Why is Marxism-Leninism so unpopular in Albania?

[Tim Cornelis]

A workers' state implies support of the majority of the working class. Albania was said to have been a workers' state till at least the 1980s, yet the Hoxhaist party received a mere 9,000 votes in the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Where is all the popular support necessary to sustain a workers' state? Or perhaps it never was a workers' state?

EDIT:

I want to learn how Marxist-Leninists explain this unpopularity.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

I don't really see how this belongs in "learning" if it's clearly a rhetorical question.

I know one Albanian Hoxhaist. I don't consider Hoxhaist Albania to have ever been a workers' state. Like all the other eastern bloc countries which represented state capitalism in my opinion, the ruling party represented a bureaucratic elite or state bourgeoisie who became liberals after the transition to market capitalism. Another good example of this would be Romania, where the current President and PM were both PCR members under Ceausescu.

[Igor]

A workers' state implies support of the majority of the working class. Albania was said to have been a workers' state till at least the 1980s, yet the Hoxhaist party received a mere 9,000 votes in the 2005 parliamentary elections.

you know how years work, right?

[Peoples' War]

Albania had what, 20 proletariat in total?

[Камо́ Зэд]

I think this question is easily answered by considering why Marxist and other revolutionary leftist parties all over the world tend to not have much clout in bourgeois democracies. Those parties that receive majority vote tend to uphold the status quo of capitalism in their countries, very much in spite of the best interests of the working majority. For all criticisms of the supposed state-capitalist character of the Soviet Union, why, then, are overt capitalists in power in Russia instead of, say, Trotskyists or anarchists?

[Tim Cornelis]

you know how years work, right?

Yeah, it means that the majority of whom lived in the 1980s and 1990s still lived in 2005.


I think this question is easily answered by considering why Marxist and other revolutionary leftist parties all over the world tend to not have much clout in bourgeois democracies.

You would expect there to be much popular support by the working class for a party that promises to restore a workers' state. If under a workers' state the majority supported it, then why wouldn't at least a significant part of the working class continue to support it.

Where did all the supporters of socialism go? Vanish in tin air?



Those parties that receive majority vote tend to uphold the status quo of capitalism in their countries,

Indeed. But what's the point?


very much in spite of the best interests of the working majority.


For all criticisms of the supposed state-capitalist character of the Soviet Union, why, then, are overt capitalists in power in Russia instead of, say, Trotskyists or anarchists?

This makes no sense. A workers' state implies majority support by the workers for socialism, therefore after these nominally socialist regimes collapsed, where did this majority go? Anarchists and Trotskyists do not claim that Eastern Europe were proper workers' states and therefore the majority does not support socialist ideals such as Marxism, anarchism, or Trotskyism. Your argument is not valid.

[Positivist]

To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class. Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?

[Teacher]

Why do non-Marxist parties win elections anywhere? I am not very knowledgeable about Albania but I would imagine that it has followed the pattern that the restoration of capitalism in all the former communist countries has followed.

[Hit The North]

To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class.

Who decides what the objective interest of the proletarian class is if not the workers? Is the "objective interest of the proletariat" some kind of a priori abstraction that is a station in the teleological journey of human history?

More concretely, if the enlightened state was operating in the objective interests of the proletariat, why would it not enjoy majority support?


Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?

With all due respect, Obama has not claimed to be leading a workers state like Hoxha claimed. Also, it's not clear that the majority of the US working class did vote for Obama.

[Tim Cornelis]

To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class. Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?

Where did I say that majority support equals a workers' state? Right, nowhere.

[Hit The North]

Why do non-Marxist parties win elections anywhere? I am not very knowledgeable about Albania but I would imagine that it has followed the pattern that the restoration of capitalism in all the former communist countries has followed.

Even after the restoration of capitalism there was an important insurrection in Albania in 1997 as the working class reacted in anger to the despotic neo-liberal capitalist regime. But even after this experience of radicalisation, there is still little enthusiasm for a return to the good old days of dictatorship under Hoxha - and no wonder, they had little personal freedom and were not even allowed to travel abroad where they could meet and mingle with the international proletariat.

[Positivist]

Where did I say that majority support equals a workers' state? Right, nowhere.

...you said it in your first sentence...

Remember this "A workers state implies support of the majority of the working class."

As I said earlier, obama had the electoral support of the majority of the working-class four years ago, so working on your logic the US has been a workers state for four years (more if you count every other election where the elected party had support from the majority of workers.)

[rednordman]

I want to learn how Marxist-Leninists explain this unpopularity.well its obvious that they still believe all the false promises that the capitalist parties are telling them. Isn't that really a big factor to the success of the modern parties today?

[Positivist]

Who decides what the objective interest of the proletarian class is if not the workers? Is the "objective interest of the proletariat" some kind of a priori abstraction that is a station in the teleological journey of human history?

More concretely, if the enlightened state was operating in the objective interests of the proletariat, why would it not enjoy majority support?

With all due respect, Obama has not claimed to be leading a workers state like Hoxha claimed. Also, it's not clear that the majority of the US working class did vote for Obama.

The objective interest of the proletariat is the state of affairs which the proletariat would benefit from, whether the workers recognize it or not. To suggest that the majority support supplies interest means that since the majority of workers support capitalism, that capitalism is in their interests.

Obviously workers don't always support what is in there interests, this should be clear from a quick look at the world. As for why workers don't support their own interests than in my opinion this is the results of indoctrination.

As for the obama thing, I only referenced that because Tim suggested that a workers state is implied by majority support of the workers.

[Камо́ Зэд]

You would expect there to be much popular support by the working class for a party that promises to restore a workers' state. If under a workers' state the majority supported it, then why wouldn't at least a significant part of the working class continue to support it.

Where did all the supporters of socialism go? Vanish in tin air?

Consider:


To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class. Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?


Indeed. But what's the point?

The point is that majority support doesn't really mean anything, does it? The vast majority of working people in the United States, for instance, despite waking up on the wrong side of capitalism every day of their lives (for quite a long time), are still enthralled by anti-socialist and pro-capitalist rhetoric. Every working man I've talked to in my part of the world is absolutely certain that it's socialism and "Big Labor" that are the deciding factors in our country's economic turmoil. Some even blame, get this, feminism. The point is that majority opinion does not always reflect objective fact, and, indeed, it frequently doesn't.


This makes no sense. A workers' state implies majority support by the workers for socialism . . .

Comrade Positivist explained rather succinctly why this isn't necessarily the case.

[Lucretia]

To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class. Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?

Question: if the majority of workers' don't support a policy, how do you know it's in their interests? Why wouldn't workers support a policy in their interests?

I am not suggesting that it can't happen, but that for it to happen consistently means that conditions aren't ready for a transition to socialism, much less socialism.

[Positivist]

Question: if the majority of workers' don't support a policy, how do you know it's in their interests? Why wouldn't workers support a policy in their interests?

I am not suggesting that it can't happen, but that for it to happen consistently means that conditions aren't ready for a transition to socialism, much less socialism.

Again, this argument is fallacious because workers clearly support policies which run contrary to their interests on a consistent basis already in Europe and the United States today. I am skeptical that Albania continued to uphold workers interests throughout its entire existence, but I think the suggestion that we can gage objective proletarian interests through what proletarians support because historical evidence blatantly contradicts this.

[Lucretia]

Again, this argument is fallacious because workers clearly support policies which run contrary to their interests on a consistent basis already in Europe and the United States today. I am skeptical that Albania continued to uphold workers interests throughout its entire existence, but I think the suggestion that we can gage objective proletarian interests through what proletarians support because historical evidence blatantly contradicts this.

No, you're not responding to my question. I didn't ask, "Why would workers support policies NOT in their interests?" That answer is obvious. It goes back to the point I made in the Lenin-vanguard thread about hegemony and the ideas of the ruling class and all that. My question was, if policies objectively in the workers' best interests were already enacted, why would a majority oppose them?

The premise of this question, that policies objectively in the workers' interests are already in force, presupposes that capitalists no longer have economic and therefore political or ideological hegemony. Otherwise, policies in workers' best interests would not be allowed to take effect. Another premise is that the revolutionary party at least at the time of the revolution, enjoyed the support of the majority of workers. Otherwise, the revolution could not have been carried off successfully.

The question wasn't meant to suggest a one-to-one correspondence between workers' procedural voting practices and policies in their interests, even in a revolutionary or immediately post-revolutionary society. It was to encourage people to consider the fact that while the "transition to socialism" under a workers' state has some wiggle room for substitution, where workers might not act in their own best long-term interests just yet, socialism does not have such wiggle room. You don't have socialism if you don't have workers' in control of and subjectively deciding how to manage their own affairs, including at work.

The question is, just how much wiggle room should be permitted to accrue to a workers' state before the claim of governing in the workers' interests become highly questionable justifications for suppressing the actual workers?

[Positivist]

The question is, just how much wiggle room should be permitted to accrue to a workers' state before the claim of governing in the workers' interests become highly questionable justifications for suppressing the actual workers?

Well this question is impossible to answer outside of a material context and what I was asserting was merely that the support of the majority of the working class does not necessarily amount to the affirmation of objective, proletarian interests. Furthermore, no one asserts that Albania, the Ussr, China or wherever are socialist as in a stateless, classless society, marxist-leninists operate on Lenin's definition of socialism as a period of transition from capitalism to communism, so the part of your argument where you cite that workers need to decide their own interests after the total enactment of communism is irrelevant.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The question is, just how much wiggle room should be permitted to accrue to a workers' state before the claim of governing in the workers' interests become highly questionable justifications for suppressing the actual workers?

