How to explain Socialism and communism to non communists

[flaming bolshevik]

If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm trying to "convert" people to socialism/communism what would I say? What would be an easy to understand summary I could give?

[exeexe]

First tell them why capitalism is bad. Then tell them why state democracy is bad and that people should be free.

Then when they have understood that present to them all the possibilities socialism provides, then let them decide by themselves which socialist system they prefer.

Also, if they dont get that people should be free you could risk them becoming fascist. So its important

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm trying to "convert" people to socialism/communism what would I say? What would be an easy to understand summary I could give?

"You know how you work to produce everything and get almost nothing while most of the stuff you produce goes to the owners of the factories, banks, shops etc.? Well we smash the owners and take everything we produce for ourselves."

[ckaihatsu]

Ask them where all goods and services, and infrastructure, come from -- in other words, what was it that brought / brings us out of being at the mercy of Nature -- ?

So once labor builds some kind of infrastructure, like a building of any sort, who exactly should be in control of that building, for the rest of its existence -- ?

Also:

[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

http://s6.postimage.org/wvo45xzhp/2_G_U_T_S_U_C_Simplified.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/wvo45xzhp/)

[Tim Cornelis]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/explain-communism-t181155/index.html?t=181155

[Baracko Marx]

Try me. I'm neither communist nor socialist, but I am open-minded.

I admit I'm a little overwhelmed by all the tendencies (as they're called).

[ckaihatsu]

Btw, here's a recent creation that relates to the content at post #4.


Civilization - Humanity Framework

http://s6.postimg.org/pxtfozist/140612_Civilization_Humanity_Framework_aoi_35_ti.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/pxtfozist/)





Try me. I'm neither communist nor socialist, but I am open-minded.




I admit I'm a little overwhelmed by all the tendencies (as they're called).


These are two different approaches to the relativity of varying ideologies / tendencies:


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://s6.postimage.org/cpkm723u5/3_Ideologies_Operations_Fundamentals.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/cpkm723u5/)


Political Spectrum, Simplified

http://s6.postimage.org/c9u5b2ajx/2373845980046342459jv_Mrd_G_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/c9u5b2ajx/)

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Ask them if they've heard about our lord and savior Karl Marx while carrying and quoting little red Mao books?

[Five Year Plan]

If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm trying to "convert" people to socialism/communism what would I say? What would be an easy to understand summary I could give?

My basic starting position is to explain that socialism is, at its most basic level, a form of economic democracy. If you support political democracy, why not economic democracy? Why are people more capable of coming together democratically to manage society's political affairs but not its economic ones?

[Remus Bleys]

If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm trying to "convert" people to socialism/communism what would I say? What would be an easy to understand summary I could give?

Communism is a grimdark, totalitarian, emotionless, intransigent, somberly realistic, earth shattering things that has at its soul purpose the enslavement of all mankind (which would completely realize the futility of existence) with an iron fist.

On a somewhat more realistic note Communism is the "real human community". To understand this I recommend some of course Marx and Camatte. To understand the political goals of communism check out Lenin and Bordiga, and to better understand the economic goals Bordiga is pretty invaluable for a more simple explanation.

Communism isn't the return of the surplus value to the laborer (well in communism, the producer), as Engels said "In the first place, in no conceivable condition of society can the worker receive the full value of his product for consumption. A series of economically unproductive but necessary functions have to be met from the fund produced, and consequently also the persons connected with them maintained. This is only correct so long as the present-day division of labour applies. In a society in which general productive labour is obligatory, which is also “conceivable” after all, this ceases to apply. But the need for a social reserve and accumulation fund would remain and consequently even in that case, the workers, i.e., all, would remain in possession and enjoyment of their total product, but each separate worker would not enjoy the “full returns of his labour". "


My basic starting position is to explain that socialism is, at its most basic level, a form of economic democracy. If you support political democracy, why not economic democracy? Why are people more capable of coming together democratically to manage society's political affairs but not its economic ones?
What is economic democracy?

[Five Year Plan]

What is economic democracy?

People coming together as a society to make their own decisions regarding what is to be produced, in what quantity, and how, before actually producing it as a society.

[Remus Bleys]

People coming together as a society to make their own decisions regarding what is to be produced, in what quantity, and how, before actually producing it as a society.
People deciding what is to be produced... how does that distinguish communism from "planned" capitalism, parecon, a worker cooperative, petty commodity production, or really any "economic system" (of course that would be stretching it because by people I assume you mean "the people themselves would decide" so really only a handful of variants of "planned capitalism" could be applicable. Although it could even be stretched to argue that supply and demand determines what is to be produced - and sure capital determines this, but really, humans act in the social roles of capital, so technically thats coming together and deciding what is to be produced and how.)

Seriously democracy is a sham and will be torn asunder by communism. It will have no basis for existence, nor will it have any reason to be - some other, better social organizaiton will form. This was noted and explained by Marx, Engels, and Lenin - not a hard concept to understand.

[Five Year Plan]

People deciding what is to be produced... how does that distinguish communism from "planned" capitalism, parecon, a worker cooperative, petty commodity production, or really any "economic system"

Because under capitalism the law of value determines what and how much is produced after the fact through a series of market exchanges. That is not "democracy." Under petty commodity production, there is an only an individual plan to produce a single commodity for exchange, which is also not a social plan. Very different.


Seriously democracy is a sham and will be torn asunder by communism. It will have no basis for existence, nor will it have any reason to be - some other, better social organizaiton will form. This was noted and explained by Marx, Engels, and Lenin - not a hard concept to understand.They all saw bourgeois democracy as a limited gain by workers that was worth struggling for en route to proletarian democracy, which they then believed would be overcome altogether as communism matured, not because it was a "sham," but because it entailed treating people as abstractions for the purposes of decision-making. For more on this, see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#s6 You might also want to check out the wonderful book by August Nimtz, Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough (http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Engels-Contribution-Breakthrough-Contemporary/dp/0791444902).

