Dictatorship of the Proletariat

[Red Enemy]

Introduction

I know that I am beating a dead horse here, not just in the Theory forum, but in general. However, I am really wanting to get more in depth on the analysis of what a proletarian dictatorship would entail. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat has come up in every discussion I have been having with comrade robbo, and we have always proven diametrically opposed, even now. From threads on the vanguard, to threads on Marxism-Leninism. He claims that the dictatorship of the proletariat can only result in capitalism being managed, and the formation of a state capitalist class, as we know of in Russia, China, and elsewhere. I argue that he is narrow minded, and looking at the Russian situation as his only example, with no analysis of material conditions. My arguement also suggests that robbo does not have a firm comprehension of what occurs under the dotp. Comrade robbo has brought up some points that made me critically analyze my position, but the position has been continuously reaffirmed.

As always, I invite the views of everyone on this. From those opposed, to those in favour of a dotp. Criticism, agreement, opposition, I would like to see it all in this thread. Let's have an in depth discussion here, on what truly the dotp is. What I write is done through my own lens, and I may, or may not, be correct.

**I do not wish to continue without making it clear that socialism, whether you view that term in the Leninist or non-Leninist sense, entails common ownership/control of the means of production.**

What is the form of the Dictatorship of the Proletarian ?

To start, the dotp is the proletariat organized as the ruling class, most likely through the form of workers councils (simply put as the working class holding political power). However, many choose to believe we cannot know the form it will take. I say "fuck that", we have a form, what else is there?

In my opinion, revolution (referencing the seizure of political power) must occur first in the most advanced capitalist nations. I would say the USA has to be first to fall, or if it isn't, it must follow the first to fall quickly.

What are the class relations to the means of production?

This, I think, forms a major concern for those looking into whether or not they support the entire notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They see, as robbo did, that classes still exist, but do not understand the relations in such a society, so they rationalize it as the dotp exististing to administer capitalism, and capitalism existing only in the interests of the bourgeoisie. To continue I paraphrase robbo, again:

"If the bourgeoisie no longer control the means of production, but the workers do, this means that there is no bourgeoisie and no proletariat, so it is socialism!"

Therefore, in robbo's view and others, since the bourgeoisie no longer control the means of production, the workers do, these classes cease to exist.

Is this correct, however?

I say that it is not, because the bourgeoisie in this particular nation still exists, but as a dispossessed class. They are not in control of the means of production any longer, but hold by their bourgeois legality, claim to those means of production as owners. The world bourgeoisie still recognize the claim, and the bourgeoisie will struggle to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship, and wrest control of the means of production, back into their own hands.

What is the mode of production under a DOTP?

This is something I question when I think about the dotp. Though, I believe that it has to be capitalist, but in the context of it's dismantling. The context of the capitalist mode of production under the dotp, is that of being abolished.

That, although commodity production still exists, wage labour exists, but because it is being dismantled (ex: expropriation of the bourgeoisie), it is in the process of abolition, and not in the idea of "capitalism existing as it did before".

Someone care to elaborate on this?

I do not wish to go further in my analysis, because I am not overly knowledgeable, and I would really appreciate those who are more informed on Marxian economics to participate in this thread.

The end of the DOTP, establishment of Socialism

My question to this would be; how exactly? I have never come to a solid conclusion on this myself. Robbo suggests that there is no dotp, but th immediate abolition of capitalism in an isolated area, which starts a domino effect.

I see his view as "socialism in one area". It goes against the idea that capitalism is a global system, and must be overthrown globally before socialism can exist.

What seems most likely is the world coming under the DOTP. Meaning, when the last vestige of the bourgeoisie is overthrown, they will no longer be able to fight, and will become a part of the proletariat, and socialism will come into being. This seems like it would be proceedingly quick following a DOTP in the USA.

I also think the viewpoint that "we will not know until it happens" is valid as well.

I thank you for reading, and tahnk you for participating in the thread!

Remember, I am trying to learn, just as much as I am trying to express my views. I thank robbo for making me ask questions, and for making me want to more critically look at my views.

[Let's Get Free]

The differences between the so called proletarian dictatorship and any other bourgeois government are superficial. Fundamentally they both represent the same principle of minority rule over the majority. This "proletarian dictatorship" might be more sympathetic to the working class, but at the end of the day, it will still have to run capitalism in the interest of capitalism, which is the only way capitalism can be run. Let me ask, if the proletariat is to be the ruling class, over whom is it to rule? In short, there will remain another proletariat which will be subdued to this new rule, to this new state.

[Blake's Baby]

If the proletarian dictatorship represents the rule of the minority, it is, by definition, not 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' but instead 'the dictatorship of a minority'. One might as well name 'the counter-revolution' as 'the revolution' in order to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was socialism.

In the Soviet Union, the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party was not 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'. The Bolsheviks usurped the emergent power of the soviets, which were the working class excercising its own dictatorship (ie, the dictatorship of the proletariat). So, the proletarian dictatorship was overthrown. To call the resultant party dictatorship 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' is either to massively misunderstand the situation, or to fraudulently misrepresent what was going on.

There can't be 'a proletariat' ruling over 'another proletariat'. There can't be two proletariat, the proletariat is by definition the class that is exploited in capitalism. If it ceases to be the exploited class in capitalism, it ceases to be the proletariat. If it continues to be the exploited class in capitalism it continues to be the proletariat.

The proletariat must take control of the state and the economy, otherwise it cannot abolish them. The process of that abolition is 'the dictatroship of the proletariat' - the period when the revolutionary proletariat is re-ordering society. That re-ordering is a process, not an event, in part because the proletariat must re-organsie an awful lot, but also because with the best will in the world the revolution doesn't happen everywhere simultaneously; during the process, the proletariat excercises its dictatorship.

[Lord Hargreaves]

It is difficult to know what the DOTP actually means in practice, because the term describes a class and its relation to political power in the abstract, and does not describe any particular system or institution of governance. It is almost as if it is the revolutionary suspension of law and governance in the name of raw, unleashed, unmediated class power. This is I think why Marxists often say of the DOTP "that we cannot know the form it will take".

DOTP might be a way of saying democracy but inscribed within the language of Marxism and class politics. So, just like "democracy" is a kind of overarching idea that can actually lend itself to many different types of politics, so might it be for DOTP.

The DOTP expresses the important tenet of Marxism that we have to take material conditions as we are given them, so we shouldn't take our socialism from the sky and hammer them into the ground, but build from the ground up.

In the past I would have left the analysis there and been a happy Marxist-Leninist. But now I worry that this same "indecision" within the DOTP may mean that substitionalism - where the interests of the proletariat is identified solely with the interests of the ruling party - is inherent to the concept. I don't know the solution to this problem.

[Red Enemy]

The differences between the so called proletarian dictatorship and any other bourgeois government are superficial. Fundamentally they both represent the same principle of minority rule over the majority. This "proletarian dictatorship" might be more sympathetic to the working class, but at the end of the day, it will still have to run capitalism in the interest of capitalism, which is the only way capitalism can be run. Let me ask, if the proletariat is to be the ruling class, over whom is it to rule? In short, there will remain another proletariat which will be subdued to this new rule, to this new state.
I don't know if it's because you refuse to acknowledge it, or because your actually that thick... The dictatorship of the proletariat, as Blake's Baby said, is NOT a rule of a "minority". Otherwise it is NOT the DOTP. Do you believe that expropriating the bourgeoisie, reducing the work day to 6 hours, creating a common LIVING wage, putting workers councils in charge of industry, etc etc. are "in the interests of capital"? If you do, then you guys are totally bat shit. As well, do you believe that the bourgeois government rules over the bourgeoisie? Therefore, the bourgeoisie is not the ruling class, but it's government is.

Oh, another thing you, nor robbo, have been able to explain is HOW you're utopian revolution works. You haven't explained for instance:

HOW is class abolished in one area?
HOW come outside bourgeoisie don't come to overthrow the socialist area?
HOW do the vast majority become socialists?
HOW do you think capitalists you want to "barter" with, as robbo expressed, will react to such a threat?
HOW....HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW?

[robbo203]

In the past I would have left the analysis there and been a happy Marxist-Leninist. But now I worry that this same "indecision" within the DOTP may mean that substitionalism - where the interests of the proletariat is identified solely with the interests of the ruling party - is inherent to the concept. I don't know the solution to this problem.

I think your intuition that substitutionism is inherent in the DOTP is correct. The claim that the DOTP is a process of "abolishing capitalism" is merely a statement of intent, not a literal explanation of what is going on, Capitalism cannot be abolished peicemeal and gradually. What is going on is that capitalism will be continuing for just as long as what is called the DOTP continues and capitalism will not cease to continue unless an until a majority consciously opt for socialism and democratically seize power with that clear intention of forthwith replacing capitalism with socialism.

According to advocates of the DOTP , the DOTP will precede the attainment of a socialist majority - not just locally, but globally. Even granted this sequence of events for the sake of argument - I maintain the DOTP is a logical impossiblity - this could take years even decades to happen, more than ample opportunity for substititionism to kick in - as it inevitably will. Capitalism which will contnue under the DOTP - even the advocates of the DOTP admit this - cannot possibly be operated in the interest of the proletariat (only naive reformists think otherwise) and therefore those who control the state will be obliged to administer a system that must work against the interests of the proletariat. A clear cleavage of interests will thus emerge in which those in control of the state - and it is not sensible at all to talk of the proletariat "as a whole" being in control of the state - will confront a proletariat whose interests they will, however reluctantly, oppose.


A proletariat that presumes to take upon the mantle of ruling class cannot sensibly remain an exploited class for one second longer than the capture of state power . The whole point capturing in capturing power is to end its exploitation, not extend it. If its exploitation is extended (and the existence of DOTP implies the continued existence of just such an exploited proletariat) then that logically implies the existence of another class that exploits this proletarit.


It is this class that would be the real ruling class and not the proletariat in whose name it will rule.

[Hit The North]

This was Rosa Luxemburg's take on the meaning of the DotP, following the customery use of class dictatorship as synonymous with forms of democracy - or the way in which a class organises and exercises its social power.


Socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class -- that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm

From this point of view, the self-organisation of the working class provides the basis for the administration of society. As I've argued elsewhere, this does not mean the DotP will be a centralised state apparatus like the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, if it is truly based on "the active participation of the masses" will likely be anti-centralist, from the root up, rather than from the top down.

It also seems apparent to me that because the revolution must also be the result of "the active participation of the masses" that the embryonic structures of the DotP will emerge as part of the struggle against capital and, therefore, be an organic part of the proletariat's self-organisation and self-emancipation.

[l'Enfermé]

I think your intuition that substitutionism is inherent in the DOTP is correct. The claim that the DOTP is a process of "abolishing capitalism" is merely a statement of intent, not a literal explanation of what is going on, Capitalism cannot be abolished peicemeal and gradually. What is going on is that capitalism will be continuing for just as long as what is called the DOTP continues and capitalism will not cease to continue unless an until a majority consciously opt for socialism and democratically seize power with that clear intention of forthwith replacing capitalism with socialism.

According to advocates of the DOTP , the DOTP will precede the attainment of a socialist majority - not just locally, but globally. Even granted this sequence of events for the sake of argument - I maintain the DOTP is a logical impossiblity - this could take years even decades to happen, more than ample opportunity for substititionism to kick in - as it inevitably will. Capitalism which will contnue under the DOTP - even the advocates of the DOTP admit this - cannot possibly be operated in the interest of the proletariat (only naive reformists think otherwise) and therefore those who control the state will be obliged to administer a system that must work against the interests of the proletariat. A clear cleavage of interests will thus emerge in which those in control of the state - and it is not sensible at all to talk of the proletariat "as a whole" being in control of the state - will confront a proletariat whose interests they will, however reluctantly, oppose.


A proletariat that presumes to take upon the mantle of ruling class cannot sensibly remain an exploited class for one second longer than the capture of state power . The whole point capturing in capturing power is to end its exploitation, not extend it. If its exploitation is extended (and the existence of DOTP implies the continued existence of just such an exploited proletariat) then that logically implies the existence of another class that exploits this proletarit.


It is this class that would be the real ruling class and not the proletariat in whose name it will rule.
Yes I'm sure that Marx, who invented the concept, thought that the DoTP "precedes" a "socialist majority".

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

From this point of view, the self-organisation of the working class provides the basis for the administration of society. As I've argued elsewhere, this does not mean the DotP will be a centralised state apparatus like the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, if it is truly based on "the active participation of the masses" will likely be anti-centralist, from the root up, rather than from the top down.



How is Bourgeois rule "centralist"? It seems to me that the Bourgeoisie are very anti-centralist, very pro-majority rule within their class.

"from the root up, rather than from the top down"
So you say that we should let all workers have an equal say in running society? I don't know where you grew up, but most workers I've met work (and don't think) for more than 40 hours a week, are in serious need of basic education and discipline. I would seriously protest if you'd let your blithering bourgeois morals of equality of say hamper with socialism.

It is obvious that some form of representation will be needed in the DotP.
Let me ask: What would be the best way of establishing a republic in the name of freed Slaves? Would you say that the illiterate slave should have an equal say as the educated freeman who sides with the interests of the slaves? No.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the establishment of a monopoly of violence which enforces the laws directed against remaining bourgeois organized violence and private property.

[Geiseric]

I don't think having a socialist majority of the whole population, including petit bourgeois, as socialist is important as long as more than half of the working class itself is supporting the revolutionary party.

[Hit The North]

How is Bourgeois rule "centralist"? It seems to me that the Bourgeoisie are very anti-centralist, very pro-majority rule within their class.


So you don't think that the state has massively centralised under bourgeois rule? Maybe you need to read a history book. And I have no idea what "pro-majority rule within their class" is supposed to mean.


"from the root up, rather than from the top down"
So you say that we should let all workers have an equal say in running society?
Yes (shock, horror!) because I am a Marxist. I don't know what variety of Blanquism you're pedalling but it seems obvious that you have no faith in the idea that the working class can take control of their own lives and society.


I don't know where you grew up, but most workers I've met work (and don't think) for more than 40 hours a week, are in serious need of basic education and discipline. I grew up in the north of England where the working class have more than a basic education, thank very much. Maybe you live on some slave farm where no one is allowed an education?

Oh, and discipline! So you will be the one to discipline the working class, eh, big man? Don't make me laugh!

Seriously, if you don't think that the working class must transform itself in the act of transforming society (as Marx argued), then I don't see how you can pose as any kind of Marxist.


I would seriously protest if you'd let your blithering bourgeois morals of equality of say hamper with socialism. Well, come the glorious day, hopefully elitist scum like yourself will be protesting from the gallows. But I must say that it is touching that you have faith in the idea that the bourgeoisie is committed to a morality of equality :lol:. You may not have noticed, so I'll spell it out: socialists fight for greater equality, capitalists fight to extend and broaden inequality.


It is obvious that some form of representation will be needed in the DotP.
So, now you're an advocate of bourgeois representative politics? We Marxists stand for direct rule!