You make a very good point, comrade. I'm hesitant to compare the false-conscious proletariat to a child who resents being forced to eat his vegetables, despite how demonstrable their beneficial affect on his health is. To answer the original question, however, it's important to note that there are several anti-socialist analyses of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc that prevail in that part of the world. Marxist-Leninist education is something that has to be sought out with considerable dedication, but anti-socialist rhetoric is compulsory. When one is taught that Stalin was a man of horrendous evil, and that he presided over an era of economic disaster, from the beginning of one's education, it's rather difficult to break out of that old pattern. Even many sympathetic to socialism still haven't. And remember that few people who were working adults during Stalin's heyday are alive and politically active today. The same isn't true of Hoxha, given how relatively recent the man's death was, but the restoration of capitalism in that country has seen the rise of old cultural habits, among which is the taboo on discussing history and politics. This isn't a satisfactory explanation, I understand, but I've much more research to do into the modern Albanian condition before I'm qualified to answer why it is that modern Albanians aren't fighting tooth and nail for the restoration of Marxist-Leninist socialism in that country.

[Lucretia]

Well this question is impossible to answer outside of a material context and what I was asserting was merely that the support of the majority of the working class does not necessarily amount to the affirmation of objective, proletarian interests. Furthermore, no one asserts that Albania, the Ussr, China or wherever are socialist as in a stateless, classless society, marxist-leninists operate on Lenin's definition of socialism as a period of transition from capitalism to communism, so the part of your argument where you cite that workers need to decide their own interests after the total enactment of communism is irrelevant.

The requirement that socialism have workers' self-management is not "irrelevant." It helps delineate what, exactly, we're talking about when we toss around abstract phrases like "transitioning to socialism." In order to know whether you're transitioning to something, you have to know what that something is. Since I have already made clear in numerous threads prior to this one, including in this thread, that workers' majority support of a policy does not indicate that the policy is in their objective interests, it's a little surprising to see somebody bring this up to me like it's a grand revelation.

Marxist-Leninists want to magnify the workers'-state wiggle room I mentioned above, and transform it into a governing principle rather than a shrinking aberration that does not in itself constitute a transition to socialism. The point is that there can only be so much substitution before the very political framework within which bureaucrats and workers are operating becomes qualitatively skewed toward suppressing workers rather than propelling them to take ever greater control over their lives (which is what a "transition to socialism" would entail).

[Камо́ Зэд]

Marxist-Leninists want to magnify the workers'-state wiggle room I mentioned above, and transform it into a governing principle rather than a shrinking aberration that does not in itself constitute a transition to socialism. The point is that there can only be so much substitution before the very political framework within which bureaucrats and workers are operating becomes qualitatively skewed toward suppressing workers rather than propelling them to take ever greater control over their lives (which is what a "transition to socialism" would entail).

Comrade, I don't appreciate it being suggested that my ambition is to suppress the proletariat, like some crypto-fascist. Still, you make a good point in that this "wiggle room" is indeed something that should "shrink" or "wither away" so to speak as it becomes vestigial. The state, as Marx, Engels, and Lenin explained, is an inherently oppressive mechanism, but it is not abolished. Rather, it becomes useless as political administration becomes an archaic notion. Bureaucratic-substitution, if separate from the state at all, is at least extremely similar in that it is inherently oppressive, but necessary in consideration of material conditions determined by history. It will wither away if the appropriate course of action is taken, but, obviously, we must consider its necessity in relation to a carefully calculated course of action.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The objective interest of the proletariat is the state of affairs which the proletariat would benefit from, whether the workers recognize it or not.

In order to actually have people believe that line, you'd better have some rock hard evidence that it's actually true. Because as it stands today, capitalism can also claim to be beneficial to much of mankind, "whether they like it or not", such as (for example) the metrics of life expectancy and poverty, which, since the 1920's, have increased and decreased, respectively.

[Ostrinski]

A worker's state is not a state that has major electoral support from workers (superficial), nor is it a state comprising of some cabal of bureaucrats that objectively upholds the workers interests (counterproductive to socialist goals).

It is a state run directly by, of, and for workers who are already very well aware of their own interests, otherwise such a state could not have come into fruition in the first place. In a word, it is a semi-state, and is only a state in the sense that class antagonisms do not dissolve and flatten out upon the political displacement of one class by another (this, however, is not what is being debated).

[Камо́ Зэд]

Comrade L.K.'s analysis is spot on, and I should hope my own understanding of Marxism is improved upon by it.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

marxist-leninists operate on Lenin's definition of socialism as a period of transition from capitalism to communism

comrade, where does Lenin assert this? I was under the impression that Lenin did not consider the transitional regime as socialism and that this began in the modern context with Stalin.

[ind_com]

A worker's state is not a state that has major electoral support from workers (superficial), nor is it a state comprising of some cabal of bureaucrats that objectively upholds the workers interests (counterproductive to socialist goals).

It is a state run directly by, of, and for workers who are already very well aware of their own interests, otherwise such a state could not have come into fruition in the first place. In a word, it is a semi-state, and is only a state in the sense that class antagonisms do not dissolve and flatten out upon the political displacement of one class by another (this, however, is not what is being debated).

Do you mean to say that a democratic centralist vanguard party, or state machinery like the police and army have to be non-existent in a workers' state?

[Lucretia]

Comrade, I don't appreciate it being suggested that my ambition is to suppress the proletariat, like some crypto-fascist. Still, you make a good point in that this "wiggle room" is indeed something that should "shrink" or "wither away" so to speak as it becomes vestigial. The state, as Marx, Engels, and Lenin explained, is an inherently oppressive mechanism, but it is not abolished. Rather, it becomes useless as political administration becomes an archaic notion. Bureaucratic-substitution, if separate from the state at all, is at least extremely similar in that it is inherently oppressive, but necessary in consideration of material conditions determined by history. It will wither away if the appropriate course of action is taken, but, obviously, we must consider its necessity in relation to a carefully calculated course of action.

Perhaps it would be too harsh to suggest that M-L's deliberately and intentionally rejoice in suppressing workers. I think the more accurate way of phrasing it is that, due to some theoretical errors (e.g., socialism in one country, their understanding of class, their tendency to believe that workers' "objective" interests can for long periods of time be completely separated out from workers' expressed interests and represented by "the vanguard," etc.), M-L's functionally end up supporting regimes that can only continue to exist on the basis of actively suppressing workers' resistance. Difficult to imagine such a state being a workers' state.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Perhaps it would be too harsh to suggest that M-L's deliberately and intentionally rejoice in suppressing workers. I think the more accurate way of phrasing it is that, due to some theoretical errors (e.g., socialism in one country, their understanding of class, their tendency to believe that workers' "objective" interests can for long periods of time be completely separated out from workers' expressed interests and represented by "the vanguard," etc.), M-L's functionally end up supporting regimes that can only continue to exist on the basis of actively suppressing workers' resistance. Difficult to imagine such a state being a workers' state.

I disagree that this is in fact the case, with regards to what you've written about theoretical errors, but I understand where you're coming from. Understand that Marxist-Leninists tend to have a radically different conception of what went on in the U.S.S.R. and the P.S.R.A. Even those of us who are "Hoxhaists" rather than Maoists tend to perceive the history of the P.R.C. a little differently, and, while opinion regarding Cuba is diversified among our numbers, the country is absolutely regarded as a fairly progressive one. Granted, we are not uncritical of these, but we're so often on the defensive with regards to the topic that we typically don't have the time to take to apply criticism to those entities of which we may have a high opinion (or of which we otherwise "approve" in whatever sense, if I'm writing coherently).

[Камо́ Зэд]

comrade, where does Lenin assert this? I was under the impression that Lenin did not consider the transitional regime as socialism and that this began in the modern context with Stalin.

Lenin elucidates on this concept in Chapter Five of The State and Revolution, in which he cites the writing of Marx and Engels. The pre-Lenin conception of communism was that it occurred in two stages, a "lower" stage in which certain vestiges of the old bourgeois order persisted during the active endeavor to resolve the contradictions of class and capitalism, and a "higher" stage in which "true" communism had been achieved and the dictum for labor, free of class and free of the state, would be "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Lenin would not alter this concept in any fundamental way, but he would assign the word "socialism" to the "lower" stage and "communism" to the "higher" stage as a means of easily differentiating between the two. Marx and Engels would instead use the words rather interchangeably.

[Lucretia]

comrade, where does Lenin assert this? I was under the impression that Lenin did not consider the transitional regime as socialism and that this began in the modern context with Stalin.

You are correct.

Lenin, following Marx, recognized socialism as a lower phase of communism, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a transitional regime to bridge the gap between capitalism and socialism. Anybody who thinks that the DotP phase was the lower phase of communism needs to re-read both Lenin and Marx.

[Orange Juche]

People grow terrified in social conditions where speaking the "wrong thing" in public will easily get you arrested or killed for being "counter-revolutionary," and considering, they'll go for a less worker oriented option if it means they can live without that terror.

[Камо́ Зэд]

People grow terrified in social conditions where speaking the "wrong thing" in public will easily get you arrested or killed for being "counter-revolutionary," and considering, they'll go for a less worker oriented option if it means they can live without that terror.

I don't know that this analysis is really all that substantial, comrade. It strikes me as playing on the bourgeois-Western conception of socialism as an inherently terrorist system, and the Trotskyite notion that if only the "good" Communists had been listened to, none of that would've happened.

Sorry for coming off so snide. I've had a rather long night.

Tangentially, the premise of the original post is interesting in that it seems designed to imply that Marxism-Leninism is inherently "wrong" somehow due to its lack of popularity at the polls, and elsewhere on this forum we have an entire thread pages long dedicated to why leftists don't vote.

