The State of the Left

[Rafiq]

In partial response to the recent events in El Salvador, as well as other global events, I can only express irritation with some users here.

What I find irritating are users on this site who attempt to categorize existing events within their broken ideological paradigm, their volumes of support, or the magnitude of their commendation rests upon how successfully the event fulfills a certain idea, or ideas - idea(s) which have no real context within the modern world, ideas which exist exclusively on the internet (Ex. "I don't know, 'communism'/grassroots democracy/post-scarcity economy/utopia won't be achieved this way but maybe this will lead to people aspiring to such an idea"). Make no mistake, I am not one to speak of the political machinations of the bourgeois state as "reality" as some liberals like to, nor do I believe that the inexistence of proletarian consciousnesses confirms its impossibility. I merely - and absolutely - stand opposed to the immature way in which a proletarian consciousness that could exist today is postulated or imagined by users here. As far as I'm concerned, historically, the existence of Leftists in control of the bourgeois state has given the necessary space for proletarian consciousness to develop, and lays the foundation for a wider spectrum of radical politics. All of this raises difficult questions... What precisely are 'we' fighting against? To deny our tendency towards aspiring for world domination is both dishonest and cowardly. As Marxists, we seek the revival of our movement, we seek on a certain level historical legitimacy and to enter the battle for ideological universality, the same battle that has been fought by generations of Marxists. The whole of our history, the whole of 20th century developments, the legacy left behind by our internationals belongs to those in power, it has fallen victim to the ideological state apparatus and no matter the prevalence of Marxist intellectuals, be they in universities or on the internet, our cause will never achieve legitimacy. Truth rests upon the magnitude of power by which truth is sustained, and we have left the arena wherein exists the battle for power, politics. So how can the masses recognize our truth? The problem with reform Communists, Eurocommunists is not that they are political, but that they sold themselves and what little of our movement remained with them to the machinations of bourgeois politics, they put up no fight in the defense of proletarian or revolutionary politics. We should enter the political arena, only to ruthlessly exploit liberal democracy, to hold hostage the very balance of the order of things, if only to coerce the bourgeois state into our demands which will grow exponentially, only to strengthen once more the power of labor. We as Marxists, even if we are proletarians, do not operate under the pretense that we benevolently will empower the proletariat and instill in them class consciousness. Quite honestly what we seek is to exercise our will to power through Marxism, through the defense of this theoretical tradition which can only lead to the logical conclusion of absolute world domination. What Communism can we be dedicated to if it does not exist? So long as proletarian consciousness does not exist, neither does Communism, and to speak of your desired, utilitarian state of affairs divorced from a real proletarian movement is foolish. Those dedicated to all that we do have, Marxism, it is time to ask yourselves whether you want to reside as users on an internet forum, which has taken the archetype of any other internet forum, albeit the flavoring of leftist rhetoric (I do not have a problem with this website, I find it both useful and resourceful at times, but the general 'culture' that has been built around it - and note I do not speak of the way in which it is managed, which I don't really have a problem with - is not reflective of anything useful). It is time to ask yourselves as to whether you take seriously a Communism that exists within a 21st century context, it is time to ask yourselves as to whether Marxism - and 'our' historical legacy is worth defending in a world that is descending into barbarism and madness. This is not a call to action (what action can anyone take in this state?) but a call for a general change in your conception of ideology - or the world around you.

[The Idler]

The state of socialism is that it is not changing the world or even getting a hearing in the world. I don't understand how people calling themselves socialists can be so unrealistically positive in the face of evidence. The SWP in Britain were fond of saying people were angry, we're just around the corner, we can bring down the government. They said this for years which is probably why in the short term people joined but in the medium to long term, a lot of people got burned out never to engage in activism again.

[Q]

The state of socialism is that it is not changing the world or even getting a hearing in the world. I don't understand how people calling themselves socialists can be so unrealistically positive in the face of evidence. The SWP in Britain were fond of saying people were angry, we're just around the corner, we can bring down the government. They said this for years which is probably why in the short term people joined but in the medium to long term, a lot of people got burned out never to engage in activism again.
To be honest, them dropping out of activism is a good thing. Running around like headless chickens from demo to demo, in the hope of selling another paper or winning another comrade to join your ranks is highly unproductive.

What doesn't help at all though is the fact that these comrades also drop out of politics entirely or, if they remain politically active, most often move to the 'realistic' right. The only way forward out of this poisonous culture is a clean break with it, a revolutionary wave across the far left towards unity on a common communist basis of democracy, internationalism and an independent class position for our class.

[Remus Bleys]

Well, before I get into the meat of your post, which I enjoy, I have just two things to say:
1.) Here you are saying that “As far as I'm concerned, historically, the existence of Leftists in control of the bourgeois state has given the necessary space for proletarian consciousness to develop, and lays the foundation for a wider spectrum of radical politics”
I don’t see this as being true. At the very most, parliaments should be used in counterrevolutionary times for the sole purpose of exposing them. I don’t really see any situation where leftists in charge of a bourgeois state caused any actual radical politics that were in any way meaningful or irrelevant.
2.)“and 'our' historical legacy is worth defending in a world that is descending into barbarism and madness”
To this, I suggest Doctrine of the Body Possessed by the Devil.


I think part of the problem with the state of the left is that instead of finding out why that its in such a state of disarray (giving up on revolutions, larping organizations, weird personality cults, open reactionary sentiments, a turn to social democracy and reformism) are that instead of discovering why the “Left” was ever revolutionary and why it is no longer so, people simply acknowledge this as a truism or they pretend that this is most certainly not the case. We, as communists, are not liars - we must be objective and honest to ourselves, especially in terms of theory. Thus, we must do as what has always been done in the history of our movement when the time is not revolutionary - we must study the historical situation and we must study why the historical situation is the way it is (warning, long wall of text coming up).

First we must discuss the nature of the proletariat. The proletariat is those who have nothing but their chains, their only means of sustenance is to sell their labor power for a wage. The proletariat are those who are without-reserves. The condition of this social being, of this class, is one which is tremendously terrible, one which is fraught with misery, one which constantly seeks to escape the chains that it has - whether it recognizes these chains or not. Thus, from the get go, the proletariat strives to abolish itself as a class, this is the doctrine of communism, this is the only principle in our entire movement that validates every other principle, doctrine or thesis of the Communists. The proletariat starts out its struggle as a struggle for a better life, a better wellbeing. It is not in the position to have the power to abolish itself yet, but it will constantly desire this and these outbursts will show themselves from time to time. Whilst these outbursts were doomed to fail, it is still a necessary aspect to discover our theses on the proletariat. The proletariat had, in its struggles, been joined together by each other’s in the factory and the trade in order to better secure for itself the prospect of less servitude, of a less horrible life. From this desire for a better life the proletariat had stumbled across the invariant program necessary for its self emancipation - no it did not reveal this all at once. This invariant program that was found was the tactics and actions used in order to abolish itself and negate the current society, it is the organization based off of all past experiences of the proletariat. The historical party would be formalized when it had taken that and had actualized this program, the formal party is the collection of party militants, but each was “possessed” by the Historical Party. This formal party would lead the class, it would be able to determine the best course of action, it would unify the class as a whole and throw it in action. Thus, we deduce that one cannot even speak of the class without at first speaking of its party: this is the basis for the communist movement and it is one which we should be most focused on.

The party had originally only appeared in stunted and ineffective forms, of the utopians and of the reformists, of the trade unionists and of the corporatists. The class had with each new breach of tactic had discovered more and more of the invariant program until what was found was the necessity of an Insurrection, of the violent dictatorship which would revolutionize capitalism into communism. The party had found that it alone had to organize the class along class lines and push and guide the class into its truly revolutionary state. This was the start of the invariant program, which had based itself on all past proletarian (nay, human) struggles, and was transferred into party theses. This was the Communist Party as it first truly appeared in a formalized way.

Capitalism, still, however, could not be overthrown and as such reforms were a part of the struggle for socialism, but the party demanded that all reforms be pursued strictly for the sole purpose of helping the revolution, of working in the interests of the emancipation of the proletariat.
The First International was the attempt at this, the attempt to unite the proletarian parties of the world together. It was only natural that anarchism should arise from the worker: the anarchist promised a world free of oppression which had appealed to the proletariat, but in response, the anarchist had to loose all pretense of theory. Thus, the First International was broken up not because of a personality difference between Bakunin and Marx but because the party had split in order to preserve the party over mutilation of the party (and thus the class) by the hands of opportunists.

Thus, came the first time of the counterrevolution, where the party in its historical way had studied the situation in order to determine the next moves, actions and tactics. The tactics of the formal party had then successfully pulled all out of the counterrevolutionary phase and instead initiated the Second International. The problem with this international was that it was transitioning to a stage where its tactics were openly counterrevolutionary. The original and invariant view on reforms had deviated from the view of reforms for revolution’s sake to the view of reform for reform’s sake. In addition, many of the Second International had entered into parliament, that bourgeois puppet show, for counterrevolutionary reasons.

Thus in Russia, Lenin had restored the Historical Party against that bastardization of the formal party. From Lenin came the restoration of all the revolutionary meaning, origin, potential and necessities for the Revolutionary aspect of Marxism. However, these tactics of Lenin were developed in Russia during its semi-feudalistic and petty-production economic phase. Thus the Revolution in October had contained within it a peasant side, and the proletariat had to give into the peasant certain concessions.
The tactics of Lenin were revolutionary and proletarian in Russia, but in the West they were counter-revolutionary and social-democratic. Thus rose Left Communism, which had opposed the tactics of Bolshevization (not Bolshevism itself) and had in turn demanded a true proletarian organization for the purpose of conducting revolution and revolutionary activities.

Due to the fact that the German Revolution never truly adopted the organization of the Left Communists (as many of the communist character of the parties and organizations were destroyed, suppressed and sabotage) and the sheer terror and power of the reaction, The German Revolution failed.
The failure of the German Revolution had spelt doom for the proletariat in Russia. The proletariat dictatorship had relied on German help in order for it to industrialize the nation and subdue the peasant. However, when revolution didn’t come, the counterrevolution of the peasants, which had drowned the proletarian in their own blood, had started. This was the ideology of Stalinism.

Due to a starting error of the Third International, it had allowed in several groups and combined many of the communists with non-communists (trapping the historical party within an artificial husk of an incompatible self loathing beast), all for the purpose of making popular. The Third International had been started by the revolution in Russia, and whilst true that Russia was the center of Communist theory, it was also the center of the ideology known to be stalinism. Since the peasants had control over much of the state, it was that much easier to gain control over the Third International and install within it the opportunists who burst out when the time is right, who became famous for praising the capitalism of Russia as socialism. It is this which has done the most damage to socialism, this group which transformed things that once existed to spread Revolutionary Consciousness, into something which now spread bourgeoisie propaganda.

