Can someone explain the different types of socialism to me? [Archive]

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Wuggums47

3rd July 2014, 16:37

DigitalBluster

5th July 2014, 17:45

Very briefly (and therefore very incompletely):

"Social democracy" was once synonymous with "socialism." That ended due to a split in the socialist movement. One group came to believe that reforming capitalism can bring about socialism. The other group continued to reject this. Nowadays, "social democracy" refers to the reformist school.

"Democratic socialism" is a fuzzy term. Some are reformists, some aren't. In general, it's something of an umbrella term for all manner of socialists who like Marx but don't like Stalin.

"Libertarian socialism" is also a fuzzy umbrella term, though they tend to lean more anarchist (but not exclusively).

"Liberal socialism" is an oxymoron. Liberalism (i.e., capitalism) and socialism are fundamentally opposed. Those who use the term tend to mean some sort of "market socialism," which is also fuzzy but tends to mean something like socialism for "natural monopolies" and capitalism for everything else (e.g., consumer goods).

Basically, these terms all suck. Socialism means, among other things, the direct management of productive resources by the producers themselves, with production based on use rather than profit, and distribution based on need (in the later phase). If you oppose class society, where one class owns the resources and another class does the work, then you're a socialist and you don't need those other terms. Socialism is inherently democratic (though, not in the same sense we're used to today) and libertarian (ditto).

Once you've decided you're a socialist, I suppose the next step would be to investigate anarchism and Marxism and see which of those you find more agreeable.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

5th July 2014, 17:50

"Liberal socialists" is what some of the liberals in Italy, mostly influenced by Rosseli, called themselves. "Democratic socialism" is not supposed to be synonymous with "social democracy", but it is, in practice. In a previous thread no one could think of a single "democratic socialist" that wasn't a reformist.

"Libertarian socialism" is a long-winded way to say "anarchist".

Rafiq

6th July 2014, 17:21

Revolutionary socialism, reactionary (petite bourgeois) socialism and reformism.

consuming negativity

6th July 2014, 17:47

From right to left;

Social democrats (another word for "liberal")
Democratic socialists (reform through the bourgeois state to accomplish socialism)
Market socialists (nobody really is this, but it's what Tito had in Yugoslavia and it's not really revolutionary or democratic, so I stuck it in here)
Revolutionary socialists (reform is impossible, socialism requires a revolution)

Among the revsocs the main splits are between the Marxists and the anarchists. The anarchists are libertarian socialists (the term is one and the same).

Types of anarchists:
Egoist anarchists/individualist anarchists (people who read stirner)
Mutualists (people who read Proudhon)
Anarchist-Communists (communists who reject the dictatorship of the proletariat and favor Bakunin over Marx)
Anarcho-Syndicalists (anarchist communists who think society should be structured through syndicalism)

Types of Marxists:
Marxist-Leninists (agree with Marx and Lenin)
Stalinists (refer to themselves as Marxist-Leninists but believe Stalin put M/L into practice)
Maoists (Stalinists who like Mao)
Hoxhaists (Maoists who like Hoxha)
Trotskyists (Marxist-Leninists who agree with Trotsky's critiques of the USSR and comintern)
Left Communists (agree with criticisms of the Bolsheviks but are Marxists)
Orthodox Marxists (agree primarily with Marx and Engels)
Luxemburgists (Left communists who place emphasis on the works of Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacists)
Bordigists (Marxists who like Amadeo Bordiga who was an Italian guy)

and a lot fucking more i need to go take care of other shit irl now

welcome to revleft!

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th July 2014, 17:55

Brosa Luxemburg

6th July 2014, 20:43

These type of threads are easily the dumbest and most pointless revleft has to offer

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th July 2014, 20:47

These type of threads are easily the dumbest and most pointless revleft has to offer

Have you seen the rest of the board lately?

PhoenixAsh

6th July 2014, 21:00

Has everybody suddenly forgotten about revolutionary cannibalism? :rolleyes:

(A)

6th July 2014, 21:19

Has everybody suddenly forgotten about revolutionary cannibalism? :rolleyes:

"One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich."

Joking aside don't forget Communalism

Also Libertarian socialism is as close to anarchy as Right-wing Libertarianism.
Anarchy (generally) means society without a publicly enforced government
where as most Libertarians want Minarchism. A night watchmen state whose only job is to protect the people.

Left Voice

7th July 2014, 15:19

"Democratic socialism" is a fuzzy term. Some are reformists, some aren't. In general, it's something of an umbrella term for all manner of socialists who like Marx but don't like Stalin.
Not to mention the fact that so many 'democratic socialist' parties are either 'responsible' capitalists, or 'third way' neolibs like the UK Labour Party of today. Certainly no love for Marx there.

It's one that's so loose that it's best avoided. Stick with Social Democracy if you're a reformist.

Wuggums47

8th July 2014, 05:43

These type of threads are easily the dumbest and most pointless revleft has to offer

I'm sorry if I've upset you, I just was new to all this and have had some trouble understanding some of the terms.

Ismail

10th July 2014, 20:04

Hoxhaists (Maoists who like Hoxha)Hoxha called Mao a bourgeois democrat and considered Maoism to be anti-Marxist. Maoists certainly don't like Hoxha, unless "Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought (https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-hoxha/index.htm)," "Enver Hoxha Refuted (http://www.bannedthought.net/SriLanka/Sanmugathasan/HoxhaRefuted.htm)" and "Hoxha versus Mao Tsetung: Defend Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/wyl/hoxha/kabdonhoxha.pdf)" (among others) are actually praise.

bropasaran

11th July 2014, 13:53

Well, speaking about socialist and political and economical movement and ideology- I'd say that there are three broad movements within socialism, I will call them classical socialism, anarchism and marxism. I'll head them by A, B, C and number their sub-types (which are not unitary movements, but not so narrow groups) as a single list.

A. Classical socialism is the tradition that goes to the original socialist movement. The socialist movement came out of the Cooperative movement in 1820s in Britain. Forerunners to socialism are some Enlightenment thinkers that mention something like exploitation of the workers and/ or workers' liberation from the bosses, those are Linguet, Rousseau, Paine, Humboldt, and Godwin, and along them revolutionaries such as Winstanley and Babeuf. Direct precusors to socialism,who were part of the Cooperative movement, were Robert Owen, Charles Hall and Piercy Ravenstone. The first socialist thinker was Thomas Hodgskin with his 1824 Labor Defended, and along with him there were John Gray, John Bray and William Thompson. The basis of the original socialist theory is that workers should be free from bosses (on the job) and from parasites like the landlords and usurers; insisting on centrality of labor to production of anything they concluded that all non-laboring economic agents (like bosses and and those who make money by leding stuff, including money itself) shouldn't exist.

Inside the classical socialist movement there are two tendencies:

1. Market socialists. It basically said (and says) - workers should organize politically, effect control of the state, and the state should put all firms into the hand of the workers in them thus abolishing the bosses, and should also abolish financial exploitation by prohibing renting of stuff (including of money) and making free (/interest-free) credit available to the people. Some think that the state should be reconstructed to be directly-democratic one, some don't bother to think about that topic. Some think that state should provide some public services (healthcare, education, insurance etc), other think that it shouldn't but should keep to minimal functions. Of those "small state" socialists- some think that people should themselves (in the private sector) federate to form organizations of mutual aid to provice for such services, some think that the market is the best way to provide for almost everything including what we would call public services.

2. Democratic socialists. Workers should organize politically, effect control over the state, the state should nationalize everything and either give the nationalized economy to the workers to manage democratically or itself reform so as to be democratic so that workers get to control the production (and distribution).

B. Anarchism was formally formulated by Proudhon, in 1840s. He was originally a classical market socialist, was even in the French parliament, but later (and he hints that it was maybe exactly because of that experience) came to reject the state totally, and that's how anarchism was formally born. He was a seminal thinker, he refined the original labor theory put forth by Hodgskin and he developed the broad libertarian theory that says that we should abolish not only the boss on the job, but all bosses; we should not only strive to abolish exploitators, but also all rulers. From this tradition comes the phrase about abolishing oppressors and exploiters. "Oppressors" basically means any boss- anyone to whom some (adult, mentally able) person is subordinated to. "Exploiters" can be used encompass all the bosses, but is more generally used confined to economy- meaning just bosses on the job (employers, CEOs, managers) and also non-bosses who enrich themselves without working, but charge people for using their stuff (rentiers and people who lend money on interest). Proudhon developed the idea that the state cannot be used by the workers. We should abolish the state (and the church, meaning any "official" propaganda and educational instution) along with capitalism. That's anarchism in general.

I'd say there are five flavours of anarchists.

3. Anarcho-individualism. Individualist anarchists think that market is the best thing ever, and that every product and service should be provided on the free market, and I mean every- including public services like healthcare, education, insurance, road and bridge building, protection, defense etc.

4. Mutualism. The term "anarcho-mutualism" or "mutualist anarchism" is rare because mutualism was formulated by the same person who formulated anarchism- Proudhon. Mutualist are anarchists who think markets are ok, but not for what we would call public services (and not if there's no much of them) which they think should be provided by mutual aid organization that people form. The first of those institutions is to be the commune (also "the free commune") which is a voluntary assemlby of (ideally all) people living in some locality (village, town, municipality) that functions as it's political body, proclaims norms of libertarian socialism (meaning- no imposition of harm, no oppression and no exploitation) and establishes the people's militia to defend itself against domestic violators of the said norms (in which function it can be said that it's basically a neighborhood watch that protects against anti-social behavior) and against outside invaders (in which function it can be said that it's basically a people's insurrection). The second of those mutual aid organization is the mutual bank, which is basically a credit union, and can be as narrow as being just a place for members to take a consumer or developlment loan or as broad as encompassing insurances that are to provide public services (healthcare, education, etc) to it's members.

The third interesting institution that some mutualists advocate, is the agro-industrial federation. AIFs are wide federations that workers' coops make to opt out from the market if the markets make them increase work hours or experience market failures. There federations would ideally encompass one or two firms from all branches of industry so as to provide for all the basic needs of it's members; distribution inside of AIFs would be on the basis of credits/ scrip/ labour vauchers- meaning the more you work, the bigger share of the the AIF's product you're entitled to (with modifications for onerousness of work and number of non-able-for-work people you support), also, the AIF would provide the public services for it's members, and federations of AIFs would construct infrastructure such as roads, brignes, water systems, power grid, etc.

An-Inds and mutualists tend to be non-revolutionary anarachists, meaning they favour some sort of dual-power tacticts, where basically the working people organize among each other, establish alternative economic and political institutions, until that sort of organization and those institutions become so extensive that it effectivelly ignores away the state and capitalism, although there were revolutionary people in these traditions. Also, these two tendencies tend to overlap, some mutualist are not fond of AIFs, some An-Inds would like to see communes formed.

5. Anarcho-collectivism. Collectivist anarchists want to see the free commune to itself be the only AIF on it's territory. All citizens of the commune not only constitute a single political body, but also constitute a single economic body- funcioning as an AIF- common plan for production, distribution based on labour vauchers as explained above.

6. Anarcho-communism. Communist Anarchists want a system with the same framework as An-Col, but without the labor vaucher mechanism. There would be a common plan of production, and when what is produced is put in communal stores/ warehouses, it is not sold for labor vauchers, but people take whatever they need/ want.