[Orange Juche]

I don't know that this analysis is really all that substantial, comrade. It strikes me as playing on the bourgeois-Western conception of socialism as an inherently terrorist system, and the Trotskyite notion that if only the "good" Communists had been listened to, none of that would've happened.

Sorry for coming off so snide. I've had a rather long night.

Tangentially, the premise of the original post is interesting in that it seems designed to imply that Marxism-Leninism is inherently "wrong" somehow due to its lack of popularity at the polls, and elsewhere on this forum we have an entire thread pages long dedicated to why leftists don't vote.

You don't come off as snide, no worries.

I do agree that there is a "western lense" version of what Leninist socialism is, and what it actually was (and that the western view amplifies negatives and distorts truths toward that ideological end), but there's no denying that there have been individuals whom, for expressing an opinion and expressing an opinion alone, faced highly unfavorable legal repercussions. I'm not even saying that's the entire, or most of, the reason - I'd be interested in more in depth polling on views of the history there by those who lived it. But I think it's safe to assume that even if it has somewhat moderate support as an ideology, it's very highly unlikely that the majority there support it - this being one of, and probably the most prominent - reason(s).

As far as the premise - yes, the ballot box is the worst judge of what is right or wrong. You only need to glance at an American Presidential election to see how blatantly obvious that is, so I agree with you that the premise of the thread is off.

[Tim Cornelis]

...you said it in your first sentence...

Remember this "A workers state implies support of the majority of the working class."

As I said earlier, obama had the electoral support of the majority of the working-class four years ago, so working on your logic the US has been a workers state for four years (more if you count every other election where the elected party had support from the majority of workers.)

A workers state implies support of the majority of the working class, not majority support implies a workers' state.

It's called a workers' state, proletarian dictatorship, or dictatorship of the proletariat, because it is supported (in fact, run) by the working class, at least more than half of them or otherwise it can't be called a 'workers' state'. (otherwise, a state run by one worker could be considered a workers' state).


well its obvious that they still believe all the false promises that the capitalist parties are telling them. Isn't that really a big factor to the success of the modern parties today?

Let me ask this question again:

Albania was said to be a workers' state. A workers' state necessarily requires the support of the working class, at the very least >50% of them, but it should be more close to 80%, especially after several decades. So let's assume that Albania was a workers' state supported by at least half the working class (the minimum), then where did all these workers who supported the workers' state and socialism go? Did they vanish? Or was there no actual widespread popular support for this "workers' state" which explains why the Hoxhaist party has virtually no support at all.

Saying that "workers vote against their own (objective) interests" may be an explanation in the Netherlands or the United States where workers do not vote for a workers' party and therefore vote contrary to their own objective interests*, but these countries were not workers' states and therefore did not have to rely on the support of the working class for socialism.

So again, where did the supporters of socialism go in Albania? Their numbers, implicitly according to Marxist-Leninists, went from 50-80% of the population in 1985 to 0.7% in 2005. Where they purged?

*What is in whose interest is completely subjective.


Tangentially, the premise of the original post is interesting in that it seems designed to imply that Marxism-Leninism is inherently "wrong" somehow due to its lack of popularity at the polls, and elsewhere on this forum we have an entire thread pages long dedicated to why leftists don't vote.

That's not what I mean. I'm not saying "Marxism-Leninist parties in the Netherlands receive 0.3% of the votes, therefore it's wrong." I'm saying that the widespread popular support by the workers necessary for a proper workers' state was absent, and therefore Albania was not a workers' state because it was not supported by the workers.


As far as the premise - yes, the ballot box is the worst judge of what is right or wrong. You only need to glance at an American Presidential election to see how blatantly obvious that is, so I agree with you that the premise of the thread is off.

See above.

[robbo203]

You are correct.

Lenin, following Marx, recognized socialism as a lower phase of communism, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a transitional regime to bridge the gap between capitalism and socialism. Anybody who thinks that the DotP phase was the lower phase of communism needs to re-read both Lenin and Marx.

Nowhere did Marx say socialism was the lower phase of communism. Socialism in Marx's time was a synonym for communism. Lenin also said that socialism was "state capitalism" run in the interests of the whole people. How that can be equated with the lower phase of socialism/communism I leave to your imagination....

[Tim Cornelis]

Nowhere did Marx say socialism was the lower phase of communism. Socialism in Marx's time was a synonym for communism.

This is repeated from time to time but is inaccurate. A little document called the Manifesto of the Communist Party mentioned "reactionary socialism," "bourgeois socialism," and "feudal socialism." Clearly then, socialism and communism were not synonymous in Marx' time.

Socialism and communism were not and have never been synonymous, but they were used interchangeably to describe the mode of production that would follow capitalism.


comrade, where does Lenin assert this? I was under the impression that Lenin did not consider the transitional regime as socialism and that this began in the modern context with Stalin.

In 'State and Revolution' Lenin refers to the lower-phase of communism as "socialism" and the higher-phase of communism as "communism." He asserts that under lower-phase communism the state will continue to exist despite the absence of class antagonisms.

[Thirsty Crow]

To qualify as a workers state, the state does not necessarily have to have support from the majority of the working-class, it has to uphold the objective interest of the proletarian class. Majority support isn't some holy alter upon which all legitimate power rests. Since the majority of the working-class supported obama in the last election, has the US been a workers state for the last four years?
If the real problem were only that simple, if only "objective" interest were cast in stone and immediately available for the prying eyes of communists. But it isn't so I'm afraid.

First, you'd have to account for the differences between the immediate interest of the broad layers of the revolutionary working class and the interest and necessity of international revolution. In other words, you have to reckon with nationalism and potential isolationism.

Second, you have to account for the fact that political theory and practice in part produces the very same "interest" you seem to be regarding as an indisputable fact. So when you have a political structure in place which clearly functions as a bulwark against workers' political self-emancipation - in a form of direct participation in political life and decisions - then you would have to fall back on this simplistic notion of "objective interests" and deal with it in a different way.

But you are right that within the confines of capitalism, majority support is not a holy altar, but I would argue that in a social, economic, and political context of a successful overthrow of a bourgeois state communists should deal with this in a more serious fashion and acknowledge the necessity of a more direct involvement of the broad layers of the working class in what could be called "official politics".

Which is precisely the point with historical so called real existng socialism, which didn't provide either the material basis for the emancipation of the proletariat or the political space for the exercise of class power, which is an aspect to consider when thinking about the irrelevance of Marxism-Leninism in contemporary Albania vis-a-vis the working class (among other factors of course).


Socialism and communism were not and have never been synonymous, but they were used interchangeably to describe the mode of production that would follow capitalism.Interchangable use = synonymy

Of course, there can never be a "perfect synonymy" due to phenomena such as contextual differences and connotations.

The problem is that both terms are polysemous - they have at least two sets of meaning: a) designating the political movement (that is what Marx problematized in the Manifesto) and b) the mode of production superseeding capitalism.

In this semantic layer b) the terms are clearly synonymous, at least when we're talking about Marx's and early Marxist thought.

[Peoples' War]

Lenin elucidates on this concept in Chapter Five of The State and Revolution, in which he cites the writing of Marx and Engels. The pre-Lenin conception of communism was that it occurred in two stages, a "lower" stage in which certain vestiges of the old bourgeois order persisted during the active endeavor to resolve the contradictions of class and capitalism,The vestiges that remain are, to be put basically, the remnants of bourgeois law, which have yet to be done away with. At this point, the idea is "each according to his work". Labour Voucher's take the place for compensation, and to allow the ability to attain food, clothing, etc. However, you cannot purchase the means of production. The state at this point is not to suppress, but to administer. It therefore ceases to be a state as we know it in capitalism, and as we know of it in a dictatorship fo the proletariat.

Now, waht a few people seemed to have missed, is that it was claimed that the transition from capitalism to communism was socialism. That is incorrect. The transition is the transition, in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism, is not this transition.

[Камо́ Зэд]

That's not what I mean. I'm not saying "Marxism-Leninist parties in the Netherlands receive 0.3% of the votes, therefore it's wrong." I'm saying that the widespread popular support by the workers necessary for a proper workers' state was absent, and therefore Albania was not a workers' state because it was not supported by the workers.

Comrade, in the original post, you cited polling results as a means of gauging Leninism's popular support. This doesn't seem like an accurate measurement, again, because of the tendency of radical leftists to view voting as playing into a bourgeois system.

[Q]

This thread shows, again, the anti-democratic tendencies of many comrades. We hear the "false consciousness" argument again that stems from the Second International, but where the latter at least combined this thesis with majoritarian politics, here we see comrades arguing for a minoritarian politics, where the "true revolutionary awareness" is somehow (mystically) ingrained into the party. Therefore, the party knows best.

Question for the anti-democratic comrades: How is the working class supposed to emancipate itself if, ultimately, it is the party that knows what is best for them?

As Lizard King already mentioned, the socialist state is only a semi-state in that it is really the working class (read, the vast majority of any developed capitalist society) that rules and which enforces its political hegemony over the remaining classes. This is best done through democracy for obvious reasons. And that is why communists are consistent democrats.

This is why the "Kautsky revivalists" argue for a mass party-movement as well. The party-movement forms our class as a class-collective and our class can only form itself into a collective through a party-movement. Once established on a mass scale, this class-collective can then consciously take political power by destroying the old constitutional and international state order and put forward its own semi-state, fit for majoritarian rule.

