Basic Political Theory Questions

[salman1985]

Most of this might sound extremely naive to the political expert, so excuse the naive sounding questions.But i just want to brush up my knowledge on the below mentioned topics.

1) How does the communism cycle work? To put it in simple words, what stages of political ideologies does a nation need to go through to become a communist state?

2) What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

3) What is the difference between Marxim, Marxist-Lenninsm, Stalanism and Maoism? Do all four of these political theories stem from the same branch? Or is there a significant difference in the way they evolved?

4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?

5) Why did Communism collapse ? Was it because the ideology was flawed? Or was there a problem in its implementation?

6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory? Also, Anarchism is an anti-state sentiment leading to social unrest/disorder and possible violence. How is that beneficial?

These are some of my basic queries.I'll keep on bugging you folks with other questions too, so bear with me.

[The Idler]

No such thing as nations. Communism will be a global society which has first passed through modern industrial capitalism.
Socialism and communism were used interchangeably by Marx to mean the same kind of society. Communism was used by Marx in the Communist Manifesto to distinguish scientific socialism from earlier utopian socialisms.
Marxism asserted the emancipation of the working-class will be the act of the working-class itself. Lenin said workers, by themselves, are only capable of attaining trade union consciousness which most Marxists at the time rightly regarded as a departure from Marx. Stalin claimed to follow Lenin and Mao claimed to follow Stalin.
So-called socialist countries were authoritarian not a socialist society.
Communism as Marx described some key features of, has never, NEVER been attempted with any great headway being made.
Anarchism grew from and belongs to the wider socialist movement. Characterisations of it revolving around being anti-state (probably by U. S. libertarians) unfairly sideline its somewhat socialist conception of capitalism. Socialism is pro-society. It is the current society that is oppressive, ruthless, brutal and characterised by conflict even if you only experience this through the labour market.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Socialism and communism were used interchangeably by Marx to mean the same kind of society. Communism was used by Marx in the Communist Manifesto to distinguish scientific socialism from earlier utopian socialisms.

Even today, the term "socialism" is used by all sorts of eclectics, "leftist" anticommunists, reactionaries and so on.





Marxism asserted the emancipation of the working-class will be the act of the working-class itself. Lenin said workers, by themselves, are only capable of attaining trade union consciousness which most Marxists at the time rightly regarded as a departure from Marx. Stalin claimed to follow Lenin and Mao claimed to follow Stalin.

Oh, this nonsense again. Have you actually read "What is to be done"? Are you familiar with the context - the struggle within the RSDRP against the economists, a faction against which Marx himself struggled? Lenin's point was that the spontaneous economic actions of the workers are unlikely to lead to the highest form of class consciousness, and that the intervention of a Marxist party was necessary for this consciousness to form. Lenin never claimed that elements other than the proletariat could lead the revolution - this nonsense has been read into "What is to be done?" by those that glorify spontaneity and thus absolve themselves from actual political work.





So-called socialist countries were authoritarian not a socialist society.

And, pray tell, what sort of society is "authoritarianism"? What class owns the means of production in "authoritarianism"?

[The Idler]

What class is the Marxist party if it is intervening in the proletariat? This conception of a party outside of the proletariat just doesn't make sense for socialism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What class is the Marxist party if it is intervening in the proletariat? This conception of a party outside of the proletariat just doesn't make sense for socialism.

Propaganda groups and communist circles that precede the formation of a mass proletarian party - and the RSDRP was a coalition of such elements when "What is to be done?" was written - tend to have members from various classes and special strata. Once the mass party is formed, it should have a proletarian majority - but one can't simply expect a nucleus of class-conscious workers to form out of the purely economic struggles of the working class. Marxists are supposed to analyse the objective needs of the proletariat, not to tail the least conscious elements of the proletariat as the economists do.

[Hit The North]

What class is the Marxist party if it is intervening in the proletariat? This conception of a party outside of the proletariat just doesn't make sense for socialism.

The party is the party of the working class. Lenin never asserted otherwise, did he?

[Akshay!]

4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?
Countries "practicing" capitalism have much higher death tolls but they're either blamed on the system, or considered natural and inevitable whereas death tolls in a socialist country are extremely exaggerated and then blamed on an evil mad dictator who wanted to kill everybody.


6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory?
It doesn't!

[Hit The North]

Most of this might sound extremely naive to the political expert, so excuse the naive sounding questions.But i just want to brush up my knowledge on the below mentioned topics.

1) How does the communism cycle work? To put it in simple words, what stages of political ideologies does a nation need to go through to become a communist state?


No stages of ideology. The stages are social and economic. For Marx, socialism can only be realised when the means of production have reached a certain point and when a universal class (the proletariat) has been forced to decisively assert its interest (and the interest of all humanity) against the rule of capital.


2) What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

Some have argued that Marx and Engels saw "socialism" as the immediate and transitional period after the overthrow of capitalism, containing vestiges of the old society, and "communism" as the mature stage when society has become self-regulating and in no need of a state. Some, like The Idler, argue that they are used interchangeably by Marx and Engels for mainly political reasons to distance themselves from various opposing tendencies and have no real theoretical distinction in Marxist theory.


3) What is the difference between Marxim, Marxist-Lenninsm, Stalanism and Maoism? Do all four of these political theories stem from the same branch? Or is there a significant difference in the way they evolved?

In many ways it is history and context that separate these tendencies within the revolutionary movement. There are theoretical and political differences and controversies, though, which shouldn't be downplayed.


4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?

5) Why did Communism collapse ? Was it because the ideology was flawed? Or was there a problem in its implementation?

The answer to these two questions is connected and has to do with whether you think these societies were ever socialist/communist or some deviation there-from (state capitalist, bureaucratic-collectivist, whatever).


6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory? Also, Anarchism is an anti-state sentiment leading to social unrest/disorder and possible violence. How is that beneficial?


Anarchism is a method of action that differs from Marxism but it is communistic in its aims. Both Marxism and Anarchism view the future society as a stateless association of free individuals, but anarchists have argued that the political organisation favoured by Marxists will result in the establishment of another political dictatorship over the people - a new kind of state. In their theory of power, many anarchist writers have tended to prioritise the autonomy of state power over that of modes of production and class power.

[The Idler]

Propaganda groups and communist circles that precede the formation of a mass proletarian party - and the RSDRP was a coalition of such elements when "What is to be done?" was written - tend to have members from various classes and special strata. Once the mass party is formed, it should have a proletarian majority - but one can't simply expect a nucleus of class-conscious workers to form out of the purely economic struggles of the working class. Marxists are supposed to analyse the objective needs of the proletariat, not to tail the least conscious elements of the proletariat as the economists do.
Then what class do these propaganda groups and communist circles form out of? Where do they get their consciousness from? Certainly not 'interventions'. Nobody here is arguing for economism so this is a false dichotomy.

[MarxArchist]

Be aware there are so many different tendencies and theories within communism no one will 100% agree with anyone and this thread will turn into a tendency "war". Below is my take but my views are more complex than can be expressed in a few paragraphs.




1) How does the communism cycle work? To put it in simple words, what stages of political ideologies does a nation need to go through to become a communist state?

Marx/Engels/Kautsky argued that capitalism first had to develop whichever nation under bourgeois democracy and with a high degree of industrialization. Enlightenment values were also necessary to a degree, a focus on science rather than superstition in order to chip away at the strangle hold of religion -in this sense and for many other reasons attempting a communist revolution in Afghanistan in the 1980's was silly but Russia was willing to help them industrialize at least. Capitalists took advantage of the superstitious peasant population aspect. Armed them very well.