These two tendecies tend to be revolutionary, these anarchists think that the working people should organize and expropriate all means of production (land, factories, etc) and of coersion (weaponry, police and military facilities, etc). Revolutionary anarchist can also advocate the dual-power tactic as "building the new society withing the shell of the old", to build the institutions of the new society that would smoothly take the place of capitalism and the state after the revolution is finished, and many do advocate such a thing.

7. Anarcho-syndicalism. An-Syn system is formally a type of An-Com, but there are some differences, so I thought I should mention them separately. Although any anarchist can support industrial unions (/syndicates), An-Syns really insist on them, they see them as the means of labor struggle, means of revolution and means of organizing the economy in an anarchist society.

I guess I should point out that all types of anarchists support workers' struggles for reforms, no anarchist (that I know of) opposses bettering the conditions of the workers in the present system, in fact, revolutionary anarchists see such struggles as a prime way to raise working class consciousness and radicalize the people.

Also, I called types of anarchism "flavors" to emphasize the 'weakness' of this differentiation, because anarchism is polycentric. Namely, no anarchist thinker ever talked about imposing his favored type of institutions of anyone, meaning there can different anarchist communities next to each other having different types of anarchist organization, and also meaning that even a single community can have different types of anarchist organization. E.g. in Anarchist Spain, where most of the economy was collectivized and functioned on the basis of An-Col or An-Com, less then 5% of communities had total collectivization, in all other communities there were people who didn't want to join, individual peasants, artisans or several workers on a farm or in a workshop, who didn't join but continued to do their thing and trade among each other (and even barter with the collectivized economies around them) basically functioning as An-Inds/ mutualists.

C. Marxism. Now, they're a little tricky bunch. I myself am an anarcho-communist, but I'll try to keep it objective. Marx and Engels developed their theories, and debated with classical socialists and anarchists of different kinds (and also various other thinker of their time) denouncing them all including holding that they're the only correct socialists, mainly because they had an entire system of philosophy (primarily a comprehensive theory of history) which classical socialists and anarchists didn't really have. On the other hand, classical socialists and anarchists denounced Marx saying that he effectively isn't a socialist. It should be noted marxism doesn't base itself on the Hodgskins/ Proudhon labor theory, but has it's own theories, and also that it gives different definitions of socialism and communism, socialism is the nationalized economy, communism (also "full communism" being that socialism is seen as "lower stage" of communism) comes after it when the state "withers away". I'd say there are three broad types of marxism:

8. Orthodox Marxism. It upheld in it's original form the thought of Marx and Engels by focusing of the philosophy of history and reformism ("gradual revolution") to "ease the birth-pangs of socialism" that will come not because of labor struggles but because of laws of history will bring it about. Basically- development of technology brings about effectual 'socialization' of production, meaning e.g. a single factory being able to satisfy the needs of some society for the product it produces; and Marx' theory says that new forces of production (/technological development) necessarily bring about new relations of production (/economic institutions), that is- a new mode of production (/economic system), so it follows that the factory like the one I mentioned be nationalized, they also took the example of industrial communications and transport as being such 'de facto socialized' parts of the economy that are 'naturally' to be (or already are) nationalized. Socialism, as Marx defined it, is to be instituted as Marx said and advocated it is to be- by legal and gradual means, and (full) communism is an eschaton that will come somewhere in the far future.

9. Authoritarian Marxism. Also Leninism or bolshevism. It differs from orthodox marxism in that is rejects reformism and advocates a revolution and a speedy nationalization of everything. One possible interpretation of this tendency is that it is an orthodox marxist movement for the "developing world", being that Marx considered reformism to be proper for capitalism (with it's the parlimentary republics) and it's transformation into socialism, not for "pre-capitalist" societies (where aristocracies rule). The more general interpretation is that it's simply a recipe for everywhere and a correct form of marxism, either because they believe Marx actually advocated it, or because capitalism has evolved into a (decaying/ imperialist) phase where it becomes a necessity. It has kept Marx' authoritarianism concerning relation of production- Marx held that any work where multiple people combine to do some work is impossible without bosses who command the workers, a view which gives some very nasty consequences when applied in a revolutionary way. There's multiple developments inside this tendency- Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc. and there have their various minor or major differences.

10. Libertarian Marxism. Also left-communism. Marx has a few libertarian sounding sentances throughout his work, and the left-communist adduce them to advocate a combination of revolutionarism and libertarianism with marxism, basically- they reject Marx' practical views, accepting "the marxist method/ theory" whatever they mean by that. The want workers to organize without any commanders over them- either in the revolutionary movement or in the future society, and conduct a revolution to abolish the state and capitalism. The system they want has similar structure to either anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism, with the difference that it's not voluntary, there would be no right to dissent and function outside the main collective economy in an An-Ind way. Together with classical socialists and anarchists they reject orthodox and authoritarian marxism by calling it state-capitalism, a system where the state is the only capitalist. I nevertheless did include those two state-capitalist movements in the list of types of socialism because formally they can be viewed as really being so, it can be said that they think that socialism (that is, it's communistic form) will be established, but first we have to trough state-capitalism in order to get to it.

consuming negativity

11th July 2014, 15:52

Anybody who uses the term "authoritarian Marxism" is not an authoritative source on information that has anything to do with Marxism. They are an anarchist and most likely one who hasn't done their research. Learning these little tricks about how people reveal themselves through their language will save you endless wading through nonsensical posts not only on these forums but everywhere.

bropasaran

11th July 2014, 15:59

Lenin:

"it must be said that large-scale machine industry—which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism—calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The technical, economic and historical necessity of this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But how can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.
... unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary ...
... revolution demands—precisely in the interests of its development and consolidation, precisely in the interests of socialism—that the people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour."

Trotsky:

"The foundations of the militarization of labor are those forms of State compulsion without which the replacement of capitalist economy by the Socialist will for ever remain an empty sound. Why do we speak of militarization? Of course, this is only an analogy – but an analogy very rich in content. No social organization except the army has ever considered itself justified in subordinating citizens to itself in such a measure, and to control them by its will on all sides to such a degree, as the State of the proletarian dictatorship considers itself justified in doing, and does."

You're right, it shouldn't be "authoritarian", it would be more precise to use- totalitarian marxism.

consuming negativity

11th July 2014, 21:00

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

11th July 2014, 21:09

The most hilarious thing - apart from impossible flogging his usual nonsense about Marx being a reformist and thinking that social change is the automatic result of technological changes, regardless of social struggles - is that he rants and raves about evil authoritarian, no wait, totalitarian Marxists, and then praises left communists who "advocate a combination of revolutionarism and libertarianism with marxism, basically- they reject Marx' practical views, accepting 'the marxist method/ theory' whatever they mean by that". I'm pretty sure that if Bordiga wasn't already dead, this would've killed him.

#FF0000

11th July 2014, 21:20

Also Libertarian socialism is as close to anarchy as Right-wing Libertarianism.

Anarchists have been identifying as libertarians, socialists, and libertarian socialists since Proudhon at least, though. Libertarian socialism and anarchism are synonymous.

Libertarian Marxism. Also left-communism

Yes, like Bordiga, that great Libertarian firebrand.

The rest of your post was mostly alright but the Marxism section is completely off.

EDIT: Uh nevermind. Individualist anarchism is not anarcho-capitalism. Individualist anarchists were very active in the early US labor movement and many where anti-capitalist.

Five Year Plan

11th July 2014, 21:22

Hoxha called Mao a bourgeois democrat and considered Maoism to be anti-Marxist. Maoists certainly don't like Hoxha, unless "Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought (https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-hoxha/index.htm)," "Enver Hoxha Refuted (http://www.bannedthought.net/SriLanka/Sanmugathasan/HoxhaRefuted.htm)" and "Hoxha versus Mao Tsetung: Defend Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/wyl/hoxha/kabdonhoxha.pdf)" (among others) are actually praise.

This might be a useful way of going about determining the relationship between two sets of political ideas if the nature of a person's political views were decided solely on the basis of who claimed to "like" whom and what this person "called" that person.

As it stands, that sounds more like the Jerry Springer show than a political analysis.

Trap Queen Voxxy

11th July 2014, 21:50

"One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich."

Joking aside don't forget Communalism

Also Libertarian socialism is as close to anarchy as Right-wing Libertarianism.
Anarchy (generally) means society without a publicly enforced government
where as most Libertarians want Minarchism. A night watchmen state whose only job is to protect the people.

Say joke one more time mothafucka, I dare ya. Say joke again.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UPHuE5pDlEs/0.jpg

Also this list of Anarchist 'tendencies' that someone posted is kinda lame.

Ismail

12th July 2014, 05:01

As it stands, that sounds more like the Jerry Springer show than a political analysis.Apparently the articles I linked to aren't actually political polemics by prominent Maoists against Hoxha's criticisms of Maoism, they instead claim that Hoxha slept with Mao's mom while unbeknownst to Hoxha both engage in threesomes with transgendered sex workers behind his back. What a great comparison.

It's sounds no more "like the Jerry Springer show" than posting articles by Trotskyists decrying "Stalinism" and claiming that it usurped the glorious banner of Leninism or whatever as a way of demonstrating that Trots are not, in fact, "Stalinists." If you'd like me to demonstrate why Hoxha was not a Maoist then I'd be glad to do so, I just didn't feel it was particularly warranted given the fact that the person who made the list probably doesn't care much. I've already written a long article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Albanian_split) on the subject.

Five Year Plan

12th July 2014, 05:06

Apparently the articles I linked to aren't actually political polemics by prominent Maoists against Hoxha's criticisms of Maoism, they instead claim that Hoxha slept with Mao's mom while unbeknownst to Hoxha both engage in threesomes with transgendered sex workers behind his back. What a great comparison.

It's sounds no more "like the Jerry Springer show" than posting articles by Trotskyists decrying "Stalinism" and claiming that it usurped the glorious banner of Leninism or whatever as a way of demonstrating that Trots are not, in fact, "Stalinists." If you'd like me to demonstrate why Hoxha was not a Maoist then I'd be glad to do so, I just didn't feel it was particularly warranted given the fact that the person who made the list probably doesn't care much.

Your post made me laugh, so the thanks. But seriously, I am basing the judgment not off the links (which I didn't view), but off your summary of the links, which I did view. Trotsky obsession ignored.

Can you summarize the political disagreements between them that rise to the level of programmatic principles?

Ismail

12th July 2014, 05:11

My summary of the links are that Maoists don't like Hoxha, and "Hoxhaists" don't like Mao, ergo it makes little sense to call those who uphold Hoxha Maoists when they certainly don't identify as such nor particularly warrant the label.

Also I gave the Trot comparison because you are, in fact, a Trot. If you were Remus Bleys I'd mention Bordiga denouncing universal suffrage or something as proof that he and Stalin differed on quite a few things.

Can you summarize the political disagreements between them that rise to the level of programmatic principles?Sure. Hoxha thought that "New Democracy" (the method Mao claimed to have come into power on the basis of) was anti-Marxist, he claimed that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was a "putsch on an all-China scale" (his words) and not the greatest advance towards communism yet achieved by man, he claimed that Mao's conception of a "two-line struggle" within a party was a right-wing deviation of Marxism, and Albanian materials criticized Mao's strategy of "protracted people's war" as well. Those four alone are, I feel, sufficient to reach the conclusion that those who uphold Hoxha's criticisms of Mao are not, in fact, Maoists. Considering that Trots think that adhering to the view that socialism can be built in a single country is sufficient to damn everyone from Stalin to Tito and Castro to Gorbachev as "Stalinists," it seems more than sufficient to reject the entirety of Mao's doctrines in order to qualify as "X is not Maoist."