So, to come back to the OP: The Albanian communists most certainly did not have majority support when the state collapsed in on itself. In fact, this collapse was a reflection of the lack of such support. The collapse of the stalinoid bureaucratic monstrosities can be viewed in a sense as something progressive given that it cleared the way for renewed independent working class organisation, be it that it took and takes our class a long time to reinvent itself.

The communists are hardly playing a leading role in this either. Be it that they're stuck to praising failed revolutions and counter-revolutionary regimes or are stuck in small irrelevant, but "pure", sects or are even simply falling back to opportunism or economism. In this state there is little hope for a political way forward.

This is why I see the principle battle of communists among itself: We need to unite along a common communist programme and along the principles of working class independence, internationalism and democracy. This is at least a start of a way forward.

/rant

[m1omfg]

You make a very good point, comrade. I'm hesitant to compare the false-conscious proletariat to a child who resents being forced to eat his vegetables, despite how demonstrable their beneficial affect on his health is. To answer the original question, however, it's important to note that there are several anti-socialist analyses of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc that prevail in that part of the world. Marxist-Leninist education is something that has to be sought out with considerable dedication, but anti-socialist rhetoric is compulsory. When one is taught that Stalin was a man of horrendous evil, and that he presided over an era of economic disaster, from the beginning of one's education, it's rather difficult to break out of that old pattern. Even many sympathetic to socialism still haven't. And remember that few people who were working adults during Stalin's heyday are alive and politically active today. The same isn't true of Hoxha, given how relatively recent the man's death was, but the restoration of capitalism in that country has seen the rise of old cultural habits, among which is the taboo on discussing history and politics. This isn't a satisfactory explanation, I understand, but I've much more research to do into the modern Albanian condition before I'm qualified to answer why it is that modern Albanians aren't fighting tooth and nail for the restoration of Marxist-Leninist socialism in that country.

Perhaps the atrocious state of the Albanian economy and any rights under Hoxha has something to do with it rather than this disgusting patronizing bullshit viewing workers refusing Stalinism as children who don't want to eat vegetables.

[Positivist]

The requirement that socialism have workers' self-management is not "irrelevant." It helps delineate what, exactly, we're talking about when we toss around abstract phrases like "transitioning to socialism." In order to know whether you're transitioning to something, you have to know what that something is. Since I have already made clear in numerous threads prior to this one, including in this thread, that workers' majority support of a policy does not indicate that the policy is in their objective interests, it's a little surprising to see somebody bring this up to me like it's a grand revelation.

Marxist-Leninists want to magnify the workers'-state wiggle room I mentioned above, and transform it into a governing principle rather than a shrinking aberration that does not in itself constitute a transition to socialism. The point is that there can only be so much substitution before the very political framework within which bureaucrats and workers are operating becomes qualitatively skewed toward suppressing workers rather than propelling them to take ever greater control over their lives (which is what a "transition to socialism" would entail).

Yes self-managment would be relevant if we were discussing a communist society, but we aren't. We're discussing the notion that a workers state implies the support of the majority of the working class, which I disagree with and have explained why. Does a fully self-managed society requite majority participation to function? Absolutely. Yet as I have said before, that is not what I am arguing against. What I am asserting is that self-management will be realized gradually under the leadership of the already class-conscious proletariat, and that these class-conscious proletarians will quite possibly constitute a minoritu of the overall working-class.

[Positivist]

In order to actually have people believe that line, you'd better have some rock hard evidence that it's actually true. Because as it stands today, capitalism can also claim to be beneficial to much of mankind, "whether they like it or not", such as (for example) the metrics of life expectancy and poverty, which, since the 1920's, have increased and decreased, respectively.

Yea obviously. Is this supposed to be a revelation?

[Die Neue Zeit]

What I am asserting is that self-management will be realized gradually under the leadership of the already class-conscious proletariat, and that these class-conscious proletarians will quite possibly constitute a minority of the overall working-class.

Why, comrade? Majority political support for the party-movement is required before any revolutionary period proper. :confused:

[Positivist]

@Q, obviously the party residing over the state must include the input of a significant amount of active workers, and to accomplish this it must be a mass party, but why does this mass party have to include the majority of the working class? What, is membership gonna reach 51% and then we launch the revolution? I don't understand what is wrong with a party dictatorship as long as the party remains a mass party of class conscious workers, at least most of who retain a direct tie to the working class' condition itself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Because honest party citizenship is the best measure of political support, comrade. Think about it: the 50%+1 scenario you just mentioned is still a minority of "the electorate" and "the voting population." It goes against rule-of-bourgeois-law constitutionalism.

[Positivist]

Why, comrade? Majority political support for the party-movement is required before any revolutionary period proper. :confused:

Why? If a significant amount of workers are class conscious and a revolutionary situation is incurred, even if this mass workers movement, isn't the majority why shouldn't it seize power. If say 35% of the working-class is willing and able to seize state power, why shouldn't they?

[Tim Cornelis]

Interchangable use = synonymy

Of course, there can never be a "perfect synonymy" due to phenomena such as contextual differences and connotations.

The problem is that both terms are polysemous - they have at least two sets of meaning: a) designating the political movement (that is what Marx problematized in the Manifesto) and b) the mode of production superseeding capitalism.

In this semantic layer b) the terms are clearly synonymous, at least when we're talking about Marx's and early Marxist thought.

I can use Christianity and Maronite Catholicism interchangeably for example when talking about Christianity in the Middle East. I can call the president of Lebanon a Maronite Catholic or a Christian and thus use it interchangeably, but they are by no means synonymous.

[Positivist]

Because honest party citizenship is the best measure of political support, comrade. Think about it: the 50%+1 scenario you just mentioned is still a minority of "the electorate" and "the voting population." It goes against rule-of-bourgeois-law constitutionalism.

I agree with your statement here but disagree that it will always be possible. Religious and nationalist ferment are quite powerful forces in the minds of many workers throughout the world and usually these ideologies are tied up with the conservation, or more radical reimplementation of what is already in place (capitalism.) I'm not sure that places like Iran, Israel, Pakistan, or even the United States will be able to win over this majority within any foreseeable future, and I do not think that if a formidable workers movement is built up in any of these countries that its participants should have to wait for the reactionaries or apolitical to come around before they can secure their own emancipation.

[Hit The North]

Yes self-managment would be relevant if we were discussing a communist society, but we aren't. We're discussing the notion that a workers state implies the support of the majority of the working class, which I disagree with and have explained why. Does a fully self-managed society requite majority participation to function? Absolutely. Yet as I have said before, that is not what I am arguing against. What I am asserting is that self-management will be realized gradually under the leadership of the already class-conscious proletariat, and that these class-conscious proletarians will quite possibly constitute a minoritu of the overall working-class.

This makes sense in the context of seeing the revolution as one from above, or involving a simple seizure of political power, rather than one stemming from the working class acting as a class and taking possession of the means of production. But if the workers have already seized control over the means of production why would they step aside so that a minoritarian party can install itself as a gendarme between themselves and the means of production?

This is quite typical of the ML (Stalinists), cutting a divide between the vanguard and the class and identifying the vanguard narrowly as 'the Party'. They forget that the seizure of power in October, 1917, depended in large part on the existence of the Soviets - the workers already organised as a power. Of course, this is because Stalinism emerged out of a period of revolutionary retreat, whereby the soviet power was being superseded by the centralised power of the party state. It is, therefore, in its perspective, particularly of the dialectic between party and class, a normalisation of this denudation of the DotP.

So we are left with dodgy prescriptions such as this:

What I am asserting is that self-management will be realized gradually under the leadership of the already class-conscious proletariat, and that these class-conscious proletarians will quite possibly constitute a minoritu of the overall working-class.

The "class conscious proletarians" (by definition, Party members) acting as managers over the lumpen masses.

It is worth noting, also, that possession of class consciousness might be necessary to wage a revolutionary struggle against capital, but it is hardly necessary for the technical knowledge required for workers to self-manage, once capital has been overthrown.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why? If a significant amount of workers are class conscious and a revolutionary situation is incurred, even if this mass workers movement, isn't the majority why shouldn't it seize power. If say 35% of the working-class is willing and able to seize state power, why shouldn't they?

And just what if a significant portion of the working class in the "class as a whole" is actually hostile to its own movement? Even the "Anti-Revisionists" have a point in their minoritarian politics: they actually aim to have the rest of the class be at least apathetic towards "the party that knows best."


I'm not sure that places like Iran, Israel, Pakistan, or even the United States will be able to win over this majority within any foreseeable future, and I do not think that if a formidable workers movement is built up in any of these countries that its participants should have to wait for the reactionaries or apolitical to come around before they can secure their own emancipation.

Time and again, that has proven to be a nationalist dead-end. At least the Russians were banking on Germany.

[Positivist]

This makes sense in the context of seeing the revolution as one from above, or involving a simple seizure of political power, rather than one stemming from the working class acting as a class and taking possession of the means of production. But if the workers have already seized control over the means of production why would they step aside so that a minoritarian party can install itself as a gendarme between themselves and the means of production?
This is quite typical of the ML (Stalinists), cutting a divide between the vanguard and the class and identifying the vanguard narrowly as 'the Party'. They forget that the seizure of power in October, 1917, depended in large part on the existence of the Soviets - the workers already organised as a power. Of course, this is because Stalinism emerged out of a period of revolutionary retreat, whereby the soviet power was being superseded by the centralised power of the party state. It is, therefore, in its perspective, particularly of the dialectic between party and class, a normalisation of this denudation of the DotP.
The "class conscious proletarians" (by definition, Party members) acting as managers over the lumpen masses.
It is worth noting, also, that possession of class consciousness might be necessary to wage a revolutionary struggle against capital, but it is hardly necessary for the technical knowledge required for workers to self-manage, once capital has been overthrown.

