out in the west, the Bolsheviks were trapped when that didn't happen.

...

I have never doubted that probably a lot of the old Bolsheviks emotionally identified with the abstract goal of a communist socialist society. However the strategy they used proved in the end to be an absolute diaster from that point of view and was to culminate in the overthrew of the decrepit old soviet command economy model for running capitalism by the the very heirs of Lenin's glorious vanguard Party who opted for economic liberalisation amnd market reforms...

I don't think 'emotional identification' cuts it. I think they thought that they were helping, but I agree with you that what resulted was not in any way socialism. It was state capitalism. But it wasn't state capitalism because the Bolsheviks 'got it wrong'; even if the Bolsheviks had 'got it right' then socialism would not have been possible in an isolated territory. So it's the isolation, not the Bolsheviks, that are the problem here.

...Some people here just dont want to learn from the lessons of history that are staring them in the face and, as somebody said, if you dont learn from history you are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The so called state capitalist road to socialism we now know is a complete dead end - a historical cul de sac. There can be no way of reaching socialism via nationalising the "commanding heights of the economy" and all that sort of crap...

But what (in the Left Communist view) is the working class to do, or (in the Leninist and SPGB view) is the Socialist Party to do, if it takes power in one area and finds that in other areas the working class (for Left Comms) or the party (for Leninists and SPGBers) hasn't taken power?

It can't institute socialism; with the best will in the world your 'socialism' or 'socialist measures' that it institutes is no different to the Stalinist notion of 'building socialism'. What does it do? There's still classes and there's still a state. How can that be socialism?

I don't believe that there is a 'state capitalist road to socialism'. There is only a state capitalist holding operation until the task of recreating the world can begin, because I don't believe that socialism can exist in one country. If it's not socialism, because there are still classes and states while the conquest of power is being acheived, then it must be a form of capitalism.

...We now need to move on from endlessly repeating the same tired old dogmas and shibboleths of a political paradigm that has comprehensively failed - Leninism - and look at the world with fresh eyes

Yes, so reject the notion that the party has to seize power, and the idea that socialism is possible in one territory!

The notion that 'Leninism' has comprehensively failed, however, is a bit of red herring. Has Marxian Socialism comprehensively succeeded? No. Has communism as a whole comprehensively succeeded? No. So don't too cocky about 'Leninism's' failures. The 'Leninists' and Sparticists - and the German and Russian working classes of course - managed to stop WWI. Have the SPGB ever stopped a world war?

robbo203

1st September 2012, 13:16

I think you have misunderstood the question of 'trade union consciousness' then. Lenin didn't think it had to do with the 'capability' of individual workers. So you and Lenin are in agreement on this one. It has to do with the limitations of the existence of the working class.It is precisely the 'mundane matters' that you think workers were interested in that Lenin is claiming prevent the development of socialist (revolutionary) consciousness as opposed to trade union (defensive) consciousness.

You are claiming that you don't believe in workers being limited to a trade union consciousness and then demonstrating why you think they only acheive trade union consciousness.

And you're ignoring the question of the war as a radicalising factor... perhaps not on purpose..

Er no, not really. I think actually the anti-warfeelings of Russian workers was probably THE single most important radicalising factor that the drew them to Bolsheviks. Or to put it another way, the Bolsheviks anti war position more than anything else was what ensured their popularity

You also misunderstand my other point. I dont say workers can only achieve a trade union consciousness on their own. I am just saying as a matter of historical fact that the great bulk of Russian workers in 1917 were not thinking along the lines that we are talking about here - about getting rid of the wage labour/capital relationship. They were radicalised, yes, but not in this sense and to this extent. Even the factory committees had considerable sympathy for the Bolshevik programme of state capitalism and increasing state management of the economy

I agree that they can't be introduced piecemeal and that's why I don't think there can be 'socialist measures' in a world economy that is still capitalist.

But the formal point where something becomes something else doesn't (to borrow a phrase) fall from the sky. A revolution is not just a formal decree abolishing property.

You seem here we come back to the same problem I alluded to - how do toy define a revolution. My view is that it is both a process and an event. You seem to think it is just a process but I think this view is limiting becuase it is not taking cognisance of what is involved in "abolishing property". Asserting the means of prpduction are the common property of all cannot be anything other than "a decree". It is something that is done as Marx said "all at once" (German Ideology) It is not some gradualistic process where bit by bit private property is transformed into common property . It is a rather a radical rupture withtraditional property relationships (Communist Manifesto)

Now I agree absolutely that in order to arrive at the point at which symbolically speaking capitalism is declared finished, is a very complicated and protracted process of transforming peoples ideas and that moreover this is not something that can simply be accomploshed by means of abstract propganda but also involves material circumstances decisively shaping how we see the world. I have no problem with that argument at all. All I am saying is that this process needs to culiminate in something - an event or an enactment of some sort which is of its nature a symbolic act which both summarises and coordinates the changeover to a new kinds of society. Think of it more as a kind of social statement that is being made which clarifies to everyone concerned (incldusingsocialism's remaining opponents) what is the will of the population at large. I really dont see how you can effectively dispense with something like that and this is where I part company with some of my anarchist comrades

The proletariat cannot do away with property in one place and time and expect it to stick. We cannot seize state power in one place and time and expect to be able to 'introduce' communism. There must be a place where the seizure of state power happens first, and a place where it happens last, and a bunch of places in between in time, until everywhere is in the hands of the proletariat.

There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last. In between there is everywhere else, where property is more or less quickly collectivised.

In part i agree with what you are saying here. Where I fundamentally disagree with you is your claim that The proletariat cannot do away with property in one place and time and expect it to stick. In fact, you directly contradict yourself by then saying ]there must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class.[/B] If property is collectivised then the property relationship is ipso facto done away with , surely

Once all the capitalists are expropriated 'the revolution' is complete and the task of transforming society begins. We can't have 'communism' during the revolutionary seizure of power, because until it is total, the seizure of power is partial, local, limited. No socialism in one country.

But this is not at all comparable to the Stalinist idea of socialism in one country. That idea suggests that one countruy can go it alone regardless of the extent of social consciousness elsewhere. I am saying to the contrary that this scenario i am putting forward presupposes the socialist movement elsewhere is and must be a considerable phenonmenon and that the entire social environment of residual capitalist states would by then have been profoundly altered in the light of this phenomenon. Its what I call enfeebled or compromised capitalism. In these circumstances I manitain that if a socialist majority democratically seized power in one country it would be able to do so without the threat of outside intervention - which threat would have been effectively spiked for good by the influence of socialist ideas elsewhere. In that event you could indeed introduce common ownership knowing that very shortly many other countries would be likewise following suit In fact the very idea of the nation state would be imploding and the likely porosity of borders between the free socialist zone and residual capitalist states will if anything accelereate the demise of the latter in my opinoin

I dont understand why you think this is not possible. I can only assume that your basic argument is that autarkic production is not possible within a global division of labour. Well yes but I dont see why there cannot be some kind of bridging arrangement such as a system of barter between the socialist and resdial capitalist worlds. There is a good precedent for this in the dealings of the state capitalist COMECOM countries with western capitalism. Within the socialist zone it may well be possible to distrbute many if not most goods on a free access but where shortages exist I dont see any problem about rationing them on an ad hoc basis. Rationing is not incompatible with socialism

But there is something in between the first seizure of any property and the last seizure of all property; and that's the process.

Yes indeed but contained within that process are distinct "events" entailed by the seizure of property in particular parts of the world

The revolution of 1917-23 was defeated. An attempt was made; it failed. The first part of the world where the bourgeoisie was overthrown was left isolated and rapidly degenerated. Not because Lenin was a bad man, or even a foolish man; but because no matter what 'socialist measures' one can think of, an isolated revolution is doomed. No 'socialism' or even 'socialist measures' in one country. You and Lenin I'm afraid have both been proved wrong by history.

I dont folow this at all. My take on the Bolshevik revolution is that it could not possibly have succeeded in establishing socialism becuase amongst other things, the subjective preconditions that would allow it to happen - mass socialist consciousness - simply did not exist. If those conditions had existed then I assert that would have implied the existence of mass socialist consciousness throughout the world to a greater or lesser extent which obviosly was not the case. In that event we would be talking about a totally different situation to what you are referring

'Intact' is a bit of a loaded term. I didn't say 'intact' - I don't think that capitalism will be intact. The bourgeoisie will, locally, have been expropriated. But the proletarian dictatorship in a revolutionary territory will have to administer the economy of that territory. While there is a proletariat (ie a class), while there is a proletarian territory opposed to capitalist territories (ie a state), while there is an 'economy' at all, capitalism (a world system) has not been defeated. I don't believe in socialism in one country, so the proletariat, bounded in time and space, must be engaged in the managemetn of another system. Even in truncated form, if it has classes and states in it, it must be capitalism. If the proletarian state is organising the economy, it must be state capitalism.

Qell this touches on what for me is a major disagreement with those who argue for the dictorship of the proletariat - a concept I have alway considered to be fundamentally incoherent. You say the the bourgeosie will have been expropiaited but if the bourgeoisie have been expropriated then you can no longer call them the bourgeosie. The bourgeosie are defined by the fact that they possess property -capital. And if the bourgeosie no longer exist how can the proletariat? The proletariat exists by virtue of the fact that it sells it labour power to an employer - the bourgeosie. But if the bourgeosie no longer exist to whom, does the proletariat sell its labour power? . And if it was compelled to sell it labour power and thereby submit to the dictatorship of an epmplyer, how can you meaningfullly talk about the dictraorshop of the proletariat anyway. It would still be the dictorship of capital

To me the whole idea from start to finish, should be completely scrapped. Its a totally useless idea. Its one of several ideas that Marx came out with which I strongly disagree even if the Marxian concept of the proletaroian dictorship was totally different from the Bolshevik dictatorship over the proletariat

The seizure of power is a political action. In previous epochs of revolution, the 'political' revolution followed the 'social' revolution. The bourgeois revolution in England took place after capitalism had been developing for around 300 years. In France, 400 years.

Socialism isn't like that because we don't have a class to exploit, so we can't develop a 'proletarian economy' inside capitalism for 300 years. The socialist revolution, the transformation of capitalism into socialism, has to take place after the seizure of political power - worldwide. To think that the transformation could take place before capitalism is suppressed would mean that socialism in one country is possible.

Well no becuase as I explained - what Im talking about bears no relation to the Stalinist idea of socialism in one country. Capitalism would be surrpressed in one part of the world and this would be rapidly followed by other parts of the world becuase the world as a whole would more or less at the point of being ready for socialism. That is the vital difference you are ignoring

And again also I refer you to the irony of your position in which you rejected as absurd the idea of simultaneous worldwide revolution . Your scenario actually requires this becuase you are saying in effect that the working class has first to capture power everywhere and then collectively as a worldwide class introduce socialism - simultaneously

No no no. You're still not getting it! I said that simultaneous elections of socialist deputies across the world was ridiculous. Socialism will be simultaneous across the world - once capitalism has been defeated across the world. The economic/social transformation of society must take place after the revolutionary seizure of power. Honestly.

I understand the distinction you are alluding to here but still there is more than a touch oif irony about your position. And I might add when you say socialism will be simultaneously introduced across the world do you not suppose by this by some "event" - some symboilocal act of sorts? Perhaps a special session at the United Nations at which the coordinated changeover to a socialist world "siumultaneously" can be annonced to the world with all the due pomp and ceremony this would occasion?

What if it develops evenly but very slowly, as opposed to very fast in some places but slowly in others? Then the fast developing plaeces can become an inspiration to the slowly-developing places. Consciousness is a question of the working class reflecting on its material conditions. No matter how much socialist propaganda you parachute in, or how many socialist propagandists, you can't overcome the historical conditions by will.

Byut what are these historical conditions? . More and more, the world is becoming an intergrated and interconnected place to live in. Coming from South Africa I have had the oppirtunity and privilege to communicate with comrades from various parts of Africa. They are revolutionary socialists in the full sense that you and I would appreciate - if not everyone else on this forum - in places as far apart as Swaziland and Nigeria. If anything, I would suggest that developments in modern telecommunications is in iself going to ensure a much more even or balanced growth in socialist consciousness quite apart from any proactive inputs from an organised global socialist movement to ensure this happens

The notion of seeking to 'develop' class consciousness I think goes back to the mistaken Leninist notion that class consciousness comes from outside the working class. I really don't think it does. Revolutionaries, I believe should seek to be part of the process of the development of class consciousness; but we're not teachers or gurus. We don't 'devlop' the consciousness of a passive receptive mass. We involve ourselves in a process..

Sorry but I just cannot accept this idea of seeking to 'develop' class consciousness "goes back to the mistaken Leninist notion that class consciousness comes from outside the working class". Thats absurd. Im a worker. I am a member of the working class. I try as much as possible to encourage my fellow workers to develop a sense of class consciousness. Im not adopting a position that puts me outside the working class at all. Presenting ideas is what we need to do. This forum would have no purpose if that were not the case. You misconstrue what is meant by developing socialist conscoiusness. Its not some kind of idealistic process of osmosis by which through an incessant barrage of propaganda the worker becomes a revolutionary. Its a much more subtle and dialectical process than this. The worker experiences certain material conditions and seeks to make sense of this as we all do . Human beings are not so much tool making animals as meaning manufacturiing aninmals. This is what humans do, A stream of ideas flows past your individual worker . She picks up some of these ideas and rejects others for the time being but material circumstances can lead to a state of "cognitive dissonance that causes her to rethink her position. The point of socialist propaganda is simply to put those ideas within earshot or eyeshot to enable her to at least look at things from a socialist point of view. There is no guarantee that she will do so,

So you do believe in socialism in one country?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not socialism! Socialism is a classless stateless communal society! If there are states and classes there is not socialism, and you think that one state, with the working class holding political power, can be socialist? So socialism exists with states and classes? Not even Lenin went that far! Though Stalin of course did.

No of course I dont believe this. I cannot imagine how you arrived at this conclusion. My position is that when the working class captures power in one country is abolishes capitalism forthwith and its own existence as a class. Along with thatm the state goes as well since the state is only an instrument of class rule and here we are no longer talking of classes.

As explained, I reject completely the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat. I know very well its not socialism but I dont suppoirt the idea in any case. If there is a transitional period it will be one that happens before the act of capturing political power and when workers are becoming socialist minded. There is absolutely no need for a transitonal period after the capture of political power and even to suggest that is to imply that the preconditions of socialism had not yet been met- namely mass socialist consciousness

You can't, and the working class can't, overleap the social conditions that they inherit. Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism, we have best attenuated capitalism. States depend on classes, classes on property; while property exists there will necessarily be classes and therefore there will necessarily be states because these are the unavoidable consequences of material conditions. Otherwise we could cure the world of capitalism by wishing..

But hold on here you just said earlier and I quote:

There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last

Now you are saying

Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism, we have best attenuated capitalism[/I]

Do I infer from this that you saying collectivised property = socialism and that when the working class fi=rst comes to power on a socialist mandate property will be collectivised and thus socialism introduced even if there are other parts of the world that are still capitalist but in imminant danger of turning socialist? That is my position that you seem to be nicking here:)

It may not be capitalism as practiced by most western democracies but it is still a form of capitalism; the working class may (I hope would) try to remove as many aspects of commodity production and wage labour as possible, but unless you believe that socialism is possible in one country then socialism cannot happen until capitalism has been suppressed. Capitalism is a world system, it must be suppressed worldwide.

Effectively what I am saying that while you have classes (the working class, in control of society, but not introducing socialism, which is what the dictatorship of the proletariat must be) and states (because not all areas and economies are under workers' control) you cannot have socialism because socialism in one country is impossible. Stalin was wrong, and you're wrong for the same reason.

