WTF is eurocommunism?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

WFT is eurocommunism!?!?!?!?!?

[Comrade #138672]

Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant for a Western European country and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Outside of Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as "Neocommunism."

Theoretical foundations

The main theoretical foundation of Eurocommunism was Antonio Gramsci's writing about Marxist theory which questioned the sectarianism of the Left and encouraged communist parties to develop social alliances to win hegemonic support for social reforms. Eurocommunist parties expressed their fidelity to democratic institutions more clearly than before and attempted to widen their appeal by embracing public sector middle-class workers, new social movements such as feminism and gay liberation and more publicly questioning the Soviet Union. Early inspirations can also be found in the Austromarxism and its seeking of a "third" democratic "way" to socialism.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism

[Tim Cornelis]

Social-democracy used to refer (circa 1920) to a political movement that sought to create a classless society through political reforms via parliament. When social-democracy moved to the centre of the political spectrum -- and circa 1960s social-democracy began to abandon its nominallu revolutionary principles which, at this point, existed on paper exclusively anyway -- Eurocommunism took its place. Eurocommunism seeks to achieve communism via the parliamentary route. In reality, the aim of communism moves to the background very fast. Hence, Eurocommunism is considered opportunistic (as there is no real commitment to revolutionary principles) and reformist. I'd say it's a variant of democratic socialism.

However, parties like the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not Eurocommunist despite seeking to achieve communism via the parliamentary route as this is their priority and are opposed to political reforms (impossibilism).

Notwithstanding its name, Eurocommunism exists worldwide--though it originated in Western Europe, out of communist parties that became 'anti-Moscow'. Eurocommunist parties are or were the French Communist Party, United Left (Spain), SYRIZA (Synaspismós), the Japanese Communist Party, the now defunct Communist Party of the Netherlands from the 1980s onward, and the now defunct Mexican Communist Party.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

As anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists would say, it is a revisionist current which sought to make peace with the capitalist world and reach communism through reform. Below is a study guide I wrote to Enver Hoxha's "Eurocommunism is Anti-communism."

Guide: http://www.revleft.com/vb/euro-communism-anti-t176343/index.html

[TheRedAnarchist23]

So euro-communist is what the western european communist parties are.

[Blake's Baby]

Not exactly. Many of the Western European Communist Parties were Eurocommunist, such as the PCI (Italy) and PCE (Spain), but others such as the PCF (France) were not, and I think the KKE wouldn't have ever been considered Eurocommunist either. Also other non-Western European parties adopted elements of Eurocommunism, such as the CPA (Australia) and even arguably the CPSU under Gorbachev.

[blake 3:17]

As anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists would say, it is a revisionist current which sought to make peace with the capitalist world and reach communism through reform.

Most of the Communist parties were already reformist, so in many cases it was a question of adopting a theory closer to the actual practice of the party.

It usually involved a drift to the right and orientation to governance, but it had some very appealing features -- independence from Moscow, more intellectual freedoms, greater internal democracy.

Does anyone here know what role the anti-nuclear movement played in the making of Eurocommunism?

[Q]

Eurocommunism was an opportunist and liquidationist trend that had its impact in quite a few communist parties. Everywhere it did get the upperhand, it resulted in the communist party being dissolved. The PCI in Italy, the PSUC in Catalonia, the old CPGB are all examples.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

So eurocommunist parties are the ones who are not stalinist?

[Q]

So eurocommunist parties are the ones who are not stalinist?

They inevitably moved to the right of Stalinism as they cut their ties from Moscow, because there was nothing left binding them to any sort of communist politics (all that was left was symbol-communism anyway).

[Blake's Baby]

What do you mean by Stalinist? To me 'Stalinist' means 'supporting socialism in one country'. The Eurocommunists were still supporters of socialism in one country. The CPB (continuer of the CPGB) still hold to 'The British Road to Socialism', which set out a strategy for the CPGB to take power on the back of a left-leaning Labour Party.

