Is marxist communism really stateless? [Archive]

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 01:05

What is the state?

The organisation for one class to suppress another, most crudely, but a slightly more neutral description (not that the state is neitral, it acts in the interests of the ruling class) is that it is an organisation that integrates non-ruling clases into society.

The [convenient] problem with this definition is that it fails to address the fundamental issue of explaining how "the organisation for one class to suppress another" is actually organised.

What is a class?

A section of society with a specific relationship to property.

While the revolution is continuing, classes and states will exist: the proletarian power will be fighting in a life or death struggle with capitalism.

If the revolution is successful, and the proletariat seizes power worldwide, it can then massively re-organise the whole of society. It can integrate the other social strata into production. This will effectively abolish classes by removing different relationships to property.

But until it has seized power it can't do that. So the 'proletarian state' (institution of working class rule) lasts as long as it takes the working class to abolish itself, and all other classes, through the abolition of property.

Once classes (seperate socio-economic groups) have been abolished, once property has been collectivised throughout the world, there is no more 'state' because there are no more classes to support a state. This is Engels' 'withering away of the state' - when the material basis of the state no longer exists the state ceases to have any method of existing.

Conversely, before the material bases of the state have been abolished, attempts at doing away with the state are just wishing.

On the issue of the state, you're being quite misleading. What is the "institution of working class rule"? How does the proletariat "seize" power from a bourgeois state?

GiantMonkeyMan

16th June 2013, 01:07

The state arises from the antagonisms between classes. Revolution is not an instantaneous process and there will always be a period of time where the proletariat has power but aspects of the bourgeoisie and the petite-bourgeoisie linger. The very existance of classes implies that there will be a state; an organisational tool to handle the class antagonisms. In a revolutionary sense, this state will simply be utilised to consume itself and the last vestiges of capitalism.

Fourth Internationalist

16th June 2013, 01:16

How is this logistically possible?

It's called dictatorship of the proletariat for a reason.

Why is it misleading, it is pretty much exactly what he said...?

Because Marxists have different definition of the state than non Marxists such as conservatives, when they use the fact that Marx wished to empower the state as evidence that communism is authoritarian, that act of saying Marx wished to empower the modern concept of the state is misleading. Clear?

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 01:34

It's called dictatorship of the proletariat for a reason.

That doesn't in any way address my question. You said a state which "is directly controlled by all workers." That is what you said.

I want you to explain to me how it is logistically possible for all workers to be directly in control of the state.

Because Marxists have different definition of the state than non Marxists such as conservatives, when they use the fact that Marx wished to empower the state as evidence that communism is authoritarian, that act of saying Marx wished to empower the modern concept of the state is misleading. Clear?

Not really. You said that it is misleading for non-Marxists to say that Marxists want to "increase the power of the state," when in actual fact that's pretty much exactly what Marx wanted...

Fourth Internationalist

16th June 2013, 01:52

That doesn't in any way address my question. You said a state which "is directly controlled by all workers." That is what you said.

It does. If the proletariat is not as a whole in control then it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I want you to explain to me how it is logistically possible for all workers to be directly in control of the state.

Because the state is a form of class rule over another, the entire class, specifically the workers in the dotp, is in control.

Not really. You said that it is misleading for non-Marxists to say that Marxists want to "increase the power of the state," when in actual fact that's pretty much exactly what Marx wanted...

Because they have a different concept of what the state is. It's like saying you are for anarchy as in complete chaos and disorder rather than anarchy as in without oppression or hierarchy.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 02:07

It does. If the proletariat is not as a whole in control then it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat.

There are about thirty million workers in the UK alone. How do you imagine they will all directly control the state?

Because the state is a form of class rule over another, the entire class, specifically the workers in the dotp, is in control.

Yes, you've said that. See question above.

Because they have a different concept of what the state is. It's like saying you are for anarchy as in complete chaos and disorder rather than anarchy as in without oppression or hierarchy.

What I'm saying to you is quite simple really. You said that Marxists don't want to "increase the power of the state," yeah? That's what you said. You also said that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that. The trouble is, it's not misleading at all. Marx, you know, the one who makes up the Marx bit of Marxist said that the state should increase its power, taking for example the idea of nationalising industry...

Fourth Internationalist

16th June 2013, 02:18

There are about thirty million workers in the UK alone. How do you imagine they will all directly control the state?

Through democracy. How else can they control their society whether it is in the form of the dotp, (a non 'state' anarchist territory) and/or communism?

Yes, you've said that. See question above.

Yet you cannot understand more than two of my words.

What I'm saying to you is quite simple really. You said that Marxists don't want to "increase the power of the state," yeah? That's what you said. You also said that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that. The trouble is, it's not misleading at all. Marx, you know, the one who makes up the Marx bit of Marxist said that the state should increase its power, taking for example the idea of nationalising industry...

Did you read my post at all? If Marx uses the word state to mean the rule of a class ie the workers and is in favour of that but some conservative*over there uses Marx's words as supporting increasing Obama's power ie increasing the modern state's power then Mr Conservative is being misleading using Marx's own words regardless of whether or not the state they talk about is in the same covering of the word 'state' but it is in substance different. That is misleading. So would saying you're and anarchist so you want chaos and disorder or that you're a communist so you want totalitarianism. Same with state, communism, and anarchism.

subcp

16th June 2013, 02:30

Jacques Camatte wrote an excellent synopsis of the transitional phase, outlining the 'standard' view of the proletarian state, its reason for existence and how/why production is organized, but goes into much greater depth on how the transitional proletarian state erodes the law of value and withers away. It's a straightforward read with a lot of references from Marx.

'Communism and the intermediary phases between capitalism and communism'

http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/ch07.htm

It's the most articulate/persuasive version of the 'Communist Party administering the proletarian state' concept I've come across.

Old Bolshie

16th June 2013, 03:25

The Garbage Disposal Unit

16th June 2013, 04:06

Interestingly, Camatte went on to lay the theorectical groundwork for what became anarcho-primitivism (which isn't to say Camatte was a primitivist - he just had some serious pessimism about the proletariat as revolutionary subject).

MarxSchmarx

16th June 2013, 05:01

OP: most Marxists understand "communism" as referring to the product of the resolution of class struggle. The intermediary stage between capitalism and communism, "socialism" is where the class struggle is waged and things like nationalization come into play. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat ideology, this intermediary state will function with more or less the same prerogatives as any other state today.

At least this is how many Marxists interpret the process. It is hardly the onlhy view, but in fairness it doesn't logically contradict with the goal of biulding a stateless society.

Sea

16th June 2013, 05:02

Marxists say that communism will be stateless system, but they usually have their own definition of the state as being the tool of class oppression.Well, this comes from an analysis of the role of the state in (antique/feudal/capitalist) society.

It would seem that this means that if classes (in the marxist sense) disappear, the state as we know it would contiue to exist.

Engels, in On authority, says:

"All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society."

And having in mind that marxists, if Marx's manifesto is to taken as authoritative, want nationalization of economy, not only would a state continue to exist in communim, but it and it's power would be largely increaced, being that nationalization of economy implies a large state apparatus, and the only difference would be that the marxists would not call such a leviathan 'a state', because, according to them, there is no class society, even though any established organization of people that is centralized necessitates a stratification of people into the ones at the center and the ones that are on the periphery.I'll try to go over this, but I highly recommend you read (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/) or listen to (http://librivox.org/socialism-utopian-and-scientific-by-friedrich-engels/) Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific as your concerns are tackled in that work.

By communism, you seem to be referring to the dictatorship of the proletariat (DoTP), the transitional phase between capitalism and communism, where the working class seizes state power and, indeed, takes control of major industry. However, in order for this to lead to a new oppressive hierarchy, one of two things must happen:

1. The revolution and transfer of power occur in a place that is not sufficiently industrialized to sustain an egalitarian economy. A hierarchy society is thus a matter of material necessity.

2. The people who comprise this hypothetical state are able to rise their own wages, the greed bred by capitalism is still fresh in their minds, and we end up with a bulging bureaucracy.

Else, because class society necessitates the state, and vice versa, the state can no longer sustain itself as the last remaining functions of the bourgeoisie are replaced by fixed-wage workers (remember, we're talking about the DoTP, there would be no money in developed communism), and they are assimilated into the working class at large as the workers themselves take on their duties. After this is complete, society is classless.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 11:22

Tim Cornelis

16th June 2013, 11:43

The proletarian state however is not just any government with a red flag but one in which is directly controlled by all workers against the capitalists and reactionaries,

It does. If the proletariat is not as a whole in control then it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Not the entirety of the working class will make up the workers' state. First, there is a large subset of the working class that is apolitical and even some politically engaged elements will not find the time or will to participate in the workers' councils. Second, there are reactionary elements in the working class and fascist workers will not participate in the workers' councils.
Only revolutionary elements within the working class will be part of the workers' state.
The workers' state is a state controlled by workers in their class interest, not a state controlled by the whole of the working class.

There are about thirty million workers in the UK alone. How do you imagine they will all directly control the state?

Workers' councils.

Jimmie Higgins

16th June 2013, 12:02

What I'm saying to you is quite simple really. You said that Marxists don't want to "increase the power of the state," yeah? That's what you said. You also said that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that. The trouble is, it's not misleading at all. Marx, you know, the one who makes up the Marx bit of Marxist said that the state should increase its power, taking for example the idea of nationalising industry...Increase the power of what state? A feudal one? Increase the power of what state for what purpose? An increase in what sort of power?

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 12:17

Through democracy. How else can they control their society whether it is in the form of the dotp, (a non 'state' anarchist territory) and/or communism?

But what does "through democracy" mean in a practical sense. You are just talking in platitudes and despite having asked you several times to explain yourself clearly you've still failed to do so.

I want you to explain to me how you imagine "all the workers" to "control the state" -- How (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/how?s=t), as in by what means, what manner etc etc. Just saying "through democracy" doesn't answer my question, which is about praxis (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/praxis?s=ts&ld=1133), not about concepts.

Yet you cannot understand more than two of my words.

Which is ironic, since you've failed to answer my question each of the five times I've asked you.

Did you read my post at all? If Marx uses the word state to mean the rule of a class ie the workers and is in favour of that but some conservative*over there uses Marx's words as supporting increasing Obama's power ie increasing the modern state's power then Mr Conservative is being misleading using Marx's own words regardless of whether or not the state they talk about is in the same covering of the word 'state' but it is in substance different. That is misleading. So would saying you're and anarchist so you want chaos and disorder or that you're a communist so you want totalitarianism. Same with state, communism, and anarchism.

I read what you said and what you said was nonsense, which is why I have questioned you about it. You claimed that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that Marxists wanted to increase the power of the state -- That is what you said! Now you are saying that it's the "substance" that we mislead people on...

If you want to engage in discussion try and have a clearer understanding of what it is you're trying to say instead of getting all shitty with people because they can't fathom what the hell you're talking about. If I have failed to understand you it's because you have failed to articulate yourself properly.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 12:19

Increase the power of what state? A feudal one? Increase the power of what state for what purpose? An increase in what sort of power?

We're talking about the Communist Manifesto, right? So presumably I'm talking about what you people call the "workers' state," which you allege is necessary to defeat the bourgeoisie. And I'm talking about the political/economic power of the state. What else would I be talking about?

This is Marxism 101, Jimmy. Get with it.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 12:20

Workers' councils.

Oh well, that's much clearer. :p

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 12:41

Workers' councils.
I doubt that Marx was a council communist.

Brutus

16th June 2013, 12:48

To answer TAT, the state will be controlled by the soviets, the delegates will receive the average wage of a skilled worker, and will be accountable and revocable.

Jimmie Higgins

16th June 2013, 13:07

We're talking about the Communist Manifesto, right?No. I thought this was about Marxism in general and Marx's own thoughts more specifically.

So presumably I'm talking about what you people call the "workers' state,"Are you? You're not sure?

which you allege is necessary to defeat the bourgeoisie.No, I think revolution in necissary to defeat capitalist power, I think a worker's state, is necissary for workers to dismantle capitalist relations and therefore class altogether.

And I'm talking about political/economic power.So you are opposed to workers having more political or economic power? But yes, marx did think that workers wielding economic and political power could transform society and achieve communism.

Worker CouncilsOh well, that's much clearer. :rolleyes:So you want to know the ins and outs of some future society?

Old Bolshie

16th June 2013, 13:15

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 13:18

To answer TAT, the state will be controlled by the soviets, the delegates will receive the average wage of a skilled worker, and will be accountable and revocable.

How do these delegates operate? Do they represent communities and make decisions as their elected representative, i.e. do the Soviets make decisions? What does accountable and revocable mean?

Blake's Baby

16th June 2013, 13:21

Not the entirety of the working class will make up the workers' state. First, there is a large subset of the working class that is apolitical and even some politically engaged elements will not find the time or will to participate in the workers' councils. Second, there are reactionary elements in the working class and fascist workers will not participate in the workers' councils...

Where does this idea come from? A couple of weeks ago I ended up in an online argument with someone who thinks they are a councilist who made the same argument. I'd never heard it until then.

They are workers' councils, not communists' councils. Of course fascists, conservatives, monarchists, liberals and social democrats will be involved in them. They are the organs of the working class, not the organs of the communists. I'm very surprised that you should be putting forward such a substitutionist notion. The communists cannot take power away from the working class. The liberation of the working class will be conquered by the working class - not by a communist fraction acting on behalf of the working class.

...
Only revolutionary elements within the working class will be part of the workers' state.
The workers' state is a state controlled by workers in their class interest, not a state controlled by the whole of the working class...

Leninism, and Leninism of the most degenerated sort.

...
Workers' councils.

You mean communists' councils.

I doubt that Marx was a council communist.

That's a bit of a non-sequiteur, as one doesn't have to be a council communist to see the workers' councils as the basis of the DotP. Unless you think Lenin, Trotksy and Rudolf Rocker were council communists too. 'All power to the soviets!', 'everything for the councils! Nothing above them!' etc.

Brutus

16th June 2013, 13:51

i.e. do the Soviets make decisions? What does accountable and revocable mean?
Yes, they do.
Accountable:subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.
Revocable: Able up be revoked/recalled.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 13:53

No. I thought this was about Marxism in general and Marx's own thoughts more specifically.

I suggest in future you don't butt into other people's conversations without understanding what is going on.

No, I think revolution in necissary to defeat capitalist power, I think a worker's state, is necissary for workers to dismantle capitalist relations and therefore class altogether.

So in other words defeat the bourgeoisie...

But yes, marx did think that workers wielding economic and political power could transform society and achieve communism.

A shame Lenin didn't feel the same way.

So you want to know the ins and outs of some future society

No, only how political and economic power is managed.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 13:54

Yes, they do.
Accountable:subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.
Revocable: Able up be revoked/recalled.

So the delegates are representatives who work on behalf of the workers and it is the Soviets that make decisions, not the workers themselves...That is literally the opposite of "all the workers control the state." How is this different from the political organisation of a bourgeois state, other than in name?

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 14:13

As you said in your first post Marxists interpret the state as tool of class oppression. A state without political character is a state without its oppressive nature and hence why we don't call it a state. This is part of the withering away of the state which happens during socialism.
Which just means it will remain a state, only marxists wouldn't call it a state.

This also opens the question of marxist notion of classes, if it's a proper one or not. And even if we do accept the marxist notion of classes (which I can do for the sake of argument) that again opens the question of whether does DotP nationalization abolishes class society as such or only a capitalist class society, that is- abolishes the capitalist society but establishes a new class society.

The centralization which you are referring to is part of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and not of socialism. Besides, it doesn't imply the exclusion of direct democracy since this political form must be part of any DOTP.
Direct democracy and centralization are contradictory. Democracy means no delegation of power, if power is delegated, that's just elective olygarchy not democracy.

RedMaterialist

16th June 2013, 14:57

It seems to me that what marxists call communism is in a fact a society with both a state and classes, as oppossed to the general description of communism being a stateless and classless system.

Marx, and particularly Engels, showed that a state is nothing more than the means for suppression of a class. After the socialist revolution, the proletarian state will also be used for suppression of a class, the class of capitalists. Once that class is suppressed and destroyed then the only class left will be the working class; and no other class will exist to be suppressed. Thus the state will have no reason to exist, the state will wither away and die.

The modern state takes the form of a bureaucracy. After the state dies the bureaucracy becomes only an "administration of things," instead of an administration for the suppress of people.

This is why the Soviet Union collapsed. After the capitalists (and small capitalists) were destroyed there was no class left to suppress; the state then collapsed, as Marx and Engels predicted.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 15:09

Once that class is suppressed and destroyed then the only class left will be the working class; and no other class will exist to be suppressed.Which brings us to the mentioned word distortion game marxists like to play- if there is a clear social stratification between the nomenklatura and the army of labor, there is simlply no intellectually honest way of calling such a society classless. A classless society is a society where the workers manage their own affairs (political and economical), and I'm pretty sure that Lenin dismissed calls for worker managment of their own affairs as anarchist and syndicalist deviation.

This is why the Soviet Union collapsed. After the capitalists (and small capitalists) were destroyed there was no class left to suppress; the state then collapsed, as Marx and Engels predicted.Please tell me your being ironic.

Old Bolshie

16th June 2013, 15:42

Which just means it will remain a state, only marxists wouldn't call it a state.

But even that administrative structure that you still consider to be a state will wither away as it becomes obsolete and unnecessary during communism.

This also opens the question of marxist notion of classes, if it's a proper one or not. And even if we do accept the marxist notion of classes (which I can do for the sake of argument) that again opens the question of whether does DotP nationalization abolishes class society as such or only a capitalist class society, that is- abolishes the capitalist society but establishes a new class society.The DOTP only exists as long as you still have capitalism. Once the bourgeoisie is completely overthrown you don't have more classes and the DOTP ends. Then you have a classless society.

Direct democracy and centralization are contradictory. Democracy means no delegation of power, if power is delegated, that's just elective olygarchy not democracy.And why centralization means delegation of power? You can have a centralized structure ruled through direct democracy.

RedMaterialist

16th June 2013, 15:53

Please tell me your being ironic.

No other theory makes sense. The SU went bankrupt? It had the 2nd highest GDP in the world, its debt was less than the U.S. It was spending too much on the military? Military Keynesian spending has been the main reason for the continuance of the western capitalist system. Ronald Reagan forced Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall?

The people lost interest in the state? That is another way of saying the state had finished the business of suppressing (imprisoning, murdering, torturing, disappearing) the remains of the capitalist class. No class suppression, no state.

Why did capitalism re-appear in Russia? The SU did not exist in a socialist world, but rather in a capitalist world. Once the SU collapsed there was nothing to stop capitalism from re-entering. Socialism in one country is not, as they say "sustainable."

This same issue still comes up on RevLeft and other places. The fact that people still have not come to a conclusion about why the SU collapsed is proof that the issue has not been resolved.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 15:56

But even that administrative structure that you still consider to be a state will wither away as it becomes obsolete and unnecessary during communism.
Can you explain how do you think to make party officials and state bureaucracts into angels that will, after nationalization of economy in the name of the proletariat, say- "our work here is done, we will step down, and not become a new ruling class over the working people".

Then you have a classless society.
Only if the society is direcly democratic.

And why centralization means delegation of power? You can have a centralized structure ruled through direct democracy.
Being that AFAIK those two concepts are contradictory, please do explain who can a centralized structure be directly democratic.

Why did capitalism re-appear in Russia?
Because it never left.

helot

16th June 2013, 16:10

Being that AFAIK those two concepts are contradictory, please do explain who can a centralized structure be directly democratic.

A centralised structure can use direct democracy at its centre. You can run a corporation like this however the workers would be denied decision-making.

Centralisation is of course the process where the activities of an organisation, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are concentrated into the hands of a particular group within the organisation.

Old Bolshie

16th June 2013, 16:22

Can you explain how do you think to make party officials and state bureaucracts into angels that will, after nationalization of economy in the name of the proletariat, say- "our work here is done, we will step down, and not become a new ruling class over the working people".

Since the sate is stripped from its repressive functions how will those bureaucrats enforce they ruling over the working people?

Remember that the state is no longer political so it doesn't makes sense to talk about party officials.

Only if the society is direcly democratic.

I never said otherwise.

Being that AFAIK those two concepts are contradictory, please do explain who can a centralized structure be directly democratic.

By electing the members of that structure through direct democracy.

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 16:25

About the people telling me I'm confusing DotP with communism- I am only if Engels is.

DotP, as it's name implies, means that proletariat still exists implying that the bourgeoisie also still exists, and that the state, in the name of the proletariat, "controls" the capitalists. When the state expropriates the captialist property and becomes the owner of all means of production and life, the bourgeoisie disappears, and thus the proletariat, too. In that environvent, Engels says- "public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society."

Nope.

The expropriation of the means of production does not abolish the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, at all. While the bourgeoisie are dispossessed, they remain as a class of people who have an immediate interest in restoring the capitalist State and their own property rights. So they remain as a political force in society. Moreover, the capitalist relations of production are still in place. The mode of production hasn't been revolutionised. People still go to factories, offices and farms, and labour to produce commodities, which are traded in a market. It is only when these relations are abolished - which cannot be done overnight, nor is in anyway equivalent to the political takeover of the State - that classes are abolished, and, consequently, that the State can disappear or "wither out".

Basically, what the state really is would still exist- the legislative government, the heads of state and government and many ministries, the courts and tribunals, various types of police including secret police, the army, and a bureaucratic body, enormous in size because of the nationalization of economy, would all continue to exist, but would only have 'administrative' functions of running the society. That not only is a state, but is a monster state, with increaced size and power, and I don't see the point in playing the game of intellectual distortion and refusing to call it a state.