Well again you see this doesnt make much sense. How can you have collectivised property and still retain wage labour and commosdity production (albeit stripped of as many aspect of this as possible - whetever that means?). How can you have a proletariat with a capitalist class which must mean therefore the absence of collectivised property. There are just too many things about your whole approach that just do not add up

No, again and again, you are not describing socialism you are describing the DotP. establishing socialism 'first' in one place means you accept that socialism in one country is possible. It is not, sorry - no matter what the class consciousness of anywhere else.

No its not "socialism in one country" or anythying remotely like that particular Stalinist doctrine and for another reason too - that we are no longer talking about a "country" by which I assume you mean a society with a state

It seems to me that what you are doing is mixing up process and event, and the dictatorship of the proleatariat with socialism.

The revolution establishes the political power of the proletariat (ie, it's the process of the establishment of the DotP) - a process.

The 'establishment of socialism' is an 'event' in the sense that it has a specific point-in-time attached to the formal moment of 'now there is no more property anywhere' - in this sense is the quote from the German Ideology you refer to:
"[I]Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism"

But this 'all at once' cannot take place without the seizure of the state and the expropriation of the capitalists worldwide. This is the 'dominant peoples' bit. The 'dominant peoples' must be the working class.

OK... time to stop now.

Well perhaps we have reached an agreement of sorts on one thing - that The 'establishment of socialism' is an 'event' in the sense that it has a specific point-in-time attached to the formal moment of 'now there is no more property anywhere. This is what I mean by revolution being both a process and event - not just a process

Ther only thingI would add to that is that fundamentally a revolution has to be judged by its outcome not its intentions or even by the class character of its participants. The outcome is THE all important defining characteristc of a revolution. The Bolshevik revolution was overwhelmingly carried out by workers but the outcome was a system of state run capitalism. Mant people on this forum - particularly the Leninists - cant seem to see how this is possible but it is entirely possible as old Charlie Marx himself explained

If the proletariat destroys the political rule of the bourgeosie, that will only be a temporary victory, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in 1794, so long as in the course of history, in its movement, the material conditions are not yet created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and thus the definitive overthrow of bourgeois political rule ("Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality", 1847 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm).

Blake's Baby

1st September 2012, 17:22

Er no, not really. I think actually the anti-warfeelings of Russian workers was probably THE single most important radicalising factor that the drew them to Bolsheviks. Or to put it another way, the Bolsheviks anti war position more than anything else was what ensured their popularity

You also misunderstand my other point. I dont say workers can only achieve a trade union consciousness on their own. I am just saying as a matter of historical fact that the great bulk of Russian workers in 1917 were not thinking along the lines that we are talking about here - about getting rid of the wage labour/capital relationship. They were radicalised, yes, but not in this sense and to this extent. Even the factory committees had considerable sympathy for the Bolshevik programme of state capitalism and increasing state management of the economy
...

Though I'd argue that they thought that the state capitalist programme was a short-cut to socialism. Most of the Second International did, Engels' warnings notwithstanding.

...

You seem here we come back to the same problem I alluded to - how do toy define a revolution. My view is that it is both a process and an event. You seem to think it is just a process but I think this view is limiting becuase it is not taking cognisance of what is involved in "abolishing property". Asserting the means of prpduction are the common property of all cannot be anything other than "a decree". It is something that is done as Marx said "all at once" (German Ideology) It is not some gradualistic process where bit by bit private property is transformed into common property . It is a rather a radical rupture withtraditional property relationships (Communist Manifesto)...

'Asserting it' may be adecree. Making it a reality is a process. Which is more important, for marxists? The actual practice of real people, or a legally-issued piece of paper?

Now I agree absolutely that in order to arrive at the point at which symbolically speaking capitalism is declared finished, is a very complicated and protracted process of transforming peoples ideas and that moreover this is not something that can simply be accomploshed by means of abstract propganda but also involves material circumstances decisively shaping how we see the world. I have no problem with that argument at all...

More than this; again and again you seem to have the mechanistic concept of consciousness where it it is a kind of enlightement that is delivered from outside the real lived experience of the working class.

We decisively re-shape the world, and we decisively re-shape ourselves in the process.

... All I am saying is that this process needs to culiminate in something - an event or an enactment of some sort which is of its nature a symbolic act which both summarises and coordinates the changeover to a new kinds of society. Think of it more as a kind of social statement that is being made which clarifies to everyone concerned (incldusingsocialism's remaining opponents) what is the will of the population at large. I really dont see how you can effectively dispense with something like that and this is where I part company with some of my anarchist comrades...

I don't think decrees are as important as actions. If the workers are taking over the factories and running them for the benefit of the population at large, that is more important than decrees.

...
In part i agree with what you are saying here. Where I fundamentally disagree with you is your claim that The proletariat cannot do away with property in one place and time and expect it to stick. In fact, you directly contradict yourself by then saying ]there must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class.[/B] If property is collectivised then the property relationship is ipso facto done away with , surely...

Process not event. That's why I said 'and expect it to stick'. The proletariat can announce the abolition of property as many times as it likes, if it doesn't actually go and occupy the workplaces and then run them for the benefit of humanty then nothing has changed. Even if they do, if they are isolated in one mine or one country, capitalism will assert itself again, the 'doing away with property' that I mention 'will not stick'. The expropriation of capitalism is a time-dependent process; capitalism will re-assert itself from outside if capitalism elsewhere is not continually being compromised by revolutions elsewhere.

The process must start somewhere. If it does not continue and expand, it will go backwards. It must expand to constantly challenge capitalism until either capitalism is victrious (the revolution is defeated, as happened in the early C20th) or socialism is victorious and capitalism is defeated. It has a dynamic quality... because it's a process.

...

But this is not at all comparable to the Stalinist idea of socialism in one country. That idea suggests that one countruy can go it alone regardless of the extent of social consciousness elsewhere. I am saying to the contrary that this scenario i am putting forward presupposes the socialist movement elsewhere is and must be a considerable phenonmenon and that the entire social environment of residual capitalist states would by then have been profoundly altered in the light of this phenomenon. Its what I call enfeebled or compromised capitalism...

So you do believe in socialism in one country. Just not in Russia in 1925. sorry, no, I don't believe it. Even if there are socialists in other countries, socialism is impossible in one country. The other countries need to have their revolutions too.

Will is not enough. Belief is not enough. Consciousness is more than 'knowing' it's 'knowing-in-action'.

...
In these circumstances I manitain that if a socialist majority democratically seized power in one country it would be able to do so without the threat of outside intervention - which threat would have been effectively spiked for good by the influence of socialist ideas elsewhere. In that event you could indeed introduce common ownership knowing that very shortly many other countries would be likewise following suit In fact the very idea of the nation state would be imploding and the likely porosity of borders between the free socialist zone and residual capitalist states will if anything accelereate the demise of the latter in my opinoin...

So, what you are saying here is, if there was a peaceful revolution, the revolution would be peaceful?

...I dont understand why you think this is not possible. I can only assume that your basic argument is that autarkic production is not possible within a global division of labour. Well yes but I dont see why there cannot be some kind of bridging arrangement such as a system of barter between the socialist and resdial capitalist worlds...

Because then commodity production (to trade with the capitalists) exists in the 'socialist bloc'. That's capitalism.

...There is a good precedent for this in the dealings of the state capitalist COMECOM countries with western capitalism. Within the socialist zone it may well be possible to distrbute many if not most goods on a free access but where shortages exist I dont see any problem about rationing them on an ad hoc basis. Rationing is not incompatible with socialism...

The Soviet Union wasn't socialist!

Sometimes I really can't see what your argument with the Leninists is here Robbo.

...
I dont folow this at all. My take on the Bolshevik revolution is that it could not possibly have succeeded in establishing socialism becuase amongst other things, the subjective preconditions that would allow it to happen - mass socialist consciousness - simply did not exist. If those conditions had existed then I assert that would have implied the existence of mass socialist consciousness throughout the world to a greater or lesser extent which obviosly was not the case. In that event we would be talking about a totally different situation to what you are referring...

I disagree about 2 things here;
1 - the static conception of class consciousness which denies that changed events can themselves be a spur to development of class consciousness - the Russian revolution itself was a massive boost to class consciousness across th world;
2 - that it was 'obvious' that there was no 'mass socialist conciousness to a greater or lesser extent'; certainly the world revolution failed to happen, but I think this was the result of many many factors - the seperation of revolutionaries caused by the war, the weight of bourgeois ideology, the betrayal of the workers' movement by social democracy, even the sectarianism of the parties like the SPGB who gave up on the workers' movement in the early C20th.

...
Qell this touches on what for me is a major disagreement with those who argue for the dictorship of the proletariat - a concept I have alway considered to be fundamentally incoherent. You say the the bourgeosie will have been expropiaited but if the bourgeoisie have been expropriated then you can no longer call them the bourgeosie. The bourgeosie are defined by the fact that they possess property -capital. And if the bourgeosie no longer exist how can the proletariat? The proletariat exists by virtue of the fact that it sells it labour power to an employer - the bourgeosie. But if the bourgeosie no longer exist to whom, does the proletariat sell its labour power? . And if it was compelled to sell it labour power and thereby submit to the dictatorship of an epmplyer, how can you meaningfullly talk about the dictraorshop of the proletariat anyway. It would still be the dictorship of capital...

OK. As Marx said to Weydemeyer:

Now, as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was (1) to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; [and] (3) that this dictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_society).

I don't have a problem with that as a description.

...
To me the whole idea from start to finish, should be completely scrapped. Its a totally useless idea. Its one of several ideas that Marx came out with which I strongly disagree even if the Marxian concept of the proletaroian dictorship was totally different from the Bolshevik dictatorship over the proletariat
...

OK. So we can (perhaps in a different thread) debate the existence or usefulness of the concept of the dictaroship of the proletariat.

...
Well no becuase as I explained - what Im talking about bears no relation to the Stalinist idea of socialism in one country...

Except for the fact that you believe in socialism in one country, you mean?

You need to explain why what you believe is different to what Stalin believed. The difference has to be more than 'in my scheme, people in different countries will believe it too'.

... Capitalism would be surrpressed in one part of the world and this would be rapidly followed by other parts of the world becuase the world as a whole would more or less at the point of being ready for socialism. That is the vital difference you are ignoring..

No, that's what I'm counting on. The world revolution by necessity should be a rapid affair, the faster the better. But it's the job as is started last that takes the longest to finish. Making a start could encourage others. Not making a start until everyone is ready means never making a start.

...And again also I refer you to the irony of your position in which you rejected as absurd the idea of simultaneous worldwide revolution ...

You're pissing me off now Robbo. For the fourth I think it is time, I reject as absurd the idea of simultaneous worldwide elections. I support world revolution. It would be better if that revolutionary process took place in a short time.

...Your scenario actually requires this becuase you are saying in effect that the working class has first to capture power everywhere and then collectively as a worldwide class introduce socialism - simultaneously...

Yes.

...

I understand the distinction you are alluding to here but still there is more than a touch oif irony about your position. And I might add when you say socialism will be simultaneously introduced across the world do you not suppose by this by some "event" - some symboilocal act of sorts? Perhaps a special session at the United Nations at which the coordinated changeover to a socialist world "siumultaneously" can be annonced to the world with all the due pomp and ceremony this would occasion?...

The decree is not as important as actually taking over the means of production and running them for the benefit of humanity. See, actions v pieces of paper above.

...

Byut what are these historical conditions? . More and more, the world is becoming an intergrated and interconnected place to live in. Coming from South Africa I have had the oppirtunity and privilege to communicate with comrades from various parts of Africa. They are revolutionary socialists in the full sense that you and I would appreciate - if not everyone else on this forum - in places as far apart as Swaziland and Nigeria. If anything, I would suggest that developments in modern telecommunications is in iself going to ensure a much more even or balanced growth in socialist consciousness quite apart from any proactive inputs from an organised global socialist movement to ensure this happens ...

I certainly hope so.

...

Sorry but I just cannot accept this idea of seeking to 'develop' class consciousness "goes back to the mistaken Leninist notion that class consciousness comes from outside the working class". Thats absurd. Im a worker. I am a member of the working class. I try as much as possible to encourage my fellow workers to develop a sense of class consciousness. Im not adopting a position that puts me outside the working class at all. Presenting ideas is what we need to do. This forum would have no purpose if that were not the case. You misconstrue what is meant by developing socialist conscoiusness. Its not some kind of idealistic process of osmosis by which through an incessant barrage of propaganda the worker becomes a revolutionary...

But that's how it comes across, as a purley theoretical excercise, and that's why i find some of your language about class consciousness depressing.

... Its a much more subtle and dialectical process than this. The worker experiences certain material conditions and seeks to make sense of this as we all do . Human beings are not so much tool making animals as meaning manufacturiing aninmals. This is what humans do, A stream of ideas flows past your individual worker . She picks up some of these ideas and rejects others for the time being but material circumstances can lead to a state of "cognitive dissonance that causes her to rethink her position. The point of socialist propaganda is simply to put those ideas within earshot or eyeshot to enable her to at least look at things from a socialist point of view. There is no guarantee that she will do so...

No, I agree, all this is fine. it's much more active than some others of your formulations.

...
No of course I dont believe this. I cannot imagine how you arrived at this conclusion. My position is that when the working class captures power in one country is abolishes capitalism forthwith and its own existence as a class...

So there can be socialism in one country?

...Along with thatm the state goes as well since the state is only an instrument of class rule and here we are no longer talking of classes...

Unfortunately having given a stiring paragraph earlier about the interconnectedness of all things, or least states and economies, you seem now to believe that a national economy can insulate itself against world capitalism. Even if you could somehow abolish classes in one place (even though there are classes and property in other places, so if our 'free' worker goes to another state where there is property he ceases to be a free citizen and becomes a class-bound-property-bound proletarian again) you haven't abolished property and class, because there is till property and classes. Just not nearby.

...As explained, I reject completely the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat. I know very well its not socialism but I dont suppoirt the idea in any case. If there is a transitional period it will be one that happens before the act of capturing political power and when workers are becoming socialist minded. There is absolutely no need for a transitonal period after the capture of political power and even to suggest that is to imply that the preconditions of socialism had not yet been met- namely mass socialist consciousness..

But this does mean that you've abandoned talking about Marxism I'm afraid. I rather think the rest of us were concluding that we were talking about Marxism.

...
But hold on here you just said earlier and I quote:

There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last
Now you are saying

Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism, we have best attenuated capitalism[/i]

Do I infer from this that you saying collectivised property = socialism and that when the working class fi=rst comes to power on a socialist mandate property will be collectivised and thus socialism introduced even if there are other parts of the world that are still capitalist but in imminant danger of turning socialist? That is my position that you seem to be nicking here:)

...
No. Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism. Wherever property is collectivised first, we don't have socialism because not all property has been collectivised. I don't see what the problem is here? How can a socialist party in Belgium or some revolutionary workers in Chile colectivise property in Taiwan or Mozambique, if the working class or the socialists have not taken power there? 'all property' means all property. Worldwide.

...
Well again you see this doesnt make much sense. How can you have collectivised property and still retain wage labour and commosdity production (albeit stripped of as many aspect of this as possible - whetever that means?). How can you have a proletariat with a capitalist class which must mean therefore the absence of collectivised property. There are just too many things about your whole approach that just do not add up
...

After the expropriation of the local capitalists there will still be external capitalists and some supporters of local capitalism who want their property back. The working class will have to deal with this. You think that the 'socialist nations' will be trading with the capitalists for god's sake. How is this not capitalism? How is it not the situation in the 1920s and 30s? The proletariat must organise its own state in the places where it has seized power first. The state is there to deal with the capitalist-restorationists, and if necessary to deal with external threats. Now, at this point whether the proletariat controls this state or whether some party controls the state, it doesn't alter the fact that it's a state.

...
No its not "socialism in one country" or anythying remotely like that particular Stalinist doctrine and for another reason too - that we are no longer talking about a "country" by which I assume you mean a society with a state
...