[Ismail]

Eurocommunism was descended from Togliatti's "polycentrism" views. Basically after the 20th Party Congress Togliatti declared that the CPSU hadn't gone far enough in denouncing Stalin, "Stalinism" and "dogmatism," and that every communist party had to achieve socialism through its own, national roads. Gomułka in Poland and Nagy in Hungary (two survivors of "Stalinist repression") strongly supported Togliatti, as did ol' Tito.

Except this was demagogic; Lenin and Stalin explicitly noted that each country would achieve socialism in accordance with its own conditions. What was different with the revisionists was that it was declared that socialism could be obtained peacefully and that the communist parties had to become (in Togliatti's words) "mass parties" which were to go beyond their proletarian basis and to reach out to the bourgeoisie in effect. Undue stress on the "national roads" to socialism likewise justified economic measures in Eastern Europe which were in many cases to the right even of the capitalist-restorationists of the USSR. Hence supposedly in accordance with "national circumstances" over 80% of the Polish economy was in private hands, Nagy called for the revival of artisan trade, etc. Over time all the Eastern European countries (except Albania) began their "national roads" to capitalist restoration, such as the GDR's "consumer socialism," etc.

With the emergence of Dubček and the subsequent Prague Spring Eurocommunism began to emerge. The pro-Soviet revisionists, having discredited themselves, were overtaken by outright liberals who used the works of Gramsci and others to justify attacks on Marxism-Leninism itself as an "outdated" doctrine, whose conditions were acceptable only to 1917 Russia, etc. The PCE, PCI, CPGB and PCF were all affected by Eurocommunism. This coincided with efforts by many of the intellectuals of these parties to turn Marxism into an academic exercise.

The Soviet revisionists took a disapproving stand towards Eurocommunism (since it worked to disconnect these parties from the Soviet bourgeoisie to their own nations' bourgeoisie) while at the same time seeking to mend ties with its adherents. Under Gorbachev Eurocommunism was praised as part of the international "communist" (revisionist) movement's struggle against "dogmatism" and "Stalinism."

To quote Alia at the 9th Congress of the PLA in 1986 (pg. 174), "Today it is extremely difficult to find any more or less fundamental distinctions between the so-called Eurocommunism and European social-democracy. The revisionist parties in those countries have given up any idea of taking power, even in a 'peaceful' parliamentary ways. They declare openly, as the Communist Party of Italy does, that they see their role and mission in the contribution which they must make to ensure the successful functioning of the present-day bourgeois state and the improvement of bourgeois society."

[Lokomotive293]

Not exactly. Many of the Western European Communist Parties were Eurocommunist, such as the PCI (Italy) and PCE (Spain), but others such as the PCF (France) were not, and I think the KKE wouldn't have ever been considered Eurocommunist either. Also other non-Western European parties adopted elements of Eurocommunism, such as the CPA (Australia) and even arguably the CPSU under Gorbachev.

Isn't the PCF eurocommunist as well?

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think any party is Eurocommunist now. My understanding is that was a policy that related to attitudes to the Soviet Union in the '70s and '80s. Also, as far as I know, no, the PCF wasn't Eurocommunist, it was pretty much the most pro-Moscow party in Western Europe.

[subcp]

If the PCF or KKE were Eurocommunist, they would've gone the way of the PCI. KKE's more Eurocommunist elements split to form, what is today, the biggest component party of Syriza.

[Lokomotive293]

I don't think any party is Eurocommunist now. My understanding is that was a policy that related to attitudes to the Soviet Union in the '70s and '80s. Also, as far as I know, no, the PCF wasn't Eurocommunist, it was pretty much the most pro-Moscow party in Western Europe.

I know this is Wikipedia, but read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Communist_Party

Also, the offshoots of the Eurocommunist movements are still well and alive in as good as every (Western) communist party. In some places, they have taken over the parties and in many cases destroyed them, in others they are in opposition.
Eurocommunism is a lot more than an attitude towards the Soviet Union, it's basically an abandonment of revolutionary theory and practice and the concept of the role of the working class and the Communist Party as a vanguard, in favor of "broad and diverse movements", pluralism and just plain reformism.
Of course, if you take a look at the right-wing opponents of Lenin and the Bolsheviks a hundred years ago, there's not much difference between them and the revisionists today, no matter how much Eurocommunists claim their views are something entirely new and different. So, I'm not sure if that "tendency" even deserves a name of its own.