Let me ask: What would be the best way of establishing a republic in the name of freed Slaves? Would you say that the illiterate slave should have an equal say as the educated freeman who sides with the interests of the slaves? No. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. :rolleyes: If it is truly a republic of freed slaves, then everyone will be a freeman, dummy. Otherwise it is a coup de tat where, through a slight of hand, a cabal of freemen run a slave society in the name of the slaves.

[Art Vandelay]

How is Bourgeois rule "centralist"? It seems to me that the Bourgeoisie are very anti-centralist, very pro-majority rule within their class.

"from the root up, rather than from the top down"
So you say that we should let all workers have an equal say in running society? I don't know where you grew up, but most workers I've met work (and don't think) for more than 40 hours a week, are in serious need of basic education and discipline. I would seriously protest if you'd let your blithering bourgeois morals of equality of say hamper with socialism.

It is obvious that some form of representation will be needed in the DotP.
Let me ask: What would be the best way of establishing a republic in the name of freed Slaves? Would you say that the illiterate slave should have an equal say as the educated freeman who sides with the interests of the slaves? No.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the establishment of a monopoly of violence which enforces the laws directed against remaining bourgeois organized violence and private property.

While I agree with the parts that I put in bold, the rest is far too elitist of a notion for a Marxist to hold.

[Tim Cornelis]

I bet the thousands of uneducated, illiterate leftists, anticapitalists, and communists of the Zapatista Army and Abahlali baseMjondolo are far more knowledgeable on social organianisation, struggle, and self-governance than Workers-Control-Over-Prod.
Maybe he ought to change his name to Educated-Workers-Control-Over-Uneducated Workers.

[Art Vandelay]

The differences between the so called proletarian dictatorship and any other bourgeois government are superficial. Fundamentally they both represent the same principle of minority rule over the majority. This "proletarian dictatorship" might be more sympathetic to the working class, but at the end of the day, it will still have to run capitalism in the interest of capitalism, which is the only way capitalism can be run. Let me ask, if the proletariat is to be the ruling class, over whom is it to rule? In short, there will remain another proletariat which will be subdued to this new rule, to this new state.

You are either just not reading what other people post, or simply are just that dense. How on earth can the proletariat rule over the proletariat? What on earth is this nonsense. The proletariat exists due to its collective relation to the means of production; it cannot just spontaneously split into two.

Honestly you're analysis reeks of Bakunin's old nonsense of 'power corrupts,' a notion which finds its roots in liberal ideology. Its also a notion which the best of the anarchists abandoned almost a century ago, because they realized it to be what it was: a glaring hole in their convictions.

[robbo203]

Yes I'm sure that Marx, who invented the concept, thought that the DoTP "precedes" a "socialist majority".

I dont think he did but some people here clearly do

[robbo203]

You are either just not reading what other people post, or simply are just that dense. How on earth can the proletariat rule over the proletariat? What on earth is this nonsense. The proletariat exists due to its collective relation to the means of production; it cannot just spontaneously split into two.
.

Duh. Its what is called a rhetorical question. I dont think coup d'etat is saying there are two proletariats. What he is saying is that the so called dictatorship of the proletariat will inevitably give rise to a new ruling class that is not the proletariat but is in fact a state capitalist class that will nevertheless pretend to be part of the proletariat from which it has severed itself. I think he is spot on in thinking that.

[Art Vandelay]

Duh. Its what is called a rhetorical question. I dont think coup d'etat is saying there are two proletariats. What he is saying is that the so called dictatorship of the proletariat will inevitably give rise to a new ruling class that is not the proletariat but is in fact a state capitalist class that will nevertheless pretend to be part of the proletariat from which it has severed itself. I think he is spot on in thinking that.

In other words power corrupts...

[Red Enemy]

duh. Its what is called a rhetorical question. I dont think coup d'etat is saying there are two proletariats. What he is saying is that the so called dictatorship of the proletariat will inevitably give rise to a new ruling class that is not the proletariat but is in fact a state capitalist class that will nevertheless pretend to be part of the proletariat from which it has severed itself. I think he is spot on in thinking that.
how?

[Tim Cornelis]

how?

I suppose the argument goes that if a minority of the working class seizes power on behalf of the majority of the working class, it is this minority that is in control of the means of production and thus seizes to be working class. On the other hand we have the majority that does not control the means of production whom thus are still working class. As such we have merely renewed class dynamics, and thus reconstructed class society.

Of course, what anarchists and robbo advocate could very well be considered a dictatorship of the proletariat from a Marxist perspective. We advocate the majority of workers forming democratic workers' councils and defending these against the counter-revolution which necessitates the use of force and authority against the bourgeoisie's paramilitaries, soldiers, police, and militia. As an anarchist I disagree in qualifying this necessarily as a workers' state or dictatorship of the proletariat, but such semantics is largely irrelevant.

coup d'etat and robbo wrongly equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with minority rule by a vanguard party.

[Blake's Baby]

I suppose the argument goes that if a minority of the working class seizes power on behalf of the majority of the working class, it is this minority that is in control of the means of production and thus seizes to be working class. On the other hand we have the majority that does not control the means of production whom thus are still working class. As such we have merely renewed class dynamics, and thus reconstructed class society...

And if that happened I'd agree that it was just another clique of would-be bourgeois in control.



...
Of course, what anarchists and robbo advocate could very well be considered a dictatorship of the proletariat from a Marxist perspective. We advocate the majority of workers forming democratic workers' councils and defending these against the counter-revolution which necessitates the use of force and authority against the bourgeoisie's paramilitaries, soldiers, police, and militia...

Coup d'etat might advocate that but Robbo doesn't. I definitely advocate it, however.


... As an anarchist I disagree in qualifying this necessarily as a workers' state or dictatorship of the proletariat, but such semantics is largely irrelevant...

I agree that it's a largely semantic question that comes down to 'what is a state?' but disagree it's irrelevant - if it means Marxists and Anarchists cannot see the commonality of our positions because we're using different terms, then I think it really does matter.


...coup d'etat and robbo wrongly equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with minority rule by a vanguard party.

I'd definitely agree with this.

[Red Enemy]

I suppose the argument goes that if a minority of the working class seizes power on behalf of the majority of the working class, it is this minority that is in control of the means of production and thus seizes to be working class. On the other hand we have the majority that does not control the means of production whom thus are still working class. As such we have merely renewed class dynamics, and thus reconstructed class society.

Of course, what anarchists and robbo advocate could very well be considered a dictatorship of the proletariat from a Marxist perspective. We advocate the majority of workers forming democratic workers' councils and defending these against the counter-revolution which necessitates the use of force and authority against the bourgeoisie's paramilitaries, soldiers, police, and militia. As an anarchist I disagree in qualifying this necessarily as a workers' state or dictatorship of the proletariat, but such semantics is largely irrelevant.

coup d'etat and robbo wrongly equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with minority rule by a vanguard party.
No no, I am talking, as is Robbo, from the perspective that a class conscious majority (perhaps not socialists YET) seize and exercise power. Even in that situation, says robbo, there will be only state capitalism an emergence of a ruling class.

[robbo203]

coup d'etat and robbo wrongly equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with minority rule by a vanguard party.


No thats not quite correct. I say that it will inevitably result in substitutionism and the emergence of a state capitalist class which I guess you could equate with minority rule by a vanguard party. However, and this is the point, I dont say the advocates of the concept of the DOTP necessarily seek "minority rule by a vanguard party". Im saying that that is something that will happen despite their good intentions and their obvious commitment to majority rule by the proletariat as a whole . It is the simple fact that DOTP will have to deal with economic imperatives arising out of capitalism which, like it or not, the DOTP will have to administer (even though many advocates of the DOTP seem to be in denial about this) that will lead to an inevitable cleavage within the proletarian class and the emergence out of that class of a new state capitalist class, organically linked to the vanguard party I am utterly convinced of that and that is why I believe thet DOTP is a fundamentally untenable concept that should be rejected


One thing that Im curious about, though, is how people who advocate the DOTP conceptualise the relationship between socialist proletarians and non socialist proletarians. Some here seem to think that the DOTP can be established even with a minority of socialists. It would be interesting to see how they justify that even on their own terms

[Red Enemy]

No thats not quite correct. I say that it will inevitably result in substitutionism and the emergence of a state capitalist class which I guess you could equate with minority rule by a vanguard party. However, and this is the point, I dont say the advocates of the concept of the DOTP necessarily seek "minority rule by a vanguard party". Im saying that that is something that will happen despite their good intentions and their obvious commitment to majority rule by the proletariat as a whole . It is the simple fact that DOTP will have to deal with economic imperatives arising out of capitalism which, like it or not, the DOTP will have to administer (even though many advocates of the DOTP seem to be in denial about this) that will lead to an inevitable cleavage within the proletarian class and the emergence out of that class of a new state capitalist class, organically linked to the vanguard party I am utterly convinced of that and that is why I believe thet DOTP is a fundamentally untenable concept that should be rejected


One thing that Im curious about, though, is how people who advocate the DOTP conceptualise the relationship between socialist proletarians and non socialist proletarians. Some here seem to think that the DOTP can be established even with a minority of socialists. It would be interesting to see how they justify that even on their own terms
Why should anyone give you answers, when you refuse to answer our questions?

[Art Vandelay]

Despite two people on the internet, Marxists everywhere support the DOTP and the primary reason Anarchists don't is fundamentally semantics. Let those two continue on with their inane convictions glossed in a liberal paradigm and lets use this thread to further refine our positions. I feel like this thread could turn into a great discussion, unless it ends up in another discussion with Robbo, which is the equivalent of beating your head against a wall.

[Let's Get Free]

The point of socialism is to abolish the proletariat as a class just as much as it is to abolish the bourgeois as a class. We can not negate all classes while self-valorizing our own. The working-class cannot abolish itself so long as it is comfortable playing the role of the proletariat.

[Art Vandelay]

The point of socialism is to abolish the proletariat as a class just as much as it is to abolish the bourgeois as a class. We can not negate all classes while self-valorizing our own. The working-class cannot abolish itself so long as it is comfortable playing the role of the proletariat.

No you're right it should just materialize a new mode of production out of thin air. The idea that 'socialism' a stateless and classless society can be created in an isolated area (a view you and Robbo both ascribe to, although he likes to deny being a supporter of socialism in one country) is so ridiculous that it is the stuff of fairy tales. You both keep regurgitating this nonsense of yours, in what appears to be some sort of attempt of enacting Goebbels old truism.

[Let's Get Free]

The problem is that you seem to want to continue with capitalism until all national states have been politically captured by socialists so that socialism can be introduced harmoniously and simultaneously throughout the world when everybody is good and ready for the so called proletarian dictatorship to effect a revolution against itself. I say that this is an even bigger fairy tale.

[Art Vandelay]

The problem is that you seem to want to continue with capitalism until all national states have been politically captured by socialists so that socialism can be introduced harmoniously and simultaneously throughout the world when everybody is good and ready for the so called proletarian dictatorship to effect a revolution against itself. I say that this is an even bigger fairy tale.

The idea that capitalism (a mode of production; a world system) must be abolished globally, is a fairy tale? My dear man, you get more ridiculous by the minute. I hope one day, further along in your political development, you look back at these posts and cringe.

[robbo203]

Why should anyone give you answers, when you refuse to answer our questions?

What are you talking about? Go to the other thread on Learning where I gave you all answers to the questions you asked. I dont "refuse" to give answers; its more a case of my answers being overlooked or ignored :rolleyes:

[robbo203]

Despite two people on the internet, Marxists everywhere support the DOTP and the primary reason Anarchists don't is fundamentally semantics. Let those two continue on with their inane convictions glossed in a liberal paradigm and lets use this thread to further refine our positions. I feel like this thread could turn into a great discussion, unless it ends up in another discussion with Robbo, which is the equivalent of beating your head against a wall.

You are talking crap as usual. There are plenty of Marxists who dont support the idea of the DOTP/ The WSM/SPGB for starters. One of their number wrote this: http://wspus.org/2011/05/the-myth-of-the-transitional-society/

Read and learn something for a change instead coming out with piffling lightweight commentry about "liberal paradigms" and whatnot which you clearly dont have much of a clue about anyway. Still anything will do for throwing mud, I guess, eh?

[Art Vandelay]

You are talking crap as usual. There are plenty of Marxists who dont support the idea of the DOTP/ The WSM/SPGB for starters. One of their number wrote this: http://wspus.org/2011/05/the-myth-of-the-transitional-society/

Read and learn something for a change instead coming out with piffling lightweight commentry about "liberal paradigms" and whatnot which you clearly dont have much of a clue about anyway. Still anything will do for throwing mud, I guess, eh?

I know full well who the SPGB is and after reading your response in the Leninist Vanguard thread (the one where you finally answered the questions posed to you) I could see right away why you support them. I'm not the first to hurl that accusation at you Robbo, I believe it was a good portion of the board calling you a liberal in the one Left-Com thread. Anyways I'm done discussing these matters with you. I feel your comments in the Vanguard thread in learning more than speak for themselves; which is why I didn't feel the need to respond.

[robbo203]

I know full well who the SPGB is and after reading your response in the Leninist Vanguard thread (the one where you finally answered the questions posed to you) I could see right away why you support them. I'm not the first to hurl that accusation at you Robbo, I believe it was a good portion of the board calling you a liberal in the one Left-Com thread. Anyways I'm done discussing these matters with you. I feel your comments in the Vanguard thread in learning more than speak for themselves; which is why I didn't feel the need to respond.

Oh, so you knowing the SPGB - the oldest Marxist Party in the UK incidentally - didnt prevent you from ignorantly declaring that "Marxist everywhere support the DOTP". The SPGB dont, nor do others. Like your silly comment that a "good portion of the board" called me a liberal. One buffoon called me a liberal - the obligatory swearword, it seems, for ideologically bankrupt leftists who have run out rational arguments, to fall back on - followed by one or two others of the same ilk. Hardly a "good portion of board", methinks. You have a finely developed talent for hyperbole, no doubt to cover up what you lack elsewhere...

[Art Vandelay]

Oh, so you knowing the SPGB - the oldest Marxist Party in the UK incidentally - didnt prevent you from ignorantly declaring that "Marxist everywhere support the DOTP". The SPGB dont, nor do others. Like your silly comment that a "good portion of the board" called me a liberal. One buffoon called me a liberal - the obligatory swearword, it seems, for ideologically bankrupt leftists who have run out rational arguments, to fall back on - followed by one or two others of the same ilk. Hardly a "good portion of board", methinks. You have a finely developed talent for hyperbole, no doubt to cover up what you lack elsewhere...

Whatever Robbo, as I said your political positions speak for themselves. Cease and desist good sir.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I bet the thousands of uneducated, illiterate leftists, anticapitalists, and communists of the Zapatista Army and Abahlali baseMjondolo are far more knowledgeable on social organianisation, struggle, and self-governance than Workers-Control-Over-Prod.
Maybe he ought to change his name to Educated-Workers-Control-Over-Uneducated Workers.


I kind of like that, thanks. An Uneducated worker is one who is not a Socialist Worker.