How not? It has a territory and it doesn't have other territory, it has an economy and a population and for want of a better term a government. It even has 'men armed in defence of property relations' because there will be men armed to prevent capitalists and wreckers from destroying the means of production... that's a state.

...

Well perhaps we have reached an agreement of sorts on one thing - that The 'establishment of socialism' is an 'event' in the sense that it has a specific point-in-time attached to the formal moment of 'now there is no more property anywhere. This is what I mean by revolution being both a process and event - not just a process...

That's like saying that a cigarette is sex, though. I think the important bit is what happens before the cigarette.

...Ther only thingI would add to that is that fundamentally a revolution has to be judged by its outcome not its intentions or even by the class character of its participants. The outcome is THE all important defining characteristc of a revolution. The Bolshevik revolution was overwhelmingly carried out by workers but the outcome was a system of state run capitalism. Mant people on this forum - particularly the Leninists - cant seem to see how this is possible but it is entirely possible as old Charlie Marx himself explained

If the proletariat destroys the political rule of the bourgeosie, that will only be a temporary victory, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in 1794, so long as in the course of history, in its movement, the material conditions are not yet created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and thus the definitive overthrow of bourgeois political rule ("Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality", 1847 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm).

And the material conditions were that the revolution failed to spread. without that there was no possibility of socialism in the C20th. If it had, there would have been.

It was the failure of the revolution to spread, not the ideas the Bolsheviks had about state power, that caused the failure of the revolution. One of the causes of that failure to extend was the low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia. But the failure was not entirely due to conciousness... because 'consciousness doesn't make a revolution'.

Peoples' War

1st September 2012, 22:37

Well you will have to take that up with Lev Bronsteinovich. It was his claim that I was responding to "I think you hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks because they actually made a revolution that overthrew capitalism".If he does think it was the Bolsheviks, and not the workers with the Bolsheviks at the lead, he is wrong.

In any event neither the Bolsheviks nor the Russian workers "overthrew capitalism " as you both foolishly claim.They overthrew the capitalist order...I don't claim they had eliminated the capitalist mode of production.

Even your hero , Mr Lenin, did not think that. Are you seriously trying to suggest that the system of generalised wage labour and commodity production was brought to an end in Russia in 1917?
Lenin isn't my "hero".

Anyways, I keep mentioning the transition economy, something you have been ignoring. Transition suggests a change over time, from one system to the other. Meaning, in the beginning, will be a form of capitalism, and through nationalizing -- so long as the state is controlled by the working class -- and other methods, phasing out the capitalist mode, and phasing in the socialist mode of production.

Perhaps my good mate Karl can help you out...

Karl Marx says: "Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other..." Transition economy.

You know, transformation...from the Latin word meaning to change, alter. Period, from the Latin meaning era, frame of time, an age.

He goes on to say: "...Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Expression of the political rule of the proletariat.

So, now that we have that out of the way, let's check out what Karl has to say about the first phase of communism (I won't say lower phase, or socialism...wouldn't want semantics to cause you to doubt my Marxism).

Marx says: "What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes."

Whoa, this is taking about the lower phase, not the DOTP and the transition economy! Think about that a minute, okay mate?

Except that Marxists dont make that distinction. For Marxists, "socialism" is just another word for "communism". It was lenin who made this distinction, identiying socialism with the lower phase of communism.Seriously, you have your nickers in a twist over semantics. That's all it is. Semantics. Using the word socialism different than Marx, does not mean one is not a Marxist, as you suggest.

Not only that Lenin then went on to contradict himself by providing yet another made-up definition of socialism. In The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,(1917) we now seem him arguing that "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly"
Hardly compatible with the "lower phase" of (stateless) comunism/socialism, is it now?Oh, it's THIS quote again...

Here's Lenin's own response, in "Left Wing Childishness": http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm

Read it. I urge anyone else reading this debate to read it as well.

Go to the link provided in my previous post responding to Blakes Baby. There are plenty of references to reports of Party congresses which clearly show the Party's attachment to a "minimum programme". If you dont know what that means, it is a direct reference to a programe of reforms which the German SDP - the flagship of the Second International - which programme was supposed to exist alongside the "maximum programme" of socialist transformation. In Germany the maximum programme was inevitably crowded out and abandoned. Exactly the same thing happened in the RussiaI'll reference Rosa Luxemburg here:

"Can the Social-Democracy be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim."

Fighting for real reforms is the method to educating, awakening the class conscious, and proving to the workers they can change things. It is a part of the revolutionary struggle for socialism.

It isn't some Bernsteinism, as you are suggesting.

If you agree there was no socialism in Russia then by implication you accept there was capitalism there. The so called Dictorrship of the Proletariat is NOT a mode of production; it is a political arrangement.Yes, I know.

I have my criticisms of the vey concept of the DOTP and believe Marx erred badly in coming up with this daft idea, but one thing is clear: the very existence of a proletariat presupposes the existence of a capitalist class and hence capitalism. Yet you claimed that capitalism has been "overthrown" So...Lenin isn't a Marxist because he uses a word differently...but you are a revisionist...:thumbup:

Anyways, as I said, the CAPITALIST ORDER was overthrown. That's how revolution works. That's what the DOTP and transition economy is all about.

Ive dealt with argument before. If the vanguard seizes power supposedly on on behalf of the majority it will, by default, have to administer capitalism. In administering capitalism it will necessarily come to side with the interests of capital against those of wage labour since there is no other way in which capitalism can be administered.The vanguard seized the power on behalf of the proletariat, technically...however, that power was in the hands, not of the Bolsheviks, but the workers who had chosen the Bolsheviks to lead them.

Therefore, and quite logically, the vanguard theory of revolution is a recipe for ensurring the perpetuation of capitalism . Exactly what happened in the case of the Soviet Union where the Vanguard transmuted into the new rulling state capitalist class that opppressed the workers and installed its own dictatorship over the proletariatFirst, you ahve no idea what Lenin's concept of a vanguard is.

Second, have you heard of the term "material conditions"?

Instead of grunting away like some semi-literate buffoon - "OY FUCKING VEY" (WTF is that by the way?)It's Yiddish...it's an expression of annoyance...means "oh, pain".

- perhaps you might care to take your own advice and put what I said in context. I wasnt saying Lenin was suggesting state capitalism would be "complete success". Though he did indeed twist the meaning of the word socialism by identitying it with state capitalism, as we have seen. there is evidence that he also reverted at times to the old Marxian definition of socialism as a synonym for communism. This comes out in the Interview with Ransome towards the end of Lenin's life when I think Lenin was beginning to realise that the Bolsheviks had for it badly wrong (see also his Testament). Lenin used socialism to refer to the movement as, as did most other Marxists. I'm not so sure of him using it in that way at the end of his life.

I have never doubted that probably a lot of the old Bolsheviks emotionally identified with the abstract goal of a communist socialist society. However the strategy they used proved in the end to be an absolute diaster from that point of view and was to culminate in the overthrew of the decrepit old soviet command economy model for running capitalism by the the very heirs of Lenin's glorious vanguard Party who opted for economic liberalisation amnd market reforms.Let's compeltely ignore material conditions...you know...the way any real Marxist would! :rolleyes:

The isolation of Soviet Russia, as a result of the failed German reovlution, meant the demise of the Russian Revolution. Lenin himself exclaimed this.

I could list a lot of other things, but again, I'll refer to Luxemburg to shorten it up:

" It would be demanding something superhuman from Lenin and his comrades if we should expect of them that under such circumstances they should conjure forth the finest democracy, the most exemplary dictatorship of the proletariat and a flourishing socialist economy. By their determined revolutionary stand, their exemplary strength in action, and their unbreakable loyalty to international socialism, they have contributed whatever could possibly be contributed under such devilishly hard conditions."

Some people here just dont want to learn from the lessons of history that are staring them in the face and, as somebody said, if you dont learn from history you are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The so called state capitalist road to socialism we now know is a complete dead end - a historical cul de sac. There can be no way of reaching socialism via nationalising the "commanding heights of the economy" and all that sort of crap. ...Oy vey.

See above.

We now need to move on from endlessly repeating the same tired old dogmas and shibboleths of a political paradigm that has comprehensively failed - Leninism - and look at the world with fresh eyesSee above........

robbo203

4th September 2012, 09:36

Though I'd argue that they thought that the state capitalist programme was a short-cut to socialism. Most of the Second International did, Engels' warnings notwithstanding..

Yeah I know. And with the benefit of hindsight we can say that it was a disastrous error. There is no road to socialism via state capitalism. From that point of view, state capitalism is a proven failure

'Asserting it' may be a decree. Making it a reality is a process. Which is more important, for marxists? The actual practice of real people, or a legally-issued piece of paper?

Obviously the actual practice of real people is the more important but that does NOT invalidate the need for some kind of conscious enactment or decree to coordinate the changeover. How else do you think it is going to happen? We are talking here simply of the mechanics of revolution

More than this; again and again you seem to have the mechanistic concept of consciousness where it it is a kind of enlightement that is delivered from outside the real lived experience of the working class.

We decisively re-shape the world, and we decisively re-shape ourselves in the process.

Yes and that is fully compatible with what I am saying. Thats precisely why I have been saying abstract propaganda is not enough . If you think I entertain a "mechanistic concept of consciousness" then. Im afraid, you dont understand what I am saying at all. A "mechanistic concept of consciousness" is one that would assert ideas arise automatically out of material conditions. Thats not my viewat all though it may well be the view of those who hold, say. that socialism can only emerge out of some severe economic crisis.

I don't think decrees are as important as actions. If the workers are taking over the factories and running them for the benefit of the population at large, that is more important than decrees.

But this is all a bit vague, isnt it? The point is how does one get to the point where "workers are taking over the factories and running them for the benefit of the population at large". Production today is a socially intergrated process. I see that a little futher on in this post of yours you are still plugging the same old argument that what I am advocating is "socialism in one country". Ill deal with that point when I reach it but, for the moment, apply the logic of your argument in that case to what you are saying here. If you cant have socialism in one country then you sure as hell can't have socialism in one factory. And before you jump on me -yes I know thats not what you are saying. Nevertheless. despite suggesting that capitalism will continue until socialism has been declared on a worldwide basis you still neverthless think that the workers can run the factories "for the benefit of the population at large". How so? Are you suggesting here that capitalism can be run on some other basis than in interests of capital and against wage labour? What does" for the benefit of the population at large" actually mean? That aside, if you want to get the factories to be "run for the benefit of the people generally" then you need some way in which to coordinate the changeover across the whole spectrum of production units . Doing it one factory at a time would simply result in that factory going insolvent under the laws of capitalist competition

Process not event. That's why I said 'and expect it to stick'. The proletariat can announce the abolition of property as many times as it likes, if it doesn't actually go and occupy the workplaces and then run them for the benefit of humanty then nothing has changed. Even if they do, if they are isolated in one mine or one country, capitalism will assert itself again, the 'doing away with property' that I mention 'will not stick'. The expropriation of capitalism is a time-dependent process; capitalism will re-assert itself from outside if capitalism elsewhere is not continually being compromised by revolutions elsewhere.

This is precisely why you need to see revolutiuon as BOTH a process and a event. Unless you have some kind of coordinated changeover that is industry-wide you are stuck in a situation in which you would not know what next to do. I could very easily see this kind of anarcho-syndicalist scenario of yours degenerating into a sort of worker-capitalism in which production units relate to each other capitalistically, each fearful of the taking the next step and converting to production directly for use. There has to be a general understanding of where this whole movement is taking you and a cut off point - "an event" - at which we changeover from private property to collective property.

Incidentally one of the problems with the Factory Committees in post-revolutionary Russia was precisely that. Not that I am sugggesting they wanted to abandon the wage labour - capital relationship - they were much more interested in things like job security - but there was some concern within the FC movement about the reliability of input supplies to keep the factories ticking over and this expressed itself in the desire for wider spatial coordination. Ironically it was the FCs themselves - certainly the Bolshevik elements within them - that supported greater state involvement in a macro-economic planning sense. And of course we know what happened after that when the state did get more involved and what became of the FCs subsequently. Paul Blewer who I quoted earlier has written some interesting stuff about that.

The process must start somewhere. If it does not continue and expand, it will go backwards. It must expand to constantly challenge capitalism until either capitalism is victrious (the revolution is defeated, as happened in the early C20th) or socialism is victorious and capitalism is defeated. It has a dynamic quality... because it's a process.

Of course . But it also has to entail, to use our shorthand term, what we call an "event". A radical rupture . This is not a black-or-white thing

So you do believe in socialism in one country. Just not in Russia in 1925. sorry, no, I don't believe it. Even if there are socialists in other countries, socialism is impossible in one country. The other countries need to have their revolutions too.

Here we go again. As explained previously what Im talking about bears no relation to the "Socialism in one country" idea of the Stalinists. Ive been accused of ignoring context by someone else but I think that charge is applicable in your case. Your are ignoring completely the context in which I am putting forward my suggestions.

What I am talking about presupposes something which is simply not presupposed in the stalinist model at all - namely the significant growth of socialist consciousness everywhere. This is absolutely crucial but you keep on ignoring this difference. If hypothetically there was a socialist majority in one country and virtually no socialists anywhere else then you might just have a point . But thats not what I am conjecturing. I am conjecturing on what ,I think, are quite strong grounds that this is simply not likely to happen. If the socialist movement is strong in one part of the world it is almost certainly going to be quite strong elsewhere. The world is a global village in which ideas spread like wildfire. A herder on steppes of Mongolia will be able to tell you what happened at the big London demonstration yesterday with the technology that we have today. The socialist movement itself organised on a global basis will likewise be able to funnel resources to those parts of the world where socialist consciousness is lagging. It certainly has every interest in ensuring the most balanced growth possible of the movement worldwide

None of this seems to register with you. You continue to focus on this narrow Stalinistic idea of "socialism in one country" - notwithstanding that what the Stalinists call socialism is actually state capitalism - another equally important reason why there is simply no comparison between what the Stalinists are saying and what I am saying. From the standpoint of Stalinist theory there is no essential need for a so-called socialist country to concern itself with the state of socialist consciousness elsewhere in the world. The whole idea is that it can go it alone. The Stalinists state capitalist agenda is nationalistically focussed on the particular national unit over which they have assumed control. There is a world of difference between this and what I am arguing for. What I am talking about is a shortlived period in between the socialist revolution first suceeding in one part of the world and its eventual worldwide success and this does indeed depend very much on a socialist consciousness being being widespread everywhere

So, what you are saying here is, if there was a peaceful revolution, the revolution would be peaceful?

I certainly consider that a peaceful revolution is far preferable to one that is not . Dont you? I think that the stronger the movement for socialism becomes the more likely it is that a peaceful revolution will happen since that very movement itself is predicated on a social environment in which democratic values are steadily gaining ground. Two fundamentally opposed outlooks cannot both thrive in the same soil . I hold that anti democratic ideas will weaken and wither as socialist ideas spread and that in the twilight years of capitalism the character of the political opposition that socialists will face will be markedly different from what they confront today. This opposition will be increasingly boxed in and constrained by the changing social environment and by the spread of democratic libertarian social values conduicive to socialism itself Increasingly, it will be the socialist movement that will be calling the shots and increasingly political debate will have to be conducted on terms set by the movement itself . That will, I believe, have a profoundly selective effect on the kind of political opponents it is likely to encounter.