Now let me ask you a question, Remus. You claim to uphold democracy centralism, while extending it through the concept of organic centralism (a concept which I still don't understand, to be honest). If democracy is a "sham" with no relationship to socialism, why support democratic centralism, and not just "centralism"? Or maybe your "organic centralism" is basically just that: a way to maintain the centralism while wiping out the democratic aspects to it.

[Comrade Jacob]

Just explain surplus-value to them, worked for me and worked for my friend.

[Remus Bleys]

Because under capitalism the law of value determines what and how much is produced after the fact through a series of market exchanges. That is not "democracy."
And of parecon? And of all these other theoretical masturbation that have these strange ideas of how to better organize



They all saw bourgeois democracy as a limited gain by workers that was worth struggling for en route to proletarian democracy, which they then believed would be overcome altogether as communism matured, not because it was a "sham," but because it entailed treating people as abstractions for the purposes of decision-making. For more on this, see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#s6

Strange, I was just about to link you this. I may as well just link you this, too https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
or even Engels
"Democracy is, as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy (theology, as we Germans call it), at the bottom. Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery; the appearance of liberty, and therefore the reality of servitude. Political equality is the same; therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must ultimately break to pieces: hypocrisy cannot subsist, the contradiction hidden in it must come out; we must have either a regular slavery — that is, an undisguised despotism, or real liberty, and real equality — that is, Communism." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/10/23.htm

Don't you dare argue that they meant something different by "democracy" because they didn't. To turn democracy into something as stupid as "mere voting" is to completely ignore the role of democracy in society, and it is clear that "political democracy" (which you uphold, then use to deduce that economic democracy is great) is the program of the bourgeoisie. Of course I highly doubt that voting will be the modus operandi of communism, a more efficient, coherent and easier way of determining the views of all society (ie, things emanating from the "base") to then be coherently taken by some central organ, forming a plan that is possible, practical, and takes into accounts everyone's needs and wants, which would then be followed by the whole of society.


Now let me ask you a question, Remus. You claim to uphold democracy centralism, while extending it through the concept of organic centralism (a concept which I still don't understand, to be honest). If democracy is a "sham" with no relationship to socialism, why support democratic centralism, and not just "centralism"? Or maybe your "organic centralism" is basically just that: a way to maintain the centralism while wiping out the democratic aspects to it.
Democracy does have a relationship to socialism. Always a poison to the communist movement, and something opposed by the communist movement, as all bourgeois political ideology must be gotten rid of. Then it acted a bit like a cast for the political parties, a way to deal with internal contradictions. Maybe there was a better way of dealing with their problems, but with future reorganization the problems can be mostly avoided, thus making the "cast" of democracy superfluous. And why would you have a cast on a bone that is already healed?

[Five Year Plan]

Revleft's antediluvian software is preventing me from quoting again, so my apologies.

Regarding Parecon, I doubt many people on the street will ask me about it when I explain to them that I think socialism is a form of economic democracy. So that is not an eventuality I am going to craft my introductory pitch around.

Now onto the meat of your post. The quote you provided about democracy, Remus, is about bourgeois democracy specifically, which Lenin and Marx and Engels believed to be a "sham" in that it masked the underlying authoritarian economic structures from which that political democracy emerged at specific point in history. As Engels put it in that very early quote, it's a contradiction: as its promise of actual equality comes to be realized more and more, the necessity of the concept becomes more and more unnecessary.

I am not talking about democracy as mere voting. It seems you are, though, and then using that definition, a thoroughly bourgeois one, to condemn democracy in toto as a sham. The democracy that Lenin and Engels and Marx all fought to advance was a substantive, deliberate democracy not hemmed in by capitalism. Lenin describes in State and Revolution the limited nature of bourgeois democracy and how the task is to sublate its contradictions, not one-sidedly oppose it,


"Approaching the matter from the standpoint of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution, Engels, like Marx, upheld democratic centralism, the republic--one and indivisible. He regarded the federal republic either as an exception and a hindrance to development, or as a transition from a monarchy to a centralized republic, as a "step forward" under certain special conditions... Of course, there is not the slightest hint here of Engels abandoning the criticism of the shortcomings of a federal republic or renouncing the most determined advocacy of, and struggle for, a unified and centralized democratic republic.... Engels here approached the interesting boundary line at which consistent democracy, on the one hand, is transformed into socialism and, on the other, demands socialism."I am by no means of a democratic fetishist, but you seem to want to ignore the other half of the contradiction: that whatever its limitations, democracy is something worth fighting for and defending as part of the struggle for socialism. This is why Marx and Engels talked about socialism as "winning the battle for democracy."

I am not sure how you can square the politics of Marx, Engels, or Lenin with your rather strange argument that democracy is "a poison to the communist movement." You really do sound quite confused and in over your head on this issue.

[Five Year Plan]

Another quote, which I think nicely illustrates the gaping distance between your "democracy = poison" formulation and the revolutionary Marxist tradition is this elegantly simple gem by Lenin:

"To develop democracy to the utmost, to find the forms for this development, to test them by practice, and so forth--all this is one of the component tasks of the struggle for the social revolution."

[Remus Bleys]

Revleft's antediluvian software is preventing me from quoting again, so my apologies.
Weird, couple other threads thats happening to me too.