Five Year Plan

12th July 2014, 05:17

My summary of the links are that Maoists don't like Hoxha, and "Hoxhaists" don't like Mao, ergo it makes little sense to call those who uphold Hoxha Maoists when they certainly don't identify as such nor particularly warrant the label.

Right, and there are a lot of "Trots" I don't like. Some on this very forum. Does that mean that they aren't Trots? Not a convincing argument at all.

Sure. Hoxha thought that "New Democracy" (the method Mao claimed to have come into power on the basis of) was anti-Marxist, he claimed that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was a "putsch on an all-China scale" (his words) and not the greatest advance towards communism yet achieved by man, he claimed that Mao's conception of a "two-line struggle" within a party was a right-wing deviation of Marxism, and Albanian materials criticized Mao's strategy of "protracted people's war" as well. Those four alone are, I feel, sufficient to reach the conclusion that those who uphold Hoxha's criticisms of Mao are not, in fact, Maoists.

Didn't Hoxha have his own cultural revolution in the 1960s? On the basis of what principle did Hoxha declare Mao's own cultural revolution a "putsch"?

In fact, the cultural revolution was Mao's way of shoring up his power vis-a-vis lower-level cadres by mobilizing support form popular masses. Getty in his latest book "Practicing Stalinism" makes this very clear. Other ways of doing this in societies with state-controlled economies were outright purges, which Hoxha conducted on a frequent basis. So I would actually love to hear the principle that differentiated the two regimes. It really just sounds an in-house dispute of the kind that I have with other Trots, rather than a matter of programmatic principle.

Now, the "two-line" point you make does sound like it could be a possibly large disagreement. Could you expound on this?

Five Year Plan

12th July 2014, 05:26

My summary of the links are that Maoists don't like Hoxha, and "Hoxhaists" don't like Mao, ergo it makes little sense to call those who uphold Hoxha Maoists when they certainly don't identify as such nor particularly warrant the label.

Right, and there are a lot of "Trots" I don't like. Some on this very forum. Does that mean that they aren't Trots? Not a convincing argument at all.

Sure. Hoxha thought that "New Democracy" (the method Mao claimed to have come into power on the basis of) was anti-Marxist, he claimed that the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was a "putsch on an all-China scale" (his words) and not the greatest advance towards communism yet achieved by man, he claimed that Mao's conception of a "two-line struggle" within a party was a right-wing deviation of Marxism, and Albanian materials criticized Mao's strategy of "protracted people's war" as well. Those four alone are, I feel, sufficient to reach the conclusion that those who uphold Hoxha's criticisms of Mao are not, in fact, Maoists.

Didn't Hoxha have his own cultural revolution in the 1960s? On the basis of what principle did Hoxha declare Mao's own cultural revolution a "putsch"?

In fact, the cultural revolution was Mao's way of shoring up his power vis-a-vis lower-level cadres by mobilizing support form popular masses. Getty in his latest book "Practicing Stalinism" makes this very clear. Other ways of doing this in societies with state-controlled economies were outright purges, which Hoxha conducted on a frequent basis. So I would actually love to hear the principle that differentiated the two regimes. It really just sounds an in-house dispute of the kind that I have with other Trots, rather than a matter of programmatic principle.

Now, the "two-line" point you make does sound like it could be a possibly large disagreement. Could you expound on this?

Ismail

12th July 2014, 05:43

Didn't Hoxha have his own cultural revolution in the 1960s?The term "cultural revolution" was used by Lenin and Stalin, Mao appropriated it (just like Khrushchev and Co. appropriated "peaceful coexistence") for his own ends. The Albanian use of the term was consistent with that used by Lenin and Stalin.

As I noted in the article I wrote:

[The Albanian Cultural and Ideological Revolution] was presented as "a continuation and deepening of policies, programs, and efforts undertaken by Albania over a period of some twenty years," with other differences being that Hoxha's presence was never given "the symbolic and mystical stature in the Albanian revolution that Mao Tse-tung enjoyed in China," there was no inner-party factional struggle at the root of Albanian initiative, the Albanian army played no significant role in events, and there were no Albanian equivalents to the Red Guards nor was there an "influx of supporters of the revolution from the provinces to Tiranë. . . no public purges, no turmoil in the State University of Tiranë or dislocations of the school system, and no damaging blow to the economy as a result of changes brought on by the revolution."I quoted Peter R. Prifti's Socialist Albania since 1944, a bourgeois work by an acknowledged expert on Albania at the time.

Furthermore, as I noted in my article,

In October 1966 Hoxha delivered a speech to a plenum of the CC of the PLA titled "Some Preliminary Ideas about the Chinese Proletarian Cultural Revolution," noting that, "We have been informed about and have followed the recent developments in China only through the Chinese press and Hsinhua. The Communist Party of China and its Central Committee have not given our Party and its Central Committee any special comradely information. We think that as a party so closely linked with ours, it ought to have kept us better informed in an internationalist way, especially during these recent months." Hoxha analyzed the events in China in an overall negative fashion, criticizing among other things the fact that the CCP had not held a congress in ten years and that four years had gone by without a plenum of the CC being called, a practice which "cannot be found in any Marxist-Leninist party." Hoxha said that "the cult of Mao was raised to the skies in a sickening and artificial manner" and further added that, in reading of its purported objectives, "you have the impression that everything old in Chinese and world culture should be rejected without discrimination and a new culture, the culture they call proletarian, should be created." He further stated that, "It is difficult for us to call this revolution, as the 'Red Guards' are carrying it out, a Proletarian Cultural Revolution. . . the enemies could and should be captured by the organs of the dictatorship on the basis of the law, and if the enemies have wormed their way into the party committees, let them be purged through party channels. Or in the final analysis, arm the working class and attack the committees, but not with children."

On the basis of what principle did Hoxha declare Mao's own cultural revolution a "putsch"?To quote from Hoxha's Imperialism and the Revolution, pp. 391-392:

"When we saw that this Cultural Revolution was not being led by the party but was a chaotic outburst following a call issued by Mao Tsetung, this did not seem to us to be a revolutionary stand. It was Mao's authority in China that made millions of unorganized youth, students and pupils, rise to their feet and march on Peking, on party and state committees, which they dispersed. It was said that these young people represented the 'proletarian ideology' in China at that time and would show the party and the proletarians the 'true' road! Such a revolution, which had a pronounced political character, was called a cultural revolution. In our Party's opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this 'great proletarian revolution'...

Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded....

This revolution was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements."

Thus he noted that Mao used, discarded, and rehabilitated people like Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Lin Piao, the Gang of Four, etc. at various times throughout the "GPCR." There was no revolution, it was a power-struggle between different anti-Marxist groups.

Now, the "two-line" point you make does sound like it could be a possibly large disagreement. Could you expound on this?To quote the previous work by Hoxha, pp. 399-401:

"Mao Tsetung himself has advocated the need for the existence of 'two lines' in the party. According to him, the existence and struggle between two lines is something natural, is a manifestation of the unity of the opposites, is a flexible policy which unites in itself both loyalty to principles and compromise. 'Thus,' he writes, 'we have two hands to deal with a comrade who has made mistakes: one hand to struggle with him and the other to unite with him. The aim of this struggle is to uphold the principles of Marxism, which means being principled; that is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is to unite with him. The aim of unity is to offer him a way out, to reach a compromise with him'.

These views are diametrically opposed to the Leninist teachings on the communist party as an organized vanguard detachment which must have a single line and steel unity of thought and action.

The class struggle in the ranks of the party, as a reflection of the class struggle going on outside the party, has nothing in common with Mao Tsetung's concepts on the 'two lines in the party' ... J.V. Stalin emphasized:

'...the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes'.

Mao Tsetung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the 'proletarian staff' and the 'bourgeois staff', which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of the right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous. 'The entire country,' he says, 'the whole world knows well that they have made mistakes in the line and the fact that they are well known is precisely the reason for electing them. What can you do about it? They are well known, but you who have made no mistakes or have made only small ones don't have as big a reputation as theirs. In a country like ours with its very large petty-bourgeoisie they are two standards'. While renouncing principled struggle in the ranks of the party, Mao Tsetung played the game of factions, sought compromise with some of them to counter some others and thus consolidate his own positions.

With such an organizational platform, the Communist Party of China has never been and never could be a Marxist-Leninist party."

TheWannabeAnarchist

12th July 2014, 06:19

Ismail

12th July 2014, 06:27

Did they actually say these things? And if they did, what do these quotes mean in context? This doesn't look like anything close to what Lenin and Trotsky stood for.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/x03.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm

They're both from fairly well known writings of theirs. The former is talking about the necessity of one-man management in the factories considering the condition the country was in at the time, not "BOW TO ME, YOUR SOVIET LEADER" or whatever which is what the excerpts are arranged to imply. As he says in the same work, "We must learn to combine the 'public meeting' democracy of the working people—turbulent, surging, overflowing its banks like a spring flood—with iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader, while at work." The manager is supposed to be accountable not only to the state which appoints him, but also to the trade unions and local organs of the party and state which check on his work.

As an aside, are there any "totalitarian" Stalin quotes?

consuming negativity

12th July 2014, 13:29

Apparently the articles I linked to aren't actually political polemics by prominent Maoists against Hoxha's criticisms of Maoism, they instead claim that Hoxha slept with Mao's mom while unbeknownst to Hoxha both engage in threesomes with transgendered sex workers behind his back. What a great comparison.

It's sounds no more "like the Jerry Springer show" than posting articles by Trotskyists decrying "Stalinism" and claiming that it usurped the glorious banner of Leninism or whatever as a way of demonstrating that Trots are not, in fact, "Stalinists." If you'd like me to demonstrate why Hoxha was not a Maoist then I'd be glad to do so, I just didn't feel it was particularly warranted given the fact that the person who made the list probably doesn't care much. I've already written a long article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Albanian_split) on the subject.

I made the list. It was a reference to the Albanians supporting the Chinese up until they also split with them. You seem to know more about the intricacies of the relationship than I do so I didn't see much point in responding as it wasn't meant to be a scholarly, superior list of ideologies but rather a quick list with a basic, short explanation. Using it as a base, then, to support your furthering of the discussion is just fine with me.

Ismail

12th July 2014, 22:35

I made the list. It was a reference to the Albanians supporting the Chinese up until they also split with them.The Chinese also supported the Albanians up until they split with them, that obviously wouldn't make the Chinese "Hoxhaists" though.

The Albanians noted that they supported China's stands when they were in accord with Marxism-Leninism. Bourgeois observers noted how coldly the Albanians treated the visits of Kissinger and Nixon to China, for instance. Nor did the Albanians like the fact that Mao kept on bringing up Chinese territorial claims to Soviet territory and Mongolia, and wrote to them as such.

As Hoxha wrote after the split, discussing the years 1960-61, "we were quite clear that [the Soviet revisionists] did not proceed from principled positions in the accusations they were making against the Chinese party. As became even clearer later, the differences were over a series of matters of principle which, at that time, the Chinese seemed to maintain correct stands. Both in the official speeches of the Chinese leaders and in their published articles, especially in the one entitled 'Long Live Leninism (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/LLL60.html)', the Chinese party treated the problems in a theoretically correct way and opposed the Khrushchevites." (The Khrushchevites, 1984, p. 398.)