Bourgeois or liberal capitalist democracy in an already industrial society was necessary in their view so workers could mature, understand how things function and have the ability to take on the responsibility of running the economy/society themselves. Marx praised capitalism for being progressive because of the small amount of social liberties liberal democracy provides but mainly for capitalism's ability to industrialize. What made industrialization possible was the brutality of the system which is why Marx also criticized it. Forcible dispossession of any other means of survival outside of market relations, which means, forced wage labor for a boss. Shifty work place conditions. Exaggerated work weeks - you need to understand workers only worked about 20 hours a week before capitalism took hold and there were about 100 holidays or days off. Perpetual worsening crisis. Environmental damage. War etc but the main point is workers aren't free because we do not have control over how we provide material sustenance. We can choose our master (boss) but the work place controls our lives much in the same way feudal lords controlled serfs (actually, serfs had more autonomy, the feudal lords would just show up every now and then and steal the surplus goods serfs produced). Anyway...




2) What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?


Most people say socialism is a transitional phase before actual communism is possible. Some people argue against this (anarchists and some Marxists). I'm of the opinion that an advanced capitalist society cannot simply 'become communist' after property and capital are abolished. That there needs to be a period where the state still exists (as democratic as possible) in order to fend off capitalists attacks and to begin to chip away at the society/culture/superstructure hundreds of years of capitalism created. Communism also can't exist in one isolated nation so I would think a socialist revolution, lets say in 2020 Germany, would come under attack from the capitalist nations economically and militarily via proxy war in order to cut it off from resources and internally violence would be used by other nations to sabotage the economic system and overall society so a state apparatus would be needed to deflect these attacks. Preferably workers democracy would be implemented as much as humanly possible but how do have actual workers democracy when you're surrounded by capitalist nations who are doing everything possible to sabotage workers democracy?

You have to understand capitalism depends on there being no other alternative economic system. This is why 'containment' and the cold war were fought. Why capitalists were willing to drop nuclear bombs on people (which they actually did do at the end of WW2 in order to intimidate Russia). How can an actual workers democracy, a completely open and honest society defend itself from that sort of psychopathy? It cant. This is IN PART why, in order for communism to exist, it must be a global system. There are economic reasons for that as well much in the same way capitalism must be global or have global markets available to it. Anyway, socialism is a transitional phase before actual communism is possible.



3) What is the difference between Marxim, Marxist-Lenninsm, Stalanism and Maoism? Do all four of these political theories stem from the same branch? Or is there a significant difference in the way they evolved?

I'd write more on this but will end up offending 40% of the posters on this site so I'll simply say Lennin, Stalin and Mao were, lets say, people who used Marx's original works in the wrong way (Mostly Stalin and Mao). The main transgression was attempting socialism in backwards undeveloped regions/nations. They tried to do capitalism's job under the name of socialism. No pre-existing advanced industrial society, no bourgeois democracy, no enlightenment values etc. Russia and China were both economically and socially backwards. There was no majority advanced working class in either nation. Mostly peasants/farmers. So Lenin, Stalin and Mao tried to do what took capitalism generations to "accomplish". Dispossess the peasants/farmers. Facilitate industrialization. Push social change. Chip away at the influence of superstition/religion etc all while fighting wars and counterrevolutions. The even more confusing aspect was trying to implement communist ideals while doing capitalism's job. It has all indeed perverted humanities conception of communism which brings me to your next question.



4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?

Numbers have been inflated but there were millions of deaths. Capitalism has also caused millions to die and what Lenin/Stalin/Mao were doing was facilitating a sped up capitalism. To do in a few decades what took capitalism over 100 years to do. Many deaths were due to authoritarianism, revolution, fighting wars and counterrevolution. In Mao's case his economic plans were disastrous. Nowhere in Marx's writings will you see Marx advocating "A Great Leap Forward" in order to take an economically backwards nation into an advanced industrial nation. Nor would you see Marx advocating a 'cultural revolution' under the name of communism in order to do the job of the enlightenment and bourgeois democracy. Mao tried to skip the capitalist phase of development, we saw the results and Deng Xiaoping, for better or worse, stepped in after Mao's death and pushed for capitalist reform. Some argue that only now is China (the workers/economy/culture) ready for an actual socialist revolution. The thing is Deng's China makes that an extremely hard proposition. The market reforms or "Chinese socialism" as Deng calls it has perverted the communist party in China beyond recognition. Workers there would need to rise up and demand control of the economy. The tricky part is without Dengs reforms where would China be now? It's now in a position to economically ruin the United States which an actual socialist revolution in China right now would do. At the end of the day modern bourgeois geopolitics are operating with the interests of capital in mind. No communist party in China is a threat. Workers themselves would have to take things into their own hands. The "communist" party in China won't allow that so Deng's reforms at the end of the day was imply capitalism taking hold. A sell out of communist ideals. Market reforms were necessary for China to get to where it is now but should not have been a complete sell out of the possibility of future communism.


Marx wrote on the Russian situation, the fact it was backwards socially and economically and theorized Russia could become socialist only if the advanced capitalist nations of the time had socialist revolutions and supported Russia. He briefly went back and forth on the question but in the end that was he and Engels final view on the matter (orthodox historical materialism). Lenin was hoping Russia would be the 'spark' or inspiration for workers in advanced capitalist nations to facilitate socialism as did many Bolsheviks at the time. It didnt happen so Russia was left in isolation from global resources with a backwards economy/society surrounded by hostile nations. There was two choices 1. let the state go to capitalists or 2. be paranoid (and rightly so) and set up an authoritarian system to do capitalism's job of industrialization and to push the cultural change which is necessary to set the stage for communist (worker) control of industry and subsequent communist cultural change. It simply wasn't communism that we saw in Russia/China. Pol Pot in Cambodia is a whole other ball of wax. Implying that the people had to be taken back to nothing, to start from scratch was even more of a perversion of Marx's views (historical materialism). North Korea is a sort of Stalin's Russia/Mao's China mix and it will eventually either give in to capitalism or suffer even further economic decay (in isolation) and authoritarianism unless there's revolutions in other advanced nations to support North Korea- the system there (state run songun and a cult of personality) wold also have to be destroyed and replaced if we were to actually call it socialist. North Korea is economically isolated and surrounded by capitalism so it's not able to facilitate material abundance and the state is quite paranoid. The workers there are indeed poor and subjugated.



5) Why did Communism collapse ? Was it because the ideology was flawed? Or was there a problem in its implementation?

The foundational reason was because communism was attempted in backwards nations. Another reason is because there was no global revolution. Capitalism sabotaged, economically and militarily, all attempts at socialism around the globe and within advanced capitalist nations. Socialism or a theoretical advanced communist society in isolation can't "out compete" capitalism. Capitalism claimed/claims most of the worlds resources and had/has an organized military system to stop the threat, and I mean THREAT, of actual communism taking hold (not to mention what they to within their own nations, current NSA program just one example). NATO and the US especially, as they're doing now with North Korea, made it so "socialist" nations were economically isolated and surrounded by enemies which pushed "socialist" nations to squander WAY to much resources on defense (military). What was and what still is necessary in order for actual communism to manifest is a global revolution starting with the most advanced capitalist nations first but even then if a socialist revolution took place today in Canada it would be economically isolated, the US intelligence agencies would seek to destabilize their economy/society and the military in general would be used around the globe to enforce economic sanctions all while the threat of actual military intervention within Canada would be on the table. What sort of environment do you think that would create in Canada? A free and equal society enjoying relative abundance? Same can be said for India or Germany or Venezuela. In this sense communism can't exist with the threat of capitalism at it's door. At worst Canada would becomes North Korea type nation or at best late Russia with capitalist nations pointing nukes and they pointing nukes back at capitalists. There will be no communism so long as the US military/NATO forces are the global capitalist police. It simply isn't going to happen. As we've seen capitalists are willing to drop nuclear bombs in order to maintain their system. So Canada would be dependent on the US/EU/Russia/China also having socialist revolutions before actual communism became possible. What Canada would have to do is facilitate a socialist revolution and "hold on" to a life preserver in the middle of a capitalist raging ocean waiting for other advanced nations to join in socialism. During this period of time capitalists would point to Canada asnd say "see, look at the failure of communism".