First of all, I'm not an ML so don't just lump my views in with whatever caricatures you already have of that ideology. Next, you clearly haven't even read the bulk of my posts, because otherwise you would understand that I do not support a bureaucratic dictatorhsip over the proletariat whatsoever. As I have already said, I support a governing party which includes a mass majority of workers who retain a direct tie to the conditions endured by all workers, not just a cabal of former workers or intellectuals who became coordinators after the revolution. I do believe that a competent administrative body (which obviously won't include the entire party) should manage the productive forces until workers become sufficiently technically capable of doing so, but I believe that this body must answer directly to the workers. For this reason, I support consumptive planning by all workers either through surveying or through market data collection, and productive planning on the part of the managing agency. This being said, I believe that in order to avert reaction creeping into political decisions the state management should only abide by political commands which come from the class conscious proletariat. Otherwise, when confronted by the inducement of harsh war-like conditions during the counterrevolution, many, even the majority of workers may elect a return to capitalism even though it conflicts with their long term interests.

[Positivist]

And just what if a significant portion of the working class in the "class as a whole" is actually hostile to its own movement? Even the "Anti-Revisionists" have a point in their minoritarian politics: they actually aim to have the rest of the class be at least apathetic towards "the party that knows best."

Time and again, that has proven to be a nationalist dead-end. At least the Russians were banking on Germany.

Well in the scenario that there were more workers hostile to the socialist movement then were supportive, the supportive segment would not be able to seize political power. Note I said if 35% of the working class was willing and able. A mass of counterrevolutionaries would debilitate a lesser mass of revolutionaries from being able to seize state power.

As for your other point, I don't understand what your saying. That nationalist and/or religious conservatism is prone to failure?

[Lucretia]

Nowhere did Marx say socialism was the lower phase of communism. Socialism in Marx's time was a synonym for communism. Lenin also said that socialism was "state capitalism" run in the interests of the whole people. How that can be equated with the lower phase of socialism/communism I leave to your imagination....

You are right that Marx did not make the distinction between communism and socialism. He made the distinction between lower and higher phases of communism, and Lenin dubbed the lower phase "socialism." But that is irrelevant to the larger point that the DotP is the transitional phase between capitalism and the lower phase of communism, whatever you wish to call that lower phase.

As for the Lenin remark about state capitalism, I advise you to read it in its context. As I said in a thread a number of months back:


Do you mean what Lenin wrote in this work? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni.../ichtci/11.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm))

I see nothing really objectionable in it. The gist of it is that the collectivized property form that will exist in socialism develops within monopoly capitalism, and that the process of establishing socialism and overthrowing class society (and here is where MH could probably learn something) is of transforming the content of that property form by bringing it under the control of "a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way."

Anarchists love to point out quotes such as: "For 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. There is no middle course here. The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards socialism."

And they use these quotes to try to attribute to Lenin the position that socialism is at its essence about a collectivized means of production used to serve the interests of people, without any regard to the people doing the using, the planning, etc. In other words, socialism is a matter of distribution, not of workers' control. (The quotes above are followed by the statement "Either we have to be revolutionary democrats in fact, in which case we must not fear to take steps towards socialism." -- Again the process of democratization of decision-making and movement toward socialism are viewed as inextricable.)If you actually read the entire document, instead of lazily cherry-picking quotes that look damning for Lenin, you'll see that throughout the entire document, Lenin equates socialism with democracy, and capitalism with lack of democracy, and repeatedly suggests that this is the biggest difference between the two. How some of you can read this to mean the opposite of what he is saying is truly breath-taking. (It is also interesting to note that the implication of this is that Lenin's conception of democracy far transcends "just voting" or the kinds of reified and dry procedures that have occupied the center of discussion throughout the majority of this thread.)

[Lucretia]

Yes self-managment would be relevant if we were discussing a communist society, but we aren't. We're discussing the notion that a workers state implies the support of the majority of the working class, which I disagree with and have explained why. Does a fully self-managed society requite majority participation to function? Absolutely. Yet as I have said before, that is not what I am arguing against. What I am asserting is that self-management will be realized gradually under the leadership of the already class-conscious proletariat, and that these class-conscious proletarians will quite possibly constitute a minoritu of the overall working-class.

I think we might be talking past eachother as I never suggested self management would arise the day after the revolution. Try rereading my post.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Perhaps the atrocious state of the Albanian economy and any rights under Hoxha has something to do with it rather than this disgusting patronizing bullshit viewing workers refusing Stalinism as children who don't want to eat vegetables.

I'm told a lot about the Albanian economy and the situation regarding human rights under Comrade Hoxha that don't seem to be congruent with the objective facts of history. It would be more conducive to discussion, comrade, if we were to deal in citations rather than perpetuating assertions in the abstract.

[Ismail]

I'm just going to put in a response I made to a PM months ago on this same question:


Does he still have a big following in Albania?Depends. A book recently came out in Albania (which was endorsed by both the very reactionary President of Albania, and the equally reactionary President of Kosovo) that alleges (although it's not new) that Hoxha was an evil homosexual, and it's being sold like hotcakes.

One big problem in Albania is that works on history are ridiculous and there's a lot of apologia for Italian and especially German collaborators during WWII. For instance from one work:
For example, in 1995 when the Democrat Party was in power, it emerged that the newly rewritten history text book for the final year of secondary school presented the members of the nationalist movement of the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Balli Kombëtar, as national heroes. Their exploits were dwelt on admiringly and for several pages, while E.Hoxha (sic) got one page; a minimalism which given Hoxha’s role from the 1940s till his death in 1985, looked a bit biased. In 1999 when the Socialist Party was in power the History text had changed again.The Balli Kombëtar were similar to the Četniks in Yugoslavia. They basically refused to fight, claiming that the British would save Albania eventually. When the partisans, by contrast, actually did fight the occupiers, the BK got scared and began collaborating with the Germans against them. Like the Četniks, the BK employed the worst sort of bourgeois nationalism (the Italians and Germans had "united" an Albania ruled by quislings with a Kosovo ruled by quislings, and the BK fought to keep this "ethnic Albania") while the partisans by contrast called for Kosovar Albanians to decide the future of Kosovo on the basis of a postwar referendum, held between a liberated Albania and liberated Yugoslavia.

Now here comes the first problem: because of Albania's high birthrate, many Albanians are quite young, and Albanian history is written from a reactionary and bourgeois nationalist angle. Thus Hoxha is described as a puppet of Tito, as the importer of a "Slav ideology" (Communism), and as a traitor to the "national interests" of Albania by refusing to fight for an "ethnic Albania" as the BK supposedly did. So that's one problem affecting the negative perception of Hoxha.

The second problem was that, unlike the rest of the Eastern Bloc which tended to adopt a cynical "live and let life" lifestyle amongst peasants and urban persons, Albania had a militant period in the 60's and 70's where the slogan was "live, think and act like a revolutionary." This in turn led to a lot of cultural limiting over perceived bourgeois influences and ideology, so there's some bad memories there depending on the Albanian in question.

Then, of course, prison sentences and the secret police were a lot stronger than in other countries. Depending if the police in your district were particularly lame you could wind up with 10 years in prison for lightly criticizing the government from an angle seen as sympathizing with capitalism within a circle of friends or family members, or by saying nice things about the reactionary monarchy of the 1928-1939 period. That causes a lot of bad memories, and the government also intended to arrest family members in addition to arresting the offender.

Finally in the 80's the economy and society, despite 40 prior years of industrial, agricultural, cultural and social development, began to stagnate heavily due to a lack of foreign imports since the government didn't want to open itself up to "special economic zones," foreign investment from capitalist firms, and the like. This was also the time where Albania had its highest birthrate, so lots of dissatisfaction comes from this area.

There's this Albanian Marxist-Leninist (not pro-Hoxha, just a generic ML guy) who gave his views on that period:
Enver Hoxha was too reliant on Marxism Leninism, not on actual circumstances the country was in. He severed trade with everybody, isolated Albania from the outside and this led to the rationing of food in the 80s. If he just tried to understand trade was vital to Albania (since it's territory doesn't offer access to all of the resources a country needed. Before his paranoia about revisionism, everything worked fine and he managed to secure a 9-10% economical growth yearly. Had he been realistic, Albania would be way better now. Since I live here, I can testimony it's hell on earth: nothing works, from the economy, to politics to small things such as garbage circulation in cities.

So for how much the economy went nuts in the 80s, it still worked better than today, since we entered the capitalist market as the exploiters (like many, many other countries)There are plenty of Albanians who think the Hoxha years were generally good for the country, but who basically feel that if Hoxha had taken a "moderate" course (aka social-democracy) it would have worked much better, since they themselves aren't communists but social-democrats. These types back the Socialist Party, which succeeded the Party of Labour.

There are also old people who strongly support Hoxha. In fact that homophobic book I mentioned has endured a few honest-to-god book burnings by a committee calling itself the "Committee to Defend the Revolutionary Life and Work of Enver Hoxha" or something like that. There was also a book published in Albania in 2008 written by a former party functionary who seriously writes just like he would have done in the 70's and 80's. So his arguments, although fine for people like us, look weird to normal Albanians since he constantly invokes Marxist verbiage, quotes Marx, Lenin and Stalin, keeps on calling Hoxha "Comrade Hoxha" (in a ritualistic manner), etc.