For many of those who made loyal to the Russian Revolution and to Lenin, they had turned to Trotsky. Trotsky, who was noted as having “shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work,” thought he could save the Revolution, even though that radical light had burnt out long ago, and instead thought that Revolution was a matter of Leadership and started the 4th International - and who could seriously believe that this has not led to crises of organization and countless crises of theories (this is for the Trotskyist groups, not the groups that claim orthodoxy to poor Trotsky when in fact they are naught but social democrats).

The Left Communists were the only ones who had survived the counterrevolution, and they did this by accepting defeat, by accepting that they had lost. The Italian Left Communist groups and the German-Dutch groups have their differences in how to establish a truly proletarian organization. The German-Dutch had emphasized the councils, they claimed that the proletariat simply needed to organize into the councils and that the Revolution would soon follow. The German-Dutch left had eventually given up on any attempt at Left Communism and devolved into the degeneration known as Council Communism. Council Communism, however, forgets that for us, the proletariat is not revolutionary, the correct formula is that the proletariat is revolutionary or the proletariat is nothing. Class is dynamic, the bourgeoisie can have as big of an effect on the class as Communists do (especially when the counterrevolution reigns dominant). We cannot simply act like the class will spontaneously become dominant, it is something that must be actively fought for.
The Italian Left Communists, on the other hand, never abandoned the party, and in fact, elaborated on all of these concepts that previous generations of communists had glossed over. It was the Italians who had gotten rid of the the Democratic Principle, it was the Italians who had saw the truth of the necessity of the program, and it was the italians who understood the origins of the party. The Italian Communist Left had in effect determined and unearthed many of the previously unknown aspects of the invariant program of Communism. However, even this movement had its flaws. The Damenites had desired to be a more of a formal organization, an organization that would interact with the class, and had in turn updated many of their tactics in order to better align with the reality of the situation. Bordiga, who had never been able to fully trace his separation between himself and Lenin (not to imply that lenin was not extremely necessary for communist theory of today!) and in turn adopted two different positions. The Damenites had focused on the formal party more than on the historical one, deriding the historical party and invariance of marxism as being mystic - even though they had agreed with many of it. The Bordigists were protesting against this activism, they had known that in doing so one would truly abandon the discovery and inquiry into the historical party, into the invariant communist program. This led the Bordigists down a different road, one where they had abandoned the formal party for the historical one.

In addition, many of the Bordigists were never really able to separate their imitation of Lenin’s tactics. Some had removed themselves so far from the class that they then tricked themselves into becoming the activists they despised so greatly, except had used Lenin’s tactics. Thus, one has Camatte born - Camatte born because of the realization that capital has become powerful, but of the forgetting that man is the source of capital, all wrapped up under a protest of an anti-activist party becoming “too activist.”

The point of all of this isn’t just some rambling, its that the only thing that Communists can do is assemble themselves a party, a historical one that will necessarily spend some amount of time in isolation in order to study the situation and come up with the most revolutionary tactic and action, one that doesn’t fall into mindless activism and pointless anti-capitalist protests but results in real proletarian activity. The job of the communists of today is to find a party that understands the necessity of isolation and the necessity of always being in perfect contact with the class. Communists need to do what neither Bordiga nor Damen could do. Communists need to understand the necessity of Programmatic Invariance, of keeping pure the Historical party, of not sacrificing much needed energy in a non-revolutionary situation, of not cowering down to the democratic fetish. Communists simultaneously need to be an active organizer of the class, of the pusher and preparer of the revolutionary situation, of the acknowledgement of the possibility and necessity of Revolution. Communists, before they can learn from their mistakes, must let the left die, they must destroy the social democrats, they must instead work amongst the proletariat in a truly revolutionary way; in short, Communists must reach perfect organic unity between both the historical and formal parties.



Heres a list of stuff I used
http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/21PartyC.htm (http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/21PartyC.htm)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/origin.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/origin.htm)
http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/20ThParl.htm (http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/20ThParl.htm)
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/51TheoAc/51TheoAc.htm (http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/51TheoAc/51TheoAc.htm)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/ch03.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/ch03.htm)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/doctrine.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/doctrine.htm)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm)

[The Jay]

Rafiq, that was very well written but I think that you should expand upon what you are suggesting in practical terms. I would be very interested in reading it.

This is a matter that I have been thinking about for some time but have yet to come to any solid conclusions.

[Rafiq]

Essentially what I practically desire is a Communism with it's own language, it's own face and therefore it's own political force. I want the dimensions inherent to any other ideology, morality, philosophy, universality to be taken for Communism once more. I want the moral foundations for Communist ideology to be solidified and to be legitimate. I want the Left to recognize that it is necessary for us to believe that our cause is truly just, in a paradigm of justice created by class struggle.

Practically, what I ask is to attempt as Leftists to do away with not only bourgeois ideology on a theoretical level, but on a legitimate level. Like the irreligious Jew who refrains from eating pork, the Communists of today know the truth but they do not believe it, they none the less recognize the legitimacy of bourgeois ideological universality. When the stakes get high, when comes love, death, things of grandiose emotional, existential and dare I say "spiritual" significance (not in the metaphysical sense) they become "realistic", they put their "bullshit aside" and submit before the idols of bourgeois thought. Of course I do not blame you, the point is to change. Only when we recognize our faults can we attain virtue. We must vigorously organize, we must reapproach modern capitalism. The proletariat know longer exists as a homogeneus entity with uniform relations in the way they did before, service sector, periodic unemployment, and a variety of other phenomena requires us to reapproach what the proletariat actually is. Because of this, in a certain way, and perhaps maybe I could be wrong, maybe the Roman populares, maybe Julius Caesar has more modern significance for us modern Communists than Spartacus (in that our movement must be a mass movement with a collection of different social agents, with a uniform political interest, as was Caesar's unification of the plebs and proles, freeman, and so forth). We must change, or perish. This is why neo-'populist' movements, Syriza, Die Linke, and even what we see in Venezuela is the future for Communism. They embody the embryo, the shell, the foundations for a larger, more radical basis of politics to be conducted. But we need that basis.

When I speak of our historical legacy, I speak of universality, who inherits the legacy of the human species. I oppose humanism because humanists rely on presumptions regarding humanity which are inherently. As Communists, we must create our own Renaissance man, we must re conceptualize humanity and create a new man of our own for which a new 'humanism' (within the context of Renaissance) can develop, one separate and distinguishable as proletarian. The Marxists humanists defend the humanity of the old world. Because the bourgeoisie hold ideological hegemony, legitimacy, they have a hold on our notion of humanity. Disregarding humanity and humanism is only the first step in doing away with bourgeois ideology, what comes after is the affirmative, proletarian (Communist) possessing of humanity as a concept, a new notion of man, to retain hegemony. Cynics, disillusioned optimists ("pessimists") will always remain within the boundries of bourgeois thought insofar as they pre-suppose them, reject them, and therefore reject universality as a whole. We should fight for it and claim it as our own, not disregard it (humanity, love, morality, and so forth). It sounds off-putting as we associate these things with hegemonic bourgeois ideology, the point is that we should replace it with proletarian ideology, we should not have to associate communism with despair, with cyncism, with coldness, and mechanism. We should be able to affirmatively love the revolution, the fight for emancipation, as egalitarians. We should be able to love this ideological (not scientifically objective) notion of an undying historical phenomena, we should be able to even appreciate the national spirit (in sense that it is a legacy that belongs to all heirs to history, the revolutionary proletariat) in a Hegelian sense, as different mediums from which the historical subject, an undying ideological historical phemonea (egalitarianism, emancipation, from the Spartan spirit to the Populares, from (Roman, western) Christianity to the greens of the Byzantine Empire, from Florian Geyer to the modern period.

Now before I am attacked for hypocrisy, we must ask, as Marxists, is any of this scientific, or objectively true? It is not. It is ideological. And here do I bring my next point: As humans, we are incapable of being beyond ideology, or having underlying ideological beliefs. We are incapable of knowing the world objectively because we are not rational agents, we do not "do" because it is rational, we do as animals 'do'. Even as Marxists, if we recognize truly, on a theoretical, intellectual and scientific level, the true nature of things, that this is all ideological, a result of underlying class interests, and forces of production, this does not address our beliefs insofar as they are translated socially. As humans, and not gods, we will always have underlying ideological beliefs regarding universality, as social beings, in order to legitimize our very social being. We cannot be beyond ideology. We can know, but we cannot believe ("walk the walk") objective truth (That is, outside of fields of acquiring intellectual knowledge). So I claim that we will always be ideological, the question is whether we are willing to adopt Communism ideologically, and to that I say we must.

On a scientific (and not in this garbage positivist sense) level, ideology should be deduced, ideology should have no place, we should try to understand the world around us as objectively as we can. But this has no real, practical social expression, and it never has, from Greek philosophers to the Renaissance astronomers. We must possess the mind of a Marxist and possess the spirit of a Communist. Spirit in the sense of our ideas in relation to our social being, our social interest. It is hard, because we do not have the political or independent class based space we need for our own language.

It's for all of these reasons that I hold DNZ in such high regard. He's not just some madman who spouts a bunch of dribble. He has not ideologically understood himself, but he walks the walk, he sees a new legitimacy. There are real, perhaps even frightening, legitimate phemonea at hand, that has deep philosophical significance that supports DNZ's mode of thinking. Of all forms of thought, the most well correlated with reality and significant is DNZ's (and others, Q, and so forth).

[motion denied]

While I disagree with you regarding humanism (and I should soon respond to you in that other thread) and the 'neo-populist movements', you make a very good point here:


Only when we recognize our faults can we attain virtue. We must vigorously organize, we must reapproach modern capitalism. The proletariat know longer exists as a homogeneus entity with uniform relations in the way they did before, service sector, periodic unemployment, and a variety of other phenomena requires us to reapproach what the proletariat actually is.

The left, unable to understand capitalism, is hopeless.

[Rafiq]

Again, it is important to differentiate objective analysis with ideology. Both are important. The latter implies a social correlation, a social interest manifested through ideas. The question is which ideas.

[FSL]

As far as I'm concerned, historically, the existence of Leftists in control of the bourgeois state has given the necessary space for proletarian consciousness to develop, and lays the foundation for a wider spectrum of radical politics.
The only example is Allende and that didn't end the way you describe.

Also, try not to write in a block of text as much, it's a bit hard to read especially in a foreign language.




The proletariat know longer exists as a homogeneus entity with uniform relations in the way they did before, service sector, periodic unemployment, and a variety of other phenomena requires us to reapproach what the proletariat actually is.
The service sector, unemployment and I'm guessing all the other phenomena you're hinting at but not naming have been around for centuries.
Not only does the proletariat exist as a homogeneous entity, it's now a much larger part of the population with petty owners on the verge of extinction in the more developed economies.