6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory? Also, Anarchism is an anti-state sentiment leading to social unrest/disorder and possible violence. How is that beneficial?


I'll give my opinions on that later.

[Blake's Baby]

Welcome to the forums Salman. Be warned that any answers you get will depend on the political currents those answering belong to. Anarchists, Left Communists, Impossiblists, marxist-LEninists and Trotskyists will all give yu different answers to these questions.


Most of this might sound extremely naive to the political expert, so excuse the naive sounding questions.But i just want to brush up my knowledge on the below mentioned topics.

1) How does the communism cycle work? To put it in simple words, what stages of political ideologies does a nation need to go through to become a communist state?
...

It doesn't. Communist society will be created by the worldwide working class when it abolishes capitalism and re-organises the world economy on the basis of production for need not profit. A single country cannot become 'communist' and even if it could the process is not an ideological one.


...

2) What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

To Marx and Engels, nothing. To the followers of Lenin, socialism is a transitional phase somewhere between capitalism and communism, the exact definition of which depends on which followers of Lenin you ask (Maoists and some Trotskyists see this differently to Marxist-Leninsts and other Trotskyists).


...

3) What is the difference between Marxim, Marxist-Lenninsm, Stalanism and Maoism? Do all four of these political theories stem from the same branch? Or is there a significant difference in the way they evolved?...

'Marxist-Leninsim' and 'Stalinism' are the same thing. Maoism is a development, if that's the right word, of Stalinism.

Many Marxists consider that Stalinism and Maoism have nothing to do with Marxism at all.


...

4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?...

No country has ever practiced 'socialism/communism'. The high death tolls are not 'fabricated' though some might be exagerated. All of these countries from the Soviet Union to the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cambodia etc were capitalist countries - as were the other 'communist' countries not associated with high death tolls like Cuba, Poland, Hungary etc.

In order to establish communist society the working class needs to overthrow capitalism not as a local system but a global system. This has never happened and therefore communist society has never been established.


...

5) Why did Communism collapse ? Was it because the ideology was flawed? Or was there a problem in its implementation? ...

'Communism' didn't collapse, what collapsed was a particularly brutal and inefficient state capitalism in some states. China and Cuba are still under the contral of 'Communist' parties; and they are as 'communist' as they ever were - not communist at all.

So, no, 'flawed ideology' is not the answer (though the ideologies of the ruling parties of 'communist' states was and is undoubtedly 'flawed'); but a 'prolblem in its implementation'? Yes, in so far as it is impossible to establish 'communism' in one country (or even several neighbouring countries).


...
6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory? Also, Anarchism is an anti-state sentiment leading to social unrest/disorder and possible violence. How is that beneficial?...

Most Anarchists are communists. There are essentailly two different strands of communist theory - Marxist, and Anarchist. They disagree over the process involved in the revolution, but the goal of both is the same - communist society.

Anarchism doesn't 'lead' to social unrest, class society leads to social unrest. Of course fighting against class society is beneficial, class society is the cause of all social ills from poverty to racism to the destruction of the environment. How is fighting it not beneficial? I have differences with Anarchist comrades over aspects of revolutionary theory and practice but in general I regard them as fellow revolutionaries.

[TheEmancipator]

It doesn't!

Damn, and I thought communism would be a classeless, stateless society...

Says a lot about your politics then...

[RedMaterialist]

1) How does the communism cycle work? To put it in simple words, what stages of political ideologies does a nation need to go through to become a communist state?

To go back to the origin of the state: there is slavery, feudalism, capitalism, then socialism and communism. Communism will not exist as a state.
Socialism is considered by some to be the dictatorship of the working class and an initial stage of communism.


2) What is the difference between Socialism and Communism?

My own view is that socialism is an early stage (some people describe this as "stagism") of the transition from capitalism to communism. Socialism can take many forms: the social-democratic welfare state of western europe, a dictatorship in Russia and China, the mixed economy in China and, for instance, Venezuela. All of these states are in some form of transition from capitalism to socialism.
The development is uneven, as Trotsky said about economic development in poor countries.

There, of course, the possibility of a world wide counter-revolutionary, fascist reaction against all this.


3) What is the difference between Marxim, Marxist-Lenninsm, Stalanism and Maoism? Do all four of these political theories stem from the same branch? Or is there a significant difference in the way they evolved?


I think Marx and Lenin believed communism could be attained through a revolution, in a relatively quick time. Stalin and Mao were confronted with the reality of a deadly struggle with world wide capitalism.


4) Countries practicing Socialism/Communism have always been associated with high death tolls. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Or is the death toll all fabricated?

Violence under socialist dictatorships has never come close to the level of terror, murder, torture, starvation, slavery and barbarity which capitalism has used to control the working class. Tens of millions in Ireland, India, China, Africa and mostly everywhere else were starved as official policy. Millions, no one knows for sure, were bombed to death in Southeast Asia by the U.S.; death squads operated in Central and South America for decades under the direction of the U.S.; an entire country, China, was forced into opium addiction for British profit; the slave trade between Africa, Europe and the Americas provided part of the basis for the initial expansion of cap italism. Murder and robbery of the gold and silver of the Americas provided the monetary expansion of capitalism. Murder was the official sport of the British soldiers in India. The genocide of the American natives opened the way for "America," the greatest country in the history of the universe.



5) Why did Communism collapse ? Was it because the ideology was flawed? Or was there a problem in its implementation?


The soviet state (not communism) collapsed because once the dictatorship of the proletariat had done with suppressing the capitalist class and its apologists there ceased to be a need for a state, i.e., the suppression of a class. The one remaining instrument of the soviet state, the bureaucracy, fell apart mostly on its own. However, as soon as the socialist state collapsed, the world capitalist class was ready to step in and take up business as usual.


6) Where does Anarchism fit into the Communist theory? Also, Anarchism is an anti-state sentiment leading to social unrest/disorder and possible violence. How is that beneficial?


The anarchist apparently believes that no state should ever be allowed to exist, even the dictatorship of the proletariat.


These are some of my basic queries.I'll keep on bugging you folks with other questions too, so bear with me.[/QUOTE]

[RedMaterialist]

Damn, and I thought communism would be a classeless, stateless society...



It will be, but only after the complete, world-wide suppression and destruction of the capitalist class.

[Akshay!]

Damn, and I thought communism would be a classeless, stateless society...

Says a lot about your politics then...

The only thing that Anarchists and Communists have in common is the final goal. Apart from that they (Anarchists) are totally misguided, and nobody seriously considers them "communists". When I say "nobody" I'm not talking about people on the internet, facebook, etc.. I'm talking about communists who're fighting (in the real world) to overthrow this system. Usually privileged kids who've never read Das Kapital or any of Marx's texts, let alone Lenin, but want to sound like a communist, call themselves "Anarchist". There's a reason why Anarchism is widespread in what's called the "west" but irrelevant in any of the countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism.

[hatzel]

never read Das Kapital or any of Marx's texts, let alone Lenin

Hahaha as if it wasn't hilarious enough that you think not having read Lenin - or any other thinker, for that matter - is a legitimate criticism of political actors (what world are you living in exactly? People are supposed to have read thousands of pages of dense theoretical claptrap before they're allowed to tell their boss to fuck off or what is this?), the fact that you would say 'never read Das Kapital, let alone Lenin' rather than 'never read Lenin, let alone Das Kapital' makes it all the more precious. Soon we'll be saying things like 'I can't even run the marathon, let alone get out of bed' or 'I haven't read War and Peace, let alone The Very Hungry Caterpillar.' I mean c'mon now, even the most ardent Leninist would surely have to acknowledge that Das Kapital is kind of a little bit more complex and significant and remarkable than The State and Revolution, wouldn't they...? Or has Lenin totally usurped Marx by now? :confused:

[Akshay!]