I can well envisage a situation in which, for example, extreme fascistic ideas would be driven to near extinction. Most likely, the residual capitalist states in this end game scenario will be run along social-democratic lines by capitalist governments with little conviction or enthusiam for what they are doing. We might even see a return to the situation ex post ante when social democratic parties of the Second International advanced both a minimim and maximum programme (the latter of course they completely abandoned when they transmuted into unequivocally pro-capitalist and fully reformist parties) This time round, however, the socialist movement will not be bought off by the minimum programme which is what happened the first time round. Socialists will not be supporting the Social Democrats - most likely the last bastion of capitalist support left - but the Social Democrats will be making every effort to buy off the former with increasingly generous reforms . That at any rate is my opinion. The risk of violent suppresion by the capitalist state is greatest now is pretty weak - not when the socialist movement is numbered by the millions and when the writing is already on the wall. By then it will be far too late for the capitalist state to do anything about the situation

Of course , I dont rule out the possibility of some violence but I do emphatically believe that socialists should operate neverthless on the basis of democratrc orgnisation and with the clear intention of bringing about socialism democratically. That rules out violence as a deliberate strategy almost by definition. The end and the means should always be in harmony. Only romantic fools can seriously believe that a decent society can be brought about by armed force. It would be suicidal to take on the might of the state by force but even if by some remote chance you suceeded, the society that you would have achieved would not have been one worth fighting for. The authoritarianisn and vanguardism that such a strategy is predicated upon will be reflected in the structure of the society it has created

Because then commodity production (to trade with the capitalists) exists in the 'socialist bloc'. That's capitalism.

No its not. Barter exchange is NOT capitalist. Where do you get this idea from? This is the sort of nonsense that Adam Smith and his followers came out with - see his reference to the himakind's supposed propensity to truck, trade and barter - to universalise capitalist economic categories and thus capitalism

The Soviet Union wasn't socialist!

Sometimes I really can't see what your argument with the Leninists is here Robbo.

Because to be quite honest , you are not really attending to what Im saying at all, Blake's Baby. You are simply insinuating into your arguments what is really quite a complete caricature of my position. I know the Soviet Union wasnt socialist!!! Jesus Christ, you of all people do not need to tell me that. Ive been banging on about the Soviet Union being state capitalist for ...well .. about as long as Ive been on Revleft and actually a lot longer than that.

I was talking specifically about the EXTERNAL trading relations between COMECOM countries and other capitalists states in the post war era when the state capitalist countries were opening up to global trade and becoming more and more amenable to joint venture projects with western companies like Coca Cola. Barter deals just happened to be convenient at the time. Of course, the parties involved in these barter transactions were capitalist but the actual practice of barter itself is not essentially capitalist.

Actually I did not have to use the example of state capitalist countries to illustrate this point . I could have just as easily illustrated my argument by reference to some anthropological text - like Malinowski's classic work Argonauts of the Western Pacfic In that book Malinowski looked at a particular institution called the Kula ring whereby, if I recall correctly, two different kinds of shells circulated in opposite directions around a group of islands called the Trobriand islands. These had purely symbolic significance - to cement a sense of solidarity between these widely scattered islands. It would be deemed offensive to haggle over a Kula shell, that is something that you only did in the case of barter or "Gimwali" trade.

However, the fact that Trobrianders practiced Gimwali trade too in no way signifies the existence of capitalism. It would be luduicorous to call Trobiand society a capitalist society. In fact gimwali long predated the Trobianders encounter with capitalism . The point is that inter-group relations does not have to be the same as intra-group relations. In primitive communistic societies of hunter-gatherer bands there is evidence of trade in such things as red ochre (for decorative and painting purposes) and obsidian (for tool making) going back possibly tens of thousands of years but that does not invalidate the general description of them being essentially organised on a communistic sharing basis

I disagree about 2 things here;
1 - the static conception of class consciousness which denies that changed events can themselves be a spur to development of class consciousness - the Russian revolution itself was a massive boost to class consciousness across th world;
2 - that it was 'obvious' that there was no 'mass socialist conciousness to a greater or lesser extent'; certainly the world revolution failed to happen, but I think this was the result of many many factors - the seperation of revolutionaries caused by the war, the weight of bourgeois ideology, the betrayal of the workers' movement by social democracy, even the sectarianism of the parties like the SPGB who gave up on the workers' movement in the early C20th.

I certainly dont deny that the Russian revolution was, as you say, a massive boost to class consciousness at the time - although I would equally claim that the eventual outcome of that (capitalist) revolution in the form of Soviet state capitalism probably more than any single factor exerted a masive dampening effect on the development of class consciousness subsequently - and not just in the sense that it lead to the crushing the workers movement internally within Russia itself but also in its international repercussions and, above all, by its dragging of the good name of socialism through the mud by associating it with state tyrnanny. You cant run a capitalist state effectively on the basis of a class conscious working class and the Bolsheviks having first cycnically harnessed the class consciousness of the Russian workers for their own ends were instrumental in stifling it

However, class consciosness is NOT the same thing as socialist consciousness and this is where, with respect, it is you - not me - who is seemingly adopting a particularly mechanistic and reductionist perspective on the matter. Class consciousness is a necessary, but NOT a sufficient, condition for socialist consciousness.

You say you "disagree"that there was no mass socialist consciousness at the time of the Russian Revolution and then proceed to demonstrate precisely why there was no such thing and could not have been such a thing. The separation of revolutionaries caused by the war, for example, is I presume (although I might misunderatnd your meaning here) an allusion to the fact that the various social democratic parties went their separate ways to fight for their respective capitalist countries in the First World War. All I can say to that is that that in itself is clear proof of the lack of socialist consciousness if so called revolutionaries could align themselves with interests of the capitalist masters. No genuine socialist would think twice about refusing to fight in such a war. Here we are talking about the so called socialist revolutionaries who you would think would know better. I say nothing of the mass of workers who did not think of themselves as revolutionaries at all and whose patriotic values and attachment to their capitalist state were all too evident. Critical though I am of the SPGB in certain respects that is one thing cannot take away from them. They were completely principled in opposiing all of capitalism's wars.

But merely being opposed to the war is not enough to imply socialist consciousness either. There are plenty of non socialist pacifists adter all. You speak of the "betrayal of the workers' movement by social democracy" . That speaks volumes too - that millions upon millions of workers thoughout Europe put their trust in social democratic parties precisely because they were attracted by the reformist programmes offered by these parties and not becuase of some vague reference tucked away somewhere inside their Manifesto about eventually introducing "socialism" in the fullness of time. Thats NOT what interested the workers;rather what interested them was was the reforms these Social Democratic Parties promised to deliver. Of course it was inevitable that the workers were going to be "betrayed" by these parties who goal after all was to administer capitalism supposedly in the interests of the bworkers. That simply cannot happen. Capitalism can only be operated in the interestes of capital, not wage labour. Exactly the same argument applies to the Bolsheviks and you have already agreed that their programme too was essentially a reformist programme for running capitalism. Point being that the fact the workers put themselves in a position in which they could be betrayed by the various social democratic reformist parties precisely illustrates the lack of mass socialist consciousness

You're pissing me off now Robbo. For the fourth I think it is time, I reject as absurd the idea of simultaneous worldwide elections. I support world revolution. It would be better if that revolutionary process took place in a short time.

Look, calm down, will you? I know very well you reject the simulteneous world wide "elections" and I wasnt actually imputing such a view to you anyway if you read carefully what I said. The "irony" I refered to has to do with the simultaneous worldwide nature of changeover to socialism - not the means by which it is to be accomplished (in this case, elections). But since youve introduced the subject of elections and declared your opposition to the very idea, how precisely do you yourself propose that the working class first to capture power everywhere and then collectively as a worldwide class introduce socialism - simultaneously?

If you reject elections (and though you cite Marx and Engels in support your position in other respects , they did not reject out of hand the possibility of using peaceful parliamentary means to effect a revolution ) how are you going to capture the state? Anarchist at least take the view that we should simply bypass the state (though I do not think that is possible or advisable) but in your case you seem to be suggesting that state needs to be caputured. But how? Or maybe you are not saying that Maybe by "capturing power" you mean something else. Maybe you think real power lies somewhere else than the state and is based perhaps on the capitalist ownerhsip of industry . Whatever the case, you can be sure of one thing - that a direct frontal assault on the capitalists by workers simply taking over the means of production - anarchosyndicalism - is inevitably going to draw the state into the dispute armed with all the power at its disposal. For better from that point of viuew to first capture the state and neutralise it and so leave the capitalists without any means to defend thier property rights and, more to the point, without any kind of social legitimacy they can appeal to which is precisely what the electoral approach will deprive them of and more effectively than any other method I can think of. It is the achilles heel of capitalism. To the extent that capitalist parties are bound to the electoral procuss, to that extent are they bound to accept the unequivocal decision of the poplulation to abolish class ownership of the means of production. and to that extent do you deprive them of any justification of standing in the way of what the population at large has decided

The decree is not as important as actually taking over the means of production and running them for the benefit of humanity. See, actions v pieces of paper above.

Not as important but still important - yes?

Unfortunately having given a stiring paragraph earlier about the interconnectedness of all things, or least states and economies, you seem now to believe that a national economy can insulate itself against world capitalism. Even if you could somehow abolish classes in one place (even though there are classes and property in other places, so if our 'free' worker goes to another state where there is property he ceases to be a free citizen and becomes a class-bound-property-bound proletarian again) you haven't abolished property and class, because there is till property and classes. Just not nearby.

It depends - doesnt it? - on what you mean by a " national economy insulating against world capitalism". I find the expression "national economy" highly misleading with its suggestion of the continuation of a nation state and would prefer to use some other expression such as " incipient socialist region" ( in the absence of something a little snappier). In any event, I am not arguing that such an incipent socialist region should insulate itself from residual capitalism (it would no longer strictly speaking be "world capitalism" since part of the world at this point in time would no longer be capitalist)

For one thing, Ive already point out that there would need to be some form of bridging arrangement with these captalist states - most likely in the form of barter deals. These deals would cover those finished goods or factor inputs that for one or other reason were not available within the incipient socialist region . Within the region itself, however, the means of production would be commonly owned and wage labour and commodity production would cease to exist. There would be no more proletariat and no more capitalist class. I see no compelling reason whatsoever why this should be the case. All your argument seems to amount to is that because certain goods might not be available within such a region it would be compelled to engage in barter trade with residual capitalist states and this would make such a society "capitalist". But we have already established that engaging in barter externally does not have any bearing on the nature of the internal relationships that of a given social formation and that hunter gatherer groups can engage in barter just as much as capitalist states can. The Soviet Union was emphatically not capitalist becuase it engaged in fereign trade with capitalist state. as some Trots nonsensically argue - the tail that wagged the dog argument. The Soviet Union was capitalist becuase it was internally organised along capitalist lines and becuase of the fact of generalised wage labour operating withinit

You dont seem to have amy substantive counter argument to offer preferring it seems to me to fall back on a rather formulaic dogma that you can't have socialisn unless it is worldwide. But why? Saying in effect "well you just can't" which is what you are doing, is completely inadequate. Of course, I dont deny socialism will in due course be worldwide and in short order once the ball gets rolling and capitalist state after capitalist state succumbs to socialism. But socialism has to start somewhere; its not going to to just suddenly appear throughout the world one fine morning and all at once. Thats just unrealistic

For another thing I think you are taking an unduly pessimistic approach in assuming that it is the socialist region that would have to insulate itself form residual capitalism. Has it not occured to you that it might be quite the other way round, It is residual capitalism that may, much more likely, want to to insulate itself from the fundamentally subversive presence of an effectively functioning socialist society just across its border. And the fact that more and more of its own citizens were aspiring to replace it with just such a society would mean it would be less and less able to do anything about limiting and containing this subversive influence both without or indeed within

But this does mean that you've abandoned talking about Marxism I'm afraid. I rather think the rest of us were concluding that we were talking about Marxism.

If Marxism requires that one must accept this dotty notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat then I will happily accept the charge that I am no Marxist. Its no skin of my nose, frankly. Ive always been eclectic in my approach to ideas anyway

I think what you are arguing for is a recipe for disaster and will almost certainly lead to the reinvigoration of capitalist relations of production and the effective spiking of the workers movement. I simnply cannot undertand this ritualistic reverence of some on the left for this idea of a proletarian dictatorship. I want to get rid of my status as a proletarian ASAP. Surely thats what should motivate any revolutionary. A proletarian is a slave - wage slave/. Who the fuck wants to remain a slave

You want the workers to "capture power"- whatever that means - and as well as that to retain classes and the state until such time as the entire world's working class have captured power and then togther you can all eliminate classes and the state in one single go. This is nuts, to be perfectly blunt. Absolute nuts.

We both know what will happen. The working class having supposedly captured power will be exercising that power in the context of what by your own admission will still clearly be a capitalist spociety . But capitalism can only be run in the interests of capital . Are you seriously suggesting here that the workers, having captured power, are willingly going to adminsiter this system against their very own interests? Fat chance of that happening. You talk about the Social Democrats having betrayed the workers movement . Well exactly the same thing will happen here. Those who dothe effective administering of this apparatus of power - the state - will pretty soon separate themselves from the class as a whole and if perchance the old class of capitalists has already been expropriated , these individuals will simply step into the shoes vacated by the erstwhile capitalists and will become themselves the new capitalist ruling class. That is as inevitable as night follows day. You cannot have capitalism without a capitalist class and you cannot have a capitalist class without this class owning and controlling the means of production to the exclusion of the majority

I firmly believe that this whole useless , utterly contradictory concept of the DOTP should be completely scrapped. Its a diversionary waste of time. The very idea that the slaves in a slave society can somehow dictate terms to their slaveowners while willingly remain slaves themselves is just so ludicrous as to beggar belief. Marx offered us many profound insights but this was not one of them. Nor only is the very concept inept, I believe that the very pursuit of this dogma in the snse of a revolutiuonary strategy is fraught with danger. It portends certain betrayal in the future and the substititution of the class by a party dictatorship over the class

No. Untill all property is collectivised we don't have socialism. Wherever property is collectivised first, we don't have socialism because not all property has been collectivised. I don't see what the problem is here? How can a socialist party in Belgium or some revolutionary workers in Chile colectivise property in Taiwan or Mozambique, if the working class or the socialists have not taken power there? 'all property' means all property. Worldwide.

This is way too simplistic . Like I said earlier, hunter-gatherer tribes trading obsidian or red ochre did not case to be examplars of a primitive communistic way of life . It is not necessary for literally all property throughout the world to be collectivised for you to have an effectively functioning socialist economy. Indeed some would argue that even within a capitalist society and at a sub-national level this may be possible and example that is often raised in this connection are some the anarchist rural communes in Spain during the the Civil War. Im not too sure about that but it does seem that free access to goods to a certain extent was practised and money was abolished internally

Aart from that, there is another problem with this argument - you said in an earlier post "There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last" But what does it mean to say property is collectivised? Are you saying that it is commonly owned? But how do you square this with the claim that this collectivised property is administed by the working class when the very point about a working class is that it is propertyless - does not own capital. If you collectivise porperty - that is making it the common proipperty of all - then ispo facto, surely, you remove the class relation, you abolish the working class. But you seem to think capitalism will continue under the DOTP. If so how can property be collectivised?

After the expropriation of the local capitalists there will still be external capitalists and some supporters of local capitalism who want their property back. The working class will have to deal with this. You think that the 'socialist nations' will be trading with the capitalists for god's sake. How is this not capitalism? How is it not the situation in the 1920s and 30s? The proletariat must organise its own state in the places where it has seized power first. The state is there to deal with the capitalist-restorationists, and if necessary to deal with external threats. Now, at this point whether the proletariat controls this state or whether some party controls the state, it doesn't alter the fact that it's a state.

How not? It has a territory and it doesn't have other territory, it has an economy and a population and for want of a better term a government. It even has 'men armed in defence of property relations' because there will be men armed to prevent capitalists and wreckers from destroying the means of production... that's a state.