This is, sorry, absurd.

Heads of State, parliaments, ministries, courts, tribunals, police, army, State bureaucracy - all those are political bodies, that cannot be reduced to administrative functions. They exist to control people, not things.

The only way that such an apparatus can be classless is if that apparatus itself is completely decetralized and directly democratic, but it would seem that Marxists don't want that being that Marx in his manifesto and later Lenin clearly call for centralization.

Well, let's not a fetish of centralisation or decentralisation. Lest we do like the joke says the Portuguese Army did - decentralised command, so that each soldier could decide exactly what to do in any situation, but centralised the weaponry and ammunition, so that all weapons were locked and only the supreme general had they key that opened the arsenal. So when Portugal was invaded, all soldiers gave orders who nobody obey, but nobody had even a pistol to fight the invaders, since the supreme general could not be found to unlock weapons and ammo...

The process of decision must be completely decentralised and democratic, yes. This doesn't mean each company should be broken into smaller units; the process of production should remain as centralised as it was under capitalist rule, and quite certainly be further centralised as to prevent "anarchy" in production.

I don't see that as anything other then changing the private capitalist boss for the nomenklatura boss, certainly not any sort of emancipation of labor, which socialism (and communism) is supposed to be; and calling the rule of state officials over the working people 'classless' is, IMO, nothing but a travesty.

You evidently only see what you want to see, and what you are doing here is quite foolish - to attempt to understand reality not by an examination of it, but through manipulation of words and concepts. Evidently a State that is headed by a nomenklatura is a State, and it consequently cannot be the political expression of a communist society. A communist society cannot have a State at all. It can, and will obviously have, administratimave bodies that manage production and distribution of goods, but not political bodies that control people. Evidently, it can be discussed if a nomenklatura State can be part of the transition between capitalism and communism, a subject on which Marxists will quite certainly be divided - but as long as there is a State, there is no communism at all.

And, of course... there is no such thing as "Marxist communism" as a distinct mode of production or social organisation. Communism is the absence of social classes, private property, and State; there aren't different flavours of communism available to different political tendencies...

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 16:39

After the capitalists (and small capitalists) were destroyed there was no class left to suppress; the state then collapsed, as Marx and Engels predicted.

I have read few things more absurd than this.

The Soviet State didn't wither away; it remained an oppressive structure to its last day, when it was toppled and replaced by another similarly oppressive structure.

Luís Henrique

Fourth Internationalist

16th June 2013, 16:47

But what does "through democracy" mean in a practical sense. You are just talking in platitudes and despite having asked you several times to explain yourself clearly you've still failed to do so.

I'm sorry I don't know the specific political system of a theoretical future workers' state, I guess.

I want you to explain to me how you imagine "all the workers" to "control the state" -- How (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/how?s=t), as in by what means, what manner etc etc. Just saying "through democracy" doesn't answer my question, which is about praxis (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/praxis?s=ts&ld=1133), not about concepts.

I don't know the future. Sorry about that.*

Which is ironic, since you've failed to answer my question each of the five times I've asked you.

Again, sorry I can't give details about the future. You want to know how the future dictatorship of the proletariat will be set up - I cannot answer that in a specific way.

I read what you said and what you said was nonsense, which is why I have questioned you about it. You claimed that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that Marxists wanted to increase the power of the state -- That is what you said! Now you are saying that it's the "substance" that we mislead people on...

It is misleading because the state as in the rule of the working class is different than the state as in a small centralized group of rulers. Did you read my analogy regarding anarchism and communism? If those don't make sense, what about it is confusing you?

If you want to engage in discussion try and have a clearer understanding of what it is you're trying to say instead of getting all shitty with people because they can't fathom what the hell you're talking about. If I have failed to understand you it's because you have failed to articulate yourself properly.

So it's my fault that you don't understand me?*

Lucretia

16th June 2013, 17:21

Lenin, following Marx, discussed the necessity of a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" in the lower stage of communism, albeit a state that had already dramatically withered and was still in the process of withering away entirely. This is because, as Marx said in 1875, "Bourgeois law ... is inevitable in the first phase of communist society" in order to oversee an exchange of equivalents (the frequently misunderstood labor voucher system of distributing products according to concrete labor contribution).

Pashukanis, in his 1924 book General Theory of Law and Marxism, nicely elaborates on this rationale, and connects to the existence of a socialist state. It is really worth quoting at length:

Marx stresses that despite the radical changes in content and form, “the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities: a definite amount of labour in one form is exchanged for the same amount of labour in another form”. To the extent that the social relationships of the individual producer continue to preserve the form of equivalent exchange, so too they continue to preserve the form of law. “By its very nature, law is merely the application of an equal scale.” But this ignores inherent differences in individual ability, and therefore “by its content this law, like every law, is a law of inequality”. Marx says nothing about the necessity of state power which would forcefully ensure the fulfilment of these norms of “unequal” law preserving its “bourgeois limitations”, but this is necessarily understood. [9] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/1924/law/intro.htm#n9) Once the form of the equivalent relationship exists, this means that the form of law exists, that the form of public, i.e. state authority exists, which therefore remains for a period even when classes no longer exist. The complete withering away of state and law will be accomplished, in Marx’s opinion, only when “labour has ceased to be a means of life and has become life’s prime want”, when the productive forces have expanded with the all-round development of the individual, when everyone labours voluntarily in accordance with his own abilities, or, as Lenin says, “when the individual does not calculate with the heartlessness of a Shylock whether he has worked half an hour longer than anyone else”, in a word, when the form of equivalent relations will be finally overcome. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/1924/law/intro.htm)

I think this quote nicely points to something many Marxists, even Trotskyists, fail to understand: that the state isn't just about class suppression. Is is the material and phenomenal expression of a system of reified and alienated relations between men and nature, and thus also between men (and women) themselves. The process of transitioning to a fully communist society from the lower stage of communism (socialism), of fully eliminating alienation in institutionalized social relationships, takes place after the material basis of alienation (class, commodity production, value) has already been eliminated, when all that remains to be overcome is the structuring of human personalities and culture which had theretofore been shaped by (but were not reducible to) conditions of alienation and egoism and material scarcity. So technically, I would say that, no, it is not true that there is going to be NO state under communism's earliest stages. But whatever state exists sure as hell isn't going to be anything like the highly bureaucratized apparatuses that existed in what Marxist-Leninists call actual existing socialism (also wrongly conflating this with a dictatorship of the proletariat).

RedMaterialist

16th June 2013, 17:59

I have read few things more absurd than this.

The Soviet State didn't wither away; it remained an oppressive structure to its last day, when it was toppled and replaced by another similarly oppressive structure.

Luís Henrique

So, it didn't collapse? It was overthrown by the massive tank and infantry forces of the brilliant strategist Yeltsin?

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 18:32

So, it didn't collapse? It was overthrown by the massive tank and infantry forces of the brilliant strategist Yeltsin?

It collapsed under the weight of its utter incompetence, not under the weight of its excessive success. And it didn't wither away in any meaningful sence.

The brutality of the regime is proof enough that what was going on, until its last day, was good old class struggle - and consequently, that it was not reigning upon a classless society.

Luís Henrique

Blake's Baby

16th June 2013, 19:32

One thing that hasn't, as far as I can see, been mentioned in all this 'ah but Marx wanted to concentrate power in the state!' business was that this was the recommendation that Marx and Engels made in 1847. At that point, capitalism was still very much under-developed compared to (for example) 1913 or 2013. Yes, in 1847 the measures that Marx and engels suggested would have been useful for the development of the productive forces. But (and obviously I can't speak for anyone else, though I know for certain that the SPGB, the main Left Communist organisations, indeed Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and Luxemburg, all agree with the following assessment): capitalism has developed a lot since 1847. In the 1870s, Marx and Engels began to say that the '10 planks' were outdated - precisely because capitalism had already fulfilled them. It wasn't necessary for the workers' power to centralise and develop the economy - capitalism had by then managed to do that without any help from the revolutionary workers.

In short, this has been a dead question for the best part of 130 years.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 19:32

Since the sate is stripped from its repressive functions how will those bureaucrats enforce they ruling over the working people?

Remember that the state is no longer political so it doesn't makes sense to talk about party officials.
We have capitalism, then DotP happens, implying the state is powerful enough to repress reactionaries. Then nationalization happens, thereby abolishing capitalism, and the state manages to repress all the counter-revolution. Again- the state is powerful enough to repress all the capitalists, monarchists, conservatives, nationalists, fascists and all other reactionaries- meaning it represents the most powerful force aroud (otherwise it could not defeat the reactionary militias). And being that the state nationalized the economy it thereby increaced and strengthed itself to the maximum. The group of people who have run the state and the bureacracy that made it, all trought the DotP and the nationalization- what will happen to them? Are they going to angelically say "our job here is done, now we are going to go and work in the factories and plow the fields", or are they more likely to think "wait, why should we do anything? we have all the power. we'll just boss the workers around and live off their labor" and then act on such thinking.

By electing the members of that structure through direct democracy.You seem to misunderstand what direct democracy means. In direct democracy people don't elect other people, but the directly elect policies, that's why it's called direct democracy, it is the people that rule- there are no rulers that rule over the people, elected or not.

The expropriation of the means of production does not abolish the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, at all. While the bourgeoisie are dispossessed, they remain as a class of people who have an immediate interest in restoring the capitalist State and their own property rights. So they remain as a political force in society. Moreover, the capitalist relations of production are still in place. The mode of production hasn't been revolutionised. People still go to factories, offices and farms, and labour to produce commodities, which are traded in a market. It is only when these relations are abolished - which cannot be done overnight, nor is in anyway equivalent to the political takeover of the State - that classes are abolished,
When the state nationalizes the entire economy, the capitalists don't disapear, but when the state that has nationalized the economy starts running it not as a market, but as a planned economy, then they do disappear? I don't see the connection. What, when they lose all their property they're like "we're gonna fight and take it back", but when the state implements economic planning, they get with despair and comit suicide, what?

This is, sorry, absurd.

Heads of State, parliaments, ministries, courts, tribunals, police, army, State bureaucracy - all those are political bodies, that cannot be reduced to administrative functions. They exist to control people, not things.Exactly my point. Marxists seem to want to control people- not to emancipate the workers, but to rule them themselves.

Well, let's not a fetish of centralisation or decentralisation. Lest we do like the joke says the Portuguese Army did - decentralised command, so that each soldier could decide exactly what to do in any situation, but centralised the weaponry and ammunition, so that all weapons were locked and only the supreme general had they key that opened the arsenal. So when Portugal was invaded, all soldiers gave orders who nobody obey, but nobody had even a pistol to fight the invaders, since the supreme general could not be found to unlock weapons and ammo...That story is a joke, but not a "ha-ha" joke. The Black Army and the CNT-FAI militia are good examples of decentralized armies.

The process of decision must be completely decentralised and democratic, yes. This doesn't mean each company should be broken into smaller units; the process of production should remain as centralised as it was under capitalist rule, and quite certainly be further centralised as to prevent "anarchy" in production.
This is nonsensical, please explain how can a same organization of people be both centralized and decentralized?

Evidently a State that is headed by a nomenklatura is a State, and it consequently cannot be the political expression of a communist society. A communist society cannot have a State at all.
That's what I'm talking about. And Marxists (-Leninists) seem to advocate a statist economy, only they don't call the state a 'state'.

It can, and will obviously have, administratimave bodies that manage production and distribution of goods, but not political bodies that control people.You do realize that the only way that production can happen is if people do it? The only way for someone not doing the actual production to contol it would be to contol the one that does produce.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 20:02

I'm sorry I don't know the specific political system of a theoretical future workers' state, I guess.

So if you don't know how it is going to work, how do you know that it will be controlled by all workers and it will be managed through direct democracy? You're just guessing?

I don't know the future. Sorry about that.*

But you know the future enough to claim that "all workers" will control the state and it will be managed through democracy, yet you don't know the future enough to be able to explain what this actually means...?

Again, sorry I can't give details about the future.

Actually what you're saying is that you can't give all the details, since you've already claimed several things about the future.

You want to know how the future dictatorship of the proletariat will be set up - I cannot answer that in a specific way.

Why not? If you cannot explain to me how you think the state should be managed or how democracy should operate then you simply don't know what you're talking about.

It is misleading because the state as in the rule of the working class is different than the state as in a small centralized group of rulers. Did you read my analogy regarding anarchism and communism? If those don't make sense, what about it is confusing you?

What is confusing me is that you said one thing and have now tried to qualify that by claiming we are talking about something else. We are not talking about the substance of the state, we are talking about whether Marxists want to increase the power of the state or not.

So it's my fault that you don't understand me?*

Yes.

Old Bolshie

16th June 2013, 20:08

We have capitalism, then DotP happens, implying the state is powerful enough to repress reactionaries. Then nationalization happens, thereby abolishing capitalism, and the state manages to repress all the counter-revolution. Again- the state is powerful enough to repress all the capitalists, monarchists, conservatives, nationalists, fascists and all other reactionaries- meaning it represents the most powerful force aroud (otherwise it could not defeat the reactionary militias). And being that the state nationalized the economy it thereby increaced and strengthed itself to the maximum. The group of people who have run the state and the bureacracy that made it, all trought the DotP and the nationalization- what will happen to them? Are they going to angelically say "our job here is done, now we are going to go and work in the factories and plow the fields", or are they more likely to think "wait, why should we do anything? we have all the power. we'll just boss the workers around and live off their labor" and then act on such thinking.

You base your question on a false premise. One of the first tasks of the working class is to smash the bourgeois state and its bureaucracy which is inherently bourgeois. If this isn't done what will happen is a new Soviet Union where the bureaucracy killed the revolution. In a proletarian state you don't have bureaucrats.
The group of people who have run the state are people subjected to the workers scrutiny and are recallable at any moment. As their functions within the state becomes useless those posts are extinguished.

You seem to misunderstand what direct democracy means. In direct democracy people don't elect other people, but the directly elect policies, that's why it's called direct democracy, it is the people that rule- there are no rulers that rule over the people, elected or not.

No, I'm not misunderstanding what it means. You are the one thinking that electing people is only part of the representative democracy. The Paris Commune practiced direct democracy through their councils where delegates where elected and subjected to immediately recall.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 20:11

One of the first tasks of the working class is to smash the bourgeois state and its bureaucracy which is inherently bourgeois.
So, you're an anarchist?

The Paris Commune practiced direct democracy through their councils where delegates where elected and subjected to immediately recall.
If people are not in control directly, but through someone, how is it direct?

Lucretia

16th June 2013, 20:19

So, you're an anarchist?

If people are not in control directly, but through someone, how is it direct?

Advocating the smashing of the bourgeois state doesn't make one anarchist. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky all advocated smashing the bourgeois state and replacing it with a radically different form of state, a workers' state. It seems, from various discussions I have had on and off the forum, that many anarchists seem to misunderstand Lenin's position as advocating that we just take control over the existing bourgeois state, and that therefore advocating the smashing of the bourgeois state is a uniquely anarchist position. It's not.

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 20:27

You seem to misunderstand what direct democracy means. In direct democracy people don't elect other people, but the directly elect policies, that's why it's called direct democracy, it is the people that rule- there are no rulers that rule over the people, elected or not.

Yeah, and they may elect people to perform precise tasks (I propose Sotionov checks whether the electric system is running correctly today, those in favour please raise their hands...)

When the state nationalizes the entire economy, the capitalists don't disapear, but when the state that has nationalized the economy starts running it not as a market, but as a planned economy, then they do disappear?

Nope. When the productive relations are revolutionised (when the production is dictated by social needs not by accumulation, when the division between intellectual and manual labor is abolished, when the sexual division of labour withers away, when money is abolished, etc.), the possibility of classes is abolished. It is not a mere matter of property of means of production.

I don't see the connection. What, when they lose all their property they're like "we're gonna fight and take it back", but when the state implements economic planning, they get with despair and comit suicide, what?

As long as the productive units they used to own persist as recognisable entities, they will attempt to regain control of them, yes. It is going to be difficult for them to demand property rights over a automobile factory that has been superceeded by a completely different workplace because people have decided that automobiles are no longer going to be produced, though.

Exactly my point. Marxists seem to want to control people- not to emancipate the workers, but to rule them themselves.

Well. What we, Marxists, mean by "communism" is a society where people are not controlled at all, so it doesn't seem to follow.

That story is a joke, but not a "ha-ha" joke. The Black Army and the CNT-FAI militia are good examples of decentralized armies.

Pay attention, that is not the point.

This is nonsensical, please explain how can a same organization of people be both centralized and decentralized?

There are many different things that can be "centralised" or "decentralised". We don't need 20,000 small factories producing basically the same product; it is better to have a smaller number of bigger productive units ("centralisation", if you so wish); it doesn't make sence to have all people in the factory working fixed labour shifts, it is preferable to have flexible labour hours ("decentralisation" in your terms). One thing is completely independent from the other (you may have small factories with rigid shifts, you may have big factories with flexible working hours - indeed, with more workers, it may be easier to avoid rigid shifts). And these are merely two aspects of productive activity; there are many others, and centralisation in one of them does not necessarily imply centralisation on others.

"Centralisation" isn't a metaphysical principle, it is an administrative expedient.

That's what I'm talking about. And Marxists (-Leninists) seem to advocate a statist economy, only they don't call the state a 'state'.

Marxists advocate a stateless society (and indeed the abolition of "economy" altogether).

You do realize that the only way that production can happen is if people do it? The only way for someone not doing the actual production to contol it would be to contol the one that does produce.

We assemble together and decide who is going to do what. What is the problem? We assemble together and decide that this month John is the one verifying whether the products match our quality standards, that Mary is the one checking if the fire extinctors are functioning, that Paul is the one in charge of writing to the providers of our raw materials and demanding new deliveries. What is the problem? And if we realise that, for instance, writing to the providers is a task that demands more than a person, what is the problem of having Paul, Jane, Susan, Eberhard, and Laetitia doing it collectively, and even calling such a group "Raw Materials Committee"?

Luís Henrique

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 20:43

Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky all advocated smashing the bourgeois state and replacing it with a radically different form of state, a workers' state.
To mention a quote by Trocky:
Every political party deserving of the name aims at seizing governmental power and thus putting the state at the service of the class whose interests it represents.

And a few by Engels:
the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the State and with its aid stamp out the resistance of the Capitalist class and re-organise society

the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for use, is that of the State.

"With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the proletariat.

It is clear that what is in question here is the current burgeous state, and not some new "radically different" state.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 20:51

We assemble together and decide who is going to do what. What is the problem? We assemble together and decide that this month John is the one verifying whether the products match our quality standards, that Mary is the one checking if the fire extinctors are functioning, that Paul is the one in charge of writing to the providers of our raw materials and demanding new deliveries. What is the problem? And if we realise that, for instance, writing to the providers is a task that demands more than a person, what is the problem of having Paul, Jane, Susan, Eberhard, and Laetitia doing it collectively, and even calling such a group "Raw Materials Committee"?

This is how you envision a workers' state?

Fourth Internationalist

16th June 2013, 20:52

So if you don't know how it is going to work, how do you know that it will be controlled by all workers and it will be managed through direct democracy? You're just guessing

A dotp has to be run democratically otherwise it cannot be the dotp. I don't know specifically how it will be run, probably in a similar way a 'non state' anarchist territory would be.

But you know the future enough to claim that "all workers" will control the state and it will be managed through democracy, yet you don't know the future enough to be able to explain what this actually means...?

It has to be controlled by all workers otherwise it cannot be and is not a dotp by definition but just state capitalist.

Actually what you're saying is that you can't give all the details, since you've already claimed several things about the future.

I can't give details for the future, correct. I am not magical. But the dotp is by definition controlled by the working class as whole, therefore of it isn't it is not a dotp.

Why not? If you cannot explain to me how you think the state should be managed or how democracy should operate then you simply don't know what you're talking about.

How I think it should be managed (opinion) and how something will work (facts about the future) are two different things. You asked for the latter which no one can know.

What is confusing me is that you said one thing and have now tried to qualify that by claiming we are talking about something else. We are not talking about the substance of the state, we are talking about whether Marxists want to increase the power of the state or not.

They do in the sense that they want to increase the power of the working class as a ruling class, but not in the sense that they want to increase the power of a minority ruling over the majority. That is all I have been saying. The substance of what constitutes a state, yes, does matter. A fascist state, a liberal state, and a workers' state ie the dotp are all very different and Marx did not want to empower any but the latter to empower the working class.

Yes.

No.

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 20:53

Yeah, and they may elect people to perform precise tasks (I propose Sotionov checks whether the electric system is running correctly today, those in favour please raise their hands...)
They may appoint people to perform precise task, but they cannot elect people to decide on policies or for that matter to elect people to decide on appointing people to tasks, if they were to elect someone to either of those positions- that stops being a direct democracy and becomes an elective olygarchy.

When the productive relations are revolutionised (when the production is dictated by social needs not by accumulation, when the division between intellectual and manual labor is abolished, when the sexual division of labour withers away, when money is abolished, etc.), the possibility of classes is abolished. It is not a mere matter of property of means of production.And centralism/ hierarchy is ok, it doesn't have to be abolished in order to establish a classless society?

Well. What we, Marxists, mean by "communism" is a society where people are not controlled at all, so it doesn't seem to follow.Then I'm okay with that, but I'm suspicious about some passages by Marx, Engels and Lenin that seem to say otherwise.