[Lokomotive293]

If the PCF or KKE were Eurocommunist, they would've gone the way of the PCI. KKE's more Eurocommunist elements split to form, what is today, the biggest component party of Syriza.

The KKE is not eurocommunist, they are, next to the PCP (Portugal), the most consequent Marxist-Leninist party in Europe. PCF is a completely different matter, though. However, there seems to be a growing Marxist-Leninist opposition inside the party.

[Q]

The KKE is not eurocommunist, they are, next to the PCP (Portugal), the most consequent Marxist-Leninist party in Europe.
Actually, the KKE seems to be breaking from pretty fundamental ML positions (http://www.revleft.com/vb/19th-congress-kke-t176924/index.html?p=2553925#post2553925), that have defined it as such for decades (in my opinion in a positive manner), so I'm not sure how much sense this label still has.


PCF is a completely different matter, though. However, there seems to be a growing Marxist-Leninist opposition inside the party.

Interesting. How is that working out?

[Ismail]

Also, as far as I know, no, the PCF wasn't Eurocommunist, it was pretty much the most pro-Moscow party in Western Europe.The PCF was, in fact, Eurocommunist. Georges Marchais, its leader in the 70's-80's, was a Eurocommunist. Hoxha attacks him and Garaudy (who later converted to Islam and involved himself in Holocaust denial) in his book Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism.

To quote Hoxha (pg. 210), "Georges Marchais has become a zealous follower of the theories of Roger Garaudy, who made the law ideologically in the French Communist Party in the time of Thorez and who was expelled from that party later. Garaudy strove to 'prove' that in the developed capitalist countries the proletariat allegedly no longer exists, that it has been put on the same level as the working people of the administration, the engineers and technicians, who, according to Garaudy, are all equally exploited. Now Georges Marchais has taken over this theory as his own and has carried it even further. According to him, everyone, not only the working class, not only all the working people, but even the bourgeoisie, and indeed the army and police, are allegedly for the 'socialism' which he preaches. In his discourses he says repeatedly. 'We want to advance to socialism, but we are hindered by just 25 families, which comprise the strength of capital in France.' 'How is it possible that we, all this force, should not be able to have our say and overcome this caste which remains in power?' wonders Marchais. And he provides his own answer, that to advance to socialism France requires only economic and political reforms. He deals with the question of overthrowing capital as something which can be easily achieved, just with a few words, by puffing out one's cheeks and blowing it over. Whatever else it may be, the road which the French revisionists advocate can be anything, but it has nothing at all to do with the genuine road to socialism."

Marchais denounced "Stalinism" like the rest of them. It's wrong to claim that Eurocommunists hated the revisionist USSR or something, they just considered it "dogmatic." Otherwise they still maintained ties with the CPSU.


PCF is a completely different matter, though. However, there seems to be a growing Marxist-Leninist opposition inside the party.There's "Marxist-Leninist opposition" (i.e. Brezhnevite) within the CPUSA. That doesn't mean much.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, I'm getting the impression I've underestimated the size and influence of the Eurocommunist faction in the PCF in the 1970s.

[Devrim]

Yes, I'm getting the impression I've underestimated the size and influence of the Eurocommunist faction in the PCF in the 1970s.

The Euros never really dominated the French Party. The had a brief period of dominance in the 70s. Wiki puts it like this:


Some Communist parties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party) with strong popular support, notably the Italian Communist Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partito_Comunista_Italiano) (PCI) and the Communist Party of Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Spain_%28main%29) (PCE) adopted Eurocommunism most enthusiastically. The Finnish Communist Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Finland) was dominated by Eurocommunists. In the 1980s the traditional, pro-Soviet faction broke away, calling the main party revisionist. At least one mass party, the French Communist Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Communist_Party) (PCF) and many smaller parties strongly opposed to Eurocommunism and stayed aligned to the positions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union) until the end of the USSR (although the PCF did make a brief turn toward Eurocommunism in the mid-to-late 1970s).