Hahaha as if it wasn't hilarious enough that you think not having read Lenin - or any other thinker, for that matter - is a legitimate criticism of political actors (what world are you living in exactly? People are supposed to have read thousands of pages of dense theoretical claptrap before they're allowed to tell their boss to fuck off or what is this?), the fact that you would say 'never read Das Kapital, let alone Lenin' rather than 'never read Lenin, let alone Das Kapital' makes it all the more precious. Soon we'll be saying things like 'I can't even run the marathon, let alone get out of bed' or 'I haven't read War and Peace, let alone The Very Hungry Caterpillar.' I mean c'mon now, even the most ardent Leninist would surely have to acknowledge that Das Kapital is kind of a little bit more complex and significant and remarkable than The State and Revolution, wouldn't they...? Or has Lenin totally usurped Marx by now? :confused:

I meant to say 'never read Lenin, let alone Das Kapital', and anyway, State and Revolution isn't the only book that Lenin has written. Maybe it's the only one you've heard of considering your contempt for reading, in general.

"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
- V I Lenin

As I said earlier, Anarchists are irrelevant wherever real communist movements are going on to overthrow the capitalist system. They're all over the place in the western countries for obvious reasons (and my point is proven by your reply, so thanks!)

[Ele'ill]

The only thing that Anarchists and Communists have in common is the final goal. Apart from that they (Anarchists) are totally misguided, and nobody seriously considers them "communists". When I say "nobody" I'm not talking about people on the internet, facebook, etc.. I'm talking about communists who're fighting (in the real world) to overthrow this system. Usually privileged kids who've never read Das Kapital or any of Marx's texts, let alone Lenin, but want to sound like a communist, call themselves "Anarchist". There's a reason why Anarchism is widespread in what's called the "west" but irrelevant in any of the countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism.

lol

you're not even good at tendency flaming and the above is just another reason not to take your posts seriously but tell me Akshay!, what are some of these countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism?

[Akshay!]

lol

you're not even good at tendency flaming and the above is just another reason not to take your posts seriously but tell me Akshay!, what are some of these countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism?

I could name many but you wouldn't consider any of those movements as socialist, after all they're actually doing something(!), as opposed to feeling good.

[Ele'ill]

I could name many but you wouldn't consider any of those movements as socialist, after all they're actually doing something(!), as opposed to feeling good.

This is a thread in Learning so maybe you should have just listed them instead of being defensive with a guilty conscience

[Akshay!]

thousands of pages of dense theoretical claptrap

So you admit that you consider Marx and Lenin's writings to be thousands of pages of claptrap?

[Brosa Luxemburg]

The only thing that Anarchists and Communists have in common is the final goal.

And an emphasis on class struggle, the revolutionary role of the proletariat, internationalism, class independence, etc. etc.



Apart from that they (Anarchists) are totally misguided, and nobody seriously considers them "communists".

Speak for yourself. I'm not an anarchist but I consider anarchists to be communists.


When I say "nobody" I'm not talking about people on the internet, facebook, etc.. I'm talking about communists who're fighting (in the real world) to overthrow this system.

And which communists in the "real world" are you talking about?


Usually privileged kids who've never read Das Kapital or any of Marx's texts, let alone Lenin, but want to sound like a communist, call themselves "Anarchist".

There is so much wrong with the above. The "let alone Lenin" part made me crack my shit up. From some of your other posts, my guess is you have never read Capital and the most Lenin you've read is a "Lenin quote" google search. I could easily say "Usually for privileged kids who've never read The Conquest of Bread or any of Kropotkin's texts, let alone Malatesta, but wanted to sound radical, call themselves "Communist" with no substance to it either. Doesn't make it true. If anything, it would make me look like an ass if I put that seriously.


There's a reason why Anarchism is widespread in what's called the "west" but irrelevant in any of the countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism.

According to you, which countries have a serious movement to overthrow capitalism?

[Brosa Luxemburg]

As I said earlier, Anarchists are...all over the place in the western countries for obvious reasons

Yeah, Anarchists represent a huge majority of the western population.

[Brutus]

I could name many but you wouldn't consider any of those movements as socialist, after all they're actually doing something(!), as opposed to feeling good.

Please name some, I'm having a hard time thinking of any at all

[Dave B]

The ‘soviet union’ according to Lenin was a one party state capitalist dictatorship.


"Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won…http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works//1919/aug/05.htm (http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/05.htm)

This political program was in fact initially hypocritically supported by the Anarchists like Berkman, Goldman and Pankhurst and Lenin thanked them.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm


The Bolshevik party under Lenin never constituted more than 1% of the population and thus excluded most workers or ‘casual elements that worked in factories’.

The reason why state capitalism could not be democratically controlled by ‘the whole of the working class’ was;


….because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard
http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

The workers needed to be ‘educated, trained and organised’ by the elite vanguard (the 1%) ‘under whose influence and guidance, they could only get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses….’

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/04.htm

The Bolshevik vanguard were an elite special class dictating over the ‘corrupted’ and ‘degraded’ working class riddled with ‘vices and weaknesses’.

And it was an ‘idealisation and deception’;

…..that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie.

That could only be achieved ‘under the yoke’ of a regularly purged and ‘purified’ one party state capitalist dictatorship of political Aryan’s, the bourgeois intelligentsia of 1902 ‘What is to be Done’ .

It was red fascism.

There is no essential difference between Leninism and Stalinism. Other than Stalinism is the ultimate progression, fulfillment and development of Leninism itself.


Mao was a Leninist in that he also advocated the development of State capitalism in a feudal country like Lenin himself.

THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE September 7, 1953







The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.

1. In the last three years or so we have done some work on this, but as we were otherwise occupied, we didn't exert ourselves enough. From now on we should make a bigger effort.

2. With more than three years of experience behind us, we can say with certainty that accomplishing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce by means of state capitalism is a relatively sound policy and method.

3. The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. "Clearly understood" means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism. So far this has not been the case either with members of the Communist Party or with democratic personages. The present meeting is being held to achieve that end.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html

Compare to Lenin


It is because one possible way to proceed to communism is through state capitalism, provided the state is controlled by the working class. This is exactly the position in the “present case”.


Let us proceed further………… we are still making progress along the path of state capitalism, a path that leads us forward to socialism and communism (which is the highest stage of socialism),
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm)


The working class here are the historically special double speak "real proletarians" that don’t work in factories any more than the bourgeois intelligentsia do.



Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

[Lucretia]

Hahaha as if it wasn't hilarious enough that you think not having read Lenin - or any other thinker, for that matter - is a legitimate criticism of political actors (what world are you living in exactly? People are supposed to have read thousands of pages of dense theoretical claptrap before they're allowed to tell their boss to fuck off or what is this?), the fact that you would say 'never read Das Kapital, let alone Lenin' rather than 'never read Lenin, let alone Das Kapital' makes it all the more precious. Soon we'll be saying things like 'I can't even run the marathon, let alone get out of bed' or 'I haven't read War and Peace, let alone The Very Hungry Caterpillar.' I mean c'mon now, even the most ardent Leninist would surely have to acknowledge that Das Kapital is kind of a little bit more complex and significant and remarkable than The State and Revolution, wouldn't they...? Or has Lenin totally usurped Marx by now? :confused:

It's actually a valid criticism to note that people critiquing Leninism and democratic centralist forms of party organization have not read Lenin. Because what we end up with is claims that Lenin supposedly advocated taking control over the bourgeois state rather than smashing it, etc., which are blatantly false. It would be the equivalent of me whining about Bakuninism without having read Bakunin.

Saying that Das Kapital is kind of a little bit more complex and significant and remarkable than The State Revolution sort of misses the point. Lenin's pamphlet was about a different topic than Marx's tome, was written to serve a different purpose, and is of a different genre of writing. This doesn't make it "less significant," unless you're biased against polemics and toward lengthy social-scientific works, or think that a work's length automatically translates into remarkableness.