Hoxha writes in Imperialism and the Revolution of the fact that the Chinese gave the Albanians hardly any information about developments in China, keeping them in the dark about many things. This is confirmed by Hoxha's political journal (the two-volume Reflections on China whose entries range from 1962 to 1977), in his speech to the 1966 plenum of the Central Committee of the PLA I mentioned in an earlier post, etc.

When the Albanians refused to endorse the "three worlds theory" propagated by Mao and the concurrent rapprochement with US imperialism, the Chinese exerted economic and political pressure on Albania. When the Albanians refused to alter their stands the Chinese responded by cutting off all trade and virtually all diplomatic relations.

As I said, my article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Albanian_split) explains this quite well.

bropasaran

12th July 2014, 22:44

Thank you for demonstrating my point perfectly for our "learning" audience.
Which is exactly what I did. You objected to the use of term "authoritarian" for bolshevism, and I have shown that indeed 'totalitarian' is more fitting.

apart from impossible flogging his usual nonsense about Marx being a reformist and thinking that social change is the automatic result of technological changes
Which what Marx wrote. If you have some "secret knowledge" of what Marx thought, but didn't advocate in public, then keep it to yourself, good for you.

PhoenixAsh

12th July 2014, 23:03

We use the term authoritarian marxists/communists/socialists to differentiate and use it to designate those non-anarchists who argue for post revolution property and bourgeois state institutions as a means of transfering from capitalism towards, what they think, will bring communism. If your only argument against this that it is falsely misapplied when it comes to left-communists well...that kind of makes for an empty argument. And if you are under the impression that arguments of anarchist terror, which is neither property nor state and takes place prior to and during a revolution, actually disprove this well then you need to brush up on your theory.

Basically it is a more polite term for "closet state capitalists" but if you perfer the latter then by all means...

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 00:19

Which what Marx wrote. If you have some "secret knowledge" of what Marx thought, but didn't advocate in public, then keep it to yourself, good for you.

Your interpretations of what Marx wrote are grossly off-base, and this has been conclusively demonstrated to you on so many previous occasions, without any apparent effect on you, that the people who would otherwise have an interest in engaging in another round of debate with you over your poor interpretive skills aren't even going to bother anymore.

Not only is your interpretation wildly off the mark from a purely textual perspective, it contradicts literally the entirety of Marx's adult life as somebody who actively fought for communism, which of course makes no sense for a person to do if he believed that the establishment of communism would be the automatic result of forces of production playing themselves out.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 03:01

My interpretation of Marx cannot be off base/ mark because I simply don't have one. The only interpretation of Marx that I have is that I assume that he meant what he wrote. You whining about how that's not what he meant proves only something about your irrationality.

Marx fought for communism? Sorry, but you don't seem to have a clue what kind of measures Marx proposed, namely- welfare reforms and gradual nationalization. If that's communism, then I'm queen Elizabeth. He even got into an argument near the end of his life with Guesde and Lafargue, called their anti-reformism "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and said that if they are marxists, then he himself certainly isn't a marxist.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 03:08

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 03:21

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 03:31

Sure he did. He called for workers' revolution, it is true, but is also misleading.

Firstly, he was clear that "Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property relations" and that communists know "that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes."

And your quotes say exactly what? That some forms of technology contradict some sets of property relations. How do you think the contradiction is resolved in a revolution? By hand-mills and steam engines rising up in arms and seizing the government? Where do you see Marx saying that forces of production literally "do" things independent of human activity? The best you can do is point to statements of a logical relationship between forces of production, spoken of in abstraction from relations of production, being compatible with or requiring (or "giving," in a metaphorical sense) certain production or property relations.

Secondly, he considered what we would call electioneering and reformism are a path to revolution. He said that establishing universal suffrage means establishing "dominance of the proletariat", when a political party of the proletariat wins the elections, the elections will be "transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation", and said that the revolution will proceed "by degree", by "gradual expropriation".Since this requires so little effort, in light of how you've literally said the exact same thing before, I will just copy-paste my previous reply to your reference to "gradual expropriation." Read it again, and try rebutting it this time, instead of running away and repeating your stupidity in some other random thread.

Yes, Marx doesn't only use the term "revolution" to refer to a single act or explosion of violent political expropriation. He uses the term also to refer to the process (not instantaneous moment) of transitioning "gradually" from capitalism to socialism under the dictatorship of the proletariat, through realizing the transitional measures he spells out in the Communist Manifesto (here, some of the left communists who insist on calling a state "capitalist" just because remnants of capitalism still exist in society should take notice). Those measures occur, as Marx says, "under the dominance of the proletariat," after a revolutionary expropriation of the bourgeoisie has occurred, not as the means of gradually winning political power through a process of reforms.

In other words, while there's talk of a process of transition unfolding through time, there's not a single indication that this process occurs without the proletariat first forcibly seizing state power in a revolution.

Marx refers to the proletariat overthrowing the bourgeois state, then using state power to effect a transition from capitalism to communism, which entails a program of transitional measures (the much misunderstood concept of a "transitional program"). Nothing in this passage supports your interpretation, and everything else Marx and Engels ever wrote on the question contradicts it.

You keep mashing together "electioneering" with "gradual expropriation," and conflating political expropriation (taking state power) with economic expropriation (taking control of productive property). None of the quotes you provided say anything about how POLITICAL expropriation being gradual, or that it would occur through bourgeois elections. You just invent this idea by assembling together keywords that Marx and Engels were using to convey a very different set of points: that following political expropriation, the process of economic transition takes time and is gradual. What you're doing is pointing to the word "gradual" that Marx and Engels employ to argue to describe the process of the economic transition to communism under a dictatorship of the proletariat, and to argue against the ultra-left idea that communism is established the day after the revolution. Then you conflate this gradual process of revolutionizing the mode of production, in part through extending the revolution to other societies, and try to make it seems like Marx and Engels were saying that the proletariat could gradually acquire state power through a series of bourgeois elections.

It's such a horrible bastardization of Marx's writings that it clearly isn't the result of sloppiness or carelessness. You literally have to work hard and try to deceptively misconstrue things to botch Marx this badly. This is why I am fairly certain you are a troll.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 03:50

And your quotes say exactly what? That some forms of technology contradict some sets of property relations. How do you think the contradiction is resolved in a revolution? By hand-mills and steam engines rising up in arms and seizing the government? Where do you see Marx saying that forces of production literally "do" things independent of human activity? The best you can do is point to statements of a logical relationship between forces of production, spoken of in abstraction from relations of production, being compatible with or requiring (or "giving," in a metaphorical sense) certain production or property relations.
What he says is clear. "Revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes."

here, some of the left communists who insist on calling a state "capitalist" just because remnants of capitalism still exist in society should take notice
Or because they come to realize that nationalization means having the state as a capitalist and the nomenklatura as oppressors and exploiters.

In other words, while there's talk of a process of transition unfolding through time, there's not a single indication that this process occurs without the proletariat first forcibly seizing state power in a revolution.
I have said nothing to contradict this. In fact I have said explicitly that- "when a political party of the proletariat wins the elections..."

You keep mashing together "electioneering" with "gradual expropriation,"
I didn't do that once. You keep misrepresenting what I say and then "rebut" it, thinking that proves me wrong. I don't get why would waste time elaborating on something I allegedly said, when I said nothing of the sorts. Marx was clear, and I have clearly presented his views: first comes electioneering- the "first step of the revolution", when the political party of the proletarian gets into power, then comes the reformism- the revolution proceeds by "gradual expropriations". In explaining how I supposedly "bastardized" Marx' views and presenting what he actually said you just admitted that what I have said his view are is correct- he advocated electioneering and reformism. That's exactly my point, and as I have said on other topics- just two more reasons to reject Marx if one is interested in emancipation of the working people.

motion denied

13th July 2014, 04:04

And Sotionov manages to drag one more thread to the sewer with him...

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:04

What he says is clear. "Revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes."

Yes, what he says is clear. Where we differ is in our interpretations of what he clearly wrote.

I have said nothing to contradict this. In fact I have said explicitly that- "when a political party of the proletariat wins the elections..."

Actually when you talk about the proletariat winning a revolution through bourgeois elections, you are contradicting what I said and what Marx said. Marx talked about revolution as the result of the proletariat forcibly seizing power.

You cannot show any passage, not one, where Marx talked about workers using bourgeois elections to achieve a revolution. And you never will be able to, because such a passage from Marx doesn't exist. All that exists are your bogus, trollish claims that Marx believed X and Marx believed Y, without any textual evidence to support those claims whatsoever, and A LOT of textual evidence demonstrating the contrary.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 04:10

Where we differ is in our interpretations of what he clearly wrote.
I am not giving any interpretation. His words are clear.

You cannot show any passage, not one, where Marx talked about workers using bourgeois elections to achieve a revolution.
I've shown that he advocated electioneering and reformism, and that's enough, that was point. You can whine all you want and try and obfuscate what he said and what I'm saying, but that isn't going to change the facts.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:12

I am not giving any interpretation. His words are clear.

Yes, and his words state that people don't will revolutions into existence, but are the product of people reconciling objective contradictions. Do you disagree? Well, then it looks like you'll have to challenge my interpretation with your own.

I've shown that he advocated electioneering and reformism, and that's enough, that was point. You can whine all you want and try and obfuscate what he said and what I'm saying, but that isn't going to change the facts.No, you've shown that he supported participating in bourgeois elections and fighting for reforms. What you haven't shown is that he viewed these as sufficient for a "revolution" to occur (the process of reforms gradually piling up until a peaceful growing over into socialism occurs being "reformism").

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 04:16

Yes, and his words state that people don't will revolutions into existence, but are the product of people reconciling objective contradictions. Do you disagree?
I can't know what kind of attitudes and views you imbued in your rephrasing of Marx' words.

No, you've shown that he supported participating in bourgeois elections and fighting for reforms. What you haven't shown is that he viewed these as sufficient for a revolution to occur.
He said universal suffrage means "dominance of the proletariat", and that elections will be "transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation". That's electioneering. He said that the revolution will proceed "by degree", by "gradual expropriation". That's reformism.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 04:16

well...to be entirely fair:

“I don’t see why it should necessarily represent an infringement of the Social-Democratic principle if a man puts up candidates for some political office for which election is required and if he votes for those candidates, even if he is engaged in an attempt to abolish that office.
“One might consider that the best way to abolish the Presidency and the Senate in America would be to elect to those posts men who had pledged themselves to bring about their abolition; it would then be logical for one to act accordingly. Others might consider this method to be inexpedient; it’s a debatable point. There could be circumstances in which such a mode of action might also involve a denial of the revolutionary principle; why it should always and invariably be so, I entirely fail to see.”
— “Engels to F. Wiesen,” 14 March 1893

Even when there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces, and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be seduced by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the democratic party and making it possible for the reactionaries to win. The ultimate intention of all such phrases is to dupe the proletariat. The advance which the proletarian party is bound to make by such independent action is indefinitely more important than the disadvantage that might be incurred by the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.6

Marx

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:20

I agree that Marx said that.

He said universal suffrage means "dominance of the proletariat", and that the elections will be "transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation". That's electioneering. He said that the revolution will proceed "by degree", by "gradual expropriation". That's reformism.