The CPGB*, which people on here may be more familiar with was split between the two factions with the Euros running the glossy magazine 'Marxism Today', and the 'Tankies' running the daily newspaper, the 'Morning Star'.

Devrim

*n.b. this is not the CPGB of today, who were a smaller faction called the Leninist in the original CPGB.

[Lokomotive293]

Actually, the KKE seems to be breaking from pretty fundamental ML positions (http://www.revleft.com/vb/19th-congress-kke-t176924/index.html?p=2553925#post2553925), that have defined it as such for decades (in my opinion in a positive manner), so I'm not sure how much sense this label still has.

How so?


Interesting. How is that working out?

In preparation of the 36th national congress in February, a quite significant number of regional party organizations have brought forward an alternative proposal for a resolution that is clearly rooted in Marxist analysis, and opposed to the current line of the leadership of the party. I've only found it in French and German, though. Maybe someone knows what I'm talking about and has a link to an English translation?

French:
http://lepcf.fr/Unir-les-communistes-pour-un-pcf

German:
http://kritische-massen.over-blog.de/article-franzosische-kommunisten-neuer-aufbruch-112487311.html

[Lokomotive293]

There's "Marxist-Leninist opposition" (i.e. Brezhnevite) within the CPUSA. That doesn't mean much.

I don't know much about the CPUSA, but I've always had the impression that they hardly even exist anymore. You'd probably call me "Brezhnevite" as well, but that's a topic for another thread.

[Ismail]

The Euros never really dominated the French Party. The had a brief period of dominance in the 70s.The PCF, although it didn't go all the way with Eurocommunism like the PCE and PCI did, never renounced the electoral path to "socialism" and the supposedly "national roads." Marchais remained leader up to 1994. Thus as Alia noted in 1986 (9th Congress of the PLA, pp. 174-175), "Irrespective of whether they take part directly in the bourgeois governments or remain in the role of the legal opposition, the revisionist parties have now become part and parcel of the bourgeois superstructure. The role played by the Communist party of France is typical. Its participation in the government was necessary for the monopoly bourgeoisie, so that the Communist Party together with the socialists would administer the crisis, a thing which was bound to lead, as it did, to the discrediting of the party and to marked decline of its influence on the masses."

And in 1988 Alia wrote (Our Enver, pp. 303-304) that due to this policy of collaboration with the bourgeoisie the PCF in France went from gaining 25% of the vote in the 1956 election to 9.8% in 1986 while, "The revisionist line brought no better 'luck' to the Communist Party of Italy, either. In the last 10 years alone, this party has lost more than one third of its electoral support... At a meeting of the central committee of that party, held in July of this year, one of its leaders said openly, 'the Italian Communist Party has now been transformed into a social-democratic party'."

[Devrim]

The PCF, although it didn't go all the way with Eurocommunism like the PCE and PCI did, never renounced the electoral path to "socialism" and the supposedly "national roads."

I don't really care for all of the Albanian analysis of it. However, the idea that their were separate national roads to 'socialism' predates the Eurocommunists by decades. 'The British Road to Socialism' was adopted as the programme of the CPGB in 1951 (i.e. in Stalin's time).

The idea of an electoral path was adopted then too:


The enemies of Communism accuse the Communist Party of aiming to introduce Soviet Power in Britain and abolish Parliament. This is a slanderous misrepresentation of our policy. Experience has shown that in present conditions the advance to Socialism can be made just as well by a different road.

What charecterised Euorcommunism was not an insistence on 'national roads', or 'electoral paths', or even the transformation of the communist parties into social democratic parties. It was the idea of independence from the Moscow line. All of these things were acceptable back in Stalin's time. Political independence wasn't.