Tribal societies have "men armed in defence of property relations" but that doesnt make them statist societies. What is completely missing from your view is the essential defining feature of a state - that it is tool of class rule . If you get rid of classes then ipso factop you get rid of the state. Thats does not mean organised violence might not still occur. Its just means that violence does not take the form of state violence. You might envision the eixstence of a proletariat and a state in your scenario but I certainly dont envisage these things existing in mine. In fact, i find it a little odd that you should even raise the spectre of how to deal with "capitalist-restorationists" in your scenario when, according to you, capitalism would not have been got rid of . It does not make a lot of sense want to "restore" something that still exists. Though it would make no sense to talk of capitalist restorationists in your scenario it would in mine but then I do not believe these so called capitalist restorationists would pose any kind of real threat. They would no longer possess the power or influence to change what the great majority has decided upon. They might grumble for a while but it would soon seem pointless

The same goes for the case of external threats. I dont believe enfeebled capitalism would at that point be in any position to summon up the necessary support and resolve to pose a threat to the expanding free socialist zones outside its borders when these residual capitalist states would themsleves be on the point of changing over to socialism and when public opinion would be solidly against any such kind of intervention

And the material conditions were that the revolution failed to spread. without that there was no possibility of socialism in the C20th. If it had, there would have been.

It was the failure of the revolution to spread, not the ideas the Bolsheviks had about state power, that caused the failure of the revolution. One of the causes of that failure to extend was the low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia. But the failure was not entirely due to conciousness... because 'consciousness doesn't make a revolution'.

There was no mandate for socialism to speak of among the Russian working class however class consciousness it might have been . This is the point you continulally fail to grasp. You talk about me having a "mechanisnistic view" of class consciousness but actually with respect it is YOU thatit is taking an incredibly mechanistic view of the matter if tyouy think class consciousness automatically expresses itself as an understanding of, and the desire for, a genuine socialist alternative to capitalism.

Not only that as Ive suggested earlier - whatever the level of class consciousness among the Russian workers it was bound to come up against the Bolsheviks own ideas about state power and their emerging syaye capitalist agenda. It was the Bolsheviks, I remind you, that emasculated the workers movement, imposed one man management on industry and crushed political oppsoition and yet somehow you seem to think that Bolsheviks ideas of state power had nothing to do with the failure of the revolution to spread. I find that quite incredible that you can even say such a thing. Quite the opposite was true.

I might add that even if the majority of Russian workers were socialist-minded the Russian woring class was only a tiny mineiuty of the population. That in itself would have ensured that there was no possiblity of a socialist revolution happening. By default it could only ever have been a capitalist revolution and far from this revolution revolution having failed, it succeeded spectacularly and the outcome was the system of soviet state capitalism.

The fact that the revolution was carried out by the workers does not make it any the less a capitalist revolution - to what extent was the the french bourgeois revolution carried out by the French bourgeoisie? Even among the Factory Committees there was considerable support for the state capitalist policy of nationalisation

Finally, you say one of the reason for failure of the revolutuon in Russia to extend outwards was the low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia . Well, now this is very odd becuase just a moment ago you declared your disagreement with my statement it was 'obvious' that there was no mass socialist consciousness throughout the world. So was there or wasnt there mass socialist consciousness according to you? And if there was, how come , according to you, there was a low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia. From what you have said before I would have thought from your point of view class consciousness was the same thing as socialist consciousness

Blake's Baby

4th September 2012, 18:36

Yeah I know. And with the benefit of hindsight we can say that it was a disastrous error. There is no road to socialism via state capitalism. From that point of view, state capitalism is a proven failure...

I'd agree with the first part, but not the second. I'd argue that it was the usurpation of state power by the Bolsheviks that was the problem, rather than the administration of state capitalism per se, as I can't see that there's any real alternative to the administration of state capitalism until such time as the creation of socialism can begin (after the worldwide suppression of capitalism). There is no national road to socialism so state capitalist measures (a la Bolsheviks) or 'socialist measures' (a la Robbo) would both be disatrous errors.

...
Obviously the actual practice of real people is the more important but that does NOT invalidate the need for some kind of conscious enactment or decree to coordinate the changeover. How else do you think it is going to happen? We are talking here simply of the mechanics of revolution...

I think it does invalidate the need for it. I won't stop you proclaiming the end of property, but I'm ot going to take any notice of you proclaiming it.

...
Yes and that is fully compatible with what I am saying. Thats precisely why I have been saying abstract propaganda is not enough . If you think I entertain a "mechanistic concept of consciousness" then. Im afraid, you dont understand what I am saying at all. A "mechanistic concept of consciousness" is one that would assert ideas arise automatically out of material conditions. Thats not my viewat all though it may well be the view of those who hold, say. that socialism can only emerge out of some severe economic crisis. ..

I obviously don't understand what you're saying. In a few places you suggest that the realtionship between actors and environment is a dialectical one; in other places (many more of them) you seem to suggest that consciousness is delivered as enlightenment and socialist theory is acquired as an intellectual process.

A 'mechanistic approach'? My criticism is that your explanation seems to indicate that it's propaganda that (mechanistically) creates consciousness. X-amount of applied propaganda will result in Y-amount of expanded consciousness.

I understand that you say this isn't what you're saying. However, it seems that while denying it, you're also saying it.

Do I think that socialism 'can only' (mechanistically) emerge from crisis? I think that socialism can only emerge from capitalism, and that capitalism is crisis; so maybe I do. But I don't think socialism is the only possible result of either capitalism or crisis.

But this is all a bit vague, isnt it? The point is how does one get to the point where "workers are taking over the factories and running them for the benefit of the population at large". Production today is a socially intergrated process. I see that a little futher on in this post of yours you are still plugging the same old argument that what I am advocating is "socialism in one country". Ill deal with that point when I reach it but, for the moment, apply the logic of your argument in that case to what you are saying here. If you cant have socialism in one country then you sure as hell can't have socialism in one factory. And before you jump on me -yes I know thats not what you are saying. Nevertheless. despite suggesting that capitalism will continue until socialism has been declared on a worldwide basis you still neverthless think that the workers can run the factories "for the benefit of the population at large". How so? Are you suggesting here that capitalism can be run on some other basis than in interests of capital and against wage labour? What does" for the benefit of the population at large" actually mean? That aside, if you want to get the factories to be "run for the benefit of the people generally" then you need some way in which to coordinate the changeover across the whole spectrum of production units . Doing it one factory at a time would simply result in that factory going insolvent under the laws of capitalist competition...

You're right, I'm not advocating 'socialism in one factory', because I don't see how it could be called socialism. A co-operative isn't socialism, a state-run industry isn't socialism; I don't even believe anarcho-syndicalism, if push comes to shove, is socialism.

Yes, there needs to be some co-ordination. But not by either the Bolsheviks or the SPGB. The working class itself needs to organise this through its factory committees and workers councils. I don't remember a 'party' taking power in the Commune, and I would argue that it is in fact the parties that are the problem in this part of the equation. Taking state power - which is what will set the framework for this co-ordination - must be the task of the working class not the party (either Bolshevik or SPGB).

...

This is precisely why you need to see revolutiuon as BOTH a process and a event. Unless you have some kind of coordinated changeover that is industry-wide you are stuck in a situation in which you would not know what next to do. I could very easily see this kind of anarcho-syndicalist scenario of yours degenerating into a sort of worker-capitalism in which production units relate to each other capitalistically, each fearful of the taking the next step and converting to production directly for use. There has to be a general understanding of where this whole movement is taking you and a cut off point - "an event" - at which we changeover from private property to collective property...

I can also see the possibility that individual units or even emergent combines seek to pursue sectional interests at the expense of others. It's a particular fear I have about anarcho-syndicalism; it's something that has to be combatted but I don't think it's as much of a threat as other potential errors (handing power to the parties, for instance).

I think that you can't talk about 'an event' in your scenario, however, unless you mean a single worldwide event (which is what I mean about socialism only becoming possible after a series of expropriations worldwide); if you mean a series of local events (which do not represent on the whole an earth-shattering rupture, because the first is just a local thing, the 2nd-212th are just things happening here that already happened somewhere else, and the 213th is just tidying up) then how is this different to my 'process'?

...Incidentally one of the problems with the Factory Committees in post-revolutionary Russia was precisely that. Not that I am sugggesting they wanted to abandon the wage labour - capital relationship - they were much more interested in things like job security - but there was some concern within the FC movement about the reliability of input supplies to keep the factories ticking over and this expressed itself in the desire for wider spatial coordination. Ironically it was the FCs themselves - certainly the Bolshevik elements within them - that supported greater state involvement in a macro-economic planning sense. And of course we know what happened after that when the state did get more involved and what became of the FCs subsequently. Paul Blewer who I quoted earlier has written some interesting stuff about that...

I agree that the co-ordination that the factory committees sought was to increase the reliability of supplies and such like. I also don't see it as a problem. The problem is that Bolshevik party, which 'should' (for a given value of 'should') have been acting as the proletariat's guard-dog against the state had fused itself with the state. The problem again is the notion of party-state fusion instead of the working class administering the state.

...

Of course . But it also has to entail, to use our shorthand term, what we call an "event". A radical rupture . This is not a black-or-white thing...

This I don't understand. I no longer even know if it's important. You're quite well aware that I refuse to see the necessity of a specific event being defined as 'the revolution'.

Here we go again. As explained previously what Im talking about bears no relation to the "Socialism in one country" idea of the Stalinists. Ive been accused of ignoring context by someone else but I think that charge is applicable in your case. Your are ignoring completely the context in which I am putting forward my suggestions...

Are you ignoring the part where I said that you don't disagree with 'socialism in one country', merely whether it was possible in Russia in 1925? You keep adding '...of the Stalinists' and '...as in Stalinist thought' and whatnot after parts where i haven't mentioned Stalinism at all.

You believe in socialism in one country. You do not believe that socialism in one country was possible in 1925. But you beleive that, in different circumstances, socialism in one country is possible.

...What I am talking about presupposes something which is simply not presupposed in the stalinist model at all - namely the significant growth of socialist consciousness everywhere. This is absolutely crucial but you keep on ignoring this difference. If hypothetically there was a socialist majority in one country and virtually no socialists anywhere else then you might just have a point . But thats not what I am conjecturing. I am conjecturing on what ,I think, are quite strong grounds that this is simply not likely to happen. If the socialist movement is strong in one part of the world it is almost certainly going to be quite strong elsewhere. The world is a global village in which ideas spread like wildfire. A herder on steppes of Mongolia will be able to tell you what happened at the big London demonstration yesterday with the technology that we have today. The socialist movement itself organised on a global basis will likewise be able to funnel resources to those parts of the world where socialist consciousness is lagging. It certainly has every interest in ensuring the most balanced growth possible of the movement worldwide...

OK, we live in a global village. This is why socialism in one country is impossible. You can't have socialism in one house in the global village.

I agree that the development of class consciousness (precisely because it is so dependant on the global situation, such as the economic crisis) is likely to be a global affair. But I also think that local conditions will hasten or retard that process.

...None of this seems to register with you. You continue to focus on this narrow Stalinistic idea of "socialism in one country" - notwithstanding that what the Stalinists call socialism is actually state capitalism - another equally important reason why there is simply no comparison between what the Stalinists are saying and what I am saying. From the standpoint of Stalinist theory there is no essential need for a so-called socialist country to concern itself with the state of socialist consciousness elsewhere in the world. The whole idea is that it can go it alone. The Stalinists state capitalist agenda is nationalistically focussed on the particular national unit over which they have assumed control. There is a world of difference between this and what I am arguing for. What I am talking about is a shortlived period in between the socialist revolution first suceeding in one part of the world and its eventual worldwide success and this does indeed depend very much on a socialist consciousness being being widespread everywhere...

So now you're arguing that you believe in real socialism in one country while the Stalinists only believe in fake socialism in one country. The Stalinists must have been right in one respect however - state capitalism is possible in one country. You're wrong however, socialism isn't.

People somewhere else wishing for something doesn't make it happen where you are. Otherwise praying would work. I find the idea ridiculous.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no problem with the last part of the paragraph (probably means I haven't understood it?). I agree that there will be a period between the working class seizing state power and control of the economy in one place and completing that takeover everywhere. I hope it will be shortlived, and agree that an important contributer to making it shortlived will be the level of class consciousness elsewhere.

I certainly consider that a peaceful revolution is far preferable to one that is not . Dont you? I think that the stronger the movement for socialism becomes the more likely it is that a peaceful revolution will happen since that very movement itself is predicated on a social environment in which democratic values are steadily gaining ground. Two fundamentally opposed outlooks cannot both thrive in the same soil . I hold that anti democratic ideas will weaken and wither as socialist ideas spread and that in the twilight years of capitalism the character of the political opposition that socialists will face will be markedly different from what they confront today. This opposition will be increasingly boxed in and constrained by the changing social environment and by the spread of democratic libertarian social values conduicive to socialism itself Increasingly, it will be the socialist movement that will be calling the shots and increasingly political debate will have to be conducted on terms set by the movement itself . That will, I believe, have a profoundly selective effect on the kind of political opponents it is likely to encounter...

I think that a peaceful revolution would be preferable to a violent one, but I also believe that falling from tall buildings and not dying is better than falling from tall buildings and being squished.

I also hope this are 'the twilight years of capitalism'.

Does the working class have the right to seize the state by force? I say yes.

...I can well envisage a situation in which, for example, extreme fascistic ideas would be driven to near extinction. Most likely, the residual capitalist states in this end game scenario will be run along social-democratic lines by capitalist governments with little conviction or enthusiam for what they are doing. We might even see a return to the situation ex post ante when social democratic parties of the Second International advanced both a minimim and maximum programme (the latter of course they completely abandoned when they transmuted into unequivocally pro-capitalist and fully reformist parties) This time round, however, the socialist movement will not be bought off by the minimum programme which is what happened the first time round. Socialists will not be supporting the Social Democrats - most likely the last bastion of capitalist support left - but the Social Democrats will be making every effort to buy off the former with increasingly generous reforms . That at any rate is my opinion. The risk of violent suppresion by the capitalist state is greatest now is pretty weak - not when the socialist movement is numbered by the millions and when the writing is already on the wall. By then it will be far too late for the capitalist state to do anything about the situation...

OK, but I wonder if we can last that long. Millions of people die every year because of capitalism, the environment is being destroyed, people's lives are being ruined. It may be that we have to act in less-than-ideal circumstances.

...Of course , I dont rule out the possibility of some violence but I do emphatically believe that socialists should operate neverthless on the basis of democratrc orgnisation and with the clear intention of bringing about socialism democratically. That rules out violence as a deliberate strategy almost by definition. The end and the means should always be in harmony. Only romantic fools can seriously believe that a decent society can be brought about by armed force. It would be suicidal to take on the might of the state by force but even if by some remote chance you suceeded, the society that you would have achieved would not have been one worth fighting for. The authoritarianisn and vanguardism that such a strategy is predicated upon will be reflected in the structure of the society it has created...

Only blind idiots can believe a decent society can be brought about in a shattered world. It would be suicidal to wait too long before the revolution. We may, democratically, the few million of you who are left, decide after the apocalypse that it would be better if you adopted a more sensible approach to the world and each other next time around, but even if by some remote chance you succeeded the society you might create among the ruins would not be worth the suffering we all undertook to acheive it.

We can all express end-of-the-world fantasies Robbo. Communism isn't a work of fiction; it's 'the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence'.

...
No its not. Barter exchange is NOT capitalist. Where do you get this idea from? This is the sort of nonsense that Adam Smith and his followers came out with - see his reference to the himakind's supposed propensity to truck, trade and barter - to universalise capitalist economic categories and thus capitalism...

I said commodity exchange. Where did yo get the idea that commodity exchange isn't capitalism? that's pretty much the definition of capitalism.

...
Because to be quite honest , you are not really attending to what Im saying at all, Blake's Baby. You are simply insinuating into your arguments what is really quite a complete caricature of my position. I know the Soviet Union wasnt socialist!!! Jesus Christ, you of all people do not need to tell me that. Ive been banging on about the Soviet Union being state capitalist for ...well .. about as long as Ive been on Revleft and actually a lot longer than that...