Regarding Parecon, I doubt many people on the street will ask me about it when I explain to them that I think socialism is a form of economic democracy. So that is not an eventuality I am going to craft my introductory pitch around.
I doubt many people will ask me a lot of things about other things. Thats really no excuse. And again, you are avoiding the question, by saying:
[QUOUTE= Five Year Plan] Because under capitalism the law of value determines what and how much is produced after the fact through a series of market exchanges. That is not "democracy."[/QUOTE]

sure capital determines this, but really, humans act in the social roles of capital, so technically thats coming together and deciding what is to be produced and how.
Funny how this wasn't quoted in your reply. Under Communism, its people's needs that determine production, ergo not democracy. See where such reasoning gets us?


Now onto the meat of your post. The quote you provided about democracy, Remus, is about bourgeois democracy specifically, which Lenin and Marx and Engels believed to be a "sham" in that it masked the underlying authoritarian economic structures from which that political democracy emerged at specific point in history. As Engels put it in that very early quote, it's a contradiction: as its promise of actual equality comes to be realized more and more, the necessity of the concept becomes more and more unnecessary.

Don't you dare argue that they meant something different by "democracy" because they didn't. To turn democracy into something as stupid as "mere voting" is to completely ignore the role of democracy in society, and it is clear that "political democracy" (which you uphold, then use to deduce that economic democracy is great) is the program of the bourgeoisie.
AS IT TURNS OUT I knew that they did in fact state that they were talking about bourgeois democracy. Funny, that. Why include that in their, do you think I don't know that? Why on earth would I have said it, if I didn't know it? How could that even be possible? Why would I outline that as my position if it wasn't? Of course, my argument is that democracy is a function of certain class societies, but with emphasis placed on bourgeois society.



I am not talking about democracy as mere voting. It seems you are, though, and then using that definition, a thoroughly bourgeois one, to condemn democracy in toto as a sham. The democracy that Lenin and Engels and Marx all fought to advance was a substantive, deliberate democracy not hemmed in by capitalism. As Lenin said in State and Revolution, I am not. I do not know why you think I am so vulgar as to hack up the essence of democracy to some mere voting mechanism. Democracy is a fake community, an institution which exists to reconcile the conflicting interests of a group of people, to reconcile politics, to make compromises, to collaborate. The fact that voting mechanisms spring up from this is obvious. This is the fake democracy that is a sham, this is the democracy communism must do away with for it will make the interests of the many different individuals not conflict with eachother and reconcile them into a general interest, but merely show that they all complement eachother and organically form them into a general interest.

There is not a necessary need for voting to always take place amongst everyone (or even a majority), but it is obvious why democracy demands more "free and fair elections" in its ideal form. Communism, on the other hand, does not need to be limited by voting mechanisms.

But don't confuse that talk of voting mechanisms for talk of democracy - which you probably will anyway. Voting isn't the essence of democracy but merely one of its vestiges. Besides, democracy is not something that can be merely smashed, it must be superseded. The bourgeois-democracy, the democracy that is a sham, the POLITICAL DEMOCRACY YOU ASCRIBE TO (or at the very least use in debates in order to better get converts) is the democracy I am referring to.

Besides, if anyone reduces democracy to mere voting mechanisms it is you, with your inane talk of "The democracy that Lenin and Engels and Marx all fought to advance was a substantive, deliberate democracy not hemmed in by capitalism." What democracy is this? The democracy which is just voting? Just because Lenin had a tendency to be vulgar about his words does not mean that you need to be. I think Lenin meant political control when he spoke of democracy - why else would he speak of democracy (political control) going away when he spoke of communism more firmly grasping hold over society. What does this buzzword mean to you? "Deliberative, substantive" what does this actually mean?

I am not being some hardass opposing democracy in communism because im all about muh bordiga and muh totalitarian state apparatus, I am opposing the notion of democracy existing in communism because DEMOCRACY IS A CONTRADICTION, it is a lie, a falsehood that exists because of the fact that politics exist, because it represents a society divided by competing interests - which communism destroys. The base of democracy withers away, democracy is superseded. You want to argue that democracy still exists in communism (supposedly because of the retention of voting mechanisms), then you have the gull to claim that I am the one reducing democracy to mere voting mechanisms? Give me a fucking break.

And finally, just to demonstrate my point about voting mechanisms (A FORM OF DEMOCRACY, NOT ITS CONTENT):

Asine! This is democratic twaddle, political drivel. Election is a political form present in the smallest Russian commune and artel. The character of the election does not depend on this name, but on the economic foundation, the economic situation of the voters, and as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no government function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character. Again, as I said, some superior form of a centralized method would most likely come about, functioned in a "business like manner."



I am by no means of a democratic fetishist, but you seem to want to ignore the other half of the contradiction: that whatever its limitations, democracy is something worth fighting for and defending as part of the struggle for socialism. This is why Marx and Engels talked about socialism as "winning the battle for democracy."

I am not sure how you can square the politics of Marx, Engels, or Lenin with your rather strange argument that democracy is "a poison to the communist movement." You really do sound quite confused and in over your head on this issue.1. No, I think you are a democratic fetishist and it is completely obvious on just how the democratic ideology spelt doom for the communist movement, the biggest scar of course being "anti-fascism."

2. What the fuck about it is worth fighting for? Heres the full quote
"We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy." The point of this battle honestly could have been different things. It is possible that at this time Marx still had some hope for universal suffrage, for peacefully conquering the state (something later repudiated); taken more broadly (and this is what I think he was saying) was that the proletariat had to win the battle of politics, they had to end the fight between classes, that they had to emerge victorious from bourgeois society.

