Question to the marxist-leninists over the idea of councils

[SidVicious]

Hello comrades !

I've recently started to read about Rosa luxembourg, and the idea of worker's council has seduced me. I think that a marxist revolution must be democratic, and that the councils are the guarantee of it.

So my question (I'm sorry if it is a bit of a caricature, explain me if I'm wrong), is why you guys prefer a centralized party that has all the powers and that has a big risk to become an oligarchic and bureaucratic institution ? When we speak about the dictator of the proletariat, the power isn't supposed to be in the hand of the workers ? The councils aren't a better option than the centralized party that existed in USSR ?

Thanks for your answers :)

[UncleLenin]

The workers' Soviets are a good idea. I do not think there would be multiple parties in this system and if there were, they would all be Socialist ones (Obviously). This would mean that it is not really a multiple party system but rather, a multiple 'faction' system. I support a single party system, because if there were multiple parties, one party might be too capitalistic. This would not be good for the workers.

[G4b3n]

The word "soviet" literally means "council".
The MLs claim that they do not want to centralize authority in hands of a vanguard. They claim that the vanguard is simply the guiding light of the proletariat and is actually not a separate entity in itself.

Personally, I despise all things authoritarian, one of the main reasons I have a distaste for bourgeois culture. Take the ML above me for example, he believes that workers are so incapable of making autonomous decisions that other parties must be banned by means of force, lest the workers be seduced by capitalism and bourgeois parties.

[Brotto Rühle]

Whatever the workers decide, is what they decide. It's not up to a vanguard party of elites to look at the workers and say "we must abolish all parties but this one, becuase we believe they will lead you down the wrong path".

Fuck that.

[Delenda Carthago]

Whatever the workers decide, is what they decide. It's not up to a vanguard party of elites to look at the workers and say "we must abolish all parties but this one, becuase we believe they will lead you down the wrong path".

Fuck that.
Even Roza Luxemburg abolished that stupid idea, by creating a party of a new type.

[Brotto Rühle]

Even Roza Luxemburg abolished that stupid idea, by creating a party of a new type.

Wait, what the fuck are you talking about? Luxemburg didn't create a new type of party. Her party was created in the image of the Bolsheviks, fine tuned to German conditions.

What does Luxemburg have to do with anything?

[JPSartre12]

I've recently started to read about Rosa luxembourg, and the idea of worker's council has seduced me.

You should read Anton Pannekoek's "Workers' Councils" if you're interested in councilism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm


So my question (I'm sorry if it is a bit of a caricature, explain me if I'm wrong), is why you guys prefer a centralized party that has all the powers and that has a big risk to become an oligarchic and bureaucratic institution ? When we speak about the dictator of the proletariat, the power isn't supposed to be in the hand of the workers ? The councils aren't a better option than the centralized party that existed in USSR ?

Let me try to deconstruct this somewhat.

There are those (Marxist-Leninists, etc) who support a "centralized party" because of they argue that a single, unified vanguard organization can act as the spearhead of the proletarian movement, and that it can seize control of the State political apparatus and work to institutionalize socialism. There have been countless debates about whether a single-party State is good or bad, and each side makes a few valid points. Yes, I would argue that there is a chance for the party to become an "oligarchic and bureaucratic institution", but only if the party became substitutionist: if the party substituted the theory of dictatorship of the proletariat with a dictatorship by the proletarian party. A genuine vanguard organization is simply going to be composed of the most revolutionary strata of the proletariat itself, not a small group of opportunistic politicos acting in the name of the working class.

And by "dictator of the proletariat", I'm assuming that you meant the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, under the DOTP the power is in the hands of the working class. That's what the DOPT is - its the proletariat asserting its class hegemony over the bourgeoisie and the fundamental re-orientation of the economy in the direct interest of the working class.

It's logical to assume that councils are a better idea than a centralized party-state at first, because the idea of councils sounds wonderfully libertarian and decentralized at first glance. But the libertarian-authoritarian dichotomy is a false one because it's completely relative. A socialist revolution is emancipatory and libertarian from the point of view of the proletariat, but it's viciously authoritarian and destructive form the position of the bourgeois. The centralized party-state that arose in the USSR was a product of the specific material conditions that existed in Russia in 1917; they were still feudal and many ways and the party had to do what was needed to industrialize the country to repel the Nazis, protect itself from possible NATO or US attack, etc. Despite all the atrocities that took place 1917, we have to be intellectually honest with ourselves and realize that the USSR's Marxist-Leninism was able to drag Russia out of agrarian-feudalism and induce industrial modernity.

The issue of councils vs a party-state is something that I'm very interested in; if you want to discuss it more, feel free to message me.