Because of this, in a certain way, and perhaps maybe I could be wrong, maybe the Roman populares, maybe Julius Caesar has more modern significance for us modern Communists than Spartacus (in that our movement must be a mass movement with a collection of different social agents, with a uniform political interest, as was Caesar's unification of the plebs and proles, freeman, and so forth). We must change, or perish. This is why neo-'populist' movements, Syriza, Die Linke, and even what we see in Venezuela is the future for Communism. They embody the embryo, the shell, the foundations for a larger, more radical basis of politics to be conducted. But we need that basis.

Unify whom with whom?
Like I said if you're in the US you practically don't have to unify anyone. There doesn't exist a petty bourgeoisie worthy of thinking about it (purely numbers-wise). In every other country the social divisions also get more pronounced, with workers and proletarians-to-be in one side and capital in the other.

The future of communism must of course be communistic. The future of communisn can't be people adoring capitalism. This should be so straight-forward to everyone.

[Rafiq]

Allende did broaden the scope of radical politics for Chile, when he held power. His inability to retain state power does not signify otherwise.

New developments do not render our understanding of the proletariat obsolete, nor does it change capitalist social relations. It merely forces us to re-approach our understanding of the proletariat within a modern context. The service sector and unemployment have indeed existed for a long time, not in the manner by which they exist today. Periodic unemployment has created new conditions that many proletarians live in, and distinguishes them as the precariat. The proletariat is not a homogeneous entity in that they are of identical social conditions, but they do possess uniform interests.

For the record, I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say "unify with whom?". What I mean is, in developed countries, the unification of different offshoots of the proletariat who make up the majority of the populace. The petite bourgeoisie is a reactionary class. Syriza and Die Linke lay the foundations for a new Communist political discourse, they are not an ends, but a beginning. Their platform may not overtly be "the overthrow of the bourgeois state" but such a political programme can only exist when the proletariat possesses political independence as a class and has the bourgeois state at gunpoint - you should remember Lenin's April thesis was made only after the time was opportune.

[FSL]

Allende did broaden the scope of radical politics for Chile, when he held power. His inability to retain state power does not signify otherwise.
As if it were a glass and it just slipped out of his hands?



New developments do not render our understanding of the proletariat obsolete, nor does it change capitalist social relations. It merely forces us to re-approach our understanding of the proletariat within a modern context. The service sector and unemployment have indeed existed for a long time, not in the manner by which they exist today. Periodic unemployment has created new conditions that many proletarians live in, and distinguishes them as the precariat. The proletariat is not a homogeneous entity in that they are of identical social conditions, but they do possess uniform interests.

For the record, I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say "unify with whom?". What I mean is, in developed countries, the unification of different offshoots of the proletariat who make up the majority of the populace. The petite bourgeoisie is a reactionary class. Syriza and Die Linke lay the foundations for a new Communist political discourse, they are not an ends, but a beginning. Their platform may not overtly be "the overthrow of the bourgeois state" but such a political programme can only exist when the proletariat possesses political independence as a class and has the bourgeois state at gunpoint - you should remember Lenin's April thesis was made only after the time was opportune.
The service sector and unemployment have existed in the exact same manner they exist today. I can't even imagine "the variety of ways" with which someone can be unemployed.
Not one proletariat was ever identical to the one next to him, but they always were a homegeneous entity, a class, because they had uniform interests, much like they do today.

The parties you mentioned don't even dream about holding the bourgeois state at gunpoint. You must be 100% unfamiliar with their programme and their political vocabulary to even say they might at some opportune time.

[Rafiq]

Allendes failure is a result of his inability to use the mechanisms of the state to repress the bourgeois class, through terror and so on.

It's not just unemployement, it's this periodic instability and lack of secuirity. It's called the precariat.

The parties do not have to mention it in their programme that they want to do this. Bourgeois liberal parties don't speak of protecting the bourgeois dictatorship, they don't speak of serving capital. This is precisely part of what I was talking about, how users assume Communism to be some sort of utilitarian policy or platform a party would adopt.

[FSL]

Allendes failure is a result of his inability to use the mechanisms of the state to repress the bourgeois class, through terror and so on.
And that didn't have anything to do with the state being a bourgeois state and its mechanisms designed to terrorize workers?
He wasn't just unable to use the mechanisms of the state. The mechanisms of the state themselves overthrew him.




It's not just unemployement, it's this periodic instability and lack of secuirity. It's called the precariat.
It's not called that by me.
Crises in capitalism have always been periodic. It's been like that even before Das Kapital was written.



The parties do not have to mention it in their programme that they want to do this. Bourgeois liberal parties don't speak of protecting the bourgeois dictatorship, they don't speak of serving capital. This is precisely part of what I was talking about, how users assume Communism to be some sort of utilitarian policy or platform a party would adopt.
Yes, bourgeois parties supposedly stand in favor of the whole society and that is a lie. These parties make the exact same claim and that's because they're exactly bourgeois parties.

That a party could be constantly praising enterpreneurs and imperialists but actually wanting to bring communism, I can't even begin to understand how you came to this opinion.
If that's a case I don't see why one should support Syriza and Die Linke but not the Democrats. Sure, they might not have in their programme but who are you to exclude the possibility that everything they do is part of a well laid-out plan to gradually bring communism?

In fact many people already think so!

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Essentially what I practically desire is a Communism with it's own language, it's own face and therefore it's own political force. I want the dimensions inherent to any other ideology, morality, philosophy, universality to be taken for Communism once more. I want the moral foundations for Communist ideology to be solidified and to be legitimate. I want the Left to recognize that it is necessary for us to believe that our cause is truly just, in a paradigm of justice created by class struggle.


I was wondering for some time now, what are these Communist moral foundations and paradigm of justice? It's not only here that you mentioned that, but in other threads as well, but that's too abstract for me to understand what it means. I would appreciate if you could shed some light as to what you think of that.

[Rafiq]

Leftist, it is not something which can be summarized, or that I currently have the energy to summarize. I suppose one would have to be a Communist ideologue to understand what I am talking of. I think that a lot of architecture, art and so on in some former Communist states conveys this well. A christian-esque notion of justice, universal justice without this relativist nonsense, in which our cause is the cause the true cause that pervades in all corners of the Earth without compromise. A kind of radical egalitarianism in an affirmative, positive sense.

[Rafiq]

FSL, with regard to Allende his inability to possess complete control of the state, because he was committed to operate within the confines of the legalist-democratic framework (his reluctance in the utilization of terror, counter intelligence, and so on), as well as his inability to encourage, organize or develop something akin to a Communist militia, almost like what we see in Venezuela were all factors that led to his demise. The point I'm getting at, is that his rule widened the spectrum of radical politics in that it set new standards, gave space for proletarian consciousness to develop (as we see in times in western democracies in which labor has the upper hand). It did not develop, but the necessary space was there. And of course it's all more complicated than this, but i'm just generalizing. I'm not speaking of crises, I'm speaking of an existing condition by which the proletariat today lives in which distinguishes it from the previous conditions held by the proletariat. These are things which are important to take into account in any meaningful understanding of modern capitalism, we cannot simply abide by an identical archetype of capitalism cosmetically as understood by Marxists in their according periods (from Marx to the second international). If you remember, Lenin recognized this, which is why he adjusted a Marxist analysis to the capitalism that had developed when he wrote Imperialism, the Highest stage of Capitalism. Of course developments do not render Marxism obsolete or outdated, but "Marxists". We simply need to realize that Marx's understanding of capitalism is applicable to modern capitalism, but that a reapplication is necessary. As for Syriza and Die Linke, I don't think that realistically it would make any sense to compare them to the centre-left bourgeois parties. They are clearly in their programme opposed to the immediate interests of capital in one way or another (Whether they are in the greater scheme of things espousing apocalyptic rhetoric is another thing), with regard to austerity measures, and so on. Again, I am not saying they are an ends, but they are a beginning. Remember that the Bolsheviks were a radical offspring of a much larger, more developed and sophisticated movement, but could only ever hold any relevance because of the movement from which they derived. I think it's clear that Syriza and Die Linke, regardless of whether they are reluctant in openly hurting liberal sensitivities (remember that they have on numerous occasions come under attack by freudian slips and so on), they're still giving out a big fuck you to them, albeit in a well-mannered fashion.

[Broviet Union]

But how do you prevent a Communist movement convinced of its righteousness from becoming an ends-justifies-the-means charnel house free for all of violence and repression?

[Rafiq]

Simple, you don't conceptualize it through the lens of cheap bourgeois liberalism.

[Broviet Union]

In other words, you don't?

[Rafiq]

Violence and repression (of the counter revolution) will exist insofar as it is necessary. In those cases where it is, as it was during the civil war in Russia, liberal outcry is unavoidable. It is not something we should concern ourselves with. The same ones who condemn the excesses of revolutionary violence were those who aligned themselves with the most barbarous excesses of capital.

[blake 3:17]

To be honest, them dropping out of activism is a good thing. ...

What doesn't help at all though is the fact that these comrades also drop out of politics entirely or...

I think there's a question of how we define activism and politics -- flogging papers nobody wants is mostly just *%$#%#^

[Queen Mab]

The proletariat know longer exists as a homogeneus entity with uniform relations in the way they did before, service sector, periodic unemployment, and a variety of other phenomena requires us to reapproach what the proletariat actually is. Because of this, in a certain way, and perhaps maybe I could be wrong, maybe the Roman populares, maybe Julius Caesar has more modern significance for us modern Communists than Spartacus (in that our movement must be a mass movement with a collection of different social agents, with a uniform political interest, as was Caesar's unification of the plebs and proles, freeman, and so forth).

The working class has never been a homogeneous entity. In fact, before the rise of the Second International no-one ever used the term 'working class', they always spoke of 'the working classes', plural. It was the rise of participatory politics and a mass socialist movement that created some consciousness of a unified class interest and later the post-hoc mythology of the whitebread industrial working class. Look at the difficulty in Britain the Triple Alliance had in co-ordinating industrial action between the miners, dockers and railwaymen (themselves the most militant sections of the class). Or the divisions between Catholic and Protestant workers in Ireland. I can't really see materially what makes the proletariat less sociologically homogeneous than it was 100 years ago.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think there's a question of how we define activism and politics -- flogging papers nobody wants is mostly just *%$#%#^

Blake, we revivalists want to see a proliferation of our kinds of activists:

1) The enthusiastic functionaries who run party-members-only-as-organizers food banks, recreational clubs, cultural societies, and so much more on an internally democratic basis
2) The educated functionaries who assist the educated experts / pros / professionals in issue awareness in depth, left public policymaking, programmatic frameworks and methods, political strategy, and general political education (http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-education-expertisei-t186939/index.html)

And yes, even

3) The functionaries who "know their place" as unquestioning yes-men (in the performance of their roles) to agitational campaign leaders and all other agitational leaders, and who don't gossip about them, whether as charismatic cheerleaders or in left punditry (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-monarchy-strawmani-t172753/index.html).