What is the problem?The problem is answering the question of how you get from a hierarchical party seizing power of a hierarchical state and nationalizing the economy to a society where the workig people are not controlled by a set of people superior to them?

Tim Cornelis

16th June 2013, 21:02

Here's how I see the workers' state:
A workers' state would be an array of workers' associations that administer the economic and political sphere. These workers' associations would administer political and economic life through participatory democracy via workers' councils. Each production unit would have its workers' council, each workplace would have its workers' council, each industry would have its workers' council and more importantly each locality would have its workers' council -- these operate in the political sphere, for clarity let's call these soviets. Each workplace elects a deputy to an industrial workers' council to coordinate activities within that industry. Soviets, however, would be the most important workers' organ as they consist of workers and their deputies from all sectors. This, to prevent the arising of sectional interests over class interests. This workers' state still possesses some coercive features arising out of transitional problems (for example it may tax to generate income to the soviets). These transitional problems arise out of workers wielding power for the first time and the chaotic context in which it occurs, they are entirely new to this self-managing aspect, and hierarchy exists to an extent because the structure of accountability from below has not matured yet. These take time to mature, but in the meanwhile will persist.
In addition, the workers' state would command over a workers' militia. This workers' militia arises out of class antagonisms, not transitional problems.
As the capitalist counter-revolutionaries are beaten, the workers' militia becomes obsolete and disappears. And as the soviets mature the transitional problems disappear, it would not longer tax as money has abolished. Thus, in essence the same system remains as the workers' state, but not it's stripped of its coercive features. In other words, the state has withered away.

We have capitalism, then DotP happens, implying the state is powerful enough to repress reactionaries. Then nationalization happens, thereby abolishing capitalism, and the state manages to repress all the counter-revolution. Again- the state is powerful enough to repress all the capitalists, monarchists, conservatives, nationalists, fascists and all other reactionaries- meaning it represents the most powerful force aroud (otherwise it could not defeat the reactionary militias). And being that the state nationalized the economy it thereby increaced and strengthed itself to the maximum. The group of people who have run the state and the bureacracy that made it, all trought the DotP and the nationalization- what will happen to them? Are they going to angelically say "our job here is done, now we are going to go and work in the factories and plow the fields", or are they more likely to think "wait, why should we do anything? we have all the power. we'll just boss the workers around and live off their labor" and then act on such thinking.

You seem to think of the state as something separate from the workers, ruling it from above. The workers' state, however, is a semi-state. It has the same structure as a stateless society, but has some coercive features.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 21:04

You seem to think of the state as something separate from the workers, ruling it from above.

But unless political authority is centralised and managed by representatives who make decisions for workers as representatives they are being ruled from above.

This kind of organisation is not structurally different to that of the bourgeois state and relies on maintaining the same capitalist social relationships to make it function.

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 21:11

To mention a quote by Trocky:

[...]

And a few by Engels:

[...]

It is clear that what is in question here is the current burgeous state, and not some new "radically different" state.

So, since you are addressing "Marxists", let's see some quotes by Marx:

On the dawn of March 18, Paris arose to the thunder-burst of “Vive la Commune!” What is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?

“The proletarians of Paris,” said the Central Committee in its manifesto of March 18, “amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs.... They have understood that it is their imperious duty, and their absolute right, to render themselves masters of their own destinies, by seizing upon the governmental power.”

But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.

The direct antithesis to the empire was the Commune. The cry of “social republic,” with which the February Revolution was ushered in by the Paris proletariat, did but express a vague aspiration after a republic that was not only to supercede the monarchical form of class rule, but class rule itself. The Commune was the positive form of that republic.

While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-eminence over society itself, and restored to the responsible agents of society. Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. And it is well-known that companies, like individuals, in matters of real business generally know how to put the right man in the right place, and, if they for once make a mistake, to redress it promptly. On the other hand, nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the Commune than to supercede universal suffrage by hierarchical investiture.

As you may see, it is not about merely taking the bourgeois State and using it for different purposes (if so, a merely parliamentary strategy would do the trick). A new form of State is necessary to abolish class domination, because the old one is only appropriate to maintain it.

Luís Henrique

Sotionov

16th June 2013, 21:14

You seem to think of the state as something separate from the workers, ruling it from above. The workers' state, however, is a semi-state. It has the same structure as a stateless society, but has some coercive features.
And I personally support such a state (not precisely the one you described above with the state 'commanding' a militia, but something like this in this quote- yes), but I just think that we who do should therefore reject Lenin and his successors, and also to a large extent Marx and Engels, because it seems they didn't advocate a workers' state.

Tim Cornelis

16th June 2013, 21:15

But unless political authority is centralised and managed by representatives who make decisions for workers as representatives they are being ruled from above.

This kind of organisation is not structurally different to that of the bourgeois state and relies on maintaining the same capitalist social relationships to make it function.

I don't understand your comment. A state based on workers' associations that are consist of self-governing workers having coercive features (against the bourgeoisie, but also against itself, e.g. taxation). This, while coercive (and in that sense being "ruled"), does not resemble the bourgeois state structure at all.

Lucretia

16th June 2013, 21:15

To mention a quote by Trocky:
Every political party deserving of the name aims at seizing governmental power and thus putting the state at the service of the class whose interests it represents.

And a few by Engels:
the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the State and with its aid stamp out the resistance of the Capitalist class and re-organise society

the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for use, is that of the State.

"With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the proletariat.

It is clear that what is in question here is the current burgeous state, and not some new "radically different" state.

Not only is it not clear that they are talking about the bourgeois state, you there is evidence in the texts you quote from that run directly against your reading.

Let's take the first quote, and view the remarks that came before it, since they allow us to get a clearer understanding of what Engels was conveying:

"Marx and I, ever since 1845, have held the view that one of the final results of the future proletarian revolution will be the gradual dissolution and ultimate disappearance of that political organisation called the State [NOTE: not the bourgeois state specifically, but state power generally]; an organisation the main object of which has ever been to secure, by armed force, the economical subjection of the working majority to the wealthy minority. With the disappearance of a wealthy minority the necessity for an armed repressive State-force disappears also. At the same time we have always held, that in order to arrive at this and the other, far more important ends of the social revolution of the future, the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the State [NOTE: again, not referring to the bourgeois state concretely, but in keeping with his earlier mentioning of "the state," he is referring to the working class taking STATE POWER in a more abstract sense] and with its aid stamp out the resistance of the Capitalist class and re-organise society. This is stated already in the Communist Manifesto of 1847, end of Chapter II.

"The Anarchists reverse the matter. They say, that the Proletarian revolution has to begin by abolishing the political organisation of the State [NOTE: He is referring here not to abolishing the bourgeois state, but state power generally]. But after the victory of the Proletariat, the only organisation the victorious working class finds readymade for use, is that of the State. [NOTE: Engels, once more, is using state in a more general sense to refer to concentrated political power, and the importance of not renouncing it, not the bourgeois form of political power emanating from class exploitation. The thing that is 'readymade' is NOT the bourgeois state, but the concentrated force the proletariat has created in achieving hegemony over the bourgeoisie.] It may require adaptation to the new functions. [NOTE: In other words, political power wielded by the proletariat would have to be tailored to suit the needs of the proletariat, not the needs of the exploitation of labor, so the nature of state power would have to change to suit those needs.] But to destroy that at such a moment, would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious working class can exert its newly conquered power, keep down its capitalist enemies and carry out that economical revolution of society, without which the whole victory must end in a defeat and in a massacre of the working class like that after the Paris Commune."

Your other quotes similarly do not at all lead to the conclusion you try to read into them. Engels says: "With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the proletariat." And by this he is talking about the form of democratic elections, which will be "inherited" by the proletariat in its new state, but not without first destroying the content of that form: the bourgeois system in which it is situated. This is similar to another statement Engels made wherein he talks about state power (not the BOURGEOIS state) being “at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible."

The Trotsky quote is just a brief recapitulation of the same point Engels was making: workers seize political power, NOT THE BOURGEOIS STATE.

You confuse the talk of "inheriting the state" and "inheriting political power" and "finding political power ready made" and so on with the specific bourgeois form of state which is distinguished by how political power is created and enforced. A bourgeois state derives power from a tiny number of property possessors exploiting the vast majority of the population. A proletarian state derives power from the support of a revolutionary proletarian community. Both are forms of state power and they both emanate from the SAME class struggle (workers vs bourgeoisie), with one form of state corresponding to the bourgeoisie holding the upper hand, and the other corresponding to the workers exercising economic hegemony. This is why it DOES make sense to talk about inheritance, even though the forms of state are not just different but opposed. Ultimately, when M&E talk about "forms of state," they -- the materialists that they are -- are talking specifically about the form in which political power is related to control over the means of production. The working class, by taking possession of the means of production, will necessarily have to "lop off at once" the aspects of political power that were appropriate to the bourgeois state, and not appropriate for the proletarian state. And in so doing, they are creating a different form of state. I do understand that Engels often talks about "democratic republics" being a "form," but the fact that class is not mentioned at all here should clue you in that he's not talking about a form of state per se, but an organizational form (e.g., formal procedures, etc.) that characterizes a government, whatever its class basis.

It is important to emphasize the fact that M, E, and L all agree on the importance of smashing the bourgeois state, because their agreement represents a rejection of the Kautskyan and Bernsteinian view that the bourgeois state can somehow be conquered from within, using its own institutions, its very form maintained up until the point when it is conquered. This suggests that workers will acquire power by using bourgeois elections and other instruments that, while they might formally be proletarian, are substantively used by the existing ruling class to entrench its own authority. These forms are found ready-made, but they are tied in terms of content to the ruling class. This is why they must be assailed from newly created proletarian institutions designed to secure workers' democratic control over the means of production, without respect to what an existing bourgeois constitution says about property rights and freedom of speech and the like. When the form of democratic republicanism is given a different class basis, it becomes a different form of state altogether.

I don't know what it is with the sheer number of times I have had to respond to really poor misinterpretations of the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin on this forum. It's like people go to these anarchists websites that I have come across from time to time that have a laundry list of out-of-context and unexplained quotes to prove how vicious and anti-democratic M, E, and L were, for the purpose of trolling for delightful little cherries they can paste here on the forum with as minimal effort as possible.

Tim Cornelis

16th June 2013, 21:23

And I personally support such a state (not precisely the one you described above with the state 'commanding' a militia, but something like this in this quote- yes),

Why not? The workers' militias should be accountable to the workers' councils to keep it under their control, to prevent aggression against workers. The militiamen ought to elect their commanders and workers ought to elect representatives to a Civil-Military Coordination Council which needs to ensure that military strategy does not aggress against the workers. If I recall correctly, anarchists had a similar system in the Spanish revolution -- or the Friends of Durrutti advocated such, either of those.

but I just think that we who do should therefore reject Lenin and his successors, and also to a large extent Marx and Engels, because it seems they didn't advocate a workers' state.

Lenin is more dubious, with remarks suggesting the vanguard control the workers' state. But ultimately it doesn't really matter what Marx, Engels, and Leninist think, I think. What matters is that we need self-emancipation and thus need self-managed workers' associations to control society during and after the revolution, but during the insurrectionary aspect of the revolution the workers' associations will have coercive features -- whether we like it or not (I don't). And this cannot be called stateless just yet, nor can it be called a conventional state as it is self-managed and decentralised (controlled from below) -- so it's a semi-state, a workers' state.

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 21:24

I don't understand your comment. A state based on workers' associations that are consist of self-governing workers having coercive features (against the bourgeoisie, but also against itself, e.g. taxation). This, while coercive (and in that sense being "ruled"), does not resemble the bourgeois state structure at all.

What I am saying is that so far the definition of what you are describing is that workers elect delegates who manage political authority on behalf of workers through a representative, centralised model of administration/governance.

This hierarchical, centralised authority is indicative of a bourgeois state and capitalist social relations, none of which are structures that can create conditions for a transition to communism.

Perhaps we're not talking at cross purposes, but unless this coercive force is decentralised and authority is managed directly by workers outwards, rather than representatively then we are in disagreement.

And by "decentralised" I mean federated, and by "directly" I mean decisions are made at a local level mandated to delegates, who simply relay the parameters of that mandate to a collective of delegates who then negotiate an overall decision based on the mandates of their locale. A decision that is then ratified by the locale. The delegate never has the power to make decisions, they are simply a function.

LuÃs Henrique

16th June 2013, 22:44

This is how you envision a workers' state?

No. That's how I envision administration of production in a socialist society.

Luís Henrique

The Feral Underclass

16th June 2013, 22:50

No. That's how I envision administration of production in a socialist society.

Luís Henrique

Post-workers' state?

Old Bolshie

17th June 2013, 01:35

So, you're an anarchist?

Not really. You already have some quotes from Marx and Engels highlighting the necessity of smashing the bourgeois state. Lenin backs firmly this position in The State and Revolution.

If people are not in control directly, but through someone, how is it direct?
Because Direct democracy is based on delegation not representation. The crucial difference between delegation and representation is that delegates are only elected to implement specific decisions. Delegates do not have the right to change a decision previously made by an assembly of people. Delegates (unlike representatives) can be immediately recalled and dismissed from their mandate if they don't carry out the specific function allotted to them.

Jimmie Higgins

17th June 2013, 09:32

I suggest in future you don't butt into other people's conversations without understanding what is going on.This discussion began with a general question about "marxist communism" not about "the communist manifesto". You would rather make it be about the manifesto because then you can anarcarnistically claim that Marx was for increasing nationalization in the sense of increasing "the state" in abstract. But Marx and Engels explicitly revised the manifesto with this conclusion:

Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm). That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

Engels later wrote about how nationalization in Germany was bourgoise modernization and how nationalization in the abstract is not "socialism". And more importantly for this discussion were the lessons Marx and Engels learned from the Paris commune:

Originating from the Middle Ages, there developed in the 19th century "the centralized state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature." With the development of class antagonisms between capital and labor, "state power assumed more and more the character of a public force organized for the suppression of the working class, of a machine of class rule. After every revolution, which marks an advance in the class struggle, the purely coercive character of the state power stands out in bolder and bolder relief." After the revolution of 1848-49, state power became "the national war instruments of capital against labor". The Second Empire consolidated this.

"The direct antithesis to the empire was the Commune." It was the "specific form" of "a republic that was not only to remove the monarchical form of class rule, but class rule itself."
...
"The Commune," Marx wrote, "made the catchword of all bourgeois revolutions, cheap government, a reality, by abolishing the two greatest sources of expenditure--the army and the officialdom."

Sotionov

17th June 2013, 09:45

But after the victory of the Proletariat, the only organisation the victorious working class finds readymade for use, is that of the State. [NOTE: Engels, once more, is using state in a more general sense to refer to concentrated political power, and the importance of not renouncing it, not the bourgeois form of political power emanating from class exploitation. The thing that is 'readymade' is NOT the bourgeois state, but the concentrated force the proletariat has created in achieving hegemony over the bourgeoisie.]
Sorry, but your added comment directly contradicts the plain meaning of the line you are commenting. Maybe you some esoteric kabbalah-numerical insight that says Engels didn't mean what he wrote, but until you can prove that, it's clear that he talkes about the state that already exists.

workers seize political power, NOT THE BOURGEOIS STATE.
It is obvious from the quotes that Trocky and Engels did not differentiate the two- that they wanted a party taking power of the present state.

A bourgeois state derives power from a tiny number of property possessors exploiting the vast majority of the population.
Oh yeah, when there's a protest or a revolt- it's not the police or the army (under the command of state leadership) that goes out to crush it, but it's the tiny minority of capitalist that get out of their mansions on the streets and fight against the workers. Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Why not? The workers' militias should be accountable to the workers' councils to keep it under their control, to prevent aggression against workers. The militiamen ought to elect their commanders and workers ought to elect representatives to a Civil-Military Coordination Council which needs to ensure that military strategy does not aggress against the workers. If I recall correctly, anarchists had a similar system in the Spanish revolution -- or the Friends of Durrutti advocated such, either of those.
I personally, am a horizontalist, and therefore against any delegation of power, thus- against any "commanders" elected or not. My belief is that the (semi-) state should be identical to the non-hierarchically organized populace, that is- no central council having any power over the rest of the population. Also, all able minded and bodied people would be armed, so the populace would constitute both the workers' state and the workers' militia, and there could not be any relation of someone commanding someone else.

But ultimately it doesn't really matter what Marx, Engels, and Leninist think, I think.
And I'd agree.

Not really. You already have some quotes from Marx and Engels highlighting the necessity of smashing the bourgeois state. Lenin backs firmly this position in The State and Revolution.
So why didn't Lenin and the Bolsheviks join the Black army? To think of it- they destroyed it, and the stateless, classless society it defended, and they also quenched in blood the Krondstad and similar rebelions of the working people, and suppressed any group that wanted working people to participate in the management of their own (economic and political) affairs. I'd say that's pretty statist.

Because Direct democracy is based on delegation not representation. The crucial difference between delegation and representation is that delegates are only elected to implement specific decisions. Delegates do not have the right to change a decision previously made by an assembly of people. Delegates (unlike representatives) can be immediately recalled and dismissed from their mandate if they don't carry out the specific function allotted to them.
That's called 'delegative democracy', a laxed version of representative "democracy" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 09:56

This discussion began with a general question about "marxist communism" not about "the communist manifesto". You would rather make it be about the manifesto because then you can anarcarnistically claim that Marx was for increasing nationalization in the sense of increasing "the state" in abstract. But Marx and Engels explicitly revised the manifesto with this conclusion:

Engels later wrote about how nationalization in Germany was bourgoise modernization and how nationalization in the abstract is not "socialism". And more importantly for this discussion were the lessons Marx and Engels learned from the Paris commune:

You people are absurd. Either you want a strong state that can seize the means of production, confiscate private property and repress the bourgeoisie or you don't. Make your fucking minds up.

Jimmie Higgins

17th June 2013, 10:03

You people are absurd. Either you want a strong state that can seize the means of production, confiscate private property and repress the bourgeoisie or you don't. Make your fucking minds up.You people? :blink: Racist.:lol:

We people catagorically do not want a strong capitalist state that can seize the means of production and repress. We do want workers to expropriate the expropriators, repress direct threats to working-class self-emancipation. But what is it called when capitalists get together to ensure expropriation happens on their terms and repress threats to their accumulation? A (capitalist) state. What's it called when people control land, assign roles to people in a hierarchy in order to keep people growing food and giving tribute and organize armed bodies to protect that land and those social relations? A feudal state. What's it called when beurocrats use state-power to ensure exploitation and militaries to keep people working so that national industry can compete with capitalist countries? IMO a (state) capitalist state. What's it called when masses of workers organize themselves, their force, their decisions, and their desired way to organize production for mutual use and enrichment? A (worker's) state. What's it called when there are no distinct group of workers or non-workers and so all production is mutual and no one can prevent another from attaining the necissities of life and no one has any more inherent power over anyone else? communism.

We people want the end of classes and the end of states. How is that done? Well IMO through the self-emancipation of the working class - and how do workers self-emancipate: by destroying the bourgoise state and capitalist social relation and conditions through their self-organized direct force, political organization, and control over production - i.e. a state/counter-state.

Is that state the same as capitalist states? No. It's just whatever way workers in a revolution end up organizing themselves and their decision-making. If this is done through worker councils or some kind of revolutionary union network like in Spain, then this is "a state" in essance. It's however workers organize their collective power and decision-making. Capitalist power and decision-making is based around ensuring that profits and exploitation can continue, worker's power is based around ensuring that these things are done away with.

Do you think the capitalist state will just collapse from just opposition if people don't activly replace it with an alternative from below?

Old Bolshie

17th June 2013, 12:27

So why didn't Lenin and the Bolsheviks join the Black army? To think of it- they destroyed it, and the stateless, classless society it defended, and they also quenched in blood the Krondstad and similar rebelions of the working people, and suppressed any group that wanted working people to participate in the management of their own (economic and political) affairs. I'd say that's pretty statist.

They didn't suppress other groups because they wanted working people to participate in the management of their own (economic and political) affairs. They suppressed them because all the other groups one way or the other tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force.

Lenin himself admitted the failure of not smashing the bourgeois Russian state but also gave his reasons on why it hadn't been possible so far:

"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we could say, that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary; the state apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been "busy" most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine."

His struggle against bureaucracy was the last struggle of his life but unfortunately for Lenin and for the revolution he was already severely debilitated and had no time as he died soon after.

That's called 'delegative democracy', a laxed version of representative "democracy" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy

According to an anarchist definition of Direct Democracy delegation is part of Direct Democracy as you can see here: http://shawnewald.info/aia/dec_directdemocracy.html

LuÃs Henrique

17th June 2013, 12:45

Post-workers' state?

Yup.

It will probably be very different, though - I am not clinging to any pre-fabricated model of a future society.

Luís Henrique

Lucretia

17th June 2013, 12:55

Sorry, but your added comment directly contradicts the plain meaning of the line you are commenting. Maybe you some esoteric kabbalah-numerical insight that says Engels didn't mean what he wrote, but until you can prove that, it's clear that he talkes about the state that already exists.

It is obvious from the quotes that Trocky and Engels did not differentiate the two- that they wanted a party taking power of the present state.

To be perfectly honest, your response here is more than a little disappointing, consisting as it does basically of saying, "No, your interpretation is wrong and mine is right," without explaining the basis of your interpretation at all.