A number of ex-PLA members still consider themselves communists. One of them being Hoxha's wife, e.g. in a 1997 interview: "Nexhmije spoke as if Enver were still alive. As if Communism were still alive. 'I have always been an idealist. I am old and tired now, but prison has not changed my way of thinking. Enver and I will always be trust Marxists. We believe in it, we have always believed in it.' She paused and, glancing out the window as if she could see the office of the hated Sali Berisha, formerly the Hoxha family's doctor, said with disgust, 'Those people believe in nothing, only in dollars.'" (Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, p. 100.)

But yeah, tl;dr version: Hoxha is generally disliked for nationalist or dumb (e.g. "HE RUINED ALBANIA BY NOT BEING PRO-WEST") or "HE WAS A FAG") reasons, and those who do like him lack the consciousness to actually be communist so instead they back the social-democratic successor party which once in a blue moon has a few nice things to say about him.


Perhaps the atrocious state of the Albanian economy and any rights under Hoxha has something to do with it rather than this disgusting patronizing bullshit viewing workers refusing Stalinism as children who don't want to eat vegetables.Many former Yugoslavs proudly note the economy of Yugoslavia, how "strong" it was, how access to consumer goods was fairly good, etc. They kinda gloss over the gigantic debt it owed to the IMF, this same debt which played a significant role in the breakup of the federation into civil wars and genocide as the republics kept on blaming each other over who was responsible for paying the debt, etc.

But yeah, in Albania today textbooks talk about how ol' Hoxha "isolated" Albania and refused to turn it into another capitalist success story. Clearly Albania's great strides in industrialization and economic development from the 1940's-70's don't matter and its stagnation in the 80's had nothing to do with capitalist encirclement. Albania was super-"Stalinist" and therefore its economy somehow increasingly stopped working via magic when certain years hit.

Also FYI, when one compares 1980's Albania and 1980's Romania, the latter's austerity measures to pay back IMF loans were clearly far worse for it than Albanian economic stagnation caused by lack of sufficient foreign trade. One Western analyst, Paul Lendvai, commented in 1986 that food was more plentiful for Albanians than Romanians. Indeed, Albania was self-sufficient in grain.

Here's a Christian Science Monitor article a few years back on nostalgia for the socialist period due to how haywire life has become for many under capitalism: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p10s01-woeu.html

[Positivist]

I think we might be talking past eachother as I never suggested self management would arise the day after the revolution. Try rereading my post.

I think we're talking about workers States in different contexts and that's the main problem. Your talking about a workers state which would exist in the lower phase of communism, I'm talking about the DOtP.

[m1omfg]

Ismail is that it, pointing to Yugoslav debt that was much lower than the debt of any individual post-Yugoslav republic (far from being crippling even in the late 1980s the living standard was far,far superior to Albania or USSR)? Is this the wonderful achievent of Albania that it had more food than Romania. Saying Albania had more food than Romania is like saying a beating victim is better off than a shooting victim. Albania had strict rationing and absolute ban of religion while religion was basically legal in all of the Warsaw Pact and all the European socialist states except for Romania and Albania had a consumption of food same as Western Europe (even Poland, despite the queues) with the exception of luxury foods that most people dont eat even in the West. Add absolutely closed borders, rural poverty, half the population not having sanitation, schoolkids getting denounced as enemies of the people, every third person having experiences with the secret police or labour camps and you have nice picture of Hoxhas "paradise" Albania.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Ismail is that it, pointing to Yugoslav debt that was much lower than the debt of any individual post-Yugoslav republic (far from being crippling even in the late 1980s the living standard was far,far superior to Albania or USSR)? Is this the wonderful achievent of Albania that it had more food than Romania. Saying Albania had more food than Romania is like saying a beating victim is better off than a shooting victim. Albania had strict rationing and absolute ban of religion while religion was basically legal in all of the Warsaw Pact and all the European socialist states except for Romania and Albania had a consumption of food same as Western Europe (even Poland, despite the queues) with the exception of luxury foods that most people dont eat even in the West. Add absolutely closed borders, rural poverty, half the population not having sanitation, schoolkids getting denounced as enemies of the people, every third person having experiences with the secret police or labour camps and you have nice picture of Hoxhas "paradise" Albania.

I know I've made this request before, but this discussion could really do with any kind of citation whatsoever, comrade.

[L.A.P.]

Also, it's not clear that the majority of the US working class did vote for Obama.

Majority of the working class didn't vote at all

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yea obviously. Is this supposed to be a revelation?

If the left can show it's constituency good results on their promises of raising living standards, then why wouldn't the majority support these measures?

[Камо́ Зэд]

If the left can show it's constituency good results on their promises of raising living standards, then why wouldn't the majority support these measures?

Consider that past presidents of the United States who have presided over times of general prosperity are often still regarded by many as having been detrimental to the state of the union overall. Clinton wasn't exactly a messiah, but the time over which he presided was relatively peaceful and prosperous, and yet he's considered by many, many working class people as the harbinger of the evils of socialism, just as an example.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well in the scenario that there were more workers hostile to the socialist movement then were supportive, the supportive segment would not be able to seize political power. Note I said if 35% of the working class was willing and able. A mass of counterrevolutionaries would debilitate a lesser mass of revolutionaries from being able to seize state power.

As for your other point, I don't understand what your saying. That nationalist and/or religious conservatism is prone to failure?

If you're referring to 35% of the class being in the party-movement and a significantly supportive bunch outside of it, such that together there is a majority, then that's OK.

Your second scenario promotes isolated revolutions. That's the nationalism I warned about.

[Ismail]

Ismail is that it, pointing to Yugoslav debt that was much lower than the debt of any individual post-Yugoslav republic (far from being crippling even in the late 1980s the living standard was far,far superior to Albania or USSR)?The Yugoslav debt in the 80's was so non-crippling Tito admitted how huge it was and capitalist-style austerity measures were initiated with support from the IMF.

Give me one source which doesn't note the large contribution Yugoslav indebtedness had to the breakup of the Federation. Every book I've read on the subject has noted it.

And yeah, living standards were better... I guess until the genocide, and I guess except in Kosovo where, as a Yugoslav functionary admitted (Albania and the Albanians, 1975) both illiteracy and blood feuds still existed while in Albania proper they were effectively extinguished. Never mind that Yugoslavia got these living standards by being the voice of "non-aligned socialism," through Western economic and military aid, and with a concurrent foreign policy that included support for anti-communists (Nasser, Indira Gandhi, etc.) and the defense of Pol Pot against the "illegal" Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea (a position it took alongside the USA, UK and China.) Never mind all the Yugoslav workers who moved to West Germany in search of jobs, and so on.


Saying Albania had more food than Romania is like saying a beating victim is better off than a shooting victim.You missed my point. Romania implemented austerity measures to pay back foreign debts. This was the same Romania whose leader was good friends with Tito, who called for a "non-dogmatic socialism" and was a good friend of US Presidents in the 60's and 70's. The fact is that Albania was significantly better off than Romania whose wonderfully open foreign policy included refusing to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967 as a sign of how "independent" Romania's foreign policy was from the USSR.

And in the end, Romania, which was certainly not diplomatically isolated and which was richer than Albania, demonstrated the difference between austerity and stagnation to the average person. Life in Romania was pretty much intolerable, whereas in Albania the youth found it annoying but didn't really act until the "revolutions" in the Eastern Bloc had encouraged them to do so.


Albania had strict rationingRationing was removed in the late 50's. It came back in the 80's but grain, as I've noted, was still in a state of self-sufficiency. The Albanians sought to achieve self-sufficiency in some other foodstuffs as well, but a rapidly growing population made that difficult.


and absolute ban of religion while religion was basically legal in all of the Warsaw PactYou seem to forget that religion played a uniquely reactionary role in Albania, namely that it sought to divide the Albanians and literally deny their nationality (Muslims were "Turks," Orthodox were "Greeks.") Not to mention that as late as the 1950's many Kosovar Albanians were being deported from their lands as "Turks" (following the Ottoman precedent) to Turkey by a Yugoslav government frightened of actually fulfilling calls for Kosovo being equal to other republics in the federation.

In Poland after 1956, as part of the valiant struggle against "Stalinism" and in defense of the "creative development of Marxism-Leninism," Poland allowed religious teaching in schools. This bore fruit in the 80's as the Catholic Church there, as in Lithuania, held high the banner of Christ against the "godlessness" of "Communism."


rural poverty,Even the remotest villages had access to electricity, per Albania becoming Europe's first totally electrified country in the early 70's. Greek villages across the border had to fare with more traditional forms of illuminating their residences.


half the population not having sanitation,Do you have a source for this, per chance? Health care certainly rose; from a life expectancy of 38 in 1945 to the early 70's by 1980.

[Positivist]

Your second scenario promotes isolated revolutions. That's the nationalism I warned about.

How so? I was noting that building a revolutionary movement which encompassed the majority of the working class would be difficult due to nationalism and religion in particular areas of the globe.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How so? I was noting that building a revolutionary movement which encompassed the majority of the working class would be difficult due to nationalism and religion in particular areas of the globe.

If revolution broke out in only a single country in Europe while others lag behind, that poses unnecessary risks. Why? Because, logistically, a country needs to trade for key goods.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

If revolution broke out in only a single country in Europe while others lag behind, that poses unnecessary risks. Why? Because, logistically, a country needs to trade for key goods.

Not to stray away from the main thread, but: Where is the limit to you? You do realize that exports have increased tenfold in the last twenty years, and that the global division of labor has "sectorised" in certain regions more and more? Please explain how (given that your reason for waiting on revolution is trade, which is steadily shrinking certain sectors in one country and growing that in others) you see us making international international revolution?(PM maybe)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Consider that past presidents of the United States who have presided over times of general prosperity are often still regarded by many as having been detrimental to the state of the union overall. Clinton wasn't exactly a messiah, but the time over which he presided was relatively peaceful and prosperous, and yet he's considered by many, many working class people as the harbinger of the evils of socialism, just as an example.