[Rafiq]

You're right, but the composition of the working classes has changed. That you can agree with, no?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Rafiq, the studies on the precariat are not to be underestimated.

[Thirsty Crow]

Hey Rafiq, first of all, could you please format your posts in a more reading friendly way? This way, it all actually seems like a stream of consciousness like narrative, very hard to go through. This is another reason I suspect people who argue with you tend to break up your posts which you find irritating.

So, what I've managed to gather from your post:


In partial response to the recent events in El Salvador, as well as other global events, I can only express irritation with some users here.

What I find irritating are users on this site who attempt to categorize existing events within their broken ideological paradigm, their volumes of support, or the magnitude of their commendation rests upon how successfully the event fulfills a certain idea, or ideas - idea(s) which have no real context within the modern world, ideas which exist exclusively on the internet (Ex. "I don't know, 'communism'/grassroots democracy/post-scarcity economy/utopia won't be achieved this way but maybe this will lead to people aspiring to such an idea").


This is not a call to action (what action can anyone take in this state?) but a call for a general change in your conception of ideology - or the world around you.

Sure, I agree wholeheartedly that the phenomenon you mention here, looking at unfolding events through the basically broken lenses of a specific ideology, is problematic, and more than that, it is completely counter-productive. Though, I had my run ins with this kind of problem more in the immediate context of ex-Yugoslav (mainly Croatian, to be precise) left and some of the struggles here, most notably the recent demonstrations and assembly formation in Bosnia. What happened there in some left circles was precisely what you write, that (political) support and analysis rested on the notion that a specific idea was thus being fulfilled - namely, that of direct democracy, completely skewing the picture. Though, this idea, a hybrid of sorts between the ideology of direct democracy born in the student occupations of 2009 and basically reformist self-management harking back to the Yugoslav period, cannot be said to exist on the internet alone.

There's, though, this other argument in your entire post which I find problematic:


Truth rests upon the magnitude of power by which truth is sustained, and we have left the arena wherein exists the battle for power, politics. So how can the masses recognize our truth?... We should enter the political arena, only to ruthlessly exploit liberal democracy, to hold hostage the very balance of the order of things, if only to coerce the bourgeois state into our demands which will grow exponentially, only to strengthen once more the power of labor.

An honest question. How do you think a revolutionary political organization could coerce an existing government into accepting working class demands? Through parliamentary action alone or would something besides this be necessary here?

[Rafiq]

Naturally, parliamentary action alone is ineffective. The creation of an independent movement of the proletariat, with it's own political program, which encompasses all fields of class struggle, which (and I should emphasize) engages in political struggle, insofar as it is political struggle beyond the bourgeois political paradigm (Not as a party which espouses utilitarian rhetoric, but one that represents an "other" beyond the bourgeois political spectrum which haunts, harasses and offends it) but at the same time represents a social force which cannot be ignored. Thus, parliamentary action would not necessarily be ruled out, but a comprehensive analysis and understanding of bourgeois politics in the modern century, as compared to it's role one hundred years ago (and the implications it has for a modern Communist movement), would be necessary. However, I do believe users have already began this.

If a modern Communist movement is able to represent a real social force divorced from the interests of the ruling class, then the bourgeois state would quite simply have to "deal" with it as it is not a foreign entity or marginalized terrorist organization (i.e. RAF) but a political force which represents a massive bulk of society, similarly to the way in which the bourgeois state was forced to deal with the reality of social democratic parties before the years leading up to the first world war.

Parliamentary action is never an ends, but simply another (possible) field of political struggle. What is more important is the existence of alternative culture, space opened up for proletarian ideology, etc.

I do apologize for the format of my posts, but realize that when I express frustration over the ways in which users respond, it is when my posts are not only broken into tiny pieces, but when users fail to properly respond or address them. If you are able to break them up yet address the content of my post, without sluring insults, without failing to provide a comprehensive argument that could lead to a meaningful discussion, I have no quarrel. Naturally, you, among other users, are not a problem here.

DNZ, I recognize that, which is why I was arguing in the first place.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Rafiq, I would argue that, in order for elections-related activities to be somewhat effective, they must be a complete package. Party-movement members should be allowed to spoil their own ballots and run ballot spoilage campaigns even if the party-movement's electoral/parliamentary arm fields candidates. This isn't a divided house, but rather an acknowledgement that votes aren't a good measure of political support to begin with.

If that means, then, that the bulk of "support" comes from protest votes, so be it.

[RedMaterialist]

In partial response to the recent events in El Salvador, as well as other global events, I can only express irritation with some users here.



Could you break that into smaller paragraphs?

[Devrim]

It's for all of these reasons that I hold DNZ in such high regard. He's not just some madman who spouts a bunch of dribble.

Actually, I rather think that he is. I think the dribble he is spouting at the moment is something about rehabilitating ethnic Russian nationalism on this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/should-russian-left-t187655/index.html).

My mother used to say that anybody on the left, however absurd their ideas, could find half a dozen fools to follow them. I think that it is quite telling that in this internet age where you can communicate your ideas to people all over the world DNZ seems to have been able to find only one fool to follow him, Rafiq.

There is a reason that he is not in an organisation, and that the members of the organisation he feels the closest sympathies for are deeply embarrassed about him. His nonsense may impress a few people on RevLeft who have no experience of any form of class struggle or political activity, and who feel that a few made up words are a sign of sophistication, but I hardly think anybody else takes him at all seriously.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

I'm not a follower and this isn't an organization. It's theory. I lack any experience in class or political struggle, quite simply because class struggle has died, and what remains of it, what attempts at spontaneous consciousness the forces of production have set forth have lacked direction and as a result died, and will in the future die quickly. Political struggle? What political struggle, there has been none. Even during the height of the labor struggles throughout the latter part of the 20th century, there was no viable political basis to sustain these. Am I wrong, Devrim? What factors contributed to the international defeat of the proletariat? (If not for the failure of political strategy?) Is it so mad, so ridiculous to recognize that the old left has died, and that class struggle as it existed during the cold will not take the same form today? Hence the point of my post, organizations like the ICC (which you had previously identified with) might have some theoretical viability, but let's be realistic, this will never have any place in a new Communism. These Communists, no matter how theoretically adept, no matter how sophisticated they sound politically are remnants of an old and failed Communism. And experience, you say, might compel me to believe otherwise. But sooner would I greet death passively than reduce myself to such foolishness, such meekness as to join, and tail the organized 'left' as it exists today, plagued with impotent activism, high posturing, and childish tribalism or club mentality. So crucify me, if you will, for not having accepted the existing political choices of today. DNZ is thinking of alternatives within a modern context, that's hardly something I could say for the majority of users here. DNZ, at risk of being ridiculed, is attempting to theoretically conceptualize an affirmative political strategy. We already know what we oppose, but what can we do? Should we wait for class struggle to pick up, as you said it will in the past? This is prescisely what as Marxists we have refused to do.

I have deep respect for Devrim, this is known. But the beliefs of the old left has no place in the future of Communism.

[Zukunftsmusik]

But the beliefs of the old left has no place in the future of Communism.

I think this is true to a large degree, and some of the faults of the left is this fetish for old forms of struggle, theoretical and practical tradition etc. But this has in fact been written and talked about and theorised by a lot of people and groups, groups which stand much closer to left-communism (but of course they break with it) than DNZ or his ilk.

[Die Neue Zeit]

DNZ, at risk of being ridiculed, is attempting to theoretically conceptualize an affirmative political strategy. We already know what we oppose, but what can we do? Should we wait for class struggle to pick up, as you said it will in the past? This is prescisely what as Marxists we have refused to do.

To paraphrase, comrade, the point is to change the world. Such change, if political, starts with the principles. On those foundations stands the framework of public policymaking programs. Supporting the foundations and framework, but no less important, is the infrastructure of political strategy.

[Thirsty Crow]

Rafiq, I would argue that, in order for elections-related activities to be somewhat effective, they must be a complete package. Party-movement members should be allowed to spoil their own ballots and run ballot spoilage campaigns even if the party-movement's electoral/parliamentary arm fields candidates. This isn't a divided house, but rather an acknowledgement that votes aren't a good measure of political support to begin with.

If that means, then, that the bulk of "support" comes from protest votes, so be it.
This is nothing more than a mess, and a fundamentally incoherent idea of communist activity. The whole package would presumably carry with it a real conflict between the two wings of the party (not even going into other stuff) with two mutually opposed goals, and all of this without any regard for its effect.

If votes aren't a good measure of political support, and if a communist organization is not to form a part of the government in order to enact reforms on behalf of the working class, then the whole idea of parliamentary activity seemingly loses its ground (by ground I mean a clear picture of the intended effect of an activity), but I'm sure that master revivalists (necromancers?) will be able to muster some half witted justification.

[Devrim]

Rafiq, I thought quite hard about whether to reply to this. Generally I think that treating the sort of nonsense that DNZ comes out with seriously only serves to give it undeserved credence.


I'm not a follower and this isn't an organization. It's theory.

You are certainly right about one thing. There is no organisation whatsoever. Nor do I think that there will ever be enough fools to follow his egotism to construct one.

I don't think that it is theory though. Theory implies some sort of cohesive body of thought, which DNZ is completely lacking in. If you look at left wing political organisations, their theory tends to have a cohesion in which all of the elements lock together. You may disagree with a particular organisation, but at least they are generally consistent. DNZ has moved beyond the straightjacket of these limitations. As opposed to a coherent theory what he serves up is a hotchpotch of unrelated ideas that are not only often contradictory with each other (see his attitude to electoralism on this page) but often owe as much to the right of the political spectrum as the left (support for Russian nationalism, and third world strongmen for example).


I lack any experience in class or political struggle, quite simply because class struggle has died, and what remains of it, what attempts at spontaneous consciousness the forces of production have set forth have lacked direction and as a result died, and will in the future die quickly.

The class struggle hasn't died. It is at a particularly low level, but it hasn't died. Class struggle still goes on, and people still do have involvement in it.


Political struggle? What political struggle, there has been none. Even during the height of the labor struggles throughout the latter part of the 20th century, there was no viable political basis to sustain these.

I didn't refer to 'political struggle', but to political activity. They are very different things. Even in times of low class struggle political groups still operate. what I was talking about was the experience of collective work, which is what is so obviously completely lacking in this sort of perspective.


Am I wrong, Devrim? What factors contributed to the international defeat of the proletariat? (If not for the failure of political strategy?) Is it so mad, so ridiculous to recognize that the old left has died, and that class struggle as it existed during the cold will not take the same form today?

No, it is not. What is so ridiculous is to believe even for a instant that new forms and methods will come from the individual work of one talented individual. The history of workers' struggle shows us time and time again that it is not the ideas of clever men which have lead to new forms of struggle, but the experience of the class. Marx did not lay down the theory of the commune to later have the workers of Paris put it into action. Luxemburg didn't not patiently describe the phenomenon of the mass strike for workers to then put it into action. Lenin did not write a deep theoretically exposition on the nature of the soviets for workers to take up his call. Rather what these people did was to theorize the existing struggles of the class.