I've thoroughly explained why Engels' talk of seizing and inheriting STATE power is completely different than taking and using the bourgeois state: in the excerpt you quote from, he speaks repeatedly of state power with a clear reference not to the bourgeois state specifically, but to power wielded by classes for the purpose of opposing other classes in general. This political power is "inherited" by the working class following their victory over the bourgeoisie in the sense that it is something that the working class possesses by virtue of past conditions and suppressing those conditions -- namely the condition of subjection against which it was struggling in its effort to liberate itself from the bourgeoisie -- and not something the working-class needs to keep alive to sustain its position as a new ruling class exploiting other classes. There is no indication that the thing which the proletariat inherits is a bourgeois form of state, derived from a minority exploiting a majority, which is what a bourgeois form of state would have to be.

Somebody above did a good job of providing quotes showing that the proletariat cannot simply lay hold of the existing bourgeois state machine to wield it for its own purposes. This is consistent with the interpretation I have provided for all your supposedly damning quotes that you can't be bothered either to read in context, or to think about carefully, before tendentiously imputing to them a motive which squarely contradicts everything else Engels and Trotsky ever wrote about state power and the tasks confronting the proletariat.

But then this is the danger of copy-pasting isolated quotes from web sites, isn't it?

RedMaterialist

17th June 2013, 13:00

You people? :blink: Racist.:lol:

What's it called when masses of workers organize themselves, their force, their decisions, and their desired way to organize production for mutual use and enrichment? A (worker's) state.

You forgot the most important function of a state: class suppression. The workers' state (DOP, if necessary) will have to suppress and destroy, literally, the capitalist class in its entirety.

Lucretia

17th June 2013, 13:08

So, since you are addressing "Marxists", let's see some quotes by Marx:

As you may see, it is not about merely taking the bourgeois State and using it for different purposes (if so, a merely parliamentary strategy would do the trick). A new form of State is necessary to abolish class domination, because the old one is only appropriate to maintain it.

Luís Henrique

Note the quote about the amputating of repressive functions of the bourgeois state is very, very similar to the Engels quote I alluded to in an earlier post about the proletariat inheriting the state and "at once" lopping off various functions of the state power they inherit. While the quotes you provide are specifically of Marx's writings, there's no reason to doubt that these were also the views of Engels (and following them, Lenin and Trotsky).

Jimmie Higgins

17th June 2013, 13:27

You forgot the most important function of a state: class suppression. The workers' state (DOP, if necessary) will have to suppress and destroy, literally, the capitalist class in its entirety.Well I guess that's what I meant by organizing their own "force". I don't know about "literally" destroying the capital-ists in their entirity, workers will no doubt have to detain or even kill active supporters of the restoration of class rule. But the capitalists themselves are not really numerically a threat and so if they can not organize anything and have the base of their power stripped in that workers have taken over production and distribution and destroyed the capitalist state and ability to wage war then we can destroy capitalist relations.

This is all sort of hypothetical, but if there are worker militias organized through whatever organs or networks of worker's power (worker councils or CNT-like formations) then they'd be inherently impowered to kill in revolutionary self-defense: kill people who are active counter-revolutionaries (assuming there would be no need for a militia if there isn't active fascists or something). I personally don't think there's much real democratic use of capital punishment for a revolutionary working class, but I don't hold it as a principle. Workers might decide it's necissary if there's a protracted resistance by supporters of the old regimes and they feel the need to assert their own "monopoly on violence" - but I think it would be important that this actually reflects "class power" and comes through the decisions of worker councils or analogus entities not just the ability of induviudal militias or some beurocrats on their own to decide.

But in general - destroy the basis of class rule? Yes.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 18:30

Yup.

It will probably be very different, though - I am not clinging to any pre-fabricated model of a future society.

Luís Henrique

But the issue in contention is how our class arrives at this kind of organisation. Most people in this thread are suggesting that we can arrive at it by maintaining capitalist social relationships and structures of organisation.

Tim Cornelis

17th June 2013, 18:42

What I am saying is that so far the definition of what you are describing is that workers elect delegates who manage political authority on behalf of workers through a representative, centralised model of administration/governance.

This hierarchical, centralised authority is indicative of a bourgeois state and capitalist social relations, none of which are structures that can create conditions for a transition to communism.

Perhaps we're not talking at cross purposes, but unless this coercive force is decentralised and authority is managed directly by workers outwards, rather than representatively then we are in disagreement.

And by "decentralised" I mean federated, and by "directly" I mean decisions are made at a local level mandated to delegates, who simply relay the parameters of that mandate to a collective of delegates who then negotiate an overall decision based on the mandates of their locale. A decision that is then ratified by the locale. The delegate never has the power to make decisions, they are simply a function.

But the issue in contention is how our class arrives at this kind of organisation. Most people in this thread are suggesting that we can arrive at it by maintaining capitalist social relationships and structures of organisation.

Evidently, deputies will be mandated and recallable and will executive this mandate. To this extent the workers' state does not differ from anything advocated by anarchists. Hence, if what I advocate is maintaining capitalist social relations and structures, so do anarchists.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 18:42

What's it called when masses of workers organize themselves, their force, their decisions, and their desired way to organize production for mutual use and enrichment? A (worker's) state.

But is it? To be honest this paragraph doesn't really mean anything. It's just the abstract expression of a half formed thought. It's not a real thing. What you are describing isn't an object, it's a subject of something that must take form for it to exist.

You have provided a half explanation. But to understand how we actually move forward to create communism, we must understand what it means for workers to "organise themselves." It must take a form -- it must become an object.

It is how it becomes an object that is the cause of contention, not this basic definition that you people keep spewing.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 18:50

Evidently, deputies will be mandated and recallable and will executive this mandate.

So you reject political centralisation and hierarchy?

Sotionov

17th June 2013, 19:45

To be perfectly honest, your response here is more than a little disappointing, consisting as it does basically of saying, "No, your interpretation is wrong and mine is right," without explaining the basis of your interpretation at all.
And I find that perfectly in order being that the meaning of Engels' sentance is beyong clear. If Engles says "this chair is blue" and you say "no, no, no, what he actually means is that the chair is red", sorry but there is no need to explain my rejection of such babbling.

Engels said: "the only organisation the victorious working class finds readymade for use, is that of the State." and your comment of that statement basically was "no, he doesn't mean the state that is readymade for use, but another state that proletariat formed in the process of defeating the capitalists". Sorry, but, as I said, I need no explanation for rejection of such idiocy.

They didn't suppress other groups because they wanted working people to participate in the management of their own (economic and political) affairs. They suppressed them because all the other groups one way or the other tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force.
Oh, so it was the Black army from Ukraine and the workers from Krondstat invading Moscow? I didn't know that.

Lenin himself admitted the failure of not smashing the bourgeois Russian state but also gave his reasons on why it hadn't been possible so far:

"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we could say, that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary; the state apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been "busy" most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine."Sorry, but that is just a blatant lie. Ukranian anarchist disposed of the state and 7 million people lived in a stateless and classless system even though they had to wage war against five state armies invading it's territories.

According to an anarchist definition of Direct Democracy delegation is part of Direct Democracy as you can see here: http://shawnewald.info/aia/dec_directdemocracy.htmlYeah well, according to it's name, if direct democracy isn't direct then it's not direct democracy.

Point Blank

17th June 2013, 20:07

In the preface to the 1872 German edition of The Communist Manifesto, Marx himself stated that the 10-point program had been rendered obsolete by the practical experience gained by the working class - particularly in the Paris Commune.

Even if it's only a "transitional" mode of production between capitalism and communism, it should be clear that socialism will not be accomplished simply by replacing a private employer with a State employer (yes, even if this state is a dictatorship of the proletariat), while retaining key features of capitalism such as commodity production or wage labour.

Marxists say that communism will be stateless system, but they usually have their own definition of the state as being the tool of class oppression.

Communism - the end goal of both anarchists (actual social anarchists, not pseudo-libertarian Tea Party sympathisers) - will have no hierarchical form of repressive power, so it will be stateless under pretty much all definitions of the term. How this is to be achieved, naturally, has been open to much debate. It's most definitely not all about 'nationalising'. :p

ComradeOm

17th June 2013, 20:12

And having in mind that marxists, if Marx's manifesto is to taken as authoritative, want nationalization of economy, not only would a state continue to exist in communim, but it and it's power would be largely increaced, being that nationalization of economy implies a large state apparatus, and the only difference would be that the marxists would not call such a leviathan 'a state', because, according to them, there is no class society, even though any established organization of people that is centralized necessitates a stratification of people into the ones at the center and the ones that are on the peripheryYou're taking two articles written thirty years apart by two different men and then throwing in a completely different definition of class. That's not good practice and it's not an honest question

Which is a pity as there is a genuine discussion to be had around just where 'the state' ends and the 'social organisation of future society' begins. I do think that On Authority is one of the more hardheaded and interesting articles out there; one that squarely and bluntly challenges the, surprisingly common, assumption that a 'stateless and classless system' would look like a peasant utopia

Point Blank

17th June 2013, 20:25

But the issue in contention is how our class arrives at this kind of organisation. Most people in this thread are suggesting that we can arrive at it by maintaining capitalist social relationships and structures of organisation.

Theoretical discussion can arrive only to a point.
The forms of political/economic power and the future social relations have yet to be discovered and they will not be found through pure theoretical study, but rather during the pratical experiences of the working class ('minor' everyday struggles or moments of general insurrection).

helot

17th June 2013, 20:25

You're taking two articles written thirty years apart by two different men and then throwing in a completely different definition of class. That's not good practice and it's not an honest question

Which is a pity as there is a genuine discussion to be had around just where 'the state' ends and the 'social organisation of future society' begins. I do think that On Authority is one of the more hardheaded and interesting articles out there; one that squarely and bluntly challenges the, surprisingly common, assumption that a 'stateless and classless system' would look like a peasant utopia

Interesting as i'd say On Authority is quite a poor work. Origin of the Family... however is amazing.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 21:44

Theoretical discussion can arrive only to a point.
The forms of political/economic power and the future social relations have yet to be discovered

They have already been discovered. They have been put into practice several times throughout history, so we have clear lessons that should be drawn from those historical experiences, and blueprints that should be studied and discussed.

Tim Cornelis

17th June 2013, 22:09

So you reject political centralisation and hierarchy?

We will not have a perfectly functioning egalitarian social structure come the revolution. Hierarchy will continue to exist resulting from transitional problems and chaos coinciding with the insurrection and revolution.
Centralisation and centralism may refer to the concentration of political authority, which I oppose. Coordination and implementation of policies ought to occur on the central level (deputies from all sectors), but decision-making power is to be decentralised.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 22:10

We will not have a perfectly functioning egalitarian social structure come the revolution. Hierarchy will continue to exist resulting from transitional problems and chaos coinciding with the insurrection and revolution.
Centralisation and centralism may refer to the concentration of political authority, which I oppose. Coordination and implementation of policies ought to occur on the central level (deputies from all sectors), but decision-making power is to be decentralised.

Then your state takes on a bourgeois nature and maintains capitalist social relationships -- anarchists reject this model.

Tim Cornelis

17th June 2013, 22:18

Then your state takes on a bourgeois nature and maintains capitalist social relationships -- anarchists reject this model.

Don't be ridiculous. This is exactly what anarchists will implement. You really believe there's going to be zero hierarchy immediately on day one? Then you're delusional. There's absolutely nothing that indicates maintaining capitalist social relationships: wage-labour is abolished, property socialised, and society is controlled by a network of workers' councils. And if you object to central coordination (which is compatible with federalism) then your model maintains capitalist relations.
I advocated the exact same system I advocate now when I was an anarchist, only now I realise that because coercive features will continue it is in fact a semi-state and thus anarchism to be illogical in that regard.

Lucretia

17th June 2013, 22:42

And I find that perfectly in order being that the meaning of Engels' sentance is beyong clear. If Engles says "this chair is blue" and you say "no, no, no, what he actually means is that the chair is red", sorry but there is no need to explain my rejection of such babbling.

Engels said: "the only organisation the victorious working class finds readymade for use, is that of the State." and your comment of that statement basically was "no, he doesn't mean the state that is readymade for use, but another state that proletariat formed in the process of defeating the capitalists". Sorry, but, as I said, I need no explanation for rejection of such idiocy.

You're projecting big-time. I posted a response that was five chunky paragraphs long, and included an extensive elaboration of the Engels quote as well the passages surrounding it. What you accuse me of doing, lazily and haphazardly dismissing arguments, the equivalent of just saying, "Nah, not really," is actually what you've done twice now in response to me. You've not responded specifically, challenging or undermining, any of the contentions I have made about how to interpret the quotes you pasted.

You posting the quotes again (and again and again) is not an argument for how the quotes are to be interpreted, and in fact you clearly say in your latest response that "you need no explanation" to hold the position you do.

All the you have done is make a sweeping claim about Engels' and Trotsky's position on the relationship between proletarian revolution and the bourgeois state, then literally copy-pasted quotes from some anarchist web site you probably have bookmarked, without providing ANY argument whatsoever that the quotes prove your sweeping claim. I suppose you would also argue that Lenin's "State and Revolution" is about a single bourgeois state, and not a theoretical treatise on state power in general. This is the level of stupidity your assumption (because you've made no argument) rises to.

It's just laziness from somebody who thinks he already has all the right answers and has no interest in deigning to entertain the possibility that he might not have a command of quotes he is copy-pasting from a third-party website. One wonders why you're even on the site. To preach? Certainly it's not to learn.

Tim Cornelis

17th June 2013, 22:48

I don't understand what you mean by "day one"? Do you imagine social transformation to not exist one day and then suddenly exist the next?

No that's my point. During the process of the social transformation social relations are formed anew and deconstructed 'gradually'. Hierarchy does not disappear in one day.

Hierarchy is a capitalist social relation, so is representative democracy and so is central decision making.

Hierarchy is not a capitalist social relation, firstly. Secondly, hierarchy is not something I advocate but arises inevitably out of the transitional problems (particularly the chaotic situation). Where a network of workers' associations is first set up, transparency and accountability need to mature. Before this maturation of the nuclear organs of a socialist society has occurred. 'Anarchist' Catalonia had hierarchy, the Free Territory had hierarchy. This is inevitable. Newly arising organs of decision-making power do not function perfectly immediately after their establishment.
Thirdly, I've already explained that workers' deputies are mandated and recallable and thus do not constitute either a decision-making organ nor a representative democracy.

Co-ordination of what? I am talking specifically about political power.

Coordination of decisions. This has to occur at the central level or else workplaces or industries each aspire their own sectional interests and thus retaining capitalist production.

The Feral Underclass

17th June 2013, 22:51

I deleted that post because it was not a satisfactory response. It's unreasonable of you to then construct a response to something that was not really my argument to you.

Old Bolshie

18th June 2013, 00:25

Oh, so it was the Black army from Ukraine and the workers from Krondstat invading Moscow? I didn't know that.

That observation is completely nonsensical. The White Army also didn't invade Moscow. This doesn't mean that they didn't try to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force.

The Bolshevik Party was banned along with all other parties from the Free Territory before any hostility had taken place between them and the anarchists and the Ukrainian anarchists tried to establish an independent power within Russia. This led to the military conflict between the Red Army and the Black Army. So yes, they tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force.

Sorry, but that is just a blatant lie. Ukranian anarchist disposed of the state and 7 million people lived in a stateless and classless system even though they had to wage war against five state armies invading it's territories.Classless it wasn't for sure and neither stateless since classes didn't disappear.

And do you really want to compare the size of the former Russian Empire with the size of the anarchist Ukraine? Besides, the Bolsheviks were in Moscow, the center of the entire Russian state. The anarchists were in a local branch of the Russian State. You can't compare both cases.

Yeah well, according to it's name, if direct democracy isn't direct then it's not direct democracy.But delegation is direct democracy as that definition showed.

Answering to the election of people to perform precise tasks you said:

They may appoint people to perform precise task, but they cannot elect people to decide on policies or for that matter to elect people to decide on appointing people to tasksThe delegates are elected by an assembly of people to implement specific decisions already taken by the Assembly and they have no right to change it. If they do it they are recalled. So there is no way of a delegate deciding on policies. The policies are decided by the assemblies. The delegates are merely the messengers of those assemblies. This doesn't contradicts what you said.

Forward Union

20th June 2013, 18:20

But is it? To be honest this paragraph doesn't really mean anything. It's just the abstract expression of a half formed thought. It's not a real thing. What you are describing isn't an object, it's a subject of something that must take form for it to exist.

You have provided a half explanation. But to understand how we actually move forward to create communism, we must understand what it means for workers to "organise themselves." It must take a form -- it must become an object.

It is how it becomes an object that is the cause of contention, not this basic definition that you people keep spewing.

I won't speak on behalf of higgins but here we come to a somewhat semantic debate over what a state actually is. Some people confuse the term with government, and also forget that the nature of the modern nation state today is very different to when Marx and even Lenin were discussing its role in social transformation. Corporations did not exist as multi-national power structures at the time but can today rival, if not supersede states as the dominant organs of class power. What that might mean for the Authoritarians and Anarchists alike is a matter of further debate, but it has prompted Anarchists like Chomsky to call for a strengthening of the state to combat unaccountable corporate power.

Going back to fantasy land for a moment, Anarchists do, when you press them, admit that the mechanisms of state would continue to exist in their ideal society. Lets take one example, while crime would dramatically decrease in an Anarchist society it would still happen, and following say, a brutal series of killings by a psychotic axe murder, no doubt some sort of organisation would exist to find and apprehend the suspect. But then how do we know if the person they catch is really the right person, how guilty were they? What were their motivations, did they have some justification, were they provoked? We can't expect people to somehow be able to intuitively know things which are impossible for us today, so presumably some sort of body would exist for attempting to determine guilt, and another would decide what the best care, treatment, or perhaps (or perhaps not) punishment should be. Then this individual may need to be isolated from the society. What we are describing here in terms fit for a child, are police, courts, and a prison system.

And while some Anarchists do advocate the nightmare vision of random bands of untrained Lynch mobs going around delivering on the spot justice, (while maing astonishingly good use of modern policing techniques and forensics despite being "rotated in" to the "service" after two weeks) any serious advocate of a direct democratic society in which industry and politics are under the control of the participants, would admit the need for such organs or simply be irreverent.

The difference would be that these bodies would not be managed by a central authority, nor would they be protecting property rights or specialized interest groups. In this sense they would be entirely different to the modern bourgeoisie organs of state power.

Forward Union

20th June 2013, 18:30

Fred

21st June 2013, 03:15

Then your state takes on a bourgeois nature and maintains capitalist social relationships -- anarchists reject this model.
You write as if "bourgeois" is a moral category. The bourgeoisie are defined by their relationship to the means of production. Specifically, they own it. This is not the case after the dictatorship of the proletariat comes to power. Eventually, after a long period of transition, the need for a state, that is "armed bodies of men used for the maintenance of specific property relations," disappears, there will be a stateless society. But their will still be a government -- which presumable will be involved with large scale economic planning, among other civic administrative responsibilities. But it will look very different. When anarchists talk about having no hierarchy and total decentralization -- it a utopian notion for a world with eight billion people.

Martin Blank

21st June 2013, 10:19

Marxists say that communism will be stateless system, but they usually have their own definition of the state as being the tool of class oppression.

It would seem that this means that if classes (in the Marxist sense) disappear, the state as we know it would continue to exist.

Engels, in On authority, says:

Let me start by stating one thing clearly: Engels was wrong on a lot of things. In fact, the belief that he continued Marx's work and methodology is a myth. Engels was much more "flexible" (read: opportunist) on issues than Marx. It was only when Marx took the red pen to Engels' writings that you ended up with solid works of communist theory. This is why, for example, you have Engels singing the praises of nationalization-as-socialism in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and condemning nationalization-as-socialism in Anti-Dühring.

In this case, though, Engels was correct. The "public functions" he writes about are such things as garbage collection, the water works, hospitals, street light repair, public schools, etc. I doubt anyone here would like to see these functions abolished. This is not the governing of people but the administration of things.

And having in mind that Marxists, if Marx's manifesto is to taken as authoritative, want nationalization of economy, not only would a state continue to exist in communism, but it and it's power would be largely increased, being that nationalization of economy implies a large state apparatus, and the only difference would be that the Marxists would not call such a leviathan 'a state', because, according to them, there is no class society, even though any established organization of people that is centralized necessitates a stratification of people into the ones at the center and the ones that are on the periphery.

I don't want the nationalization of the economy. I want the abolition of private property -- the abolition of ownership of the means of production. Social democrats (petty-bourgeois democrats) want nationalization because it concentrates economic power in the hands of the administrators of exploitation.

But as others have pointed out in this thread, your definitions of the state and classes have nothing to do with those of Marx (or DeLeon, for that matter). I would suggest reading more of Marx's writings, and those of DeLeon, to get a better knowledge of how communists understand classes and the state.

Oh, and I'd drop that reactionary post-modernist nonsense about "center-periphery relationships".

The list of demands in the Communist Manifesto were transitional ones. Remember that Marx called for a transitional phase whereby a centralized state would exist. In other words, when he talks about nationalization he is not talking about communism, but the creation of it.

Actually, they weren't even that. The demands were meant for the formation of a unified ("centralized") capitalist Germany -- albeit one that was at the extreme edge of democracy and developing to a point where a genuine proletarian revolution was possible.

You people are absurd. Either you want a strong state that can seize the means of production, confiscate private property and repress the bourgeoisie or you don't. Make your fucking minds up.

If by "strong state", you mean an armed revolutionary proletarian political-military force that is designed to carry out the physical seizure of political (state) power, defend workers who have seized and taken control of the means of production, dispossess the ruling classes of their private property and suppress their counterrevolutionary insurgency, then, yes, I want a "strong state". However, I do not see this entity in the Westphalian sense -- that of an institutional state agency. Rather, I see it as an organic component of the movement as a whole. Yes, it may be well-organized and well-regulated, but organization and regulation do not a state make.