[Ele'ill]

then what are they critiquing

[Lucretia]

then what are they critiquing

what they imagine to be what lenin wrote, often tendentious readings of out-of-context quotes compiled on anarchist websites that look like they were designed in 1995 because they are too lazy to read lenin and can't even be bothered to capitalize and use proper punctuation on their web forum posts

[Ele'ill]

what they imagine to be what lenin wrote, often tendentious readings of out-of-context quotes compiled on anarchist websites that look like they were designed in 1995 because they are too lazy to read lenin and can't even be bothered to capitalize and use proper punctuation on their web forum posts

so surely you have a comprehensive list of all these websites that are quoting lenin's texts and critiquing them without having read lenin's texts

I think more often there are critiques of people's current positions, current texts, dialogue/conversations

[The Feral Underclass]

what they imagine to be what lenin wrote, often tendentious readings of out-of-context quotes compiled on anarchist websites that look like they were designed in 1995 because they are too lazy to read lenin and can't even be bothered to capitalize and use proper punctuation on their web forum posts

The problem with Lucretia is that he can't talk about anarchists without making snide remarks. Those remarks are almost always ad hominem. If we are to believe Lucretia, the only reason anarchists critique Lenin is because they don't read properly. The idea that there might be something worth criticising is simply not in the range of Lucretia's understanding.

[Lucretia]

so surely you have a comprehensive list of all these websites that are quoting lenin's texts and critiquing them without having read lenin's texts

I think more often there are critiques of people's current positions, current texts, dialogue/conversations

i am not going to spend time compiling a list for somebody who cant even be bothered to use basic punctuation as i am pretty certain you wont be visiting the sites and combing through their quotes to determine the accuracy of their interpretation but surely these sites are not difficult for you to find they often have weird domain names like anarchy.ws and so on i encourage you to find them on your own if you have a sincere interest in investigating the subject and not just being deliberately obtuse as if to imply i am randomly making shit up

it is perfectly fine to critique people's current positions but if you want to critique lenin's ideas or leninism without having read lenin youre setting yourself up for a disaster

[hatzel]

State and Revolution isn't the only book that Lenin has written. Maybe it's the only one you've heard of considering your contempt for reading, in general.

Point the first: aww, it's almost cute how much of a baby you're being about this. 'You disagree with me therefore I'll accuse you of not having heard of any books ever.' Truly adorable...

Point the second: I don't remember ever having any contempt for reading - and as a committed bookworm it would be kind of weird if I did, - and I have no idea why you would imagine that I did (that was a lie, because I know why you think that, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and pretending it isn't linked to point the first). The one thing I did criticise, though, was people - like yourself - who have contempt for those who haven't read. As if not having read Marx, Lenin, Kropotkin or Negri (I picked some random names out of a hat, so don't go saying 'there are more leftist authors than those four, if you'd read a book you might have known' lol) somehow renders the act of rebellion illegitimate. If somebody's poor and angry and decides to do something about it, I couldn't really care less whether they are fully versed on the intricacies of primitive accumulation or whatever else people want to talk about, because that's irrelevant. Dismissing them for not being some kind of philosopher-king is the pinnacle of elitism...


It's actually a valid criticism to note that people critiquing Leninism and democratic centralist forms of party organization have not read Lenin.

...and what's that got to do with anything, exactly? This is a discussion of whether or not anarchism has anything to do with communist theory. Last time I checked the raison d'être of anarchism has never been simply to critique Leninism. Don't know why Leninists think they're so special that people build whole movements just to tell them that they're wrong hah please refer back to the sentiment of point the first. To use your little 'it would be the equivalent of...'-form, I could say it would be the equivalent of saying that being a Leninist makes you a clown because you haven't even read Hayek! Because everybody knows that having an in-depth knowledge of Hayek's entire corpus is a prerequisite to going anywhere near any other possible political ideology, amirite???

[Lucretia]

...and what's that got to do with anything, exactly? This is a discussion of whether or not anarchism has anything to do with communist theory. Last time I checked the raison d'être of anarchism has never been simply to critique Leninism. Don't know why Leninists think they're so special that people build whole movements just to tell them that they're wrong hah please refer back to the sentiment of point the first. To use your little 'it would be the equivalent of...'-form, I could say it would be the equivalent of saying that being a Leninist makes you a clown because you haven't even read Hayek! Because everybody knows that having an in-depth knowledge of Hayek's entire corpus is a prerequisite to going anywhere near any other possible political ideology, amirite???

Huh? Which "Leninists" are you talking about? "Leninists" build movements for the same reasons that anarchists presumably do: to advance the goal of achieving communism. And in the process, they engage in polemical discussion with other activists who have different ideas of how to achieve communism. Leninists are no more guilty of "telling people they they're wrong" than anarchists are. In fact, being that this particular web site is numerically dominated by anarchists and left-coms, you'll find no shortage of these two tendencies, particularly the first, "telling Leninists they're wrong" all the time, often by dog-piling, stalking them across threads, taking cheap shots, and even lying and deliberately distorting what they say. Oh, no. They tell Leninists that Leninists are wrong about something. How authoritarian and elitist of them.

And, no, your attempt at making a parallel argument to mine regarding Hayek is plain wrong. The equivalent of my argument translated onto Hayek would be: it's stupid to think you can critique Hayek without having read Hayek. That, by the way, is correct. One of the biggest problems people on the revolutionary left have is that they can get in over their heads when debating with people well versed in neo-classical economics. There's a little rule that I am a firm believer in: know your enemy.

[Ele'ill]

i am not going to spend time compiling a list for somebody who cant even be bothered to use basic punctuation

u didn't even capitalize your i


as i am pretty certain you wont be visiting the sites and combing through their quotes to determine the accuracy of their interpretation but surely these sites are not difficult for you to find they often have weird domain names like anarchy.ws and so on i encourage you to find them on your own if you have a sincere interest in investigating the subject and not just being deliberately obtuse as if to imply i am randomly making shit up


if you have a sincere objection to what is apparently so many specifically anarchist sites that you want to bring it up here you should be able to provide examples, unless of course you are being hysterical


it is perfectly fine to critique people's current positions but if you want to critique lenin's ideas or leninism without having read lenin youre setting yourself up for a disaster

you realize how this doesn't make sense right?

[Hit The North]

you realize how this doesn't make sense right?.

Makes sense to me. You can't critique something you know nothing about except through hearsay and/or misunderstanding.

So when someone posts that Lenin saw the revolutionary party as being external to the working class or some other guff, it is legitimate to ask to see the textual evidence.

Ain't it?

[Lucretia]

u didn't even capitalize your i




if you have a sincere objection to what is apparently so many specifically anarchist sites that you want to bring it up here you should be able to provide examples, unless of course you are being hysterical



you realize how this doesn't make sense right?

three sites I found within a few seconds all you have to do is quickly search for the lenin quotes that are routinely misconstrued on this forum

flag.blackened.net (my favorite on that one is "Lenin ... not such a nice guy!" - perfect example of the tendency among anarchists to substitute undertheorized moralism for critique)
anarchism.pageabode.com
www.struggle.ws

[Ele'ill]

.

Makes sense to me. You can't critique something you know nothing about except through hearsay and/or misunderstanding.

So when someone posts that Lenin saw the revolutionary party as being external to the working class or some other guff, it is legitimate to ask to see the textual evidence.

Ain't it?

I guess the issue is so much time put into talking about what some guy wrote and said that the critiques or talking points are actually from the texts as if it were a piece of fiction, as opposed to being about theory into action, what I think would be a legitimate position, that wouldn't have prerequisite reading in order to critique it (which was more along the lines of my point I didn't realize we were so specifically talking about criticisms of what lenin said when he said this but more like 'what do you think of this idea')

[Hit The North]

I guess the issue is so much time put into talking about what some guy wrote and said that the critiques or talking points are actually from the texts as if it were a piece of fiction, as opposed to being about theory into action, what I think would be a legitimate position, that wouldn't have prerequisite reading in order to critique it (which was more along the lines of my point I didn't realize we were so specifically talking about criticisms of what lenin said when he said this but more like 'what do you think of this idea')

Sure, we should avoid scholastic masturbation, I guess.