Of course in DNZ's case the idea that this could happen is even more absurd due to the fact that he is not at all a clever man. He is a buffoon.


Hence the point of my post,

I didn't 'identify' with the ICC. I was a member. I took part in collective work, and as part of an organisation took part in the struggles of the class.There is a huge difference.


...organizations like the ICC (which you had previously identified with) might have some theoretical viability, but let's be realistic, this will never have any place in a new Communism. These Communists, no matter how theoretically adept, no matter how sophisticated they sound politically are remnants of an old and failed Communism.

This may very well be true.


DNZ is thinking of alternatives within a modern context, that's hardly something I could say for the majority of users here. DNZ, at risk of being ridiculed, is attempting to theoretically conceptualize an affirmative political strategy. We already know what we oppose, but what can we do?

I believe that the class struggle will pick up. In fact I believe that there are many signs of it doing so. I make no apologies for this. It is entirely possible that it won't, that the working class has been utterly beaten on a historical level and fragmented. If we believe that though we are not revolutionaries.


Should we wait for class struggle to pick up, as you said it will in the past? This is prescisely what as Marxists we have refused to do.

It is actually what those in the Marxist tradition in the past have done in times like these. The above statement may be full of bravado, but not much else.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

Rafiq, I thought quite hard about whether to reply to this. Generally I think that treating the sort of nonsense that DNZ comes out with seriously only serves to give it undeserved credence.


You would do well not to dismiss me in such a way, as though I was merely an instrument by which DNZ expresses his ideas. What you have yet to understand is that I do not make an effort in order to breath legitimacy into DNZ, or rather, my words are not made in order to justify them. Rather, taking him seriously is a logical conclusion of my own thought-process, and any idiot can see that we are not one and the same.

Which leads us to another problem, that you're missing the point. It is not as though we attempt to create an organization out of this theory, that we have formed some sort of politically relevant club that seeks to amass followers. If there is anything to be recognized, it is that such clubs, such "organizations" that you speak of will never pose as a viable basis for class struggle to be conducted, their composition is absolutely without correlation with proletarian consciousness. Not only are they unable to posit themselves as a social force, but as a political one as well. It is not that I disagree with a specific organization, it is that I oppose "organizations" (within the context of what we are talking about) all together. It is true that these organizations posess somewhat of a consistent theoretical framework by which they justify themselves, and let them. What they do not posses is a theoretical framework which has any sort of relevance in understanding social relations, the nature of capitalism and existing conditions, in today's world. Yes their theories are consistent, but only insofar as they are constrained by the magnitude of their own ego as tribes, clubs, whatever. Deluded they are, might they, as the ICC, and countless other organizations have done, demonstrate theoretical prowess in confirming their own fantasies about the world and the role they play in it, all the while the forces of reaction gain legitimacy day by day and the world spirals toward barbarism and madness.

If class struggle exists today, then never before in the history of capitalism has it existed in such a way that is favorable to the ruling class. The point is, Devrim, and excuse me for not replying to your post chronologically (as I initially had intended), the embryo of class consciousness and the basis for class struggle already exists, the social interests of the proletariat have cried out in desperation to actualize themselves, and we have seen this in countless global events which have ended only in the solidification of the ruling class's power. As Lenin, whom you have mentioned recognized, spontaneous class consciousness could only ever lead to trade union consciousness. And you're wrong with regard to the worker's soviets. They did not form spontaneously, but as a result of political adeptness and organization over the course of several years. Even the workers of the Paris Commune would not have adopted revolutionary socialism if not for the direction set forth by the bourgeois intelligentsia (Blanc, and so on), time and time again it has been proven that on it's own, the development of proletarian consciousness, without feasible direction, leads to absolutely nothing, perhaps possibly the most reactionary political trends (nationalism, racism, and so on).

It is true that class struggle is not a product of the ideas of the intelligentsia, and it is true that class struggle is a real social component of the capitalist mode of production. It is true that proletarian consciousness had preceded Marxism. In terms of capitalist social relations, we can only ever recognize and analyse them. But that does not mean political struggle is impossible, it does not mean affirmative political struggle is a passive phenomena that we must "wait" for and conceptualize. Lenin, Luxemburg, were real leaders, and the parties they served (albeit more in the case of Lenin) directed and shaped the course of class struggle. The phenomena of contradictory class interests is not something we can create, but something we can direct. It is the most ridiculous form of mechanicism to assume otherwise, that which is in the capacity of our will is completely possible, and all attempts to understand (our will) from a materialist perspective must already take this into account beforehand. The bourgeois intelligentsia, the very process, of directing the class struggle, and conducting political strategy is the form class struggle takes. What Marx recognized is that history can only be understood after it has happened, that history is the process of men and women meeting their own ends. The revolution is not inevitable, rather, the only natural inevitability is barbarism. The October revolution was not a natural, logical result of the class struggle, but an act of direct force which upset the very balance in the cosmos, it was the triumph of will over destiny. There were absolutely no "economic" foundations within capitalism that necessitated Communist ideology to develop, from Marx to Lenin, albeit it was not a result of creativity, but decades of real struggle, struggle that was, however, done so for the conquest of state power. The magnitude of what is possible is set forth by social forces, but what specifically, within that magnitude, is possible is not necessarily. Lenin did not "wait" for class struggle to develop, through organization was real proletarian consciousness, revolutionary consciousness allowed to develop. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm)

The problem, Devrim, is that one must understand organizations, from the ICC to the countless Trotskyist parties that users like to claim, in relation to their real social and political relevance, not what you believe is to be correct, or a politically sound, or theoretically sophisticated stand. It is precisely because they have no modern relevance that they are wrong, that they are theoretically bankrupt and wrong in their positions, strategies, and understanding of the world today. The very fact that these "organizations" have no relationship to proletarian struggle (which is a mas social phenomena) means that they are not organizations at all, but clubs, hobbies, and so on. We must re-assess our understanding of our existing condition, not formulate a series of convenient excuses as to why the Left, as it is manifested on this website, has no place in the world today ("It's because the world is wrong, the nature of existing relations is wrong, and we are correct"). Yes you are correct, but only, again, within your own false-world.

No one attempts to say that DNZ is going to breed a new wave of class struggle. All we recognize is that he is attempting to understand what can possibly ever direct the class struggle in a successful manner, he attempts to conceptualize what political strategies could work within the 21st century, as a logical result of a new, more comprehensive and relevant understanding that the form capitalism has taken within the 21st century. This is a website for discussion, this isn't a basis for revolutionary struggle to be conducted. Across the entire globe we have seen that class struggle will not "pick up" in a way that is desirable to us Marxists. The extent of class struggle has already picked up, and the international proletariat sighs in frustration, confusion, and madness. All attempts at demonstrating their discontent with the current state of things has led to their ideological submission. The sheer power of their impact on things, as well as the sheer lack of direction has been manifested in countless attempts at them simply wanting to voice their discontent, in a language they do not posses.

[RedMaterialist]

For you, the class struggle is dead, yet it now has "picked up." It might be more accurate to say that the class struggle is quiescent in some places (like the U.S. and Western Europe) and violent in others. From 1955-1975 the Vietnamese people defeated the French and U.S. military at the cost of millions; Pinochet, the Argentines, the Greeks murdered, tortured, and raped tens of thousands; U.S. death squads did the same in Nicaragua and El Salvador; the Angolan civil war killed hundreds of thousands; today, the Columbian govt.routinely murders labor leaders, lawyers and journalists.

There is a class struggle going on at the U.S./Mexican border.

If anything, it is the international class struggle which appears dead. But there may be signs of life. The Volkswagen board of directors (made up of 1/2 workers) has voted not to expand production at a Tennessee plant after anti-labor political interference. Walmart and McDonald's stores outside of the U.S. are unionized.

Why reject a virtual "publication" like Revleft? As you say, it is mostly theory, but so was "Capital." Why shouldn't RevLeft provide a "language" for the working class to use.

You yourself live in Detroit. What is going on there if not a class struggle?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Volkswagen board of directors (made up of 1/2 workers) has voted not to expand production at a Tennessee plant after anti-labor political interference. Walmart and McDonald's stores outside of the U.S. are unionized.

Labour disputes are not class struggles.


This is nothing more than a mess, and a fundamentally incoherent idea of communist activity. The whole package would presumably carry with it a real conflict between the two wings of the party (not even going into other stuff) with two mutually opposed goals, and all of this without any regard for its effect.

If votes aren't a good measure of political support, and if a communist organization is not to form a part of the government in order to enact reforms on behalf of the working class, then the whole idea of parliamentary activity seemingly loses its ground (by ground I mean a clear picture of the intended effect of an activity), but I'm sure that master revivalists (necromancers?) will be able to muster some half witted justification.

There is no incoherence in what I suggested. Electoral campaigns are better seen as agitational activity rather than educational activity. I have said before and again that the best measure of political support has always been "citizenship" in the worker-class-for-itself (a.k.a. the mass party-movement), which includes at least dues-paying, voting membership.

It is as "incoherent" as pairing together the Marxist stances of supporting national liberation in an imperialist power (like Lenin in the Russian Empire) and opposing national liberation in a developing region (like Luxemburg in Poland), something we've seen more and more of after the colonial period.

[Die Neue Zeit]

As Lenin, whom you have mentioned recognized, spontaneous class consciousness could only ever lead to trade union consciousness. And you're wrong with regard to the worker's soviets. They did not form spontaneously, but as a result of political adeptness and organization over the course of several years. Even the workers of the Paris Commune would not have adopted revolutionary socialism if not for the direction set forth by the bourgeois intelligentsia (Blanc, and so on), time and time again it has been proven that on it's own, the development of proletarian consciousness, without feasible direction, leads to absolutely nothing, perhaps possibly the most reactionary political trends (nationalism, racism, and so on).

It is true that class struggle is not a product of the ideas of the intelligentsia, and it is true that class struggle is a real social component of the capitalist mode of production. It is true that proletarian consciousness had preceded Marxism. In terms of capitalist social relations, we can only ever recognize and analyse them. But that does not mean political struggle is impossible, it does not mean affirmative political struggle is a passive phenomena that we must "wait" for and conceptualize. Lenin, Luxemburg, were real leaders, and the parties they served (albeit more in the case of Lenin) directed and shaped the course of class struggle. The phenomena of contradictory class interests is not something we can create, but something we can direct. It is the most ridiculous form of mechanicism to assume otherwise, that which is in the capacity of our will is completely possible, and all attempts to understand (our will) from a materialist perspective must already take this into account beforehand. The bourgeois intelligentsia, the very process, of directing the class struggle, and conducting political strategy is the form class struggle takes.