Are you actually trying to argue that a majority of the working population in the USA views Clinton as "the harbinger of the evils of socialism"? :ohmy:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not to stray away from the main thread, but: Where is the limit to you? You do realize that exports have increased tenfold in the last twenty years, and that the global division of labor has "sectorised" in certain regions more and more? Please explain how (given that your reason for waiting on revolution is trade, which is steadily shrinking certain sectors in one country and growing that in others) you see us making international international revolution?(PM maybe)

Go back to basic geography and geology. The European Union as a whole is adequate geopolitical and geological space. Even Western Europe as a whole and key parts of Central Europe (hello, Germany) is adequate. A Chinese spin on the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is adequate. Heck, even contrary to Trotskyist "permanent revolution" musings, modern Russia and its near abroad (i.e., the former Soviet space proper) are adequate.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Go back to basic geography and geology. The European Union as a whole is adequate geopolitical and geological space. Even Western Europe as a whole and key parts of Central Europe (hello, Germany) is adequate. A Chinese spin on the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is adequate. Heck, even contrary to Trotskyist "permanent revolution" musings, modern Russia and its near abroad (i.e., the former Soviet space proper) are adequate.

Sure, seems geographically and maybe geologically sound.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Are you actually trying to argue that a majority of the working population in the USA views Clinton as "the harbinger of the evils of socialism"? :ohmy:

Yes. Yes, that is precisely my whole argument. You've nailed it, comrade.

[Paul Cockshott]

Question: if the majority of workers' don't support a policy, how do you know it's in their interests?
I am not suggesting that it can't happen, but that for it to happen consistently means that conditions aren't ready for a transition to socialism, much less socialism.From the fact that albanians do not support socialism now, that leads you to conclude conditions for socialism are not ripe there now, which is fair enough.

[fug]

The funny thing is that in Albania ( a country of cca. 3 million people ) this "M-L" party still got some 9k votes, which is , I think, more than the number of votes the PSL ( and I'd say all other "Leninist" parties put together ) got in the US, a country of 300+ million people.

[Paul Cockshott]

DNZ et al, talk of percentages abstract. ALP came to power as result of guerilla war against fascism. Should they have followed example of PCF and laid down arms?'

[Ismail]

The funny thing is that in Albania ( a country of cca. 3 million people ) this "M-L" party still got some 9k votes, which is , I think, more than the number of votes the PSL ( and I'd say all other "Leninist" parties put together ) got in the US, a country of 300+ million people.It's also worth noting that the Party also claimed (and not without merit since Albanian politics are hardly known for transparency) that there was large-scale ballot-rigging.

And as noted, there are plenty of people who think Hoxha was, overall, a positive leader but who vote for the Socialist Party since it is the "successor" to the PLA and pretends to want to bring about the best of both worlds (capitalism and "socialism"), somewhat similar to Die Linke in the former GDR. During the 1997 uprising (which the government claimed was "communist" in character) many of the persons involved were from the Socialist Party and "hardliners" carried portraits of Hoxha, even though the party is social-democratic.

[robbo203]

This is repeated from time to time but is inaccurate. A little document called the Manifesto of the Communist Party mentioned "reactionary socialism," "bourgeois socialism," and "feudal socialism." Clearly then, socialism and communism were not synonymous in Marx' time.

Socialism and communism were not and have never been synonymous, but they were used interchangeably to describe the mode of production that would follow capitalism.
.


Well if you look at the 1890 Preface to the Manifesto, Engels makes it clear why it was called a communist manifesto and not a socialist manifesto.

The working class of 1874, at the dissolution of the International, was altogether different from that of 1864, at its foundation. Proudhonism in the Latin countries, and the specific Lassalleanism in Germany, were dying out; and even the ten arch-conservative English trade unions were gradually approaching the point where, in 1887, the chairman of their Swansea Congress could say in their name: “Continental socialism has lost its terror for us.” Yet by 1887 continental socialism was almost exclusively the theory heralded in the Manifesto. Thus, to a certain extent, the history of the Manifesto reflects the history of the modern working-class movement since 1848. At present, it is doubtless the most widely circulated, the most international product of all socialist literature, the common programme of many millions of workers of all countries from Siberia to California.

Nevertheless, when it appeared, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. In 1847, two kinds of people were considered socialists. On the one hand were the adherents of the various utopian systems, notably the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France, both of whom, at that date, had already dwindled to mere sects gradually dying out. On the other, the manifold types of social quacks who wanted to eliminate social abuses through their various universal panaceas and all kinds of patch-work, without hurting capital and profit in the least. In both cases, people who stood outside the labor movement and who looked for support rather to the “educated” classes. The section of the working class, however, which demanded a radical reconstruction of society, convinced that mere political revolutions were not enough, then called itself Communist. It was still a rough-hewn, only instinctive and frequently somewhat crude communism. Yet, it was powerful enough to bring into being two systems of utopian communism — in France, the “Icarian” communists of Cabet, and in Germany that of Weitling. Socialism in 1847 signified a bourgeois movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, quite respectable, whereas communism was the very opposite. And since we were very decidedly of the opinion as early as then that “the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the working class itself,” [from the General Rules of the International] we could have no hesitation as to which of the two names we should choose. Nor has it ever occurred to us to repudiate it.

The implication of what is said here is that socialism no longer had those connnotations and could indeed be used as a synonym for communism. Engels himself talked of socialism being a stateless society. Not only that, in the second half of the 19th century socialism/early 20th century was treated as a synonym for what we understand to be a communist society - a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. Numerous writers from Engels to Kropotkin used the term in this way. Bogdanov's work A Short Course of Economic Science, 1898 , later used by the Bolsheviks for educational purposes, talked of socialism as 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.”. Even Stalin's 1905 pamphlet on Anarchism talked of socialism in precisely this way - in effect as a communist society


That was before Lenin changed the meaning of the term by identifying "socialism" first with the lower stage of communism and then later as "state capitalism" allegedly run in the interests of the whole people

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

hodja the great worker, leading the great workers state lol

[Ismail]

hodja the great worker, leading the great workers state lolMarx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lenin, and most other prominent Marxists and Anarchists didn't come from working-class backgrounds, so I don't see your point. Hoxha's family wasn't especially well-off in any case, considering his father had to emigrate to the USA in the 1910s to make a living and the family house was burned down by Greek troops only a few years after Enver was born. Plus the fact that Hoxha associated with left-wing movements since his student days kinda demonstrates that his lack of a working-class background isn't relevant, just as the working-class backgrounds of Koçi Xoxe, Tuk Jakova, Bedri Spahiu and other rightists weren't relevant.

[Grenzer]

The question is, just how much wiggle room should be permitted to accrue to a workers' state before the claim of governing in the workers' interests become highly questionable justifications for suppressing the actual workers?

Well the real question seems to be how is it possible for there to be a so-called "workers' state" that does not reflect the interests of the workers. As Marxists, we understand that the state ultimately reflects the interests of the ruling class; that a state could exist which pursues policies that do not reflect the interests of the ruling class is a paradoxical, anti-Marxist thesis.

Has there ever been a bourgeois state which did not fundamentally reflect the interests of the bourgeoisie?

Has there ever been a feudal state which did not fundamentally reflect the interests of the aristocracy?

[Hit The North]

Well the real question seems to be how is it possible for there to be a so-called "workers' state" that does not reflect the interests of the workers.


Easy - it could be a so-called "workers' state", i.e. a "workers' state" in name only.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The workers' state is unique in that it is the first state whose ruling class come from its preceding society as the lowest of the classes. It is also unique in that its ruling class is the first in history to represent the interests of the vast majority of people in that society. And still further setting it apart is the character of its dialectic: it is the first ruling class to actively add to itself, to fundamentally alter productive relations in such a way as to absorb more members into the class, destroying class itself. It stands to reason, then, that in representing the interests of its class, a workers' state considers longer-term economic sustainability than is considered by a capitalist state. Consider that considerations of sustainability may be proportional to the size of the class in terms of what percentage of the population relates to the means of production in that specific way. In other words: the smaller the class, the shorter its sight. That the proletariat represent the largest class in history means that the workers' state is tasked with considering its role in no less than the ultimate transformation of human civilization. It comes as no surprise, then, that the coming of the communist epoch is so alien to the interests and values of the old bourgeois epoch.

But that's enough of my sinister commie double-talk. I'm not convinced in the slightest that the People's Socialist Republic of Albania was anything but a healthy workers' state up until the years just before the collapse. It was ideal by no means, but the period of uninterrupted development represents a step in the right direction, and that's more anyone can say about most countries since the beginning of the bourgeois epoch. Either way, it is important for a Marxist-Leninist to consider when more immediate goals actually are beneficial in the long run. While the interests of a collective can be separate from the interests of an individual, no individual interest can really be separate from those of its collective. (The broad interests of my class do not change if my individual interests are subtracted from them, but my own interests would be fundamentally different if they were nurtured by the worldview of a different class. In other words, your kidney would be no less a kidney for the death of one cell, but the character of its individual cells are the reason for that organ's functioning as a kidney.)

[robbo203]

The workers' state is unique in that it is the first state whose ruling class come from its preceding society as the lowest of the classes.

The so called "workers state" is an utter contradiction in terms.