3. "I dont understand something" =! "This thing is wrong." Don't flatter yourself, just because you can't make heads or tails of something doesn't mean its wrong. Don't worry though, everyone does that, and I especially do that a bit too much. Doesn't change the fact that it is poor argumentation



Another quote, which I think nicely illustrates the gaping distance between your "democracy = poison" formulation and the revolutionary Marxist tradition is this elegantly simple gem by Lenin:

"To develop democracy to the utmost, to find the forms for this development, to test them by practice, and so forth--all this is one of the component tasks of the struggle for the social revolution."

Finishing that "Taken separately, no kind of democracy will bring socialism. But in actual life democracy will never be "taken separately"; it will be "taken together" with other things, it will exert its influence on economic life as well, will stimulate its transformation; and in its turn it will be influenced by economic development, and so on."

Again just because Lenin was vulgar about his word choice does not mean that we should. It is unfortunate that such a word choice was used by both Engels and Lenin, but in this regard they were both vulgarly using democracy to mean political control, to mean some form of control that actively uses the base (as every healthy centralism would). One can hardly fault them, though, considering that both had to lead the fight for the development of Capitalism. State and Revolution not so much, but it is pretty obvious that the industrialization of Russia was one of Lenin's main goals (for communism is impossible without capitalism etc), which unfortunately would from time to time affect his word choices (as it changed, for him, what the concept of those words meant; remember democracy was once progressive, and in Russia at 1917, it was) - but there is no need to continue that error.

More importantly, the second part of this gem, which you neglected, says that taken separately, this democracy (political control that is both top-down and bottom-up) will not do anything - but then goes on to say that it can and will be paired up with action that will lead to socialism. To say then that socialism is this democracy (this political control) is to say that socialism is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. To develop this political control to its fullest, to incorporate the whole of society, (as the conspectus on bakunin says, all 40 million of the germans) into the running of society in a centralized manner, to find the most efficient form of social organization - this is the task of the proletarian revolution, in preparation for Communism. But, this political control, this essence of democracy (which has been won) will not continue into communism.

Again, these things are not hard to understand. Hopefully you won't selectively quote me or try to school me on things that I have already said.

[Five Year Plan]

We can keep going around and around in circles, Remus. Your posts here have just consisted of quotes where Marx and Engels are criticizing the fetishizing of democracy, where people are divorcing "democracy" from its class basis, and fulsomely praise it without situating it in the context of the class struggle. Marx, Engels, and Lenin all fought to support and expand democratic forms by situating them in their class context (and, as you have usefully demonstrated) criticizing people who refused to do so as engaging in bourgeois apologism.

This is Lenin's point when talking about the struggle for democratic forms being a component of the struggle for socialism, and not the struggle for socialism itself (since you can have such forms within a bourgeois society). Lenin wasn't making "vulgar word choices." He was perfectly clear, and saying what was perfectly uncontroversial to Marx and Engels: that socialism is about society collectively managing their own economic affairs. This represents the dramatic expansion of democratic forms, until the point is achieved where those forms are no longer even necessary or logical to speak about.

How you leap from there to "democracy is poison to socialism" remains a mystery. And, yes, it does sound like you've arrived at your conclusion through starting with Bordiga, then trying to cram Marx, Engels, and Lenin into his box, even though none of them fits.

A "democratic fetishist," is somebody who divorces democracy from its class context in order to wield it as a political tool to mask the class context. You accuse me of it, yet in your blanket condemnation of democracy in the abstract, this is exactly the trap you've fallen into yourself. Pot. Kettle. Black. It's the same mode of thinking you demonstrate in your discussion of reforms. Reforms can serve the interest of the bourgeoisie by placating workers, and binding them to bourgeois illusions, but they can also be a means for workers gaining confidence in advancing the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. You abstract the concept of reform from its context in the class struggle, then issue blanket condemnations of all reforms as "reformism." Just as you collapse all democratic forms into bourgeois democratic apologism. Your methodology has literally nothing in common with Marxism.

[Remus Bleys]

We can keep going around and around in circles, Remus
Yeah I figured and theres really no point in explaining. I mean, I can't help but feel you refused to read my post because of the fact that the next paragraph which I omitted was basically just "democracy is the only way of organizing society" nonsense.


How you leap from there to "democracy is poison to socialism" remains a mystery. And, yes, it does sound like you've arrived at your conclusion through starting with Bordiga, then trying to cram Marx, Engels, and Lenin into his box, even though none of them fits.

Really? How the democratic ideology, which I defined earlier in this thread, is a poison to communism, is beyond you? And that I've tried to cram marx engels and lenin into his box is bullshit, as Bordiga's conclusions were all reached by the theoretical works of past communists in conjunction with the class struggle.


A "democratic fetishist," is somebody who divorces democracy from its class context in order to wield it as a political tool to mask the class context.
A democratic fetishist is somebody who divorces democracy from its class context. Thats what they are, it doesn't have to have some ulterior motive, it could seriously just be an honest error. I think you are a democratic fetishist. You can't even contemplate, for a moment, how communism can exist without democracy. Thus you make democracy the solution, not communism.


You accuse me of it, yet in your blanket condemnation of democracy in the abstract, this is exactly the trap you've fallen into yourself. I do not do this. I accept that at certain points that the communist movement required the democratic form in order to function.


Reforms can serve the interest of the bourgeoisie by placating workers, and binding them to bourgeois illusions, but they can also be a means for workers gaining confidence in advancing the revolutionary struggle against capitalism.
Yeah sure but only with a class party that actively shows them that this is not the struggle, that reminds them that the actual goal is communism. Reforms help solidify the domination of capitalism. Do you think minimum wage seriously hurt the development of capitalism, or do you recognize that minimum wage helped capitalism develop its hold over society? Reforms in and of themselves are only supported insofar that they help the creation of a revolution. This always means a class party that ensures the proletariat realizes that this is not the end goal, that in the early days, it was only to help capital industrialize the world. That time has passed, and of course, reforms pursued for the sake of reforms is to be condemned as that is reformism. But fuck off, I don't want to continue that parody of a discussion with you anyway.