Do you mind posting the Marx quote about "dominance of the proletariat" so we can all see for ourselves what Marx was clearly saying? I've searched the Marxist Internet Archive for that character string, and nothing comes up.

And yes, Marx did say that universal suffrage would be transformed ... by a forcible revolutionary process. So again, you selectively quote in order to paint a misleading picture, as if universal suffrage is doing the transforming. It's not. It is the thing transformed. I've said this to you before, and you had no reply then. I am guessing you'll have no reply now, and will just go merrily on your way repeating your ridiculous nonsense in other threads.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:25

well...to be entirely fair:

“I don’t see why it should necessarily represent an infringement of the Social-Democratic principle if a man puts up candidates for some political office for which election is required and if he votes for those candidates, even if he is engaged in an attempt to abolish that office.
“One might consider that the best way to abolish the Presidency and the Senate in America would be to elect to those posts men who had pledged themselves to bring about their abolition; it would then be logical for one to act accordingly. Others might consider this method to be inexpedient; it’s a debatable point. There could be circumstances in which such a mode of action might also involve a denial of the revolutionary principle; why it should always and invariably be so, I entirely fail to see.”
— “Engels to F. Wiesen,” 14 March 1893

Which is Engels saying that voting for revolutionaries pledging to abolish the very governmental office they're running to fill isn't necessarily a rejection of revolutionary principle. Why you bring this up as though it proves that Marx and Engels thought that bourgeois elections, alone, were a sufficient means sufficient for workers' expropriation is puzzling to me.

Maybe if you actually provided some commentary on the quote instead of just posting it, matters might become clearer why you are posting it.

Even when there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces, and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be seduced by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the democratic party and making it possible for the reactionaries to win. The ultimate intention of all such phrases is to dupe the proletariat. The advance which the proletarian party is bound to make by such independent action is indefinitely more important than the disadvantage that might be incurred by the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.6
Marx

Which is Marx saying that revolutionaries should participate in bourgeois elections. Lenin advocated it, too. What's your point?

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 04:30

Do you mind posting the Marx quote about "dominance of the proletariat" so we can all see for ourselves what Marx was clearly saying?
"What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat."

And yes, Marx did say that universal suffrage would be transformed ... by a forcible revolutionary process.
If being elected is a forcible process, then yes. He says that elections will be the instrument of emancipation, it can't be clearer.

The words are from the program he wrote for a French party. He says "The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections". Unless electioneering is a forcible revolutionary process, then you're just full of bullshit.

So again, you selectively quote in order to paint a misleading picture, as if universal suffrage is doing the transforming. It's not. It is the thing transformed.
What is wrong with you? You are again misrepresenting what is said, and "rebutting" it by saying exactly what I've said. Yes, it is the elections that will be transformed. Elections were an instrument of deception, but when the party of the proletariat wins the elections, they will become the instrument of emancipation.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 04:33

well...the first quote is Engels saying that the parliamentary road leads to the abolition of the state. So that is evidentially enough in his opinion.

Marx and Engels both kept the option for a peaceful road towards the communist goal open through much of their publications and letters. This peaceful road included mainly the parliamentary road. This wasn't the only raod as evident from the following:

“We know that the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means. That being true we must also admit that in most countries on the Continent it is force which must be the lever of our revolution; it is force which will have to be resorted to for a time in order to establish the rule of the workers.”
— Marx, “On the Hague Congress,” 8 September 1872

But non the less...the parliamentary road was seen as a viable course of action in specific conditions and countries.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:35

"What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat."

Yes, exactly what I said. Universal suffrage is transformed by something else: the revolution. The revolution will establish a democratic constitution. Your argument is that Marx and Engels claimed that universal suffrage, alone, would establish the revolution. You have things the wrong way round.

If being elected is a forcible process, then yes. He says that elections will be the instrument of emancipation, it can't be clearer.I don't see the words "instrument of emancipation" anywhere in that quote. So maybe you should try cleaning your reading glasses and re-reading that passage again. In fact, I don't even see the word election in that quote. Could you be any more dishonest in what the quote is clearly saying?

The words are from the program he wrote for a French party. He says "The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections". Unless electioneering is a forcible revolutionary process, then you're just full of bullshit.Marx told the French socialists to participate in an election. Since when was that the same as claiming that the election would be the means through which the workers would overthrow the bourgeoisie politically?

Are you an idiot? You are again misrepresenting what is said, and "rebutting" it by saying exactly what I've said. Yes, it is the elections that will be transformed. Elections were an instrument of deception, but when the party of the proletariat wins the elections, they will become the instrument of emancipation.Um, I've said that the election process will be transformed by workers' mass action outside the electoral arena, backed up by threats of the use of violence (and potentially the actual use of defensive violence). You are saying that the election process will be transformed by...the election process. Please try reading again, this time more carefully, before responding. If you think we're saying the exact same thing, you are quite the dimwit.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 04:42

Yes, exactly what I said. Universal suffrage is transformed by something else: the revolution.
The meaning is plain- having a system of universal suffrage means having the dominance of the proletariat. That plain meaning is supported by the fact that he wrote programs for elections.

I don't see the words "instrument of emancipation" anywhere in that quote.
"universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation."

Marx told the French people to participate in an election. Since when was that the same as claiming that the election would be the means through which the workers would overthrow the bourgeoisie politically?
"The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections"

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:48

well...the first quote is Engels saying that the parliamentary road leads to the abolition of the state. So that is evidentially enough in his opinion.

Really? Where do you see that in his quote?

Marx and Engels both kept the option for a peaceful road towards the communist goal open through much of their publications and letters. This peaceful road included mainly the parliamentary road. This wasn't the only raod as evident from the following:

“We know that the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means. That being true we must also admit that in most countries on the Continent it is force which must be the lever of our revolution; it is force which will have to be resorted to for a time in order to establish the rule of the workers.”
— Marx, “On the Hague Congress,” 8 September 1872

But non the less...the parliamentary road was seen as a viable course of action in specific conditions and countries.

Yes, these are quotes that people love to trot out now and again. Marx and Engels were envisioning a very specific and narrow historical situation, long since past in the present day, in which workers' activity, self-arming and organization would enable them to intimidate a virtually non-existent state bureaucracy into not tampering with, or attempt to prevent, workers' escalating success in bourgeois elections stemming from their struggle outside of the electoral arena. The balance of the force of arms, before the existence of large standing armies of the kind that existed on the continent, was so heavily slanted in favor of the exploited that the smashing of the state machine could occur through a continuity of existing electoral forms and institutions.

Nothing in any of these quotes even remotely hints at the meaning that impossible, and apparently you, want to assign to them: that if enough people would vote for somebody like Henry George in the 19th century, and not break any laws, then the revolution could be carried out with a wink and a nod by the bourgeoisie.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 04:53

The meaning is plain- having a system of universal suffrage means having the dominance of the proletariat. That plain meaning is supported by the fact that he wrote programs for elections.

"universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation."

Yes, for the fifteenth time, suffrage WILL BE TRANSFORMED by the revolution. It will not BE the revolution or CAUSE the revolution. After the revolution, suffrage becomes an instrument of emancipation. Before the revolution? It's an instrument of deceiving the gullible. You know, people like you.

How many times do I need to say that before it will sink into your head?

"The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections"Marx, Engels, and Lenin all encouraged socialists to enter bourgeois elections as a means of struggle and to assist in organizing workers. That's not what's up for dispute. In fact, I can actually refer you to excellent books that examine Marx's, Engels', and Lenin's views on this very topic. What is being disputed is your claim that entering and voting elections, by itself, is the instrument by which proletarians will politically expropriate the bourgeoisie.

You can't provide any textual evidence that Marx or Engels believed anything remotely like that, so you just keep re-pasting these quotes that say nothing at all like what you are claiming they do.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 04:59

Yes, for the fifteenth time, suffrage WILL BE TRANSFORMED by the revolution.
No, the first step of the revolution is winning the elections, and that winning transforms the elections in the instrument of emancipation. The elections will be the instrument of emancipation, that's what Marx says, no "forcible revolutionary process"- elections will be the instrument of emancipation.

What is being disputed is your claim that entering and voting elections, by itself, is the instrument by which proletarians will politically expropriate the bourgeoisie.
"The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections". The words are clear. Entering the elections is a means of struggle for the aim of political and economic expropriation of the capitalists.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 05:05

No, the first step of the revolution is winning the elections, and that winning transforms the elections in the instrument of emancipation. The elections will be the instrument of emancipation, that's what Marx says, no "forcible revolutionary process"- elections will be the instrument of emancipation.

You post a quote where Marx talks about suffrage being transformed by some external force from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation, then insist it means that the transformation will occur as the result of suffrage.

Your evidence for this? The fact that Marx uses the phrase "instrument of emancipation." But then you completely ignore that the quote presents this quality of being "emancipatory" as the RESULT of a process, not its cause. If you want to debate whether this process that transforms suffrage is shifting tides, communists accepting Jesus, or any other number of silly things, that's fine. But the one possibility that is DEFINITELY ruled out by the very quote you are posting is that suffrage, taken by itself, does anything besides deceive before it is TRANSFORMED by some outside force.

"The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections". The words are clear. Entering the elections is a means of struggle for the aim of political and economic expropriation of the capitalists.For the umpteenth time: entering the elections is a means by which socialists struggle to expropriate the bourgeoisie. Recognizing that does not establish your claim that bourgeois parliamentarism, combined with universal suffrage, is sufficient to carry out a proletarian revolution.

Repeat after me: one possible means by which you can pursue a goal, and the sufficient means for achieving a goal. Do you not understanding the elementary logical distinction between these two things?

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 05:10

You post a quote where Marx talks about suffrage being transformed by some external force
Where does he say that? It says exactly the opposite- no "external force" is mentioned. There is no "forcible process" that is the instrument of emancipation, the elections were an instrument of deception, but now when the party of the proletarian wins it, the elections are the instrument of emancipation.

entering the elections is a means by which socialists struggle to expropriate the bourgeoisie.
Elections are the means of struggle for the aim of political and economic expropriation of the capitalists. You struggle for political and economic expropriation of the capitalists by entering the election, not by something else, to which entering the elections is a secondary aid.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 05:16

Where does he say that? It says exactly the opposite- no "external force" is mentioned. There is no "forcible process" that is the instrument of emancipation, the elections were an instrument of deception, but now when the party of the proletarian wins it, the elections are the instrument of emancipation.

If no external event or force or process is mentioned, then answer this simple question: what transforms suffrage from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation?

Here's a hint: any logical reading of the quote can't say that "suffrage" or "elections" transforms suffrage. Why? Because that is an instrument of deception, not an instrument of emancipation, at least until something external to suffrage intervenes.

Elections are the means of struggle for the aim of political and economic expropriation of the capitalists. You struggle for political and economic expropriation of the capitalists by entering the election.

Repeat after me: one possible means by which you can pursue a goal, and the sufficient means for achieving a goal.

Repeat after me: one possible means by which you can pursue a goal, and the sufficient means for achieving a goal.

Maybe if I wave my hands in from of my computer monitor, I can hypnotize you into understanding a basic logical distinction that everybody else understands instantly.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 13:33

Really? Where do you see that in his quote?

Right in the middle there.