How can the exploited class of capitalism come to be the ruling class in capitalism (there must, after all, still be capitalism if the working class exists at all) and yet somehow this same "exploited ruling" class is going to allow the subordinate or dominated exploiting class to continue to exploit it? It were not exploited it would not be a working class in the Marxian sense and therefore there could be no such a thing as a "workers state" . In others words, the very idea of a workers state requires that the workers cpntinue to exist as an exploited class. If that is what you want why bother to overthrow capitalism at all, I wonder?


Actually, come to think of it, the "workers state" idea is probably a more effective way of copting workers into supporting capitalism than any other I can think of. It provides workers with the illusion of being in control when in reality they continued to be screwed by the capitalist state. Thats worse than useless. its totally counter-productive!

I say ditch the whole idea - its indefensible and ridiculous and, if I might say so, totally against the interests of the working class. The interests of the working class lies in abolishing the working class, thus making impossible the idea of a workers state

[Камо́ Зэд]

The so called "workers state" is an utter contradiction in terms.

How can the exploited class of capitalism come to be the ruling class in capitalism (there must, after all, still be capitalism if the working class exists at all) and yet somehow this same "exploited ruling" class is going to allow the subordinate or dominated exploiting class to continue to exploit it? It were not exploited it would not be a working class in the Marxian sense and therefore there could be no such a thing as a "workers state" . In others words, the very idea of a workers state requires that the workers cpntinue to exist as an exploited class. If that is what you want why bother to overthrow capitalism at all, I wonder?


Actually, come to think of it, the "workers state" idea is probably a more effective way of copting workers into supporting capitalism than any other I can think of. It provides workers with the illusion of being in control when in reality they continued to be screwed by the capitalist state. Thats worse than useless. its totally counter-productive!

I say ditch the whole idea - its indefensible and ridiculous and, if I might say so, totally against the interests of the working class. The interests of the working class lies in abolishing the working class, thus making impossible the idea of a workers state

I'm finding your meaning difficult to penetrate. Are you saying that capitalism can't continue to exist if the proletariat become the ruling class? If it is, then there's no argument I can make; I absolutely agree. Are you saying that when the proletariat class comes to control the means of production they can no longer be considered "workers" since they're no longer forced to sell the value of their labor for survival? If that's the case, then maybe I do disagree there; "worker" as a word need only imply that the subject is one who does any kind of work. I guess it wouldn't harm anything to call the proletariat something else once their relationship to the means of production transforms, but it strikes me as hair-splitting.

[robbo203]

I'm finding your meaning difficult to penetrate. Are you saying that capitalism can't continue to exist if the proletariat become the ruling class? If it is, then there's no argument I can make; I absolutely agree. Are you saying that when the proletariat class comes to control the means of production they can no longer be considered "workers" since they're no longer forced to sell the value of their labor for survival? If that's the case, then maybe I do disagree there; "worker" as a word need only imply that the subject is one who does any kind of work. I guess it wouldn't harm anything to call the proletariat something else once their relationship to the means of production transforms, but it strikes me as hair-splitting.

I am sayng that as long as the proletariat continue to exist as a class, so too must capitalism and capitalism by its very nature is something that cannot be operated in the interests of the working class but only in the interests of capital and the capitalist class

This is what is usually meant by the "workers state - that the working class continues to exist as a class and as class it is the exploited class in capitalism.The very idea that such a class should seize power and yet allow itself to contunue to be exploited under a "workers state" (in which obviously capitalism must continue) is , of course, ridiculous and laughable


If you want to change the meaning of the word "worker" to mean, say, just people who work so that in effect you have a classless society in a so called workers state then, of course, you run into quite another difficulty - how can there possibly be a state in a classless society when, in Marxian terms, a "state" is by defintion an instrument of class rule

Either way, people who call themselves "Marxists" have boxed themselves into a corner with this daft idea of the so called workers state. And it must be said that Marx too must take the blame for this. It was definitely not one of his more profound and insightful ideas. Not by a long way....

[Камо́ Зэд]

I am sayng that as long as the proletariat continue to exist as a class, so too must capitalism and capitalism by its very nature is something that cannot be operated in the interests of the working class but only in the interests of capital and the capitalist class

Based on broad Marxist principle in the abstract, this is a reasonable conclusion. However, the issue I take with it is that, in the material world, the development of things isn't clean; it's almost guaranteed to subvert expectation, at least to some degree. It doesn't follow that the seizure of political power by the proletariat erases from existence all instances of non-proletarian class interest. Individual worldviews are influenced by the historical development of that individual's class in various ways, but the existence of those views aren't wholly dependent on the continued existence of that class in terms of legal productive relations. This is evidenced by the fact that Marx, Engels, and Lenin typically describe class as a historically defined group and by the fact that they assert the persistence of the "birthmarks" of capitalism into the lower phase of communism (socialism).


This is what is usually meant by the "workers state - that the working class continues to exist as a class and as class it is the exploited class in capitalism.The very idea that such a class should seize power and yet allow itself to contunue to be exploited under a "workers state" (in which obviously capitalism must continue) is , of course, ridiculous and laughable

I'm not sure who is asserting that the historically defined proletariat must remain exploited under a workers' state, but you're right in that the idea is laughable (a word which has the same meaning as "ridiculous," incidentally).


If you want to change the meaning of the word "worker" to mean, say, just people who work so that in effect you have a classless society in a so called workers state then, of course, you run into quite another difficulty - how can there possibly be a state in a classless society when, in Marxian terms, a "state" is by defintion an instrument of class rule


Either way, people who call themselves "Marxists" have boxed themselves into a corner with this daft idea of the so called workers state. And it must be said that Marx too must take the blame for this. It was definitely not one of his more profound and insightful ideas. Not by a long way....

I'd be interested in a direct quote from Marx wherein he describes a workers' state as being one under which the proletariat are exploited.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lenin, and most other prominent Marxists and Anarchists didn't come from working-class backgrounds, so I don't see your point. Hoxha's family wasn't especially well-off in any case, considering his father had to emigrate to the USA in the 1910s to make a living and the family house was burned down by Greek troops only a few years after Enver was born. Plus the fact that Hoxha associated with left-wing movements since his student days kinda demonstrates that his lack of a working-class background isn't relevant, just as the working-class backgrounds of Koçi Xoxe, Tuk Jakova, Bedri Spahiu and other rightists weren't relevant.
You're not wrong, I was just being a douche. However, I don't think that Albania was a 'worker's state', in fact I don't think that there ever has been one. I think it would be quite hard to define a worker's state in itself, the working class is a subordinate class by its very functionality within a socio-economic framework. But that is the endless discussion in the left that should be discussed in another thread (feel free if you want to convince me).

[Positivist]

If revolution broke out in only a single country in Europe while others lag behind, that poses unnecessary risks. Why? Because, logistically, a country needs to trade for key goods.

I didn't say anything about revolution breaking out in a single country, I was actually thinking of how revolution would proceed where particularly reactionary institutions or ideas gripped much of the populace during a regional or global "wave" of revolutions. In a very unlikely example, say Mexico and Canada were in revolt but the US revolutionary movements had not yet reached majority support. The success of the Mexican and Canadian revolutions is dependent upon a successful revolution in the US with or without a majority of working class support.

[Die Neue Zeit]

DNZ et al, talk of percentages abstract. ALP came to power as result of guerilla war against fascism. Should they have followed example of PCF and laid down arms?'

Comrade, the ALP gained momentum as a result of its insurgency against the occupation.

The PCF, if you're referring to 1968, is a different situation because there was no occupation. Mai 1968 produced no real revolutionary period for the working class, just a mere regime change opportunity: http://www.revleft.com/vb/pcfs-role-may-t138705/index.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

I didn't say anything about revolution breaking out in a single country, I was actually thinking of how revolution would proceed where particularly reactionary institutions or ideas gripped much of the populace during a regional or global "wave" of revolutions. In a very unlikely example, say Mexico and Canada were in revolt but the US revolutionary movements had not yet reached majority support. The success of the Mexican and Canadian revolutions is dependent upon a successful revolution in the US with or without a majority of working class support.

I'm for siding with transnationalism and not internationalism, but I do appreciate the debate between the PCC's big continentalism and national waves.

Why I posed that strawman, however, is because most of today's left doesn't side with either. They're for a revolutionary period in just one country, hoping it will trigger a revolutionary period elsewhere. Think of Iceland's left, or Scotland's left, for instance.

I appreciate your point about our North American situation, but only because we do not have the same supra-national proto-state structures that the Europeans have. In the specific case of Europe, though, anything short of at least Western European-level organizing (including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, of course) and orientation before a revolutionary period is political suicide. This recognition is made plain clear by the PCC's constant calls for a Communist Party of the European Union, a project that I wholeheartedly support, and by my own calls for even the GUE-NGL to be tighter and more organizationally substantive.

[Paul Cockshott]

I am refering to 1945 in Albania and France

by the way who are the PCC calling for a CP of the EU?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am refering to 1945 in Albania and France

I stand corrected re. France.


by the way who are the PCC calling for a CP of the EU?

The comrades publishing the Weekly Worker, the paper which had an article or two of yours, the "Provisional Central Committee" comrade Macnair belongs to.

[Paul Cockshott]

I assumed it meant a larger body than that, a body with branches in different countries.

More generally my point is that the debate on ALbania is abstracting from the real history of that country by counterposing various ideal models of how people wish workers states to be onto an end result of a complex historical process. The communists came to power in Albania as a result of winning support in the anti-fascist resistance. What do their critics think they should have done that they did not do?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I assumed it meant a larger body than that, a body with branches in different countries.

They are calling precisely for such a body spanning the European Union, and getting involved in EU politics, too.

[Paul Cockshott]

I understand, just hoped it was a larger and less cold war influenced group calling for it. You are up early for an Ontario Sunday..