You abstract the concept of reform from its context in the class struggle, then issue blanket condemnations of all reforms as "reformism." Just as you collapse all democratic forms into bourgeois democratic apologism.
Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. I mean yeah that so was my argument :rolleyes:


Your methodology has literally nothing in common with Marxism.
k

[Five Year Plan]

Yeah I figured and theres really no point in explaining. I mean, I can't help but feel you refused to read my post because of the fact that the next paragraph which I omitted was basically just "democracy is the only way of organizing society" nonsense.

If you think there's a non-democratic way of organizing socialism, then I'd certainly like to hear it. Perhaps, like our friend Impossible, you think socialism is possible under a monarchy. Shall I pull out my Cowardly Lion meme again?


Really? How the democratic ideology, which I defined earlier in this thread, is a poison to communism, is beyond you? And that I've tried to cram marx engels and lenin into his box is bullshit, as Bordiga's conclusions were all reached by the theoretical works of past communists in conjunction with the class struggle.Your claim about Bordiga remains to be proven through actual debate. There is no "democratic ideology." There are various democratic ideologies, one of which is socialism: do you not understand why all revolutionary Marxist parties, including Lenin's Revolutionary Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), used to call themselves "social democracy"? Your problem is that you want to banish anything that speaks of democracy into the realm of bourgeois democracy, when Marx, Engels, and Lenin thought that the struggle for strengthening democratic forms was an essential component (a necessary but not sufficient component) in the fight for socialism.

In line with your hero Bordiga, you want to pretend that the struggle for full communism doesn't occur through the strengthening of democracy to the point where it withers away, but through opposing democracy as a poison.


A democratic fetishist is somebody who divorces democracy from its class context. Thats what they are, it doesn't have to have some ulterior motive, it could seriously just be an honest error. I think you are a democratic fetishist. You can't even contemplate, for a moment, how communism can exist without democracy. Thus you make democracy the solution, not communism.You think I am a democratic fetishist, but you haven't shown how. I've explained how your talking about all democracy as a bourgeois form fetishiezes that form. You collapse all democratic forms into only ONE content it MIGHT have (bourgeois), while ignoring other possible substances (proletarian or socialist).


I do not do this. I accept that at certain points that the communist movement required the democratic form in order to function.Why? At which points? There's a reason Leninists use democratic centralism, rather than just centralism. Care to guess what that reason is?


Yeah sure but only with a class party that actively shows them that this is not the struggle, that reminds them that the actual goal is communism. Reforms help solidify the domination of capitalism. Do you think minimum wage seriously hurt the development of capitalism, or do you recognize that minimum wage helped capitalism develop its hold over society? Reforms in and of themselves are only supported insofar that they help the creation of a revolution. This always means a class party that ensures the proletariat realizes that this is not the end goal, that in the early days, it was only to help capital industrialize the world. That time has passed, and of course, reforms pursued for the sake of reforms is to be condemned as that is reformism. But fuck off, I don't want to continue that parody of a discussion with you anyway.When somebody rattles of paragraphs in response to a post I made, then claims they don't want to continue the discussion, how am I supposed to take that person seriously? If you didn't want to continue the discussion, you would simply not have posted a response.

I've noticed in this and in the organic centralism thread, you have a really bad habit of digging yourself into holes, then bailing ship instead of staying and trying to learn.

[Five Year Plan]

And to bring this back to the topic the OP wants to discuss, I don't think there's any way of sabotaging an attempt to explain socialism more quickly than to say that socialism opposes the poision of democracy.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I think a good way to discuss socialism with the aim of getting people to agree with your point of view isn't to tell people how they should see the world but to ask them about their own lives, the issues they face etc. Generally, most people haven't thought about why their job is shit or why they struggle to pay their bills but they don't need to read Marx to understand just that from their own experiences. Bridging their experiences in life with the struggle for socialism is the goal but generally that can simply amount to "you spend most of your life in shit jobs with no actual control over what you're doing whilst some other person occasionally turns up to a board room and rakes in millions, why is that? capitalism. let's get control of our own lives by fighting for socialism".

A more in-depth discussion can follow if they seem interested.

[Remus Bleys]

If you think there's a non-democratic way of organizing socialism, then I'd certainly like to hear it. Perhaps, like our friend Impossible, you think socialism is possible under a monarchy. Shall I pull out my Cowardly Lion meme again?
I mean seriously fucking go look at state and revolution one more time, specifically chapter 5.

But democracy is by no means a boundary not to be overstepped; it is only one of the stages on the road from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to communism... And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state.
But okay yeah I'm arguing the same fucking thing as impossible. Okay.


Your claim about Bordiga remains to be proven through actual debate. There is no "democratic ideology." There are various democratic ideologies, one of which is socialism: do you not understand why all revolutionary Marxist parties, including Lenin's Revolutionary Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), used to call themselves "social democracy"
Odd as you linked this before https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#s6

Engels came to express his views on this subject when establishing that the term "Social-Democrat" was scientifically wrong.