But a question such as how Lenin viewed the vanguard and saw its relationship to the rest of the class is about putting theory into action. When the impossibilists decide to paint a caricature of this theory (as The Idler did on page one of this thread) it does not help us to evaluate the debate or to think how this can be put into political practice.

This is the Learning thread and an appeal to evidence and reasoning should be king.

[ed miliband]

The only thing that Anarchists and Communists have in common is the final goal. Apart from that they (Anarchists) are totally misguided, and nobody seriously considers them "communists". When I say "nobody" I'm not talking about people on the internet, facebook, etc.. I'm talking about communists who're fighting (in the real world) to overthrow this system. Usually privileged kids who've never read Das Kapital or any of Marx's texts, let alone Lenin, but want to sound like a communist, call themselves "Anarchist". There's a reason why Anarchism is widespread in what's called the "west" but irrelevant in any of the countries with a serious movement to overthrow capitalism.

you see, when somebody wants to write-off a tendency or milieu they usually do one of two things:

a) accuse the tendency of being theoretically and intellectually weak
or, b) accuse the tendency of 'doing nothing' but theory.

you've basically tried to do both here, though in an even more banal way.

on the one hand, it's true that historically anarchism produced few theorists of note, with anarchist militants tending to produce polemical work designed to resonate emotionally within the reader. however it's not true to say the modern anarchist milieu, and those associated with it on the wider ultraleft, ignore theory, and certainly not marx. in fact, capital reading groups are common within anarchist circles across europe and north america, and for e.g. certain elements of marxist thought have been reclaimed by the anarchist / ultraleft milieu, i.i. rubin's work is one example, or the work of autonomist feminists.

it's certainly true there's no grand anarchist movement otherthrowing the state and capital, but a) it is not the goal of anarchists to lead such a movement and b) where in the world does such a movement actually exist?

now if you wish to deny the existence of anarchists anywhere, you're either really dumb or attempting to troll, because a quick google search will show that there are organised anarchists across the globe, regardless of what you think of their theory or practice.

[MarxArchist]

I think all too many Anarchists will say Lenin, or Marxism in general, would have been/would be authoritarian no matter what. That the vanguard is elitist and combined with a state apparatus will end up creating a new class ruling over the working class in lieu of working with from a basis of equality. My opinion is, in Russia, if the population had been more advanced it wouldn't have needed the sort of coercive guidance we saw in Russia nor would the coercive economic policies had to have been enacted if Russia's population was more advanced along with it's economy. Lenin was indeed authoritarian and so was Trotsky, the thing is, material conditions in Russia necessitated this sort of authoritarianism in order to create a majority proletariat class, to industrialize, to fend off counterrevolution and later to fight WW2. They also had no choice but to implement a sort of capitalism which in and of itself is authoritarian (the process of dispossession of the countryside and industrialization of the overall economy).

If Anarchists had been in control (such a thing would warrant a certain amount of coercion/authoritarianism-to be in control) there would have been no way Russia would have transformed from a backwards economy into an industrial power house and WW2 (if not the prior counterrevolutionary measures) would have certainly stopped any sort of socialistic gains the region had made. As with all "socialist" revolutions ,be it Spain, Russia or what have you, a global revolution did not take place so deformation or failure has been the outcome. How do Anarchists, and I don't ask this from a non Anarchist perspective, think they can hold onto an isolated nation after an "Anarchist" revolution? Do you think actual communism can arise in isolation? Do you think a society with full direct workers democracy can defend from invasion and counterrevolution within the territory? Do you think, if the region were undeveloped, you could industrialize under the banner of Anarchism? There was Lenin's writing on the role of the vanguard and then there was the reality of what was needed to "create socialism" from such backwards material conditions.

[Akshay!]

you have never read Capital and the most Lenin you've read is a "Lenin quote" google search.
That's factually inaccurate.


Yeah, Anarchists represent a huge majority of the western population.
That wasn't my point. My point was the opposite - that majority of Anarchists are in the west (not majority of the west is Anarchist) and that nobody in, say, India or Bangladesh or Pakistan takes Anarchism seriously.


'You disagree with me therefore I'll accuse you of not having heard of any books ever.'

No, I didn't "accuse" you of Not having heard of any books. You've heard of lots and lots of books - just not read any of them. For example having heard of the name Das Kapital doesn't make you understand the workings of the capitalist mode of production.


If somebody's poor and angry and decides to do something about it, I couldn't really care less whether they are fully versed on the intricacies of primitive accumulation or whatever else people want to talk about, because that's irrelevant.
NO, YOU are irrelevant! Again, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." - V I Lenin


you realize how this doesn't make sense right?
No, not to anarchists.


or, b) accuse the tendency of 'doing nothing' but theory.
No, I didn't accuse them of doing nothing but theory. I accused them of doing nothing. Period.


anarchist militants tending to produce polemical work designed to resonate emotionally within the reader. it's certainly true there's no grand anarchist movement otherthrowing the state and capital, but a) it is not the goal of anarchists to lead such a movement
Exactly!:lol:

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

babbys first reading of capital

[Brosa Luxemburg]

That's factually inaccurate.


That wasn't my point. My point was the opposite - that majority of Anarchists are in the west (not majority of the west is Anarchist) and that nobody in, say, India or Bangladesh or Pakistan takes Anarchism seriously.

Way to not seriously respond to my posts at all.

I would like to see your proof that nobody in India or Bangladesh or Pakistan takes anarchism seriously. You're the one making the claim.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Then what class do these propaganda groups and communist circles form out of? Where do they get their consciousness from? Certainly not 'interventions'.

Actually, I think intervention in the class struggle is an important part of the process whereby fighting propaganda groups are created, at least in the present period. The first Marxist circles were created by the fusion of a radical liberal element that had started paying attention to the working class, and an (often authoritarian and utopian) labour movement that had took up the study of materialist philosophy. Perhaps this process still occurs to an extent - but it seems to be insignificant compared to the direct transmission of Marxist propaganda. And direct intervention in the struggles of the proletariat is important in that transmission.


Nobody here is arguing for economism so this is a false dichotomy.

That is true, to an extent. Economism is incompatible with the parliamentary fetish of the SPGB. But your group continues to publish and defend Mensheviks, liquidators, economists and similar groups - I am surprised you haven't "discovered" the empiriomonists yet.


The workers needed to be ‘educated, trained and organised’ by the elite vanguard (the 1%) ‘under whose influence and guidance, they could only get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses….’

I don't know what's sadder: that you continue to post this rubbish after it has already been refuted, or that you use the vocabulary ("the elite", "the one percent") of petit-bourgeois movements. I suppose you will denounce Lenin for fluoridation and ground rainbows next.

[hatzel]

I would like to see your proof that nobody in India or Bangladesh or Pakistan takes anarchism seriously. You're the one making the claim.

I'm not sure that's even the question to be asking, actually. We should be asking whether or not it matters, and whether Indians, Bangladeshis and/or Pakistanis - taken as monolithic entities for some strange reason - not taking something seriously is a valid criticism of that something. As far as I'm aware people in these countries are not inherently better at distinguishing between valid and invalid political ideologies than people in France, South Africa, Mexico, Lebanon or any other country, which surely forces us to wonder why their opinions can somehow claim a monopoly over the discourse...

[The Feral Underclass]

I think all too many Anarchists will say Lenin, or Marxism in general, would have been/would be authoritarian no matter what. That the vanguard is elitist and combined with a state apparatus will end up creating a new class ruling over the working class in lieu of working with from a basis of equality.

Which you know, interestingly of course, is precisely what happened.