My argument was simply a logical argument: Before equality of say comes equality of conditions; If we do not have a society in which manual is no longer necessary (i.e. communism), then there logically will be decisions that persons who spend 40+ hours a week in a factory, will be less capable of making than a person who uses all his time to think.

What I believe it comes down to is that you believe in Anarchism and I believe in Marxism; you believe the ideal (communism) can be implemented and I believe the material conditions restrict this ideal. I don't see much sense or feel much enthusiasm for conversing with internet ultra-leftists who wish me death.

[RedMaterialist]

No thats not quite correct. I say that it will inevitably result in substitutionism and the emergence of a state capitalist class which I guess you could equate with minority rule by a vanguard party.

How then do you see the transition from capitalism to communism?

[Red Enemy]

What are you talking about? Go to the other thread on Learning where I gave you all answers to the questions you asked. I dont "refuse" to give answers; its more a case of my answers being overlooked or ignored :rolleyes:
You never. So, why don't you just answer them, plainly, and clearly in one post right here?

Is it because you know the answers you have are inadequate?

[Art Vandelay]

You never. So, why don't you just answer them, plainly, and clearly in one post right here?

Is it because you know the answers you have are inadequate?


How is class abolished in an isolated area? Well it wont be "isolated" in the sense that a socialist movement will be a global movement . So where a significant majority of socialists is reached in one part of the world this very likely presupposes that in other parts of the world socialists are well on the way to becoming majorities as well. It is important to remember this because this has relevance to the other questions you ask. In my view - though others might disagree with this - the attainment of a significant socialist majority wherever it happens first. is likely to express itself in the democratic capture of the state by a socialist political party followed by the immediate abolition of capitalism and hence the dismantling of the state itself. The electoral approach with a socialist political party standing for socialism and nothing but is I think the most convenient and practical way to bring about and coordinate the social transformation. (See my previous discussion on the need for some kind of "switchover" mechanism)

WHY the bourgeoisie would not fight back? Try to overthrow the new "socialist" area? They might try but frankly by then it would be far too late to do anything about it. When the writing is on the wall ,thats it - your game is up! Look at the manner in which the various state capitalist regimes collapsed in the face of people power at the end of the 80s. The growth of the socialist movement everywhere would be a process of incremental social transformation . This is important to bear in mind. The whole political climate would be radically transformed by the penetration of socialist consciousness everywhere including, incidentally, the armed forces. The residual capitalist states on the eve of capitalism are more than likely to be weak vacillating shadows of their former selves and most likely liberal or social democratic regimes trying desparately to buy the workers off with reforms. The legitimacy of the whole capitalist order would by then have been seriously undermined and this will be reflected in the diminished authority of those residual capitalist states

Why the international bourgeoisie would "barter" with you, and allow you to exist? The international bourgeosie are not some monolithic bloc. We must get away from this conspiratorial view of capitalist politics. Capitalists are not only at odds with the workers but also with each other! The global division of labour, as it has evolved, means that they would require the products and raw materials that originate in your area just as you would require things from them. While, I am sure, once global socialism is reached through the domino collapse of residual capitalist states there will far less of the kind of wasteful coals-to-newcastle type economic flows we see today and a much stonger emphasis on self siufficiency, we have to deal with the immediate situation we will have inherited. Barter I think is the only logical way in which in economic dealings between the residual capitalist states and the expanding free zone of socialism can be conducted. There is incidentally a precedent for this in the early post war barter arrangments between the state capitalist soviet bloc and western corporations - dubbed "vodka cola" deals


How does the "vast majority" become socialists before any overthrow of the capitalist order Socialist ideas arise out of the class struggle and are amplified and disseminated by the organisation of workers into socialist political parties and groups. Capitalist propaganda certainly strives to block the growth of socialist ideas but capitalist propaganda faces a formidable foe in the shape of material reality. Once the socialist movement reaches a certain critical threshold i am convinced it will grow expontially and in an unstoppable fashion as the idea of a moneyless wageless stateless world catches on and spreads like wildfire

That is the post Robbo is referring to and I am sure you will find them to indeed be quite inadequate and riddled with holes.

[robbo203]

How then do you see the transition from capitalism to communism?

The short answer to that is that I do not consider it sensible to talk of a transition between capitalism and communism. It is actually an illogical position to take since there is nothing between a class-based and a classless society. Hence there cannot be a "transition" in that sense. You either have a class-based society or you dont.

Which is not to say i reject the notion of a "transition" as such. But I think this would refer to a transition within capitalism or a transition within communism but not between them.


Where the DOTPers go fatally wrong is that they posit the capture of political power (and the subsequent setting up of a supposed DOTP) at the start of the transition within capitalism. They freely admit that under the DOTP there will still be capitalism but fail to see what follows from this - that you cannot run capitalism in the interests of the proletariat. Though they dont like the idea when it is pointed out to them that they would have to run capitalism under this DOTP and protest that what they want to do instead is "destroy capitalism" , wanting to destroy capitalism is only a statement of intent and unless and until you do actually destroy capitalism you have to administer it by default

Even on their own terms this could take many years , even decades. Some DOTPers say a DOTP could be set up without a majority of socialists. All seem to think that socialism can only be introduced globally when every square inch of the globe falls under the jursidiction of some DOTP. And therein lies the problem. There is an awful big gap between the establishment of the first DOTP and the arrival of global socialism. And it is not just a time gap but a credibility gap


Since capitalism can only be run in the interest of capital and not wage labour, inevitably the enforcement of a DOTP at the commencement of the alleged transition between capitalism and communism is going to create unbearable tensions between those who operate the state machine - the political vanguard - and the proletariat at large. It will in no time at all create a class cleavage. The old private capitalists may have been dispossessed through nationalisation but the concentration of capital in the hands of the state will metamorphise those who control the state into a new ruling class - the state capitalist class -embodying the interests of capital as against wage labour. That is absolutely inevitable.

The state capitalist class, in other words, will have simply stepped into the shoes vacated by the old private capitalists. Like every ruling class in history it will seek to preserve its own priviliged status and resist the attempt to overthrow its class privlege and establish classless communism. In the name of the proletariat it will seek to ruthlessly exploit the proletariat as the material basis of its own class power.

It is precisely in order to avoid such a fate that I argue that the democratic capture of political power by the proletatiat should come at the very end of the transition period within capitalism not at the start. It should therefore be predicated on the immediate abolition of capitalism and the state. That presupposes a significant socialist majority since you cannot have socialism or communism -same thing - without such a majority. Once you have got a significant socialist majority what else do you need? Why dither and delay and endlessly put off a communist society on the kneejerk pretext that "you can't just jump from capitalism into communism". Actually, when you think about it that is the only way you can arrive at communism. Its called a revolution. You can't introduce communism peicemeal. ergo....

We are in that capitalist transition period right now. It is not some far off remote period in the future - a conception that is disabling and disempowering - but is happening at this very moment and indeed ever since capitalism become technically obsolete more than a centry ago. The role of revolutionaries in this transition period within capitalsm is not simply to assist the class struggle but to help clarify the direction in which it is tending through the dissemination of ideas about the revolutionary alternative to capitalism

Which is why I rather like Engels' statement:

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair. (1895 Introduction to Karl Marx’s
The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850)

[Blake's Baby]

Parmenides and Zeno argued that to move, an arrow must be where it was (in which case it was stationary) or where it wasn't (in which case it wasn't there). As a result movement is impossible.

Robbo argues that to have a transformation, one must transform where one is (in which case it isn't a transformation) or where one isn't (in which case it can't be reached). So, transformation is impossible.

Robbo, the point about the transition from capitalist society to communist society (you're right that the transition isn't in between those two things) is that it's like a phase-state transition, a quantitative transition that becomes a qualitative transition. If conceptually capitalism is like water at let's say 70degrees C, heating and heating the water will produce some short-lived bubbles (socialism in one bubble?) but not boil the water until 100degrees C - at which point a qualitative change takes place and the water changes state.

Similarly, capitalism needs to be dismantled and abolished. To do that, the working class needs to take hold of the economy. This happens in capitalism. The transitional period is the final phase of capitalism. The working class begins the abolition of itself and all other classes from the point of view of being a class. Thus, Parmenides and Zeno are refuted: movement is possible.

[RedMaterialist]

It should therefore be predicated on the immediate abolition of capitalism and the state. That presupposes a significant socialist majority since you cannot have socialism or communism -same thing - without such a majority. Once you have got a significant socialist majority what else do you need? [/U]

So one day there will be capitalism and the state, then, after the revolution, there will be communism? From the wages system to communism all in one jump?

[Tim Cornelis]

Where the DOTPers go fatally wrong is that they posit the capture of political power (and the subsequent setting up of a supposed DOTP) at the start of the transition within capitalism. They freely admit that under the DOTP there will still be capitalism but fail to see what follows from this - that you cannot run capitalism in the interests of the proletariat.

What robbo and coup d'état fail to understand is that the question of dictatorship of the proletariat is not one of choice. One does not choose to put the DOTP before socialism, it is an inevitable result of circumstance and class conflict. Likewise the perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production is perpetuated under the DOTP is not subject to choice, it is inevitable.

We initiate a revolution: we seek to abolish the bourgeois state, expropriate the means of production from the capitalist class, and we form workers' councils. Class antagonisms have not disappeared; the capitalist class wants its property back so it initiates a counter-revolution. It uses the bourgeois state or its remnants, depending on whether the bourgeois state is under attack or abolished, including police and soldiers to get their hands on the means of production and crush the revolution. For the revolution to survive we need, of course, the use of armed power to crush the bourgeoisie's armed forces.

The combination of workers' councils and armed workers' militias in this scenario constitutes a DOTP. It's not a matter of choice, but born naturally out of the need for the revolution to survive. It is not a transitional society as Marxist-Leninists have made it out to be, it's a transitional phase between capitalism and socialism. One of "spontaneous", or organic, workers' self-organisation, and self-emancipation.

Anarchists, from a Marxist perspective, advocate a dictatorship of the proletariat.

As for the argument "we cannot run capitalism in the interest of the working class." Nor can we abolish capitalism within 24 hours, especially since capitalism is a global system. The DOTP consists of self-administrated workers' councils and popular communes, but it is not yet socialist because it is intertwined with global capital through trade. Therefore the revolution needs to spread continually until it encompasses such a large land mass, arguably global, until our self-administrated workers' councils and self-governing communes can operate outside the economic tentacles of capital.

So under the DOTP we would have a "self-managed capitalism," not capitalism proper, until capital no longer affects (or rather infects) economic conduct of the workers' councils.


The problem is that you seem to want to continue with capitalism until all national states have been politically captured by socialists so that socialism can be introduced harmoniously and simultaneously throughout the world when everybody is good and ready for the so called proletarian dictatorship to effect a revolution against itself. I say that this is an even bigger fairy tale.

We don't want capitalism to continue, this is beyond our want -- we want to, but we can't since capital is global and reaches everywhere as explained above. Indeed Marxist-Leninists want to capture all nation-states, then aggregate them, and then -- for some reason -- the states wither away. This is not an organic process of working class self-emancipation. You seem to think Marxism-Leninism is representative of Marxism as a whole.


I kind of like that, thanks. An Uneducated worker is one who is not a Socialist Worker.

My argument was simply a logical argument: Before equality of say comes equality of conditions; If we do not have a society in which manual is no longer necessary (i.e. communism), then there logically will be decisions that persons who spend 40+ hours a week in a factory, will be less capable of making than a person who uses all his time to think.

Exactly because someone spends 40 hours a week working practically on a factory floor he knows how it really works, as opposed to learning from abstract economic textbooks for example. This does not mean they will be more knowledgeable but it does mean they are likely to possess knowledge the "thinker" does not. Additionally, who decides the "thinker" gets more say? And where do we draw the line? Do we allow the person with an IQ of 230 to decide for all without any democratic input since he is the greatest "thinker"? I know you don't believe that, but then were do we draw the line? Wouldn't it mean that current CEOs would keep their position of power from their "expertise" and that you end up with technocratic capitalism? Presently we have advisors to CEOs and managers with no decision-making power, so why can't we have the "thinkers" as advisors to the workers while having no more say than the workers? If he is an expert the workers will listen and be convinced of his method, especially if the workers don't possess knowledge on the subject.


What I believe it comes down to is that you believe in Anarchism and I believe in Marxism; you believe the ideal (communism) can be implemented and I believe the material conditions restrict this ideal. I don't see much sense or feel much enthusiasm for conversing with internet ultra-leftists who wish me death.

Hollow rhetoric, probably so you can hide behind your "scientific" theories. Also the last sentence is absolutely laughably pathetic and cowardice. You don't believe in Marxism since you oppose self-emancipation, you also said communism is apparently not possible yet, so you don't advocate that either. Maybe Rafiq can explain why you too believe in the implementation of communism, you are more idealist than you make yourself out to be.

[Art Vandelay]

So one day there will be capitalism and the state, then, after the revolution, there will be communism? From the wages system to communism all in one jump?

In his defense, Robbo advocates the immediate switch to socialist society, not communism.

[Blake's Baby]

Socialism = communism for a lot of us. Robbo does advocate the immediate establishment of communist society.

[Art Vandelay]

Socialism = communism for a lot of us. Robbo does advocate the immediate establishment of communist society.

Then he is even more absurd then I thought. I've always considered socialism to be stateless and classless, however it would take a while in the socialist mode of production until the maxim of 'to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability' (communism) could be achieved.

[subcp]

The DOTP consists of self-administrated workers' councils and popular communes, but it is not yet socialist because it is intertwined with global capital through trade.

I agree with the crux of your argument- that the DotP is not a political choice, it is the result of the proletariat in its movement to abolish class society, value, waged labor, commodity production (which is in and of itself a question of political power- the state loses its legitimacy and then its base when the economic underpinnings cease to have a foundation).

I don't think there will be a dual power situation in the sense that organized worker's councils, federated or centralized along with communes, will rationally allocate resources with an accounting system (and thus require 'trade'). I think it will be far more chaotic, look like the LA riots in some places, look like the factory riots in Bangladesh in others, yet in others it will be orderly like the Seattle general strike, or organized like the Petrograd soviet, or will not come up against severe repression a la May 1968 in others- all happening in a large minority of the globe to start, then encompassing everywhere. Global capital, as it stands as a completely integrated system internationally, I don't think can withstand even a brief period of time with major players or a sizeable number of smaller economic states going 'offline'.

But I agree that the state of affairs after the proletariat has begun its movement to 'change the current state of things' and asserts its dominance over the bourgeoisie and non-exploiting classes/strata is the DotP.

[robbo203]

Parmenides and Zeno argued that to move, an arrow must be where it was (in which case it was stationary) or where it wasn't (in which case it wasn't there). As a result movement is impossible.

Robbo argues that to have a transformation, one must transform where one is (in which case it isn't a transformation) or where one isn't (in which case it can't be reached). So, transformation is impossible.

Robbo, the point about the transition from capitalist society to communist society (you're right that the transition isn't in between those two things) is that it's like a phase-state transition, a quantitative transition that becomes a qualitative transition. If conceptually capitalism is like water at let's say 70degrees C, heating and heating the water will produce some short-lived bubbles (socialism in one bubble?) but not boil the water until 100degrees C - at which point a qualitative change takes place and the water changes state.