So, why can't you see that what you are advocating is pretty much what the Soviet Union was doing, only you call your version 'socialism' and their version 'state capitalism'? I agree that the Soviet Union had a state capitalist economy; what I don't understand is why you want to repeat some its most disastrous mistakes.

...I was talking specifically about the EXTERNAL trading relations between COMECOM countries and other capitalists states in the post war era when the state capitalist countries were opening up to global trade and becoming more and more amenable to joint venture projects with western companies like Coca Cola. Barter deals just happened to be convenient at the time. Of course, the parties involved in these barter transactions were capitalist but the actual practice of barter itself is not essentially capitalist. ...

Bordiga was talking about the external trading relations of the Soviet Union too, and it was these external trading relations (commodity production to trade with capitalists) that convinced Bordiga that the SU was capitalist.

...Actually I did not have to use the example of state capitalist countries to illustrate this point . I could have just as easily illustrated my argument by reference to some anthropological text - like Malinowski's classic work Argonauts of the Western Pacfic In that book Malinowski looked at a particular institution called the Kula ring whereby, if I recall correctly, two different kinds of shells circulated in opposite directions around a group of islands called the Trobriand islands. These had purely symbolic significance - to cement a sense of solidarity between these widely scattered islands. It would be deemed offensive to haggle over a Kula shell, that is something that you only did in the case of barter or "Gimwali" trade.

However, the fact that Trobrianders practiced Gimwali trade too in no way signifies the existence of capitalism. It would be luduicorous to call Trobiand society a capitalist society. In fact gimwali long predated the Trobianders encounter with capitalism . The point is that inter-group relations does not have to be the same as intra-group relations. In primitive communistic societies of hunter-gatherer bands there is evidence of trade in such things as red ochre (for decorative and painting purposes) and obsidian (for tool making) going back possibly tens of thousands of years but that does not invalidate the general description of them being essentially organised on a communistic sharing basis...

'Actually' there's no evidence as to whether distribution of obsidian etc was carried out by trade (and if so whether it was directional or 'down the line')' gifts (whether reciprocal or not) or any other method. I seem to remember from when I studied this in archaeology that there are 19 recognised methods of getting object A from location X to Location Y, only some of which involve 'trade'.

If you are advocating producing commodities to trade with capitalist nations, I'd follow Bordiga and argue that what you are doing is engaging in capitalist production. Capitalism produces capitalists, not the other way around, so watch out for the new state capitalist managerial class, it will be emerging in your Real Socialism In One Country State.

...
I certainly dont deny that the Russian revolution was, as you say, a massive boost to class consciousness at the time - although I would equally claim that the eventual outcome of that (capitalist) revolution in the form of Soviet state capitalism probably more than any single factor exerted a masive dampening effect on the development of class consciousness subsequently - and not just in the sense that it lead to the crushing the workers movement internally within Russia itself but also in its international repercussions and, above all, by its dragging of the good name of socialism through the mud by associating it with state tyrnanny. You cant run a capitalist state effectively on the basis of a class conscious working class and the Bolsheviks having first cycnically harnessed the class consciousness of the Russian workers for their own ends were instrumental in stifling it ...

There's little there I'd disagree with, except you impute a certain amount of agency and machiavellianism to the Bolsheviks that I wouldn't. I just think they were wrong about somethings, and sometimes just making policy up. You've argued that they were gaining popularity because they were anti-war and reformists, but also that they pretended not to be reformists. Why, if the workers were refotrmists too? who were the Bolshies trying to deceive? Why not be proudly reformist and become even more popular? Why, indeed, hide in Switzerland and refuse to take part in the ministries that succeeded the Tsar?

...
However, class consciosness is NOT the same thing as socialist consciousness and this is where, with respect, it is you - not me - who is seemingly adopting a particularly mechanistic and reductionist perspective on the matter. Class consciousness is a necessary, but NOT a sufficient, condition for socialist consciousness...

A couple of pages ago I tried to develop this idea.

I'd be interested to know what these distinctions are that you're making.

...You say you "disagree"that there was no mass socialist consciousness at the time of the Russian Revolution and then proceed to demonstrate precisely why there was no such thing and could not have been such a thing. The separation of revolutionaries caused by the war, for example, is I presume (although I might misunderatnd your meaning here) an allusion to the fact that the various social democratic parties went their separate ways to fight for their respective capitalist countries in the First World War. All I can say to that is that that in itself is clear proof of the lack of socialist consciousness if so called revolutionaries could align themselves with interests of the capitalist masters. No genuine socialist would think twice about refusing to fight in such a war. Here we are talking about the so called socialist revolutionaries who you would think would know better. I say nothing of the mass of workers who did not think of themselves as revolutionaries at all and whose patriotic values and attachment to their capitalist state were all too evident. Critical though I am of the SPGB in certain respects that is one thing cannot take away from them. They were completely principled in opposiing all of capitalism's wars...

I disagreed that there was, in your words, 'no mass socialist conciousness to a greater or lesser extent' which isn't the same thing, especially if one doesn't seperate class consciousness from socialist consciousness. I think there was undeniably a socialist consciousness among some workers, expressed in the positions of some parties, across the world. Most socialist parties had a 'left wing' that opposed the war, and in the case of the SPD etc there were both left-wing and centrist groups that opposed the war on different bases. In the UK for instance there was a left-wing of the BSP, and the the majority of both the SLP and the ILP, that opposed the war, as well as the SPGB, and those groups that moved towards Marxist positions like Pankhurst and the WSM. There were also parties and groups in Serbia, Italy, Germany, the USA, the Netherlands that opposed the war, many of them from the 2nd Int but not all; and a good many anarchists too (but again, not all).

The 'seperation' I was referring to was more to do with the different revolutionary groups and indeed groups of workers being unable to meet - it was difficult to organise the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences, some organisations were unable to attend (eg the British ones as their government would not give the British delegates visas, etc), travel was severely restricted and indeed a great many men were called up; if the closest you get to meeting fellow workers is trading shots at them over no-man's-land it's difficult to build a sense of class solidarity. However I've been doing a little research into conscientious objectors in the UK in WWI (some of whom were socialists and most religious) and there is some evidence for 'socialist consciousness' from this - the grafitti in Richmond castle that reads:

'There is no War worth fighting but the Class War. The Working Class of this Country have no quarrel with the Working Class of Germany or any other Country. Socialism stands for Internationalism. If the workers of all countries united & refused to fight, there would be no War'

is one; the story of the German POWs on a train in Northern France who passed some imprisoned conscientious objectors, and called out that 'the next time' they would refuse to fight against their fellow-workers as 'they were socialists too' is another.

However these were for the most part individual actions not class actions.

...'But merely being opposed to the war is not enough to imply socialist consciousness either. There are plenty of non socialist pacifists adter all. You speak of the "betrayal of the workers' movement by social democracy" . That speaks volumes too - that millions upon millions of workers thoughout Europe put their trust in social democratic parties precisely because they were attracted by the reformist programmes offered by these parties and not becuase of some vague reference tucked away somewhere inside their Manifesto about eventually introducing "socialism" in the fullness of time. Thats NOT what interested the workers;rather what interested them was was the reforms these Social Democratic Parties promised to deliver. Of course it was inevitable that the workers were going to be "betrayed" by these parties who goal after all was to administer capitalism supposedly in the interests of the bworkers. That simply cannot happen. Capitalism can only be operated in the interestes of capital, not wage labour. Exactly the same argument applies to the Bolsheviks and you have already agreed that their programme too was essentially a reformist programme for running capitalism. Point being that the fact the workers put themselves in a position in which they could be betrayed by the various social democratic reformist parties precisely illustrates the lack of mass socialist consciousness...

You seem to be ignoring the massively important fact that the Bolsheviks' programme was not 'essentially a reformist programme for running capitalism' on its own, but in fact was 'world revolution'. 'Running capitalism' was a policy that was intended to help the forward movement of society while the world revolution disposed of international capitalism. That didn't happen. If it had, we wouldn't even need to discuss this.

The Bolsheviks' strategy is meaningless if the worldwide seizure of power by the proleariat doesn't happen. It would make no more sense than the SPGB being elected in the UK but nowhere else.

...
Look, calm down, will you? I know very well you reject the simulteneous world wide "elections" and I wasnt actually imputing such a view to you anyway if you read carefully what I said. The "irony" I refered to has to do with the simultaneous worldwide nature of changeover to socialism - not the means by which it is to be accomplished (in this case, elections). But since youve introduced the subject of elections and declared your opposition to the very idea, how precisely do you yourself propose that the working class first to capture power everywhere and then collectively as a worldwide class introduce socialism - simultaneously?...

By the revolutionary seizure of the state and the economy.

...If you reject elections (and though you cite Marx and Engels in support your position in other respects , they did not reject out of hand the possibility of using peaceful parliamentary means to effect a revolution ) how are you going to capture the state? Anarchist at least take the view that we should simply bypass the state (though I do not think that is possible or advisable) but in your case you seem to be suggesting that state needs to be caputured. But how? Or maybe you are not saying that Maybe by "capturing power" you mean something else. Maybe you think real power lies somewhere else than the state and is based perhaps on the capitalist ownerhsip of industry . Whatever the case, you can be sure of one thing - that a direct frontal assault on the capitalists by workers simply taking over the means of production - anarchosyndicalism - is inevitably going to draw the state into the dispute armed with all the power at its disposal. For better from that point of viuew to first capture the state and neutralise it and so leave the capitalists without any means to defend thier property rights and, more to the point, without any kind of social legitimacy they can appeal to which is precisely what the electoral approach will deprive them of and more effectively than any other method I can think of. It is the achilles heel of capitalism. To the extent that capitalist parties are bound to the electoral procuss, to that extent are they bound to accept the unequivocal decision of the poplulation to abolish class ownership of the means of production. and to that extent do you deprive them of any justification of standing in the way of what the population at large has decided...

Seizing the mean of production is one part of it, establishing soviets is another part. You speak of 'legitimacy' but it is the soviets that are ultimate legimimate power. If you think that the state cannot annul elections it finds inconvient you don't know much about elections.

...
Not as important but still important - yes?
...

In my view, the 'decree' is not important at all. What is important is the actual progressive taking over of production, until the point that the entire world economy is in the hands of the proletariat. This is when we can begin to create a socialist society, and a decree from the World High Council For Socialist Niceness is neither here nor there. It's what people do that is more important than what they say they're doing.

...
It depends - doesnt it? - on what you mean by a " national economy insulating against world capitalism". I find the expression "national economy" highly misleading with its suggestion of the continuation of a nation state and would prefer to use some other expression such as " incipient socialist region" ( in the absence of something a little snappier). In any event, I am not arguing that such an incipent socialist region should insulate itself from residual capitalism (it would no longer strictly speaking be "world capitalism" since part of the world at this point in time would no longer be capitalist)
...

This just looks like semantic games. Was the SU an 'incipient socialist region'? No it was a capitalist state. A capitalist state in which private capitalists had been expropriated. Your incipiet socialist region would also be a capitalist state in which private capitalists had been expropriated.

'should' insulate itself? Do you mean 'could' insulate itself? I don't think it could, whether it wanted to or not. And a state (or if you prefer 'ISR' though I shall continue to think that 'ISR' = 'state') that cannot insulate itself from world capitalism will be subject to capitalsim, as the SU was. Why (I ask again) are you so keen to replicate the errors of the USSR?

...

For one thing, Ive already point out that there would need to be some form of bridging arrangement with these captalist states - most likely in the form of barter deals. These deals would cover those finished goods or factor inputs that for one or other reason were not available within the incipient socialist region . Within the region itself, however, the means of production would be commonly owned and wage labour and commodity production would cease to exist. There would be no more proletariat and no more capitalist class. I see no compelling reason whatsoever why this should be the case. All your argument seems to amount to is that because certain goods might not be available within such a region it would be compelled to engage in barter trade with residual capitalist states and this would make such a society "capitalist". But we have already established that engaging in barter externally does not have any bearing on the nature of the internal relationships that of a given social formation and that hunter gatherer groups can engage in barter just as much as capitalist states can. The Soviet Union was emphatically not capitalist becuase it engaged in fereign trade with capitalist state. as some Trots nonsensically argue - the tail that wagged the dog argument. The Soviet Union was capitalist becuase it was internally organised along capitalist lines and becuase of the fact of generalised wage labour operating withinit...

I disagree that you can abolish capitalism in one territory. As I hope I've already made clear, I don't believe in socialism in one country. And production of commodities for exchange is capitalism whether you think it is or not.

...You dont seem to have amy substantive counter argument to offer preferring it seems to me to fall back on a rather formulaic dogma that you can't have socialisn unless it is worldwide. But why? Saying in effect "well you just can't" which is what you are doing, is completely inadequate. Of course, I dont deny socialism will in due course be worldwide and in short order once the ball gets rolling and capitalist state after capitalist state succumbs to socialism. But socialism has to start somewhere; its not going to to just suddenly appear throughout the world one fine morning and all at once. Thats just unrealistic...

Says the man that believes that one day there will be a proclamation to that effect.

The creation of socialism will be a product of material conditions. Until those material conditions have transpired then the creation of socialism is impossible. To believe otherwise is to see the creation of socialism as a matter of will alone. It isn't.

What is socialism? It's a classless communal society. Can there be a classless communal society while classes and states exist? No. So socialism is impossible until states and classes cease to exist. When will this be? As states depend on classes and classes depend on property, it will be when property ceases to exist. So while there is property there can be no socialism.

Of course, much as Lenin did, you can define socialism however you want. You can even believe it can exist in one country if you want. But that's not socialism in a Marxist understanding of socialism. I'd call it state capitalism.

...
For another thing I think you are taking an unduly pessimistic approach in assuming that it is the socialist region that would have to insulate itself form residual capitalism. Has it not occured to you that it might be quite the other way round, It is residual capitalism that may, much more likely, want to to insulate itself from the fundamentally subversive presence of an effectively functioning socialist society just across its border. And the fact that more and more of its own citizens were aspiring to replace it with just such a society would mean it would be less and less able to do anything about limiting and containing this subversive influence both without or indeed within...

One country 'goes socialist' and 212 do not... which one is going to be boycotted?

...
If Marxism requires that one must accept this dotty notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat then I will happily accept the charge that I am no Marxist. Its no skin of my nose, frankly. Ive always been eclectic in my approach to ideas anyway...

Which is fair enough; I'm not saying you should be a Marxist, but as you're intervening on a thread about Marxism and Leninism, I would have thought that you might have an orientation to one or other of those political currents.

Of course, there are various things you've expressed that do have a relationship to Leninism, though I'm aware you reject the comparison.

I would say that pretty much the defining characteristic about Marxism as opposed to any other form of revolutionary socialist doctrine, is precisely the recognition that the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary as the springboard for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

...I think what you are arguing for is a recipe for disaster and will almost certainly lead to the reinvigoration of capitalist relations of production and the effective spiking of the workers movement. I simnply cannot undertand this ritualistic reverence of some on the left for this idea of a proletarian dictatorship. I want to get rid of my status as a proletarian ASAP. Surely thats what should motivate any revolutionary. A proletarian is a slave - wage slave/. Who the fuck wants to remain a slave...

I certainly don't want to remain a slave. The question is not however 'who wants to' (again I think this betrays a view that all that is necessary is enough 'converts to the cause', that revolution is a matter of will); the question is how to move from here to there. A lack of understanding about what is possible and what is not, and why, is as certain to lead to disaster as trusting some charlatan or fool who says 'let's all run over this cliff'. Democratically deciding to jump over the cliff is no better.

I think there's an irony in you saying that you want to 'get rid of my status as a slave ASAP' and then pinning your trust on a the most ridiculously gradualist approach imaginable.

...You want the workers to "capture power"- whatever that means - and as well as that to retain classes and the state until such time as the entire world's working class have captured power and then togther you can all eliminate classes and the state in one single go. This is nuts, to be perfectly blunt. Absolute nuts...