But the issue in contention is how our class arrives at this kind of organization. Most people in this thread are suggesting that we can arrive at it by maintaining capitalist social relationships and structures of organization.

I don't have the time to write out the lengthy answer this particular point deserves. Suffice to say, I would suggest reading through sections of our General Platform (http://www.workers-party.com/program-of-the-workers-party-in-america/general-platform-of-the-workers-party/) to see where I and other WPA members stand on these issues. (Warning: It's a long document. But it's worth the read.)

I won't speak on behalf of higgins but here we come to a somewhat semantic debate over what a state actually is. Some people confuse the term with government, and also forget that the nature of the modern nation state today is very different to when Marx and even Lenin were discussing its role in social transformation.

This is actually something I've been thinking about lately: the relationship between political government and the state.

Going back to fantasy land for a moment, Anarchists do, when you press them, admit that the mechanisms of state would continue to exist in their ideal society. Lets take one example, while crime would dramatically decrease in an Anarchist society it would still happen, and following say, a brutal series of killings by a psychotic axe murder, no doubt some sort of organisation would exist to find and apprehend the suspect. But then how do we know if the person they catch is really the right person, how guilty were they? What were their motivations, did they have some justification, were they provoked? We can't expect people to somehow be able to intuitively know things which are impossible for us today, so presumably some sort of body would exist for attempting to determine guilt, and another would decide what the best care, treatment, or perhaps (or perhaps not) punishment should be. Then this individual may need to be isolated from the society. What we are describing here in terms fit for a child, are police, courts, and a prison system.

I have to say that this would be a good topic for "outside-the-box" thinking. For example, I think that bodies of trained forensic analysts and investigators can exist in a classless society without them being state entities. You can "lop off" (i.e., disarm, disband and disperse) the enforcement element and reorganize the investigative units as non-state "public functions", with enforcement placed in the hands of organized workers' militia controlled by local workers' councils.

Courts can also be removed as a state function. Those who are trained in the law and custom of a classless society can be called together as a working group to adjudicate incidents as they arise. Instead of a permanent, institutional legal-judicial system, you would have trained legal workers who would be elected by a local workers' council to serve as a judicial panel ad hoc, as well as a pool of other legal workers who can be called upon to serve as a prosecutor/petitioner or a defender/respondent.

As for prisons, I would think that if such institutions did continue to exist, they would be few and far between (if they do indeed exist at all), with most of those convicted of crimes sent to secured rehabilitation centers of one type or another. Instead of them being part of a state entity (e.g., a Department of Corrections or Bureau of Prisons), I would actually suggest they be considered a part of the health care system, since counseling and therapy would seem to be the core of a program of rehabilitation (even if the inmate is not considered insane) in a classless society.

I also tend to think that the concept of isolated prison colonies that are well-supplied, maintained and also have the necessary rehabilitation programs might be a feasible alternative.

Forward Union

21st June 2013, 13:22

I have to say that this would be a good topic for "outside-the-box" thinking. For example, I think that bodies of trained forensic analysts and investigators can exist in a classless society without them being state entities. You can "lop off" (i.e., disarm, disband and disperse) the enforcement element and reorganize the investigative units as non-state "public functions", with enforcement placed in the hands of organized workers' militia controlled by local workers' councils.

That's all fine, but it's a discussion of how we organise the police force. i don't know much about how police forces are structured, how much could be put onto investigative units etc. But in the case of an armed maniac, there would have to be some trained organisation people, who have a duty to protect the public (and the individual maniac). No one here would suggest this should be a private body so it must be a state body. Except this is why I say it's a semantic point, because there wouldn't be a state as a centralized authority. The police would be a bit like an executive comittee (as in a committee which executes decisions) of the peoples/workers assemblies.

Courts can also be removed as a state function. Those who are trained in the law and custom of a classless society can be called together as a working group to adjudicate incidents as they arise.

A group of people who are trained to judge cases and meet in a building to judge cases through a set process which determines guilt would be a court. All you're doing is saying that courts should not be in session when there are no incidents (?)

you would have trained legal workers who would be elected by a local workers' council to serve as a judicial panel ad hoc, as well as a pool of other legal workers who can be called upon to serve as a prosecutor/petitioner or a defender/respondent.

That's more or less what happens today. Again, your suggestions regarding how the court system in an Anarchist society could be better than they are now, are fine. We could have an entire discussion about that subject alone, and perhaps it could be quite interesting. We would however, still be discussing how to organsie the courts, and not whether they exist or not ;)1

As for prisons, I would think that if such institutions did continue to exist, they would be few and far between (if they do indeed exist at all), with most of those convicted of crimes sent to secured rehabilitation centers of one type or another. Instead of them being part of a state entity (e.g., a Department of Corrections or Bureau of Prisons), I would actually suggest they be considered a part of the health care system, since counseling and therapy would seem to be the core of a program of rehabilitation (even if the inmate is not considered insane) in a classless society.

I basically agree. The Netherlands for example has so many empty prisons it has made deals with Belgium to hold their prisoners.

ed miliband

21st June 2013, 14:21

Makhno is an interesting example, a proper look at the RIAU frames the difference between the historical reality of what Anarchism had always been with the bizarre ultra-left liberalism which passes for a a lot of anarchism today. Makhno had secret police, a centralized military authority, and killed dissidents. And also made no apology and saw no contradiction with Anarchist-Communism.

i wish people would stop fucking abusing the term "ultra-left" as an insult, with no relation to what "ultra-left" actually means. "ultra-left liberalism" -- what the fuck are you on about?

The Feral Underclass

21st June 2013, 14:24

I won't speak on behalf of higgins but here we come to a somewhat semantic debate over what a state actually is.

But that's precisely not what it is. The post you are quoting is quite clear on that.

The difference would be that these bodies would not be managed by a central authority, nor would they be protecting property rights or specialized interest groups. In this sense they would be entirely different to the modern bourgeoisie organs of state power.

Therefore it is not a state.

The Feral Underclass

21st June 2013, 14:28

Makhno is an interesting example, a proper look at the RIAU frames the difference between the historical reality of what Anarchism had always been with the bizarre ultra-left liberalism which passes for a a lot of anarchism today. Makhno had secret police, a centralized military authority, and killed dissidents. And also made no apology and saw no contradiction with Anarchist-Communism.

Except of course Makhno didn't have central control over any of these things. The Kontrazvedka was also not a secret police force.

The Feral Underclass

21st June 2013, 14:35

If by "strong state", you mean an armed revolutionary proletarian political-military force that is designed to carry out the physical seizure of political (state) power, defend workers who have seized and taken control of the means of production, dispossess the ruling classes of their private property and suppress their counterrevolutionary insurgency, then, yes, I want a "strong state". However, I do not see this entity in the Westphalian sense -- that of an institutional state agency. Rather, I see it as an organic component of the movement as a whole. Yes, it may be well-organized and well-regulated, but organization and regulation do not a state make.

Again, the point is being missed.

What is an "armed revolutionary proletarian political-military force"? How does it exist as an object? What does "organisation" and "well-regulated" mean?

I don't necessarily disagree with these phrases. The disagreement is in how they exist.

The Feral Underclass

21st June 2013, 14:40

what the fuck are you on about?

He has no idea.

The Feral Underclass

21st June 2013, 14:53

No that's my point. During the process of the social transformation social relations are formed anew and deconstructed 'gradually'. Hierarchy does not disappear in one day.

There's no need to "deconstruct" hierarchy "gradually." In the course of us workers organising ourselves we can do so without it. This is both possible and necessary if we want to create a meaningful transition into communism.

Hierarchy is not a capitalist social relation, firstly.

Of course it is!

Secondly, hierarchy is not something I advocate but arises inevitably out of the transitional problems (particularly the chaotic situation). Where a network of workers' associations is first set up, transparency and accountability need to mature. Before this maturation of the nuclear organs of a socialist society has occurred. 'Anarchist' Catalonia had hierarchy, the Free Territory had hierarchy. This is inevitable.

I am talking specifically about the organisation and management of political power.

Newly arising organs of decision-making power do not function perfectly immediately after their establishment.

Thirdly, I've already explained that workers' deputies are mandated and recallable and thus do not constitute either a decision-making organ nor a representative democracy.

You do not see the contradiction when you understand these two statements side by side?

Ignoring the implication in what you're saying that we workers are not capable of operating without hierarchy. If you are to claim that hierarchy is necessary in decision making because of "transitional problems" or a lack of sophistication, how then can workers' "deputies" be mandated? By whom are they being mandated? Presumably operating in that non-hierarchical way wouldn't be possible by your argument? And if hierarchy exists in decision making, how then is it not representative?

You can't have hierarchy and direct democracy in decision making at the same time.

Coordination of decisions. This has to occur at the central level or else workplaces or industries each aspire their own sectional interests and thus retaining capitalist production.

You just argued that decisions were mandated to workers' deputies. Now you are saying they are made centrally. Either you trust us workers to organise ourselves, or you don't.

Brutus

21st June 2013, 15:49

In fact, the belief that he continued Marx's work and methodology is a myth
Could you expand on this, please?

ComradeOm

21st June 2013, 21:21

Of course it is!Are you suggesting that pre-capitalist societies had no conception of hierarchy?

MarxArchist

21st June 2013, 22:50

someone said: But yes, marx did think that workers wielding economic and political power could transform society and achieve communism.

A shame Lenin didn't feel the same way.

A shame Marxists attempted to (more than once, in more than one nation) build communism with backwards undeveloped nations as the foundation. Lenin, Mao and Stalin need to be forgotten, or, no, criticized at best. Hell, throw Trotsky in there as well. Any and all communists be they Marxist or Anarchist who think communism can be achieved in undeveloped isolated nations are dead wrong.

Even today though, in advanced capitalist nations, giving workers complete control over the economy right off that bat would be impossible. If there was a communist revolution in America, say, tomorrow, it would be a stink hole of reactionary counterrevolution. A majority of the population needs to be on board and in Lenin's defense the peasant farmers in the countryside were the majority and not exactly happy with producing to support industrialization. Then there was counterrevolution, then there was the matter of the population at large not being ready for communism. There was no mature proletariat at the time. The Bolsheviks had to play capitalist, facilitating a sort of primitive accumulation or dispossession of the countryside while creating a majority proletariat class and pushing industrialization. Could this have been a wholly democratic process in Russia t the time? The whole thing was doomed to be a perversion of Marxism. Same with Mao's China. I don't think Lenin was so much a tyrant or anti-democratic but more so had to be if "socialism" was to arise in such material conditions.

Martin Blank

21st June 2013, 23:55

That's all fine, but it's a discussion of how we organize the police force. i don't know much about how police forces are structured, how much could be put onto investigative units etc. But in the case of an armed maniac, there would have to be some trained organization people, who have a duty to protect the public (and the individual maniac). No one here would suggest this should be a private body so it must be a state body. Except this is why I say it's a semantic point, because there wouldn't be a state as a centralized authority. The police would be a bit like an executive committee (as in a committee which executes decisions) of the peoples/workers assemblies.

I don't know if I'd call it semantic per se. I think there is a deeper methodological issue that would need to be addressed. In my last post, I briefly mentioned the effect that the Westphalian System has had on our thinking as revolutionaries. All of us were educated within the context of this system, and all of us still revert to the Westphalian dichotomy between state and society -- between public and private powers -- when we begin discussing this question. As theoretically-minded revolutionaries, we should really begin a discussion on the effects of the Westphalian System on our own thinking and analysis, with a focus on its concept of the state holding the monopoly on the use of force.

What is an "armed revolutionary proletarian political-military force"? How does it exist as an object? What does "organization" and "well-regulated" mean?

First and foremost, it is not a standing force -- not a professional army or other armed state entity. (For the sake of saving my fingers, I'll shorthand what we're talking about by saying "ARM".) In my view, the ARM would be a series of collectives of workers who are trained in the use of modern weapons and tactics. (Former soldiers would likely be the core of the ARM.) Their very reason for its existence is defense of the working class against the actions of the capitalist state and its agents. It would be called when needed, but would be expected to be prepared. When needed, units would be called up by the workers' council, assembled on whatever "field of mars" is chosen, equipped, organized (including the election of commanders and chiefs) and readied for deployment.

Under normal (relatively peaceful) conditions, its organization and existence as an object would be negligible. Units would, of course, drill and practice regularly, but beyond that they would work and participate in society like any civilian. It is only when they are called into service that the ARM would take on a distinct character and its regulations governing the soldier's conduct, order and disposition would be enforced. In this respect, it would be similar to Home Guard/National Guard formations, except that permanent ranks and orders will have been abolished (replaced by elected task designations) and they would be fully accountable to the workers' councils.

Could you expand on this, please?

Engels did contribute a considerable amount to the development of communist theory, but he also did a lot of theoretical damage. Unlike Marx, whose inflexibility on principle was perhaps one of his strongest suits, Engels was more susceptible to pressure from alien class forces. Beginning during the American Civil War, Engels increasingly displayed a tendency toward being influenced by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois opinion.

By the time of Marx's death, Engels had effectively defected from proletarian communism to petty-bourgeois social democracy. While Marx spent his final years arguing against the formation of amorphous social-democratic parties and fighting to build more explicitly communist (in terms of program) parties, Engels was acting as an adviser and mouthpiece for the social democrats. This can be seen in the fundamental differences between Anti-Dühring (edited by Marx) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (not edited by Marx), as well as in the differences between Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme and Engels' Critique of the Erfurt Programme.

Engels also had a much more schematic and wooden (and Victorian-Eurocentric) conception of communist methodology than Marx did. Both Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and Dialectics of Nature put this vulgar materialism on display. Marx's Ethnographic Notebooks, which Engels used to write Origin, demonstrated a much more fluid and nuanced approach to the question, especially on the question of pre-class societies outside of Europe (e.g., the Iriquois).

In short, by the time Marx died in 1883, Engels was more of a left social democrat than a communist. He had drifted significantly away from his earlier positions under the pressures following the defeat of the Paris Commune and the later rise of the Social Democratic Workers Party in Germany.

Fred

22nd June 2013, 02:49

There's no need to "deconstruct" hierarchy "gradually." In the course of us workers organising ourselves we can do so without it. This is both possible and necessary if we want to create a meaningful transition into communism.

Of course it is!

I am talking specifically about the organisation and management of political power.

You do not see the contradiction when you understand these two statements side by side?

Ignoring the implication in what you're saying that we workers are not capable of operating without hierarchy. If you are to claim that hierarchy is necessary in decision making because of "transitional problems" or a lack of sophistication, how then can workers' "deputies" be mandated? By whom are they being mandated? Presumably operating in that non-hierarchical way wouldn't be possible by your argument? And if hierarchy exists in decision making, how then is it not representative?

You can't have hierarchy and direct democracy in decision making at the same time.

You just argued that decisions were mandated to workers' deputies. Now you are saying they are made centrally. Either you trust us workers to organise ourselves, or you don't.
To organize modern production you have to have some kind of centralization. It is both reactionary and utopian to suggest that somehow workers can, at the level of production, without any kind of hierarchy, organize large scale and efficient industrial production. The point for Marxists is not simply to achieve some kind of equality. The point is to have material abundance to the point of eliminating scarcity.

Fred

22nd June 2013, 02:57

A shame Marxists attempted to (more than once, in more than one nation) build communism with backwards undeveloped nations as the foundation. Lenin, Mao and Stalin need to be forgotten, or, no, criticized at best. Hell, throw Trotsky in there as well. Any and all communists be they Marxist or Anarchist who think communism can be achieved in undeveloped isolated nations are dead wrong.

Even today though, in advanced capitalist nations, giving workers complete control over the economy right off that bat would be impossible. If there was a communist revolution in America, say, tomorrow, it would be a stink hole of reactionary counterrevolution. A majority of the population needs to be on board and in Lenin's defense the peasant farmers in the countryside were the majority and not exactly happy with producing to support industrialization. Then there was counterrevolution, then there was the matter of the population at large not being ready for communism. There was no mature proletariat at the time. The Bolsheviks had to play capitalist, facilitating a sort of primitive accumulation or dispossession of the countryside while creating a majority proletariat class and pushing industrialization. Could this have been a wholly democratic process in Russia t the time? The whole thing was doomed to be a perversion of Marxism. Same with Mao's China. I don't think Lenin was so much a tyrant or anti-democratic but more so had to be if "socialism" was to arise in such material conditions.
Your points about Lenin are true as far as they go. But Lenin never suggested that socialism could be built in Russia in isolation. The Bolsheviks were counting on the coming revolution in Europe, Germany in particular. And it could have happened. The Bolsheviks devoted a huge amount of their limited resources to fostering revolutions in other countries. This, btw, distinguishes the pre-1924 Bolsheviks from, say, Mao. So Lenin would have no argument with most of your comments here.

The Feral Underclass

22nd June 2013, 11:03

Are you suggesting that pre-capitalist societies had no conception of hierarchy?

How does this question follow from my statement that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship? No, I'm not suggesting that. All I am suggesting is that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship. That is abundently clear by even a cursory view at class society.

The Feral Underclass

22nd June 2013, 11:23

Even today though, in advanced capitalist nations, giving workers complete control over the economy right off that bat would be impossible.

And here we have it folks. The reduction of the proletariat to nothing more than a function in the power games of revolutionaries.

"Give" us control? We don't need people like you to manage our own liberation, thanks.

If there was a communist revolution in America, say, tomorrow, it would be a stink hole of reactionary counterrevolution.

But revolution doesn't work like that. Social transformation is a process, not just one act. If people are not organising themselves in a pre-figurative way, creating new organs administration that will lead to an organised working class sweeping away class society, then that's not a proletarian revolution.

A majority of the population needs to be on board and in Lenin's defense the peasant farmers in the countryside were the majority and not exactly happy with producing to support industrialization. Then there was counterrevolution, then there was the matter of the population at large not being ready for communism. There was no mature proletariat at the time. The Bolsheviks had to play capitalist, facilitating a sort of primitive accumulation or dispossession of the countryside while creating a majority proletariat class and pushing industrialization. Could this have been a wholly democratic process in Russia t the time? The whole thing was doomed to be a perversion of Marxism. Same with Mao's China. I don't think Lenin was so much a tyrant or anti-democratic but more so had to be if "socialism" was to arise in such material conditions.

But these very same conditions existed in the Ukraine where anarchsit communists were able to organise themselves without resorting to the application of the bourgeois state.

The issue with Lenin and Trotsky etc was not the material conditions, though I'm sure this is convenient justificatioin, it is a failure of the Leninist conception of the "withering away" theory and the use of the bourgeois state as a tool for transition.

The Feral Underclass

22nd June 2013, 11:33

First and foremost, it is not a standing force -- not a professional army or other armed state entity. (For the sake of saving my fingers, I'll shorthand what we're talking about by saying "ARM".) In my view, the ARM would be a series of collectives of workers who are trained in the use of modern weapons and tactics. (Former soldiers would likely be the core of the ARM.) Their very reason for its existence is defense of the working class against the actions of the capitalist state and its agents. It would be called when needed, but would be expected to be prepared. When needed, units would be called up by the workers' council, assembled on whatever "field of mars" is chosen, equipped, organized (including the election of commanders and chiefs) and readied for deployment.

You have given a more indepth description of the subject that you already talked about. This still doesn't adequately explain how it exists as an object. Nevertheless, this isn't what a state is.

Under normal (relatively peaceful) conditions, its organization and existence as an object would be negligible. Units would, of course, drill and practice regularly, but beyond that they would work and participate in society like any civilian. It is only when they are called into service that the ARM would take on a distinct character and its regulations governing the soldier's conduct, order and disposition would be enforced. In this respect, it would be similar to Home Guard/National Guard formations, except that permanent ranks and orders will have been abolished (replaced by elected task designations) and they would be fully accountable to the workers' councils.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this description I suppose.

ComradeOm

22nd June 2013, 13:10

How does this question follow from my statement that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship? No, I'm not suggesting that. All I am suggesting is that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship. That is abundently clear by even a cursory view at class society.So hierarchy is also a 'feudal social relationship' and, presumably, a 'slave social relationship' and wherever/whenever else you want to look, correct?

And if hierarchy is not unique to capitalism then... well, so what? It's not a specifically capitalist feature that a socialist society cannot be expected to maintain (such as wage slavery, etc). Yet your previous posts imply that the very existence of hierarchy involves the 'maintenance of capitalist social relationships'. By which logic today's capitalists are actually crypto-feudalists

But these very same conditions existed in the Ukraine where anarchsit communists were able to organise themselves without resorting to the application of the bourgeois state. Yeah, that's highly disingenuous. Ukrainian anarchists were able to organise themselves (an important distinction) so long as 'they' were living in rural peasant communes. The Ukraine reveals just how limited this supposedly anti-hierarchy programme was and how it failed to make any inroads at all when confronted with more sophisticated/complicated urban economies. Ironically, Makhno proves Engels' point in On Authority. To steal from Avrich's The Russian Anarchists:

During October and November [1919], Makhno occupied Ekaterinoslav and Aleksandrovsk for several weeks, and thus obtained his first chance to apply the concepts of anarchism to city life. Makhno's first act on entering a large town (after throwing open the prisons) was to dispel any impression that he had come to introduce a new form of political rule. Announcements were posted informing the townspeople that henceforth they were free to organize their lives as they saw fit, that the Insurgent Army would not "dictate to them or order them to do anything." Free speech, press, and assembly were proclaimed, and in Ekaterinoslav half a dozen newspapers, representing a wide range of political opinion, sprang up overnight. While encouraging freedom of expression, however, Makhno would not countenance any political organizations which sought to impose their authority on the people. He therefore dissolved the Bolshevik "revolutionary committees" (revkomy) in Ekaterinoslav and Aleksandrovsk, instructing their members to "take up some honest trade"

Makhno's aim was to throw off domination of every type and to encourage economic and social self-determination. "It is up to the workers and peasants," said one of his proclamations in 1919, "to organize themselves and reach mutual understandings in all areas of their lives and in whatever manner they think right." In October 1919, an SR speaker who called for effective leadership at a Congress of Workers and Peasants in Aleksandrovsk was greeted with shouts of protest from the Makhnovtsy: "We have had enough of your leaders. Always leaders and more leaders. Let us try to do without them for once." When the railroad workers of Aleksandrovsk complained that they had not been paid for many weeks, Makhno advised them to take control of the railway lines and charge the passengers and freight shippers what seemed a fair price for their services.