"... For Marx and myself," continued Engels, "it was therefore absolutely impossible to use such a loose term to characterize our special point of view. Today things are different, and the word ["Social-Democrat"] may perhaps pass muster [mag passieren], inexact [unpassend, unsuitable] though it still is for a party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general, but downright communist, and whose ultimate political aim is to overcome the whole state and, consequently, democracy as well. The names of real political parties, however, are never wholly appropriate; the party develops while the name stays."[9]

Perhaps some wit would console us Bolsheviks in the manner of Engels: we have a real party, it is developing splendidly; even such a meaningless and ugly term as “Bolshevik” will "pass muster", although it expresses nothing whatever but the purely accidental fact that at the Brussels-London Congress of 1903 we were in the majority. Perhaps now that the persecution of our Party by republicans and “revolutionary” petty-bourgeois democrats in July and August has earned the name “Bolshevik” such universal respect, now that, in addition, this persecution marks the tremendous historical progress our Party has made in its real development--perhaps now even I might hesitate to insist on the suggestion I made in April to change the name of our Party. Perhaps I would propose a “compromise” to my comrades, namely, to call ourselves the Communist Party, but to retain the word “Bolshevik” in brackets.
But the question of the name of the Party is incomparably less important than the question of the attitude of the revolutionary proletariat to the state.

Are you really this fucking stupid or something? What a piss poor argument that seriously doesn't even deserve these quotes.



Your problem is that you want to banish anything that speaks of democracy into the realm of bourgeois democracy, when Marx, Engels, and Lenin thought that the struggle for strengthening democratic forms was an essential component (a necessary but not sufficient component) in the fight for socialism.
I do? I have never once said that all democracy is bourgeois, that would be clearly false. I have said that at a certain democracy was necessary, but I say it no longer is. Are you gonna pull a geiseric and go on about the ten planks, now, too? I mean, times past and what was won was won. I do not believe that democracy is an essential part of the fight for communism anymore, I believe that it used to be, but no longer is. I have told you this countless times. It is not my fault that you do not listen. Fuck, you don't even have to agree, just know that that is my argument instead of this bullshit where you try and trip me up.



In line with your hero Bordiga, you want to pretend that the struggle for full communism doesn't occur through the strengthening of democracy to the point where it withers away, but through opposing democracy as a poison.
"my hero"? lol. The struggle for FULL COMMUNISM is not a democratic one, twit, it is a struggle that may or may not use democracy - at one point democracy was a necessity but now its proven itself to be a failure which has led to numerous errors, whereby democracy has allowed itself to be more important than the program, than the movement, which has consequently allowed bureaucracy to substitute itself for democracy. I also did list antifa, but you'd probably would like to ignore that.


You think I am a democratic fetishist, but you haven't shown how. I've explained how your talking about all democracy as a bourgeois form fetishiezes that form. You collapse all democratic forms into only ONE content it MIGHT have (bourgeois), while ignoring other possible substances (proletarian or socialist).
Did I? My bad for saying democratic ideology, i guess the fact I was meaning "every ideology that incorporates a democratic fetish."
Anyway, for all you moan about people fucking strawmanning you, dumbfuck, take a look at this
Of course, my argument is that democracy is a function of certain class societies, but with emphasis placed on bourgeois society. here.
(http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2768889&postcount=18)

Why? At which points? There's a reason Leninists use democratic centralism, rather than just centralism. Care to guess what that reason is?
How successful were these so-called leninists parties? All are either stalinist, miserable failures, or got some bad stuff going on in the Central Committee. The irony of a trotskyist saying what is and isn't a healthy party. Do you seriously want to use existing trotskyist parties as a model?


When somebody rattles of paragraphs in response to a post I made, then claims they don't want to continue the discussion, how am I supposed to take that person seriously? If you didn't want to continue the discussion, you would simply not have posted a response. I don't want to continue this because you are not taking me seriously.
When somebody links you an article in which Lenin criticizes the name "social democracy" and then has the brains (or lack thereof) to go "WHY DO YOU THINK LENIN'S PARTY WAS CALLED SOCIAL DEMOCRACY" how the fuck are you supposed to take that seriously? This is how you argue. I bring up numerous points, respond to your bullshit, and you still say the same things, ignoring what I've said and respond with such shit that all I have to do is quote the post directly before this one. You haven't really addressed a single thing I said in here. All you've done is claim some disconnect of Bordiga from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. All you've done is simply say that democracy is important for socialism, giving some out of context quotes for me to apparently think over. I mean, for god's sake, you tried to school me on something that I already said. How the fuck am I supposed to take any of that seriously?


I've noticed in this and in the organic centralism thread, you have a really bad habit of digging yourself into holes, then bailing ship instead of staying and trying to learn.
I have a habit of collecting my thoughts, then staying them, and then reach that critical point where all I do is repeat myself. It happens with you a bunch actually.


And to bring this back to the topic the OP wants to discuss, I don't think there's any way of sabotaging an attempt to explain socialism more quickly than to say that socialism opposes the poision of democracy.
Well you could always say that the USSR was socialist, you could always support some nationalist group, you could always flipflop on the manner of fascism, you could always act like the actions of the party are the sole determining feature of the communist movement, you could always claim all the ussr needed was a bit more liberty, you could always support imperialist wars because your anti-AMERIKKKAN, you could always just be the left wing of capital, you could always just focus on the movement and never mention the goal, and you could always claim that your theoretical bullshit was to be found in the works of Marx Engels and Lenin.

I mean hear I was thinking that that was some of the worst caricatures of marxism. I guess instead the worst heresy is in fact opposing a false community designed to inherently compromise and collaborate, something based on the false view that the majority (or the dominant group, more likely) is always right, an ideology that makes it so that rights and liberties are praised, the battle against groups which makes their personal feelings more important than that of the needs of the class, something which has allowed opportunist strands to still be alive, something that can be replaced by a more efficient and beneficial (to the class) method of organization. So I guess fuck me for thinking that Communism, not democracy, is the solution. Fuck me for being against the democratic fetish. Its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't allowed a minority to come to power, its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't allowed principles to be broken, and its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't been able to fix any problems in the movement. If Lenin had bowed down to democracy, if the proletariat had bowed down to democracy, then the April Theses would never have been made. That is how it is a poison, for it does not put the program first. The program must always come first, and the method that allows this to occur is to be taken.