Devrim

[Ismail]

I don't really care for all of the Albanian analysis of it. However, the idea that their were separate national roads to 'socialism' predates the Eurocommunists by decades. 'The British Road to Socialism' was adopted as the programme of the CPGB in 1951 (i.e. in Stalin's time).The British Road worked out by Stalin and the CPGB leadership was qualitatively different from post-1956 efforts and did not envision socialism by purely parliamentary means. See: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv13n2/brs1951.htm

And yes, there was no issue with national roads to socialism. Lenin and Stalin pointed out that each country would achieve socialism in its own ways, as did Marx and Engels. The difference is that the Khrushchevites, Titoites, Maoists and others decided that somehow fundamental aspects of Marxism-Leninism were not acceptable to their own countries, or that these aspects had become "outdated." From that point on the existence of "national roads" was transformed from a basic fact of scientific socialism to a way of "correcting" the "dogmatic," "Stalinist," etc. path paved by the experience of the USSR under Lenin and Stalin.


What charecterised Euorcommunism was not an insistence on 'national roads', or 'electoral paths', or even the transformation of the communist parties into social democratic parties. It was the idea of independence from the Moscow line. All of these things were acceptable back in Stalin's time. Political independence wasn't.There was no "political independence." These parties still maintained "fraternal contacts" with the Soviet revisionists. It was the Party of Labour of Albania which fully broke with the Soviet revisionists, not simply because it sought "political independence," but because it recognized the social-imperialist and state-capitalist nature of the USSR under its revisionist leadership, and likewise the degeneration of the CPSU from a communist party into a social-fascist party.

The "political independence" of Czechoslovakia under Dubček, for instance, was the freedom of its bourgeoisie to switch to the welcoming arms of American capital. The same with the Yugoslav revisionists who after 1956, while remaining mainly with the West, sought economic ties with the revisionist East as well.

The call for "political independence," for a "humane," "democratic socialism" was demagogy. For the Eurocommunists there was to be no struggle against the Soviet revisionists and the overthrow of capitalism in the USSR, but rather noting the "flaws" of the USSR's so-called "bureaucratic socialism," etc.

What characterized Eurocommunism was its move towards the open liquidation of any real characteristics of a communist party, from revoking the tenet of being the revolutionary vanguard of the working-class, to revoking the tenet of class struggle, of scientific socialism, etc.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

So eurocummunists are the parties who abbandoned stalinism.
Since the PCP and the KKE are both stalinist they are not euro-communist.


The KKE is not eurocommunist, they are, next to the PCP (Portugal), the most consequent Marxist-Leninist party in Europe.

The best way I have to answer this is: shut the fuck up.
The PCP is as bourgeois as the fucking socialist party (PS), they say they support the proletariat, but the only thing they want is to reach power, nothing more.
They might claim to be part of the Stalin cult that calls itself marxist-leninism, but they do not have solutions for anything, they are as bad as the others, they would see us in misery while doing nothing to improve our condition.
Do not speak of things you do not know. I see how the PCP acts in the elections, they claim they want a patriotic left-wing government, they never say anything about a revolution, they never expressed any solidarity towards striking workers.
The PCP is not revolutionary, they are just another party, except this one likes Stalin paintings and this symbol: :hammersickle:.

[Ismail]

The PCP is as bourgeois as the fucking socialist party (PS), they say they support the proletariat, but the only thing they want is to reach power, nothing more.
They might claim to be part of the Stalin cult that calls itself marxist-leninism,The PCP, Cunhal and Co. were pro-Soviet revisionism and endorsed the 20th Party Congress and the so-called "condemnation of the cult of the individual." There were a number of splits from it in the 60's-70's, some of which later formed the PCP-R which upheld the line of the Party of Labour of Albania.

On the revisionism of the PCP see: http://ciml.250x.com/news/90th_anniversary_of_the_pcp_english.html

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

So eurocommunist parties are the ones who are not stalinist?

This is a misunderstanding which is understandable and common. There is no dichotomy between "Stalinist" and "Anti-Stalinist". After Stalin died he was denounced by Khrushchev. Soon afterward Khrushchev began capitalist reforms on the basis that the USSR should "out compete" the west and argued that the "communist" east could peacefully co-exist with the capitalist west and that armed struggle was no longer important and that communist parties should gain hegemony through the political process. This was a massive break with Stalin because Stalin argued that:

A) The focus of economic development should be on abolishing the law of value and making all goods freely available to all. Stalin tried to achieve this by focusing on unprofitable (in the capitalist sense) industries such as heavy industry so an over abundance of essential goods could be distrubuted freely. He also tried to subsidize goods to make them more available to the public. Khrushchev abandoned the focus on heavy industry and refocused on getting revenue from light goods and cut subsidies, with prices in many cases doubling.