I don't 'want' workers to 'hang on to classes' any more than I 'want' workers to die if they fall off buildings. But I am no more capable of fighting the laws that govern political economy than I am of fighting the law of gravity.

"I" can't eliminate classes. The working class can't elimiante classes. Classes are a consequence of property relations. Once all property has been expropriated then there will be no more classes. While there is property there are those that own property and those that do not; that's what classes are.

...We both know what will happen. The working class having supposedly captured power will be exercising that power in the context of what by your own admission will still clearly be a capitalist spociety . But capitalism can only be run in the interests of capital . Are you seriously suggesting here that the workers, having captured power, are willingly going to adminsiter this system against their very own interests? Fat chance of that happening. You talk about the Social Democrats having betrayed the workers movement . Well exactly the same thing will happen here. Those who dothe effective administering of this apparatus of power - the state - will pretty soon separate themselves from the class as a whole and if perchance the old class of capitalists has already been expropriated , these individuals will simply step into the shoes vacated by the erstwhile capitalists and will become themselves the new capitalist ruling class. That is as inevitable as night follows day. You cannot have capitalism without a capitalist class and you cannot have a capitalist class without this class owning and controlling the means of production to the exclusion of the majority...

You talk about who is 'willing'. Are you seriously suggesting that people who fall off buildings or cliffs 'are willing' to die? You don't think their dying is not a matter of will but circumstance, forces beyond their control?

Praying doesn't work. The universe intervenes.

As to the last part - of course you can have capitalism without a ccapitalist class. Capitalism creates capitalists - not the other way around. Capitalism has existed as human behaviour since at least 600BC. It just wasn't a generalised system until the late C19th or early C20th.

...I firmly believe that this whole useless , utterly contradictory concept of the DOTP should be completely scrapped. Its a diversionary waste of time. The very idea that the slaves in a slave society can somehow dictate terms to their slaveowners while willingly remain slaves themselves is just so ludicrous as to beggar belief. Marx offered us many profound insights but this was not one of them. Nor only is the very concept inept, I believe that the very pursuit of this dogma in the snse of a revolutiuonary strategy is fraught with danger. It portends certain betrayal in the future and the substititution of the class by a party dictatorship over the class...

That's fine, but as I say I think this disqualifies you from calling yourself a Marxist.

I don't know what your weird, idealistic national-road parliamentary anarchism should be called, but I'm sure you'll have fun finding out.

I'm not sure why you think that a party has to excercise power over the class though. It's your dogma that says the Socialist Party has to take control of the legislature and executive, it's you that thinks these are important. Stop thinking like a Leninist!

...
This is way too simplistic . Like I said earlier, hunter-gatherer tribes trading obsidian or red ochre did not case to be examplars of a primitive communistic way of life . It is not necessary for literally all property throughout the world to be collectivised for you to have an effectively functioning socialist economy. Indeed some would argue that even within a capitalist society and at a sub-national level this may be possible and example that is often raised in this connection are some the anarchist rural communes in Spain during the the Civil War. Im not too sure about that but it does seem that free access to goods to a certain extent was practised and money was abolished internally...

Anarchist rural communes in the War in Spain... that were producing for a war economy, you mean? That's your good example? I can go to the library now and borrow books without paying, woo-hoo we have socialism in one library!

/sarcasm

...
Aart from that, there is another problem with this argument - you said in an earlier post "There must be a place where property is first collectivised and administered by the working class, and there must be a place that holds out for capitalism longer than any other, and is collectivised last" But what does it mean to say property is collectivised? Are you saying that it is commonly owned? But how do you square this with the claim that this collectivised property is administed by the working class when the very point about a working class is that it is propertyless - does not own capital. If you collectivise porperty - that is making it the common proipperty of all - then ispo facto, surely, you remove the class relation, you abolish the working class. But you seem to think capitalism will continue under the DOTP. If so how can property be collectivised?...

You may abolish the working class 'internally'. I can go to the library and borrow books without working for the librarian. But you do not abolish the relationship of capital to labour all together. There is a lot of uncollectivised property in the world after you collectivise in one place. So property exists, and the state exists, and so, socialism being what it is (classless and communal), you don't have socialism.

I can collectivise all the property in my house - the only reason it won't be socialism is because of external capitalist pressures. You can collectivise all the property in a state, but it won't be socialism is because of those exact same capitalist pressures. we're not even talking about an autarchic state here that collectivises poverty; we're talking about a state that produces goods for the world market. Capitalism, Robbo, capitalism. You warn against Bolshevism leading to state capitalism calling itself socialism and what you propose instead is state capitalism calling itself socialism.

At least I admit that my idea that state capitalism is all that is possible under the DotP, really is state capitalism.

...
Tribal societies have "men armed in defence of property relations" but that doesnt make them statist societies. What is completely missing from your view is the essential defining feature of a state - that it is tool of class rule . If you get rid of classes then ipso factop you get rid of the state. Thats does not mean organised violence might not still occur. Its just means that violence does not take the form of state violence. You might envision the eixstence of a proletariat and a state in your scenario but I certainly dont envisage these things existing in mine. In fact, i find it a little odd that you should even raise the spectre of how to deal with "capitalist-restorationists" in your scenario when, according to you, capitalism would not have been got rid of . It does not make a lot of sense want to "restore" something that still exists. Though it would make no sense to talk of capitalist restorationists in your scenario it would in mine but then I do not believe these so called capitalist restorationists would pose any kind of real threat. They would no longer possess the power or influence to change what the great majority has decided upon. They might grumble for a while but it would soon seem pointless ...

Class is bound up with property relations. Without property relations there is no class, so class isn't 'missing' it's absolutley at the heart of the analysis. Don't diss Engels. He's the man.

You don't think that there would be those who wanted to turn the clock back under my scenario? Let's assume it happened - do you not think there would be a civil war? Was there a civil war in Russia, for example? I rather think there was.

The 'capitalist restorationists' I'm speaking of are those that want to return to capitalism rather than go on towards socialism. I'm not sure that I can come up with a way of describing them that would make sense to you however.

...The same goes for the case of external threats. I dont believe enfeebled capitalism would at that point be in any position to summon up the necessary support and resolve to pose a threat to the expanding free socialist zones outside its borders when these residual capitalist states would themsleves be on the point of changing over to socialism and when public opinion would be solidly against any such kind of intervention...

Brillaint. I've been saying for more than a decade that if the SPGB is right and I'm wrong, I wouldn't be unhappy. It would be much better if we could get away without all that messy and destructive world civil war business. Just as it would be much better if we could fall of a cliff and not die. But we can't.

...
There was no mandate for socialism to speak of among the Russian working class however class consciousness it might have been . This is the point you continulally fail to grasp. You talk about me having a "mechanisnistic view" of class consciousness but actually with respect it is YOU thatit is taking an incredibly mechanistic view of the matter if tyouy think class consciousness automatically expresses itself as an understanding of, and the desire for, a genuine socialist alternative to capitalism...

That's fine, you have a distinction between 'class consciousness' and 'socialist consciousness' that I don't have. So, if you want to explain what your distinctions are, perhaps we could continue this with fewer misundertandings.

...Not only that as Ive suggested earlier - whatever the level of class consciousness among the Russian workers it was bound to come up against the Bolsheviks own ideas about state power and their emerging syaye capitalist agenda. It was the Bolsheviks, I remind you, that emasculated the workers movement, imposed one man management on industry and crushed political oppsoition and yet somehow you seem to think that Bolsheviks ideas of state power had nothing to do with the failure of the revolution to spread. I find that quite incredible that you can even say such a thing. Quite the opposite was true...

I didn't say that the Bolsheviks' ideas of revolution had 'nothing to do' with the failure of the revolution to spread. I think that they did have an influence. I think the 'shape' of the decline of the revolution in Russia was primarily due to the Bolsheviks' failings in theory and practice. I think the failures of the revolution in Russia influenced failure outside of Russia. But I don't think the Bolsheviks' theoretical failings caused the failure of the world revolution.

...I might add that even if the majority of Russian workers were socialist-minded the Russian woring class was only a tiny mineiuty of the population. That in itself would have ensured that there was no possiblity of a socialist revolution happening. By default it could only ever have been a capitalist revolution and far from this revolution revolution having failed, it succeeded spectacularly and the outcome was the system of soviet state capitalism...

But I think you're again putting your blinkers and looking at this from the national point of view again, rather than the international point of view. The working class as a whole was not a tiny minority of the world population as the whole world had by the early C20th been subjected to capitalism.

The SPGB was formed in 1904 on the basis that the objective conditions for socialism had been acheived, and therefore the task of the working class party was to prepare for the revolutionary seizure of power.

The left wing of the 2nd Int - Luxemburg, Lenin, Pannekoek, Gorter, Bordiga, Trotsky etc - also believed that the objective conditions had been acheived and the task of the working class was to seize power.

So far so good.

Neither the SPGB nor the left of Social Democracy (soon to form the 3rd Int) believed that the task of the working class was to seize power and build socialism in one state. The seizure of power in one state is predicated on the possibility (indeed, necessity) of the seizure of power worldwide.

A national revolution is a national revolution. But October wasn't a national revolution. It only makes sense in the context of the world revolution.

...The fact that the revolution was carried out by the workers does not make it any the less a capitalist revolution - to what extent was the the french bourgeois revolution carried out by the French bourgeoisie? Even among the Factory Committees there was considerable support for the state capitalist policy of nationalisation...

To what end? Nationalisation because the state was all jolly and lovely, or nationalisation because, in a state where the working class holds political power, this might be a way of moving towards socialism?

...
Finally, you say one of the reason for failure of the revolutuon in Russia to extend outwards was the low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia . Well, now this is very odd becuase just a moment ago you declared your disagreement with my statement it was 'obvious' that there was no mass socialist consciousness throughout the world. So was there or wasnt there mass socialist consciousness according to you? And if there was, how come , according to you, there was a low level of class consciousness among the workers in countries outside Russia. From what you have said before I would have thought from your point of view class consciousness was the same thing as socialist consciousness

Because class consciousness isn't evenly distributed in space and time. It ebbs and flows. And you said (as I quoted earlier) '...to a greater or lesser extent' which I think rather negates the absolutism that you're now trying to attach to this statement.

As I've mentioned, the Serbian and a section of the Bulgarian socialist parties opposed the war, as did several groups that emerged out of the SPD, and groups in Britain, the US, Netherlands and elsewhere. There was 'a mass socialist consciousness to a greater or lesser extent'. In some places there was strong working class support for anti-war positions and for internationalist socialism. In other places there was weaker support.

But will alone is not enough, again and again I have to stress that local material conditions are important; isolation between revolutionary groups, the strength of the state in diffferent places (in Russia it was particularly weak), illusions in the state among the working class as a whole, failure to correctly understand the world situation and the necessary tactics to adopt on the part of the revolutionary minorities - all of these are important factors in the failure of the world revolution.

robbo203

6th September 2012, 23:31

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on the question of the "simultaneous worldwide introduction of socialism" - what I call the big bang theory of socialist revolution. I have always considered the SPGB's version of this to be pretty dodgy but, to be frank, yours is far worse in its utter naivete!

You basically just skirt round the problem of substitutionism which will inevitably arise once the workers in one part of the world have captured power and will, according to you , be obliged to administer a system of state capitalism that enslaves and exploits them until such time as the rest of the world's working class have seen the light . You caution me to "watch out for the new state capitalist managerial class, it will be emerging in your Real Socialism In One Country State". but it is absolutely certain that such a class will arise in your state capitalist transitional state.

Despite all my efforts to explain it to you, you still dont seem to have a clue what Im on about. Hence your nonsensical remark "Your incipient socialist region would also be a capitalist state in which private capitalists had been expropriated" How so? If there is no wage labour, no buying and selling, no class ownership and no capitalists of either the private or state variety, how can you possibly contend that this would be "capitalism?" Absolutely absurd.

You ask "Why (I ask again) are you so keen to replicate the errors of the USSR?" This demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt as far as I am concerned that either you are being disingenuous or you have not understood anything Ive said. I am not advocating State capitalism. You are the one who said "At least I admit that my idea that state capitalism is all that is possible under the DotP, really is state capitalism. whereas I advocate neither that nor the dotty idea of the DOTP. There is simply no means by which state capitalism could possibly be introduced by the backdoor once a genuine socialist society has been consciously introduced by a socialist majority and if you can show me some means by which it could be done then show - dont just quote someone else's opinion. Yes I accept that some goods will have to be produced for the purposes of barter with residual capitalist states until such time as the whole world is socialist but so what? That does not have to have any implication whatsoever for the internal relations applying to an incipent socialist region. Yoi have not demnstrated any reaon why it should. Citing Bordiga's silly theory that the SU was capitalist becuase it "engaged in trade with avowedly capitalist states" rather then because, actually, it displayed all the core characertistics of a capitalist economy internally to begin with - above all generalised wage labour - simply cuts no ice with me.

You mention Engels and that I should not "diss him" . Well, l oddly and not withstanding your sarcastic remarks about socialism in one library, Engels mentioned something about the utopian communities in America providing clear evidence of the practicality of the communist principles of production and distribution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm). What is possible at the level of a mere utopian communiity is hundredfold more possible at the level of an ex capitalist nation-state. Your dismissive attitude in this matters strikes me as surprisingly dogmatic and uninformed

Central to my argument is the premiss which you continue wilfully to ignore that socialist cosciosuness will for all sorts of reasons tend to grow in a more or less balanced fashion. That means when a socialist majority has captured power in one part of the world , socialists will be more or less on the point of captuiring power elsewhere too. What that means is that those residual capitalist states which this incipent socialist region will have to deal with will be heavily infected -if I might put it like that- with socialist ideas everywhere. The whole climate of opinion will be hugely differently - inev9tably. This puts into some kind of context your wild speculatiive talk of these capitalist states seeking to "boycott" this incipienet socialist region. I contend they will be in no position, nor will they have the appetite, to do that at that late stage of the game given the radically different state of public opinion that is then likely to prevail

I must finally take you to task over some of your remarks that touch on economic theory which seem to be absolutely astonishing for someone who calls himself a marxist

In response to my point that barter is not capitalis,t you comment "I said commodity exchange. Where did you get the idea that commodity exchange isn't capitalism? that's pretty much the definition of capitalism" You later talk about me "advocating producing commodities to trade with capitalist nations" knowing full well that all Im talking about is barter deals with residual capitalist state" so I assume from that you think that barter - which is of course a form of commodity production - also demonstrates the existence of capitalism , In other words, you do think barter is capitalist

This demonstrates to me that you have a pretty poor and, if I might say so, unmarxist understanding oif what capitalism is . Your most ridiculous comments of all is that "Capitalism has existed as human behaviour since at least 600BC. It just wasn't a generalised system until the late C19th or early C20th. There is no rhyme or reason to this - and why 600BC in particular, BTW. Even you would agree there were commodity transactions way before that.

What you dont seem to apppreciate is that capitalism is an economic system of interlocking and mutually interdependent features. Above all, it implies the widespread use of money and what is characteristic about barter is that money is not used

Marx explains this well here

"One of the prerequisites of wage labor, and one of the historic conditions for capital, is free labor and the exchange of free labor against money, in order to reproduce money and to convert it into values, in order to be consumed by money, not as use value for enjoyment, but as use value for money. Another prerequisite is the separation of free labor from the objective conditions of its realization — from the means and material of labor. This means above all that the workers must be separated from the land, which functions as his natural laboratory. This means the dissolution both of free petty landownership and of communal landed property, based on the oriental commune
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/ch01.htm

So capitalism depends on the separation of the producer from the means of production and his or her dependence on wage labour as a means of subsistence which in turn depends on the widespread use of money, wages being the monetary price of labour power. Marx was scathing about those - he might have had you in mind if you were around at the time - who read back into history a capitalist system of production when the conditions for the existence of such a system smply did not exists. This is to mistake the individuals features of which capitalism is comprised with capitalism itself

Capital, for example, long predated capitalism in the form of merchant capital. In Capital Vol. III Part IV, Marx says this:

"The less developed the production, the more wealth in money is concentrated in the hands of merchants or appears in the specific form of merchants' wealth.