I've explained to you countless times that organic centralism did not always deny democracy because democracy was a necessity, it was a necessary evil. But if you would instead never insult democracy because it wouldn't be popular, then you are, by your own definition, a democratic fetishist.

[audiored]

First tell them why capitalism is bad.

If you have to tell them capitalism is bad, give up and move on.

[Five Year Plan]

I mean seriously fucking go look at state and revolution one more time, specifically chapter 5.

But okay yeah I'm arguing the same fucking thing as impossible. Okay.

If you both think that democracy has no necessary relationship to socialism, then, yes, you are arguing the same thing as Impossible. Since I was the first person to invoke passages from chapter five of State and Revolution, and have actually provided elaboration of Lenin's discussion of democracy in those passages, I hardly think it necessary to go back and re-read it. I understand it fully.


Are you really this fucking stupid or something? What a piss poor argument that seriously doesn't even deserve these quotes.So you quote Engels saying that "social democrat" isn't their ideal term, but "passes muster," because their project can indeed be thought of as part of the process of strengthening democratic forms. And this is supposed to contradict my point how?


I do? I have never once said that all democracy is bourgeois, that would be clearly false. I have said that at a certain democracy was necessary, but I say it no longer is. Are you gonna pull a geiseric and go on about the ten planks, now, too? I mean, times past and what was won was won. I do not believe that democracy is an essential part of the fight for communism anymore, I believe that it used to be, but no longer is. I have told you this countless times. It is not my fault that you do not listen. Fuck, you don't even have to agree, just know that that is my argument instead of this bullshit where you try and trip me up.And my point is, how is democracy "not necessary" to socialism? How are decisions made in the transition to socialism, and under the earliest stages of socialism, if not through the widest ranging democratic forms emerging from the fullest substantively democratic society known throughout history?

If you don't believe that socialism is necessary for the fight for socialism, my other question still stands: why organize according to principles of democratic centralism? Why not just bureaucratic centralism under a really smart person?

I will refer you once again to the Lenin quote you can't integrate into your anti-democracy "Leninism": "To develop democracy to the utmost, to find the forms for this development, to test them by practice, and so forth--all this is one of the component tasks of the struggle for the social revolution."

Your only response has been to say, "Well, he is saying it's only one component of the struggle." And my response to that has been, "Of course! But a component, and a necessary one, it is." Your response? "It's out of context!!!" Uh huh.

Another quote, this one from Engels, and also cited by Lenin: "If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power in the form of the democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat." Please note the "can only come to power." Democratic forms ("the form of the democratic republic" are essential to workers' revolution and the transition to socialism, as well to the early stages of communism, before it has matured to its fullest and democracy has withered away.


"my hero"? lol. The struggle for FULL COMMUNISM is not a democratic one, twit, it is a struggle that may or may not use democracy - at one point democracy was a necessity but now its proven itself to be a failure which has led to numerous errors, whereby democracy has allowed itself to be more important than the program, than the movement, which has consequently allowed bureaucracy to substitute itself for democracy. I also did list antifa, but you'd probably would like to ignore that.Full communism isn't a democracy. You're right about that. What you keep ignoring is that full communism is what develops once democracy has flowered to its most expansive condition, then withered away as a result of the conditions coinciding with that unprecedented democracy transcending the necessity of democracy itself. The transition to full communism happens through democratic forms of proletarian governance, not around them. Just as the transition to socialism occurs through the use of a state, the proletarian state, not against all states.


Did I? My bad for saying democratic ideology, i guess the fact I was meaning "every ideology that incorporates a democratic fetish."
Anyway, for all you moan about people fucking strawmanning you, dumbfuck, take a look at this here. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2768889&postcount=18) And lost amid all your chest-pounding and name-calling is any argument about how I have fetishized democracy. This is the third time I have asked. Either put up or shut up.


How successful were these so-called leninists parties? All are either stalinist, miserable failures, or got some bad stuff going on in the Central Committee. The irony of a trotskyist saying what is and isn't a healthy party. Do you seriously want to use existing trotskyist parties as a model?Who brought up Trotskyism in this thread? Talk about strawmen.


I don't want to continue this because you are not taking me seriously. ... All you've done is simply say that democracy is important for socialism, giving some out of context quotes for me to apparently think over. I mean, for god's sake, you tried to school me on something that I already said. How the fuck am I supposed to take any of that seriously?Which quote of mine was taken out of context in a way that transforms its meaning to one different than what I had assigned to it?


Well you could always say that the USSR was socialist, you could always support some nationalist group, you could always flipflop on the manner of fascism, you could always act like the actions of the party are the sole determining feature of the communist movement, you could always claim all the ussr needed was a bit more liberty, you could always support imperialist wars because your anti-AMERIKKKAN, you could always just be the left wing of capital, you could always just focus on the movement and never mention the goal, and you could always claim that your theoretical bullshit was to be found in the works of Marx Engels and Lenin.I don't see how any of these rambling accusations has any relationship whatsoever to the substance of either our claims in this thread. If you want to be taken seriously, start acting serious. A good first step would be to stop blabbing on about how "fucking stupid" people are in every paragraph of a debate. It comes across as the worst stereotype of a young person with absolutely no self-control. I literally envision you with a 40 in one hand, and a joint in another, whenever you run off the rails like that.