Comrade, do forgive me if I have a more "workerist" approach to the development and refinement of class struggle. The merger of socialism and the worker-class movement is still quite a merger, as the worker-class political movement (here not identical to economistic, mere labour movements traditionally) does not come to the economic goal of socialism spontaneously. However, today's spontaneous development and refinement of the other side of the merger is done by those with working-class backgrounds and occupations, but who just happen to be outside class movements and intellectually more aware about political economy than their class fellows.

[Thirsty Crow]

There is no incoherence in what I suggested. Electoral campaigns are better seen as agitational activity rather than educational activity. I have said before and again that the best measure of political support has always been "citizenship" in the worker-class-for-itself (a.k.a. the mass party-movement), which includes at least dues-paying, voting membership.
Yes, there is. Or rather, I'm being quite generous when using that word, "incoherent" as I could think of some stronger ones that would better describe this drivel.

The incoherence lies in the way a likely effect, what you call a divided house, is dismissed and then covered with some remarks on unrelated issues. For instance, all of your harping on about the difference between agitational and educational activity here. I'm not interested, frankly as what is lacking here is a clear assessment of the results of that two-faced tactic. The issue of political support is another matter, as you brilliantly state that


This isn't a divided house, but rather an acknowledgement that votes aren't a good measure of political support to begin with.
To translate, this isn't a clash of two tactics and two wings of the party, but rather the practice itself amounts to an acknowledgment...implying that the purpose of this confused practice is this acknowledgement, that votes aren't a good measure. You know, maybe it's just that your ramblings are incoherent but some other revivalist necromancer could actually formulate and present this tactical grandeur in a worthy way.

All in all, it's clear that your dismissal quoted above is nothing more than mere wishful thinking, nothing more as you basically close your eyes before what would be more than likely to actually happen.

And that doesn't even address the purpose of fielding candidates, which is an altogether different matter, if votes aren't a good measure to start with.

[RedMaterialist]

Labour disputes are not class struggles.



If a dispute between an organization of workers, however weak it may be, and capital is not class struggle, then what is class struggle?

[Die Neue Zeit]

If a dispute between an organization of workers, however weak it may be, and capital is not class struggle, then what is class struggle?

Class struggle is short-hand for class-based public policymaking struggle.

Labour disputes are resolved by negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation. Of those four forms of resolution, only litigation is worth considering, and even that isn't political.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The incoherence lies in the way a likely effect, what you call a divided house, is dismissed and then covered with some remarks on unrelated issues. For instance, all of your harping on about the difference between agitational and educational activity here. I'm not interested, frankly as what is lacking here is a clear assessment of the results of that two-faced tactic. The issue of political support is another matter, as you brilliantly state that

The mass worker movements of the past are more than enough for such clear assessment. They knew what political education entailed vs. what political agitation entailed.


To translate, this isn't a clash of two tactics and two wings of the party, but rather the practice itself amounts to an acknowledgment...implying that the purpose of this confused practice is this acknowledgement, that votes aren't a good measure. You know, maybe it's just that your ramblings are incoherent but some other revivalist necromancer could actually formulate and present this tactical grandeur in a worthy way.

All in all, it's clear that your dismissal quoted above is nothing more than mere wishful thinking, nothing more as you basically close your eyes before what would be more than likely to actually happen.

And that doesn't even address the purpose of fielding candidates, which is an altogether different matter, if votes aren't a good measure to start with.

Fielding candidates may serve the purpose of separate membership recruitment drives, during an electoral campaign or afterwards, provided they have the requisite communication skills for political agitation. The "electoral" wing just needs to learn that they're there purely for opposition, not for coalitions or for administering at any level of government (something which Rosa Luxemburg failed to grasp).

[Thirsty Crow]

The mass worker movements of the past are more than enough for such clear assessment. They knew what political education entailed vs. what political agitation entailed.To clarify, my position is that your big words on all of this fancy stuff is nothing more than hot air devised to detract from the confusion you're trying to sell here as a viable model for political organizing. To be more precise, the distinction between political education and political agitation is completely irrelevant for the subject at hand, which is the idea that a party movement split into a spoilage campaign wing and an electoral wing does not represent a "divided house".


Fielding candidates may serve the purpose of separate membership recruitment drives, during an electoral campaign or afterwards, provided they have the requisite communication skills for political agitation. The "electoral" wing just needs to learn that they're there purely for opposition, not for coalitions or for administering at any level of government (something which Rosa Luxemburg failed to grasp).
Which is all fine and dandy but doesn't address the issue at all. Or in other words, more hot air, though I did in fact make that remark about the very purpose of fielding candidates so it's understandable, in the case you wished to continue this, that you responded.

[Thirsty Crow]

By the way:

Class struggle is short-hand for class-based public policymaking struggle.

Here you go, Rafiq, the fruits of attempting to understand what can possibly ever direct the class struggle in a successful manner. Ready to lap it up?

[Rafiq]

Class struggle in a very superficial sense, would you not agree, DNZ?

Of course there is much more to class struggle than this. In a very immediate, tactical sense, however, it's quite possible that class struggle could manifest itself in this way. Would you disagree, Links? What about the raising of the minimum wage? What about anti-austerity politics? The politicization of proletarian interests logically means the engagement in the battle for power, the coercion of the state. Countless proletarian struggles coerced the state into conceding (and therefore enacting) several policies that were in their interests. This is something I have always held.

However we might wonder.. Is the form the bourgeois state takes today radically different from it's previous forms, is there no more room for real politics anymore? Frankly I find this a postmodern trend among Marxists, from Cammatte, who claimed that the class struggle was over and that the only struggle now is between humanity and capital, to several libertarian leftists (Libertarians, etc.) who believe the only means by which power can be assumed is to isolate - divorce oneself from the machinations of the state and form grassroots democracy, whatever. I think it's important to remember that we're not a cult, we're not an escape from society. What the Communist must be, and what they have always been in their days of glory, are integral members of society who actively struggle against the bourgeoisie through society itself. And I don't mean this garbage about "using the system to fight the system", because I of all people am completely disgusted by such logic. What I mean, is that the field of politics should not be abandoned, in doing so, there is a decisive and clear advantage taken by the forces of reaction. The only means by which the Communists can legitimize themselves in the eyes of the masses, is the active engagement in politics, which does not necessarily have to manifest itself into parliamentary politics. What I mean is that the Communists must present themselves as an actual contender for power rather than the negative conscience of bourgeois society. Organizations demand the current conditions adjust to them and their doctrine, in their infinite validity (it just so happens they have the wrong decade or so), rather than adjust to current conditions.

I am aware of how apologetic this sounds, but I do not engage in apologia. There is no reason for me to defend DNZ for reasons other than my concurrence with (the presented) positions. I do not know him personally, I do not know him outside of this website, save for occasional emails, and I certainly do not have the time to engage in any group activity or chat. I have absolutely little regard at all for my reputation here, or how users wish to categorize me, or how I wish to group myself, for that matter. What I believe, what I have always believed, is that there is a clear problem of communication between DNZ and users here. From what I know, he has little interest in philosophy, or intellectualism in general. He is focused directly on immediate politics and political strategy. Because of this, oft times grandiose accusations would be made against him, when he simply refers to very specific, immediate things. I do not honestly know how to explain it well, though I am sure I am not alone in seeing this. When you understand the language (DNZ) speaks, it is no longer so bizarre, eclectic and contradictory.

[Thirsty Crow]

Class struggle in a very superficial sense, would you not agree, DNZ? :laugh:
Yeah wish on.


In a very immediate, tactical sense, however, it's quite possible that class struggle could manifest itself in this way. Would you disagree, Links?Absolutely would.
If DNZ is to be taken according to their word, then the job of communists is to provide a parliamentary opposition, and definitely not to form a part of the government.
But this necessarily means that class struggle is impossible until the advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat...itself based on - you guess it - class struggle.
That is to disregard the successful workers' struggle which effectively coerces the bourgeois state into reform, though. But somehow I don't see this as what the person was aiming at at all, at least not if the proclamation on the party-movement not constituting a government is to be taken seriously as few policy routes are left open for the proletariat through immediate and direct pressure (it is, on the other hand, bourgeois specialists who are in charge here and who dictate terms, especially in times like these, the times of the crisis of capital)

[Rafiq]

Currently, they dictate terms because the power of labor has been destroyed. Is it not our goal to create a new proletarian political power which would essentially not allow the bourgeoisie to dictate terms? Remember, regardless of their military prowess, intimidating mechanisms of state power, they still above all fear the power of the proletariat. Throughout history their beasts became hares in the midst of the revolution.

[Rafiq]

It is precisely where we disagree: that few routes still exist. This is an illusion of postmodern bourgeois ideology.

This is a means to build up the force that would overthrow the bourgeois state - concessions do not create contented proletariat, but opens the space for more organization and so forth. We all know this. The question is where we will stand in that final, decisive moment.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Class struggle in a very superficial sense, would you not agree, DNZ?

Of course there is much more to class struggle than this. In a very immediate, tactical sense, however, it's quite possible that class struggle could manifest itself in this way.

On the contrary, comrade, class-based public policymaking struggle is the essence of it. It's different when this spills over into more economic action. Only under such scenario would what you think is "more to class struggle than this" be part of that political struggle.


Would you disagree, Links? What about the raising of the minimum wage? What about anti-austerity politics? The politicization of proletarian interests logically means the engagement in the battle for power, the coercion of the state. Countless proletarian struggles coerced the state into conceding (and therefore enacting) several policies that were in their interests. This is something I have always held.

They were much more effective when the relevant "politico-political" demands were put forward. Anti-austerity isn't really political, as it is defensive.


What I believe, what I have always believed, is that there is a clear problem of communication between DNZ and users here. From what I know, he has little interest in philosophy, or intellectualism in general. He is focused directly on immediate politics and political strategy. Because of this, oft times grandiose accusations would be made against him, when he simply refers to very specific, immediate things. I do not honestly know how to explain it well, though I am sure I am not alone in seeing this. When you understand the language (DNZ) speaks, it is no longer so bizarre, eclectic and contradictory.

I am interested in theory, if you subsume it under "intellectualism," but only to the extent that it can be tied with political program and political strategy.

For example, it's a shame the Russian Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky hasn't fleshed out his unorthodox position about finance capital being actually subordinate to either industrial capital or trade capital (vs. the more popular industrial vs. finance capital stuff), but I won't obsess over it because there are more relevant matters for the two items above.


If DNZ is to be taken according to their word, then the job of communists is to provide a parliamentary opposition, and definitely not to form a part of the government.
But this necessarily means that class struggle is impossible until the advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat...itself based on - you guess it - class struggle.
That is to disregard the successful workers' struggle which effectively coerces the bourgeois state into reform, though. But somehow I don't see this as what the person was aiming at at all, at least not if the proclamation on the party-movement not constituting a government is to be taken seriously as few policy routes are left open for the proletariat through immediate and direct pressure (it is, on the other hand, bourgeois specialists who are in charge here and who dictate terms, especially in times like these, the times of the crisis of capital)

Links, the US Civil Rights movement occurred without the need for parliamentary opposition. It was street pressure, but one aimed at public policymaking.