Yes, these are quotes that people love to trot out now and again. Marx and Engels were envisioning a very specific and narrow historical situation, long since past in the present day, in which workers' activity, self-arming and organization would enable them to intimidate a virtually non-existent state bureaucracy into not tampering with, or attempt to prevent, workers' escalating success in bourgeois elections stemming from their struggle outside of the electoral arena. The balance of the force of arms, before the existence of large standing armies of the kind that existed on the continent, was so heavily slanted in favor of the exploited that the smashing of the state machine could occur through a continuity of existing electoral forms and institutions.

That was a very long sentence that didn't really make any sense since both the US and the English had standing armies and a deep rooted military tradition and were far from being easilly intimidated by some armed workers. Nor did they have a seriously underdeveloped state bureaucracy.

Nothing in any of these quotes even remotely hints at the meaning that impossible, and apparently you, want to assign to them: that if enough people would vote for somebody like Henry George in the 19th century, and not break any laws, then the revolution could be carried out with a wink and a nod by the bourgeoisie.

Actually the quotes specifically show that both Marx and Engels said elections can in certain circumstances be a tool to achieve just that.

This means that:

In other words, while there's talk of a process of transition unfolding through time, there's not a single indication that this process occurs without the proletariat first forcibly seizing state power in a revolution..

and

What you haven't shown is that he viewed these as sufficient for a "revolution" to occur (the process of reforms gradually piling up until a peaceful growing over into socialism occurs being "reformism").

Were not entirely 100% accurate.

Yes, both Marx and Engels saw elections as a means by which the proletariat could reach their goals in specific circumstances througha proces that would not require force. And while it is true that in most cases this process required a violent revolution rather than participation in the democratic process there are some cases in which electioneering would be enough. It also shows that Marx had a cultural bias that slanted and colored his theories towards is own social predjudices.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 16:52

Right in the middle there.

That was a very long sentence that didn't really make any sense since both the US and the English had standing armies and a deep rooted military tradition and were far from being easilly intimidated by some armed workers. Nor did they have a seriously underdeveloped state bureaucracy.

Actually the quotes specifically show that both Marx and Engels said elections can in certain circumstances be a tool to achieve just that.

This means that:

and

Were not entirely 100% accurate.

Yes, both Marx and Engels saw elections as a means by which the proletariat could reach their goals in specific circumstances througha proces that would not require force. And while it is true that in most cases this process required a violent revolution rather than participation in the democratic process there are some cases in which electioneering would be enough. It also shows that Marx had a cultural bias that slanted and colored his theories towards is own social predjudices.

In the one paragraph you virtually ignore by claiming it doesn't make sense, I answer literally every single one of your objections. Try reading it again until you understand it, or ask me clarifying questions if you can't penetrate the meaning after an hour or so.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 17:01

In the one paragraph you virtually ignore by claiming it doesn't make sense, I answer literally every single one of your objections. Try reading it again until you understand it, or ask me clarifying questions if you can't penetrate the meaning after an hour or so.

Hmm, you seem to mistake my meaning. Wht I am saying is that that paragraph doesn't make sense because it is contradicted by the contemporary reality.

Here...I will highlight the parts:

Marx and Engels were envisioning a very specific and narrow historical situation, long since past in the present day, in which workers' activity, self-arming and organization would enable them to intimidate a virtually non-existent state bureaucracy into not tampering with, or attempt to prevent, workers' escalating success in bourgeois elections stemming from their struggle outside of the electoral arena.

The state bureaucracy of the specifically mentioned states by Marx in the quote presented is not virtulally non existent. In fact the state bureaucracy is quite large...especially considering the military infrastructure which was highly developed with Britian especially being themost powerful military nation in the world.

Marx and Engels specifically designated the electoral arena as the arena where the goals would be able to be met.

The balance of the force of arms, before the existence of large standing armies of the kind that existed on the continent, was so heavily slanted in favor of the exploited that the smashing of the state machine could occur through a continuity of existing electoral forms and institutions.

You are talking about the most powerful military nation in the world with state of the art equipment for the time and which had on at least one occasion been used domestically to quench workers revolt and riots. Sure it could use and would implement further changes in the system of commissions and professionalising, but for the time it was pretty damned powerful. It was most definately not slanted in favor of the exploited.

To reiterate: My only investment in this debate is to show that Marx and Engels did mention the specific use of parliamentary politics in reaching the goal of a workers state in specific conditions as being enough in lieu of an actual revolution. And as such I have provided the quotes for that. There is no further alterior motive here beyond that.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 17:05

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 17:18

That's not the meaning Impossible was attributing to Marx's views on elections. He seems to think, and you seem to be joining him in thinking this, that these quotes prove that voting and suffrage, by themselves, were a sufficient avenue for overthrowing the bourgeoisie, independent of force.

In very specific circumstances both Marx and Engels did indeed think they would have been and mentioned the specific examples of certain countries where this, under certain conditions, would be possible.

To requote and add something he said prior to it to illustrate this:

Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics.

But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.

You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.

This is of course far removed from stating that either Marx or Engels advocated a parliamentary course of action instead of revolution (see the same quote above which contradicts that notion) but it is also not the case that they excluded and dismissed it completely under any circumstances.

That is basically the only reason for me to post the quotes.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 17:37

In very specific circumstances both Marx and Engels did indeed think they would have been and mentioned the specific examples of certain countries where this, under certain conditions, would be possible.

To requote and add something he said prior to it to illustrate this:

This is of course far removed from stating that either Marx or Engels advocated a parliamentary course of action instead of revolution (see the same quote above which contradicts that notion) but it is also not the case that they excluded and dismissed it completely under any circumstances.

That is basically the only reason for me to post the quotes.

Yes, we are both in agreement: Marx and Engels spoke of bourgeois elections being the form in which workers might take power in limited places in a limited window of time. That is distinct from the claim that the substance of the power propelling the proletariat into the position of ruling class is the bourgeois election itself.

I will post a lengthy excerpt from what I consider to be a fine treatment of the question by Soma Marik in her book "Reinterrogating the Classical Marxist Discourses of Revolutionary Democracy" (pages 152-153):

In the 1870s, Marx was supposed to have finally given up his legal Jacobinism and to have been converted to the strategy of ‘legal revolution.’ There are two major pieces of alleged evidence. One is the 1872 preface to the Communist Manifesto. Here they stated that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.’ This has been interpreted to mean that Marx was opposing revolutions. In fact, the preface referred to the Paris Commune as the first instance of proletarian state power. The statement quoted indicated that the necessity of smashing the state apparatus was felt because of the experience of the Commune.

The other evidence is documented in Marx’s public speech at Amsterdam in 1872, which is frequently cited. Marx was reporting on the just finished Hague Conference of the International and had begun to explain the achievements of the Congress. In this context, he mentioned that the Congress had proclaimed the need for political action, and said, “A group has been formed in our midst which advocates that workers should abstain from political activity. We regard it as our duty to stress how dangerous and fatal we consider those principles to be…” Explaining the reason for this, he said, the workers would have to seize political power, and overthrow the old policy and old institution. But then he added:

We know that the institutions, customs, and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account…and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means.

So was he here calling for an end to the revolutionary road? Lenin suggested that by institutions, customs, and traditions, Marx meant the extent of bureaucratization and the lack of a standing army in the exceptional cases. Ellen Meiksins Wood suggests that he could also have had in mind English common law. At most, the speech referred to a possibility, and Lenin’s argument seems to be quite strong if Marx’s speech on the Seventh Anniversary of the International were taken into account. Here he linked workers’ power to a workers’ army, therefore the absence of a standing army in England could have been a strong consideration for him. So peaceful revolution was not equated with the parliamentary road; otherwise, it would have been logical to expect him to explain the Commune as an aberration and to highlight the need to struggle with the parliamentary arena in France.

More generally he could have been expected to specifically mention universal suffrage and suggest that after the conquest of universal suffrage workers should proceed peacefully, which he did not. The Act of 1867 in England, rounded off by the Ballot Act of 1872, only enfranchised the lower-middle classes and the better-off section of the workers. As late as 1911, out of a population of 40 million in the same territory, only 7.2 million had the vote. Moreover, it was only the Parliament Act of 1911 that freed finance bills and other bills relating to expenditures from votes by the House of Lords. Simply this factual side of the matter should be enough to establish that in 1872, Marx could not have had universal suffrage in mind. Marx’s speech may therefore be more correctly viewed as a refutation of the anarchist politics of abstentionism (calling for election boycotts and the boycott of all other forms of political struggles in favor of a hoped for insurrection as a matter of ‘principle’). Engels’ speech in the London Conference of the International should be compared at this point, as he argued that political freedom was necessary for the workers and that therefore they should fight for it. In the same conference, Marx’s comments about the armed forces of reaction opposing the working class and the need to take up arms rebut the claim of the legalistic ‘mature’ Marx.

Rafiq

13th July 2014, 18:00

The point is that Marx and Engels, within their circumstances, stressed the necessity of participating in elections in order to solidify in the eyes of society proletarian class independence within the field of politics. Essentially they stressed the necessity of the social origin of proletarian class interests to be represented politically, too. The revolutionary proletariat derived from the social circumstances set forth by capitalism, thus revolutionary politics must derive from the political circumstances set forth by capitalism. All the while the proletariat opposes the bourgeois state, but in contrast to the petite bourgeoisie, whose opposition is reactionary in nature - the proletariat opposes the state from premises now in existence.

This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.

In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.

(Is this not reminiscent of much of today's Left, which aspires in the restoration of "old" pre-globalized capitalistl society? While this is not a previous mode of production, the similarities are at least worth taking a look at)

Marx and Marxists after him, however while recognizing this never asserted that the proletarian dictatorship could be established within the legal framework established by the bourgeois state. Because the development of revolutionary politics coincides with the ever evolving dynamic changes in capitalism - Marx among other revolutionaries stressed the necessity of actively participating in politics... Well rather this was not necessarily something that had to be "stressed" as it was a logical result of the nature of the revolutionary movement to begin with. The only function of this, however, is a means of introducing revolutionary consciousness into the very bourgeois-civic society that those in power are trying to defend (rather than operating outside of bourgeois-civic society, as most of the Left today does - not because they refuse to engage in parliamentary politics, but because they are ideologically and programmically disconnected from present circumstances).

While Marx recognized that it could be possible that the proletarian dictatorship could be established peacefully in countries like the United States and England - I think that we can deduce, based on a fundamental understanding of his written and documented understanding of the nature of revolution that all this amounts to is the absence of civil war. Marx knew very well of terror as the logical result of a proletarian revolution, and the absolutely violent nature of the seizure of power and fundamental transformation of power relations. Peaceful, within this context could mean many things. Also it's important to note that just because Marx recognized the possibility of a peaceful seizure of power in the U.S. and England does not mean that circumstances have changed in which this is infinitely less likely with the specialization and advancement of the bourgeoisie's means of retaining power.

It also doesn't mean that engaging parliamentary politics (which could have taken a different form today than a few hundred years ago) today is the only means by which the proletariat can establish political class independence or operate within the framework of political premises now in existence (I.e. that correlate with the new developments in capitalism, rather than previous developments).

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 18:51

Hmm, you seem to mistake my meaning. Wht I am saying is that that paragraph doesn't make sense because it is contradicted by the contemporary reality.

Here...I will highlight the parts:

The state bureaucracy of the specifically mentioned states by Marx in the quote presented is not virtulally non existent. In fact the state bureaucracy is quite large...especially considering the military infrastructure which was highly developed with Britian especially being themost powerful military nation in the world.