Similarly, capitalism needs to be dismantled and abolished. To do that, the working class needs to take hold of the economy. This happens in capitalism. The transitional period is the final phase of capitalism. The working class begins the abolition of itself and all other classes from the point of view of being a class. Thus, Parmenides and Zeno are refuted: movement is possible.

Firstly, one should be very wary of relying on analogy - like your water analogy. Analogies can be useful at times as a means of illuminating a point but they are no substitute for hard argument. This applies in your case

Your problem and those of DOTPers generally is that you are torn between two contradictory positions - the recognition that "capitalism needs to be dismantled and abolished" and your advocacy of a transitional period as the "final phase of capitalism" meaning the continuation of capitalism under the DOTP and not its dismantling. Now I too recognise that there is a transition period in capitalism (and a transition period in communism) and we both agree, I think, that cannot logically be a transition between capitalism or communism, between a class based society and a classless society. It is one or the other.

The difference between is that you think the transition period within capitalism is one in which the "working class needs to take hold of the economy". Now I have repeatedly pointed out to you that this is a logical impossibility without the working class thereby abolishing its own a status as working class and thereby rendering null and void the whole concept of the DOTP. You have never ever come back with a counterargument to this point. Taking hold of the economy means taking possession of it, means making the means of production, yours. But if the means of production are yours you are no longer , and can no longer be, the working class which is defined by the very fact that it is DIVORCED from the means of prpduction and thereby has to sell its woirking abilities to the capitalists who must still exist if a proiletariat exists and miust stilkl therefore be exploiting the proletariat under a regime supposedly runb by the proletariat. This is the point I have been constantly maming which has been constantly ignored by the advocates of a DOTP

Thats the first point. The second is this . Insofar as the DOTPs is the final phase of capitalism by your own admission then clearly the function of a DOTP, like it or not, will be to administer capitalism albeit supposedly in the interests of the proletariat. But here's another point you have constantly ignored - that capitalism cannot by its very nature be operated in the interests oif the proletariat. It can only operate in the interests of capital

This is what distinguishes the revolutionary from the reformist. The recognisition that capitalism cannot be run run in the interests oif the majority. The competitive drive to accumulate capital out of surplus vaklue will crush and extrtinguish the hope of running a capitalist economy for the benefit of the proletariat.

There is an exemplary precedent for this in the shape of the Labour Party in the UK. The Labour Party in the early days had precisely as its goal the idea of reshaping the capitalist economy in the interests of "working people". It failed dismally in that disregard. Your DOTP will likewise fail in that regard

Thus by advocating a DOTP you are in an sense inadvertently helping to sustain the reformist illusion that capitalism is amenable to political direction in a way that would benefit the majority. As a revolutionary, I beg to differ

[robbo203]

What robbo and coup d'état fail to understand is that the question of dictatorship of the proletariat is not one of choice. One does not choose to put the DOTP before socialism, it is an inevitable result of circumstance and class conflict. Likewise the perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production is perpetuated under the DOTP is not subject to choice, it is inevitable.

We initiate a revolution: we seek to abolish the bourgeois state, expropriate the means of production from the capitalist class, and we form workers' councils. Class antagonisms have not disappeared; the capitalist class wants its property back so it initiates a counter-revolution. It uses the bourgeois state or its remnants, depending on whether the bourgeois state is under attack or abolished, including police and soldiers to get their hands on the means of production and crush the revolution. For the revolution to survive we need, of course, the use of armed power to crush the bourgeoisie's armed forces.


Sorry but this argument wont wash. The contradiction in it stands out like a sore thumb. Class antagonisms. you say, have not disappeared since the capitalist class wants its property back. But if the capitalist class lacks prioperty it is no longer a capitalist class . It is an ex capitalist class. It is not sensible to talk of a capitalist class that exists without at the same being being in possession of capital. And if there is no capitalist cllass then logically there can be no working class , no proletariat , which sells its working abilities to said capitalists. Therefore. logically, there can be no DOTP.

You cannot have your cake and eat it. Either the capitalists exist as the posssessors of property in the means of prpduction or they dont. If they dont then we are talking about a classless society - communism - in which the very notion of "class antagonisms" is absurd

There might of course be a recalcitrant minority who hanker after the old days of capitalism but they would not and could not, constitute a "class" in the strict Marxian sense. It might even be the case that armed might might have to wielded against them but this would not be the action of some so called proletarian state. It would be the decision of the free citizenty of a communist society to defend the communist society they had set up against those of their fellow ciriziens who seek a return to class rule

[Blake's Baby]

...
Your problem and those of DOTPers generally is that you are torn between two contradictory positions - the recognition that "capitalism needs to be dismantled and abolished" and your advocacy of a transitional period as the "final phase of capitalism" meaning the continuation of capitalism under the DOTP and not its dismantling. ..

I think that's a linguistic argument not a political one. Of course it is the 'dismantling' of capitalism. Capitalism is dismantled /abolished by the working class. That abolition/dismantling is a process that starts in capitalism. Capitalism isn't abolished, then abolished, that doesn't make sense. In capitalist society, the working class begins the process of the abolition of capitalism, because a process cannot be complete before it is begun. That is why the start of the process happens in capitalism, and that's why it's 'the final phase of capitalism', and that's why the dictatorship of the proletariat has a proletariat - it's the last stage of class society, that is taking the decision and working towards self-abolition.

Capitalism can't cease without that process of abolition. You are saying that if there is process, there can't be an abolition. I disagree.


...The difference between is that you think the transition period within capitalism is one in which the "working class needs to take hold of the economy". Now I have repeatedly pointed out to you that this is a logical impossibility without the working class thereby abolishing its own a status as working class and thereby rendering null and void the whole concept of the DOTP. You have never ever come back with a counterargument to this point...

Except taking hold of the economy in one state is not the same as abolishing capitalism worldwide, as I have said on numerous occassions. Your counter-argument - 'Bordiga was an idiot, I support socialism in one country but I don't call it socialism in one country' - has no validity, and therefore I have no counter-argument to it, because it isn't an argument.

The abolition of capitalist relations is a process. If you want an 'event', as I've explained before I see that as being the point where all capitalist property has been collectivised worldwide - at this point only the world becomes a 'common treasury'. Previous to that point it's divided, and therefore not 'common'. So no socialism in one country, even if you think you've abolished the 'country' along with the property-relations in the country (you haven't, otherwise co-ops are socialism).



... Taking hold of the economy means taking possession of it, means making the means of production, yours. But if the means of production are yours you are no longer , and can no longer be, the working class which is defined by the very fact that it is DIVORCED from the means of prpduction and thereby has to sell its woirking abilities to the capitalists who must still exist if a proiletariat exists and miust stilkl therefore be exploiting the proletariat under a regime supposedly runb by the proletariat. This is the point I have been constantly maming which has been constantly ignored by the advocates of a DOTP...

You agree that state property is still property? You don't think nationaised industries are socialist? You agree that the property of a co-operative is still property, it isn't socialist? How then is the collectivised property of the expropriated bourgeoisie, in one area of the globe, different?


...
Thats the first point. The second is this . Insofar as the DOTPs is the final phase of capitalism by your own admission then clearly the function of a DOTP, like it or not, will be to administer capitalism albeit supposedly in the interests of the proletariat. But here's another point you have constantly ignored - that capitalism cannot by its very nature be operated in the interests oif the proletariat. It can only operate in the interests of capital...

The point about the DotP is not that it 'administers' capitalism, but that it abolishes capitalism. However, it can only do that when it controls capitalism (ie the world economy). Until it controls it it cannot abolish it.

But capitalism is a global system. The proletariat must begin the process before the end is in sight. It must start in some place and that first place will be subject to economic and military pressure from outside and internal pressure from the supporters of the ancien regime.

Another and another and another revolutionary territory will lessen this pressure - outside enemies will be under revolutionary pressure of their own, pro-bourgeois factions internally will have less outside support - and the worldwide balance will shift towards the revolution.

But while there is this transition in the world from pre-revolutionary to revolutionary territories, the working class in the revolutionary territories still has to eat, still needs electricity and fresh water and trains and hospitals.

During this phase, in the revolutionary territory or territories, the working class must administer society for the benefit of all. This isn't socialism. Property exists, states exist. There is, still, a working class. If it isn't socialism, it must be capitalism - as you keep saying, there is nothing that comes between the one and the other. So, until the conditions for the one exist (the abolition of all property, all classes, all states) what there is must be the other.



...
This is what distinguishes the revolutionary from the reformist. The recognisition that capitalism cannot be run run in the interests oif the majority. The competitive drive to accumulate capital out of surplus vaklue will crush and extrtinguish the hope of running a capitalist economy for the benefit of the proletariat...

Possibly. But only if the revolution fails. in which case, the proletariat has to abide under capitalism a while longer. Like we are now, the revultion in the early 20th century having failed.


...There is an exemplary precedent for this in the shape of the Labour Party in the UK. The Labour Party in the early days had precisely as its goal the idea of reshaping the capitalist economy in the interests of "working people". It failed dismally in that disregard. Your DOTP will likewise fail in that regard

Thus by advocating a DOTP you are in an sense inadvertently helping to sustain the reformist illusion that capitalism is amenable to political direction in a way that would benefit the majority. As a revolutionary, I beg to differ

Well, I'd claim that parties seizing the state is not the way to the transformation of society, and as you're an advocate (as far as I know) of the SPGB's revolutionary parliamentarism, perhaps you could look at the massive plank in the eye of your revolutionary theory before casting aspertions of reformism at people who are advocating revolution. Your revolutionary parliamentarism has no more chance of success than the Labour Party's reformist parliamentarism because parliament is not the site of power in a developed capitalist economy. Can't you see that the Labour Party failed to reshape the economy in the interests of the 'working people' and your revolutionary parliament will likewise fail?

[RedMaterialist]

There might of course be a recalcitrant minority who hanker after the old days of capitalism but they would not and could not, constitute a "class" in the strict Marxian sense. It might even be the case that armed might might have to wielded against them but this would not be the action of some so called proletarian state. It would be the decision of the free citizenty of a communist society to defend the communist society they had set up against those of their fellow ciriziens who seek a return to class rule

Well, this is really the problem. The recalcitrant minority is not going to give up their wealth and property without a fight. Therefore, "armed might" will have to be used against them. This armed might is what is called a state. The DOTP will use the state apparatus to suppress the capitalist class. Class suppression is what a state does. This state will also have to defend itself against remaining capitalist states. Somehow I don't think a stateless, free association of socialist citizens would have stopped Hitler.

I would have thought all this controversy over the state and transition to communism had been settled with the Gotha Critique and State and Revolution.

[Hit The North]

Well, I'd claim that parties seizing the state is not the way to the transformation of society, and as you're an advocate (as far as I know) of the SPGB's revolutionary parliamentarism, perhaps you could look at the massive plank in the eye of your revolutionary theory before casting aspertions of reformism at people who are advocating revolution. Your revolutionary parliamentarism has no more chance of success than the Labour Party's reformist parliamentarism because parliament is not the site of power in a developed capitalist economy. Can't you see that the Labour Party failed to reshape the economy in the interests of the 'working people' and your revolutionary parliament will likewise fail?

This is true. The moment a socialist party of the workers is elected to power on a manifesto of transforming society is the same moment that a massive flight of capital will take place in the economy of whatever nation this happens.

Meanwhile, what is the point of electing even the most radical party to state power if the moment it comes to power it throws away state power by declaring its abolition?

[RedMaterialist]

We are in that capitalist transition period right now.
[/U]

Where exactly and in what form is capitalism transitioning and into what?

[Ele'ill]

So one day there will be capitalism and the state, then, after the revolution, there will be communism? From the wages system to communism all in one jump?

A lot will happen, in jumps and over time, unmediated by Party or other governing bodies.

[Red Enemy]

My appreciation to 9mm for retrieving this.


How is class abolished in an isolated area? Well it wont be "isolated" in the sense that a socialist movement will be a global movement. So where a significant majority of socialists is reached in one part of the world this very likely presupposes that in other parts of the world socialists are well on the way to becoming majorities as well. It is important to remember this because this has relevance to the other questions you ask. In my view - though others might disagree with this - the attainment of a significant socialist majority wherever it happens first. is likely to express itself in the democratic capture of the state by a socialist political party followed by the immediate abolition of capitalism and hence the dismantling of the state itself. The electoral approach with a socialist political party standing for socialism and nothing but is I think the most convenient and practical way to bring about and coordinate the social transformation. (See my previous discussion on the need for some kind of "switchover" mechanism)While, theoretically, it will have allies in the "socialist masses" worldwide, it will have no allies in the bourgeois governments, and the global capitalist economy it is functioning within. That is what I mean by isolation; an economy based on production for need, in a sea of production for profit; a society based on classlessness, in a sea of bourgeois dominated class societies; interests of one class (now a non-class in this "socialist area"), against the interests of the ruling class of the rest of the world (which would, in fact, make the "non-class" a class).

Another issue with the response you gave is the lack of anything concrete. There is no actual answer as to the "how" class is abolished; the measures taken, or reasons why the bourgeoisie decide to become a part of the common when they have the possibility of retrieving what they had. Yes, theoretically class is abolished in this area simply by the workers taking control of the factories and other Means of Production. This declaration, however, does not acknowledge the reality of bourgeois property rights. The property, whilst under common control, is still claimed by members of the (former, as it is classless) bourgeoisie, and is supported by the global bourgeoisie. In fact, members of the global bourgeoisie may lay claim to the means of production in your "socialist" area; Exxon Mobil "owning" the oil reserves in your area, for instance.

So, what makes the bourgeoisie drop it's class interests and join the "non-class"?

Finally, in the global scheme of things, your "socialist area" will HAVE to be regarded as a class of it's own, as it's interests are opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie world wide.


WHY the bourgeoisie would not fight back? Try to overthrow the new "socialist" area? They might try but frankly by then it would be far too late to do anything about it. When the writing is on the wall ,thats it - your game is up! Look at the manner in which the various state capitalist regimes collapsed in the face of people power at the end of the 80s. The growth of the socialist movement everywhere would be a process of incremental social transformation . This is important to bear in mind. The whole political climate would be radically transformed by the penetration of socialist consciousness everywhere including, incidentally, the armed forces. The residual capitalist states on the eve of capitalism are more than likely to be weak vacillating shadows of their former selves and most likely liberal or social democratic regimes trying desparately to buy the workers off with reforms. The legitimacy of the whole capitalist order would by then have been seriously undermined and this will be reflected in the diminished authority of those residual capitalist statesSo, you acknowledge that, post-revolution, the bourgeoisie will still be a force and will not have "merged" into the singular populace of the "non-class". This would ultimately suggest that they exist as a class.

Now, the bourgeoisie of Russia didn't see that their "game was up". The rallied with international support to oppose the workers and peasants. Have you ever heard of the Russian Civil war?