For me, the optimal (as opposed to "ideal") pre-revolutionary-period situation regarding parliamentary vs. extra-parliamentary action is roughly this:

1) Mass party-movement of the working class with alternative culture institutions, on the basis of voting membership being restricted to those with working-class occupations or backgrounds
2) Majority of working-class adults spoil their ballots, whether as members or not
3) Much class-based political action puts external pressure on public policymaking (like the US Civil Rights movement)
4) Mass party-movement gets less reliable but still indicative electoral support from sympathetic working-class adults and those of other non-bourgeois (and maybe even non-petit-bourgeois) classes, them being coordinators, employed lumpenproletariat, etc. on the basis of protest votes
5) Protest votes (from the other classes and the aforementioned working-class adults) sufficient to make the parliamentary wing, at all levels of government (local, regional, national), large enough to hold the so-called "balance of power" and large enough to force the two mainstream electoral machines into perpetual "grand coalitions"

You can look up the political science terms "balance of power" and "grand coalitions" on your own, online.

[MarxSchmarx]

I am just starting to get caught up on this thread, there is a lot here, however I want to briefly add one relatively minor point.



But the beliefs of the old left has no place in the future of Communism. I think this is true to a large degree, and some of the faults of the left is this fetish for old forms of struggle, theoretical and practical tradition etc. But this has in fact been written and talked about and theorised by a lot of people and groups, groups which stand much closer to left-communism (but of course they break with it) than DNZ or his ilk.

Some of this "fetish for old forms" and beliefs is a positive thing. One thing that the earlier generation of leftists had realized was the power of rituals and symbolic formalities to help build solidarity and sustain people. I'm not talking about the drudgery of newspaper sales, but things like the Little Red Song book and singing the Internationale at meetings, addressing each other as "comrade", treating the red flag the way patriots treat their flags... These reflected attempts to carve out a life space for the left. although sometimes it got carried to extremes (as in attempts to introduce Esperanto in leftist meetings), these "traditional fetishes" helped to build a "community" with its own set of mores and, well, a culture or even nation of people who had very different backgrounds.

We should reflect on how much hold ridiculous symbols like the American pledge of allegiance or the Thai king have on ordinary people, not to mention real totems in non-capitalist cultures that inspired this comment. These things have real power not over everyone, but so far have proven irreplaceable for a mass movement of any consequence. The left dismisses hes fetishes at its own peril.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I think you missed both my and Rafiq's point. What I talked about was fetish for old forms of struggle. Nothing indicates at this point that the proletarian movement will take the form of soviets or communes. Of course it might, but to fetishise these organs of older struggles misses important changes in how the struggle looks like today and the shift in class composition etc. The history of the movement is important, but to think we still live in 1871 or 1917 or 1968 is stupid.

What you're talking about is something else, though (ie. the culture of the movement), but still tangential to what I (and I think Rafiq too, without putting words in his mouth) was on about . All of what you wrote seems distant and maybe even lame to young communists who have no attachment to these kind of movements which today are mostly gone. I think to claim these things back is to do exactly what Marx criticises in the 18th Brumaire: that present movements put on the clothes of the historical dramas of the past. To sit in meetings and sing the Internationale could be nice, but I don't see how it's very relevant to the movement in and of itself. These things occurred at a time when the movement had a much bigger momentum, it's a symptom of its past strength, not the cause of it. If it regains this momentum I think something similar to it will occur, though maybe with different symbols, songs etc., but to reclaim them today is LARPing. The history of our movement is something to learn from, not to fetishise.

[MarxSchmarx]

Basically what you seem to be saying is that if we are talking about setting concrete goals and figuring out how to attain them (I guess you would call this "the struggle"), the weight of mere tradition has little place and can be counterproductive. I agree.




What you're talking about is something else, though (ie. the culture of the movement), but still tangential to what I (and I think Rafiq too, without putting words in his mouth) was on about . All of what you wrote seems distant and maybe even lame to young communists who have no attachment to these kind of movements which today are mostly gone. I think to claim these things back is to do exactly what Marx criticises in the 18th Brumaire: that present movements put on the clothes of the historical dramas of the past. To sit in meetings and sing the Internationale could be nice, but I don't see how it's very relevant to the movement in and of itself. These things occurred at a time when the movement had a much bigger momentum, it's a symptom of its past strength, not the cause of it. If it regains this momentum I think something similar to it will occur, though maybe with different symbols, songs etc., but to reclaim them today is LARPing. The history of our movement is something to learn from, not to fetishise.

I've added the bold for emphasis.

My point was simply to emphasize tradition does have a place in leftist organizations, and that place I would argue is to help build a community among members and keep them invested, particularly when the obstacles seem insurmountable. It also helps build "brand loyalty" - reactionary organizations, from companies to religious entities, understand that such traditions can supplement their more substantive aspects.

Undertaking these rituals for their own sake is obviously silly, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for them.

It could be that new symbols etc... that can be very effective would arise, although it hasn't yet and this old leftism has been moribund for decades now. Actually if anything we risk letting the capitalists pick rather unappealing symbols like a teenager in a hoodie with a bandana over their face as our "symbol".

[Thirsty Crow]

I think you missed both my and Rafiq's point. What I talked about was fetish for old forms of struggle. Nothing indicates at this point that the proletarian movement will take the form of soviets or communes. Of course it might, but to fetishise these organs of older struggles misses important changes in how the struggle looks like today and the shift in class composition etc. The history of the movement is important, but to think we still live in 1871 or 1917 or 1968 is stupid.

One aspect of the fetishism you speak of might concern the potential universality of certain political and social forms, in the sense that, for instance, soviets represent a kind of a durable "gain" for the militant working class in that the fundamentals of this kind of organization are not linked with any specific historical period with its temporary balance of class forces, class composition and forms of struggle. I'm not sure whether I'd really put forward this argument but at least it does seem plausible.

The same really goes for other political positions, as it is evident here with the advocacy of the "party-movement".

And I wonder whether it is practical for communists to completely reject any, however "weak", normative political notions such as those that would fall under your category of fetishising forms of struggle.


Currently, they dictate terms because the power of labor has been destroyed. Is it not our goal to create a new proletarian political power which would essentially not allow the bourgeoisie to dictate terms? Remember, regardless of their military prowess, intimidating mechanisms of state power, they still above all fear the power of the proletariat. Throughout history their beasts became hares in the midst of the revolution.


It is precisely where we disagree: that few routes still exist. This is an illusion of postmodern bourgeois ideology.

This is a means to build up the force that would overthrow the bourgeois state - concessions do not create contented proletariat, but opens the space for more organization and so forth. We all know this. The question is where we will stand in that final, decisive moment.

Yes, this is our goal, sure, though what's contended here is the appropriate means to do this.

I don't think that concessions create a divided, pacified proletariat; for these to even present themselves as an option, I think that much of the divisions and passivity simply need to be overcome. Or in other words, if concessions and successful counter-offensive against the ruling class which is out for blood is to happen, we can't rely on policy makers mobilizing citizens as voters; we can only rely on ourselves as workers and fellow class brothers and sisters - pardon my pathos here. And here your choice of words is interesting, as you speak of "coercing" the government into certain kinds of action; I agree completely, but at the same time take this word to signal a definite difference in relation to the electioneering and policy creation approach which would see communist organizations as a kind of a shadow government. This coercion on the other hand I see only in rising tides of class militancy - out in the streets and at the workplace.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It also helps build "brand loyalty" - reactionary organizations, from companies to religious entities, understand that such traditions can supplement their more substantive aspects.

Comrade, rituals and tradition aren't enough to build "brand loyalty." What good is "brand loyalty" when someone can't answer "Have you scratched my back recently?" or "Ask what your movement can do for you."

That's the point of rediscovering a bureaucracy-based approach to class struggle and social revolution, since that underlies the tangible and intangible goods and services required for more substantive political support.


One aspect of the fetishism you speak of might concern the potential universality of certain political and social forms, in the sense that, for instance, soviets represent a kind of a durable "gain" for the militant working class in that the fundamentals of this kind of organization are not linked with any specific historical period with its temporary balance of class forces, class composition and forms of struggle. I'm not sure whether I'd really put forward this argument but at least it does seem plausible.

The same really goes for other political positions, as it is evident here with the advocacy of the "party-movement".

The problem with your stance, Links, is that we revivalist comrades on this board don't have a fetish. Total, institutions-based, permanent organization by definition is not a fetish because all permutations of durable organization exist in one definitive umbrella. The party-movement can't be pigeon-holed because it really is everything for the class; without it, not only are any end goals nothing, but the class "in itself" is politically less than nothing.


Or in other words, if concessions and successful counter-offensive against the ruling class which is out for blood is to happen, we can't rely on policy makers mobilizing citizens as voters; we can only rely on ourselves as workers and fellow class brothers and sisters - pardon my pathos here. And here your choice of words is interesting, as you speak of "coercing" the government into certain kinds of action; I agree completely, but at the same time take this word to signal a definite difference in relation to the electioneering and policy creation approach which would see communist organizations as a kind of a shadow government. This coercion on the other hand I see only in rising tides of class militancy - out in the streets and at the workplace.

Which policymakers or policy wonks? Those of the bourgeois state, I definitely agree with you. However, those of the party-movement still qualify as "fellow class brothers and sisters" upon whom we can rely (among other fellows in independent interdependency).

[synthesis]

Some of this "fetish for old forms" and beliefs is a positive thing. One thing that the earlier generation of leftists had realized was the power of rituals and symbolic formalities to help build solidarity and sustain people. I'm not talking about the drudgery of newspaper sales, but things like the Little Red Song book and singing the Internationale at meetings, addressing each other as "comrade", treating the red flag the way patriots treat their flags... These reflected attempts to carve out a life space for the left. although sometimes it got carried to extremes (as in attempts to introduce Esperanto in leftist meetings), these "traditional fetishes" helped to build a "community" with its own set of mores and, well, a culture or even nation of people who had very different backgrounds.

Man, maybe we come from different environments, but pretty much everyone I know, from all different backgrounds of the working class, including myself, find this to be one of, if not the most off-putting thing about existing communist organizations. It really seems more like historical reenactment than genuine mechanisms of working class struggle.