If they were wrong about the empirical specifics of the US, England, and Holland, because those societies in fact had quite sprawling bureaucracies with massive standing armies, then one of their premises was wrong, and the conclusion they entertained of a "peaceful revolution" manifest in (but not propelled by) a bourgeois electoral victory was clearly wrong. The phrasing you have adopted "use parliamentary politics to reach their goal" mashes together these two decidedly distinct ways of understanding the role of bourgeois elections. One is a victory compelled by a preponderant possession of force by an armed working class, but is consolidated through a bourgeois electoral process. The other is the use of an election as an act of political force to secure victory. Two completely different ideas.

My point is that whether Marx and Engels were wrong about the nature of the bureaucracies in those countries doesn't alter the fundamental point, which is the underlying logic Marx and Engels were using in arriving at their conclusion. Impossible attributes to them a liberal parliarmentarist logic that simply isn't there.

In case their methodology isn't clear, here's the rest of the Marx quote we're discussing: "You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.

"The Hague Congress has granted the General Council [London-based administrative body of IWMA] new and wider authority. In fact, at the moment when the kings are assembling in Berlin, whence are to be issued new and decisive measures of oppression against us by the mighty representatives of feudalism and of the past -- precisely at that moment, when persecution is being organized, the congress of The Hague considered it proper and necessary to enlarge the authority of the General Council and to centralize all action for the approaching struggle, which would otherwise be impotent in isolation. And, moreover, where else could the authorization of the General Council arouse disquiet if not among our enemies? Does the General Council have a bureaucracy and an armed police to compel obedience? Is not its authority entirely a moral one, and does it not submit its decisions to the judgment of the various federations entrusted with their execution? Under such conditions -- without an army, without police, without courts -- on the day when the kings are forced to maintain their power only with moral influence and moral authority, they will form a weak obstacle to the forward march of the revolution."

It is very clear here that the wild card determining whether a peaceful road to proletarian power was possible was the balance of forces, not parliamentary numbers.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 21:04

If they were wrong about the empirical specifics of the US, England, and Holland, because those societies in fact had quite sprawling bureaucracies with massive standing armies, then one of their premises was wrong, and the conclusion they entertained of a "peaceful revolution" manifest in (but not propelled by) a bourgeois electoral victory was clearly wrong. The phrasing you have adopted "use parliamentary politics to reach their goal" mashes together these two decidedly distinct ways of understanding the role of bourgeois elections. One is a victory compelled by a preponderant possession of force by an armed working class, but is consolidated through a bourgeois electoral process. The other is the use of an election as an act of political force to secure victory. Two completely different ideas.

My point is that whether Marx and Engels were wrong about the nature of the bureaucracies in those countries doesn't alter the fundamental point, which is the underlying logic Marx and Engels were using in arriving at their conclusion. Impossible attributes to them a liberal parliarmentarist logic that simply isn't there.

In case their methodology isn't clear, here's the rest of the Marx quote we're discussing: "You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.

I never left out that part of the quote though and I explicitly refered to it in my previous post.

The fact is that I think both Marx and Engels were completely wrong in thinking parliamentary action would in anyway or under any circumstance, no matter how specific, be anywhere near the right platform for reaching proletarian power. At best it is an indicator in how the proletarian class gains more class consciousness or is an instrument in gaining concessions and to some extend it can be used to gain some form of power as you concluded in earlier posts. It can however imo never amount to anything but utter failure and I think, like I said before, Marx was coloured by a (too) favorable opinion of the British and American socio-economic opinions.

"The Hague Congress has granted the General Council [London-based administrative body of IWMA] new and wider authority. In fact, at the moment when the kings are assembling in Berlin, whence are to be issued new and decisive measures of oppression against us by the mighty representatives of feudalism and of the past -- precisely at that moment, when persecution is being organized, the congress of The Hague considered it proper and necessary to enlarge the authority of the General Council and to centralize all action for the approaching struggle, which would otherwise be impotent in isolation. And, moreover, where else could the authorization of the General Council arouse disquiet if not among our enemies? Does the General Council have a bureaucracy and an armed police to compel obedience? Is not its authority entirely a moral one, and does it not submit its decisions to the judgment of the various federations entrusted with their execution? Under such conditions -- without an army, without police, without courts -- on the day when the kings are forced to maintain their power only with moral influence and moral authority, they will form a weak obstacle to the forward march of the revolution."

It is very clear here that the wild card determining whether a peaceful road to proletarian power was possible was the balance of forces, not parliamentary numbers.

Yes, presumably. And that is why I said Marx was completely wrong in his assessment.

It also shows that Marx had a cultural bias that slanted and colored his theories towards is own social predjudices.

Marx is known for having favored England as the country where a revoltution was most likely to succeed. This was based on a flawed analysis. And it is especially weird when he mentions the UK in light of his letter here:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/12/england-revolution.htm

Where he specifically states and acknowledges that england is the least likely to be swayed by parliamentary means because of the force balance:

The country, however, which transforms whole nations into proletarians; which with its gigantic arms encompasses the whole globe; which has already once defrayed the cost of the European counter-revolution; and in which class antagonism has reached a high degree of development – England appears to be the rock on which the revolutionary waves split and disperse and which starves the coming society even in the womb. England dominates the world markets. A revolution of the economic conditions of any country of the European Continent or even of the whole Continent, is but a storm in a glass of water, unless England actively participates in it. The condition of trade and commerce of any nation depends upon its intercourse with other nations, depends upon its relations with the world markets. England controls the world markets, and the bourgeoisie controls England.

This directly contradicts his statement at The Hague in light of his statement about the UK being the likely place for the proletariat to gain power by peaceful means.

Marx was very aware of the military and political might of England. So his statement about the peaceful means was really strange considering his clarification of this being dependent on the balance of force.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 21:06

If no external event or force or process is mentioned, then answer this simple question: what transforms suffrage from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation?
Dude, are you having a problem with the meaning of the word "instrument"? It is some thing, some means by which something is done, something that is used.

If I use a pencil for writing and then use it for drawing, that means that the pencil was an instrument of writing and was then transformed into an instrument of drawing. I don't change the pencil, I don't use something else besides the pencil to change the pencil or to draw with that something else, I simply use the pencil for something else, and by doing that transform it's instrumentality.

The sentence "universal suffrage will be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation" simply means- the elections were used to deceive people, but now (when the proletariat organizes as a political party) they are going to be used to emancipate people. It's that simple, that's the plain meaning of the words. Universal suffrage will be an instrument of emancipation means- elections are going to be used for emancipation. There is no something else that will be used for emancipation, the elections will be used for that, that's the meaning of the words that elections will be an instrument of emancipation.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 21:12

Dude, are you having a problem with the meaning of the word "instrument"? It is some thing, some means by which something is done, something that is used.

If I use a pencil for writing and then use it for drawing, that means that the pencil was an instrument of writing and was then transformed into an instrument of drawing. I don't change the pencil, I don't use something else besides the pencil to change the pencil or to draw with that something else, I simply use the pencil for something else, and by doing that transform it's instrumentality.

The sentence "universal suffrage will be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation" simply means- the elections were used to deceive people, but now (when the proletariat organizes as a political party) they are going to be used to emancipate people. It's simple. Universal suffrage will be an instrument of emancipation means- elections are going to be used for emancipation. There is no something else that will be used for emancipation, the elections will be used for that, that's the meaning of the words that elections will be an instrument of emancipation.

The quote talks about suffrage being transformed. I asked what was going to do the transforming. You responded with a three paragraph post that didn't answer this simple question. Please try again.

bropasaran

13th July 2014, 21:17

If I transform a pencil from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing- what is doing the transforming? Nothing. Something being an instrument of something and then being transformed into an instrument of something else means that is firstly used for one thing and then used for another thing.

The sentence "universal suffrage will be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation" simply means- the elections were used to deceive people, but now they are going to be used to emancipate people.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 21:17

I never left out that part of the quote though and I explicitly refered to it in my previous post.

The fact is that I think both Marx and Engels were completely wrong in thinking parliamentary action would in anyway or under any circumstance, no matter how specific, be anywhere near the right platform for reaching proletarian power. At best it is an indicator in how the proletarian class gains more class consciousness or is an instrument in gaining concessions and to some extend it can be used to gain some form of power as you concluded in earlier posts. It can however imo never amount to anything but utter failure and I think, like I said before, Marx was coloured by a (too) favorable opinion of the British and American socio-economic opinions.

If by "being the right platform for reaching proletarian power," you mean "is the decisive factor in achieving proletarian power," then you are disagreeing with Marx and Engels by misrepresenting what their views were. As the quote amply demonstrates, for them, the decisive factor is always the balance of class forces, construed as armed might in pursuit of class interests. This can be symbolically demonstrated in a bourgeois election result. But the election result is not, in and of itself, the decisive factor. You keep saying you understand this, but then proceed to attack your misleading formulation of what they were contending. Now, he could very well have been wrong in that view, but that's the logic he was using. And it's not the logic that you and impossible keep attributing to him, which at the very least implies that the bourgeois state, its elections, and its voting rights, are politically neutral and can be wielded for any class for any purpose in a way that makes the conquest of power possible through it and it alone.

Marx is known for having favored England as the country where a revoltution was most likely to succeed. This was based on a flawed analysis. And it is especially weird when he mentions the UK in light of his letter here:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/12/england-revolution.htm

Where he specifically states and acknowledges that england is the least likely to be swayed by parliamentary means because of the force balance:

This directly contradicts his statement at The Hague in light of his statement about the UK being the likely place for the proletariat to gain power by peaceful means.

Marx was very aware of the military and political might of England. So his statement about the peaceful means was really strange considering his clarification of this being dependent on the balance of force.I'm not sure why you think this letter contradicts what Marx says in the Hague Address. All Marx is saying in this letter is that England is the center of global capitalism. It makes no mention of the means by which revolution can be consolidated, whether violence will be used, etc., which are the aspects of the Hague Address that we are currently discussing. In fact, it makes no mention of political or military might. It discusses economic power, England's "commercial supremacy" and "high degree of development." The whole point Marx is making in the Hague, I would contend, is that its economic power (or so he thought) was far outpacing the consolidation of its military and political might.

PhoenixAsh

13th July 2014, 21:57

If by "being the right platform for reaching proletarian power," you mean "is the decisive factor in achieving proletarian power," then you are disagreeing with Marx and Engels by misrepresenting what their views were. As the quote amply demonstrates, for them, the decisive factor is always the balance of class forces, construed as armed might in pursuit of class interests. This can be symbolically demonstrated in a bourgeois election result. But the election result is not, in and of itself, the decisive factor. You keep saying you understand this, but then proceed to attack your misleading formulation of what they were contending. Now, he could very well have been wrong in that view, but that's the logic he was using. And it's not the logic that you and impossible keep attributing to him, which at the very least implies that the bourgeois state, its elections, and its voting rights, are politically neutral and can be wielded for any class for any purpose in a way that makes the conquest of power possible through it and it alone.

Actually no this is not shown by the quotes I presented and is in fact contradicted by the quotes. That is the whole reason I posted them; there were specific situations in which parliamentary action alone would be enough to secure a proletarian victory according to Marx and Engels.

The explanation you offer, in which you say that it is in specific circumstances when there is the right balance of forces is strange considering Marx explicitly named England as one of the countries where he considered this a possibility.