If Anarchists had been in control

This, to me, sums up the whole problem with authoritarian Marxists. You talk in this representational way because "control" and "power" can only be understood in the limited scope of party politics and representative organisation.

Anarchists don't seek control as anarchists. This isn't about anarchists taking control, it's about workers taking control. That is an important distinction to be making and one which you lot fail to appreciate. This is precisely your problem.

[Dave B]

Post 44

Economism is incompatible with the parliamentary fetish of the SPGB. But your group continues to publish and defend Mensheviks, liquidators, economists and similar groups –
The ‘parliamentary fetish of the SPGB’ is the same as that of Engels in his last major political.



Although if anything Engels is a little bit too “parliamentary” for me.



Engels 1895 Introduction to Karl Marx’s The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850





And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough.

But it did more than this by far. In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n449

Although it is a bit anachronistic or a-historical to transfer ‘Economism’ from feudal Russia to developed capitalism etc it has its analogies in the left today.

‘Economism’ was not one thing or another it was matter of emphasis.

The economonists wanted to give priority, and primarily organise, around workers day to day economic struggles placing less emphasis on Marxist theory and the next impending political and economic revolution; which was the capitalist bourgeois democratic one in 1905 Russia.

Most neo-Leninists are Economism-ists in that they focus on ‘economic struggles’ and fight the cuts etc

The next revolution ie a stateless, classless ‘economy’ without wage labour.

ie Stalin of 1906 and Lenin’s 1914 thesis on Marx’s socialism

Barely gets a mention.


The circa 1910 ‘liquidators’ were essentially entryists, advocating participating clandestinely in ‘legal’ working class parties in the Duma, to be 'were the workers were at' etc

They did not all support ‘dissolving’ Lenin’s revolutionary RSDLP which was mainly committed to overthrowing the Tsar and bringing about the bourgeois democratic revolution.

The ‘liquidators’ mostly advocated being in two parties at the same time like the Trotskyist Militant in the UK in the 1980s or whatever.

The stuff in Lenin’s leftwing communism and infantile disorder was, albeit perhaps trans-historically ‘liquidationism’.

There was not a lot of difference between ‘economists’ and the ‘liquidators’.

The Mensheviks were into both.



And because they had been mingling and organising the workers in such fashion before 1917 the hit the ground running so to speak; which was why the early soviets were dominated by the Mensheviks who ‘came out’ then.

The Mensheviks are Mensheviks because they were stageists like the Bolsheviks.


By the late 1930’s the Mensheviks started to sort of adopt the Trotskyist degenerate working class state position and attempted a rapprochement with the Trots.

Dismissed despite their outspoken and then radical criticism of Stalin’s persecution of old Bolsheviks.

The Trials And Executions In Moscow



Eliminating the Opposition Under the New Constitution?

By Theodore Dan


We reprint the following letter sent to the editor of the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN by Theodore Dan, appearing in that publication on September 4, 1936. Dan is the leader of the Russian Menshevik (Social Democratic) party, and a member of the Bureau of the Socialist and Labor International. While we are not in accord with all the political views of Theodore Dan, his letter on the trial and executions in Moscow is, we feel, of signal interest to our readers.—The Editors.
To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.




Sir,—Sixteen men have been shot in Moscow and one, Tomsky, menaced and hounded into suicide. Among the sixteen were Zinovieff, Kameneff, Smirnov, Mratchkovsky, the most noted of the fellow-workers of Lenin, co-founders of the Bolshevik party and the international Communist movement, men who led the Bolshevik revolution and during its heroic period filled the highest posts in the Soviet State and in the party and trade union organizations. The turn of other Bolshevik leaders no less prominent, men who have held high positions in the State and the army—Radek, Bukharin, Rykoff, Piatokoff, Sokolnikoff, Serebriakoff—has still to come. Everyone who at any time played a leading part in the Bolshevik party is awaiting his fate in fear and horror. Even those nearest to Stalin feel insecure.


Stalin is not content even with having the old party leaders shot; he is having them covered with infamy—and with them the leader who is now out of his reach, Trotsky, the actual organiser of the October rising, of the Red Army, and of the victories in the civil war. If one is to believe the court and the Soviet press, the men who were the making of the Bolshevik party and of international Communism, and who led the Bolshevik revolution, were nothing but blackguards and thieves, spies and mercenaries of Hitler and the Gestapo!


But did there really exist a terrorist conspiracy against Stalin among the old Bolshevik leaders? It is only too natural that terrorist ideas should simmer in many a hot head in a country in which every opportunity is lacking of organised peaceful opposition to the arbitrary “totalitarian” omnipotence of a single person. But one may well suspect that these hot heads would not be found on the shoulders of old and experienced politicians, who, as Marxists, had for many a year strongly condemned terrorism, if only on account of its futility.



The suspicion becomes a certainty when one examines the case for the prosecution and the reports of the Soviet press on the proceedings. There is not a single document, not a single definite piece of evidence, not a single precise detail of the alleged plans of assassination, not a single attempt to reconcile the conflicting statements made, and only two “witnesses,” both brought into court from prison and both due to appear themselves as defendants in the “second” terrorist trial before the same court! There is nothing but malevolent phrases in general terms and, most incredible of all, the most abject of self-vilification and “confessions” on the part of the accused men, once more without any concrete detail of any sort concerning their “crime”; they fairly enter into competition with the State prosecutor in branding themselves, and actually beg for the death penalty.
But why is Stalin thus getting rid of the old party leaders on the very eve of the enactment of the new Constitution, with all its democratic flavour? Why is he breaking, at this particular moment, the bonds that still unite him with the old traditions and the past history of the Bolshevik party, the international Communist movement, and the Bolshevik revolution, as Napoleon once broke with the Jacobins from among whom he had risen to power?


In spite of all the democratic rights granted to Soviet citizens by the new Constitution Stalin intends to be in a position to make it a serviceable instrument of the consolidation of his personal dictatorship. For there is one right that is still denied the Soviet citizen—the right of free political self-determination and free organisation in general, without which all other rights can easily be rendered valueless. The political monopoly and the leadership in all permitted organisations and all State and municipal bodies, and therewith the disposal of the press, of the right of assembly, and so on, remains in the hands of the Communist party which Stalin has politically emasculated; in other words, it remains constitutionally reserved to Stalin himself.


But he still has to face the danger that certain provisions of the new Constitution, above all, the secrecy of the ballot, may become buttresses for a legal struggle of the working masses for their rights—above all, for the right of free organisation. For that reason he is urgently at work now making “innocuous” all those who are in a position to organise this mass struggle. He is sending Social Democrats wholesale into his concentration camps. And he is hurriedly exterminating the last of the old Bolshevik leaders whose names and whose opposition to him are known to the masses and who could thus become particularly dangerous to him in his peaceful and constitutional struggle for his sole dominance.


If the Soviet Union is to be preserved as the nucleus of peace, and the war peril facing all humanity thus exorcised, all friends of the Russian Revolution and of world peace must stand resolutely on the side of the Russian workers and peasants in order to assist them to defend the possibilities of democratic and Socialistic development of the Soviet Union against the nationalistic and Bonapartist policy of Stalin. The Moscow murders are perhaps one of the final warnings.—

Yours, &c.,
Paris, August 28.


http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistappeal/vol02/no09/dan.htm

[Fred]

Which you know, interestingly of course, is precisely what happened.



This, to me, sums up the whole problem with authoritarian Marxists. You talk in this representational way because "control" and "power" can only be understood in the limited scope of party politics and representative organisation.

Anarchists don't seek control as anarchists. This isn't about anarchists taking control, it's about workers taking control. That is an important distinction to be making and one which you lot fail to appreciate. This is precisely your problem.

Workers taking control and doing WHAT? For which PROGRAM? This idea about leaderless movements has no decent historical examples. "Control" and "power" can and must be understood in terms of who rules and for what program. The workers shall rule -- great! How does that happen? And how do they stay in power in a very hostile world? How does the revolution spread? These are the questions that Anarchists have no good answers to.