B) That since the age of imperialism had arrived, the democratic process had no progressive content since states were so heavily tied to international capital that a revolution could not take place from a majority of parliament because the bourgeois state was on one hand capable of overthrowing any revolutionary element with in it, and on the other hand too weak to make an effective break from imperialism since imperialism is an international system and something as flimsy as the bourgeois state exists only in a national context. For a nation to break free from the imperialist system a violent revolution must take place so that the working class can establish a state through it's own might, which would have enough power to overthrow imperialism because it would be the exersize of force of an entire class on a the nation, instead of the bourgeois state which can only write a few slips of paper in their parliaments and hope the rest of society obeys them

Khrushchev represented a massive theoretical break with Stalin and a massive split ensued. The eastern bloc and various Soviet puppet states upheld Khrushchev and denounced Stalin while China and Albania split and formed their own faction. This faction became known as "Anti-Revisionists" and is where most Marxist-Leninists and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists belong today. It doesn't represent a love of Stalin (Mao wrote many critiques of Stalin which I can link if needed) but a rejection of Khrushchev.

Here is a letter that Mao wrote that outlines his position on "soviet revisionism"



It seems that you are using "Stalinism" as a synonym for State Socialism that no longer has socialist charctheristics and can not be described as a state in which the masses are ruling. Stalinism is a poor term to use because after the theoretical tenets of Stalinism were completely overturned this corrupted socialism continued to exist. A better term for this form of government is Deformed Worker's State, or State Capitalism. Likewise since we really can't speak of "Stalinism" since it only exists as a slur, it is better to refer to the theoretical developments that the USSR adhered to under Stalin as Marxist-Leninism.

Alot of Anti-Revisionists refer the revisionist tendency they opposed as Khrushchevites, however I feel that this is a poor term for the same reason that Stalinism is a poor term. We really can't speak of Khruschevism as a concrete ideology other than as a collection of theoretical developments used to enact new policies, since many other states that followed his lines used different theoretical innovations to justify their policies and varied wildly in form and content. Since many Anti-Revisionists connect their struggle against what they refer to as revisionism with Luxemburg's struggle against Bernstein, I think it would be better to describe it as Bernsteinism since that word can be easily associated with the revisionism of states and organizations that are mere hollow shadows of their prior form.

[Ismail]

Alot of Anti-Revisionists refer the revisionist tendency they opposed as Khrushchevites, however I feel that this is a poor term for the same reason that Stalinism is a poor term. We really can't speak of Khruschevism as a concrete ideology other than as a collection of theoretical developments used to enact new policies, since many other states that followed his lines used different theoretical innovations to justify their policies and varied wildly in form and content.Khrushchevism refers to the post-1956 Soviet ideology. As Hoxha wrote at the time of Khrushchev's downfall, "Despite the fact that Khrushchev was the head of modern revisionism, his political liquidation as a person does not mean the liquidation of his political, ideological, economic and organizational course... Khrushchevite revisionism is not dead, his ideology and policy expressed in the line of the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU are not liquidated. It has deep roots and in order to eliminate the danger, to cut off the possibility of its recurrence, revisionism must be wiped out root and branch. This is the only remedy." (Selected Works Vol. III, p. 663.)


Since many Anti-Revisionists connect their struggle against what they refer to as revisionism with Luxemburg's struggle against Bernstein, I think it would be better to describe it as Bernsteinism since that word can be easily associated with the revisionism of states and organizations that are mere hollow shadows of their prior form.There are various types of revisionism. Bernsteinism, Kautskyism and Browderism were social-democratic deviations of an openly reformist character. Khrushchevism, Castroism, Maoism, etc. have "Marxist-Leninist" and "revolutionary" disguises. There are things common to them, but also differences. With Eurocommunism, for instance, we see the evolution of pro-Soviet (i.e. "Khrushchevite") revisionism towards the revisionist theses of Bernstein and Browder.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Ismail does make a good point, there is a continuity between Bernsteinism and other forms of revisionism, but this continitity manifests it's self in multiple forms. Still, I do feel like as materialists we should identify what unifies these revisionist strains. It is not enough to identify bad ideas, we need to identify where they come from. Personally I like the Maoist explanation that they are the result of failed class struggles, I know Ismail isn't a Maoist so I would be interested to hear his explanation.