Makhno's utopian projects, however, failed to win over more than a small minority of workingmen, for, unlike the farmers and artisans of the village, who were independent producers accustomed to managing their own affairs, factory workers and miners operated as interdependent parts of a complicated industrial machine, and were lost without the guidance of supervisors and technical specialists. Furthermore, the peasants and artisans could barter the products of their labor, whereas the urban workers depended on regular wages for their survival. Makhno, moreover, compounded the confusion when he recognized all paper money issued by his predecessors-Ukrainian nationalists, Whites, and Bolsheviks alike. He never understood the complexities of an urban economy, nor did he care to understand them. He detested the "poison" of the cities and cherished the natural simplicity of the peasant environment into which he had been born.

Fred

22nd June 2013, 14:46

And here we have it folks. The reduction of the proletariat to nothing more than a function in the power games of revolutionaries.

"Give" us control? We don't need people like you to manage our own liberation, thanks.

But revolution doesn't work like that. Social transformation is a process, not just one act. If people are not organising themselves in a pre-figurative way, creating new organs administration that will lead to an organised working class sweeping away class society, then that's not a proletarian revolution.

But these very same conditions existed in the Ukraine where anarchsit communists were able to organise themselves without resorting to the application of the bourgeois state.

The issue with Lenin and Trotsky etc was not the material conditions, though I'm sure this is convenient justificatioin, it is a failure of the Leninist conception of the "withering away" theory and the use of the bourgeois state as a tool for transition.

You turn the proletariat into some kind of special repository of wonderfulness. They are not -- in fact, frequently they tend to reflect some of the more backward aspects of capitalist society. The proletariat are important, to Marxists, because they have both the self-interest and the social power to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the D of the P moving toward socialism. Workerism has been a strain on the left for a long time. When I was in college I remember an RCPer issuing a pamphlet with intentional spelling mistakes to show that they were "real" workers. The speaker dumbed down what he had to say to sound proletarian -- really idiotic stuff. Fetishizing or idealizing the working class as it exists in capitalist society is decidedly unmarxist.

History is messy. If you haven't done so already, I recommend you do some serious reading about the Russian Revolution from different reputable sources. This would include sources like Trotsky's HRR, EH Carr's writings, Rabinowich's works, even Avrich.

The anarchist comrades hearts are generally in the right place -- but since they lack a coherent view of history and revolution, they are prone to all kinds of impressionistic posturings. And the history of the Anarchist movements in the world speak to this. Of course, the heavy handed hierarchical structure of this site owes a lot to this problem.

VinnieUK

22nd June 2013, 16:14

Tim Cornelis

22nd June 2013, 16:52

There's no need to "deconstruct" hierarchy "gradually." In the course of us workers organising ourselves we can do so without it. This is both possible and necessary if we want to create a meaningful transition into communism.

Well I'm sorry, but I can't comprehend how anyone can entertain the notion that incidental social hierarchy will emerge spontaneously and accidentally out of the chaotic transition towards an egalitarian society. I think this is very naive, and I think most anarchists would accept this to be impossible. For instance, anarchist author G.P. Maximov called for taxation in the transition to communism, which is coercive.

I am talking specifically about the organisation and management of political power.

And the management and organisation of political power will not function perfectly on day one.

You do not see the contradiction when you understand these two statements side by side?

No, because in the chaos a deputy may overstep his mandate and a lack of transparency disables workers to properly call him out on this. This is not something I advocate, but something I anticipate. Only once the social structures stabilise will it be possible to (almost) completely eradicate social hierarchy.

Ignoring the implication in what you're saying that we workers are not capable of operating without hierarchy.

There's no such implication.

If you are to claim that hierarchy is necessary in decision making because of "transitional problems" or a lack of sophistication, how then can workers' "deputies" be mandated?

First it's not necessarily necessary -- this depends on context. Secondly, it's very well possible to work with a system of passive consent. With soviets electing a committee responsible for socialising the economy gradually. The given mandate will be very broad and unspecified thus having some 'grassroots hierarchy' in a limited sense (although ultimate decision-making power will rest with the general workers' assemblies). The workers, whom are concerned with more basal stuff (e.g. surviving in a civil war), will comply (passive consent) with the instructions articulated by the committee, but once the workers do not comply ultimate decision-making power stills rests with them so there's no top down coercive implementation as we saw in Russia in War Communism.

Or what if a particular city is under a sniper siege like Aleppo is now? People can hardly move safely from one street to another, in such a situation organising comprehensive general assemblies that operate perfectly democratically, transparently, and accountable is an impossibility.

By whom are they being mandated? Presumably operating in that non-hierarchical way wouldn't be possible by your argument? And if hierarchy exists in decision making, how then is it not representative?

Or

You can't have hierarchy and direct democracy in decision making at the same time.

You just argued that decisions were mandated to workers' deputies. Now you are saying they are made centrally. Either you trust us workers to organise ourselves, or you don't.

The decisions are made in a decentralised fashion, executed in a centralised fashion. That is, the workers decide but the decisions are implemented at a central level. If decisions are both decided and executed decentralised, each workplace acts on its own sectional interest.

To steal from Avrich's The Russian Anarchists:

I don't think you can generalise Makhno's 'naiveté' about the complexity of an economy to all anarchists and anarchisms.

To organize modern production you have to have some kind of centralization. It is both reactionary and utopian to suggest that somehow workers can, at the level of production, without any kind of hierarchy, organize large scale and efficient industrial production. The point for Marxists is not simply to achieve some kind of equality. The point is to have material abundance to the point of eliminating scarcity.

Centralisation may be perceived to mean a central level at which decisions are coordination and executed, in which case anarchists all advocate centralisation. However, centralisation may also refer to a top-down implementation. Using this definition decentralisation = bottom up and centralisation = top-down.

Furthermore, there's the element of vertical and horizontal. Horizontal decentralisation means those engaged in the activities make its decisions, while vertical decentralisation means a particular low unit makes the decisions but the unit may still be controlled by a single manager.

And yes, workers can do without decision-making hierarchy.

hyperlinker

22nd June 2013, 17:27

---------------------------------------------
Letter of information on the public deception
---------------------------------------------

Kind Sir,

having regard for the tragic situation of our Countries and global, as an ordinary citizen I am here to inform of thing that, even if pregnant and urgent, today hardly can reach you in any other way. Please, concede me two minutes.

In the common interest, let me report that the democratization process, begun long time ago with the introduction of the elections, with the advent of our Republics should had be extended also to the Public Employment. The public roles are not just jobs but always hold a certain amount of public power. They are part of the Res Publica conquered by the people become sovereign. Therefore, like the roles of government, they too should be periodically returned to the people to be reassigned to other citizens having the necessary requirements.

But a politics born rotten has made that the public employment continued to be assigned for life. And here is the real problem of our societies, which declare themselves democratic but they are so still only in a small part. Not only politicians but also the public servants must return to their homes to allow a general participation and renewal. The lights of media illuminate the politicians and we focus on them. But it is in the darkness that the real problem, not only of our Countries but of the whole world, hides: a sea of immovable State men, 3.2 million only in Italy, who in fact have more power than the leaders themselves.

Governments must
always deal with them,
with the public servants.

Governments change,
the State men remain,
as true tyrants such as they are.

Are the State servants, by following the old political design of the king and tyrant, to prevent citizens from access to their own Res Publica, to keep separate the people from their own power, to imprison the culture and every other important aspect of the life. Are the State servants to make us believe that democracy is a fact inherent only the limited PUBLIC DECISIONS and not primarily the ubiquitous PUBLIC FUNCTIONS. Are the State servants to erect a black wall around the governments, so the politicians, easily corrupted by elites, lobbies, mafias and potentates, can make the worst they want. Are the State servants that prevent the awareness that the type of public function strongly influences the actions of governments.

Namely:

- surrounded by
public employees for life
or by private operators,
governments tend to become
AUTHORITARIAN.

- by having around
involved citizens
who alternate themselves,
governments tend to become
AUTHORITATIVE.

Sir, today we claim to change our societies by focusing ourselves on the politicians. But it is irrational to believe that politics can change till remain surrounded by a Public Function in the hands of a CASTA of authoritarian, arrogant and overbearing State men. Even when the best progressive ideals were taken into account, the politicians would use them for the ever-same purposes of protection of the Elites at the expense of the population. Only by changing the type of Public Employment, politics will really change. Because the first gives to the second a fundamental IMPRINTING. Only by democratizing the Public Employment, our Countries and the whole world will evolve and get out of these swamps.

I hope this may find you interested, that this may sensitize and involve your art.
I thank for your attention and wish you every good thing.

Danilo D'Antonio
aka Hyper Linker

Piazza del Municipio
64010 Rocca S. M. (TE)
Italy, Europe

tel. ++39 339 5014947

DEMOCRACY IS THE SHARING OF OUR RES PUBLICA

RedMaterialist

22nd June 2013, 17:30

"Worker's State' is absolutely nonsensical. Communism abolishes the working class. I am surprised to say the least at the confusion displayed here. Both Marxists and anarchists seek the abolition of the state. The problem is - how do we get from capitalism to communism?

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1940s/1940/no-425-january-1940/state-and-socialist-revolution-j-martov

The workers' state is necessary to suppress and abolish the capitalist class. Once that is done there will be no class left to suppress and the state will wither away and die.

VinnieUK

22nd June 2013, 19:29

The workers' state is necessary to suppress and abolish the capitalist class. Once that is done there will be no class left to suppress and the state will wither away and die.

If you mean by 'workers state' a state under the democratic control of 80 to 90% of the population then a few investors and landowners will need only a little suppression:) I doubt they would take up arms against an army controlled by the majority of the population.

Brutus

22nd June 2013, 21:56

The minimum demands of many Marxist parties call for the abolition of the standing army and the right to bear arms and receive education and training in firearms. The standing army wouldn't exist.

subcp

23rd June 2013, 02:57

If you mean by 'workers state' a state under the democratic control of 80 to 90% of the population then a few investors and landowners will need only a little suppression:) I doubt they would take up arms against an army controlled by the majority of the population.

But organs for the proletariat to assert class power, judging by history, will not develop in a linear fashion, particularly across national boundaries. Even if a massive, escalating pattern of developing class consciousness (say, if Occupy, which spread across the globe in the span of weeks, resulted in the formation of workplace and geographic committees and organized self-defense against the police and reactionaries) and generalization of struggles spread and developed on a deeper level internationally, and numerous governing regimes were shaken or toppled by the inertia, there is no reason to believe the working-class would suppress all other classes and expropriate the bourgeoisie/crush the bourgeois-state immediately. The problem is what happens to commodity production in the meantime, what happens to the multitudes of petit-bourgeoisie, declassed or semi-proletarians (from urban metropoles and makeshift shanty-towns), and what happens to the remaining state and private police, military and paramilitary organizations (whether they initially refuse to fire on their 'own people' like the Arab Spring in Egypt or follow the orders to massacre like Syria) and the minority of people who have the means and interest to hire them in the midst of such social chaos?

The 'proletarian state' only has a function as a means to an end, a moment in the revolutionary movement for communism that has to be overcome to get to communism.

Majorities, even big ones, don't fare well against machine guns.

MarxArchist

23rd June 2013, 05:17

After the socialist revolution, the proletarian state will also be used for suppression of a class, the class of capitalists. Once that class is suppressed and destroyed then the only class left will be the working class; and no other class will exist to be suppressed. Thus the state will have no reason to exist, the state will wither away and die.

The state just 'withering away" depends on there being a majority of the population who support communism. Also, I would think those in control of state power would need to be, well, suppressed. Perhaps a second revolution would be necessary. All in some unforeseeable future where over a billion people support communism of course. Until then any socialist revolution will be shoving socialism down peoples throats in whichever nation and without global revolution no socialist nation will survive without a state for defense (centralized military/intelligence agency/police etc).

This is why the Soviet Union collapsed. After the capitalists (and small capitalists) were destroyed there was no class left to suppress; the state then collapsed, as Marx and Engels predicted.

I thought I heard it all. Really, not trying to be rude but....?

Blake's Baby

23rd June 2013, 10:19

If you mean by 'workers state' a state under the democratic control of 80 to 90% of the population then a few investors and landowners will need only a little suppression:) I doubt they would take up arms against an army controlled by the majority of the population.

But there's the rub. The 'little' state (the semi-state, the 'state of a different type' being the state of the majority not the minority), would still exist, you concede.

A state is a function of class society. As long as you have a working class and a capitalist class (let alone any other classes that may exist) there will be a state. And there are still capitalists, you think, therefore there is still a state.

The state just 'withering away" depends on there being a majority of the population who support communism. Also, I would think those in control of state power would need to be, well, suppressed. Perhaps a second revolution would be necessary. All in some unforeseeable future where over a billion people support communism of course. Until then any socialist revolution will be shoving socialism down peoples throats in whichever nation and without global revolution no socialist nation will survive without a state for defense (centralized military/intelligence agency/police etc)...

No, the 'withering away of the state' depends on the destruction of the roots of the state. Engels is using a metaphor from botany. Leaves wither if you destroy the roots of the plant.

The roots of the state are property relations. The abolition of property (ie, the working class taking all property under its control, and integrating other productive strata) means that there are no more classes (separate grades of society with different relations to property); no more classes means that there is no more state as in the end the state is a means of controlling and integrating classes into society.

...I thought I heard it all. Really, not trying to be rude but....?

You've never met redshifted before?

I'll not say you get used to it, because you don't, but after a while you sort of develop an ennui at the inevitable. It's sort of liberating in a perverse way. Like waiting to be punched, you sort of welcome it when it happens.

The Feral Underclass

23rd June 2013, 10:27

Well I'm sorry, but I can't comprehend how anyone can entertain the notion that incidental social hierarchy will emerge spontaneously and accidentally out of the chaotic transition towards an egalitarian society. I think this is very naive, and I think most anarchists would accept this to be impossible. For instance, anarchist author G.P. Maximov called for taxation in the transition to communism, which is coercive.

But this debate isn't about whether it can exist at the point of revolution, it's about whether it should exist at the point of organisation.

And the management and organisation of political power will not function perfectly on day one.

A view which I don't disagree with. What I disagree with is that this means hierarchy must be employed as a means in which to manage and organise.

No, because in the chaos a deputy may overstep his mandate and a lack of transparency disables workers to properly call him out on this. This is not something I advocate, but something I anticipate. Only once the social structures stabilise will it be possible to (almost) completely eradicate social hierarchy.

I think you're greatly overstating this idea of chaos. At what point do you imagine this "chaos" to be existing? If I assume you mean at a point of armed conflict, then the organs for this management and organisation should already have sprung into existence -- we workers should already be putting into practice the strategy for our liberation. History has shown that the implementation of direct democracy is not as difficult as you are trying to imply -- this view could only find legitimacy if it were to justify the belief that we workers were not capable.

There's no such implication.

Then you agree with me.

First it's not necessarily necessary -- this depends on context. Secondly, it's very well possible to work with a system of passive consent. With soviets electing a committee responsible for socialising the economy gradually. The given mandate will be very broad and unspecified thus having some 'grassroots hierarchy' in a limited sense (although ultimate decision-making power will rest with the general workers' assemblies). The workers, whom are concerned with more basal stuff (e.g. surviving in a civil war), will comply (passive consent) with the instructions articulated by the committee, but once the workers do not comply ultimate decision-making power stills rests with them so there's no top down coercive implementation as we saw in Russia in War Communism.

Or what if a particular city is under a sniper siege like Aleppo is now? People can hardly move safely from one street to another, in such a situation organising comprehensive general assemblies that operate perfectly democratically, transparently, and accountable is an impossibility.

Why is it always the state of war that these discussions get reduced to. This reductive view that everything has to be predicated around mass, brutal violence is just fucking bizarre

Okay then, I can concede that in that extraordinary time when an entire city is being held down by sniper fire it maybe that a committee has to make a decision without the consent of the entire community for which the decision is being made.

I am, of course, ignoring the fact that the social transformation of class society and a nationalist war between the state, religious fanatics and bourgeois careerists are not remotely comparable on any level.

If we are going to look at history, then we should look at our own. I can accept that there will be upheavel and it may even resemble chaos, but it will not be disorganised and it will not be chaotic -- it will be highly organised based on the principles and relations that we believe are both possible and necessary to create transition.

The decisions are made in a decentralised fashion, executed in a centralised fashion. That is, the workers decide but the decisions are implemented at a central level. If decisions are both decided and executed decentralised, each workplace acts on its own sectional interest.

Again, I would have to understand the form this would take, i.e. how this was implemented, but in principle I think I can probably agree.

The Feral Underclass

23rd June 2013, 10:32

And if hierarchy is not unique to capitalism then... well, so what? It's not a specifically capitalist feature that a socialist society cannot be expected to maintain (such as wage slavery, etc). Yet your previous posts imply that the very existence of hierarchy involves the 'maintenance of capitalist social relationships'. By which logic today's capitalists are actually crypto-feudalists

No, what I said was that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship -- in other words it maintains the same intra-human dynamics that negate the agency of the proletariat.

Yeah, that's highly disingenuous. Ukrainian anarchists were able to organise themselves (an important distinction) so long as 'they' were living in rural peasant communes. The Ukraine reveals just how limited this supposedly anti-hierarchy programme was and how it failed to make any inroads at all when confronted with more sophisticated/complicated urban economies. Ironically, Makhno proves Engels' point in On Authority. To steal from Avrich's The Russian Anarchists:

Yes, and that three paragraph quote fails to recognise the actual history and accomplishments of the Free Territory. Some silly anecdote about Makhno (he was just one person out of seven million) doesn't refute the significance of anarchist communism in the Ukraine. Those quotes certainly don't justify the use of the bourgeois state as a tool of transition.

Martin Blank

23rd June 2013, 10:46

You turn the proletariat into some kind of special repository of wonderfulness. They are not -- in fact, frequently they tend to reflect some of the more backward aspects of capitalist society.

No one here is talking about the proletariat as it is today. We're talking about a conscious and organized proletariat that is making a revolution, that is fighting for the overthrow of the ruling classes and the establishment of a workers' republic (dictatorship of the proletariat). Even then, we know there will still be problems. However, the last thing anyone needs is some group of condescending saviors .... oh, what is the phrase I'm looking for here?

The proletariat are important, to Marxists, because they have both the self-interest and the social power to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the D of the P moving toward socialism.

Ooh! Ooh! I know this tune! It's "The Working Class is a Big Bag of Shit to be Dragged Behind the Party", by Jim Robertson. It was catchy, but you really couldn't dance to it.

In all seriousness, what we're seeing here is the reduction of the proletariat to that of an object, something to be manipulated by and "dragged behind" an enlightened leadership of condescending saviors. What need is there for building up the proletariat as a class-for-itself -- as a ruling class -- when they are worthy of so much contempt, due to their "reflect[ing] some of the more backward aspects of capitalist society" and not being intelligent enough to think and act for themselves? They can just be fooled into supporting the "revolutionary" petty bourgeois shamelessly calling themselves "communists" and giving them power, but in no way will they be allowed to actually act as a ruling class. That's what the petty bourgeoisie is for, after all.

Workerism has been a strain on the left for a long time. When I was in college I remember an RCPer issuing a pamphlet with intentional spelling mistakes to show that they were "real" workers. The speaker dumbed down what he had to say to sound proletarian -- really idiotic stuff. Fetishizing or idealizing the working class as it exists in capitalist society is decidedly unmarxist.

Again, no one here is "fetishizing or idealizing the working class as it exists". No, the working class today can't and won't make a revolution. That's why communists organize themselves: to maximize their ability to win workers to the program of communism and proletarian revolution. But the fact that you equate "the working class as it exists" today with the working class that is fighting for its historic interests and prepared to act as a ruling class in the transition to communism speaks volumes about your contempt.

ComradeOm

23rd June 2013, 11:30

No, what I said was that hierarchy is a capitalist social relationship -- in other words it maintains the same intra-human dynamics that negate the agency of the proletariat.And what I was curious about was whether such a dynamic existed, in a different form, in pre-capitalist societies. With the obvious point looming that if it was inherent in social relations, albeit in different forms, then why can't it survive into a socialist/communist world, again in a different form? That is, if you have a feudal hierarchy and a capitalist hierarchy then why not a socialist hierarchy, one in which the weight of bodies is derived not from land or capital but via democratic mechanisms

But frankly I suspect that that conversation has run its course

Yes, and that three paragraph quote fails to recognise the actual history and accomplishments of the Free Territory. Some silly anecdote about Makhno (he was just one person out of seven million) doesn't refute the significance of anarchist communism in the Ukraine. Those quotes certainly don't justify the use of the bourgeois state as a tool of transition.Then go away and read the rest of the book. The extract was not intended as comment on either the "bourgeois state" (which you know that no one here is advocating) or "the significance of anarchist communism in the Ukraine" (which I've not not seriously questioning in this thread*).