Within the capitalist mode of production — i.e., as soon as capital has established its sway over production and imparted to it a wholly changed and specific form — merchant's capital appears merely as a capital with a specific function. In all previous modes of production, and all the more, wherever production ministers to the immediate wants of the producer, merchant's capital appears to perform the function par excellence of capital.

There is, therefore, not the least difficulty in understanding why merchant's capital appears as the historical form of capital long before capital established its own domination over production.
(snip)
The extent to which products enter trade and go through the merchants' hands depends on the mode of production, and reaches its maximum in the ultimate development of capitalist production, where the product is produced solely as a commodity, and not as a direct means of subsistence.

What you are doing is taking one feauture like commodity trade and illegitimately inferring from it the existence of capitalism. Worse still, you care taking a particular form of commodity exchange - barter - which by definition precludes money - and suggesting that this implies capitalism . This is totally alien to the marxian analysis of capitalism

And you're wrong about primitive trade, you know. Google "obsidian barter in prehistoric societies" and you will come across loads of references. There is even something called an International Association of Obsidian Studies which produces some kind of journal which has articles on the subject but my crappy computer couldnt download the text. Barter exchanges in pre-monetary societiies were mainly in specialised materials like Obsidian though were not the dominant form of economic exchange between groups which was, instead gift exchanges. Nevertheless barter was probably practiced - not only between HG groups themselves but also, more likely, between them and early agricultural societies and, as I said, the Trobriand islanders studied by Malinowski had a special name for it called Gimwali trade. These were not budding capitalist societies at all but the logic of your argument would lead us to infer that they must have been - just as you would have us believe that an incipient socialist region in my scenario in which wage labour and commodity production for internal consmption was completely absent internally would somehow be somehow "state capitalist" .

Ostrinski

7th September 2012, 00:15

Epic discussion itt. These are what make revleft good.

Blake's Baby

7th September 2012, 00:40

...

You basically just skirt round the problem of substitutionism which will inevitably arise once the workers in one part of the world have captured power and will, according to you , be obliged to administer a system of state capitalism that enslaves and exploits them until such time as the rest of the world's working class have seen the light..

1 - 'inevitable' substitutionism, even though for me there is no 'proletarian party' in charge of 'my' state, and in yours there is? If it's inevitable that workers capturing power will lead to substitutionism, why is it not inevitable that your party capturing state power will lead to substitutionism?
2 - 'seen the light'? Again and again, socialism is not a revealed religion that needs to be preached to the unthinking potatoes that make up the proletariat.

... You caution me to "watch out for the new state capitalist managerial class, it will be emerging in your Real Socialism In One Country State". but it is absolutely certain that such a class will arise in your state capitalist transitional state...

I think that if the revolution doesn't continue to spread, then a state and capitalism will fully emerge again; but I think that at least I'll be watching for it while you sail your party-led state (with its collectivised property and substitutionist logic) right down the same blind alley as the Bolsheviks sailed theirs, while loudly proclaiming that everyone else's sailing alleys (seem to have mixed my metaphors a little here) lead to state capitalism.

...Despite all my efforts to explain it to youm you still dont seem to have a clue what Im on about. Hence your nonsensical remark "Your incipient socialist region would also be a capitalist state in which private capitalists had been expropriated" How so? If there is no wage labour, no buying and selling, no class ownership and no capitalists of either the private or state variety, how can you possibly contend that this would be "capitalism?" Absolutely absurd...

Capitalism makes capitalists, not the other way around. Russia was not capitalist because there were capitalists; it was capitalist because one cannot build socialism in one country. Capitalism cannot be overcome in one country, therefore you cannot build socialism in one country, so your state will be capitalist, even if you do expropriate the capitalists (as the Bolsheviks did). Socialism is not a matter of policy decisions. You can't create it in circumstances where it is not possible, 'seeing the light' notwithstanding.

...You ask "Why (I ask again) are you so keen to replicate the errors of the USSR?" This demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt as far as I am concerned that either you are being disingenuous or you have not understood anything Ive said...

I think, rather, it's that you have not understood what you have said.

... I am not advocating State capitalism...

And does everything someone 'advocates' actually happen? I believe Quakers 'advocate' life after death. Do you think they get it?

... You are the one who said "At least I admit that my idea that state capitalism is all that is possible under the DotP, really is state capitalism. whereas I advocate neither that nor the dotty idea of the DOTP. There is simply no means by which state capitalism could possibly be introduced by the backdoor once a genuine socialist society has been consciously introduced by a socialist majority and if you can show me some means by which it could be done then show - dont just quote someone else's opinion...

So; please show me how a "genuine socialist society" could be created in one country, and I'll show you why it must inevitably be capitalism if it's limited to one country.

You can't, without redefining what socialism is, which is I believe where you started in your criticism of Lenin. Of course, if you redifine the word 'sun' to mean 'a meal I have at midday' you can claim that you have eaten the sun; and, likewise, if you redifine 'socialism' to mean 'a party regime administering the economy and external relations in a local area' then both your 'Incipient Socialist Region' and the USSR were socialist.

...
Yes I accept that some goods will have to be produced for the purposes of barter with residual capitalist states until such time as the whole world is socialist but so what? That does not have to have any implication whatsoever for the internal relations applying to an incipent socialist region. Yoi have not demnstrated any reaon why it should. Citing Bordiga's silly theory that the SU was capitalist becuase it "engaged in trade with avowedly capitalist states" rather then because, actually, it displayed all the core characertistics of a capitalist economy internally to begin with - above all generalised wage labour - simply cuts no ice with me...

Oh, I agree, statisation of the economy does not mean socialism. Bordiga's theory is not 'silly' however unless you believe that producing commodities for trade is not capitalist behaviour.

...
You mention Engels and that I should not "diss him" . Well, l oddly and not withstanding your sarcastic remarks about socialism in one library, Engels mentioned something about the utopian communities in America providing clear evdience of the practicality of the communist principles of production and distribution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm). What is possible at the level of a mere utopian communiity is hundredfold more possible at the level of an ex capitalist nation-state. Your dismissive attitude in this matters strikes me as surprisingly dogmatic and uninformed...

Seriously? You think socialism is possible where there are states and classes. You redefine words to suit your own idealist theories and then claim I'm being dogmatic? I'm not sure that insisting you don't get to change the meanings of words during an argument is 'dogmatic'.

...

Central to my argument is the premiss which you continue wilfully to ignore that socialist cosciosuness will for all sorts of reasons tend to growth in a more or less balanced fashion. That means when a socialist majority has captured power in one part of the world , socialists will be more or less on the point of captuiring power elsewhere too. What that means is that those residual capitalist states which this incipent socialist region will have to deal with will be heavily infected -if I might put it like that- with socialist ideas everywhere. The whole climate of opoinion will be hugely differently - inveitably. This puts into some kind of context your wild speculatiive talk of these capitalist states seeking to "boycott" this incipienet socialist region. I contended they will be in no position, not will they have the appetite, to do that at that late stage of the dame given the radically different state of public opinion that is like then to prevail...

And therefore you'd pin your entire hope on this developmetn taking place evenly. Because your theory can't cope if it doesn't. You didn't even slightly bite when I suggested it might be necessary under this schema to 'retard' the movement if it got ahead of itself. You didn't flinch when I called it 'the most ridiculously gradualist notion it's possible for the human mind to construct' - after you'd also claimed to be impatient to end your staus as a wage-slave. Irony, much?

...In must finally take you to task over some of your remarks that touch on economic theory which seem to be absolutely astonishing for someone who calls himself a marxist...

Irony upon irony, as you aren't a Marxist. Or even a Marxian.

...
In response to my point that barter is not capitalist you comment I said commodity exchange. Where did you get the idea that commodity exchange isn't capitalism? that's pretty much the definition of capitalism You later talk about me "advocating producing commodities to trade with capitalist nations" knowing full well that all Im talking about is barter deals with residual capitalist state" so I assume from that you think that barter - which is of course a form of commodity production - also demonstrates the existence of capitalism , In other words you do think barter is capitalist
...

No, in general in earlier epochs barter didn't involve commodities but products. Commodities are specifically produced or acquired for trade. Products can easily be fortuitous surplus of accidental overproduction (a good harvesst returns a bumper crop; a bad harvest means that there are a lot of pots for the olives going spare).

Production for trade (ie commodity production) is capitalist behaviour. It's become a generalised system over the last century or so having expanded from local system in the 600 years or so before that. But it has existed as behaviour for at least 2,600 years. Not generalised behaviour however.

...This demoinstrates to me that you have a pretty poor and, if I might say so, unmarxist understanding oif what capitalism is . Your most ridiculous comments of all is that "Capitalism has existed as human behaviour since at least 600BC. It just wasn't a generalised system until the late C19th or early C20th. There is no rhyme or reason to this - band why 600BC BTW. Even you would agree there was commodity transaction way before that...

Really? As I repeated the claim I made earlier, in the paragraph above, and indeed explained to you what a commodity is (as you seem to think it's the same as a 'product' or a 'good') perhaps you could explain why I 'must' believe that commodity production and exchange existed in periods for which there is no evidence for it?

600BC is the invention of money. It demonstrates that capital can be conceived as existing in a moveable, transferable form. It implies markets. It may be that it merely represents a form of promise against fortuitous surplus; but I think it more likely that money represents capital as capital.

...
What you dont seem to sapppreciate is that capitalism is not is an economic system of interlocking and mutually interdependent features. Above all, it implies the widespread use of money and what is characteristic about barter is that money is not used ...

Capitalism depends on commodity production, that is, production for exchange.

By your definition, merchantile capitalism wasn't capitalism at all - all people did was barter goods from place A for goods from place B. No money need be involved.

...
Marx explains this well here

"One of the prerequisites of wage labor, and one of the historic conditions for capital, is free labor and the exchange of free labor against money, in order to reproduce money and to convert it into values, in order to be consumed by money, not as use value for enjoyment, but as use value for money. Another prerequisite is the separation of free labor from the objective conditions of its realization — from the means and material of labor. This means above all that the workers must be separated from the land, which functions as his natural laboratory. This means the dissolution both of free petty landownership and of communal landed property, based on the oriental commune
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/ch01.htm

So capitalism depends on the separation of the producer from the means of production and his or her dependence on wage labour as a means of subsistence which in turn depends on the widespread use of money, wages being the monetary price of labour power. Marx was scathing about those - he might have had you in mind if you were around at the time - who read back into history a capitalist system of prpduction when the conditions for the existence of such a system smply did not exists. This is to mistake the individuals features of which capitalism is comprised with capitalism itself
...

I'm sorry, but Marx is talking about the development of industrial capitalism here. He's not talking about capital as invested human labour.

And can you show me where i said there was a 'capitalist system of producion' in previous epochs? I have said no such thing; I have said that there was capitalist behaviour but capitalism is a system. That system was a local system in early Modern Europe and bacame a world system in the last century or so.

...
Capital, for example, long predated capitalism in the form of merchant capital. In Capital Vol. III Part IV, Marx says this:

"The less developed the production, the more wealth in money is concentrated in the hands of merchants or appears in the specific form of merchants' wealth.

Within the capitalist mode of production — i.e., as soon as capital has established its sway over production and imparted to it a wholly changed and specific form — merchant's capital appears merely as a capital with a specific function. In all previous modes of production, and all the more, wherever production ministers to the immediate wants of the producer, merchant's capital appears to perform the function par excellence of capital.

There is, therefore, not the least difficulty in understanding why merchant's capital appears as the historical form of capital long before capital established its own domination over production.
(snip)
The extent to which products enter trade and go through the merchants' hands depends on the mode of production, and reaches its maximum in the ultimate development of capitalist production, where the product is produced solely as a commodity, and not as a direct means of subsistence.
...

Precisely, hence my argument that before the development of capitalism as a system - that is, the generalisation of commodity production - capitalsim was a behaviour. Incidently, also a demonstration that capitalism produces capitalists not the other way around. Some Greek traders sailing around the Med in 600BC could not manufacture capitalism out of insufficiently-developed historical conditions.

Incidently, but for the same reasons, some well-meaning but deluded national-road parliamentary anarchist idealists can't manufacture - sorry, 'implement' - socialism out of insufficiently-developed historical conditions either.

...What you are doing is taking one feauture like commodity trade and illegitimately inferring from it the existence of capitalism. Worse still, you care taking a particular form of commodity exchange - barter - which by definition precludes money - and suggesting that this implies capitalism . This is totally alien to the marxian analysis of capitalism...

I think not. Capitalism is the system for production and exchange of commodities.

...And youre wrong about primitive trade, you know. Google "obsidian barter in prehistoric societies" and you will come across loads of references. There is even something called an Internation Association of Obsidian Studies which produces some kind of journal which has articles on the subject but my crappy computer couldnt download the text. Barter exchanges in pre-monetary societiies were mainly in specialised materials like Obsidian though were not the dominant form of economic exchange between groups which was, instead gift exchanges. Nevertheless barter was probably pracyoced - bot onloy between HG groups themselves but also, more likely, between them and early agriculturual societies and, as I said, the Trobriand islanders studied by Malinowski had a special name for it called Gimwali trade. These were not budding capitalist societies at all but the logic of your argument would lead us to infer that they must have been - just as your would have us believe that an incipient socialist region in my scenario in which wage labour and commodity production for internal consmption was completely absent internally would somehow be somehow "state capitalist" . Utter nonsense!

You haven't produced any evidence that these were commodities - ie produced for trade.

But let's assume for the moment that they were, deliberately produced or even aquired - perhaps by some of your mercantile non-capitalists. The following contains the use of the word 'if' which must be taken as a sign that I am entertaining the suggestion that these are commodities (ie, this is capitalist behaviour), rather than agreeing with your assertion, for which there is something of a lack of evidence.

If they produced commodities, then they were not 'budding capitalist societies' because willpower or desire aren't the things that decide how the world works. If they produced commodities and traded tham (because that's what commodities, as opposed to 'goods' in general, are for) then they were taking part in capitalist behaviour, but it would be ridiculous to claim that they were 'budding capitalist societies', just as it would be ridiculous to claim your 'incipient socialist region' was a budding socialst society.

People can indulge in 'socialist behaviour' in capitalism. People can indulge in 'capitalist behaviour' in pre-capitalist societies. What determines the nature of a society is not the actions of a few people but the dominant structural forms of production.

In Antique slave society, most production was not primarily intended for the market in order to expand reproduction, it was for the satisfaction of basic and not so basic wants; and most work was not done by free, waged labourers, though some was, not enough to make it a capitalist society though. However, there were individuals, entrepreneurs or 'proto-capitalists' or whatever, who made their money buying and selling, and indeed selling the commodities produced by wage-labour. Mercantile and/or industrial capitalists. Capitalist behaviour, but not 'capitalism' as a generalised system.

Similarly, in the Middle Ages, some production was commodity production, some producers were waged workers, some individuals engaged in commodity speculation. But this still wasn't capitalism as a generalised system - the economy primarily was based on production for consumption, not expanded reproduction, and the use of customary dues/sevice outweighed cash as the basis of the exrataction of labour-power.

So as behaviour, commodity production and even the exploitation of surplus value through wage labour go back to the Greeks at least, but these are not generalised systems. By the same token until your 'incipient socialist region' manages to generalise its state - ie, until the world revolution spreads - then all you will have is 'socialist behaviour' in a general capitalist system. Not socialism, just as the Greek traders in the C6thBC didn't create capitalism in a general Antique Slave system.