Why the international bourgeoisie would "barter" with you, and allow you to exist? The international bourgeosie are not some monolithic bloc. We must get away from this conspiratorial view of capitalist politics. Capitalists are not only at odds with the workers but also with each other! The global division of labour, as it has evolved, means that they would require the products and raw materials that originate in your area just as you would require things from them. While, I am sure, once global socialism is reached through the domino collapse of residual capitalist states there will far less of the kind of wasteful coals-to-newcastle type economic flows we see today and a much stonger emphasis on self siufficiency, we have to deal with the immediate situation we will have inherited. Barter I think is the only logical way in which in economic dealings between the residual capitalist states and the expanding free zone of socialism can be conducted. There is incidentally a precedent for this in the early post war barter arrangments between the state capitalist soviet bloc and western corporations - dubbed "vodka cola" dealsSo, you do not believe that the bourgeoisie have their own CLASS interests? You believe that, rather than starve you out, they would aid you? This is also said in the context of an apparent "vast majority of socialist consciousness" in their nation. Suggesting that their resources would be put to use to fight this.

Have you heard of the Embargo in Cuba? You don't think the capitalist nations would refuse to trade with you, or one of them would enforce that none can trade with you?


How does the "vast majority" become socialists before any overthrow of the capitalist order Socialist ideas arise out of the class struggle and are amplified and disseminated by the organisation of workers into socialist political parties and groups. Capitalist propaganda certainly strives to block the growth of socialist ideas but capitalist propaganda faces a formidable foe in the shape of material reality. Once the socialist movement reaches a certain critical threshold i am convinced it will grow expontially and in an unstoppable fashion as the idea of a moneyless wageless stateless world catches on and spreads like wildfire

So, what is your explanation for the working class of Germany turning to support reformism, and then turning to support fascism only a few years later? Or the class consciousness seen in Iran, when the working class even organized "shorahs" (workers councils), but they turned to Islamism as a solution instead of socialism and class consciousness faded away.

Oh, they must not have been "truly" class conscious. They didn't struggle enough to reach socialist consciousness, or some other lame excuse you have.

Again, we also return to the unevenness of capitalist development, as well as the effect "crisis" has in different areas. For example, comparing the economic impact on Greece and the US, to Canada (which, although went into recession, had seen no failures of the banking institution, or need to introduce austerity).

Even if we look at a global depression, some areas will be affected worse than others, and the working classes in some areas will be less CLASS conscious than others.

"Socialist ideas arise out of the class struggle and are amplified and disseminated by the organisation of workers into socialist political parties and groups"

So, you're a vanguardist? I mean, again, what stops the class conscious from turning to syndicalism, reformism, or something else?

[Art Vandelay]

In an isolated area socialism cannot exist, any leading country will not have the resources to run an economy on their own and therefor will have to trade with other states; thus opening themselves back up to the global capitalist market.

[robbo203]

I think that's a linguistic argument not a political one. Of course it is the 'dismantling' of capitalism. Capitalism is dismantled /abolished by the working class. That abolition/dismantling is a process that starts in capitalism. Capitalism isn't abolished, then abolished, that doesn't make sense. In capitalist society, the working class begins the process of the abolition of capitalism, because a process cannot be complete before it is begun. That is why the start of the process happens in capitalism, and that's why it's 'the final phase of capitalism', and that's why the dictatorship of the proletariat has a proletariat - it's the last stage of class society, that is taking the decision and working towards self-abolition.

Capitalism can't cease without that process of abolition. You are saying that if there is process, there can't be an abolition. I disagree.


I think you are just playing with words here. Capitalism continues unless and until it is abolished . Abolishing it is not, and cannot be, a process in the sense that you think. Of course there is a process leading up to the abolition of capitalism - the growth of socialist consciousness - but the abolition of capitalism is not itself a process . It is a symbolic one-off act or event. It can only ever be this. Why?

You have already agreed that there is nothing on between a class soceity and a class society. The abolition of the one is signified the appearance of the other. But then you completely contradict what you have assented to by stating that the abolition of capitalism is a "process". It it were a "process" then capitalism would be something that could be dismantled peicemeal - bit by bit - over a period of time. How do you propose to do that?


It simply wont do to claim that capitalism is in the process of being abolished becuase the proletariat is "taking the decision and working towards self-abolition". As I keep on pointing out, that is merely a statement of intent . It is NOT a description of socio- economic reality. Capitalism is not in what you allege would be its "final phase" under the so called DOTP, disappearing like the Cheshire Cats grin, it remains in existence until it is consciously got rid of by a class conscious socialist majority - and nothing less than a clear socialist majority. It is suicidal from a socialist viewpoint of trying to capture power without such a majority because you will be saddled with running capitalism and therein lies the demise of your socialist dream




Except taking hold of the economy in one state is not the same as abolishing capitalism worldwide, as I have said on numerous occassions. Your counter-argument - 'Bordiga was an idiot, I support socialism in one country but I don't call it socialism in one country' - has no validity, and therefore I have no counter-argument to it, because it isn't an argument.


Dont be absurd. How is it not an argument? Ive explained to you umpteen times that what I am talking about differs fundamentally from the stalinist concept of "socialism in one country". You have refused to acknowlege this and deal with the differences I outlined. Socialism will obviously be global in the end but its starts - must start - somewhere. And it will start "somewhere" in the context of a growing worldwide socialist movement which will effectively prevent the residual capitalist states from being able to so anything about it. This is the "domino model" of socialist revolution Ive outlined in contrast to your utterly implausible and fantastical notion of instantaneous worldwide socialist revolution everywhere initiated by a United Nations of proletarian states




The abolition of capitalist relations is a process. If you want an 'event', as I've explained before I see that as being the point where all capitalist property has been collectivised worldwide - at this point only the world becomes a 'common treasury'. Previous to that point it's divided, and therefore not 'common'. So no socialism in one country, even if you think you've abolished the 'country' along with the property-relations in the country (you haven't, otherwise co-ops are socialism).


This precisely illustrates why and how you are forever barking up the wrong tree. Ive explained to you often enough that, yes , whenever and wherever socialism first makes its appearance as a classless wageless moneyless and stateless mode of production, it will do so in the context of a world in which there is economic interdependence between different parts of the world. Different parts of the world depend upon each other to an extent for goods and raw materials. This fact, as I have repeatedly acknowleged, will exert a constraining influence on socialism wherever it first appears, which constraint will progressively diminish in time as the domino model of socialist expansion proceeds. Until such time as socialism is a global reality , the socialist zones will have to conduct economic relations with the residual capitalist states. This is why I call this "constrained socialism". It is, if you like, the equivalent of Marx's lower phase of communism


This is how I see it. Externally, economic relations with the the residual capitalist states will take the form of barter trade and, as I said before, there is a precedent for this in the case of the early post war relations between the state capitalist COMECON countries and western corporations in the shape of barter deals dubbed the "vodka-cola "trade. Money based capitalist trade obviously would not be possible since that presupposes the circulation of a general equivalent in the form of money which would not exist in the socialist zone. So there would be trade but NOT capitalist trade which can only exist where both parties in a trading transaction are capitalist and uitilise money as the medium of trade. (The "vodka-cola" phenomenon, incidentally, was not because the COMECOM countries were not capitalist based but becuase of initial fears centred on sovereign control of their economies) . Trade is far older than capitalism and it is utterly ridiculous to suppose that the mere existence of trade as such signifies the existence of capitalism. Marx demolished this claim in Capital vol 1 (I think in chapter 27 if memory serves me correct)

Externally, then, relations with residual capitalist states would be conducted along lines of barter trade but internally the socio-economic system of relations would be communist or socialist through and through with perhaps a degree of rationing being applied in the case of some goods. In point blank rejecting this possibility, you show the utter conservatism and dogmatism of your own position.

Sam Dolgoff in his description of the anarchist communes in Aragon and elsewhere during the civil war in Spain remarks that even in the midst of military conflict, goods and services were to a great extent subject to the principle of free unmediated access and voluntary association was widely practiced

In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' (Dolgoff, S. (1974), The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution. p/6)

Another example. Frederick Engels in his "Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies Still in Existence" said this:

"When one talks to people about socialism or communism, one very frequently finds that they entirely agree with one regarding the substance of the matter and declare communism to be a very fine thing; “but”, they then say, “it is impossible ever to put such things into practice in real life”. One encounters this objection so frequently that it seems to the writer both useful and necessary to reply to it with a few facts which are still very little known in Germany and which completely and utterly dispose of this objection. For communism, social existence and activity based on community of goods, is not only possible but has actually already been realised in many communities in America and in one place in England, with the greatest success, as we shall see."
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm)


Now the point I want to draw your attention to is that these examples are either fairly small scale or occured against a background of servere adverse condtions. However, that actually makes the point that I am making even stronger. If the appllcation of communistic principles is possible under such conditions how much more possible would it be under the condiitons I am talking about in the context of a robust and rapidly growing worldwide communist movement






You agree that state property is still property? You don't think nationaised industries are socialist? You agree that the property of a co-operative is still property, it isn't socialist? How then is the collectivised property of the expropriated bourgeoisie, in one area of the globe, different?



Because the logical corrollorary of common ownership - free asscociation and unmediated appropriation of the products of industry - would have been put into effect. In other words the "collectivised property of the expropriated bourgeoisie, in one area of the globe," has been genuinely turned into common property . State property is not common property. It simply turns the state into the collective capitalist to whom the workers sell their labour power and this is exactly what will happen under your scenario. The DOTP, so called, will set up a system of state capitalism. The new emergent state capitalist ruling class that will inevitably arise out of that will cling tenaciously to their newly won class privelege and do everythging to ensure that in no way shall society move forward into the communist era. No ruling class in history has ever willingly relinquished its class power.



The point about the DotP is not that it 'administers' capitalism, but that it abolishes capitalism. However, it can only do that when it controls capitalism (ie the world economy). Until it controls it it cannot abolish it.


You keep on coming out with this crass argument. Of course the DOTP "administers" capitalism until such time as capitalism is abolished. Why? Because capitalism exists. While it exists somebody administers it , doesnt it? Capitalism doesn't just administer itself. It is subject to political regulation in this respect by the so called DOTP. There is a time factor in other words which you simply do not take into account. Even if we accept your thesis for the sake of argument that the DOTP can expedite the worldwide socialist revolution, this would take many years even decades to accompish before the entire world is covered in a netwrok of proletarian dictatorship backed up by socialist majorities. I would assert that long before that, the counter revolution in the guise of a newly emrgent state capitalist class would have set in . Capitalism cannot be run in the interest of wage labour and those who control the state in the guise of the DOTP will seek to enforce policies that run up against the interests of the workers. Not only that , since you have admitted that the DOTP is the final phase of capitalism, one DOTP will find itself embroiled in capitalist competition with another DOTP and that in itself is hardly conducive to them collaborating at some vague indefinite point in the future to establish communism. I can easily imagine one DOTP going to war against another in the scramble for capitalist markets and raw materials




But capitalism is a global system. The proletariat must begin the process before the end is in sight. It must start in some place and that first place will be subject to economic and military pressure from outside and internal pressure from the supporters of the ancien regime.

Another and another and another revolutionary territory will lessen this pressure - outside enemies will be under revolutionary pressure of their own, pro-bourgeois factions internally will have less outside support - and the worldwide balance will shift towards the revolution.

But while there is this transition in the world from pre-revolutionary to revolutionary territories, the working class in the revolutionary territories still has to eat, still needs electricity and fresh water and trains and hospitals.

During this phase, in the revolutionary territory or territories, the working class must administer society for the benefit of all. This isn't socialism. Property exists, states exist. There is, still, a working class. If it isn't socialism, it must be capitalism - as you keep saying, there is nothing that comes between the one and the other. So, until the conditions for the one exist (the abolition of all property, all classes, all states) what there is must be the other.



It is interesting that much of what you say above mirrors the argument I put forward in favour of the domino model of socialist revolution - that the residual capitalist states will simply be unable to do anything about the expanding zone of free communism outside their (increasing porous) borders. The more it expands the less will they be able to prevent it because the balance of forces will be moving decisively in the direction of global socialism

Where you analysis goes completely off the rails is your nonsencial notion that durinfg this phase, "in the revolutionary territory or territories, the working class must administer society for the benefit of all". How on earth can an exploited class - which is what the working class is by defintion - administer society for "the benefit of all". How does it benefit the working class to be exploited? You NEVER EVER answer this point . You slide away from it every time I put it to you. This is the fatal flaw in your whole argument. An exploited class implies inevitably an exploiting class and it is in the interests of the exploiting class that such a society can only be adminstered


Incidentally, you have completely contradicted yourself:


You said first "The point about the DotP is not that it 'administers' capitalism"


Now you are saying:

"the working class must administer society for the benefit of all. This isn't socialism. Property exists, states exist. There is, still, a working class. If it isn't socialism, it must be capitalism"

So the "working class" does after all "administer" capitalism which you had previously denied!



Well, I'd claim that parties seizing the state is not the way to the transformation of society, and as you're an advocate (as far as I know) of the SPGB's revolutionary parliamentarism, perhaps you could look at the massive plank in the eye of your revolutionary theory before casting aspertions of reformism at people who are advocating revolution. Your revolutionary parliamentarism has no more chance of success than the Labour Party's reformist parliamentarism because parliament is not the site of power in a developed capitalist economy. Can't you see that the Labour Party failed to reshape the economy in the interests of the 'working people' and your revolutionary parliament will likewise fail?


I have certain disagreements with the SPGB position on socialist revolution but, yes, I do take the view that "revolutionary parliamentarism" as you call it, is a useful strategy - providing that socialist delegates are elected on a ticket of "socialism and nothing but " and do not go in for advocating refroms. Marx and Engels certainly supported in principle the idea of siezing power by such means. If nothing else, it is the best way of demonstrating clearly to friend and foe alike that a majority of socialists has been reached without which socialism is impossible. It is also the only really effective way I can think of of spiking the authority of the capitalist state to govern. If the shift from capitalism to communism has, by its very nature, to be an "event" then you need a "switch" mechanism to coordinate this changeover. The electoral process provides such a mechanism and, though I remain open minded on this, I cannot realistically see any other alternative. Can you?


You assert "Your revolutionary parliamentarism has no more chance of success than the Labour Party's reformist parliamentarism because parliament is not the site of power in a developed capitalist economy" , And where do you imagine the "site of power" is in that case if not in parliament in a developed capitalist country? Its is through the elections that legitimisation process occurs which underpins the whole structure of power which is why incidentally even one-party state hold elections - they need the aura of legitimacy in order to effectively govern. Everything else is derivative from this - including the manouverings of secret cabals of ministers making decisions behind our back.

It is the electorate as a whole that provides them with underlying legitimacy they need that enables them to govern. There is more than a little truth in the saying we get the government we deserve

[Blake's Baby]

I think you are just playing with words here. Capitalism continues unless and until it is abolished . Abolishing it is not, and cannot be, a process in the sense that you think. Of course there is a process leading up to the abolition of capitalism - the growth of socialist consciousness - but the abolition of capitalism is not itself a process . It is a symbolic one-off act or event. It can only ever be this. Why?

You have already agreed that there is nothing on between a class soceity and a class society. The abolition of the one is signified the appearance of the other. But then you completely contradict what you have assented to by stating that the abolition of capitalism is a "process". It it were a "process" then capitalism would be something that could be dismantled peicemeal - bit by bit - over a period of time. How do you propose to do that?

...

... Socialism will obviously be global in the end but its starts - must start - somewhere. And it will start "somewhere" in the context of a growing worldwide socialist movement which will effectively prevent the residual capitalist states from being able to so anything about it. This is the "domino model" of socialist revolution Ive outlined in contrast to your utterly implausible and fantastical notion of instantaneous worldwide socialist revolution everywhere initiated by a United Nations of proletarian states

...

Yet again we're talking about different things. The 'process of the abolition of capitalism' is precisely because the revolution is not simultaneous. Your 'domino socialism' is to me not socialism, because it is in one country, or two countries or five countries, and socialism in one (or five) countries is impossible, contra your assertions. However, the DotP in one country or two countries is possible, but this is not socialism, it is the final phase of capitalism. If you want to call the DotP-administering-and-abolishing-capitalism 'socialism' that's up to you, but don't expect anyone but the Stalinists to agree with you.

The DotP (that is, the political revolution) starts somewhere - not 'socialism'. Socialist society only exists after the abolition of capitalism as a world system. The local expropriation of the capitalists is not the same as the worldwide abolition of capitalism.




...

...

...
Incidentally, you have completely contradicted yourself:


You said first "The point about the DotP is not that it 'administers' capitalism"


Now you are saying:

"the working class must administer society for the benefit of all. This isn't socialism. Property exists, states exist. There is, still, a working class. If it isn't socialism, it must be capitalism"

So the "working class" does after all "administer" capitalism which you had previously denied!...

You very well know I don't 'deny' it Robbo, every 3 weeks you loudly shout 'but you want to administer capitalism!' at me, and you've been doing it for several months.

Yes the DotP does 'administer' capitalism. But it also abolishes capitalism. It takes over a capitalist society, and begins to transform it. The point about the DotP, the reason the working class establishes its political control over society (which is what I'm talking about in the first part you quote), is that it abolishes capitalism, as far as possible in the territory it controls - so, as capitalism is a world system it doesn't 'abolish capitalism' it 'abolishes capitalist relations in its territory'. Not, quite, the same thing. Until the working class worldwide is in a position to abolish capitalism worldwide, there are some aspects of capitalism that continue, and 'want' has nothing to do with it. The working class cannot abolish the capitalism it does not control, so it cannot abolish capitalism (a world system, I remind you again) unless it controls that world system.

The 'instant' of the abolition of capitalism can't happen until capitalism is controlled in totality; the 'process of domino socialism' is not socialism, it is the progressive local dismantling/abolition of capitalist relations by the expanding 'domino DotP'.



...
I have certain disagreements with the SPGB position on socialist revolution but, yes, I do take the view that "revolutionary parliamentarism" as you call it, is a useful strategy - providing that socialist delegates are elected on a ticket of "socialism and nothing but " and do not go in for advocating refroms. Marx and Engels certainly supported in principle the idea of siezing power by such means. If nothing else, it is the best way of demonstrating clearly to friend and foe alike that a majority of socialists has been reached without which socialism is impossible. It is also the only really effective way I can think of of spiking the authority of the capitalist state to govern. If the shift from capitalism to communism has, by its very nature, to be an "event" then you need a "switch" mechanism to coordinate this changeover. The electoral process provides such a mechanism and, though I remain open minded on this, I cannot realistically see any other alternative. Can you?
...

Yes, the revolutionary seizure of the economy - because we're Marxists after all, the economic base beats the ideological superstructure 9 times out of 10 - and as the only model we have is the revolution in Russia, until and unless the working class proves me wrong, I'm going to assume that workers' councils and factory committees will establish a 'dual power' situation and then seize state, as a consequence of seizing economic, power.

[robbo203]

Yet again we're talking about different things. The 'process of the abolition of capitalism' is precisely because the revolution is not simultaneous. Your 'domino socialism' is to me not socialism, because it is in one country, or two countries or five countries, and socialism in one (or five) countries is impossible, contra your assertions. However, the DotP in one country or two countries is possible, but this is not socialism, it is the final phase of capitalism. If you want to call the DotP-administering-and-abolishing-capitalism 'socialism' that's up to you, but don't expect anyone but the Stalinists to agree with you.


So lets get this clear - if a society emerges within which wage labour , commodity production and the state no longer exists and within which individuals directly appropriate the products of industry in an unmediated fashion and voluntarily contribute their labour on the basis of free association, this is not socialism, according to you. It not socialism because it is not global, you say. Even though it bears all the essential attriubutes of socialism it is not socialism because elsewhere in the world there are still existing residual capitalist societies with which which such a socialist society would have to barter - at least for the time being pending the spread of socialism to encompass the whole world


In sum, then, since a relatively tiny segment of its economic activities is concerned with producing goods for barter with residual capitalist entities, this according to you, somehow bars such a society from being described as a socialist - even though to all intents and purposes, it looks like a socialist society and has all the attributes of a socialist society

I dont know what you imagine such a society could be in that case. It certainly could not be capitalist. The mere fact that it engages in barter trade with residual capitalist states is hardly a plausible reason for calling it capitalist, is it? Trade , as I said, long predated capitalism. History is littered with examples of emerging capitalist economies that have demonstrably traded with unquestionably non-capitalist traditional social formations - for example in the colonial era - so you can hardly argue that trading with a capitalist enterprise or state somehow makes you likewise a capitalist . Unless of course you want to join company with the crackpot Austrian school of economics which contends - I think it was Menger who first made this idiotic claim - that capitaliism has existed ever since human beings first fashioned tools out of stones and is thus an ineradicable aspect of our social nature




The DotP (that is, the political revolution) starts somewhere - not 'socialism'. Socialist society only exists after the abolition of capitalism as a world system. The local expropriation of the capitalists is not the same as the worldwide abolition of capitalism.

Except, of course, that the capitalist class could NOT have been expropriated under your so called DOTP since the proletariat is by (Marxian) definition propertlyless and obliged to sell its labour power to a capitalist class (who logically must continue to exist as the buyer of that labour power) if the proletariat itself continues to eixst. You can't have a capitalist class without a proletariat any more than you can have a proletariat without a capitalist class. And heres the point - if the capitalist class continues to exists then it can ONLY do so by virtue of the fact that it still owns means of production and has clearly, therefore, NOT been expropriated. A capitalist class with property is not a capitalist class. It is an ex capitalist class and how can sell its labour power to a class that no longer exists. How, in short, can a proletariat exist under these circumstances>

This is the knockout blow to your whole fantasy world of proletarian dictatorships. You know you cannot deal with it so you continue to evade it. But wriggle as you might you cannot escape what the ruthless logic of this argument emphatically demonstrates.- that whole notion of a DOTP is based on an utter logical absurdity







You very well know I don't 'deny' it Robbo, every 3 weeks you loudly shout 'but you want to administer capitalism!' at me, and you've been doing it for several months.

Yes the DotP does 'administer' capitalism. But it also abolishes capitalism. It takes over a capitalist society, and begins to transform it. The point about the DotP, the reason the working class establishes its political control over society (which is what I'm talking about in the first part you quote), is that it abolishes capitalism, as far as possible in the territory it controls - so, as capitalism is a world system it doesn't 'abolish capitalism' it 'abolishes capitalist relations in its territory'. Not, quite, the same thing. Until the working class worldwide is in a position to abolish capitalism worldwide, there are some aspects of capitalism that continue, and 'want' has nothing to do with it. The working class cannot abolish the capitalism it does not control, so it cannot abolish capitalism (a world system, I remind you again) unless it controls that world system.


How in heavens name does a DOTP both "administer" capitalism and "abolish" it., It is one thing or the other. In fact, of course , as I long suspected, your basic reformist worldview is now beginning to reveal itself. The so called DOTP, you say, "takes over a capitalist society, and begins to transform it". Right, so capitalism , according to you is capable of being "transformed" and thus reformed to operate in the interests of the proletariat. This is the fundemental assumption of reformism. The British Labour Party likewise claimed that it would "transform" capitalism and make it work for the benefit of "working people". Look where it got them!. A bunch of grey suited tossers indistingiuishable from the Tory grey suits apart from the token red tie



The 'instant' of the abolition of capitalism can't happen until capitalism is controlled in totality; the 'process of domino socialism' is not socialism, it is the progressive local dismantling/abolition of capitalist relations by the expanding 'domino DotP'.


Speaking as a socialist I dont want to "control capitalism" , thank you very much. Indeed it cannot be controlled and that is the whole point of the Marxian economic analysis of capitalism. I want to get rid of capitalism not control it. Dont you?




Yes, the revolutionary seizure of the economy - because we're Marxists after all, the economic base beats the ideological superstructure 9 times out of 10 - and as the only model we have is the revolution in Russia, until and unless the working class proves me wrong, I'm going to assume that workers' councils and factory committees will establish a 'dual power' situation and then seize state, as a consequence of seizing economic, power.


The example of Russia is irrelevant since there was no mass mandate for socialism there - nor anywhere else in the world. What I am talking about, however, presupposes a socialist majority. The Bolshevik Revolution was the culmination of the Russian bourgeois revolution and the prooof of the pudding is in the eating - the emergence and consolidation of a viciously anti-working class state capitalist regime overseen and managed by a privileged and parasitic state capitalist class.

There are no lessons to be learnt from the Bolshevik disaster except perhaps this - that there can be no state capitalist road to socialism. State capitalism ends only in state capitalism or a reversion to some other form of capitalism which the heirs of Lenin's vanguard party - the Red Fat cats - opted for in finally dispensing with their pseudo socialist "Soviet Union"


The tragedy is is that your DOTP will suffer exactly the same outcome in the course of "adminstering " state run capitalism but you can't seem to see it or even perhaps want to see it

[Art Vandelay]

So lets get this clear - if a society emerges within which wage labour , commodity production and the state no longer exists and within which individuals directly appropriate the products of industry in an unmediated fashion and voluntarily contribute their labour on the basis of free association, this is not socialism, according to you. It not socialism because it is not global, you say. Even though it bears all the essential attriubutes of socialism it is not socialism because elsewhere in the world there are still existing residual capitalist societies with which which such a socialist society would have to barter - at least for the time being pending the spread of socialism to encompass the whole world

How on earth is the state going to be absent, meanwhile this 'socialist' area is surrounded by capitalists states? And how would trading with capitalist states, not open up you back up to the global capitalist market?

[Blake's Baby]

So lets get this clear - if a society emerges within which wage labour , commodity production and the state no longer exists and within which individuals directly appropriate the products of industry in an unmediated fashion and voluntarily contribute their labour on the basis of free association, this is not socialism, according to you. It not socialism because it is not global, you say...

Yes, other wise you could have socialism in one bedroom. Is your bedromm socialist, Robbo?



... Even though it bears all the essential attriubutes of socialism it is not socialism because elsewhere in the world there are still existing residual capitalist societies with which which such a socialist society would have to barter - at least for the time being pending the spread of socialism to encompass the whole world...

It doesn't have all the attributes of socialism That's like saying 'apart from the fact that the patient is dead, does it have all the attributes of being alive?'


...

(some jibber-jabber)

...

How in heavens name does a DOTP both "administer" capitalism and "abolish" it., It is one thing or the other...

Logical flaw going back to Parmenides.

To change, something must either change from what it is (in which case, it is what it is) or change into what it isn't (in which case, it isn't). Come over here (you can't, to come to Britain you have to be in Spain, in which case you're in Spain, or be in Britain, which you aren't) and I'll break your leg to dispove your theory (I can't, to break your leg, you leg must be unbroken, in which case it's fine, or like that already, in which case I didn't break it).


...
In fact, of course , as I long suspected, your basic reformist worldview is now beginning to reveal itself. The so called DOTP, you say, "takes over a capitalist society, and begins to transform it". Right, so capitalism , according to you is capable of being "transformed" and thus reformed to operate in the interests of the proletariat. This is the fundemental assumption of reformism. The British Labour Party likewise claimed that it would "transform" capitalism and make it work for the benefit of "working people". Look where it got them!. A bunch of grey suited tossers indistingiuishable from the Tory grey suits apart from the token red tie...

I said 'takes over capitalist society' and you claim I said 'takes over capitalism'. Error or fraud? You tell me.


...
Speaking as a socialist I dont want to "control capitalism" , thank you very much. Indeed it cannot be controlled and that is the whole point of the Marxian economic analysis of capitalism. I want to get rid of capitalism not control it. Dont you?...

Why would I advocate the abolition of capitalism if I don't want it to be abolished?

If you're right, and the rest of us are wrong, you can prove it.

You think you can abolish something you don't have control of. You don't control capitalism. Abolish it. Not just in your bedroom, but everywhere. Go on, I dare you.




...

The example of Russia is irrelevant since there was no mass mandate for socialism there - nor anywhere else in the world. What I am talking about, however, presupposes a socialist majority. The Bolshevik Revolution was the culmination of the Russian bourgeois revolution and the prooof of the pudding is in the eating - the emergence and consolidation of a viciously anti-working class state capitalist regime overseen and managed by a privileged and parasitic state capitalist class...

No, don't you remember, 'emergence' is impossible under your argument? It was either there all the time, in which case, it didn't emerge, or it wasn't there, in which case, it didn't emerge either.

No change is possible with your argument because there can be no dynamic property. If there is, then you have to admit that the working class begins to transform society from inside capitalism and at some point acheives a transition analogous to a phase-state transition, when quantitative changes become a qualitative change, capitalism as a whole is abolished and the working class ceases to exist.


...There are no lessons to be learnt from the Bolshevik disaster except perhaps this - that there can be no state capitalist road to socialism. State capitalism ends only in state capitalism or a reversion to some other form of capitalism which the heirs of Lenin's vanguard party - the Red Fat cats - opted for in finally dispensing with their pseudo socialist "Soviet Union"...

I rather think it re-inforces that point that you fail to learn - there is no local road to socialism.


...
The tragedy is is that your DOTP will suffer exactly the same outcome in the course of "adminstering " state run capitalism but you can't seem to see it or even perhaps want to see it

The tragedy is that your 'socialism in one country' will suffer exactly the same outcome. We've told you time and again there is no local road to socialism, you know it, we know it, but you keep following that well-worn path. We can only help you if you admit you've got a problem Robbo.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

It is not a transitional society as Marxist-Leninists have made it out to be, it's a transitional phase between capitalism and socialism.

So there exists no more society in the DotP? Of course there exists a society: namely a society in which only the working class holds coercive State powers and in which the Bourgeois Class still exists but is being liquidated. I do not know how one as a Marxist can defend the multi-party council system of rule as Proletarian rule. Historically classes have been represented by a party, and the DotP should take on the form of a dictatorship of a truly democratic Marxist Workers' party.

[robbo203]

So there exists no more society in the DotP? Of course there exists a society: namely a society in which only the working class holds coercive State powers and in which the Bourgeois Class still exists but is being liquidated. I do not know how one as a Marxist can defend the multi-party council system of rule as Proletarian rule. Historically classes have been represented by a party, and the DotP should take on the form of a dictatorship of a truly democratic Marxist Workers' party.

Of course there exists a "society" under the so called DOTP - capitalist society. By your own admission, capitalists and workers exists. These are two sides of the same coin - the basic class ingredients of capitalism. And since capitalism can only function in the interests of capital and not wage labour, the DOTP is not what it pretends to be - it is, rather, the dictatorship of capital under a regime of state capitalism that cloaks itself in the rehetoric of proletarian emancipation but will, in fact, fundamentally oppose the self emancipation of the proletariat

[robbo203]

How on earth is the state going to be absent, meanwhile this 'socialist' area is surrounded by capitalists states?

Because, if you knew anything about Marxism, you would realise that a state is an instrument of class rule and given that socialism means the absence of classes there cannot be such a thing as a state in socialism. The implication of your question is that hypothethically such a "socialist area" is likely to be invaded by surrounding hostile capitalist states. Even if that were the case, the defensive organisation of a classless socialist society to rebuff such attacks would not constitute the actions of a state - anymore , as Marx points out, than the existence of machinery signifies the exxistence of capital.

In an any case. your scenario is extremely improbable since the emergence of a socialist area somewhere presupposes the significant growth of socialist consciousness everywhere - the movement for socialism being a global movement. The socio-political environment within the residual capitalist states would have, by then, have been radically transformed by the penetration of socialist ideas everywhere. Meaning that such capitalist states would by then lack both the will and the authority to take such action in my view. It would simply be far too late to do anything about preventing socialism from becoming a global reality



And how would trading with capitalist states, not open up you back up to the global capitalist market?

Becuase it cant, given the absence of a money medium with which to effect tranasctions. If money has no significance in a socialist zone it has no use or purpose in trade. Trade long predated capitalism and once of the ploys that emerging capitalist states used to induce or coerce the locals into a capitalist
system of production under colonialism was through the imposition of money taxes. A classic example comes from the part of the world that I hail from - South Africa. The rudimentary building blocks of apartheid were set up, not by the Boers, but by the British. The British were the ones who introduced the first pass laws the first native reserves and the first money taxes - like the hut tax. The need to pay taxes in money was one of the reasons why a migrant labour system got underway and this is precisely what was intended - to provide cheap labour for the South African gold mines and farms.

This is the basic thrust of capitalist economy everywhere - to try to monetise socioeconomic relationships everywhere. It will finally be decisively repulsed once the first socialist free zone gets going to be followed pretty rapidly in short order by others in domino fashion until in no time at all global socialism will be a reality

[robbo203]

Yes, other wise you could have socialism in one bedroom. Is your bedromm socialist, Robbo?


What? What sort of argument is this? You are the one to make a great play on the line of argument that a "change in quantity leads to a change in quality" viz your boiling water analogy. There is a slight difference between someone's bedroom and a society consisting of tens millions of people, don't you think? I gave you two random examples where the application of communistic principles were evident - the anarchist communes in the Spanish civil war and the communistic religious communities that Engels spoke of which in his view demonstrated the practical feasiblity of communism. Now both those examples are pretty small scale in comparsion to the situation I am talking which would moreover occur in the context of a growing worldwide socialist movement. And yet you reduce this argument to a question of "socialism in your bedroom". Ridiculous.




It doesn't have all the attributes of socialism That's like saying 'apart from the fact that the patient is dead, does it have all the attributes of being alive?'


Another naff argument or should I say ex catherdra type assertion so typical of you



Logical flaw going back to Parmenides.

To change, something must either change from what it is (in which case, it is what it is) or change into what it isn't (in which case, it isn't). Come over here (you can't, to come to Britain you have to be in Spain, in which case you're in Spain, or be in Britain, which you aren't) and I'll break your leg to dispove your theory (I can't, to break your leg, you leg must be unbroken, in which case it's fine, or like that already, in which case I didn't break it).



You misapply Parmenides argument in this case because you dont really understand what the argument is about. In administering capitalism you are not abolishing it . The abolition of capitalism is not a process but an event and you have already in effect conceded this point by agreeing there is nothing in between a class-based society and a classless society. Capitalism will not disappear like the Cheshire cats grin. Of course capitalism has to exist in order to be abolished but this a trite tautology of no relevance to actual argument we are dealing with



I said 'takes over capitalist society' and you claim I said 'takes over capitalism'. Error or fraud? You tell me.



Do you not consider a capitalist society to be governed by the capitalist mode of production - capitalism?



Why would I advocate the abolition of capitalism if I don't want it to be abolished?


I dont deny that your heart is in the right place and that you want to abolish capitalism. Its just that your way of going about it is completely wrong



You think you can abolish something you don't have control of. You don't control capitalism. Abolish it. Not just in your bedroom, but everywhere. Go on, I dare you.


No. Your choice of words as usual, is inapt. You dont - and cannot - control capitalism. "Control" implies the political regulation of capitalism and therefore its continuance. Socialists dont call for continuance of capitalism . They simply dont








The tragedy is that your 'socialism in one country' will suffer exactly the same outcome. We've told you time and again there is no local road to socialism, you know it, we know it, but you keep following that well-worn path. We can only help you if you admit you've got a problem Robbo.


Thank you kindly but I dont require your "help" - I can think for myself - and I dont consider that I have a problem. Its interesting though that you try to turn my argument - that there is no state capitalist road to socialism - against me , mimicking the very form of that argument.

Aside from the question of whether or not there is what you misleadingly call a local road to socialism (since the movement for socialism is a global movement even if socialism appears somewhere first) you evade the point that I make - that there is no state capitalist road to socialism and that it inevitably leads to betrayal and disenchantment. I would have thought that this would be a rather an important for you to address considering you advocate state capitalism under the so called DOTP. But you dont address it.

That aside I cant help noticing that once again you have evaded this point of mine below. When are you and your fellow DOTPers going to get round to answering it, hih?


Except, of course, that the capitalist class could NOT have been expropriated under your so called DOTP since the proletariat is by (Marxian) definition propertlyless and obliged to sell its labour power to a capitalist class (who logically must continue to exist as the buyer of that labour power) if the proletariat itself continues to eixst. You can't have a capitalist class without a proletariat any more than you can have a proletariat without a capitalist class. And heres the point - if the capitalist class continues to exists then it can ONLY do so by virtue of the fact that it still owns means of production and has clearly, therefore, NOT been expropriated. A capitalist class with property is not a capitalist class. It is an ex capitalist class and how can sell its labour power to a class that no longer exists. How, in short, can a proletariat exist under these circumstances>

This is the knockout blow to your whole fantasy world of proletarian dictatorships. You know you cannot deal with it so you continue to evade it. But wriggle as you might you cannot escape what the ruthless logic of this argument emphatically demonstrates.- that whole notion of a DOTP is based on an utter logical absurdity

[Le Socialiste]

Sorry but this argument wont wash. The contradiction in it stands out like a sore thumb. Class antagonisms. you say, have not disappeared since the capitalist class wants its property back. But if the capitalist class lacks prioperty it is no longer a capitalist class . It is an ex capitalist class. It is not sensible to talk of a capitalist class that exists without at the same being being in possession of capital. And if there is no capitalist cllass then logically there can be no working class , no proletariat , which sells its working abilities to said capitalists. Therefore. logically, there can be no DOTP.

If I might interject here - and I'd rather not, because I'm quite enjoying this debate - this argument lacks substantive evidence or reasoning, and as such treads dangerously toward an immaterial view of the DOTP, something you yourself have warned others against. In fact, you demonstrate a woefully idealistic interpretation of the interrelationship(s) between class and state, both under capitalism and the DOTP. You correctly make reference to the state as an "instrument of class rule;" this is undoubtedly - irrefutably - true. What follows next however illustrates the extent to which you understand this point, and that is since socialism entails the absence of class structures and hierarchies the state, that monstrous mechanism through which the dictatorship of the class is exercised, must be completely and without question canceled out of every point of the equation. Indeed, it has no place in it at all. Your argument rests upon a shaky foundation; that is, the dispossession of the propertied classes from ownership of all political and economic means marks their dissolution as a distinctive class, thus negating the class nature of the proletariat and ushering in all the trappings of a classless society.

This is an odd conclusion to draw from any marxian theoretician, much less from Marx and Engels themselves! What's more, you make the mistake of defining the proletarian dictatorship as a choice, and not as the logical culmination of a series of successive events. It is not decided upon, but arrived at, often out of necessity and within the context of existing external pressures. The DOTP is, after all, the realization of an emergent class for itself, one that is consciously prepared to rid itself of the old world but must still contend with the existence of the bourgeois class. Rather than an unnecessary imposition, the DOTP represents the continuation of heightened class struggle in new form(s). It is at best "an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy," (Engels).

In these circumstances, a dictatorship of the working-class is not a dictatorship in the traditional, historic sense; it simply refers to the next natural phase in the development of the proletariat, wherein the apparatuses of the state are acquired and exercised in accordance with the interests of the class. The function of this instrument is, as you rightfully put it, one of class rule. It is through this that the proletariat refines what it has learned via praxis and experience, and oversees the forcible dissolution of the bourgeois class. It is, as Lenin so eloquently put it, a 'cudgel' with which one may subdue the "resistance of the exploiters." It must do so with all the ruthlessness and brutality accorded it, depending on the manner and method by which elements of the dispossessed classes seek to reassert their hegemonic rule over society. Like all things it will be subject to external and internal fluctuations, and like capitalism it will require international assistance and support in order for it grow and develop.

You argue that it is not 'sensible' to talk of a ruling class stripped of its position and privilege, because the very act of its dispossession divorces it from its class basis. This sequence of events supposedly repeats itself within the working-class itself, rendering the concept of the DOTP obsolete. Thus communism comes into existence overnight; all prior structures disintegrate alongside any and all preexisting antagonisms inherent in the old society. If we are to follow this sequence to its inevitable conclusion, the Paris Commune and the Russian revolution stand as exceptions to the rule, flukes. Your identification of the state as an inherently corruptive institution regardless of context or circumstance, brings you to the conclusion that it can only restore class society. I find this assessment to be riddled with holes. I think it ignores the temporary role of the DOTP and misses its overall function as an extension of working-class hegemony. You're not carrying the idea of the class struggle to its logical conclusion, but imposing upon it your own ideals and reservations.

[Red Enemy]

Le Socialiste makes a good point here,

on that note, answer my last response to you, robo.

[Art Vandelay]

Because, if you knew anything about Marxism, you would realise that a state is an instrument of class rule and given that socialism means the absence of classes there cannot be such a thing as a state in socialism. The implication of your question is that hypothethically such a "socialist area" is likely to be invaded by surrounding hostile capitalist states. Even if that were the case, the defensive organisation of a classless socialist society to rebuff such attacks would not constitute the actions of a state - anymore , as Marx points out, than the existence of machinery signifies the exxistence of capital.

So when the bourgeoisie (a class) enters into this isolated socialist area in an attempt to overthrow it, this socialist society of free producers organizing to defend itself will not constitute a state? The amount of mental gymnastics you undertake to justify this bizarre position of yours, is astounding.


In an any case. your scenario is extremely improbable since the emergence of a socialist area somewhere presupposes the significant growth of socialist consciousness everywhere - the movement for socialism being a global movement.

There has never been a dispossessed ruling class which has not organized a counter revolution, the idea that the bourgeoisie will for some reason be an exception to this, is what is improbably.


The socio-political environment within the residual capitalist states would have, by then, have been radically transformed by the penetration of socialist ideas everywhere. Meaning that such capitalist states would by then lack both the will and the authority to take such action in my view. It would simply be far too late to do anything about preventing socialism from becoming a global reality

So now were beginning to see that you are not only a supporter of socialism in one country, but also seem to think that world revolution will happen extremely quickly; a vast wave of socialist class consciousness sweeping across the globe (completely ignoring uneven development).



Becuase it cant, given the absence of a money medium with which to effect tranasctions. If money has no significance in a socialist zone it has no use or purpose in trade. Trade long predated capitalism and once of the ploys that emerging capitalist states used to induce or coerce the locals into a capitalist
system of production under colonialism was through the imposition of money taxes. A classic example comes from the part of the world that I hail from - South Africa. The rudimentary building blocks of apartheid were set up, not by the Boers, but by the British. The British were the ones who introduced the first pass laws the first native reserves and the first money taxes - like the hut tax. The need to pay taxes in money was one of the reasons why a migrant labour system got underway and this is precisely what was intended - to provide cheap labour for the South African gold mines and farms.

This is the basic thrust of capitalist economy everywhere - to try to monetise socioeconomic relationships everywhere. It will finally be decisively repulsed once the first socialist free zone gets going to be followed pretty rapidly in short order by others in domino fashion until in no time at all global socialism will be a reality

Yes because I am sure that the world bourgeoisie will be falling in line to supply the necessary materials this socialist free zone will need, despite it having the overthrow of said bourgeois states as its goal and despite not having any form of currency.

[robbo203]

So when the bourgeoisie (a class) enters into this isolated socialist area in an attempt to overthrow it, this socialist society of free producers organizing to defend itself will not constitute a state? The amount of mental gymnastics you undertake to justify this bizarre position of yours, is astounding.


The only mental gymnastics I detect here is your vain attempt to saddle a classless society with the institution of the state. The state is an institution of class rule. If there are no classes there can be no state. Period




There has never been a dispossessed ruling class which has not organized a counter revolution, the idea that the bourgeoisie will for some reason be an exception to this, is what is improbably.


Actually most "dispossessed" ruling classes in history were dispossed by militarily conquest and subjugation by other states. Some where assimilated into the new ruling class; other banished to obscurity. Consider the part of the world in which I live - Southern Spain. The Christian reconquest oif Spain from Muslim Al-Andalus had by the 15th centur, y left only the the emirate of Granada as the sole remaining muslim enclave in the whole of Spain The defeat of King Boabdil by the Christiain forces of Isabelle and Ferdinand and the annexation of Granada to Castille - what you would call the "dispossession of a ruling class" - did in fact not lead to a "counter revolution". There was a shortlived uprising in the Alpujarras south of Granada, much later in the 16th century the last muslim resistence to Christain rule in Spain but it had nothing to do with Boabdil who had buggered off to Morocco long ago where he had died. It has everything to do with ethinc cleaninsing and discrimination

Im sure there are many other examples one could cite in which a "dispossed ruling class" did not in fact organise a "counter revolution" contrary to what you carelessly claim...


That aside who are "the bourgeoisie" that you are talking anyway that will organise this supposed ""counter revolution"? A tiny class of individuals! Do you seriously imagine this numerically negligble collection of ex- parasites could - even if they wanted to which I doubt - mount a serious counter revolution against a determined socialist majority. Not a chance! The "Red Clydesider", Jiimmy Reid had it right when he said "If we all spat we could drown them!". Indeed! The idea of a bunch of grouse-shooting toffs in tweeds bearing down on the proletarat is hilarious to say the least and - yes! - distinctly improbable. Once the writing is on the wall, the game will be up for the capitalist class. Their authority to govern via their political repsenatives will have been irreversibly undermined

Never mind your false claim that "there has never been a dispossessed ruling class which has not organized a counter revolution". There has never yet been a revolution carried out by and interest of the vast majority . In short a socialist revolution. Which is why you simply cannot use the template of bourgeois revolutions to determine what would happen come a genuine socialist revolution




So now were beginning to see that you are not only a supporter of socialism in one country, but also seem to think that world revolution will happen extremely quickly; a vast wave of socialist class consciousness sweeping across the globe (completely ignoring uneven development).


I dont ignore uneven development and this is precisely why I say the growth of the socialist movement is likely to exhibit differential growth rates resulting in the establisihment of socialism somewhere first, to begin with. However to coin an expression we live in a global village . There are revolutionary socialists I know of personally who live in the most seemingly improbable of places where you would think there would never be socialists - like the littel African kingdom of Swaziland for example . But there are. The modern means of telecommunications enables ideas to spread like wildfire. So, YES , I am absolutely confident that there will indeed be a "vast wave of socialist class consciousness sweeping across the globe" once a certain a critical threshoild of numerical support has been passed. Why not? Why the pessimism on your part?





Yes because I am sure that the world bourgeoisie will be falling in line to supply the necessary materials this socialist free zone will need, despite it having the overthrow of said bourgeois states as its goal and despite not having any form of currency.

Look, get something straight - the capitalists are not some kind of monolithic bloc that conspires to quell the slightist flickering of revolt. Youve been reading too much conspiracy theory, frankly. Capitalists are in competition with each other, you do realise dont you? . If they need the materials that a "socialist free zone" posseses they will barter trade with the latter and in so doing will supply the latter with what the latter need , Altruism doesnt come into it. Its is short termisn and sheer self interests that will drive the residual capitalist states to cooperate with the emerging socialist society beyond their borders

Sworn enemies can and have often cooperated. The state capitalist soviet bloc cooperated with western style capitalisn during the cold war in arranging mutally beneficial economic deals. Even under Stalin there is evidence of involvement of western companies in the development of the Soviet Union's infrastructure and industry

Individual capitalists may personally worry anout the looming threat of socialism in their midst but capitalism as a system of abstact economics laws continues regardless - until it is abolished by a socialist majority

[RedMaterialist]

Because, if you knew anything about Marxism, you would realise that a state is an instrument of class rule and given that socialism means the absence of classes there cannot be such a thing as a state in socialism.

Marx also argued that capitalism and capitalists will have to be suppressed and destroyed by the working class. That is why there will and must be a proletariat state. As Marx says in the Communist Manifesto,


The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

Only then after the working class has destroyed the capitalists will the last ruling class, the workers, then disappear. Marx:


... it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.


by robbo203...This is the basic thrust of capitalist economy everywhere - to try to monetise socioeconomic relationships everywhere. It will finally be decisively repulsed once the first socialist free zone gets going to be followed pretty rapidly in short order by others in domino fashion until in no time at all global socialism will be a reality

Your argument is essentially a utopian view of how capitalism transitions into socialism...as you say, the transition will be "pretty rapidly in short order...in no time at all." No struggle, no blood, no terror. We will all wake up one day and be aware of our social consciousness. Then the socialist paradise will appear before us, magically. If the 20th century proves anything, it proves that the socialist revolution will be violent and protracted.

[RedMaterialist]

But there are. The modern means of telecommunications enables ideas to spread like wildfire.


Revolution on the internet! Sign up on Socialist Revolution face book. All current 8 users of RevLeft will be the vanguard party.

[Le Socialiste]

That aside who are "the bourgeoisie" that you are talking anyway that will organise this supposed ""counter revolution"? A tiny class of individuals! Do you seriously imagine this numerically negligble collection of ex- parasites could - even if they wanted to which I doubt - mount a serious counter revolution against a determined socialist majority. Not a chance! The "Red Clydesider", Jiimmy Reid had it right when he said "If we all spat we could drown them!". Indeed! The idea of a bunch of grouse-shooting toffs in tweeds bearing down on the proletarat is hilarious to say the least and - yes! - distinctly improbable. Once the writing is on the wall, the game will be up for the capitalist class. Their authority to govern via their political repsenatives will have been irreversibly undermined

Either you're intentionally misreading 9mm's point or you've honestly interpreted counterrevolution to mean an act carried through and implemented singularly by the ruling-class. The bourgeoisie makes up an infinitesimal fraction within class society, yes, but what it lacks in numbers is made up for through its hegemonic, monopolistic rule over the economic means of production and the political apparatus of the state. It holds enormous sway over sizable layers of the proletariat and petite bourgeoisie, both in terms of influence and ideology. The ruling-class doesn't need to fight its own battles, or even to wage its own counterrevolution from the front lines; it can call upon an array of supporters and/or sympathizers to aid it in its sabotage. Did the ruling-classes in France crush the Commune themselves? Who bled and died in the Russian and Spanish civil wars? Who made up the ranks of reaction in Germany (admittedly, many of those making up paramilitary and political groups like the Freikorps and others were of noble and/or middle to upper-class descent, but by and large the German bourgeoisie had to rely on numbers beyond themselves to bury the German revolution)? These counterrevolutionary efforts were made up of workers, peasants, and others who were either pressed into service for reactionary elements or supported them outright. There are no absolutes, much less in revolution. There are many distinct and contradictory factors at play in such periods, but you seem to be ignorant of this.

[robbo203]

Either you're intentionally misreading 9mm's point or you've honestly interpreted counterrevolution to mean an act carried through and implemented singularly by the ruling-class. The bourgeoisie makes up an infinitesimal fraction within class society, yes, but what it lacks in numbers is made up for through its hegemonic, monopolistic rule over the economic means of production and the political apparatus of the state. It holds enormous sway over sizable layers of the proletariat and petite bourgeoisie, both in terms of influence and ideology. The ruling-class doesn't need to fight its own battles, or even to wage its own counterrevolution from the front lines; it can call upon an array of supporters and/or sympathizers to aid it in its sabotage. Did the ruling-classes in France crush the Commune themselves? Who bled and died in the Russian and Spanish civil wars? Who made up the ranks of reaction in Germany (admittedly, many of those making up paramilitary and political groups like the Freikorps and others were of noble and/or middle to upper-class descent, but by and large the German bourgeoisie had to rely on numbers beyond themselves to bury the German revolution)? These counterrevolutionary efforts were made up of workers, peasants, and others who were either pressed into service for reactionary elements or supported them outright. There are no absolutes, much less in revolution. There are many distinct and contradictory factors at play in such periods, but you seem to be ignorant of this.


Actually you are the one who is misreading me. I am well aware, as you put it , that what the bourgeois "lacks in numbers is made up for through its hegemonic, monopolistic rule over the economic means of production and the political apparatus of the state" The direct involvement of the bourgeosie in its own struggles may well be, and often is, comparatively negligible since the bourgeoisie must always rely on others to do its fighting for it


There is an interesting quote from Marx thus:

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

This could well serve as a good description of the bourgeois Bolshevik revolution which was carried by the Russian working class but brought into being a system of state run capitalism and, with it, a new state capitalist ruling class. That class did not need to have a hand in the revolution to ensure that it delivered a system run in the interests of capital


Your misunderstanding of my position stems from the fact that my ridiculing of the bourgeosie as a potent force in the direct defence of their system is actually rhetorical. I am actually trying to highlight the very thing you emphasise, viz that what the bourgeosie:

"lacks in numbers is made up for through its hegemonic, monopolistic rule over the economic means of production and the political apparatus of the state"

The establiishment of communism presupposes that a majority are conscious communists who want and understand communism . Once you have that majority , capitalist hegemony is finished - kaput! - and all you have is a tiny class of parasites some of who might attempt to flout the communist wishes of the overwhelming majority in the shape of a pretty feeble "counter revolution" - though personally I doubt it. Personally, I think that when the writing is on wall the great bulk of the capitalsts will simply resign themselves to the new social reality. And - who knows? - some like a certain Mr F. Engels from Manchester might become ardent communist revolutionaries themselves! ;)

[robbo203]

Marx also argued that capitalism and capitalists will have to be suppressed and destroyed by the working class. That is why there will and must be a proletariat state. As Marx says in the Communist Manifesto,


Marx said many things . Some sound; some unsound. He and Engels also much later repudiated. or at least distanced themselves, from some of the reformist and state capitalist stuff they wrote in the Manifesto (at the end of section 2). Check out the 1872 Preface to the Manifesto for instance.

Though I think his whole concept of the DOTP was a serious error of judgement, it basically arose from the fact that communism was simply not a possibility when they wrote the Manifesto. This is why for example you find in the quote you cite that the proletariat "organised as the ruling class" should strive to " increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible". Many years later Marx and particularly Engels were already beginning to adjust their opinions as to the technical possibility of communism. Certainly by the start of 20th century, capitalism had outlived its usefulness as a progressive social system in respect of developing the forces of production. It had become obsolete. Any prima facie case there might once have been for a DOTP to "increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible" has disappeared.

To advocate a DOTP as just another form of capitalism - which it is - in today's world is positively reactionary and conservative in the extreme. Only dogmatists who make a fetish out of holy scripture and blindly quote a certain German revolutionary who died 120 years ago cling on to this incoherent concept as an intellectual crutch rather than look with fresh eyes at a look at a world that we have today has been materially transformed since Marx's day

I am all for the "destruction of capitalism" but it does not follow at all that you must have something called a "proletarian state" - a contradiction in terms if ever there was - to in order to accomplish this goal. A proletarian state (so called) signifies the existence - and perpetuation - of capitalism rather than its demise. Since capitalism can only be operated in the interests of capital the proletarian state will soon enough - and quite inevitably - accomodate itself to the interests of capital rather than seeks its abolition. The proletarian state in other words will pretty soon become the enemy of the proletariat and not the means of its salvation. Anyone who thinks otherwise is like the proverbial ostrich with their head firmly embedded in the sand

If you serious want to get rid of capitalism then just do it - dont prolong the system. You can only do it when you have a socialist majority and when you have a socialist majority you have no reason - once you have the power at your disposal to abolish capitalism - to hang on to it for even one second longer. What in hells name is the point? You would only want to hang onto capitalism because the preconditions for establishing communism had not yet been attained i.e. majority socialist consciousness. And that is precisely what I am saying - dont even attempt to take power before that preconndition has been attained because if you do, it will only end in tears. Any communist pretensions you might once have had will disappear like water in the desert sands once you get to down to having to administer capitalism



Your argument is essentially a utopian view of how capitalism transitions into socialism...as you say, the transition will be "pretty rapidly in short order...in no time at all." No struggle, no blood, no terror. We will all wake up one day and be aware of our social consciousness. Then the socialist paradise will appear before us, magically. If the 20th century proves anything, it proves that the socialist revolution will be violent and protracted.

And you argument is bollocks frankly. Thats not what I suggested - when did I say there would be "no struggle" for instance?Are you seriously suggesting I dont base my approach on the premiss of class struggle? - and the notion that we "will all wake up one day and be aware of our social consciousness" is positively absurd and incoherent. Socialist consciousness grows and develops incrementally through class struggle and is transformative in its social influence and it is corrosive impact on capitalist hegemony.

The 20th century far from proving that the socialist revolution will be "violent and protracted" proves , if anything , the very opposite - that it will be, and needs to be, essentially peaceful and democratic. If you think you can take on the armed might of a modern capitalist state then you are a fool, and to actually advocate violence as a means to your end is sucidial and a direct invitation to the state to crush you. The romantic buffoonry of armed militias and barricades in the street belongs to a bygone age of capitalist revolt. In this day and age we should not use the template of capitalist revolution to effect our communist revolution

When will people learn - you cannot separate the ends and the means. A peaceful democratic society can only ever be achieved by means that are congruent with this aim. There has never been a case anywhere the violent overthow of one ruling class has not simply brought into power another - often more brutal and corrupt than its predecessor. Violence, certainly if its to be effective on its own terms necessitates and breeds an authoritarian hierachical way of thinking and organising that runs directly counter to the democratic values of proletarian self emancipation. Yet, in the face of the overwhelming evidence that violence changes nothing except one set of rulers for another, you blithely claim that 20th century proves "that the socialist revolution will be violent and protracted". Dream on.

The need to resort to violence proves the political immaturity of the movement espousing it and the unreadiness of the condtions in which it operates. Of course one understand the anger of a people suffering under some brutal regime that allows them no outlet to express themselves. But have no illusions. The toppling of such regime by armed struggle is in no way a strategy that can be used or tranferred to the revolutionary struggle to achieve a communist society.

The communist or socialist revolution is fundamentally and qualitatively different from all past struggles in that it is for the first time the self conscious movement of the great majority in the interests of the great majority. Once we have such a majority, violence becomes unnecessary or simply an incidental and minor phenomenon, but will play no part in the central strategy of social transformation

[RedMaterialist]

The communist or socialist revolution is fundamentally and qualitatively different from all past struggles in that it is for the first time the self conscious movement of the great majority in the interests of the great majority. Once we have such a majority, violence becomes unnecessary or simply an incidental and minor phenomenon, but will play no part in the central strategy of social transformation

Everyone hopes for a peaceful socialist revolution, but I haven't seen much evidence of one since 1848. Maybe Sweden, Norway, etc.

[Queen Mab]

If you serious want to get rid of capitalism then just do it - dont prolong the system. You can only do it when you have a socialist majority and when you have a socialist majority you have no reason - once you have the power at your disposal to abolish capitalism - to hang on to it for even one second longer.

No. Just no. This is utterly idealist. How on earth is the working class supposed to come to a majority socialist understanding before the revolution? The material conditions of capitalism make this impossible. As it is now, the bourgeoisie own the means of mental production, they control the media, the universities and the police, all of which they use to suppress socialist consciousness. The only way to remove these barriers is for the proletariat to wrest political control from the bourgeoisie, then a majority socialist consciousness can be developed, then socialism can be established. That is the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Assuming a majority will become class conscious under the rule of the bourgeoisie is idealism. During the revolution you will play a reactionary role, opposing class struggle as you wait for socialism to fall from the sky.

And since socialism cannot be established in one country, will you be waiting for a majority socialist understanding across the entire world before a revolution can happen? That is an insane position to hold.

[Queen Mab]

I mean, what you're basically saying is that class struggle is irrelevant. Since all we need to do is convince people that socialism is great and wait for them to communise everything without opposition, there's no need to struggle against institutions of bourgeois rule. That's meaningless violence.

[The Feral Underclass]

Assuming a majority will become class conscious under the rule of the bourgeoisie is idealism.

Class consciousness comes about through antagonisms and struggle that ultimately amalgamates to the point whereby the seizure of the means of production occurs. What else do you imagine a revolution to be if not the accumulation of action the proletariat takes to abolish itself? There is nothing idealist about that.


During the revolution you will play a reactionary role, opposing class struggle as you wait for socialism to fall from the sky.

I don't imagine there will be much of a revolution if the proletariat are not conscious of themselves.