[The Feral Underclass]

Workers taking control and doing WHAT?

Taking control of the means of production and re-organising society for a transition into communism.


For which PROGRAM?

Of our liberation from capitalism and the state.


This idea about leaderless movements has no decent historical examples.

As far as you're concerned.


"Control" and "power" can and must be understood in terms of who rules and for what program.

So long as that control is theirs and the program is their own as a class and not as a political organisation.


The workers shall rule -- great! How does that happen? And how do they stay in power in a very hostile world?

We organise ourselves so that we can take control of the means of production, smash the state and defend those gains from counter-revolution.


How does the revolution spread?

Good question.


These are the questions that Anarchists have no good answers to.

Certainly not contemporary anarchists, I agree. Although if you look at specifist anarchism, there are big strides being made.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The ‘parliamentary fetish of the SPGB’ is the same as that of Engels in his last major political.

Although if anything Engels is a little bit too “parliamentary” for me.



Engels 1895 Introduction to Karl Marx’s The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850


[...]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n449

That introduction is fairly notorious for the, ah, let's say, creative editing it received at the hands of the German Social-Democrats, demoralised by the recent anti-Socialist laws. The note you link to details this, oddly enough. Even so, even this mangled text contains nothing similar to the parliamentarian obsession of the SPGB. Engels talks about the bourgeois parliament as a platform for communist propaganda. And, of course, in that specific situation, he was absolutely correct. But nowhere does Engels suggest that the proletariat need only vote for the socialist party, or that a socialist majority in the parliament will somehow lead to communism without violence.


Although it is a bit anachronistic or a-historical to transfer ‘Economism’ from feudal Russia to developed capitalism etc it has its analogies in the left today.

Russia was semi-feudal; in fact the concentration of heavy industry in certain Russian cities surpassed that in Western Europe (contradictions accumulated in Russia, producing the "weakest link" of the imperialist system).


‘Economism’ was not one thing or another it was matter of emphasis.

The economonists wanted to give priority, and primarily organise, around workers day to day economic struggles placing less emphasis on Marxist theory and the next impending political and economic revolution; which was the capitalist bourgeois democratic one in 1905 Russia.

Most neo-Leninists are Economism-ists in that they focus on ‘economic struggles’ and fight the cuts etc

The next revolution ie a stateless, classless ‘economy’ without wage labour.

ie Stalin of 1906 and Lenin’s 1914 thesis on Marx’s socialism

Barely gets a mention.

That is simply not the case, as you can verify by opening any Leninist periodical - whether Workers' Vanguard or Unity and Struggle. All of them talk about both the political tasks of the Marxist movement in the present period, and the social revolution. Perhaps you meant to say that they do not advocate the Impossibilists' pacifism and parliamentarianism? That serves as a point in their favour.


The circa 1910 ‘liquidators’ were essentially entryists, advocating participating clandestinely in ‘legal’ working class parties in the Duma, to be 'were the workers were at' etc

They did not all support ‘dissolving’ Lenin’s revolutionary RSDLP which was mainly committed to overthrowing the Tsar and bringing about the bourgeois democratic revolution.

The ‘liquidators’ mostly advocated being in two parties at the same time like the Trotskyist Militant in the UK in the 1980s or whatever.

Again, this is not correct - the honest liquidators openly repudiated their association with the RSDRP central organisation, and agitated for members to break with the centre (including the Menshevik faction under Plekhanov) in order to carry out legal work. Covert liquidators, including Trotsky, who was going through another bout of his unity disease, advocated a bloc with the honest liquidators in order to win members over to the liquidator programme, as had happened in Poland.


And because they had been mingling and organising the workers in such fashion before 1917 the hit the ground running so to speak; which was why the early soviets were dominated by the Mensheviks who ‘came out’ then.

In truth, the Bolshevik leadership was opposed to the soviets at first, and based itself more on the factory committees. The Mensheviks, however, lost their majority in the soviets as soon as their social-patriotism was exposed. The best elements of the Menshevik faction left before that, and most would join the Bolsheviks in the subsequent months.


By the late 1930’s the Mensheviks started to sort of adopt the Trotskyist degenerate working class state position and attempted a rapprochement with the Trots.

Dismissed despite their outspoken and then radical criticism of Stalin’s persecution of old Bolsheviks.

The Trials And Executions In Moscow



Eliminating the Opposition Under the New Constitution?

By Theodore Dan

[...]

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistappeal/vol02/no09/dan.htm

Allegedly, while Khrushchev was reading his well-advertised secret speech against Stalin, an elderly member of the party stood up and shouted "And where were you, Nikita Sergeyevich?" The same question can be posed here. "And where were you, Fyodor Ilyich?" In the Provisional Government, in the various Committees of Salvation that organised the White Movement, finally in Russia, bitterly denouncing every move by the Bolshevik administration. It is rather hypocritical of Dan to praise the Red Army when he helped organise its chief opponent, and it is outrageously hypocritical of him to complain about the persecution of Bolsheviks when the Menshevik government in Georgia, headed by his accomplice Zhordania, massacred entire villages in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was quite right to dissociate himself from such characters.

[The Idler]

nowhere does Engels suggest that the proletariat need only vote for the socialist party, or that a socialist majority in the parliament will somehow lead to communism without violence.


Neither does the SPGB. Neither does the SPGB publish and defend Mensheviks, liquidators, economists and similar groups.

How do you directly transmit Marxist propaganda by intervening in day-to-day struggles? And what class strata are you transmitting it from?

[Dave B]

Speech by Rafail Abramovich (Rein) to a rally in Berlin, organised by the SPD in protest against both Italian Fascism and the "Menshevik Trial" in Moscow, 2 March 1931.

Against Fascism and Bolshevik Slander!




It stands to reason that both in Russia and abroad there are many people who believe that the Bolshevik despotism can only be thrown off by means of a popular uprising. There is no doubt that in Russia there are many people, particularly among the peasants, who, realising their own powerlessness, are prepared to accept assistance from a foreign intervention.

But on all these questions our party takes a position diametrically opposed to the one I have just outlined. We have always categorically rejected the methods of armed uprising, sabotage and intervention. Not only have we rejected them but, as the Bolsheviks know full well, have always waged an active struggle against such methods.



Permit me to recall that during the civil war, despite our rejection of the Bolshevik dictatorship in principle, in order to save the revolution from White Guard reaction and foreign intervention we voluntarily mobilised members of our party to fight in the ranks of the Red Army against counterrevolution.




I do not wish to discuss the correctness or otherwise of our tactics then or now. That, however, is what they were, and no honest person anywhere can deny it. And if, despite this, the Bolsheviks chose our party to feature in this trial, this was because they hoped to compromise our party in the eyes of the workers and thereby strike a fatal blow against the idea of socialism and the Socialist International in the USSR.


In May 1930, at the Berlin meeting of the Labour and Socialist International Executive Committee, the organised socialist proletariat of the world offered the hand of friendship to the Russian workers. At that time all Russia's difficulties had got much worse, and, thanks to Stalin's insane collectivisation, Russia seemed to be on the brink of catastrophe. At that moment, the Labour and Socialist International declared to the whole world that it was prepared to use its entire weight and massive influence to avert a catastrophe for the Russian revolution, if only the Bolshevik government would make that possible for us by moving towards a system of workers' democracy.



This present trial is a belated answer to the International's appeal. The socialist proletariat extended the hand of fraternal help, in response the Bolsheviks struck us with their fist.



- it is an attack on our honour. It is shameful to have to admit to you that in this respect the new Communist tsarism is worse than the old tsarism of the nobility. In the old days we were subjected to persecution, thrown into jail, exiled, occasionally even executed, but no moral aspersions were cast upon us, no attempts were made to dishonour us politically.



Oh, the Bolsheviks know that slander
http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/korolev/abramovich01.htm