[Thirsty Crow]

The problem with your stance, Links, is that we revivalist comrades on this board don't have a fetish. Total, institutions-based, permanent organization by definition is not a fetish because all permutations of durable organization exist in one definitive umbrella. The party-movement can't be pigeon-holed because it really is everything for the class; without it, not only are any end goals nothing, but the class "in itself" is politically less than nothing.
First of all, if you read that post more carefully, you would have noticed that I questioned Zukunft's use of the notion of fetishizing forms of struggle - be they soviets or the party-movement.
On the other hand, your position is that, essentially, folks who advocate soviets as the bases of working class revolutionary rule engage in fetishism because of the insistence on one historical form of working class organization, one that represented at first an embryo of counter-power and then a basis of revolutionary workers' power, no? If this is indeed your position, and going by criteria set forth by Zukunftmusik, you can't escape the conclusion that revivalists offer another form of fetishism; that's why I'm asking if some normative political notion are absolutely necessary, because it would indeed seem that both camps, so to speak, and not only these two found in this thread, engage in fetishism. A way out of this might be to actually refrain from any preexisting notion of the organization of power appropriate for the working class as an actually revolutionary class - the attitude of wait-and-see-what-class-struggle-throws-up. I'm not sure which one is more productive.





Which policymakers or policy wonks? Those of the bourgeois state, I definitely agree with you. However, those of the party-movement still qualify as "fellow class brothers and sisters" upon whom we can rely (among other fellows in independent interdependency).
How can you speak of the policy makers of the party-movement if it is to remain in opposition solely and not form a part of the government?
But to elucidate, I don't think that the working class needs policy makers. The way I conceive of successful immediate struggle against the capitalist offensive necessitates a communist organization in fact, and one reason is to engage a fraction of the ruling coalition or the ruling party in a way that's devised to force them into concessions - but this crucially depends not on that organization of communists and solely their activity, but first and foremost on the militant action of the working class. I don't believe any concessions are possible without such a thing, and if you wish me to qualify this, I'd say that this holds true for the region where I live, and I believe it also holds globally (of course, taking nuances of the situation into account). My point is precisely that these policy makers will probably manifest a strong tendency towards their own functional autonomy, towards a disconnect from the base, and that communists' activity needs to be first grounded in working class action (e.g. calling up a semi-open meeting with a faction of the ruling party with the express purpose of using that faction to push through workers' demands cannot occur in the absence of wider class action). I don't believe that the term "policy maker" is even appropriate here for this specific function.

[Jimmie Higgins]

But the beliefs of the old left has no place in the future of Communism.I think this gets at some of my doubts about some of what has been argued here. The left might be "old" in the sense of decrepit, but it isn't "old" in the sense of being dispaced with a "new (revolutionary) left". Historically this has always come from new movements which then popularize new theories that have been developed in the downturn or produce new organizational and political forms and become known as a "new left". We're in an inbetween time IMO - I hope that radicalization spreads and that a new radical left does emerge, but I don't think we can just declare it out of frustration with the inability of the existing or recent-past Left to make any inroads. In the US, the IWW organized out of existing industrial unions and an existing Left Wing of the Socialists along with class-oriented Anarchists. It might be possible to "pave the way" for such a development, but creating a structure before the social force actually exists seems problematic like planning a meal when you don't know how many people will show up or what's in the fridge.

I like lot of what's been put forward (abstractly, if not in terms of a specific plan of action right now) and I wouldn't disagree with in a tactical sense (though I think some are not possible at the moment, though I don't think people were arguing that it is necissarily) but as a strategy, it seems to put the cart before the horse.

Comrades have spoken about a political oriented party which is "backed up by a social force that can't be ignored". But I don't understand the insistance on building an expression of that political force before such a force actually exists. Unless that force is independantly in motion on a class basis, then that social force is still "the class in itself" and so gains by the party are not based on class force, but support from members of the class.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what people are arguing, but a lot of what's been put forward seems to suggest that this form of party would be the best, given a mass working class movement and degree of consiousness in the class. Well that may be, but all sorts of possibilities and variations and tactics are possible when there is an independant class movement! The German Socialists, pre-war Popular Fronts, Bolshevism and Anarcho-Syndicalist organizations were all able to accomplish a lot and have a whole range of tactics and programs and worker schools and worker social clubs. So it just seems to me that theorizing about the ideal party structure and function in the absence of that real movement is just as much of a fetishization of forms as Lenninists in the 70s, proclaiming their 100 people are the heirs to the Bolsheviks, people who start pre-figurative communes, the lonly Marxist who at every union or coalition meeting proclaims the need for a General Strike and Soviets.

I think that political struggle is important (in the general sense, not electoral), I also think that elections and the kinds of oppositional things being discussed here can be good tactics (in the context of existing movements with real social power and experience and willingness to USE it... i.e. carry out a mass strike if the government represses workers or the party or other radicals in general). I'm all for working class counter-cultural organization and infrastructure. But everything I've read about history suggests that the movement, the workplace and community struggles are what provide the basis for all these other possibilities. For example, the Black Panthers could accomplish a lot in a short time, but I think while their subjective efforts played positive and negative roles in this, ultimately their structure or rehtoric or whatever came at the right time to be a galvanizing force for wider changes in consiousness and militancy. Would the Panthers have been able to do what they did if they began in 61, rather than in 66 after years of riots, a radicalization of the anti-racism movements, etc?

[Die Neue Zeit]

On the other hand, your position is that, essentially, folks who advocate soviets as the bases of working class revolutionary rule engage in fetishism because of the insistence on one historical form of working class organization, one that represented at first an embryo of counter-power and then a basis of revolutionary workers' power, no?

No, that ultra-left fetishism lies in the perennial bumping of one's head against a wall when it isn't productive. The insistence of this form comes in spite of all the perennial failures attributed to this growing of political struggles out of economic ones, and even then not durable ones because the form is inherently not durable. For all the railing against more party-based models (mere electoral machines explicitly excluded), they can only point to the Big Bad Warmongering SPD, not against a number equivalent to council-based failures.


A way out of this might be to actually refrain from any preexisting notion of the organization of power appropriate for the working class as an actually revolutionary class - the attitude of wait-and-see-what-class-struggle-throws-up. I'm not sure which one is more productive.

Ah, but there's the distinction: "organization of power" is distinct from more immediate forms. To get to revolutionary periods and perhaps (by a long shot) other forms of durable organization, it needs to be made clear which form is most effective this side of those periods.

Waiting and seeing is little different from spontaneist disillusionment.


How can you speak of the policy makers of the party-movement if it is to remain in opposition solely and not form a part of the government?

To gain political support for "being for something," something normative has to be offered. That something normative can be a basis for mass-recruiting those with working-class backgrounds or occupations as voting members.


But I don't understand the insistance on building an expression of that political force before such a force actually exists. Unless that force is independantly in motion on a class basis, then that social force is still "the class in itself" and so gains by the party are not based on class force, but support from members of the class.

Jimmie, how would you evaluate the "Eisenachers" between their establishment in 1869 and the 1875 congress at Gotha?

I would argue that the social force in 1869 Germany was still very much "the class in itself" when these "volunteers" and the "volunteers" of the then-competing Lassalleans laid the seeds of permanent organization.

Contemporarily, I agree that getting from here to there is a challenge, but my suggestion of food banks was a very humble, pragmatic start. Ditto with the Grassroots Geographic Employment/Employee Associations (GGEA) stuff.

[MarxSchmarx]

Well like I said I don't want to derail this with my interpretation of socialist customs and all that. I just wanted to point out that we need to see the cultural, even ritualistic, side of this thing as part of rebuilding effort.

What DNZ rightfully calls "Cargo-cult leninism" is a real problem among the left, but I guess my point was that some of the traditions and "cargo-cult" aspects,even if they are relegated to the merely symbolic, should be spared.


Comrade, rituals and tradition aren't enough to build "brand loyalty." What good is "brand loyalty" when someone can't answer "Have you scratched my back recently?" or "Ask what your movement can do for you."

That's the point of rediscovering a bureaucracy-based approach to class struggle and social revolution, since that underlies the tangible and intangible goods and services required for more substantive political support.


You are correct that any movement needs to deliver tangible benefits. Without such capacity, no amount of cultural propaganda will compensate for failure to provide.

People in marketing tell me that all of it is predicated on "concrete elements" like price, quality, reliability, etc... being equal. The maxim is that unless the fundamentals are solid, no advertising campaign or marketing strategy can persuade people otherwise. There is no reason to believe attachment to leftist politics is any different. Unless leftist movements can deliver, no amount of propagandizing would compensate for this failure.



Man, maybe we come from different environments, but pretty much everyone I know, from all different backgrounds of the working class, including myself, find this to be one of, if not the most off-putting thing about existing communist organizations. It really seems more like historical reenactment than genuine mechanisms of working class struggle.

I can't speak for "communist organizations" because I am not/was not involved in them, but I was involved in various working class groups up to a few years ago. And there was always a healthy respect for those who came before us, particularly before 1917. There are those idiots who march with portraits of Stalin in places like Cardiff or Lima and expect others to take them seriously.

But that isn't what I'm talking about. Maybe things have changed since I was involved "on the ground level", but most of my colleagues appreciated historical context, particularly if it wasn't sectarian. A hammer and sickle is alienating and I was (perhaps in retrospect rightfully) told not to use it on a flier in one action, but "the internationale" was respected even among the anarchists I met.

Today when I look at the fractured left, I can't help but feel an admiration for that brief era of history when leftists with all their vehement disagreement from authoritarian cooks to the first CNT/FAI activists found "a common cultural resonance" with things like the internationale and the red flag. I can't think I'm alone in not having given up on that vision.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You are correct that any movement needs to deliver tangible benefits. Without such capacity, no amount of cultural propaganda will compensate for failure to provide.

People in marketing tell me that all of it is predicated on "concrete elements" like price, quality, reliability, etc... being equal. The maxim is that unless the fundamentals are solid, no advertising campaign or marketing strategy can persuade people otherwise. There is no reason to believe attachment to leftist politics is any different. Unless leftist movements can deliver, no amount of propagandizing would compensate for this failure.

A very, very minor business point: if by "concrete elements" you're referring to the four Ps of marketing, then quality and reliability belong to "product" and are not separate from product, place, price, and promotion.

[G-Dogg]

Class struggle is dead? Huh? In Argentina we had a general strike just last week because we're on the verge of a new crisis and inflation is causing real wages to fall. The trotskyist Workers' Left Front managed to differentiate itself from the bureaucratic union leaders who wanted a passive strike by organizing pickets which gathered most of the media attention. In some factories where unions wanted to boycott the strike, assemblies were held and the workers voted to join the strike. The revolutionary left's presence among the working class here has been slowly but steadily increasing and the national newspapers are saying conciliatory unions such as the teachers' union are afraid of losing control to the left so they've been forced to radicalize: the teachers striked for 17 days. Also in the last national election the Left Worker's Front doubled their votes and got into Congress.

After the terrible defeat in the 70s, the crushing of the guerrilla and many years of neoliberalism, the Argentinian working class is finally beginning to re-emerge. Their future doesn't lie with the reformist illusion of populism which has betrayed it once again and they're starting to realize that.

It's too bad you're demoralized but class struggle isn't dead. If the last 200 years show anything is that no matter how hard the defeat for the workers' movement, history always gives another chance.