[Ismail]

Still, I do feel like as materialists we should identify what unifies these revisionist strains.Bureaucracy is the main spring of revisionism. Thus for instance reformist and class-collaborationist deviations developed among the trade-union leaderships which were disconnected from the rank-and-file, and a similar process occurred in the USSR. The bureaucracy which had manifestations in the party, state and economic bodies triumphed.


It is not enough to identify bad ideas, we need to identify where they come from. Personally I like the Maoist explanation that they are the result of failed class struggles, I know Ismail isn't a Maoist so I would be interested to hear his explanation.The Maoist argument is demagogic and essentially boils down to "there needed to be a great proletarian cultural revolution like in China." But experience demonstrates that the "GPCR" was a putsch by Mao against his rivals and brought anarchy to China, liquidated the party in practice and placed the army and armed students above it and the state, with Mao as the personal arbitrator of all.

Class struggle, antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, exist under socialism. It is not until communism that antagonistic contradictions cease existence. The Soviet revisionists declared that class struggle had ceased to exist in the USSR after the early 30's and that the claim that it continued was a "Stalinist deviation," whereas the Chinese revisionists claimed that antagonistic contradictions should be allowed to openly manifest themselves in the party and state, hence the "two-line struggle" in the party, etc. The Chinese bastardized dialectics to justify right-wing opportunism in this field, an opportunism which was manifested in the "hundred flowers" among other things.

[keystone]

"eurocommunism" was the gateway for western european communist parties aligned with the revisionist ussr to openly ditch revolution in their theory as they already had in practice decades before.

i can't help but laugh reading ismail's post: you don't think there is line struggle in communist groups? or that one can magically ban "antagonistic contradictions" from openly manifesting themselves within the party or the state apparatus?

your argument about the GPCR "liquidating the party" is rather strange. are you referring to the revolutionary opposition to deng xiaopeng and the capitalist-roaders, who hoxha tried to cozy up to after mao's death? the chinese communist party is in power today, and the capitalist-roaders who mao opposed restored capitalism. not sure here which party was liquidated in the history you've been reading.

[Ismail]

i can't help but laugh reading ismail's post: you don't think there is line struggle in communist groups? or that one can magically ban "antagonistic contradictions" from openly manifesting themselves within the party or the state apparatus?Mao envisioned the party as an arena of competing classes in practice. That has nothing to do with getting rid of antagonistic contradictions (whose solution apparently lay in periodical "revolutions" of the "GPCR" type according to Mao.)


your argument about the GPCR "liquidating the party" is rather strange. are you referring to the revolutionary opposition to deng xiaopeng and the capitalist-roaders, who hoxha tried to cozy up to after mao's death?I said "liquidated the party in practice" and that indeed occurred, as Hoxha noted it would as early as 1966. Mao called in sections of the army to put down rival student militias, both sides which were praising "Mao Zedong Thought." Mao called for "bombarding the headquarters," aka attacking the party which had tried to limit his powers. The "GPCR" had no revolutionary content, it was, as Hoxha noted, a putsch on an all-China scale.

The party formally existed (and to some extent still exists) much in the same way the Workers' Party of Korea still exists: the military, the "barrel of a gun," decides policy.

Hoxha did not try to "cozy up" to the Gang of Four. He openly denounced Deng at the 7th Congress of the PLA in 1976 and his opinion of the Gang was not much better, calling them "a talkative group without principles, megalomaniacal, ambitious, intrigant." (Letra të zgjedhura Vol. 1. Tiranë: 8 Nëntori. 1985. p. 398.)