My point, which you conveniently skipped, is that "anarchist communism in the Ukraine", which you raised as an example and regardless of its achievements or whatever, simply did not work in the cities and towns. Which is unsurprising given its peasant/rural roots. The decentralised/anti-hierarchy model broke down when applied to more complicated urban economies. To spell it out: hierarchies and centralisation are inherent to industrial/modern societies and are demanded by a certain level of economic development.

Which is what Engels was about in the first place. I thought that there was a nice symmetry between his comments on the railways and Makhno's comments to the railwaymen in the Ukraine.

*Although I would question just how far this went in breaking down intra-commune hierarchy and patriarchy. There's a blurred line between 'anarchist communism in the Ukraine' and the more common 'just leave us alone-ism' of peasant communes elsewhere. But, again, not for this thread

The Feral Underclass

24th June 2013, 14:08

And what I was curious about was whether such a dynamic existed, in a different form, in pre-capitalist societies.

You are curious about if hierarchy was a social relation in feudal times or whether it is a social relation in the capitalist epoch?

With the obvious point looming that if it was inherent in social relations, albeit in different forms, then why can't it survive into a socialist/communist world, again in a different form?Because you cannot create societies based on directly democratic control through hierarchy and a society cannot be directly democratialy controlled if hierarchy exists. People cannot be free from political, economic and social domination if hierarchy exists over them.

That is, if you have a feudal hierarchy and a capitalist hierarchy then why not a socialist hierarchy, one in which the weight of bodies is derived not from land or capital but via democratic mechanisms

These relations existed specifically to dominate. They existed in feudal times and now in capitalist times in order to dominate and better coerce people.

Hierarchy is designed specifically for this purpose. If you replicate it in a socialist society, you are replicating this social relation.

But frankly I suspect that that conversation has run its courseActually it's been the source of my contention through out this thread, it's only now that you are asking the right questions.

Then go away and read the rest of the book. The extract was not intended as comment on either the "bourgeois state" (which you know that no one here is advocating)Lenin was.

My point, which you conveniently skipped, is that "anarchist communism in the Ukraine", which you raised as an example and regardless of its achievements or whatever, simply did not work in the cities and towns.Actually, the only thing your quotes prove is that Makhno's initial attempt in one particular location was abortive.

The decentralised/anti-hierarchy model broke down when applied to more complicated urban economies. To spell it out: hierarchies and centralisation are inherent to industrial/modern societies and are demanded by a certain level of economic development.Rather than telling me to read, I suggest you read Makhno's diaries and accounts.

VinnieUK

24th June 2013, 15:42

But there's the rub. The 'little' state (the semi-state, the 'state of a different type' being the state of the majority not the minority), would still exist, you concede.

A state is a function of class society. As long as you have a working class and a capitalist class (let alone any other classes that may exist) there will be a state. And there are still capitalists, you think, therefore there is still a state.

There can be no state in socialism. But workers will have to take control of the state to dispossess the capitalist class and dismantle the capitalist state.

'Whithering away' is misleading. Socialists will abolish the state. What use is a capitalist state without capitalism?

Djoko

24th June 2013, 18:05

State is aparatus of class violence

Blake's Baby

24th June 2013, 19:45

There can be no state in socialism...

Non sequiteur. Neither of us has argued there will be.

However, you said that those who were not part of the 80-90% majority... implying that there will be a 10-20% minority, who may be in need of suppressing; and you referred to 'the working class' - there isn't one of those in socialism either, unless you believe socialism has classes, in which case I don't recognise your vision of socialism, and you have to explain to me what you think 'socialism' means.

... But workers will have to take control of the state to dispossess the capitalist class and dismantle the capitalist state...

Sure. And the 'semi-state' that the workers use to do this is still a class society, the political form of which is 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'.

...'Whithering away' is misleading. Socialists will abolish the state. What use is a capitalist state without capitalism?

How do you 'abolish' the state, without abolishing the factors that create the state? If you can abolish the state by decree, why do you need to abolish property at all? If one can abolish the state, could you do it now please and we can all get on with living in a stateless world please? If conversely the working class needs to abolish property (as the ultimate basis of the state) then what use is it to 'abolish' the state? It will have no effect, like 'abolishing' falling while still being under the effects of the law of gravity.

subcp

24th June 2013, 21:08

...'Whithering away' is misleading. Socialists will abolish the state. What use is a capitalist state without capitalism? The state form predates capitalism and capitalists; the proletarian state would be the last state organization prior to communism, outlined by Blake's Baby. It's not like the capitalist state, in the way that the capitalist state differs from the feudal-absolutist state. The article I linked to earlier in the thread by Camatte describes why 'withers away' is an apt description: during the proletarian dictatorship, the conditions of work are drastically altered by the revolutionary working-class. All other classes are liquidated as classes primarily by 2 means: generalization of labor (everyone, capitalists, small business owners, intelligenstia, managerial-technical strata, remaining peasantry, etc. becomes proletarianized) and shortening of the working-day (made possible by the level of the division of labor/socialization of labor and technical revolutions in production that wrack capitalism with crises of overproduction, all produce the conditions for the realization of communist abundance). The proletarian state acts as organized violence for recalcitrant bourgeoisie and resistance from non-bourgeois classes/strata. By the end of the process of self-defense and rapidly changing the nature of work (by generalizing in practice 'if you don't work you don't eat' for able bodied people of all classes/strata and rapidly shortening the working day), the proletarian state ceases to exist as there are no longer any classes, only the human population that labors, which never stops its movement for the realization of the higher phase of communism. The bourgeois state has to be smashed before any of this happens. The proletarian state fills the social void left after this. Basing social transformation on large majorities from the beginning of the proletarian revolution assumes a lot about what is likely to happen after mass action throws the legitimacy of existing regimes and social relations into question.

G4b3n

25th June 2013, 02:29

You ought to keep in mind that nationalization is said to take place under the proletarian state. Meaning the workers have direct political power, assuming we are not talking radical vanguardist nonsense.

Blake's Baby

25th June 2013, 09:56

Who says 'nationalisation' takes place under the 'proletarian state'?

RedMaterialist

25th June 2013, 14:54

subcp

25th June 2013, 18:20

The bigger problem is that the social aspect of capital gives the small minority of capitalists extraordinary power, even during a mass revolutionary movement. Belief in an exchange and value based society remains even after the proletariat begins exercising its agency; this is what gives the capitalists the ability to promise 'law & order' during turbulent economic and political times. In the US, groups like the Black Legion and the vigilante mobs (like the one in Centralia, WA that attacked the IWW hall and tortured, castrated and murdered a veteran Wobbly) were composed of small business owners, the family members of business owners, lumpenproletarians and criminals who were hired, etc. The 'anxious class'/petit-bourgeoisie is a numerically large class that has historically opposed the proletariat at every turn, and made up the bulwark of reaction. Even though the proletariat is numerically larger than the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie, it's not likely they will go along quietly with the movement to remove all of their social power and status, and historically they have always interfered with attempted social revolution. It's one of the 'birth marks' of capitalism giving way to the movement for communism.

Fred

25th June 2013, 21:15

No one here is talking about the proletariat as it is today. We're talking about a conscious and organized proletariat that is making a revolution, that is fighting for the overthrow of the ruling classes and the establishment of a workers' republic (dictatorship of the proletariat). Even then, we know there will still be problems. However, the last thing anyone needs is some group of condescending saviors .... oh, what is the phrase I'm looking for here?

Ooh! Ooh! I know this tune! It's "The Working Class is a Big Bag of Shit to be Dragged Behind the Party", by Jim Robertson. It was catchy, but you really couldn't dance to it.

In all seriousness, what we're seeing here is the reduction of the proletariat to that of an object, something to be manipulated by and "dragged behind" an enlightened leadership of condescending saviors. What need is there for building up the proletariat as a class-for-itself -- as a ruling class -- when they are worthy of so much contempt, due to their "reflect[ing] some of the more backward aspects of capitalist society" and not being intelligent enough to think and act for themselves? They can just be fooled into supporting the "revolutionary" petty bourgeois shamelessly calling themselves "communists" and giving them power, but in no way will they be allowed to actually act as a ruling class. That's what the petty bourgeoisie is for, after all.

Again, no one here is "fetishizing or idealizing the working class as it exists". No, the working class today can't and won't make a revolution. That's why communists organize themselves: to maximize their ability to win workers to the program of communism and proletarian revolution. But the fact that you equate "the working class as it exists" today with the working class that is fighting for its historic interests and prepared to act as a ruling class in the transition to communism speaks volumes about your contempt.

So, what is your point here comrade? I'm not denigrating the working class -- it is what it is. And it is the only class that can overthrow capitalism. That's what makes it special. There are politically advanced workers and also those that are not. I was trying to argue against the idea, which was fairly rampant on the left after '68, of idealizing the working class as it exists under capitalism. I don't think you even disagree with me here, so why all the spleen? Do you suppose workerism doesn't exist on the left or even on Revleft?

The proletariat is transformed in the course of revolutionary struggle -- if it is not, then revolution does not happen. In times of revolution it is often the proletariat that pulls the Party forward. Don't try and tar me with your twisted interpretation of what that Sparts stand for. The stench of contempt is coming from you.

Martin Blank

25th June 2013, 23:00

So, what is your point here comrade? I'm not denigrating the working class -- it is what it is. And it is the only class that can overthrow capitalism. That's what makes it special. There are politically advanced workers and also those that are not. I was trying to argue against the idea, which was fairly rampant on the left after '68, of idealizing the working class as it exists under capitalism. I don't think you even disagree with me here, so why all the spleen? Do you suppose workerism doesn't exist on the left or even on Revleft?

"Why all the spleen?" Because I've heard this all before, and I've seen the implications of it put into practice. The petty-bourgeois conceptions of workerism have been used for decades to marginalize the working class and relegate it to the backseat of revolutionary activity. Whether we're talking about those who romanticize the more socially-backward elements or those who use their rejection of that romanticism to concentrate on the more "enlightened" petty bourgeois, the effect is the same.

It is not for nothing that when workerists burn their fingers in the class struggle that they become anti-worker -- that they, too, come to the view that non-proletarians must become the core of their "revolutionary party", and that the working class is an object to be manipulated and managed. The RCP is a good example of this, and so is the Spartacist League (and its younger siblings). Both organizations emerged from the reactionary, anti-worker "New Left" and carry that "tradition" with them to this day. It is not lost on anyone who is familiar with these groups that both the RCP and SL made their "turns" away from intervening directly in the working class at the point of production at roughly the same time, and for the same reasons.

To bring this back to the topic at hand, this anti-proletarian methodology extends to the question of the transition from capitalism to communism -- the question of the proletarian dictatorship. Both the RCP and SL argue that their respective organizations, composed of and led by the petty bourgeoisie, are each the "revolutionary party". When it comes to a revolution and the overthrow of the ruling classes, each of these parties believe they are the voice and consciousness of the proletariat in power -- even though the proletariat itself would be both politically and economically dispossessed and disenfranchised.

Their "proletarian state" would be a management team made up of these petty-bourgeois "Bolsheviks" and "specialists" from the old capitalist state ("ex-" bureaucrats, managers, cops and military officers), and those workers who would object to the imposition of a petty-bourgeois "socialism" would be called "syndicalists", "workerists", "anarchists" and "anti-Party". All of their "orthodox" slogans and analysis are dumped the moment they attain political (state) power, and calls for "all power to the soviets" in the period before the revolution has the unspoken caveat, "... and by 'the soviets', we mean us".

And it all starts with the contemptuous view that conflates the working class today, with all of its relative social backwardness, with the working class in a revolutionary period and the blithe dismissal of systematic work designed to prepare the working class for taking power in its own name as "workerism". We've seen this future, and it doesn't work.

The proletariat is transformed in the course of revolutionary struggle -- if it is not, then revolution does not happen. In times of revolution it is often the proletariat that pulls the Party forward. Don't try and tar me with your twisted interpretation of what that Sparts stand for. The stench of contempt is coming from you.

Yes, I have contempt for those who have contempt for my class, who see us as a "big bag of shit" that has to rely on condescending saviors masquerading as "communists" for our own emancipation. I don't rely on a "twisted interpretation"; the politics and programs of these petty-bourgeois socialists are twisted enough. I simply shine a light on it.

All of us who are communist workers, even if we disagree, are the children of Marx. When he wrote that "the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves", he didn't mean non-proletarian philanthropic misanthropes. He meant us; he meant communist proletarians. On the other hand, those who believe we as workers are not capable of organizing and leading our own struggle for self-liberation -- to say nothing about taking power and directly administering the transition from capitalism to communism -- and instead require the leadership of some collection of "enlightened" petty bourgeois, whether it's because "oppression oppresses" or some other slogan that excuses alien class elements posturing as the "vanguard of the proletariat", are the children of Bernstein (no matter what they call themselves today).

It is the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie who are here presenting themselves, full of anxiety that the proletariat, under the pressure of its revolutionary position, may “go too far.” Instead of decided political opposition, general compromise; instead of the struggle against the government and the bourgeoisie, an attempt to win and to persuade; instead of defiant resistance to ill-treatment from above, a humble submission and a confession that the punishment was deserved. Historically necessary conflicts are all re-interpreted as misunderstandings, and all discussion ends with the assurance that after all we are all agreed on the main point. The people who came out as bourgeois democrats in 1848 could just as well call themselves social-democrats now. To them the democratic republic was unattainably remote, and to these people the overthrow of the capitalist system is equally so, and therefore has absolutely no significance for practical present-day politics; one can mediate, compromise and philanthropize to one’s heart’s content. It is just the same with the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. It is recognized on paper because its existence can no longer be denied, but in practice it is hushed up, diluted, attenuated.

The Social-Democratic Party is not to be a workers’ party, is not to burden itself with the hatred of the bourgeoisie or of anyone else; should above all conduct energetic propaganda among the bourgeoisie: instead of laying stress on far-reaching aims which frighten the bourgeoisie and are not, after all, attainable in our generation, it should rather devote its whole strength and energy to those small petty-bourgeois patching-up reforms which by providing the old order of society with new props may perhaps transform the ultimate catastrophe into a gradual, piecemeal and, so far as is possible, peaceful process of dissolution. These are the same people who under the pretense of indefatigable activity not only do nothing themselves but also try to prevent anything happening at all except chatter; the same people whose fear of every form of action in 1848 and 1849 obstructed the movement at every step and finally brought about its downfall; the same people who see a reaction and are then quite astonished to find themselves at last in a blind alley where neither resistance nor flight is possible; the same people who want to confine history within their narrow petty-bourgeois horizon and over whose heads history invariably proceeds to the order of the day....

If people of this kind from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first condition is that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should wholeheartedly adopt the proletarian point of view. But these gentlemen, as has been proved, are stuffed and crammed with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In such a petty-bourgeois country as Germany these ideas certainly have their own justification. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. If these gentlemen form themselves into a Social-Democratic Petty-Bourgeois Party they have a perfect right to do so; one could then negotiate with them, form a bloc according to circumstances, etc. But in a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. If reasons exist for tolerating them there for the moment, it is also a duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. The time, moreover, seems to have come. How the Party can tolerate the authors of this article [Bernstein, Höchberg and Schramm; the "Zurichers", a collective of social-democratic intellectuals that also included Kautsky among its leading members — MB] in its midst any longer is to us incomprehensible. But if the leadership of the Party should fall more or less into the hands of such people then the Party will simply be castrated and proletarian energy will be at an end.

Fred

26th June 2013, 16:18

Your equating the RCP and the Spartacists is truly hilarious:laugh:. The Bolsheviks were led by many former members of the petite bourgeoisie. Until the party had a mass, proletarian base, it obviously had little social weight or power.

There are members of the working class in most left groups, including the Sparticists, and I presume, the RCP. You are clearly proud to be a proletarian communist. Okay, that's great. But the have majority of mass movements of workers that have failed to lead to revolution because of two things, objective circumstances and political program. With the former, well sometimes you fight and lose -- the timing is wrong (e.g., Germany 1919 -- although the political failure IMO was the left-wing's failure to break with the right and center sooner), but very often the political program is what does it.

The New Left, was not homogeneous and neither is the working class. I'll go out on a limb and say neither of us are student vanguardists. In the late 60s you had a lot of people including a small but growing portion of the working class, beginning to oppose capitalism and to look for revolutionary alternatives (e.g., DRUM, in Detroit). The RCP's forebears, after '68 "discovered the proletariat," as did a lot of the new leftists. The Spartacists and their forebears in the SWPUS, always emphasized the necessity of fighting to win over the working class -- to break them away from the Democratic Party, etc.

I don't know where you come up with the "bag of shit," line from. Let's find some material actually published by the Sparts that even suggests such a thing. I don't think you will, but knock yourself out. To make it "easier" you can use IBT, IG and RG materials too to bolster your position.

That is a good quote, btw. However, equating ortho trots with Bernstein is just wrong. They disagree with just about every political position that man ever put forth. You are insinuating something that I believe is founded on your hostility to the SL, not the facts at hand.

Martin Blank

26th June 2013, 23:36

Hmm. No comments/criticism on the points related to the topic at hand. Noted and logged.

Your equating the RCP and the Spartacists is truly hilarious:laugh:.

You might think so, but take a step back and put them side-by-side. When you strip away the rhetoric and look at the actions of both, you see a parallel between them. Both groups made their "turn" toward organizing in the working class at the point of production at roughly the same time (very-late-1960s) and abandoned that work at roughly the same time (mid-to-late-1970s). And the beginning and end of these "turns" occurred for parallel reasons -- i.e., the belief that the working-class upsurge would spark proletarian revolution, and the belief that the time for said upsurge had passed, respectively. The methodology and outlook were the same, even if they had different rhetorical window dressing.

The Bolsheviks were led by many former members of the petite bourgeoisie. Until the party had a mass, proletarian base, it obviously had little social weight or power.

First, they weren't "former" members of the petty bourgeoisie. To be "former" implies they jumped classes. They did not. Nearly all of them remained what they were when they joined the RSDLP: elements from the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. (And, before you say it, no, they were not "declassed". That is a bourgeois Weberian construct that is completely alien to communist theory and methodology, introduced into the Social-Democratic movement by men like Kautsky and ... Bernstein. One cannot, through mere force of will, lift themselves out of the mode of production in which they exist. Period.)

Second, the Bolsheviks never really had a mass proletarian base per se. What they had was a conjunctural alliance with the advanced sections of the proletariat on the basis of the slogans, "All Power to the Soviets!", "Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers!", "Workers' Control!" and "Peace! Land! Bread!". As has been pointed out by me and others, how workers interpreted these slogans and how the Bolsheviks did were two different things.

And this brings us back to the topic at hand. The Bolsheviks had a very social-democratic conception of both the Soviet and Workers' Control slogans. They equated the "Soviet state" with the power of the Soviets themselves; they equated state planning and control, and one-person management, with workers' control. Workers, on the other hand, took the slogans as a program: ALL power to the Soviets, not some power (with most of the important elements in the hands of the Sovnarkom); WORKERS' control, not state control with the workers themselves (organized into the Bolshevik-led union federation) acting as enforcers of "labor discipline" and "productivity". Workers, including those inside the Bolshevik Party, who had read Marx and sought to build a "commune state" were either co-opted into the emerging state bureaucracy or effectively exiled to die in the Civil War.

(For that matter, they also had a very social-democratic conception of the Capitalist Minister slogan, too. For the Bolsheviks, the problem seemed to be that they were capitalist ministers, not government ministers in general. The Sovnarkom came to work like the executive cabinet of a capitalist government, not the "working groups" that Marx spoke about in describing the Paris Commune. This only got worse as the Bolsheviks reconstituted and co-opted large sections of the old tsarist state bureaucracy to serve the "Soviet state".)

The fact that the Bolsheviks lived rather vicariously through the Social-Democratic Party of Germany prior to 1914 had a deforming effect, much of which has been explored in this and other threads. By the time of the events in 1917, the left of international social-democracy (which would soon become the Communist International) had either lost or rejected the lessons of the 19th century, including those of the Paris Commune, and replaced them with concepts that, in all reality, never really ventured beyond capitalism's most extremely advanced and democratic forms of class rule and mode of production.

You are clearly proud to be a proletarian communist. Okay, that's great. But the majority of mass movements of workers that have failed to lead to revolution because of two things, objective circumstances and political program. With the former, well sometimes you fight and lose -- the timing is wrong (e.g., Germany 1919 -- although the political failure IMO was the left-wing's failure to break with the right and center sooner), but very often the political program is what does it.

I don't dispute that program plays a decisive role. But a program does not exist in a vacuum; there is a direct interrelationship between program and society -- between the party and the class. A program that emerges from among communist proletarians -- i.e., from within the class itself, as a product of direct interactions among workers (both communist and non-communist) -- is certainly much closer to properly reflecting the objective and historic demands of our class than is a program developed in relative secrecy by a group of petty-bourgeois intellectuals who have, at best, a passing and superficial relationship with some workers.

When we began developing the new (second) program for the Workers Party, one of the first things we did is start discussing the issue with our co-workers and, in some case, our neighbors. A lot of that work simply involved listening to what our brothers and sisters had to say. And those discussions led to some significant changes, not the least of which was the elimination of the old Platform. And as time goes on, we will continue to subject our Program to discussion and review by the working class, seeking to make it a more organic outgrowth.

I don't know where you come up with the "bag of shit," line from. Let's find some material actually published by the Sparts that even suggests such a thing. I don't think you will, but knock yourself out. To make it "easier" you can use IBT, IG and RG materials too to bolster your position.

Since I don't have access to SL Internal Bulletins or transcripts of their meetings, I cannot give you the first-hand documentation. I can, however, tell you that I have heard this incident described in great detail by former SL/SYL members, and there is second-hand confirmation in the early documents from the ET/BT (pre-Logan).

That is a good quote, btw. However, equating ortho trots with Bernstein is just wrong. They disagree with just about every political position that man ever put forth. You are insinuating something that I believe is founded on your hostility to the SL, not the facts at hand.

You may be right that the moden SL disagrees with Bernstein about gradualism, etc., but when it comes to the broader topic at hand -- the view of the role of the working class in the revolution -- there are no principled differences between them. And it's not just the SL; it is any self-described socialist or communist organization that rejects the leading role the working class has in the movement to overthrow the ruling classes and in the transition to communism. In my view, that list is rather long. The SL has been singled out here because they have been more blunt about their views than have most of the other organizations. If anything, the SL is in the proverbial crosshairs here because of their honesty, not my hostility (which is really no different than the hostility I have toward most other groups).

VinnieUK

30th June 2013, 14:34

Doubt they would take up arms? Russia 1917, China 1930, Vietnam 1955, Cuba 1960, Central/South America 60s-80s, Angola-South Africa 70s-90s. The capitalist class is ready to murder as many people as it takes to defeat socialism.

Are you suggesting that actual capitalists- investors, landlords - would take up arms against and army under the control of the majority of the people?

I am no expert but perhaps someone can enlighten me. Investors, landlords etc took up arms in Vietnam? Cuba?

I think what you mean is that workers took up arms to defend the interests of investors, capitalists, landowners etc

VinnieUK

30th June 2013, 14:50

Non sequiteur. Neither of us has argued there will be.

in which case I don't recognise your vision of socialism, and you have to explain to me what you think 'socialism' means.

There is only one definition of socialism.

the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire global population.

No wages, no state,no capital, no nationalisation, no money, no banks. Just human beings organised democratically to produce wealth to meet human need.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/what-socialism

But this cannot be achieved without taking control of the state or the capitalist class will use the state against a socialist revolution.

The capitalist class must be disposed. Attempts to smash the state or ignore the state will be doomed to failure. Workers run society - including the Army and police from top to bottom. It is only class consciousness that is absent.

The job of the socialist is to encourage the truth about capitalism and how it can be replaced.

ComradeOm

30th June 2013, 21:30

Actually, the only thing your quotes prove is that Makhno's initial attempt in one particular location was abortiveFine, point out to me a location in which Makhno's policies were successfully applied to a large urban area or established industrial economy. Shouldn't be difficult, right?

Rather than telling me to read, I suggest you read Makhno's diaries and accounts.And when I read Molotov's diaries I get told that Stalinist Russia was a perfect socialist society. I don't accept such a resort to apologism from Ismail and I'm not going to accept it from you

RedMaterialist

1st July 2013, 23:56

Are you suggesting that actual capitalists- investors, landlords - would take up arms against and army under the control of the majority of the people?

I am no expert but perhaps someone can enlighten me. Investors, landlords etc took up arms in Vietnam? Cuba?

I think what you mean is that workers took up arms to defend the interests of investors, capitalists, landowners etc

The capitalists, bankers, landlords, etc. aren't the ones who take up arms, they hire thugs to do the dirty work. In Vietnam the French and U.S. military took up arms, or were ordered to; and they murdered about 5 million Vietnamese, Laos and Cambodians. Cuba is still under a U.S. embargo. Reagan's death squads (remember those brave freedom fighters?) murdered thousands in Central America. Wars of aggression, drone murders, assassin squads, torture. These people will stop at nothing.

I believe what you said is that the capitalists, etc. would not take up arms:

If you mean by 'workers state' a state under the democratic control of 80 to 90% of the population then a few investors and landowners will need only a little suppression I doubt they would take up arms against an army controlled by the majority of the population.

I think you are too optimistic about what capital will do to protect its interests.

The Feral Underclass

2nd July 2013, 11:56

Fine, point out to me a location in which Makhno's policies were successfully applied to a large urban area or established industrial economy. Shouldn't be difficult, right?

Are you actually serious? You really just don't know anything about what you're talking, do you? Erm, Huliaipole...Let's also not forget the Free Territory was supplying Moscow with goods.

In any case, the Ukraine of 1920 wasn't particular industrialised.

And when I read Molotov's diaries I get told that Stalinist Russia was a perfect socialist society. I don't accept such a resort to apologism from Ismail and I'm not going to accept it from you

Well that's convenient. I suppose it's much more self-affirming if you only read things by people you agree with. :rolleyes:

If you want to take the weird, paranoid position that everything that anyone you disagree with says, has some nefarious intent and is lying, then that's up to you, but it will just mean you continue to be ignorant and ill-informed.

If you do manage to prize your face away from your ass and decide to open up your myopic sight to other things, I would suggest reading Peter Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement. It is a little Makhno sycophantic at times, but the general analysis and accounts are worth noting.

ComradeOm

2nd July 2013, 20:58

Are you actually serious? You really just don't know anything about what you're talking, do you? Erm, Huliaipole...Um, wow. I mean, golly gosh. How could I have forgotten that booming metropolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Ukraine)

In any case, the Ukraine of 1920 wasn't particular industrialised.Ugh. And you accuse me of not knowing what I'm knowing about. Really?

Kiev, Ekaterinoslav/Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Donetsk, Kharkov, etc were all large cities with strong industrial bases. The Donets Basin in the east of the Ukraine was probably the largest industrial area in the Empire after Petrograd and Moscow. The region was known as 'Russia's Ruhr' and had a sizeable working class population.

But you may not have known this if you only read histories written by Makhno and Makhnovists. What with the area, and its workers, remaining solidly Bolshevik throughout the period. You may in fact be under the impression that the Ukraine was full of nothing but villages and 'cities' like Huliaipole. You'd be wrong

Well that's convenient. I suppose it's much more self-affirming if you only read things by people you agree with. :rolleyes:

If you want to take the weird, paranoid position that everything that anyone you disagree with says, has some nefarious intent and is lying, then that's up to you, but it will just mean you continue to be ignorant and ill-informed.

If you do manage to prize your face away from your ass and decide to open up your myopic sight to other things, I would suggest reading Peter Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement. It is a little Makhno sycophantic at times, but the general analysis and accounts are worth noting.Seriously, where has this come from? Aside from a knee-jerk reaction to attack everyone? It makes no sense at all

You're aware that Paul Avrich is probably one of the more sympathetic historians of anarchism? But because he's not your source, I'm the one with the closed mind? Bollox

The Feral Underclass

2nd July 2013, 22:45

Um, wow. I mean, golly gosh. How could I have forgotten that booming metropolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Ukraine)

Like I said, the Ukraine wasn't particularly industrialised, especially within the Free Territory. But I don't understand your point. You asked me to provide examples of where urban areas were collectivised and I provided you with one.

Neither the Nabat, Makhno nor I can be blamed for these urban areas not being metropolises.

Ugh. And you accuse me of not knowing what I'm knowing about. Really?

Kiev, Ekaterinoslav/Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Donetsk, Kharkov, etc were all large cities with strong industrial bases. The Donets Basin in the east of the Ukraine was probably the largest industrial area in the Empire after Petrograd and Moscow. The region was known as 'Russia's Ruhr' and had a sizeable working class population.

Only Dnipropetrovk and Donetsk were part of the Free Territory and that was only between 1918 and 1919, so...

But you may not have known this if you only read histories written by Makhno and Makhnovists. What with the area, and its workers, remaining solidly Bolshevik throughout the period. You may in fact be under the impression that the Ukraine was full of nothing but villages and 'cities' like Huliaipole. You'd be wrong

What purpose would Makhno and Arshinov have for lying? They accepted their failures and criticised their own actions in great length. They weren't trying to obfuscate the truth or provide a false account.

If you have proof that Dnipropetrovk and Donetsk remained "solidly Bolshevik" then I'd be happy to read it, but frankly, I don't care. You asked me to provide urban areas that were brought under the revolutionary army and I provided you with one -- you provided two more.

If you are trying to turn this into some kind of competition, then your priorities are misplaced. I am not interested in some puerile historical dick measuring contest. I am interested in understanding the history and learning lessons. If you want to do that then fine, but if you are only here to grandstand you can count me out.

Seriously, where has this come from? Aside from a knee-jerk reaction to attack everyone? It makes no sense at all

That's very bizarre considering my response was to you telling me you were refusing to read Makhno and Arshinov's accounts because they would be misleading -- comparing them to Molotov's account of Stalin's Russia.

Incidentally, Arshinov's account does not talk about the Free Territory being perfect (as you accuse Molotov of doing in Russia) and spends a chapter discussing the failures of the movement.

Makhno and Arshinov aren't lying to you. They are different accounts to what you are used to, sure, and they may even be a little biased (they were anarchists after all), but they were also participants in the struggle, who fought hard to achieve a free, communist Ukraine, and what they have to say is relevant -- even if you don't agree with it.

You're aware that Paul Avrich is probably one of the more sympathetic historians of anarchism? But because he's not your source, I'm the one with the closed mind? Bollox

Then you will have no problem reading Arshinov's accounts or Makhno's diaries.

ComradeOm

6th July 2013, 12:59

But I don't understand your point. You asked me to provide examples of where urban areas were collectivised and I provided you with oneNo, I asked for a "large urban area or established industrial economy". You gave me a small provincial town. Try again

Only Dnipropetrovk and Donetsk were part of the Free Territory and that was only between 1918 and 1919, so...So what we've established is that of all the major industrial or population centres in the Ukraine (and there was not a shortage of these) the Free Territory ruled two. And in these two (Dnipropetrovsk/Ekaterinoslav and Donetsk/Aleksandrovsk) Makhno's economic policies proved entirely unsuited and a failure. Which pretty much brings us back to the beginning

Seriously, is that all you've got? If so can you please just accept that Mahkno's policies did not work in the more sophisticated and industrial cities. Or just not provide the two examples that I'd already mentioned earlier in the thread

If you are trying to turn this into some kind of competition, then your priorities are misplaced. I am not interested in some puerile historical dick measuring contest. I am interested in understanding the history and learning lessonsI genuinely don't think you are. I think the avenue of my thinking here has been pretty straightforward - as a predominately rural and peasant based movement, the Makhnovists struggled in the more complex cities and industrial centres - but you've met this with obfuscation and evasion. I ask for an example of Makhnovist governance comparable to Dnipropetrovsk and you give me Huliaipole? You're having a laugh

That's not a "puerile historical dick measuring contest" (?), that's you just you going on the defensive because your 'understanding of the history' is at best flawed and at worst built on castles-in-the-sky wishful thinking. And we've already seen in this thread how this leads to the wrong lessons learnt

So here's how it's going to end. I laid my thesis out pretty plainly back in post #120 and have reiterated it since and above. Now fuck off and try to disprove it. Come back to me with an example of Makno's policies working in a large city with a complex industrial economy. No small provincial towns, no nonsense about how the Ukraine wasn't industrialised (unless you can explain why the Makhnovists made no headway in those large industrial centres that did exist), no bullshit. Just have the discussion, if you're capable of it

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 13:04

Okay then, you're right and I'm wrong. Is that better? You jumped up prick.

ComradeOm

6th July 2013, 13:19

About time. Christ, having a discussion with you is like pulling teeth

Now, can we get back to the basic point that, as I expressed in #134, hierarchies and centralisation are inherent to industrial/modern societies and are demanded by a certain level of economic development? Something that we can now flesh out with the example of the Ukraine: attempting to applying an anti-hierarchical programme (one originally designed for independent producers) to a large urban/industrial society simply led to chaos and alienated the workers

Or are you going to sulk because you apparently lost a "puerile historical dick measuring contest" (which I now understand to mean a ridiculous, unnecessary and futile tangent) of your own making?

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 13:26

No, I asked for a "large urban area or established industrial economy".

I thought your argument was that they couldn't implement their policies successfully?

So what we've established is that of all the major industrial or population centres in the Ukraine (and there was not a shortage of these) the Free Territory ruled two. And in these two (Dnipropetrovsk/Ekaterinoslav and Donetsk/Aleksandrovsk) Makhno's economic policies proved entirely unsuited and a failure. Which pretty much brings us back to the beginning

Where is the evidence for this?

Seriously, is that all you've got?

Yes, that's all I've got. I am happy to concede that the Makhnovshchina didn't control "large urban areas," but I thought your argument was that they didn't successfully implement their policies in such areas, so I'm confused by what you're arguing.

If we assume it's the latter, then I haven't read the Avrich book, but I have it open in front of me now and I don't see any evidence for your claims. In fact, I can't see much evidence for what you're saying any where.

I would be very happy to see such evidence though, if only to re-affirm your rightness.

If so can you please just accept that Mahkno's policies did not work in the more sophisticated and industrial cities. Or just not provide the two examples that I'd already mentioned earlier in the thread

You appear to be confusing your argument.

The Makhnovshchina has to actually have control of those areas in order for the policies to be implemented, and as you have so skilfully demonstrated, the Makhnovshchina didn't have control over large urban areas or large industrialised economies...

I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. Either they did control them and the policies failed, or they didn't control them and the policies were never able to be implemented...

I genuinely don't think you are.

Well, you'll be shocked to learn I don't give fuck what you think. Now what?

I think the avenue of my thinking here has been pretty straightforward - as a predominately rural and peasant based movement, the Makhnovists struggled in the more complex cities and industrial centres

Which you have claimed they never were in control of...

but you've met this with obfuscation and evasion. I ask for an example of Makhnovist governance comparable to Dnipropetrovsk and you give me Huliaipole? You're having a laugh

Here again, you're confusing your own argument.

]That's not a "puerile historical dick measuring contest" (?), that's you just you going on the defensive because your 'understanding of the history' is at best flawed and at worst built on castles-in-the-sky wishful thinking. And we've already seen in this thread how this leads to the wrong lessons learnt

This is coming from someone who a) has provided no evidence to back up his claims and b) can't even make a consistent argument.

So here's how it's going to end. I laid my thesis out pretty plainly back in post #120 and have reiterated it since and above.

Actually you haven't laid it out clearly. I am confused as to what your argument actually is. Is it a) that the Makhnovshchina never controlled large industrialised areas or b) that they unsuccessfully integrated their policies?

Now fuck off and try to disprove it. Come back to me with an example of Makno's policies working in a large city with a complex industrial economy. No small provincial towns, no nonsense about how the Ukraine wasn't industrialised (unless you can explain why the Makhnovists made no headway in those large industrial centres that did exist), no bullshit. Just have the discussion, if you're capable of it

So you want me to fuck off and disprove you at the same time? Once again you display your inability to construct consistent thinking...

Do you want to try again?

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 13:28

About time.

Yeah, you wish, dicko.

Now, can we get back to the basic point that, as I expressed in #134, hierarchies and centralisation are inherent to industrial/modern societies and are demanded by a certain level of economic development? Something that we can now flesh out with the example of the Ukraine: attempting to applying an anti-hierarchical programme (one originally designed for independent producers) to a large urban/industrial society simply led to chaos and alienated the workers

Well if we are going to use the Ukraine as an example, we would have to first establish whether the Makhnovshchina controlled large urban areas or not. I said they did, you said they didn't, so I'm confused about how they could have unsuccessfully implemented their ideas.

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 13:31

By the way, if people would like to read Paul Avrich's book, The Russian Anarchists, they can do so online here (http://libcom.org/files/Avrich,%20Paul%20-%20The%20Russian%20Anarchists.PDF).

ComradeOm

6th July 2013, 14:06

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 14:38

I knew it. You don't have a leg to stand on here TAT but you're far too mulish to let something like this go. Particularly since I really don't think that you can answer my above post (ie the broader theoretical question) without this

*Shrug*

But I do want to wrap this up soon. I'm not going to direct you to the pages in books that you're too lazy to skim and your last post added a sum zero of nothing to the thread. Except for laughs when you get things badly wrong. So pick up your game TAT because this is getting boring

It got boring a long time ago.

Yes. I'm not asking for a scenario where the Makhnovists build up a large industrial base on their own but one in which they occupied such a city and successfully imposed their policies there

But you have demonstrated that they never occupied such areas, so it would therefore be impossible for them to have successfully or unsuccessfully imposed their policies...

Now I've given examples of where they tried but failed to do this.

No you haven't. You, rightly, gave me examples of areas in which large industrialised areas existed, in contradiction to my view that these were limited.

As we discovered, and which you, again, rightly pointed out only consisted of two places that were part of the Free Territory and which were only occupied for a year.

This prompted you to say: "So what we've established is that of all the major industrial or population centres in the Ukraine (and there was not a shortage of these) the Free Territory ruled two."

You then said: "And in these two (Dnipropetrovsk/Ekaterinoslav and Donetsk/Aleksandrovsk) Makhno's economic policies proved entirely unsuited and a failure. Which pretty much brings us back to the beginning"

I have asked you to provide evidence for this and you have refused to do so.

What I've been asking for, for quite some time now, is a case in which Mahkno's policies worked in an industrial urban economy.

I recognise that's the case, but what I am saying to you is that I'm confused. You have already argued, successfully, that the Makhnovaschina didn't occupy large industrialised areas. In fact, you argued that these areas remained "solidly Bolshevik."

Now, of the two examples we have finally agreed upon, I am yet to see evidence -- at least credible evidence -- from you that supports the claim that they were unable to implement economic policies, or indeed that they implemented such policies at all.

Again, you are free to provide such evidence.

Because the current score is two failures in two attempts, which makes a mockery of anyone holding up the Free Territory as an example for any modern society to follow

But as I say, we're yet to establish whether what you're saying is correct.

But now you've shifted your position to argue against the idea that the "Makhnovshchina didn't control 'large urban areas'".

Yes, I conceded your point.

Apparently, in the wonderful world of TAT, those two cities that they did run so disastrously don't count any more. Because, you know

If this is what you have taken from my previous post then you aren't really paying attention, because I said quite clearly: "I would be very happy to see such evidence though, if only to re-affirm your rightness."

If you have evidence that proves that the Makhnovist attempts to implement economic policies in these two cities were disastrous, then I am happy to concede and move on.

As of yet, I haven't seen you provide evidence that they even tried, let alone tried and failed...

I'm can only assume that the reason for this leap is that you also can't produce any positive examples of anarchist governance in such areas. More difficult than you thought, hmmm?

It's not a leap, it's a concession. I am conceding I was wrong and now I am asking you to back up your claims with evidence. I don't think that's unreasonable or confusing for you.

Avrich, The Russian Anarchists. Which I quoted earlier in this thread and which you know. You say that you've got it open in front of you, then flick to page 219 and read*

But isn't that the example you already provided?

In any case, it says that he failed to "win people over", which implies the policies weren't even implemented. Even if it didn't imply that, the idea of workers being "lost" without supervisors or guidance is simply, to me at least, a recognition of the residual effects of capitalist social relations.

The argument then becomes about whether workers can not be lost without guidance and supervisors. I contend that they can, have and do operate without such things.

Furthermore, it seems highly unlikely that the Makhnovists would "implement" anything (since implementation for anarchists would require consent) and as your "evidence" suggests, Makhno's involvement was simply to argue for his ideas, which he failed to do.

It seems completely at odds with anarchism that the Makhnovists would have gone to these cities and implemented these policies against the express will of the majority of people, a majority your "evidence" claims were not "won over to."

I'm sorry, but what you are claiming doesn't seem to make sense and it certainly isn't consistent with the two paragraphs of "evidence" you have provided.

Really, do you have a three post memory? Are you the internet equivalent of a goldfish? Because at this point I'm struggling to work out where the obfuscation ends and the genuine incomprehension begins. Do you even know what we're arguing about or are you just running on autopilot ad hominems?

I haven't made any ad hominems. Learn what ad hominems means.

And it's not a question of me forgetting, I am simply bringing into question the credibility of your "evidence," which thus far amounts to two paragraphs and doesn't actually, necessarily provide any facts. It is, as far as I can tell, Avrich conjecture that isn't even referenced. The "evidence" doesn't even speak specifically of the two locations you have cited, so how do we even know where these alleged evidence is taking place...

*This is what it's come to? I'm having to direct you to the actual page in the book because you're unable to do a Ctrl-F search? You're hapless

It seems rather unfair for you to be able to demand evidence from me and insist how easy it should be and then get all prissy when I ask you the same. In any case, the online version isn't searchable.

They controlled two such cities.

For one year. I would be very interested to see what, in this year, was implemented, if at all anything was implemented.

Their policies failed in two such cities.

Which policies were these? Where and how did they implement them? Where is your evidence that they even did implement them?

The conclusion being that the policies proved entirely unsuited to the city environment. That's pretty straightforward and with little room for confusion

Except confusion abounds, especially when you consider the sum of your posts, which contain nothing more than badly backed up conjecture.

The corollary to this, which I made the mistake of hinting at because you're clearly confused yourself

Something I've openly admitted to at least twice...

is that this failure in industrial centres strongly points to the limits of anarchist appeal in the industrial areas of the Ukraine. But at this stage I'm keen enough to get back to the actual point of the thread (ie the application of anarchist policies to industrial environments) that I don't want you worrying your little precious head about that

I'm flattered by your concern.