The next section therefore is completely add odds with this statement:

I'm not sure why you think this letter contradicts what Marx says in the Hague Address. All Marx is saying in this letter is that England is the center of global capitalism. It makes no mention of the means by which revolution can be consolidated, whether violence will be used, etc., which are the aspects of the Hague Address that we are currently discussing. In fact, it makes no mention of political or military might. It discusses economic power, England's "commercial supremacy" and "high degree of development." The whole point Marx is making in the Hague, I would contend, is that its economic power (or so he thought) was far outpacing the consolidation of its military and political might.

Marx in this letter, which predates his quote aboute England being one of the specific examples in which he saw a peaceful taking of power by the proletariat, explicitly mentions the military might and the political domination of the Bourgeois in England.

This contradicts the notion that England had favorable balance of power completely.

So this either means:

1). Marx was wrong.
2). The preaceful gaining of power by the proletariat did not in fact hinge on the balance of force.
3). Marx changed his opinion.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 22:12

Actually no this is not shown by the quotes I presented and is in fact contradicted by the quotes. That is the whole reason I posted them; there were specific situations in which parliamentary action alone would be enough to secure a proletarian victory according to Marx and Engels.

There is nothing in the quotes you post about parliamentary action alone doing anything. There is talk about parliamentary action, certainly. There is no discussion about what might or might not need to occur alongside that parliamentary action. But that's where the entire quote, namely in its discussion of force is necessary.

You can also see for yourself that Marx and Engels never, ever entertained the idea of this parliamentary action alone, abstracted from mass working class activity and self-defense, catapulting the proletariat into power, in another word, where Marx repeats his statement about a "peaceful" revolution consolidated through parliamentary elections:

An historic development can remain “peaceful” only for so long as its progress is not forcibly obstructed by those wielding social power at the time. If in England, for instance, or the United States, the working class were to gain a majority in Parliament or Congress, they could, by lawful means, rid themselves of such laws and institutions as impeded their development, though they could only do so insofar as society had reached a sufficiently mature development. However, the “peaceful” movement might be transformed into a “forcible” one by resistance on the part of those interested in restoring the former state of affairs; if (as in the American Civil War and French Revolution) they are put down by force, it is as rebels against “lawful” force.

So wee see here the point I have been making, and which you have been denying. It is not the parliamentary elections, by themselves, which act as the force to make a revolution. It is class power workers either exercise or have the power to exercise as armed defenders of their interests that determines the success of a revolution. In cases where the bourgeoisie and its state are too timid to strike back against anti-capitalist inroads workers have made, the revolution can be "peaceful" and carried out "lawfully." But Marx clearly does not possess illusions in parliamentary fetishism, which is exactly what you're giving him by talking about parliamentary elections "alone," etc.

The explanation you offer, in which you say that it is in specific circumstances when there is the right balance of forces is strange considering Marx explicitly named England as one of the countries where he considered this a possibility.

I think you are getting confused here. Marx in 1848 wrote a letter discussing how England was the global center of capitalist development, where the proletariat had developed the most as a class, where revolutionary contradictions were the sharpest, and where revolution would most likely need to happen if global revolution were to obtain. Thirty years later he wrote about how the revolution could be carried out "peacefully" in light of the circumstances and peculiarities of English society. Those peculiarities, I have argued, were in Marx's mind the lagging behind of the development of a militarized bureaucratic apparatus that could challenge the already mature English working class for supremacy.

There is no contradiction here. If you claim that there is, you need to be more detailed in pointing it out than just copy-pasting quotes without providing any commentary on specific portions of those quotes and how they supposedly demonstrate a contradiction.

Five Year Plan

13th July 2014, 22:16

If I transform a pencil from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing- what is doing the transforming? Nothing.

Marx writes that something is transformed. I ask you "what is doing the transforming?" Your response? "Nothing."

You have successfully argued yourself into such a tiny box that you have been reducing to claiming that things are transformed by nothing.

That is quite an achievement, maybe the most hilarious in the history of all the contortions various reformists have performed on this forum in trying to argue that their reformism isn't really reformism.

You, sir, deserve congratulations.

Zoroaster

14th July 2014, 00:26

I'm pretty sure I'm a socialist, but I'm not really sure what kind I am. Could someone please explain some of the different kinds, like democratic socialism, social democracy, liberal socialism, democratic socialism, libertarian socialism etc…

I just want to know what the different branches believe in, and how they differ from each other.

Democratic Socialism: A democratic state or model of descision making must accompany a socialist economic model. Ex: Trotskyists, Luxemburgists, Council Communists, Anarchists.

Social Democracy: Can apply to either the Orthodox Marxist tendencies of the late 1890's which wanted to overthrow capitalism and create a socialist state, then communism, or, the socio-economic model seen in countries like Norway and Germany.

Liberal Socialism: Often a term used by Conservative asswipes to attack Obama's policies (he's actually very right-winged).:laugh:

Libertarian Socialism: A term used to describe a wide variety of anti-statist ideologies and philosophies, not just anarchism.

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 00:53

Marx writes that something is transformed. I ask you "what is doing the transforming?"
Which is a stupid question. If a pencil is transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing- what is doing the transforming?

Marx' sentence "universal suffrage will be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation" simply means- the elections were used for deception, and now will be used for emancipation.

You are either not neurotypical and fail to understand the meaning of the words, or you're a troll. In either case, you are so obviously wrong here that I'm not going to waste any more time on you.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 01:03

Which is a stupid question. If a pencil is transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing- what is doing the transforming?

Marx' sentence "universal suffrage will be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation" simply means- the elections were used for deception, and now will be used for emancipation.

You are either not neurotypical and fail to understand the meaning of the words, or you're a troll. In either case, you are so obviously wrong here that I'm not going to waste any more time on you.

If a pencil is transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing, don't you think it's silly, when asked "what was responsible for the pencil being transformed?", to say "Nothing!"? It doesn't just happen spontaneously by itself, after all. Or maybe in your universe, it does.

I mean, really, even you realize how ridiculous you sound at this point.

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 01:49

If a pencil is transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing, don't you think it's silly, when asked "what was responsible for the pencil being transformed?", to say "Nothing!"?
Of course it's not silly, because to ask "what was responsible for the pencil being transformed?" is not just silly, but stupid. The pencil being transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing just means- it was used for writing and now it's used for drawing, and that's it. There nothing to ask about. Seriously- do you have some mental atypicality, so you don't understand how words work?

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 02:09

Of course it's not silly, because to ask "what was responsible for the pencil being transformed?" is not just silly, but stupid. The pencil being transformed from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing just means- it was used for writing and now it's used for drawing, and that's it. There nothing to ask about. Seriously- do you have some mental atypicality, so you don't understand how words work?

Uh huh. It's a stupid question because it's obvious that the thing responsible for transforming the pencil's utility would be a person employing the pencil for different purposes. The question is, then, how is suffrage transformed from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation?

Does it happen magically? Spontaneously? You keep stonewalling and obfuscating, but we all know what the answer is.

Yet you refuse to say it because you would then have to acknowledge that suffrage doesn't transform itself, that voting isn't the essential mechanism by which workers seize power, and that, while Marx supported socialist participating in parliamentary politics, parliamentarism was never a part of Marx's understanding of revolution.

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 02:28

Pencil is used for writing and then it is used for drawing. There is nothing magical about it. What is magical is the low level of your trolling.

parliamentarism was never a part of Marx's understanding of revolution.
This is simply false. He says the elections were used for deception, but when the proletariat organizes as a political party, they will be used for emancipation. The proletariat will emancipate itself by using the elections, that's what he says.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 02:29

This is simply false. He says the elections were used for deception, but when the proletariat organizes as a political party, they will be used for emancipation. The proletariat will emancipate itself by using the elections, that's what he says.

Wow, you sure beat a hasty retreat, didn't you? Answer the question of what transforms suffrage from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation.

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 02:31

What transforms the pencil from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing?

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 02:33

What transforms the pencil from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing?

I answered this question already. The person using it transforms its status as an instrument when he chooses to use it differently. There are a number of reasons he might do this.

Now answer my question: what transforms suffrage from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation?

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 02:35

The people who vote will transform the status of elections by using it differently- instead of voting like they did, not they will vote for the party of the proletariat.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 02:37

The people who vote will transform the status of elections by using it differently- instead of voting like they did, not they will vote for the party of the proletariat.

And how will "people" (apparently not workers specifically?) suddenly change their mind one day? What does this process entail?

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 02:39

It's irrelevant. The point is that he said that the proletariat will use elections to emancipate itself. He advocated electioneering and reformism, that was I my point.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 02:44

It's irrelevant. The point is that he said that the proletariat will use elections to emancipate itself. He advocated electioneering and reformism, that was I my point.

For somebody who is so confident in his view that he repeats it in every post of every thread like a broken record, you sure are petrified at answering simple questions, aren't you?

I will repeat: what does the process of workers "changing their mind" (and having their decision accepted by their class enemies) entail? I entail that it involves a revolution involving the mustering of armed working-class militancy. Do you have an alternative answer?

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 03:35

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 03:57

You can repeat all you want. Those 'simple questions' are for Marx, not for me. I don't care why he said it, my point is that he said it. And he did. He said that the proletariat will emancipate themselves by using election. He advocated electioneering and reformism.

Actually the quote says that suffrage will be transformed from one kind of instrument into the other. You refuse to answer these probing questions, because they all inevitably lead you far from your facile and blatantly bullshit interpretation of the quote as saying that suffrage becomes an instrument of emancipation through the process of suffrage being an instrument of emancipation, which is circular and non-sensical.

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 04:09

Pencil transforms from an instrument of writing into an instrument of drawing = pencil is firstly used for writing and is then used for drawing.

Elections transform from an instrument of deception into an instrument of emancipation = elections are firstly used for deception and then used for emancipation.

Marx said that the proletariat will use elections to emancipate themselves.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 04:18

Marx said that the proletariat will use elections to emancipate themselves.

Yes, after it was transformed from an instrument of deception. And the process of transformation is what you don't want to discuss. Gee, I wonder why?

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 04:23

So if a pencil is an instrument of writing it cannot be used for drawing until it is transformed into an instrument of drawing?

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 04:27

So if a pencil is an instrument of writing it cannot be used for drawing until it is transformed into an instrument of drawing?

If you're implying that Marx was suggesting that suffrage was always capable of being used for emancipation, so that it was always potentially an instrument for both deception and emancipation, you are saying something that is contradicted by the quote. He very clearly states that suffrage, at first, functions as an instrument of deception. Then, after it is transformed by workers or "people" (as you now acknowledge), it becomes an instrument of emancipation. It becomes something that can be used and is used to emancipate the working class.

You are trying so, so hard to twist the quote to mean the one thing that it could not possibly mean. You've done this with quote after quote. Wouldn't it just be easier, not to mention a sign of intellectual integrity to yourself, to simply admit the obvious here?

bropasaran

14th July 2014, 04:59

You are saying that a pencil is an instrument of writing, and after it is transformed by it's user, then it becomes an instrument of drawing. It's simply idiotic, you're babbling.

Marx is clear- he said that the proletariat will emancipate themselves by using election.

Five Year Plan

14th July 2014, 05:34

Yes, and if I decided my ass itched, I could transform the pencil into a butt-scratching instrument, although it wasn't one a few seconds before. So mind boggling! :laugh: