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30th January 2013, 12:14

Flying Purple People Eater

30th January 2013, 12:38

No, you're wrong.

Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought

Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution

I. Hoxha on the Course of the Chinese Revolution

According to Enver Hoxha, the Chinese Communist Party has been dominated by the revisionist “Mao Tsetung Thought” since 1935, the year in which Mao’s leadership was basically established within the Party. Apparently, the correct line, according to Hoxha, was represented by the line of Wang Ming, although the name of this renegade doesn’t appear in his book. Wang Ming was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party for several years until the defeat of his line in 1935, and his career in the Party was marked by two features: first, he was consistently wrong in his political line, making both right and “left” opportunist deviations; and, secondly, he enjoyed the confidence and support of the Communist International and, presumably, Stalin.

Those in the leadership of the Chinese Party who shared Wang Ming’s line (who called themselves the “internationalists,” and sometimes were referred to as the “28 and a half Bolsheviks”–a reference to Wang’s claim that he and his handful of students returned from Moscow were “100% Bolshevik”) came to the fore at a crucial juncture in the Chinese Revolution. They refused to recognize that the Chinese Revolution had suffered a period of temporary setback following the defeat of the 1924-27 Revolution, and that, as a result, a protracted period of strategic defensive was necessary.

Mao had analyzed the concrete conditions in China on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and also the fundamental theses of Lenin and Stalin on the Chinese Revolution, and had determined that while the revolution had been set back, various circumstances existed that allowed the establishment of rural base areas surrounded by the enemy in different parts of China. Closely connected to this was the question of the peasants, whom Mao correctly stated had to be the main (not leading) force in the revolution during its democratic stage. Central to building up these base areas was mobilizing the peasantry under the leadership of the Communist Party and carrying out the agrarian revolution.

Wang Ming bitterly opposed Mao on these basic theses, as well as on numerous political and military questions that flowed from them. Like Hoxha, Wang Ming railed against Mao’s thesis that in China the cities must be encircled by the countryside. Like Hoxha, Wang could not understand the ebbs and flows of the revolution and instead presented a picture of a constantly favorable objective situation with only the subjective factor being necessary to lead an immediate successful onslaught on reactionary power. Wang Ming led the Party in a wrong military, political and ideological line that led to defeat by Chiang Kai-shek in his Fifth “Encirclement and Suppression Campaign,” a defeat which forced the Red Army to retreat in the famous Long March. As a result of this “left” opportunist line, large numbers of the Communist Party and revolutionary army, as well as base areas, were wiped out.

Of course this is well known, and the political summation of these deviations comprise an important part of the works of Mao Tsetung. Further, it is on the basis of repudiating this line in particular that the Chinese Communist Party was able to carry through successfully the famous Long March and indeed the Chinese revolution.

But Enver Hoxha, like Wang Ming and the Soviet revisionists, accuses Mao of “nationalism,” of a “peasant mentality” and of opportunism because he applied Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions in China and developed an all-around political line capable of leading that revolution to victory.

Listen to some of the profound arguments Hoxha conjures up for his attack on Mao:

Mao Tsetung expressed this petty bourgeois theory [not recognizing the leading role of the proletariat] in his general thesis that the “countryside must encircle the city.” “... revolutionary villages,” he wrote, “can encircle the cities. . . rural work should play the primary role in the Chinese revolutionary movement and urban work a secondary role.” Mao expressed this idea also when he wrote about the role of the peasantry in the state. He has said that all other political parties and forces must submit to the peasantry and its views. “... Millions of peasants will rise like a mighty storm, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. . .,” he writes. “They will put to the test every revolutionary party and group, every revolutionary, so that they either accept their views or reject them.” According to Mao, it turns out that the peasantry and not the working class should play the hegemonic role in the revolution.[2]

Such is the thinking of Enver Hoxha. Where, we will ask, does it say that in every country the main center of the Party’s work must be in the cities? If one is making revolution in a country in which the peasantry is 80% of the population, if the revolution has been driven out of the cities, if the movement is temporarily declining, and if the possibility exists for forming red political power in the countryside–as it did in China–how can it be said that it was wrong to “make the main center of the Party’s work” the rural areas, or to develop a strategy of surrounding the cities by the countryside? In these conditions, to fail to do so could only mean, as it did, a policy of rash adventurism which quickly led to capitulation in the face of the enemy, exactly because the “left” line of concentrating in the cities, refusing to “encircle the cities by the countryside,” meant a line which could not mobilize the forces for revolution in the concrete conditions of China at the time.

Hoxha’s blustering about Mao’s famous quotation from Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan where he says that the mighty storm of the peasant movement “will put to the test every revolutionary party and group” is also revealing. This classic work of Mao has also come under attack by revisionists historically, from Chen Tu-hsiu and Wang Ming to the Soviet renegades.

What Mao is arguing in his Investigation of the Peasant Movement is not that the proletariat should not lead the peasantry, but precisely the opposite. He was arguing against the mainly right tendencies (in form as well as content) within the leadership of the Party who argued that the peasants’ movement was terrible, or that it had “gone too far.” Those who argued that it “had gone too far” felt that it was endangering the alliance with the national bourgeoisie (in the form of the Kuomintang), and therefore should either be opposed, ignored or at least hemmed in.

When Hoxha quotes Mao saying that “Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test to be accepted or rejected as they decide,” he deliberately omits the immediately following sentences which reveal Mao’s whole purpose in writing the essay:

There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.[3]

So it is clear that what Mao is talking about (when you don’t butcher his quotes, as Hoxha is wont to do throughout his attack) is not the peasants leading the Party, but precisely the opposite, of the Party stepping forward and putting itself at the head of the surging torrent of the peasants.

Stalin himself spoke to the same errors that were being committed by leading members of the CCP:

I know there are Kuomintangists and even Chinese Communists who do not consider it possible to unleash revolution in the countryside, since they fear that if the peasantry were drawn into the revolution it would disrupt the united anti-imperialist front. That is a profound error, comrades.... I think it is high time to break down that inertness and that “neutrality” toward the peasantry. . .[4]

Enver Hoxha’s disdain for the peasantry and his underestimation of their central role in the revolutionary process in countries like China is linked to his inability to understand the very nature of these revolutions. It was not Mao, but Lenin and Stalin, who first expounded the theses that revolutions in the countries of Asia were bourgeois-democratic revolutions, which had as their goal two main objectives: the driving out of foreign imperialism and the defeat of those sections of the capitalist class bound together with it; and the solving of the land question–the wiping out of the feudal survivals and the implementation of “land to the tiller.”

Once again, Stalin was quite clear on this question: “The Comintern was and still is of the opinion that the basis of the revolution in China in the present period [1927] is the agrarian-peasant revolution.”[5][5a]

Hoxha charges that:

Mao Tsetung was never able to understand and explain correctly the close links between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution. Contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theory, which has proved scientifically that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, that these two revolutions do not have to be divided from each other by a long period of time, Mao Tsetung asserted: “The transformation of our revolution into socialist revolution is a matter of the future... As to when the transition will take place... it may take quite a long time. We should not hold forth about this transition until all the necessary political and economic conditions are present and until it is advantageous and not detrimental to the overwhelming majority of our people.”[8]

By now the astute reader will ask, what exactly did Hoxha leave out with his two sets of three dots (ellipses). The first ... is to obliterate one sentence in which Mao writes, “In the future the democratic revolution will inevitably be transformed into a socialist revolution.” The second . . . wipes out the phrase that appears in the sentence, “As to when the transition will take place, that will depend on the presence of the necessary conditions, and it may take quite a long time.” (Omitted phrase in italics.)[9][9a]

Thus we see that Hoxha omits two critical points of Mao’s: 1) that the transition to the socialist revolution is inevitable, and 2) that this transition depends on the “presence of the necessary conditions.”

Hoxha goes on to state:

Mao Tsetung adhered to this anti-Marxist concept, which is not for the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into socialist revolution, during the whole period of the revolution, even after liberation. Thus, in 1940, Mao Tsetung said: “The Chinese revolution must necessarily pass through... the stage of New Democracy and then the stage of socialism. Of these, the first stage will need a relatively long time. . . . ”[10]

For the reader’s convenience, the whole of the paragraph Hoxha “quotes” is reprinted below, from the authorized Chinese translation and without his handy ellipses:

Without a doubt, the present revolution is the first step, which will develop into the second step, that of socialism, at a later date. And China will attain true happiness only when she enters the socialist era. But today is not yet the time to introduce socialism. The present task of the revolution in China is to fight imperialism and feudalism, and socialism is out of the question until this task is completed. The Chinese revolution cannot avoid taking the two steps, first of New Democracy and then of socialism. Moreover, the first step will need quite a long time and cannot be accomplished overnight. We are not Utopians and cannot divorce ourselves from the actual conditions confronting us.[11]

So once again it is clear, even from the very passages Hoxha tries to twist and distort to back up his slanders, that Mao is clear that the new-democratic revolution leads to socialism once the necessary conditions have been met, which he specifically notes are the defeat of imperialism and feudalism.

Hoxha is quite correct when he says that “no Chinese wall” separates the two stages of the revolution, but what he really seeks to do is in fact negate the fact that there are two distinct stages of the revolution, which of necessity involve different alignments of class forces and have different tasks. What Hoxha attempts to do is mush everything together, to combine two into one, and he comes up with an amorphous democratic-socialist revolution whose characteristics are fundamentally the same in imperialist and oppressed nations alike.

Hoxha’s line is so eclectic and confused it is impossible to figure out exactly what he is saying. Is it that the Chinese Revolution prior to 1949 was (or should have been) a socialist revolution? Is he parroting the line of some leaders of the Chinese Party (with some support of the Comintern) who argued that the bourgeois revolution was transformed into a socialist revolution with the capture of power in one or two key provinces? Or is it that Mao did not recognize that the revolution would be transformed into a socialist revolution with the seizure of power on a nationwide scale? In any case, we will see that it is Mao, not Hoxha or Wang Ming, who was correct.[11a]

Hoxha deliberately confuses the fact that the socialist revolution can accomplish democratic tasks (the October Revolution being the outstanding example) with the concept of the bourgeois-democratic revolution itself. It is not surprising that in the earlier part of his book, in which Hoxha lays down his recipes for revolution in every country of the world (though, it is true, not specifically for each country), there is no real understanding of this question, and in fact a giant muddle.

This connection [between proletarian revolution in the West and the struggle in the colonies and dependent countries–J.W.] has become even clearer and more natural today, when, with the collapse of the old colonial system, most of the peoples have taken a big step forward towards independence by creating their own national states, and when, following this step, they are aspiring to go further. They want the liquidation of the neo-colonialist system, of any imperialist dependence and any exploitation of foreign capital. They want their complete sovereignty and economic and political independence. It has now been proved that such aspirations can be realized, such objectives attained only through the elimination of any foreign domination by and dependence on foreigners and the liquidation of oppression and exploitation by local bourgeois and big landowner rulers.

Hence, the linking and the interlacing of the national-democratic, anti-imperialist, national liberation revolution with the socialist revolution, because, by striking at imperialism and reaction, which are common enemies of the proletariat and the peoples, these revolutions also pave the way for great social transformations, assist the victory of the socialist revolution. And vice-versa, by striking at the imperialist bourgeoisie, by destroying its economic and political positions, the socialist revolution creates favorable conditions for and facilitates the triumph of liberation movements.[15]

Despite Hoxha’s passing reference here to “big landowner rulers,” what is strikingly missing in this passage, and indeed Hoxha’s whole book, is any discussion whatsoever of the anti-feudal character of the revolution in many of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. For it is the struggle against feudalism, especially, that gives the democratic revolution a bourgeois character.

In the above statement, Hoxha deftly combines the socialist revolution with the bourgeois-democratic revolution by saying that independence, sovereignty, etc. can only be achieved with the “elimination of oppression of the local bourgeois and big landowner rulers.” Of course, it is true that in the final analysis, real liberation from imperialism is dependent on the socialist revolution. Mao made this point many times, including in his famous statement that “only socialism can save China.” But the fact remains that the socialist revolution and the bourgeois-democratic revolution are not the same, and in the latter certain bourgeois (i.e. exploiting) forces can play a positive role.

Ironically, despite the attempts of Hoxha to claim the mantle of Stalin, it is Stalin, in writing of another renegade, who succinctly sums up Hoxha’s basic errors on the Chinese revolution:

The basic error of Trotsky (and hence of the opposition) is that he underestimates the agrarian revolution in China, does not understand the bourgeois-democratic character of that revolution, denies the existence of the preconditions for an agrarian movement in China, embracing many millions, and underestimates the role of the peasantry in the Chinese revolution.[16]

Hoxha’s protestations to the contrary, it was precisely Mao who explained the relationship between the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist stage of the revolution. First, Mao built upon the basic Leninist theses that in the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution (that is, since the October Revolution in Russia in 1917) the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in the dependent countries and colonies were no longer part of the old bourgeois revolution, but part of the new world proletarian revolution.

Mao stressed again and again that the national bourgeoisie in China and in countries like it could not lead the bourgeois-democratic revolution to victory, that because it was bullied by imperialism this bourgeoisie had some contradictions with it and would, from time to time, join the ranks of the revolutionary struggle, but precisely because the national bourgeoisie was a weak and flabby class economically and politically, because it was still tied in to a certain extent to the big (comprador) sections of the bourgeoisie and also to landed property, it would always vacillate at best and at times capitulate to the forces of imperialism and domestic reaction.

Because of this it fell to the proletariat to lead the people, first and foremost the peasantry, in carrying the democratic revolution through to its completion. Indeed, Mao points out that what made the Chinese revolution a new (as opposed to old) democratic revolution was precisely the fact that it was led by the proletariat and its vanguard, the Communist Party, and that this democratic revolution would not lead to “establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeois dictatorship,” but rather that “this revolution actually serves the purpose of clearing a still wider path for the development of socialism.”[17]

Mao further explained:

Although the Chinese revolution in this first stage (with its many sub-stages) is a new type of bourgeois-democratic revolution and is not yet itself a proletarian-socialist revolution in its social character, it has long become a part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution and is now even a very important part and a great ally of this world revolution. The first step or stage in our revolution is definitely not, and cannot be, the establishment of a capitalist society under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoisie, but will result in the establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes of China headed by the Chinese proletariat. The revolution will then be carried forward to the second stage, in which a socialist society will be established in China.

This is the fundamental characteristic of the Chinese revolution of today, of the new revolutionary process of the past twenty years (counting from the May 4th Movement of 1919), and its concrete living essence.[18]

Mao constantly emphasizes the real link between the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist revolutions, that only the completion of the democratic revolution–i.e., the defeat of imperialism and feudalism–paves the way for the socialist revolution, that the latter cannot be accomplished without these preconditions. But furthermore, Mao affirmed, the leadership of the proletariat and the Party is what makes it possible to carry the revolution beyond the democratic stage and into the socialist stage.

It is not surprising that since Hoxha is incapable of understanding (or pretends not to understand) the class nature of the first stage of the Chinese Revolution, he also attacks the military line of Mao Tsetung–people’s war–that was based on exactly understanding the conditions of the revolution in China. Here is what Hoxha has to say on this subject in the course of writing a prescription for the revolution in every country:

In accord with the concrete conditions of a country and the situations in general, the armed uprising may be a sudden outburst or a more protracted revolutionary process, but not an endless one without perspective, as advocated by Mao Tsetung’s “theory of protracted people’s war”. If you compare the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the revolutionary armed insurrection with Mao’s theory on “people’s war,” the anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, anti-scientific character of this theory becomes clearly apparent. The Marxist-Leninist teachings on the armed insurrection are based on the close combination of the struggle in the city with that in the countryside under the leadership of the working class and its revolutionary party.

Being opposed to the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, the Maoist theory considers the countryside as the only base of the armed insurrection and neglects the armed struggle of the working masses in the town. It preaches that the countryside must keep the city, which is considered as the stronghold of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, besieged. This is an expression of distrust in the working class, the negation of its hegemonic role.[19]

Interesting indeed! Hoxha’s above statement makes clearer his protestations cited earlier that Mao held that the new-democratic stage of the revolution would take a “long period of time.”

Hoxha’s claim that Mao called for an endless war “without perspective” is patently ridiculous. What Mao made very clear is that the war (or actually, in the context of China, a series of three distinct periods of warfare–first against the KMT, then against the Japanese, and then against the KMT again) would be the basic form for carrying out the revolution until it completed its first goals, specifically the driving out of imperialism and solving the land question, a very clear “perspective.”

In Hoxha’s criticism of people’s war the rightist essence of his “leftism” begins to come into sharper focus. One would like to ask Hoxha, what course should the Chinese Revolution have taken following the defeat of the 1924-27 Revolution–when the counterrevolution triumphed in the cities and the communists were being massacred? Apparently it was all right to form base areas in the countryside as long as it was not being done “without perspective”–which we can only take to mean the perspective of a quick victory (a few years)–over the forces of reaction. This line was, in fact, the line of Wang Ming, who ordered the Red Army to go on a continual offensive, preached that the enemy was disintegrating, and predicted a quick victory. The results of this policy was a giant setback for the Chinese Revolution, the loss of all the base areas in southern China and the necessity to embark on the Long March.

One can only assume that, according to Hoxha, if it is not possible to have a clear perspective of victory immediately on the horizon, it is wrong to carry out armed struggle. If it is not possible to take the cities quickly, then to maintain red political power in the countryside is to desert the working class and lose faith in its hegemonic role. This is truly mechanical thinking approaching hitherto almost unknown “heights.” For while opportunists during the Chinese Revolution argued along similar lines (above all the Trotskyites) it was really only Wang Ming, operating safely from his perch in Moscow, that would repeat such fallacies long after history had proved him wrong.

Hoxha would have had the Chinese Communist Party dissolve the Red Army, or failing that, simply wage rash and suicidal attacks on the cities, when the conditions were not ripe for nationwide victory, which would have also meant the dissolving of the Red Army. Does Hoxha really believe that the “hegemony of the proletariat” would have been better exercised if there had been no base areas in the countryside, if the Communist Party under the blows of the White terror had been reduced to scattered forces conducting illegal and legal work in the cities? Is it really true that such a situation would have hastened the development of a new upsurge in China? Or was it not Mao’s policy of building up revolutionary base areas which in fact helped prepare through struggle *or the taking of the cities at a later date?

One cannot help but ask Hoxha in passing where in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Stalin, is a clear line presented on how to wage the armed seizure of power in a country like China? Of course, there is no such prescription, for unlike Hoxha, the great leaders of the proletariat were not into speculating on hypothetical situations that had not yet arrived. Since there had never been a revolution led by the working class in such a country prior to the Chinese Revolution, isn’t it really rather silly to tell us to compare Mao’s writing with the military writings of the earlier Marxist-Leninist leaders to discover Mao’s mistakes? Actually, when we do make such a comparison we discover that Mao, more than any of the previous great teachers, analyzed not only the process of revolutionary war in China but also made invaluable contributions to the Marxist line on military affairs generally.[20] This is not surprising, since Mao had much greater experience than any of the previous leaders in waging revolutionary war. Hoxha should also be reminded of Stalin’s statement on this subject in 1926 that ”In China the armed revolution is fighting the armed counterrevolution. That is one of the specific features and one of the advantages of the Chinese Revolution.”[21]

Hoxha’s dogmato-revisionism makes it impossible for him to correctly understand the relationship between politics and warfare. Since in his view opposites cannot be transformed into one another (more on this later), he cannot understand how the revolutionary war itself was in China the principal means to carry out broad scale political work among the masses. Mao made this point clearly in assessing the importance of the Long March:

. . . the Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history,... it is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding machine. . . The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an Army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. . . The Long March is also a propaganda force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation. Without the Long March, how could the broad masses have learned so quickly about the existence of the great truth which the Red Army embodies? The Long March is also a seeding-machine. In the eleven provinces it has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom, and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future.. . . Who brought the Long March to victory? The Communist Party. Without the Communist Party, a long march of this kind would have been inconceivable.[22]

It can be seen then that the revolutionary war was not simply a military undertaking but the main form of the class struggle in China. Those who would have insisted that the revolution had to be waged along the model of the Russian Revolution–i.e., a long period of preparation, in which the struggle took principally a political and not military form, followed by insurrection and civil war–would have condemned the Chinese working class and people to no revolution at all.

Hoxha declares that Mao’s whole line of encircling the cities by the countryside meant abandoning the hegemony of the proletariat. The truth is that not to have launched the armed struggle in the countryside would precisely have meant abandoning the leadership (hegemony) of the proletariat in the revolution, specifically over the hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants.

The hegemony of the proletariat means above all the leadership of its vanguard political party, the communist party. It does not mean that the proletariat is necessarily the main force in the revolution (as Hoxha himself is forced to admit). The leadership of the proletariat means the rallying of the masses of the oppressed to the banner of the working class, to its program for the revolution. In the concrete conditions of China, this meant for the proletariat through its Party to step to the front of the struggle against imperialism and feudalism, while at the same time building up the independent political strength of its Communist Party, which alone could lead the revolution to victory and forward to socialism. With this perspective, to have not embarked upon the war in the countryside would have meant that the proletariat would not have been leading the peasantry, and the possibility for revolution would have been lost.

Why couldn’t the revolution triumph first in the cities and then spread to the countryside as the revolution did in Russia, for example? Because cities were not only considered (as Hoxha puts it) the stronghold of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they were in fact such a stronghold. The cities contained the concentration of the enemy’s troops, and they were easily reached by the troops of the imperialist powers, who were able to most effectively aid the domestic reactionary forces in the cities. The working class was also concentrated in the cities, but it was not strong enough and the conditions were not ripe for it to succeed in launching insurrections and holding power. Indeed the workers attempted such insurrections, which were drowned in blood.

To draw an analogy, one can consider the situation in the world as a whole. Marx and Engels felt, and it was an accepted “principle” of Marxism, that revolution would first come in those countries of Western Europe with the highest development of capitalism. It was not until Lenin and the October Revolution came along that the thesis was developed that revolution would develop first at the weak link of the imperialist system. Lenin was accused by the “orthodox Marxist” Kautsky of abandoning the proletariat for believing that a proletarian revolution could, in fact, first be made in the still predominantly peasant society of Russia. Of course the October Revolution proved Lenin right. Similarly, in China it was not only the case that it was in the countryside where the central contradiction that had to be solved to complete the democratic revolution was concentrated (the land question), but it was here that the power of the reactionaries was weakest and here that the proletariat could lead the masses of people in establishing and holding on to political power.

Hoxha tries to make it sound as if Mao held that in every country the road to victory lies in surrounding the city by the countryside. Quite the contrary. Mao held specifically that the model of the October Revolution, of insurrection in the cities, would be the road to power in the imperialist countries. Furthermore Mao never held that in all dependent and colonial countries the revolution would develop along this path. At first, he was of the opinion that such a possibility was only true in China for a number of specific reasons which he analyzed at length (including the fact that China was not a colony but a semi-colony with various imperialist powers competing to subjugate it; China’s vastness which allowed maneuvering room; etc.). However it has been proven conclusively by the development of the revolutionary struggle, especially in Asia, that Mao’s line on people’s war, of surrounding the cities from the countryside, and so on, has a greater applicability than simply to China. Although the path to power will never be exactly the same in any two countries, it is clear that, for example, the armed struggle in Vietnam essentially developed along the lines first laid out by Mao.

While it is certain that the path of people’s war in which the countryside surrounds the cities will not be universal for all the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, it is equally certain that it is the path many peoples have embarked on and will be the road to victory in many, if not most, such countries. To make a principle of opposing Mao’s line of people’s war is to oppose the revolution in the oppressed countries. Hoxha charges that

the peasant class, the petty-bourgeoisie, cannot lead the proletariat in the revolution. To think and preach the opposite means to be against Marxism-Leninism. Herein lies one of the main sources of the anti-Marxist views of Mao Tsetung, which have had a negative influence on the whole of the Chinese revolution.[23]

Of course Hoxha cannot offer any evidence that Mao thought the peasantry should lead the working class–indeed the whole of Mao’s writings make his opposite view crystal clear, and this point is restated literally dozens of times in Mao’s works. All Hoxha can do is say that since Mao believed that the concentration of the Party’s work had to be in the countryside, since Mao believed that the agrarian question was the principal internal contradiction that had to be solved by the democratic revolution, then for these reasons Mao must have felt that the peasantry was leading the workers!

Mao stated clearly and correctly that ”in the revolution in semi-colonial China, the peasant struggle must always fail if it does not have the leadership of the workers, but the revolution is never harmed if the peasant struggle outstrips the forces of the workers.”[24] To argue that the “leadership” of the proletariat requires that the peasant struggle be abandoned or stifled until the workers’ movement is in an upsurge is to betray the revolution.

In fact, Mao waged a fierce struggle to make sure that proletarian ideology–Marxism-Leninism–exercised hegemony in the Party and ceaselessly fought every kind of deviation, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, that appeared in its ranks–in both stages of the revolution. He analyzed the different deviations and showed their class basis in society (something we will find Hoxha is completely incapable of when it comes to analyzing the class struggle under socialism). In hitting at the actual petty-bourgeois deviation in the Chinese Communist Party (represented especially by Wang Ming, Hoxha’s apparent hero), Mao makes some points which are very relevant in discussing Hoxha’s outlook. This passage is worth quoting at length:

First, mode of thought. Generally speaking, the petty bourgeoisie, when tackling a problem, thinks in a sub-jectivist and one-sided way, that is, it starts not from an objective, complete picture of the relative strength of classes, but takes its subjective wishes, impressions and idle fancies for actual conditions, a single aspect for all the aspects, a part for the whole and a tree for the woods. Petty-bourgeois intellectuals detached from the practical processes of production have a tendency toward doctrinairism, which we have already mentioned, because they have only book-learning and lack practical knowledge. Petty bourgeois associated with production have a tendency toward empiricism which we have also mentioned, for although these people are not without perceptual knowledge, they suffer from narrowness, indiscipline, isolation and conservatism characteristic of the small producer.

Secondly, political tendency. Politically the petty bourgeoisie tend to vacillate between the “Left” and the Right because of their way of life and their consequent subjective and one-sided mode of thought. Many typical petty-bourgeois revolutionaries long for a quick victory of the revolution, which will bring about a radical change in their present status; consequently, impatient of protracted revolutionary endeavour, they are keenly interested in “Left” revolutionary phrases and slogans and are apt to become sectarian or adventurist in sentiment and action. Such a petty-bourgeois political tendency, when reflected in the Party, gives rise to the above-mentioned “Left” mistakes on the questions of revolutionary tasks, revolutionary bases, tactical direction and military line.

But under different circumstances, the same or another group of petty-bourgeois revolutionaries may express pessimism and despair and, tagging after the bourgeoisie, entertain Right sentiments and views. Chen Tu-hsiu-ism in the latter period of the 1924-27 revolution, Chang Kuo-t’aoism in the latter period of the Agrarian Revolution and the expedient of running away from the enemy in the early period of the Long March were all reflections of such petty-bourgeois Right ideas in the Party. And once after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War capitulationism appeared. . . Petty-bourgeois ideology reveals its bad side under the stress of changing conditions in vacillation between “Left” and Right, a tendency to go to extremes, wishful thinking or opportunism. All this is the ideological reflection of their economic instability.[25]

Thus, we see in this passage that Mao was acutely aware of the problem of deviations from Marxism-Leninism in the Party and clearly pointed out their class basis. Elsewhere in the same work quoted above, for example, he addresses the question of those of petty-bourgeois origin who “joined the Party organizationally, but not ideologically or in the full sense, and are often liberals, reformists, anarchists, Blanquists, in a Marxist-Leninist guise and are therefore incapable of leading to victory not only China’s communist movement of tomorrow but even the new-democratic movement of today.” He stressed the need to “educate them and struggle against them in a serious but appropriate and patient manner” or else such people will “try to mould the Party’s features, the features of the vanguard of the proletariat, in their own image and to usurp the leadership in the Party. . . ”[26]

This, of course, was to be a long-term and serious problem facing the Chinese Communist Party which contributed in no small degree to its capture by the capitalist-roaders in the coup of 1976. It is clear that Mao recognized this problem early on, and devoted serious attention to finding the appropriate forms for preserving the proletarian character of the Party.

It is Hoxha, and not Mao, who puts forward a petty-bourgeois, not proletarian, line on the Chinese Revolution–precisely the line Mao summarized above, which in practice can only call for quick victory and reckless advances at one stage of the struggle, and when that does not yield an immediate “prospect” for victory, call for the communists to abandon the leadership of the peasantry, concentrate their work in the cities, and wait (i.e. capitulate) until “more favorable conditions” emerge.

Mao, the Comintern, the USSR and Stalin

In his efforts to paint Mao as a narrow nationalist and a Chinese chauvinist, Hoxha tries to make a case that Mao disobeyed the directives of the Comintern over the basic line of the Chinese revolution, did not regard the Soviet Union as the “fatherland of the world proletariat” and had the nerve to criticize Stalin. Hoxha’s views on this subject are a muddle (which we soon find to be typical for him) of wrong views, half truths and outright lies.

The fact of the matter, again apparent to anyone who has studied Mao’s works, is that Mao and the Chinese Communist Party constantly upheld the Soviet Union and Stalin. He repeatedly referred to the USSR as the homeland of the international proletariat and trained the Chinese communists and the people in this spirit. This is beyond question. Mao correctly understood the earth-shaking importance of the October Revolution and the importance of the existence of a powerful socialist state in the USSR in changing the entire political complexion of the globe. Mao pointed out that the “salvoes of the October Revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China.” And it certainly cannot be said that statements like the following underestimate the importance of the Soviet Union to the success of the Chinese Revolution:

China cannot possibly gain her independence without the assistance of the land of socialism and the international proletariat. That is, she cannot do so without the help of the Soviet Union and the help which the proletariat of Japan, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy and other countries provide through their struggles against capitalism. Although no one can say that the victory of the Chinese revolution must wait upon the victory of the revolution in all of these countries, or in one or two of them, there is no doubt that we cannot win without the added strength of their proletariat. In particular, Soviet assistance is absolutely indispensable for China’s final victory in the War of Resistance. Refuse Soviet assistance, and the revolution will fail.[27]

As far as Stalin and the Comintern were concerned, Mao did in fact agree with the basic line set forth by Stalin on the Chinese Revolution. We have already seen with regard to the cardinal questions of the Chinese Revolution–specifically the key role of the peasantry and the agrarian revolution, the bourgeois-democratic character of the revolution, the fact that armed revolution directly confronted the armed counter-revolution–that it is Hoxha and not Mao who has departed from the basic principles formulated by Stalin.

What Mao did insist is that the Chinese Revolution could not be a carbon copy of the Russian revolution, as some dogmatists insisted, and further that the task remained to integrate the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of the Chinese Revolution. Furthermore, it is quite clear that Stalin, and especially the representatives of the Comintern in China, made numerous and serious mistakes regarding the Chinese Revolution when they attempted to map out more particularly the direction of the Chinese Revolution.

This can be seen on several occasions. At the time of the 1924-27 Revolution, the Comintern representatives in China–particularly Borodin–played a very bad role in the revolution, supporting the line of “unity above all” with the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek. As Mao was to say, “Borodin stood just a little to the right of Chen Tu-hsiu, and was ready to do everything to please the bourgeoisie, even to the disarming of the workers, which he finally ordered.”[28] Although it must be said that Borodin went to the right of many of the actual positions officially held by the Comintern, this alone cannot explain his errors. Chiang Kai-shek had been made an honorary member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, a position which he held well into 1927, after his nature was clear. Furthermore Stalin himself held out unrealistic expectations that the Wuhan government of the KMT (which he incorrectly characterized as petty-bourgeois) would continue the alliance with the communists after Chiang deserted the revolution.

It is quite clear that the Comintern gave bad advice to the Chinese Party, as is openly admitted by everybody except Enver Hoxha. Borodin himself told Anna Louise Strong in 1939 that “I was wrong, I did not understand the Chinese Revolution... I made so many mistakes.”[29]

Even after the massacre of tens of thousands of communists and workers had begun, the right opportunist leadership, with the support of Borodin and the other Comintern representatives, and over the opposition of Mao, ordered the workers to disarm and tried to stop the peasant movement, all in the hopes of appeasing the socalled “left wing” of the KMT.

Stalin, who we have seen held a generally correct line on the key role of mobilizing the peasantry, himself made a serious mistake when in October 1926 he sent a telegram to Shanghai stating that until Shanghai was captured, the agrarian movement should not be intensified and urging “caution and restraint.” Stalin admitted that the telegram was a mistake and pointed out that he “never regarded and do not now regard the Comintern as being infallible.”[30]

Stalin cancelled the telegram several weeks later and in November the Comintern resolution correctly emphasized the need to mobilize the peasantry. But the telegram played a seriously damaging role, lending the prestige of the CPSU and the Comintern to the right wing line being pushed by Chen Tu-shiu and Borodin.

Stalin made an important statement in regards to the relationship of the Comintern to the Chinese Revolution which should also help to illustrate Hoxha’s wrong views:

Notwithstanding the ideological progress of our Party, there are still, unfortunately, “leaders” of a sort in it who sincerely believe that the revolution in China can be directed, so to speak, by telegraph, on the basis of the universally recognized general principles of the Comintern, disregarding the national peculiarities of China’s economy, political system, culture, manners and customs, and traditions. What, in fact, distinguishes these “leaders” from real leaders is that they always have in their pockets two or three ready-made formulas, “suitable” for all countries and “obligatory” under all conditions. The necessity of taking into account the nationally peculiar and nationally specific features of each country does not exist for them....

They do not understand that the chief task of leadership, now that the Communist Parties have grown and become mass parties, is to discover, to grasp, the nationally peculiar features of the movement in each country and skillfully co-ordinate them with the Comintern’s general principles, in order to facilitate and make feasible the basic aims of the Communist movement.

Hence the attempts to stereotype the leadership for all countries. Hence the attempts mechanically to implant certain general formulas, regardless of the concrete conditions of the movement in different countries. Hence the endless conflicts between the formulas and the revolutionary movement in the different countries, as the main outcome of the leadership of these pseudo-leaders.[31]

Compare Stalin’s statement with Hoxha’s typical jumble:

In this period [since 1935–JW] Mao Tsetung and his supporters launched a “theoretical” campaign under the slogan of the struggle against “dogmatism,” “ready-made patterns,” “foreign stereotypes,” etc., and raised the problem of elaborating a national Marxism, negating the universal character of Marxism-Leninism. Instead of Marxism-Leninism he preached the “Chinese way” of treating problems, and the Chinese style “... lively and fresh, pleasant to the ears and eyes of the Chinese people,” in this way propagating the revisionist thesis that in each country Marxism should have its individual, specific content.[32]

Before showing what Mao actually said in the passage Hoxha is “quoting,” it is worth noting that Hoxha completely negates the struggle against dogmatism that Stalin called for, and simply ridicules the idea that “foreign stereotypes” or “ready-made patterns” could be a problem in the Party and the revolutionary movement. His purpose is clear, in that he wants to impose the Albanian Party’s own stereotyped line on the entire international communist movement. As far as the charge that Mao negated the “universal character of Marxism-Leninism,” once again we will let Mao speak for himself–and once again from the very paragraph (and the one that precedes it) which Hoxha is “quoting”:

The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as a dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the essence of revolution. It is not just a matter of understanding the general laws derived by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin from their extensive study of real life and revolutionary experience, but of studying their standpoint and method in examining and solving problems. Our Party’s mastery of Marxism-Leninism is now rather better than it used to be, but is still far from being extensive or deep. Ours is the task of leading a great nation of several hundred million in a great and unprecedented struggle. For us, therefore, the spreading and deepening of the study of Marxism-Leninism present a big problem demanding an early solution which is possible only through concentrated effort. . .

. . . Being Marxists, Communists are internationalists, but we can put Marxism into practice only when it is integrated with the specific characteristics of our country and acquires a definite national form. The great strength of Marxism-Leninism lies precisely in its integration with the concrete revolutionary practice of all countries. For the Chinese Communist Party, it is a matter of learning to apply the theory of Marxism-Leninism to the specific circumstances of China. For the Chinese Communists who are part of the great Chinese nation, flesh of its flesh and blood of its blood, any talk about Marxism in isolation from China’s characteristics is merely Marxism in the abstract, Marxism in a vacuum. Hence to apply Marxism concretely in China so that its every manifestation has an indubitably Chinese character, i.e., to apply Marxism in the light of China’s specific characteristics, becomes a problem which it is urgent for the whole Party to understand and solve. Foreign stereotypes must be abolished, there must be less singing of empty, abstract tunes, and dogmatism must be laid to rest; they must be replaced by the fresh, lively Chinese style and spirit which the common people of China love. To separate internationalist content from national form is the practice of those who do not understand the first thing about internationalism. We, on the contrary, must link the two closely. In this matter there are serious errors in our ranks which should be conscientiously overcome.[33]

Thus we can see through the disgusting deceit that Enver Hoxha is trying to perpetrate, as well as the fact that he himself understands nothing of this question. Mao is stressing that Marxism-Leninism is universally applicable because it can and must be applied to the concrete conditions of each country. Of course, this is not a new discovery of Mao’s, but a basic principle of Marxism–although a principle which has not found its way into Hoxha’s thinking. To argue differently–that the analyses, strategy and tactics developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, or for that matter Mao, forged in the course of their revolutionary practice, can simply be imposed on any set of circumstances–is really to “negate” the real process of integrating Marxism with the revolutionary movement, as well as being a total liquidation of the meaning of dialectical materialism. This will only lead to the defeat of the proletarian party and the surrendering of leadership in the revolution.

We can also see from Hoxha’s hatchet job the deliberate effort to misrepresent what Mao is actually saying. Hoxha claims that Mao is “propagating the revisionist thesis that in each country Marxism should have its individual, specific content.” But Mao says very clearly that the content of Marxism and internationalism acquire a definite “national form.” Is Hoxha incapable of understanding the difference between form and content, or does he choose to lie just to confuse matters?

Mao, Stalin and Khrushchev

Unfortunately 1927 was not the last time in the history of the Chinese Revolution that the Comintern gave poor advice to the Chinese communists. We have already pointed out that the Wang Ming line, which Hoxha so stubbornly defends long after it has been proven to be wrong, was to varying degrees supported by the Comintern and perhaps by Stalin as well. From 1935 onward, during the period of the war against Japan, Wang Ming generally proposed a capitulationist line, and once again had the support of the Comintern in doing so. Wang Ming called for a “united government of national defense” in direct opposition to Mao’s call for a “people’s republic” and for a united front against Japan. Wang Ming at this time supported Chiang Kai-shek’s condition for unity with the Communists–namely that Chiang be given control over the Red Army. Of course Mao vigorously fought–and defeated–this.

This same tendency came out in much sharper form in 1945, following the defeat of Japan. At that time Stalin argued strenuously that the Chinese Communist Party should cast away any perspective of completing the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the near future and should instead fight for a legal role in a bourgeois republic led by Chiang Kai-shek. In response to the situation following the defeat of Japan, Mao did, correctly, enter into negotiations with Chiang, but at the same time he made very clear that any coalition government that was formed would have to be on the basis of preserving the independence of the Communist Party, its base areas, and its army. It was in 1945 that Mao put forward his famous statement “without a People’s Army the people have nothing” as a direct rebuke to those who would have had the People’s Army dissolve and be absorbed unconditionally into a Chiang government. It should be noted that this policy, which was being urged on the Chinese Party, was the line that many of the parties of Western Europe (in France, Italy and Greece, for example) followed at the time, with the result that any immediate prospect for revolution was lost.

And in 1946, when the revisionist wind was blowing full force in many of the communist parties in the world under the cover of the compromises the Soviet Union was making with the major imperialist powers it had been allied with during the war, Mao made a very salient observation:

Such compromise does not require the people in the countries of the capitalist world to follow suit and make compromises at home. The people in those countries will continue to wage different struggles in accordance with their different conditions. The principle of the reactionary forces in dealing with the democratic forces of the people is definitely to destroy all they can and to prepare to destroy later whatever they cannot destroy now. Face to face with this situation, the democratic forces of the people should likewise apply the same principle to the reactionary forces.[34]

The rest is history. Mao led the Party in waging the civil war against Chiang Kai-shek (in reality a war of liberation against U.S. imperialism and its domestic props, represented by Chiang) that led to nationwide victory in 1949. Up until the very end Stalin doubted their ability to seize power and continued to deal with Chiang’s government (including the granting of military aid) as though it would last for a long time.

Unlike Hoxha, however, Stalin was quick to admit his error in underestimating the strength of the Chinese Revolution and the possibility of its victory over the reactionary KMT regime. Stalin said straightforwardly that he was glad to have been proven wrong.

But despite Hoxha’s charge that Mao “casts the blame on the Comintern and its representatives in China” for the defeats and deviations in the Party,[35] in fact Mao put the blame on those Chinese “Communists” who insisted on blindly following others and who attempted to use their support from the Soviets as capital with which to promote incorrect lines. Again, it is worthwhile to look at Hoxha’s excerpt from Mao and compare it to the actual text. Hoxha notes that Mao said that Stalin made “a number of mistakes in connection with China. The ’Left’ adventurism pursued by Wang Ming in the latter part of the Second Revolutionary Civil War period and his Right opportunism in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan can both be traced to Stalin.”[36]

This quote, along with some other points, is, according to Hoxha, an example of Mao’s “attack against Stalin, intended to disparage his work and authority, to raise Mao Tsetung’s authority to the rank of a world leader, a classic of Marxism-Leninism, who allegedly has always pursued a correct and infallible line!”[37]

In fact the quotes that Hoxha uses are far from an attempt to “disparage” Stalin’s work, but rather taken from a passage of Mao’s defending Stalin against the attack of the Khrushchevite revisionists. The paragraph Hoxha quotes (selectively) from actually reads like this:

In the Soviet Union, those who once extolled Stalin to the skies have now in one swoop consigned him to purgatory. Here in China some people are following their example. It is the opinion of the Central Committee that Stalin’s mistakes amounted to only 30 per cent of the whole and his achievements to 70 per cent, and that all things considered Stalin was nonetheless a great Marxist. We wrote “On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” on the basis of this evaluation. This assessment of 30 per cent for mistakes and 70 per cent for achievements is just about right. Stalin did a number of wrong things in connection with China. The “Left” adventurism pursued by Wang Ming in the latter part of the Second Revolutionary Civil War period and his Right opportunism in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan can both be traced to Stalin. At the time of War of Liberation, Stalin first enjoined us not to press on with the revolution, maintaining that if civil war flared up, the Chinese nation would run the risk of destroying itself. Then when fighting did erupt, he took us half seriously, half sceptically. When we won the war, Stalin suspected that ours was a victory of the Tito type, and in 1949 and 1950 the pressure on us was very strong indeed. Even so, we maintain the estimate of 30 percent for his mistakes and 70 per cent for his achievements. This is only fair.[38]

Several things are worth noting about this statement. First, it was written in April of 1956, only months after Khrushchev’s “secret speech” condemning Stalin and at a time when the Albanian Party, including Hoxha, had not yet seen through Khrushchevite revisionism. Secondly, in outlining Stalin’s errors in regards to the Chinese revolution, Mao was not telling anybody anything that wasn’t well known in China. What he was emphasizing was that despite these errors Stalin had to be upheld as a “great Marxist.” And he was criticizing those who were following Khrushchev’s wild and hysterical revisionism.

It is interesting to note that in Hoxha’s book he doesn’t dare repeat the lie that is found in some of his other statements of the past several years (and which some of the sects who follow him have broadcast)–that the Albanian Party initiated the struggle against modern revisionism. Such a claim is completely at variance with the facts based on public statements. In a backhanded way, however, Hoxha tries to slip it in the back door by saying the ties between the Albanian and Chinese Parties became closer “especially when the Communist Party of China, too, entered into open conflict with the Khrushchevite revisionists.”[39] The following statement by Mao in November 1956 makes very clear what Mao’s attitude was toward Stalin and Khrushchevite revisionism:

I would like to say a few words about the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I think there are two “swords”: one is Lenin and the other Stalin. The sword of Stalin has now been discarded by the Russians. Gomulka and some people in Hungary have picked it up to stab at the Soviet Union and oppose so-called Stalinism. The Communist Parties of many European countries are also criticizing the Soviet Union, and their leader is Togliatti. The imperialists also use this sword to slay people with. Dulles, for instance, has brandished it for some time. This sword has not been lent out, it has been thrown out. We Chinese have not thrown it away. First, we protect Stalin, and, second, we at the same time criticize his mistakes, and we have written the article “On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” Unlike some people who have tried to defame and destroy Stalin, we are acting in accordance with objective reality.

As for the sword of Lenin, hasn’t it too been discarded to a certain extent by some Soviet leaders? In my view, it has been discarded to a considerable extent. Is the October Revolution still valid? Can it still serve as the example for all countries? Khrushchov’s report at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union says it is possible to seize state power by the parliamentary road, that is to say, it is no longer necessary for all countries to learn from the October Revolution. Once this gate is opened, by and large Leninism is thrown away.[40]

Thus we can see clearly that Mao understood the essence of the Stalin question and the essence of Khrushchevite revisionism at a time when, by their own admission, the nature of Khrushchev was “not well recognized” by the Albanian Party, which “was not yet fully convinced” of Khrushchev’s revisionism.[41] We search in vain through Hoxha’s Selected Works, looking for anything during this period in the late 1950s which evinces an understanding anywhere near Mao’s of the meaning of what was happening in the Soviet Union. All that is to be found is the recognition that after the 20th Congress the imperialists and others (like the Yugoslavians) took advantage of Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin to attack socialism, and complaints that the Soviet Union had softened its stand on Yugoslavia;[42] and even here, while it was of course correct to attack Tito’s blatant revisionism, Hoxha’s concern often has overtones more of narrow nationalism than of proletarian internationalism, with Hoxha expressing the fear of “ . . intervention by the Yugoslav army under the pretext of saving socialism in Albania.”[43] The point is not that this fear was unwarranted–for it did have some foundation–but that the works from this period which the Albanian Party has chosen to reprint do not show Hoxha making any attempt at an analysis of the general line coming out of the CPSU’s 20th Congress.

Of course there is at least one work by Hoxha which is referred to in the notes of his Selected Works but is not printed there. This is a speech delivered “at the solemn meeting on the 15th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, on November 8, 1956.”[44] This would appear to be the same, or the same in substance, as the article ’The Party of Labour of Albania Completes its 15th Year’, written by comrade Enver Hoxha and published in the newspaper ’Pravda’, on November 8, 1956,”[45] which, Hoxha notes, “was published in full in ’Pravda’, without any alteration.”[46] Actually it is not too surprising that the Albanian Party preferred not to republish this, for in fact, while attacking Yugoslavia and Titoism, it gives virtually unqualified endorsement to the 20th Congress![47]

Of course, it is not that everyone has to be absolutely clear on every question right from the beginning or else be branded a renegade. The question is, rather, how can Hoxha justify puffing himself up and pretending to be the grand old man in the fight against Soviet revisionism when the evidence shows that he vacillated, betrayed a very partial understanding of what was going on, and could not offer anything approaching the level of the analysis of the revisionist takeover in the USSR which the Chinese Communist Party made under Mao’s leadership.

And later, it was by no means a matter of the CPC “too” entering into open conflict with Soviet revisionism. It was, of course, the Chinese Communist Party (under Mao’s leadership, it need hardly be added) which opened the public conflict over the revisionist theses of the Soviet 20th Congress on April 16, 1960, with the publication of “Long Live Leninism!” in the Party’s theoretical journal Red Flag. The Chinese Party continued this attack at the meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions in Peking in June 1960. Later that month, at the Third Congress of the Rumanian Communist Party in Bucharest, representatives of various communist parties in attendance there met “. .. in order to fix the place and date of a meeting of all the parties, at which they will discuss, among other things, the disagreements existing between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China.” This quotation describing the purpose of the meeting is from Enver Hoxha, writing at the time, and he goes on to say: “We must listen not only to what the Soviet comrades say, but also to what the Chinese say, and then have our say in the discussion.”[48] Later that year, when such a meeting was held (November 1960 in Moscow), Hoxha’s speech there was clearly oriented toward supporting the analysis and stand of the Chinese Communist Party–supporting the Chinese rejection of the “new” theses of the 20th Congress, a rejection which the Albanians had now decided was correct.

For Hoxha now to present himself as the leader in the fight against Soviet revisionism and accuse Mao of “vacillation” is ludicrous.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 12:55

I'm not sure what you mean by "you're wrong."
Nothing in your post seems to deal with the inherent contradiction of the idea of picking or situating a new set of rulers in order to be free, and then essentially having blind faith that they will not only be willing (uncorruptable, as "uncorruptable" as a ruling class can be?), but able to fulfill their goals (of making "everyone 'equal,'" by taking up by force a position of self-proclaimed, imposed supremacy in society?), by brute force, as the state rules in all situations, mind you.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 13:18

Not sure why Choler posted all of that with only a four-word commentary, I suspect it's an elaborate prank.

There are fundamnetal differences between Marxists and Anarchists on what constitutes a state. Is the working class administering society after the revolution via the workers' councils a 'state' in your opinion? It is (at least in some respects) to Marxists. So at least some of us, when we speak of a post-revolutionary state, don't mean one in which 'the party' takes state power, but one in which the working class takes to itself the administration of society and the transformation of the economy. In short, the working class cannot abolish or transform what it doesn't control, so it must take over society before abolishing capitalist relations. That is the 'post-revolutionary state'.

If you don't define that as a state, no problem, you don't have an issue with the 'post-revolutionary state'.

Unless of course a new elite (eg, 'the party') takes power, in which case, I'd join you in opposing it.

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 13:20

I'm not sure what you mean by "you're wrong."

I see you're new here. Let me explain some things.

There is the invincible debating tactic called the Hoxh. It consists of a pulling up as long as possible Hoxha quote, preferrably obscure as well. You can't really go against it, and are done.

:lol:

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 13:34

Is the working class administering society1 after the revolution via the workers' councils a 'state' in your opinion?

So at least some of us, when we speak of a post-revolutionary state, don't mean one in which 'the party' takes state power, but one in which the working class takes to itself the administration of society and the transformation of the economy.2

1 If the working class exists and is "aministering society," I would assume that yes, it would most likely end up functioning as what I define a state to be. Maybe I am unclear on what you mean by this, or how you envision it working.

2 If the working class takes state power, and we are in the same situation implied in example 1, and example 1 is their "model" for exercising "state power (force/class domination)," then- We are back to where we began, blind faith that this particular group of rulers will _______ ?

I would define a state as
"a compulsory political group which claims it retains a monopoly on the use of force "in" and ultimate jurisdiction over some territory,
which uses propaganda, elections, voting, and other rituals to foster perceived 'legitimacy (authority/right to rule)',
primarily funded by methods of coercion and confiscation of wealth,
and which is viewed to have the right to rule society/initiate violence against others in situations which no one else in the society is viewed to have the right"

l'Enfermé

30th January 2013, 13:37

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 13:55

The OP:
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDjDxNCZTd0lQTm4EAfsUVBGglFs9cq Nv_8CWCXEpUANeAR1dtkQ

Marxists advocate the formation of the proletariat into a class, the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy and the conquest of political power by the proletariat. You're just building a strawman. Conquest of political power by the proletariat, not conquest of political power by a handful of philanthropic revolutionists that sympathize with the plight of the proletariat.

And ignore Choler he's just making Hoxha jokes now I think.

What do you mean by "political power" ? Do you consider any other group or institution besides the "state" to have "political power" ?

I'm not denying that Marxists advocate the formation of the proletariat into a class, and their conquest of political/"state" power. My entire post is dependent on that, it would seem, as I attempt to draw attention to the contradiction of putting one group of people in a position to rule in order to "rule the system of rule away," in essence, it seems.

The state always only "exists" as a specific group of people within society.
"Class" itself, as well as "the state," "the workers," etc- are still constituted by individuals, are they not?
If you have a class in a position of political power, ruling over society, you still have specific individuals ruling over society, oppressing all others, do you not?

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 13:55

If the working class exists and is "aministering society," I would assume that yes, it would most likely end up functioning as what I define a state to be. Maybe I am unclear on what you mean by this, or how you envision it working...

I'd see it working through the workers' councils, and delegates from these councils coming together for regional co-ordination. While the working class is fighting the supporters of the old order, fighting the revolution and taking over production, I think it is a state, though one where, for the first time, the majority of the population is involved in administration.

... If the working class takes state power, and we are in the same situation implied in example 1, and example 1 is their "model" for exercising "state power (force/class domination)," then- We are back to where we began, blind faith that this particular group of rulers will _______ ?...

When the 'particular group of rulers' is the majority of the population, and is progressively getting bigger to include the entire population of working age, and, furthermore all other classes (as well as the working class) only exist while differential property laws exist, it is the abolition of property which will do away with the class system and the state. To abolish property, the working class must have the power to abolish it.

...
I would define a state as
"a compulsory political group which claims it retains a monopoly on the use of force and ultimate jurisdiction in a given territory,
which uses propaganda, elections, voting, and other rituals to foster perceived 'legitimacy (authority/right to rule)',
primarily funded by methods of coercion and confiscation of wealth,
and which is viewed to have the right to rule society/initiate violence against others in situations which no one else in the society is viewed to have the right"

But if the dictatorship of the proletariat is, if not quite 'the people armed', but 'the working class armed', what's the problem? The workers' councils must maintain a monopoly of violence, because the alternative is that any pro-capitalist also has the right to violence. Do counter-revolutionaries have the right to try to overthrow the revolution?

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:01

But if the dictatorship of the proletariat is, if not quite 'the people armed', but 'the working class armed', what's the problem? The workers' councils must maintain a monopoly of violence, because the alternative is that any pro-capitalist also has the right to violence. Do counter-revolutionaries have the right to try to overthrow the revolution?

This is the inherent contradiction I am attempting to draw attention to.
The idea seems to be that in order to stop ruling society, somebody else must rule society.
The problem, in my opinion, is the continual attempt to regulate society into freedom.

If monopolies and violence are detrimental to society (assuming one might agree with that), what about the workers councils will turn a monopoly on violence into something beneficial to society?

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 14:09

This is the inherent contradiction I am attempting to draw attention to.
The idea seems to be that in order to stop ruling society, somebody else must rule society.
The problem, in my opinion, is the continual attempt to regulate society into freedom.

The fact is that a definite class rules society. In order that this rule, based on exploitation and oppression, might be broken, another class needs to institute its rule since only that class by virtue of that rule is in a position to abolish all forms of exploitation, inequality, and oppression. There is no contradiction here since this assessment does not depend on an abstract logic, but on the concrete possibilities emanating from the social position of the working class.

And the fact that all revolts have been violently supressed testifies to the actual need for the working class ruling society - which implies the prevention and suppression of counter-revolution.

And furthermore, the problem is not that social life is regulated since there is no such life without established relationships that regulate it (the notion of regulation is not specific to state regulation). The trick is how it is regulated (therein lies freedom), and in which class interests.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 14:10

...
The state always only "exists" as a specific group of people within society.
"Class" itself, as well as "the state," "the workers," etc- are still constituted by individuals, are they not?
If you have a class in a position of political power, ruling over society, you still have specific individuals ruling over society, oppressing all others, do you not?

Does 'the whole of the working class' in your view constitute 'specific individuals'?

This is the inherent contradiction I am attempting to draw attention to.
The idea seems to be that in order to stop ruling society, somebody else must rule society.
The problem, in my opinion, is the continual attempt to regulate society into freedom.

If monopolies and violence are detrimental to society (assuming one might agree with that), what about the workers councils will turn a monopoly on violence into something beneficial to society?

Do you think the revolution should defend itself from those who seek to restore capitalism?

I don't think a 'monopoly of violence' which is held by the majority of the population is a problem. I think monopolies of violence held by minorities are a problem, and I think attempts to overthrow the revolution and restore capitalism are a problem. I think the use of violence in the revolution is necessary. Why do you think it's unnecessary? Don't you think the bourgeoisie will resist the working class?

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:13

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:16

The fact is that a definite class rules society.
That's not a fact, actually.

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 14:19

So in order to achieve a stateless, classless society, the working class must take state power and become the ruling class?
The working class must take political power by dismantling the apparatus of the bourgeois state and constructing its own apparatus of power which would enable broadest participation and delegation, as opposed to representation as manifest in bourgeois, liberal democracy.

This is a precondition for the transformation of relations in production, the basis for a successful move towards production for need, and not for profit and capital accumulation, since no such thing is possible if the ruling class retains its power and is left free to prevent any such attempts.

That's not a fact, actually.
So you disagree with the notion that contemporary societies are ruled by the capitalist class and its political section which mans the state?

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:23

The fact is that a definite class rules society. In order that this rule, based on exploitation and oppression, might be broken, another class needs to institute its rule since only that class by virtue of that rule is in a position to abolish all forms of exploitation, inequality, and oppression.

What makes that one particular class of individuals the only class in a position to abolish all forms of exploitation, etc- why was the other class not in a situation to? Do you mean the "political ruling class-" generally?
Can you be sure that the new ruling class will be willing to or able to achieve it's goals?
Claiming to rule you for different reasons is still claiming to rule you, isn't it?

And the fact that all revolts have been violently supressed testifies to the actual need for the working class ruling society - which implies the prevention and suppression of counter-revolution.

I'm not sure what your exact meaning of revolution is, or what it entails, I guess. A counter revolution in my mind can only be the attempted situation of a new ruling class, which we have yet to leave in your scenario.
Yes, revolt is by definition "illegal" in the eyes of the state. Force for non-compliance is the standard.

And furthermore, the problem is not that social life is regulated since there is no such life without established relationships that regulate it (the notion of regulation is not specific to state regulation). The trick is how it is regulated (therein lies freedom), and in which class interests.
If it's being regulated by the state, nothing will have changed but who is claiming to rule society.

l'Enfermé

30th January 2013, 14:31

What do you mean by "political power" ? Do you consider any other group or institution besides the "state" to have "political power" ?
By political power I mean the same thing as Marx,

Political power is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another.

I'm not denying that Marxists advocate the formation of the proletariat into a class, and their conquest of political/"state" power. My entire post is dependent on that, it would seem, as I attempt to draw attention to the contradiction of putting one group of people in a position to rule in order to "rule the system of rule away," in essence, it seems. What contradiction? Rule the system of rule away? That's not our aim. We're not Anarchists. Our aim is the subjugation of the world by the proletariat formed into a class-for-itself. We have no ethical, moral or philosophical objections to "hierarchy" or authority. You do, and for some reason, you seemingly take it for granted that everyone else on "the left" is supposed to as well.

Our aim is not to put "one group of people" in a position to rule. This is too vague. And there's this connotation that his "group of people" is no more than a few dozen or hundred individuals. This is false. Not some group of people have to rule(and not only because we fancy it so, but because the future of the human race most definitely depends on it - the bourgeoisie is leading us into an abyss all for the sake of the private interest of individual bourgeois fucks), but the entire class. Billions of people.

The state always only "exists" as a specific group of people within society.
"Class" itself, as well as "the state," "the workers," etc- are still constituted by individuals, are they not?Naturally.

If you have a class in a position of political power, ruling over society, you still have specific individuals ruling over society, oppressing all others, do you not?So? Why would the proletariat after attaining a victory for the socialist then enfranchise inherently anti-socialist propertied classes like say bourgeoisie and the peasantry(and other petty-bourgeois elements). No, comrade, to ask this for this is madness. When the proletariat-as-the-ruling-class liquidates and assimilates every other class, then we shall have an end to oppression.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 14:43

What makes that one particular class of individuals the only class in a position to abolish all forms of exploitation, etc- why was the other class not in a situation to? Do you mean the "political ruling class-" generally?
Can you be sure that the new ruling class will be willing to or able to achieve it's goals?
Claiming to rule you for different reasons is still claiming to rule you, isn't it?...

Are you not a worker? If you're a bourgeois, and you resist assimilation into the working class, and instead take part into counter-revolutionary activities in order to re-instate capitalism, then yes we will be 'ruling' you. If you are a worker, however, then you will be ruling, no-one will be ruling you.

Why was the bourgeoisie not in a position to abolish exploitation? Because as a class it is founded on the exploitation of the working class. The class interest of the bourgeoisie was in perpetuating the domination of the working class by the bourgeoisie. The working class doesn't have any other classes to exploit, its class interest is in abolishing property and classes altogether.

Can we be sure that the new ruling class (call it what it is, the working class) can acheive its goals? Of course not. The revolution may fail, it may all go wrong. But if we don't have a revolution, it certainly can't go right.

Unless you believe that capitalism can gradually and peacefully be reformed, of course.

I'm not sure what your exact meaning of revolution is, or what it entails, I guess. A counter revolution in my mind can only be the attempted situation of a new ruling class, which we have yet to leave in your scenario...

I don't understand what you mean here. If you're thinking about the establishment of the Soviet Union, then yes, the counter-revolution can come through the emergence of a new ruling class. Before the 1920s the usual meaning of 'counter-revolution' was a restoration of the old ruling class - the king comes back, the White generals take the capital, the old order is restored, that sort of thing. The Thiers government suppressing the Commune and regaining control of Paris, or the Tsarist government defeating the 1905 revolution in Russia.

...Yes, revolt is by definition "illegal" in the eyes of the state. Force for non-compliance is the standard.

If it's being regulated by the state, nothing will have changed but who is claiming to rule society.

You don't think the rulership of society being taken from the minority and given to the majority would be a start?

The point about the proletariat being the 'last exploited class' (because unlike the bourgeoisie we don't exploit anyone else) is the crucial one here. How does the working class oppress itself, do you think? Why would it - we - do that?

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:45

By political power I mean the same thing as Marx,

What contradiction? Rule the system of rule away? That's not our aim. We're not Anarchists. Our aim is the subjugation of the world by the proletariat formed into a class-for-itself. We have no ethical, moral or philosophical objections to "hierarchy" or authority. You do, and for some reason, you seemingly take it for granted that everyone else on "the left" is supposed to as well.

I assumed your proclaimed goal would have been "statelessness and classlessness," as was discussed in the opening post, and generally implied by the overall topic.
Would you then consider yourself a totalitarian?
Can you explain how this is different than a nationalist socialist, or a nazi, or whatever you'd like to call them, besides the proclaimed goals for global domination and the racist elements?

Our aim is not to put "one group of people" in a position to rule. This is too vague. And there's this connotation that his "group of people" is no more than a few dozen or hundred individuals. This is false. Not some group of people have to rule(and not only because we fancy it so, but because the future of the humane race most definitely depends on it - the bourgeoisie is leading us into an abyss all for the sake of the private interest of individual bourgeois fucks), but the entire class. Billions of people.

I don't see it as being any more vague than "the working class."
The state is a specific institution, and a unique one- I'm not sure what you mean by "the whole class rules" - when we have agreed that the class is constituted by individuals. only individuals make decisions, only individuals claim to rule. 'classes' do not make decisions, or think, or have a mind.

Naturally.

So? Why would the proletariat after attaining a victory for the socialist then enfranchise inherently anti-socialist propertied classes like say bourgeoisie and the peasantry(and other petty-bourgeois elements). No, comrade, to ask this for this is madness. When the proletariat-as-the-ruling-class liquidates and assimilates every other class, then we shall have an end to oppression.
So, as I asked above, can you explain why what you propose is "good," or would benefit society, while adolf hitler or some other tyrant was "bad" - when fundamentally the concept of class domination, or ultimate subjugation of the world, is the same?
If ultimate subjugation of the world by the "capitalists" is something you are against, how can subjugation of the world by the "workers" be something you are in favor of?
All that's changed is who is saying why theyre going to rule you.
Though, you are the one who said you support the subjugation of the whole world.
In response to "so" - my reply would be, how is that different than what you say you are against?

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 14:49

What makes that one particular class of individuals the only class in a position to abolish all forms of exploitation, etc- why was the other class not in a situation to?

The working class is this class.

Its position in production, and consequently in relations of distribution and consumption, is what makes it the only class with a potential interest in abolishing all forms of exploitation and oppression, since we are the exploited class, but furthermore, our very means of liberation, the specific ways that relations of production need to be changed for that, implies that there is no class of people left to exploit.

Why is not the capitalist class in such a position? Because they command labour and production, and profit from it.

Do you mean the "political ruling class-" generally?No, I don't mean the political class, if that's what you're implying. I refer to the entirety of the working class which conquers the power to regulate the development of society, in contradistinction to capitalist rule.

Can you be sure that the new ruling class will be willing to or able to achieve it's goals? To put it simply - no.

Though, there are measures and possibilities to push events in that direction. One thing would be that the social revolution spreads internationally.

Claiming to rule you for different reasons is still claiming to rule you, isn't it?Are you participating in the rule over society nowadays?
Could you do so, through various channels, if the rule of the captialist class is broken? Certainly.

I'm not sure what your exact meaning of revolution is, or what it entails, I guess.

The overturning of the capitalist relations of production, preceeded by the dismantling of the state, and the creation of new structures of political power which are fit for the task at hand - workers' councils primarily, alongside factory committees and other bodies which might be deemed necessary, which don't represent the working class, but which function as assemblies of delegates. Of course, expropriation of productive property is vital to this.

A counter revolution in my mind can only be the attempted situation of a new ruling class, which we have yet to leave in your scenario.

The scenarion certainly must leave room for a counter-revolution "from within" and the recompositioning of the ruling class which rules over the working class, commands its labour and appropriates the surplus, since this is a lesson of the historical legacy of the October Revolution. I don't deny that, not by a long shot.

But counter-revolution can also take the form of direct, pro-capitalist armed conflict, which again is found as a historical example in Russian Revolution, but also in the case of German Revolution and so on.

If it's being regulated by the state, nothing will have changed but who is claiming to rule society.
The point is what kind of a state we're talking about.

Or indeed, if we're talking about a state at all. In my opinion, in the case of a proletarian revolution based on councils' power, we can talk about the state only insofar as the new structures deny any representation and participation for the previous ruling class and rest on the supression of their ambitions of capitalist restoration.

Jimmie Higgins

30th January 2013, 14:54

So in order to achieve a stateless, classless society, the working class must take state power and become the ruling class?

Yes, just as in order to build a brick wall you may also have to build a wooden scaffolding from which the brick wall can be built.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 14:58

Are you participating in the rule over society nowadays?
Could you do so, through various channels, if the rule of the captialist class is broken? Certainly.

I don't want to "rule society."

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 15:01

I don't want to "rule society."
But "society" is your own life. (and obviously I did not mean it in the sense of you becoming a professional policymaker in the new councils system)

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 15:01

Can we be sure that the new ruling class (call it what it is, the working class) can acheive its goals? Of course not. The revolution may fail, it may all go wrong. But if we don't have a revolution, it certainly can't go right.

Is not the working class the new ruling class in the scenario we have been discussing?

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 15:03

Is not the working class the new ruling class in the scenario we have been discussing?
Yes, it is.
And there is a myriad of obstacles and dangers. There's no point in denying that.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 15:05

The point is what kind of a state we're talking about.

All states rule by force and propaganda.
It can use different methods to decide how to wield it's "power" (force), and what "laws" it will issue, what rituals they use to decide who is "legislator," etc, and what they will command everyone to do, but the point is we're still talking about a "state," if it meets the criteria most of us seem to agree upon, primarily a "monopoly on force," which is ambiguous itself, but I'm fairly certain when we mention that, it can be understood, the "legislature," the "government," the "law makers," etc.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 15:07

Is not the working class the new ruling class in the scenario we have been discussing?

Yes, that's why I said you should make what you're asking clear by saying 'can you guarantee the working class can accomplish its goals?' and the answer is 'of course not'. Does that mean we shouldn't make the attempt?

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 15:15

All states rule by force and propaganda
OK, I think we're slowly exhausting the possibilities of fruitful communication here.

So, yes, I'm in favour of a workers' state, by your own standards.

It can use different methods to decide how to wield it's "power" (force), and what "laws" it will issue, what rituals they use to decide who is "legislator," etc, and what they will command everyone to do, but the point is we're still talking about a "state," if it meets the criteria most of us seem to agree upon, primarily a "monopoly on force," which is ambiguous itself, but I'm fairly certain when we mention that, it can be understood, the "legislature," the "government," the "law makers," etc.

It seems that you simply don't udnerstand what councils' power mean, and how was it, and could be, structured. The question is whether you're willing to learn, but judging from the insistence on evading the issue of the difference between representation and delegation, I don't hold much hope for that.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 15:29

OK, I think we're slowly exhausting the possibilities of fruitful communication here.

So, yes, I'm in favour of a workers' state, by your own standards.

It seems that you simply don't udnerstand what councils' power mean, and how was it, and could be, structured. The question is whether you're willing to learn, but judging from the insistence on evading the issue of the difference between representation and delegation, I don't hold much hope for that.

I'm talking about the state. You are saying the working class takes state power, yes? And operated via "workers councils" ?
Regardless of the method of operation, I am discussing, or attempting to discuss, fundamental nature of "socialist state power," as another class claiming to be the ruler- of state power in general, which is rule by force.
I am going by the characteristics all states, or groups claiming to be or claimed to be states, seem to have and have had in common throughout history.
The point of this post is to draw attention to the self-contradictory belief that setting up a new system of rule over society can somehow push towards the emancipation of anyone, as states can only logically work in their own interests, while subjugating everyone else, if that is a belief one holds. At best all they could be advocating is a new system of rule and blind faith in the hopes it will not be tyrannical, and rule in the interest of the "working class," which is already a logical impossibility (as states can only work in their own interest, which would be maintaining power- ruling- if you want to say the "working class" as a whole, fine- but theyre still is some group of individual perceived to be operating some "state" - and as such are perpetuating the perceived "ruling class")

Thirsty Crow

30th January 2013, 15:36

I'm talking about the state. You are saying the working class takes state power, yes? And operated via "workers councils" ?
Regardless of the method of operation, I am discussing, or attempting to discuss, the perceived method of operation of "socialist state power," as another class claiming to be the ruler- of state power in general, which is rule by force.
I am going by the characteristics all states, or groups claiming to be or claimed to be states, seem to have and have had in common throughout history.
Okay, as I said, no more possibilities for communication that would not amount to a shouting (well, not necessarily shouting, but you get the point) contest. So, suffice it to say, I'm fundamentally opposed to your view since it doesn't take the vital necessity of the self-defence of the revolutionary class into account. You might as well support armed intervention against the new councils power.

The point of this post is to draw attention to the self-contradictory belief that setting up a new system of rule over society can somehow push towards the emancipation of anyone, as states can only logically work in their own interests, while subjugating everyone else, if that is a belief one holds. At best all they could be advocating is a new system of rule and blind faith in the hopes it will not be tyrannical, and rule in the interest of the "working class," which is already a logically impossibility (as states can only work in their own interests)
I already explained how it is not self-contradictory, but necessary due to the fact that it arises from the conditions on the ground - that conditions being of mounting capitalist counter-attack.

And of course, I also fundamentally disagree with the vacuous assessment of states "working in their own interest" which are somehow disconnected from the interests of the class - the class interests - which gives rise to this state.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 23:02

I already explained how it is not self-contradictory, but necessary due to the fact that it arises from the conditions on the ground - that conditions being of mounting capitalist counter-attack.

And of course, I also fundamentally disagree with the vacuous assessment of states "working in their own interest" which are somehow disconnected from the interests of the class - the class interests - which gives rise to this state.

I would say you are ignoring the nature of all states through history- as well as what seems to be the "general" concept of the state.
the state rules in one classes interest only: the state's.
It is logically impossible for the state, the apparatus perceived to dole out "political power," to rule in anyone elses interest. It must necessarily rule in it's own interests, and continue to maintain it's perceived position of supremacy (which it imposes by force over the "society"). If it ceases to do this, it ceases to be a "state." In other words, it's either a ruling class, or it isnt the state.

At that point, whatever "class" is claiming to be the state, or use it, or rule via it's perceived power (brute force), fades behind the force of the state.
The "class" people are claiming to rule in the name of is ultimately less a concern of mine than the general attempt of any "class" to "subjugate the world."

This is why I find this position to be utterly incompatible and downright hostile towards anarchists (in practice and in essence)- towards the essence of libertation or liberty or emancipation period.
Marxists, socialists, etc, support global domination of one class by another, and say it's in order to be rid of the "inequality" of the previous systems...
Anarchists support global emancipation, and emancipation of the individual.

If these end goals are at least at any time shared in theory, the methods cannot possibly meet. If an anarchist, in saying they support the liberation of the individual and the "workers," comes to advocate what seems to have been described as a totalitarian state, comes to advocate any state at all, they cease to be an anarchist, in my view.
How can one be an anarchist and support any state whatsoever? (this might not apply to you, but maybe others who consider themselves anarchists, or leaning towards it, but might still hold on to what is essentially blind faith in a benevolent -at least when it comes to ones self and ones "class"- ruling master class).
I dont see how "global domination" and "global emancipation" meet, at all.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2013, 23:30

I would say you are ignoring the nature of all states through history- the state rules in one classes interest only: the state's...

'The state' isn't a class. You're completely right that every state in history has ruled in the interests of the ruling class. That's what a state is for. However, every state in history has also been the state of a minority oppressive class. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of a majority class, who are not an oppressive class.

...
It is logically impossible for the state, the apparatus perceived to dole out "political power," to rule in anyone elses interest. It must necessarily rule in it's own interests, and continue to maintain it's perceived position of supremacy (which it imposes by force over the "society")...

That doesn't mean anything. The state rules in the interest of the ruling class. If the working class is the ruling class, why should its state rule in the interests of any other class?

...
At that point, whatever "class" is claiming to be the state, or use it, or rule via it's perceived power (brute force), fades behind the force of the state.
The "class" people are claiming to rule in the name of is ultimately less a concern of mine than the general attempt of any "class" to "subjugate the world."...

So do you consider yourself a revolutionary? If so... why?

...
This is why I find this position to be utterly incompatible and downright hostile towards anarchists (in practice and in essence).
Marxists, socialists, etc, support global domination of one class by another, and say it's in order to be rid of the "inequality" of the previous systems...
Anarchists support global emancipation, and emancipation of the individual...

The question is how is 'emancipation' to be acheived? By overthrowing capitalism. How is that to be brought about, if not by the working class?

...If these end goals are at least at any time shared in theory, the methods cannot possibly meet. If an anarchist, in supporting libertation of the individual and the "workers," comes to advocate what seems to have been described as a totalitarian state, they cease to be an anarchist, in my view.
I dont see how "global domination" and "global emancipation" meet, at all.

All previous class societies were societies in which one minority class ruled and the majority worked for them. Don't you see that when the working class is administering society, when everybody is progressively integrated into the working class, and ultimately when there is only 'the working class' left (because everybody is a productive member of society) then are no classes?

When there are no classes there can be no state, because the state is the mechanism that one class uses to impose its rule over society. So the only way the state can be abolished is by removing its roots - class society. The only way of doing away with class society is to abolish property and integrate all other classes into the working class. And how is that to happen? Through the working class taking control of society.

The working class can't abolish itself and other classes and the state and property, without first seizing control of the economy and the state.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 23:41

the state is the mechanism that one class uses to impose its rule over society.

Indeed, that is why I oppose it in it's entirety, and don't want to set up a new, "different" state.

redblood_blackflag

30th January 2013, 23:47

'The state' isn't a class. You're completely right that every state in history has ruled in the interests of the ruling class. That's what a state is for. However, every state in history has also been the state of a minority oppressive class. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of a majority class, who are not an oppressive class.

I disagree. The state is perceived to be the ruling "class," or "institution," or the tool used to rule, etc, as you mention below.
(Really it's the group or thing people believe is "government," "makes the laws," has the "right to rule," etc)

That doesn't mean anything. The state rules in the interest of the ruling class. If the working class is the ruling class, why should its state rule in the interests of any other class?

"The State rules..."

So do you consider yourself a revolutionary? If so... why?

Not in the sense of "make a new state."

All previous class societies were societies in which one minority class ruled and the majority worked for them. Don't you see that when the working class is administering society, when everybody is progressively integrated into the working class, and ultimately when there is only 'the working class' left (because everybody is a productive member of society) then are no classes?

When there are no classes there can be no state, because the state is the mechanism that one class uses to impose its rule over society. So the only way the state can be abolished is by removing its roots - class society. The only way of doing away with class society is to abolish property and integrate all other classes into the working class. And how is that to happen? Through the working class taking control of society.

The working class can't abolish itself and other classes and the state and property, without first seizing control of the economy and the state.

Indeed, there are usually always less perceived "rulers" than "subjects."

If the state is what the ruling class uses, what they "must" use, then you have that backwards. If the ruling class is dependent on the state, then without the state, there can be no ruling class.

If youre saying the opposite, I really don't see how that's the case. The commands of a "regular individual" are not viewed to be "legislation," etc. they are not viewed to be "the governor, the government, the ruler," etc.
No matter who you say is "the ruling class," they always seem to be "behind" the state, the group that is viewed to "make the laws." Without this perceived "authority," what are their commands?

CyM

31st January 2013, 00:56

"The state only becomes necessary at that point in human history when you have the appearance of those who have, and those who have not". Don't remember who said that, but it's a good quote.

I'm happy, comrade, that you wish to abolish the state, and that you are looking for answers about the theoretical questions around this central issue. But we must take a serious attitude towards this ancient institution that has been with us for about the last 10,000 years of our several hundred thousand year existance.

For the vast majority of our existance, the arms were freely held by all, and all hunted together. No one group had a monopoly on force. These conditions coincided with what is known as primitive communism.

In this period of our existance, you hunted and freely shared what you caught today, because tomorrow you may catch nothing and the group will share with you. It was communism based on poverty, and a lack of the basic necessities. Communism for survival. There was no need for a state, and the community arranged its affairs fairly democratically without anyone having a monopoly on force. There was "authority" but it was the voluntary authority of an elder earned through time and experience and respect, and not the authority of force and fear.

But as time goes on, and I'm simplifying here because I don't want to write pages on this, humanity does what it does best: it uses its brain, its hands and its community to reshape nature around it and find better ways to survive.

We begin to settled down, to tame herds of animals so we can have easy access to meat and fur and milk and cheese, we begin to plant and sow. Now we're no longer living in shortage, we begin to develop a bit of a surplus. We develop a bit more than the bare minimum necessary for the survival of the community.

And this is where new tendencies are unleashed. Communities trade with each other, fishing communities trade for fur from herders, herders trade for crops from farming communities, etc... Again, simplification, but now that there is a surplus, the struggle arises over who gets it. Now at first the trade is mediated through the chiefs and the chiefs hand out the goods amongst the whole community in a festival of sorts.

That doesn't last.

There is also the shamans, whose herbal medicine and astronomy skills (hidden in ritual), have real value to the community. They are liberated from manual labour to pursue their mental labour full time. So here we have shamans and chiefs, and their entourage, who do not need to slave like others ad attain a privileged position in society.

I have a fever... so this is getting long.

Anyways, this is happening more or less in tandem with thr break up of matriarchy and the beginning of oppression of women. Now imagine these new privileged layers being able to get everyone to feed and cloth them better than they feed themselves? How do you get everyone to work for you while they're all armed?

So hunting has played less of a role now, and contact with other tribes has given rise to war, slaves, captured goods, etc... suffice it to say that the emerging exploiters build an entourage of warriors whose riches come from them, and the arms pass into their hands.

This is the state, armed bodies of men (and women now), separate and above the rest of society, at the service of and in defense of the property relations of the ruling class.

The state, in the final analysis, has no independent role outside of the defense of the riches and the domination of the exploiting class. There are a few exceptional periods in history where this state acquires a relative independence of all classes by balancing between a ruling class that cannot defeat its slaves and slaves that cannot defeat their rulers: Caesarism, Absolutism, Bonapartism, Stalinism are all variants of this exceptional situation which can generally be referred to as bonapartism. When the class struggle has reached a fever pitch to toss society into crisis, but neither class can finish the other, the state and the army rise high above society and win a certain independence. But this is exceptional.

I'm going to try to wrap this up, but we have come full circle now. The task is to overthrow the exploiters, destroy their ability to put us back in shackles, and involve everyone in the defense of the community and its organization. If no one has a monopoly of arms, there is no state. But before you can abolish monopoly of arms, the slaves must use their arms one last time to ensure the slave owners cannot do what they did in Chile, Guatemala, the Paris Commune, Germany, Spain, and countless other examples. If you do not break their ability and will to take the power back, the result is the bloodies massacre to "teach the slaves their place". There is no other outcome in history whenever the slaves underestimated the need to fight the restoration of their shackles in an organized way.

When that task is done and the revolution has rid society of class distinctions, then what you are left with is everyone armed, because everyone works for a living rather than exploiting others. But then if the state is everyone, it is not a state.

There's more to it than that, but my fevered brain spewed this out and I can't do much more right now.

The Feral Underclass

31st January 2013, 01:13

Rational Radical

31st January 2013, 01:17

Marxists and anarchists generally have different definitions of the state so this discussion won't be productive. Marxists argue that the proletarian state is based on direct democracy and is necessary only to suppress the counter-revolution which would still constitute it as a state since the bourgeoise and it's lapdogs still exists,trying to reestablish their hegemony over the working class. anarchists however,wouldn't consider it a state because their definition of it would be a bureaucratic,hierarchical governing body which maintains class society,arguing for the abolition of the state,the remnant of class society. An anarchist free territory would be considered a marxist proletarian state,if we acknowledged this we'd have alot more unity(which is why i consider myself a libertarian socialist who supports both marxists and anarchists )

Blake's Baby

31st January 2013, 01:21

@ TAT:

If you go back to the first page, I already asked if redblood_blackflag would see a social organisation which held a monopoly of violence but was organised as the expression of the will of the working class (such as Rocker advocated) as a state and the answer was yes. So, it's not me that's claiming it (I think it's a state, but I'm a Marxist), it's redblood_blackflag. I'm just trying to make sure we're arguing about the same thing. What I'm trying to get at is why redblood_blackflag thinks its a good idea for pro-capitalists to be able to attack the workers' councils.

Fourth Internationalist

31st January 2013, 01:33

So in order to achieve a stateless, classless society, the working class must take state power and become the ruling class?

Yes.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 01:40

"The state only becomes necessary at that point in human history when you have the appearance of those who have, and those who have not". Don't remember who said that, but it's a good quote.

It would seem obvious that since the dawn of "human kind," there have been "haves" and "have nots," while the "state," and especially the "nation state," are relatively new (in comparison to the history of humans).

I'm happy, comrade, that you wish to abolish the state, and that you are looking for answers about the theoretical questions around this central issue. But we must take a serious attitude towards this ancient institution that has been with us for about the last 10,000 years of our several hundred thousand year existance.

For the vast majority of our existance, the arms were freely held by all, and all hunted together. No one group had a monopoly on force. These conditions coincided with what is known as primitive communism.

The state doesn't actually have a "monopoly on force," they just claim, and people believe, they are the only the ones in "society" with the "right" to initiate force/rule.

In this period of our existance, you hunted and freely shared what you caught today, because tomorrow you may catch nothing and the group will share with you. It was communism based on poverty, and a lack of the basic necessities. Communism for survival. There was no need for a state, and the community arranged its affairs fairly democratically without anyone having a monopoly on force. There was "authority" but it was the voluntary authority of an elder earned through time and experience and respect, and not the authority of force and fear.

There was "authority" -debatable.
"voluntary authority" is akin to saying "voluntary slavery."
Authority is the perceived right to rule- if cooperation is voluntary, nobody is claiming authority over anyone- if someone is claiming authority, your "voluntary cooperation" and consent is not required, you are meant to obey, as it is their perceived right.
In the context of "politics," "authority" is the belief in a rightful master. The state, the government, whatever.
The one with the "right" to command you about and do force to you if you disobey, initially, as opposed to defensively.
They operate under this concept from the beginning, in claiming to be "above" the rest of society, the ultimate arbiter, etc- and by their very first act, "taxation" - forcing or imposing "protection" or other services.

But as time goes on, and I'm simplifying here because I don't want to write pages on this, humanity does what it does best: it uses its brain, its hands and its community to reshape nature around it and find better ways to survive.

Humanity doesnt have a brain, or hands, or anything of that sort, nor does "the community," or society, etc. Only "individuals" do.

We begin to settled down, to tame herds of animals so we can have easy access to meat and fur and milk and cheese, we begin to plant and sow. Now we're no longer living in shortage, we begin to develop a bit of a surplus. We develop a bit more than the bare minimum necessary for the survival of the community.

And this is where new tendencies are unleashed. Communities trade with each other, fishing communities trade for fur from herders, herders trade for crops from farming communities, etc... Again, simplification, but now that there is a surplus, the struggle arises over who gets it. Now at first the trade is mediated through the chiefs and the chiefs hand out the goods amongst the whole community in a festival of sorts.
What is the difference betwee

That doesn't last.

There is also the shamans, whose herbal medicine and astronomy skills (hidden in ritual), have real value to the community. They are liberated from manual labour to pursue their mental labour full time. So here we have shamans and chiefs, and their entourage, who do not need to slave like others ad attain a privileged position in society.

The community cannot value anything, only individuals can.

I have a fever... so this is getting long.

Anyways, this is happening more or less in tandem with thr break up of matriarchy and the beginning of oppression of women. Now imagine these new privileged layers being able to get everyone to feed and cloth them better than they feed themselves? How do you get everyone to work for you while they're all armed?

So hunting has played less of a role now, and contact with other tribes has given rise to war, slaves, captured goods, etc... suffice it to say that the emerging exploiters build an entourage of warriors whose riches come from them, and the arms pass into their hands.

This is the state, armed bodies of men (and women now), separate and above the rest of society, at the service of and in defense of the property relations of the ruling class.

The state, in the final analysis, has no independent role outside of the defense of the riches and the domination of the exploiting class. There are a few exceptional periods in history where this state acquires a relative independence of all classes by balancing between a ruling class that cannot defeat its slaves and slaves that cannot defeat their rulers: Caesarism, Absolutism, Bonapartism, Stalinism are all variants of this exceptional situation which can generally be referred to as bonapartism. When the class struggle has reached a fever pitch to toss society into crisis, but neither class can finish the other, the state and the army rise high above society and win a certain independence. But this is exceptional.
The state is the dominating and exploiting "class."
"This is the state, armed bodies of men (and women now), separate and above the rest of society,"
How can they possibly rule in any other groups interests primarily?
They must necessarily retain their position, or they cease to be a state.

I'm going to try to wrap this up, but we have come full circle now. The task is to overthrow the exploiters, destroy their ability to put us back in shackles, and involve everyone in the defense of the community and its organization. If no one has a monopoly of arms, there is no state. But before you can abolish monopoly of arms, the slaves must use their arms one last time to ensure the slave owners cannot do what they did in Chile, Guatemala, the Paris Commune, Germany, Spain, and countless other examples. If you do not break their ability and will to take the power back, the result is the bloodies massacre to "teach the slaves their place". There is no other outcome in history whenever the slaves underestimated the need to fight the restoration of their shackles in an organized way.

"If no one has a monopoly of arms, there is no state."
If that's the case, then I'd say there is no state.

When that task is done and the revolution has rid society of class distinctions, then what you are left with is everyone armed, because everyone works for a living rather than exploiting others. But then if the state is everyone, it is not a state.

There's more to it than that, but my fevered brain spewed this out and I can't do much more right now.
-
I appreciate your feedback, though I disagree with much of it.
My comments are in bold, above.
I will most likely add more as time goes on.

Red Enemy

31st January 2013, 01:47

We must be clear when we say the party takes power or the workers take power, because the workers can take power through their party.

Rational Radical

31st January 2013, 01:58

We must be clear when we say the party takes power or the workers take power, because the workers can take power through their party.

I don't think so,even non-stalinist parties would most likely lead to the development of a social-democratic government

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 02:17

I would say you are ignoring the nature of all states through history- as well as what seems to be the "general" concept of the state.
the state rules in one classes interest only: the state's.This is patently false, and based on an ahistorical view of the structure and function of different state forms (you must really like the general concept, don't you).

It is only possible to conclude that the state rules in its own interest when it is simultaneously a locus for the class which commands labour and disposes of the surplus. One example indeed is Soviet Russia.

But there is no good in trying to forget about the dirty reality of day to day production. And you fail precisely at this, blindly holding to political domination alone. In that way, there is the menacing ahistorical boogeyman of the state and its interest - which is nothing more than an interest to act like a state. Circular logic much? And of course, this view absolutely cannot account for the historical formation of first state structures. It forces its proponents to assume that it is eternal. And from this point on you can wave any kind of emancipatory politcs bye bye. Of course, it is another matter that people are rarely consistent in their tracing out the logical conclusions of their positions.

It is logically impossible for the state, the apparatus perceived to dole out "political power," to rule in anyone elses interest.

Mind you, this is not a matter of anarchism and its perceived faults. It is a matter of the rejection of class struggle and actual denial of the ruling position of the capitalist class. There is not other way to interpret such shortsighted claim, that the modern state does not act in the interest of a specific class, that it actually arises on the basis of the social relations characteristic to the social domination of this class.

[/QUOTE] It must necessarily rule in it's own interests, and continue to maintain it's perceived position of supremacy (which it imposes by force over the "society"). If it ceases to do this, it ceases to be a "state." In other words, it's either a ruling class, or it isnt the state.
[/QUOTE]
Why? What makes it necessarily so.

Red Enemy

31st January 2013, 02:32

I don't think so,even non-stalinist parties would most likely lead to the development of a social-democratic government
I don't mean through parliament.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 10:52

This is patently false, and based on an ahistorical view of the structure and function of different state forms (you must really like the general concept, don't you).

It is only possible to conclude that the state rules in its own interest when it is simultaneously a locus for the class which commands labour and disposes of the surplus. One example indeed is Soviet Russia.

But there is no good in trying to forget about the dirty reality of day to day production. And you fail precisely at this, blindly holding to political domination alone. In that way, there is the menacing ahistorical boogeyman of the state and its interest - which is nothing more than an interest to act like a state. Circular logic much? And of course, this view absolutely cannot account for the historical formation of first state structures. It forces its proponents to assume that it is eternal. And from this point on you can wave any kind of emancipatory politcs bye bye. Of course, it is another matter that people are rarely consistent in their tracing out the logical conclusions of their positions.

Mind you, this is not a matter of anarchism and its perceived faults. It is a matter of the rejection of class struggle and actual denial of the ruling position of the capitalist class. There is not other way to interpret such shortsighted claim, that the modern state does not act in the interest of a specific class, that it actually arises on the basis of the social relations characteristic to the social domination of this class.

It must necessarily rule in it's own interests, and continue to maintain it's perceived position of supremacy (which it imposes by force over the "society"). If it ceases to do this, it ceases to be a "state." In other words, it's either a ruling class, or it isnt the state.
[/QUOTE]
Why? What makes it necessarily so.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps I'm not articulating my point very well.
No matter who is perceived to be utilizing the state, or whose interests the state is perceived to be ruling in, the constant is the state rules.
Be it capitalist, or socialist, democracy, or republicanism, or monarchism, the state is perceived to be the group "in charge" of "society."
Why else would socialists want to take over it?
-
Regardless of who is perceived to be behind the scenes, the state is viewed "above" them.
Any so-called ruling which is in favor of the class the state is being used by, or catering to, does not change the fact that to even make this ruling, to rule society, the state must necessarily be viewed above everyone else.

Any ruling "passed down" from the state, in favor or some group, does not change that the state is the perceived ruler, and that the ruling from the state is "passed down," imposed, from a position of on-high supremacy.
Not even "capitalists" "tax" the state, the state taxes "the capitalists." (the fact that certain groups in society manipulate the state system and benefit from it doesnt change that the state is viewed to be the number one privileged group within "society," the ruler.)
Capitalists do not impose legislation upon society, the state does.
If "capitalists" are behind the scenes manipulating the state, their manipulations are dependent on the state, obviously.
At no point can a "state" rule against it's own interests, against it's own position of supremacy. If it were to do so, it would have "abolished itself" as the perceived ruler, or given up it's perceived power, something no state has ever done- and I doubt any state will, as it's entirely contrary to the idea of vaulting ones self into a perceived position of supremacy "over" society.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 11:10

And from this point on you can wave any kind of emancipatory politcs bye bye. .

Is capitalism dependent upon the state?

Let's Get Free

31st January 2013, 12:17

Im not interested in workers having their own state and dominating the bourgeois with it, which is an absurd idea anyway. I am only interested in abolishing the working class along with the capitalist class to create a classless society.

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 12:47

Perhaps I'm not articulating my point very well.
Might be.

No matter who is perceived to be utilizing the state, or whose interests the state is perceived to be ruling in, the constant is the state rules.
Be it capitalist, or socialist, democracy, or republicanism, or monarchism, the state is perceived to be the group "in charge" of "society."
Why else would socialists want to take over it?First of all, I do not advocate a political party taking over the state. I've repeated this over and over again and I don't know why it is so hard for you to acknowledge that.

And sure, the rather banal and obvious remark that the constatnt is that the state rules is true. But it is practically useless for purposes of a radical critique of the existing social relations, and from there for revolutionary practice.

Though, I'd say you're wrong in stating that the state is a "group". You could say that for the feudal political structure and early absolutist monarchy, but not for modern liberal democracy. Here, the state is in fact a set of institutions based on capitalist social relations (taxes being the primary means of state even functioning), which is very different from the state being a "group".
-

Regardless of who is perceived to be behind the scenes, the state is viewed "above" them.But in some crucial aspects it really isn't. That is the point. The state can only be viewed as "above" the society of the clash of class interests due to the separation of the political from the economic, which is a product of historical development and not an eternal state, pardon the pun, of affairs (again I refer you to feudal relations, for example). But in its crucial aspect, the state is the mechanism of ensuring the continued class rule which is rooted in the economic sphere.

Any so-called ruling which is in favor of the class the state is being used by, or catering to, does not change the fact that to even make this ruling, to rule society, the state must necessarily be viewed above everyone else.Again, this is not necessarily so, and depends on its stucture and possibilities for participation in administration on behalf of the broad layers of the working class. And of course that it is precisely this position that former capitalists would take up since the new political structure corresponding to proletarian self-emancipation would deny any representation for their interests. This is the big flaw in the reasoning on the emancipation of the individual, which is perfectly correct in other aspects. This individual is necessarily abstract, a phantom disconnected from any concrete determinations, like class interest. And it surely would amount to the advocacy of a free and unfettered representation of all social groups, and thereby of the old interests of exploitation, which is something that we must fight tooth and nail.

Any ruling "passed down" from the state, in favor or some group, does not change that the state is the perceived ruler, and that the ruling from the state is "passed down," imposed, from a position of on-high supremacy.You're whole argument is actually based on you deliberately missing my points. As if you decided that I'm lying or somehow misrepresenting my actual positions. In short, no I don't advocate a "state" "passing down" rulings.

Not even "capitalists" "tax" the state, the state taxes "the capitalists." (the fact that certain groups in society manipulate the state system and benefit from it doesnt change that the state is viewed to be the number one privileged group within "society," the ruler.)You're drawing all the wrong conclusions from this simple fact, that the very existence of the state is ultimately dependent on the private appropriation of surplus value and capital accumulation. Capitalists, some stupid anarcho-caps notwithstanding, have a vested interest in such a state of affairs.

Capitalists do not impose legislation upon society, the state does.And you honestly think that the capitalist class is left outside this process?
This would be a ridiculous conclusion.

If "capitalists" are behind the scenes manipulating the state, their manipulations are dependent on the state, obviously.No, there is nothing obvious about it. We're living in an age of austerity and sharpening attacks on the working class, and further and further benefits for the capitalists (just recall the legendary bail out of the banks in the US; do you really intend to tell me that poor cappies are helpless and dependent on the state?) and your conclusion is that this separate group calls the shots with the capitalist class being merely a "social partner" with a consultative voice?

And the history of the dismantling of the welfare state being quite well known, is it not that the state, its structures and policies, are actually dependent on the concrete conditions of capital accumulation? Is it not that New Labour arose from precisely this predicament, with its social entrepreneurial bullshit, or would you rather have it that this is merely a development of ideas, politicians changing their minds, while the conditions on the ground remain static?

At no point can a "state" rule against it's own interests, against it's own position of supremacy.
Breifly put, this is circular logic. The states interest is to be and act like a state.

If it were to do so, it would have "abolished itself" as the perceived ruler, or given up it's perceived power, something no state has ever done- and I doubt any state will, as it's entirely contrary to the idea of vaulting ones self into a perceived position of supremacy "over" society.This, of course, does not flow from a supposed transcendent, eternal interest of power for powers' sake, but from the simple fact that all class societies necessitate a state structure in order to act as a fetter on the movement of the exploited. But all of the previous social-formations depended on the continued existence of the exploited class. And with communism, the situation is different. There is no class left to exploit.

Is capitalism dependent upon the state?
It absolutely is.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 22:33

redblood_blackflag: is capitalism dependent upon the state?
LinksRadikal: It absolutely is.

Thank you.

Astarte

31st January 2013, 23:00

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 23:04

I am not sure if you all realize this or not, but the other night in the che-lives chatroom, RBBF proved himself to be an anarcho-capitalist, or at least has real anarcho-capitalist / "sovereign citizen" tendencies. When asked if a stateless society has ever existed along side private property he answered "ancient Iceland". He sees no contradiction between private ownership of property / means of production and what he believes to be "statelessness", and see the DoP as just as coercive as a capitalistic, or ruling class state.
Interesting, and not that unpredictable.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 23:15

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 23:20

T
You admit capitalism is dependent upon the state.

And? How does this obvious fact deny other facts - that the state is based on capital and its profitable accumulation, that it necessarily acts in the long term interests of the capitalist class, namely, the preservation of their dominant position which includes both economic measures such as bailing out banks and repressive measures against workers militancy, which definitely makes your statement, itself a product of circular logic and fundamentally confused, that the state acts in its own interest (as if it had an interest apart from the interest of capital), false.

Blake's Baby

31st January 2013, 23:21

Who is in control, the man with failed kidneys, or the dialysis machine?

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 23:26

Who is in control, the man with failed kidneys, or the dialysis machine?
Obviously, neither.
It is really the mysterious man the witch doctor of the machine who is in control.
Which means that really we all are ruled by a secret cabal of reptilians from another dimension.

Astarte

31st January 2013, 23:33

That was your word for me. I do not and have never considered myself an "anarcho capitalist."
I'm just an anarchist.
You have no argument here. My point has been made.
You admit capitalism is dependent upon the state.

"Citizen" ? Who is your "sovereign" ?

Dude, you admitted to reading Mises and upheld him as an influence. You believe private property can exist without a state apparatus. You have strange illusions of homesteadism, and you admittedly think a dictatorship of the proletariat is "just as oppressive" as capitalism, even though I explained to you several times in several different ways the difference between a workers'/peasants' semi-state and a ruling class or capitalist state.

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 23:44

And? How does this obvious fact deny other facts - that the state is based on capital and its profitable accumulation, that it necessarily acts in the long term interests of the capitalist class, namely, the preservation of their dominant position which includes both economic measures such as bailing out banks and repressive measures against workers militancy, which definitely makes your statement, itself a product of circular logic and fundamentally confused, that the state acts in its own interest (as if it had an interest apart from the interest of capital), false.
"Capitalism is dependent on the state, therefore we should make a new state, so that we can get rid of capitalism."

Thirsty Crow

31st January 2013, 23:50

"Capitalism is dependent on the state, therefore we should make a new state, so that we can get rid of capitalism."
It's tiresome to engage this childish, faux logic games over and over again.

So, to be brief, the structures of workers' power, enabling broad participation in our control over both our daily lives and the general conditions, is a state only insofar as it is constituted on the exclusion of the proprietor classes - capitalists, and it is necessary as a mechanism of workers' self-defence.

So, I hear you uphold some of ol' Mises' ideas?

redblood_blackflag

31st January 2013, 23:56

It's tiresome to engage this childish, faux logic games over and over again.

So, to be brief, the structures of workers' power, enabling broad participation in our control over both our daily lives and the general conditions, is a state only insofar as it is constituted on the exclusion of the proprietor classes - capitalists, and it is necessary as a mechanism of workers' self-defence.

So, I hear you uphold some of ol' Mises' ideas?

Do you mean insofar as it is a ruling class?
A group or organization only using "self-defense" can't logically be a "state."
The entire notion of the state is that of the ruler- they impose generally, initially, their rule, by force over "society."

Which ideas might those be?

Blake's Baby

31st January 2013, 23:57

Obviously, neither.
It is really the mysterious man the witch doctor of the machine who is in control.
Which means that really we all are ruled by a secret cabal of reptilians from another dimension.

Ah. I thought it was the man with the failed kidneys, who depends on the dialysis machine much as capitalism depends on the state. But as the man operates the machine, and in turn is kept alive by it, I thought it could be mistakenly thought maybe that the machine is in control.

But if there are invisible lizards...

...
A group or organization only using "self-defense" can't logically be a "state."
The entire notion of the state is that of the ruler- they impose generally, initially, their rule, by force over "society."
...

So you don't oppose the dictatorship of the proletariat/proletarian state, because you don't even define it as a state. Good. Glad we've cleared that up

Astarte

1st February 2013, 00:00

Do you mean insofar as it is a ruling class?
A group or organization only using "self-defense" can't logically be a "state."
The entire notion of the state is that of the ruler- they impose generally, initially, their rule, by force over "society."

Which ideas might those be?

Did I misunderstand you when you said:

<Redbloodblackflag> ive read the hisoritcal anarchists yes, and the people from mises, etc.

If just strikes me as strange that, as an anarchist, you should invoke Mises, rather than Bakunin, or Makhno, or Kropotkin, or even Proudhon...

Thirsty Crow

1st February 2013, 00:02

Do you mean insofar as it is a ruling class?
A group or organization only using "self-defense" can't logically be a "state."
The entire notion of the state is that of the ruler- they impose generally, initially, their rule, by force over "society."

Which ideas might those be?
The entirety of society is not composed only of workers, but also of proprietors as I state.
It is necessary to deny them any kind of participation in the new system of, let's say, self-governance, for the sake of preventing counter-revolution. In this sense, it is the self-defence of the revolutionary class. And more than necessary.

So, here it is, in simplest of terms. Either take it or leave it, but would you mind answering the question regarding von Mises?

Hit The North

1st February 2013, 00:07

The working class can only rule society through the vigorous socialisation of the means of production so very quickly all the population are drawn into the same relation to the means of production (and classes are aggregates of relations to the means of production), meaning an end to class rule. This means that however long it takes the working class to overcome the bourgeois and overturn its property relations, once overcome, the so-called workers state will quickly become transformed into a state of a new kind: one that arises from the needs of socialised humanity, rather than one superimposed on society by one privileged fraction of it.

redblood_blackflag

1st February 2013, 00:11

Ah. I thought it was the man with the failed kidneys, who depends on the dialysis machine much as capitalism depends on the state. But as the man operates the machine, and in turn is kept alive by it, I thought it could be mistakenly thought maybe that the machine is in control.

But if there are invisible lizards...

So you don't oppose the dictatorship of the proletariat/proletarian state, because you don't even define it as a state. Good. Glad we've cleared that up

That very well may be the case, but I would say you would be ignoring the nature of all groups claiming to be and claimed to be and called states in history, and creating a new concept, calling it a state.

redblood_blackflag

1st February 2013, 00:16

The entirety of society is not composed only of workers, but also of proprietors as I state.
It is necessary to deny them any kind of participation in the new system of, let's say, self-governance, for the sake of preventing counter-revolution. In this sense, it is the self-defence of the revolutionary class. And more than necessary.

So, here it is, in simplest of terms. Either take it or leave it, but would you mind answering the question regarding von Mises?

"It is necessary to deny them any kind of participation in the new system of, let's say, self-governance, for the sake of preventing counter-revolution."

If worded this way, would you agree-
"The individuals should have necessary means to defend against the exploitation of their labor
or, "it is necessary to have the means to defend against the exploitation of their labor"

Blake's Baby

1st February 2013, 00:18

To quote myself in post 4 of this thread:

...
There are fundamnetal differences between Marxists and Anarchists on what constitutes a state. Is the working class administering society after the revolution via the workers' councils a 'state' in your opinion? It is (at least in some respects) to Marxists. So at least some of us, when we speak of a post-revolutionary state, don't mean one in which 'the party' takes state power, but one in which the working class takes to itself the administration of society and the transformation of the economy. In short, the working class cannot abolish or transform what it doesn't control, so it must take over society before abolishing capitalist relations. That is the 'post-revolutionary state'.

If you don't define that as a state, no problem, you don't have an issue with the 'post-revolutionary state'...

So it is variously (in my post) 'a state... in some respects' and I think I saw it referred to earlier as a 'semi-state'.

If the word state you object to, we can call it something else. 'The post-revolutionary fluffiness' if you like. It'll still be the tool the working class uses to suppress the bourgeoisie and prevent counter-revolution, but we won't be using the word 'state'. Of course, it's still a tool for one class to oppress another, so it's a state. By the definition Marxists have been using for 160 years.

...
If worded this way, would you agree-
"The individuals should have necessary means to defend against the exploitation of their labor
or, "it is necessary to have the means to defend against the exploitation of their labor"

If they labour, they're workers. If they're workers, they take part in the workers' councils. The workers' councils have a monopoly of violence. Why should the workers' councils give up the monopoly of violence to non-workers?

redblood_blackflag

2nd February 2013, 01:22

If worded that way, would you agree?

redblood_blackflag

2nd February 2013, 01:24

It's not the word state I oppose, it's the subjugation of the individual, or of society, I oppose "class domination of society," regardless of what the would be rulers reasons are.

redblood_blackflag

2nd February 2013, 01:34

Blake's Baby

2nd February 2013, 16:22

Should the bourgeoisie be allowed to re-instate capitalism against the working class, organised in the workers' councils?

If YES - you support capitalism and bourgeois domination;
if NO - you support the dictatorship of the proletariat.

There is no other option.

Thirsty Crow

2nd February 2013, 16:39

There are only two options when it comes to "class domination..."
Either you support and wish to be the dominant class, in which case you support the same tyranny you point your finger at,

Absolute bullshit.

I am a worker. Or to be more precise, I'll be, as a person, a part of the working class, though probably unemployed, in about one year. I absolutely desire the rule of the working class as I understand this to be the mechanism of my own emancipation - in both the social sense and personal sense.

And to equate working class rule - which is entirely different from the rule of the captialist class, through its state - with tyranny is, in my eyes, bullshit as it most certainly it isn't the same old tyranny as I stated multiple times since: the destitution, the horrible conditions of unemployment, the humiliation at the hands of the bosses, wars, national and cultural oppression, the hoplessness and the psychological and social effects flowing from this can actually be decisevely stopped and eradicated.

It is sheer blindness to disregard that, and probably due to the fact that you hold something of a fetishistic relationship to the notion of the abstract individual.

Which can only mean that, due to the fact that you do not engage in any kind of argument against capital, you're trolling us with your anarcho-capitalist assumptions concealed, or that you hold a set of opinions which we could call anarchist individualism, and which is repudiated among class struggle anarchists for a reason.

Or, you support it generally, "class domination over society," in which case you support your OWN subjugation.
There is no subjugation if I acknowledge, yet do not agree with, the decisions of the direct, class wide organs of workers' rule, and have had a chance to participate in this decision making process. There is no subjugation if I am definitely not allowed to hire waged labour and operate my own business. There is subjugation if I'm thrown in jail while participating in organized counter-revolution - and I wholeheartedly support that kind of subjugation.

Once your new "ruling class" takes "power," Nothing you say matters.

Untrue. I am part of that class. And the ruling class is not a "political class" - it is the whole working class.

You accept them as the RULER. There are no "them". There are brothers and sisters who conduct the same, the common struggle alongside me.

You're either for class domination, or against it.Absolutely for class domination, working class domination that is.

redblood_blackflag

2nd February 2013, 23:30

Absolute bullshit. 1

I am a worker.2 Or to be more precise, I'll be, as a person, a part of the working class, though probably unemployed, in about one year. I absolutely desire the rule of the working class-3 as I understand this to be the mechanism of my own emancipation- in both the social sense and personal sense.

And to equate working class rule - which is entirely different from the rule of the captialist class, through its state - with tyranny is, in my eyes, bullshit as it most certainly it isn't the same old tyranny as I stated multiple times since: the destitution, the horrible conditions of unemployment, the humiliation at the hands of the bosses, wars, national and cultural oppression, the hoplessness and the psychological and social effects flowing from this can actually be decisevely stopped and eradicated. 4

It is sheer blindness to disregard that, and probably due to the fact that you hold something of a fetishistic relationship to the notion of the abstract individual. 5

Which can only mean that, due to the fact that you do not engage in any kind of argument against capital 6, you're trolling us with your anarcho-capitalist assumptions concealed, or that you hold a set of opinions which we could call anarchist individualism, and which is repudiated among class struggle anarchists for a reason. 7

There is no subjugation if I acknowledge, yet do not agree with8, the decisions of the direct, class wide organs of workers' rule, and have had a chance to participate in this decision making process9. There is no subjugation if I am definitely not allowed 10 to hire waged labour and operate my own business. There is subjugation if I'm thrown in jail while participating in organized counter-revolution - and I wholeheartedly support that kind of subjugation.

Untrue. I am part of that class. And the ruling class is not a "political class" - it is the whole working class. 11

There are no "them". There are brothers and sisters who conduct the same, the common struggle alongside me. 12

Absolutely for class domination, working class domination that is. 13

1- Oh? How so?
2- Okay, so you're a worker. Not an individual?
3 - I understand you are for working class domination
4- You have admitted capitalism is dependent upon the state.
5- As opposed to the abstract "worker," "working class," "capitalists," "state," et? Who are not individuals, or, what?
6- I believe the individual is entitled to the full product and value of their labor.
7 - Are those people individuals, or, "workers" ?
8 - So you acknowledge, but don't agree- What do you mean? Do you mean there is no subjugation if you obey the new ruling class? I suppose, if you'd want to put it that way, you'd hope... I guess- er ?
9- Do you mean the commands of the new ruling class?
10- Not allowed by who? - So there is no subjugation when the new ruling class rules?
11 - what class is that? the one that isnt made up of abstract individuals?
so the new ruling class isnt a political class?
12- so there's no them, by which I meant ruling class/rulers, just them- brothers and sisters who have situated themselves as the new ruling class?
13- So you've said. So which part of that brings you to the conclusion that "you're either supporting class domination or against it" is "absolute bullshit" ? if that is the case- not sure what you could argue against in one either wanting to be the dominant class or support their own subjugation. Your posts pretty much support what I said-
You admit you are the working vlass, and support working class domination- so you didnt prove that to be bullshit, you just proved that you yourself believe that it seems.
and you then said there's no subjugation if you do not agree- but acknowlegde- which i would assume means obey- so there's still some group claiming a monopoly on force and issuing commands to everyone under threat of violence? so what changed, besides you saying "it's not/wont be a ruling class" - ?

Flying Purple People Eater

2nd February 2013, 23:55

1- Oh? How so?
2- Okay, so you're a worker. Not an individual?
3 - I understand you are for working class domination
4- You have admitted capitalism is dependent upon the state.
5- As opposed to the abstract "worker," "working class," "capitalists," "state," et? Who are not individuals, or, what?
6- I believe the individual is entitled to the full product and value of their labor.
7 - Are those people individuals, or, "workers" ?
8 - So you acknowledge, but don't agree- What do you mean? Do you mean there is no subjugation if you obey the new ruling class? I suppose, if you'd want to put it that way, you'd hope... I guess- er ?
9- Do you mean the commands of the new ruling class?
10- Not allowed by who? - So there is no subjugation when the new ruling class rules?
11 - what class is that? the one that isnt made up of abstract individuals?
so the new ruling class isnt a political class?
12- so there's no them, by which I meant ruling class/rulers, just them- brothers and sisters who have situated themselves as the new ruling class?

I honestly think that you simply have a misconception of the what the term 'ruling class' means here. In a communist society, the matter of capitalist production relations has been done away with, making the (Post-Proletarian? I don't know what to call it) the only major remaining class and hence the ruling class.

Fourth Internationalist

2nd February 2013, 23:57

@redblood_blackflag (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=75091)
Is English your first language?

2- Okay, so you're a worker. Not an individual?...which was a reply to...
I am a worker.2 Or to be more precise, I'll be, as a person, a part of the working class

Art Vandelay

2nd February 2013, 23:58

I honestly think that you simply have a misconception of the what the term 'ruling class' means here. In a communist society, the matter of capitalist production relations has been done away with, making the (Post-Proletarian? I don't know what to call it) the only major remaining class and hence the ruling class.

This is fundamentally correct, in the sense that capitalist productive relations have been done away with and society is now classless; however it isn't that the proletariat consumes all other social classes, thus proletarianizing them. The proletariat succeeds in abolishing itself as a class through the act of surpassing capital, along with it all other social classes are abolished and what is left is a society of 'free producers.'

Fourth Internationalist

3rd February 2013, 00:07

@redblood_blackflag (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=75091)
Why do you believe in the capitalist propaganda that Marxism (and communism?) is anti-individualist?

Lucretia

3rd February 2013, 00:11

The fatal flaw of the belief in the "workers state," or the "socialist phase," -or any state- is that those who claim to support the workers state fail to recognize that deposing of one group which claims the right to rule society and replacing them with another group which claims the right to rule society is only a "revolution" in the sense that they are spinning in circles.

To claim that in order to be liberated, people need to pick a new set of rulers, at least for a little while, so the rulers can move "society" around into a more "egalitarian situation," and then just give up their power, or render itself obsolete, willingly, isn't actually moving towards liberation in any meaningful way, and is honestly rather naive, if not blind faith.
Not only that, it perpetuates the tyrannical concept of statism in the hopes that the "benevolent" working class savior/ruler will do just that, rule. It is nothing but the situation of another ruling class, while perptuating "the ruling class," generally, in the hopes they will rule themselves out of existence.

The self-contradictory nature of the concept of "picking or imposing rulers so that we can be free" shows the entire notion, I would hope, for the absurdity that it is.
It's like saying that in order to get rid of slavery, we should impose a new master, so that the master can get rid of himself.

The problem with your methodology is evident in your first paragraph, wherein you mention "deposing of one group which claims the right to rule society and replacing them with another group which claims the right to rule society." In this little idealist model, all institutionalized political authority is homogenized, flattened out so as to be indistinguishable on the basis of where power is derived, and for what purpose it is used. A majority organizing their own state to suppress the bourgeoisie and deriving its power from a mandate issued by a majority of workers' is treated, on the basis of "wielding power," as identical to imperialist governments waging war with one another.

Do you not see any problems here?

redblood_blackflag

3rd February 2013, 00:19

The problem with your methodology is evident in your first paragraph, wherein you mention "deposing of one group which claims the right to rule society and replacing them with another group which claims the right to rule society." In this little idealist model, all institutionalized political authority is homogenized, flattened out so as to be indistinguishable on the basis of where power is derived, and for what purpose it is used. A majority organizing their own state to suppress the bourgeoisie and deriving its power from a mandate issued by a majority of workers' is treated, on the basis of "wielding power," as identical to imperialist governments waging war with one another.

Do you not see any problems here?

Yes, it is based upon my conception of "the state," and includes most common definitions of "political philosophers," many "social scientists," etc - and is based upon what I have seen most groups claiming to be states and claimed to be states have done and ways in which they operated through history.

If the state is a tool for class oppression, then becoming the oppressors in order to free the oppressed is lunacy. that's the entire point i am trying to make. it's either blind faith or blatantly contradictory philosophical hypocrisy- if you arent trying to make that, then alright. If you are trying to defend against the exploitation of your labor, then we agree. if youre trying to set up a new ruling class in order to rule us into freedom and equality, we disagree.

I see the state as this giant club everyone is fighting for, but it's not just any club, it's the golden glub... people believe whoever holds this club has the "right to rule" everyone else.
right now people say 'the capitalists' have it, and they should take over the club and use it in different ways, but the only way to use the club is by oppressing the rest of "society." You either use the club, or you dont- in self defense, or aggression against others. If capitalism is dependent on the state, cut off the state.

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2013, 00:29

You can't.

The state (in our epoch) is the way capitalism organises itself (previous states were the way previous societies were organised). You can't abolish the state without abolishing capitalism.

If worded that way, would you agree?

I don't understand your question. However, I'm pretty sure you understand mine. Do you think it's OK for the supporters of capitalism to stage a counter-revolution against the workers' councils, or do you think the working class should use its own organisations to suppress the bourgeoisie/its supporters?

Fourth Internationalist

3rd February 2013, 00:44

If the state is a tool for class oppression, then becoming the oppressors in order to free the oppressed is lunacy.
The point of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not to free the proletariat because, by the time the dictatorship of the proletariat is formed, they will already be free. The point of the dictatorship, I believe, is best explained in my signature, a quote by Rosa Luxemburg:

But 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.

Lucretia

3rd February 2013, 00:47

If the state is a tool for class oppression, then becoming the oppressors in order to free the oppressed is lunacy. that's the entire point i am trying to make. it's either blind faith or blatantly contradictory philosophical hypocrisy-

We see the philosophical flattening-out happening once more. According to this model, workers organizing a state to prevent capitalists from re-appropriating the means of production is the equivalent of a bourgeois state premised on dispossessing the vast majority of the means of production in order to accumulate dead labor. Both states involve "oppressors" -- one class "oppressing" another class through the state.

I don't know how much simpler I can put this than to say you are digging yourself such deep "social-theoretical-philosophical" trenches that you are losing sight of obvious things.

redblood_blackflag

3rd February 2013, 00:51

yeah, well, a democratic anarchist is either a contradiction, or redundant. Hah.

redblood_blackflag

3rd February 2013, 00:52

We see the philosophical flattening-out happening once more. According to this model, workers organizing a state to prevent capitalists from re-appropriating the means of production is the equivalent of a bourgeois state premised on dispossessing the vast majority of the means of production in order to accumulate dead labor. Both states involve "oppressors" -- one class "oppressing" another class through the state.

I don't know how much simpler I can put this than to say you are digging yourself such deep "social-theoretical-philosophical" trenches that you are losing sight of obvious things.

sure, by "that model," "class rule" = "class rule"

Taking back what was "rightfully" yours or defending yourself against exploitation or external rule isnt "class rule," and it's not what any "state" has ever done, without first oppressing the people it claims to be "serving."

If the "capitalists own the means of production," the only "capitalist" is the "state." they impose from on high all manner of what individuals can create or trade in the first place, "property zoning," etc.

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2013, 00:55

You don't see a difference between the working class and the bourgeoisie?

Do you think the supporters of capitalism should be allowed to stage a counter-revolution, or do you believe that the working class shoud protect the revolution, using force?

Lucretia

3rd February 2013, 00:57

sure, by "that model," "class rule" = "class rule"

Taking back what was "rightfully" yours or defending yourself against exploitation isnt "class rule," and it's not what any "state" has ever done, ever, without first oppressing the people it claims to be "serving."

The question is, how do you defend yourself against organized and centralized opposition that wants to reinstate exploitation, if not through an apparatus designed to "oppress" (a workers' state) that opposition -- or more accurately, thwart their political objectives?

I suppose we can all fall asleep and imagine a lovely dreamy scenario in which capitalists all lay down their weapons and magically realize, spontaneously, the error of their previous ways. But that, obvoiusly, is ultra-left idealism.

redblood_blackflag

3rd February 2013, 01:27

The question is, how do you defend yourself against organized and centralized opposition that wants to reinstate exploitation, if not through an apparatus designed to "oppress" (a workers' state) that opposition -- or more accurately, thwart their political objectives?

I suppose we can all fall asleep and imagine a lovely dreamy scenario in which capitalists all lay down their weapons and magically realize, spontaneously, the error of their previous ways. But that, obvoiusly, is ultra-left idealism.

Well, not by creating an organized system of centralized exploitation, or an institution which an organized system of exploitation is dependent upon.

Without the state, what is the economic system?

If capitalism is dependent on the state then the crumbling of the state will bring the end of capitalism.

Lucretia

3rd February 2013, 01:35

Well, not by creating an organized system of centralized exploitation, or an institution which an organized system of exploitation is dependent upon.

Without the state, what is the economic system?

If capitalism is dependent on the state then the crumbling of the state will bring the end of capitalism.

I have never seen any theory of the workers' state that supposes its purpose is to "exploit" capitalists, which would be quite a feat considering that what capitalists remain in a transition to socialism will be capitalists by virtue of owning some means of production and hiring/exploiting workers of their own. The goal of the workers' state is to shut these outfits down as quickly as possible.

And you have things bass ackwards in your last remark, capitalism isn't dependent upon the state. The state derives its power from capital. In other words, it's the other way around. But yes, capital depends upon a bourgeois state, so smashing the bourgeois state can only happen if you simultaneously smash the power of capital. That doesn't mean there can't be a workers' state, which is NOT premised upon exploitation but instead upon the mandate of a majority of the workers.

redblood_blackflag

3rd February 2013, 01:37

I have never seen any theory of the workers' state that supposes its purpose is to "exploit" capitalists, which would be quite a feat considering that what capitalists remain in a transition to socialism will be capitalists by virtue of owning some means of production and hiring/exploiting workers of their own. The goal of the workers' state is to shut these outfits down as quickly as possible.

And you have things bass ackwards in your last remark, capitalism isn't dependent upon the state. The state derives its power from capital. In other words, it's the other way around. But yes, capital depends upon a bourgeois state, so smashing the bourgeois state can only happen if you simultaneously smash the power of capital. That doesn't mean there can't be a workers' state, which is NOT premised upon exploitation but instead upon the mandate of a majority of the workers.
Capitalism isnt dependent on the state? Maybe you should discuss that with linksradikal.

Ive never seen a "state" that wasn't based upon exploition and oppression, of "capitalist," "worker," or otherwise.

Fourth Internationalist

3rd February 2013, 02:11

@redblood_blackflag
The Marxist definition of state and the anarchist definition of the state are totally different. Think of our state as just a semi-state.

Jimmie Higgins

3rd February 2013, 04:58

There are only two options when it comes to "class domination..."
Either you support and wish to be the dominant class, in which case you support the same tyranny you point your finger at,
Or, you support it generally, "class domination over society," in which case you support your OWN subjugation. Once your new "ruling class" takes "power," Nothing you say matters. You accept them as the RULER.
Either you're the RULER/tyrant, or you're supporting your own subjugation.
Either way, you support class domination.
You're either for class domination, or against it.

Class domination for what end? The capitalist class must have hegemony over society in order to maintain a functioning system and compete with other capitalist groups. It also must ensure labor stability and exploitation levels and this is where repression and oppression come in: a minority ruling group needs larger numbers of people willing to sell their labor. It's similar with feudalism, slave societies and all other known class societies where the surplus is controlled by a small elitete.

But on the other hand, what if it wasn't a small eliete who ruled society in order to maintain exploitative social relations where the rich profit from the poor? What if the domination was majoritarian in nature and based on a class who wanted to be able to produce but also control the fruits of their own labor - their class domination would not be to ensure exploitation of the many for the few, but to maintain power of the many over their own productive efforts.

It is the "tyranny of the majority", yes, but to oppose that is to support or passively accommodate the actual existing "tyranny of the minority".

You ask if the state is destroyed, won't the economy too? No, because capitalism is a system and it is also a set of relations. In history where the state and the economic system have been disrupted to the point where the state collapses either a new set of rulers step into the vaccume (usually some military junta or something) or there is a struggle between those who want something more fair and better and those who want a return to "normalcy". Those who want to regain a solid hold of "capitalist normalcy" in a capitalist state in crisis will tend to support fascism if they can not convince the population to back the new government. Capitalist states fall all the time but the system is much harder because there needs to be some new power to fill that space: we just want that to be the cooperative and democratic power of the producing class, workers who can make society run themselves without exploiting others.

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2013, 11:56

Do you think the supporters of capitalism should be allowed to stage a counter-revolution, or do you believe that the working class should protect the revolution, using force?

Thirsty Crow

4th February 2013, 18:00

2- Okay, so you're a worker. Not an individual?No, I'm not an individual. I'm a well developed hive mind multi-part organism. We are speaking to you in a myriad of voices.

The biological make up of the human species necessitates that I conclude that indeed I, as well as other members of the species, are individual organisms.

But that is not the point, this is mere banality. The point is what kind of a social significance you attach to this fact.

You have admitted capitalism is dependent upon the state.You repeat this simple fact over and over again without ever realizing what it entails.

To clarify, human emancipation is dependent on the organized force against the capitalist class. You may or may not want to call this a "state".

5- As opposed to the abstract "worker," "working class," "capitalists," "state," et? Who are not individuals, or, what?There is nothing abstract about the relationship which is denoted when I say that one is a worker. It is concrete and specific, as opposed to the designation of the individual which, as I stated, is merely a banal recognition of facts pertaining to biology (without introducing further determinations into the picture).

I believe the individual is entitled to the full product and value of their labor.I know that this doesn't happen in capitalism. I also know that this is indeed possible, and desirable, in a different kind of social formation (excluding the contributions to the common social fund, that is, if you don't wish old people to drop dead when they'd become unable to work).

Are those people individuals, or, "workers" ?They're part of the evil collectivist hive mind.

So you acknowledge, but don't agree- What do you mean? Do you mean there is no subjugation if you obey the new ruling class? I suppose, if you'd want to put it that way, you'd hope... I guess- er ?Err err err - stop distorting what I write. I specifically stated that the premise of my argument is that there exists a different kind of a political strcture which enables me to directly participate in the process of public debate, deliberation, and execution of the decisions reached.

Not allowed by who? - So there is no subjugation when the new ruling class rules?There is. Capitalists and the supporters of capitalist restoration are subjugated. I have no problem with that.

what class is that? the one that isnt made up of abstract individuals?
so the new ruling class isnt a political class?Yes. We are many things. We have different musical tastes. Different hair color. Different sexual orientations. But we engage in this common struggle for social transformation as workers since it is as workers that our lives are shaped and destroyed by a force which is the product of our own and past generations' labour but alienated from us - capital.

To rule as an individual is to rule as an absolute monarch. Do you understand this?

so there's no them, by which I meant ruling class/rulers, just them- brothers and sisters who have situated themselves as the new ruling class?Yes.

So you've said. So which part of that brings you to the conclusion that "you're either supporting class domination or against it" is "absolute bullshit"?
Yours is a wrong conception of what class domination means actually. This part, which of course leads to the final assessment of any kind of class domination resulting in the same old tyranny, is what is truly bullshit in this.

You admit you are the working vlass, and support working class domination- so you didnt prove that to be bullshit, you just proved that you yourself believe that it seems. Well yes. If it is unjust to you that individuals who would again buy and command other people's labour power, or those who think that capitalism is the best of all possible worlds and organize for this purpose, if it is unjust to subjugate such people to the will of the majority of society - than I happily concede my wicked injustice.

and you then said there's no subjugation if you do not agree- but acknowlegde- which i would assume means obey- so there's still some group claiming a monopoly on force and issuing commands to everyone under threat of violence?Tell me, just for the sake of me trying to understand your perspective, do you participate in group decision which are binding for all members by the virtue of the situation itself? For instance, you're driving in a car with three of your buddies and you all decide on what kind of music will you listen to. You're outvoted. Do you then moan and whine about subjugation?

RedMaterialist

4th February 2013, 20:05

Ive never seen a "state" that wasn't based upon exploition and oppression, of "capitalist," "worker," or otherwise.

All states exists for the oppression of a particular class. The capitalist state oppresses the working class. The workers' state (some call it the dictatorship of the proletariat) exists for the purpose of oppressing and destroying the capitalist class. Once the international capitalist class is destroyed then there is no longer any need for the existence of a state. A class doesn't oppress itself. Once there is no longer any need for the oppression of a class then the state will wither away and die.

Lucretia

4th February 2013, 23:10

Capitalism isnt dependent on the state? Maybe you should discuss that with linksradikal.

Ive never seen a "state" that wasn't based upon exploition and oppression, of "capitalist," "worker," or otherwise.

I've never seen a state that wasn't based upon exploitation/oppression either (except, for a brief period, the workers' state in the USSR). But that was precisely why I said that states are based on exploitation, not the other way around. The latter perspective of states being prior to exploitation is actually a throwback to Hegelian idealism that views the state as a transcendent force/geist/idea that social institutions depend upon. As Marx demonstrated 150 years ago, this is ahistorical bullshit. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without states or exploitation, and when they first developed, it was exploitation that came first.

Rurkel

4th February 2013, 23:53

Violence and compulsion are not necessarily "bad". It depends on who are the perpetrators and what their goals are. Asserting that compulsion in itself is a neutral category, even if mistaken, is not a double standard as such.