I mean hear I was thinking that that was some of the worst caricatures of marxism. I guess instead the worst heresy is in fact opposing a false community designed to inherently compromise and collaborate, something based on the false view that the majority (or the dominant group, more likely) is always right, an ideology that makes it so that rights and liberties are praised, the battle against groups which makes their personal feelings more important than that of the needs of the class, something which has allowed opportunist strands to still be alive, something that can be replaced by a more efficient and beneficial (to the class) method of organization. So I guess fuck me for thinking that Communism, not democracy, is the solution.This entire paragraph is premised on the dichotomy of "Democracy or Socialism." You've built that premise into your argument, without actually arguing for why anybody should accept that premise. This is no way to conduct an argument. Is it not possible to do what Lenin suggests in State and Revolution, and make the struggle for democracy a component part of the struggle against capitalism? In your view, nope. Why? Because democracy is inherently class collaborationist, therefore inherently bourgeois. You claim to disavow this sentiment, yet here it is, staring us all directly in the faces.


Fuck me for being against the democratic fetish. Its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't allowed a minority to come to power, its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't allowed principles to be broken, and its not as if this democratic ideology hasn't been able to fix any problems in the movement. If Lenin had bowed down to democracy, if the proletariat had bowed down to democracy, then the April Theses would never have been made. That is how it is a poison, for it does not put the program first. The program must always come first, and the method that allows this to occur is to be taken.Bourgeois democratic ideology, not "democratic ideology" in the abstract, has permitted a minority to come to power. There you go collapsing all talk of democracy into bourgeois democracy, and not allowing for the existence of any kind of proletarian or socialist democracy.


I've explained to you countless times that organic centralism did not always deny democracy because democracy was a necessity, it was a necessary evil. But if you would instead never insult democracy because it wouldn't be popular, then you are, by your own definition, a democratic fetishist.You haven't explained the nature of the relationship between democracy and organic centralism. Saying, "Sometimes it has democracy and sometimes it doesn't" isn't explaining a relationship. It's noting the possibility for coincidences, but not explaining why such coincidences might happen or should happen.

[Remus Bleys]

Jesus I just read these two and I'm so sick of this bullshit that I'm done, okay? You win whatever, aufheben, the bullshit is too thick to even see through.

If you both think that democracy has no necessary relationship to socialism, then, yes, you are arguing the same thing as Impossible. Since I was the first person to invoke passages from chapter five of State and Revolution, and have actually provided elaboration of Lenin's discussion of democracy in those passages, I hardly think it necessary to go back and re-read it. I understand it fully.The part where lenin explicitly says democracy will wither away you completely get? Then why do you keep saying "how could communism work without democracy"?

So you quote Engels saying that "social democrat" isn't their ideal term, but "passes muster," because their project can indeed be thought of as part of the process of strengthening democratic forms. And this is supposed to contradict my point how?What the hell? Because you said "did you ever stop and ponder why they chose the name social democracy" as if to prove the communist movement was democratic... to which I showed that engels disagreed with the name, making the point about its name being invalid.

im seriously done with this thread now. I don't know why I bothered replying in the first place. All I've done is repeat myself. Think that you intellectually overpowered I don't care I'm sorry I ever replied to you.

edit: ugh fucking idiot i was making a dig at trot parties
edit 2: fuck I've explained to you, in many replies, why organic centralism would have at a certain point called for the democratic mechanism: because the parties were weak, because they faced internal contradictions. That's even in this thread. IF you want me to stop calling you a fucking idiot, stop being one.

[Five Year Plan]

Jesus I just read these two and I'm so sick of this bullshit that I'm done, okay? You win whatever, aufheben, the bullshit is too thick to even see through.
The part where lenin explicitly says democracy will wither away you completely get? Then why do you keep saying "how could communism work without democracy"?
What the hell? Because you said "did you ever stop and ponder why they chose the name social democracy" as if to prove the communist movement was democratic... to which I showed that engels disagreed with the name, making the point about its name being invalid.

im seriously done with this thread now. I don't know why I bothered replying in the first place. All I've done is repeat myself. Think that you intellectually overpowered I don't care I'm sorry I ever replied to you.

edit: ugh fucking idiot i was making a dig at trot parties
edit 2: fuck I've explained to you, in many replies, why organic centralism would have at a certain point called for the democratic mechanism: because the parties were weak, because they faced internal contradictions. That's even in this thread. IF you want me to stop calling you a fucking idiot, stop being one.

Democracy withers away under socialism. But wait, how is that possible if the struggle for socialism opposes the "poison of democracy"? If that were true, wouldn't there be zero democracy to wither away under socialism, having been overcome by workers struggle against its poison in the transition period? You may as well argue that, since the state withers away under socialism, that the struggle for socialism is the struggle against all forms of state power, including the proletarian state. Welcome to anarchism, Remus. Just do everybody here a favor, including anarchists, and stop pretending that your bastardization of Lenin's writings has any relationship to Lenin's actual politics.

[blake 3:17]

What about a potluck dinner as an example?

[Astarte]

Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but most people aren't made into communists (at least life long ones) by way of clever arguments but rather by way of having first hand life experiences of capital fucking them or their family over.

[mojo.rhythm]

My two cents on explaining socialism and commmunism to laypeople

The explain-to-a-five-year-old definition of socialism is "workers in charge". That's what you should tell someone if they ask what socialism is and clearly are political novices.

If pressed further, simply say “Imagine if, instead of going to work each day and being told what to do by a boss, the workers themselves decide what they want to produce, where to produce, how to produce, and what to do with the income.” If they counter with "That's so utopian!", reply "That's the common sense view. But this kind of thing has existed before, and exists on micro-scales in pockets around the country right now. Besides, prior to the Civil War, slavery abolitionists were seen as totally naive utopians with their heads in the clouds; turns out they were on the right side of history!"

I've been trying and testing that formula for a few weeks now; it seems to be pretty successful. It continues to be tuned and refined, however...