Peasants

[BIXX]

What's with everyone being all "peasants can't have a communist revolution"? I don't get it.

[Creative Destruction]

They're too small of a class to be driving force in a proletarian revolution. Some people equate peasants with being always petit-bourgeoisie, but this isn't strictly true as not all peasants are or were small landholders, but because of the misconception that is also offered up as a reason sometimes. Regardless, they are people who are being squeezes out by the capitalist mode of production and wouldn't play a real heavy role in a proletarian revolution, which is why they, specifically, can't have a communist revolution.

[consuming negativity]

i have a better question

why are people talking about peasants as if they are a thing in 2014?

[Illegalitarian]

Because there are no more peasants in the traditional sense, just subsistence farmers and agricultural proles


As Bakunin pointed out, however, the peasantry have historically been the most revolutionary force throughout history whenever they were a thing, so Marx got this wrong imo

[Creative Destruction]

Because they still exist, in some form, in some parts of the world.

[Crabbensmasher]

I always assumed there was a peasantry in some developing countries like India. There's a lot of places where feudal economic relations still exist in some sense, yeah?

[Creative Destruction]

As Bakunin pointed out, however, the peasantry have historically been the most revolutionary force throughout history whenever they were a thing, so Marx got this wrong imo

What did Marx get wrong, with respect to this?

[RedWorker]

Because there are no more peasants in the traditional sense, just subsistence farmers and agricultural proles

As Bakunin pointed out, however, the peasantry have historically been the most revolutionary force throughout history whenever they were a thing, so Marx got this wrong imo

You've just proven yourself wrong. We're in the capitalist mode of production, there are no peasants left, the working class are the masses. Marx was completely right. The peasants belong to an older, vanished mode of production. They can't make the communist revolution.

[Illegalitarian]

Well, that's a fair point

[Redistribute the Rep]

I remember Lenin saying something about how the urbanization into densly populated cities contributed to social movements, since people weren't as spread out and could communicate better.

Also, you might find this helpful:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_consciousness

[Illegalitarian]

Which kind of makes me wonder how on earth Maoism is still the most popular communist tendency on earth


and like it or not, it is.

[Blake's Baby]

What do you think is 'communist' about Maoism?

The peasantry, where it exists, wants to be left alone to get on with getting fat. That is quite literally the class interest of the peasantry. That has nothing to do with the socialisation of production. The class interest of the proletariat is to estroy capitalist relations and socialise prouction to fulfill the needs of all; the class interest of the peasantry is to be individually successful.

It's quite good at fighting against outside power structures (eg, a modernising state) but there is no 'peasant perspective' for communism. You might as well try basing a revolutionary theory on small craftspeople in the cities, it makes as much sense. A class which has individual control over the means of production doesn't need a revolution though it might want a coup.

[Tim Cornelis]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=1364&pictureid=11756

Maoism is not a communist movement. Indeed, as BB more or less said, Maoism plays on the uprooted elements of the peasants facing modernisation and capitalist development.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Peasants are a ruined, historically moribund class that has neither the compulsion of clear objective interest (as their interest is, indeed, for the private ownership of the means of production to continue) nor the social power to end capitalism.

Peasants are definitely "a thing" in 2014; that the peasantry (the rural petite bourgeoisie) can trace its origins to the transitional society between feudalism and capitalism doesn't mean that it has disappeared in capitalism (the urban petite-bourgeoisie can also trace its origins to petty artisans breaking from the guild system). It would if the entire countryside were to be divided into capitalist enterprises, but this is something decaying capitalism is incapable of, unfortunately.

[Erfurt 1891]

i have a better question

why are people talking about peasants as if they are a thing in 2014?
Peasants still exist as class in 2014. Just take a look at Eastern Europe (in case you don't wanna go for China, Asia, Middle East etc.).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Peasants still exist as class in 2014. Just take a look at Eastern Europe (in case you don't wanna go for China, Asia, Middle East etc.).

Pretty much. I mean, they exist in France (for example) as well, unless I've seriously misunderstood the French agricultural sector. So I don't get this notion that the peasantry no longer exists; quite frankly I find it a bit bizarre.

[consuming negativity]

Peasants still exist as class in 2014. Just take a look at Eastern Europe (in case you don't wanna go for China, Asia, Middle East etc.).

yeah and there are still kings and queens in 2014 too

it's like you technically correct lolcommies actually think someone is so stupid as to think there are literally no subsistence farmers anywhere in the world right now

they're like the hiccups of the political economy.

sure, they exist, but they're just remnants of some shit that hasn't been relevant for a long time and which will, in time, completely disappear. it just hasn't yet because it's not been worth anyone's time to really get rid of.

[Erfurt 1891]

yeah and there are still kings and queens in 2014 too

it's like you technically correct lolcommies actually think someone is so stupid as to think there are literally no subsistence farmers anywhere in the world right now

they're like the hiccups of the political economy.

sure, they exist, but they're just remnants of some shit that hasn't been relevant for a long time and which will, in time, completely disappear. it just hasn't yet because it's not been worth anyone's time to really get rid of.
I think that you are trying too hard to sound really smart.

Peasants are not "the hiccups of the political economy", but a class in the class society. Sure, they are remains of some "other" (older?) mode of production but they are still wide spread and they will still remain, because there would have to be really big change in capitalist mode of production that would turn those peasants into workers. For example, highly industrialised societies, such as Yugoslavia, haven't put peasant class into danger of existing. "Neo-liberal" capitalism isn't making them extinct either.

And they are quite relevant for any political process.

[DOOM]

Peasants exist everywhere, maybe on a smaller scale than in rural Bosnia or in pre-maoist China, but they're most certainly still a thing. They're however in no way a revolutionary class, as described by Marx. Peasants are in possession of mop and therefore have an interest in preserving their relations to the mop, like the petit-bourgeois.

[DOOM]

Because there are no more peasants in the traditional sense, just subsistence farmers and agricultural proles


As Bakunin pointed out, however, the peasantry have historically been the most revolutionary force throughout history whenever they were a thing, so Marx got this wrong imo

You can't compare the feudalist peasantry to the capitalist peasantry. In feudalism, the peasants were bound to their feudal lords to whom the land belonged. With society progressing into capitalism, the peasants were not anymore obliged to pay tribute to their lords, as they became the owners of the land they were working. This means that their class interest (preserving their relation to the mop) is contradictory to communism. This excludes them from being a revolutionary class per se.

[Illegalitarian]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=1364&pictureid=11756

Maoism is not a communist movement. Indeed, as BB more or less said, Maoism plays on the uprooted elements of the peasants facing modernisation and capitalist development.


Ok but Maoism is still the most popular, widely adhered to communist tendency.

Its definition of peasantry is a bit more wide than yours or mine

[Illegalitarian]

I think that you are trying too hard to sound really smart.

Peasants are not "the hiccups of the political economy", but a class in the class society. Sure, they are remains of some "other" (older?) mode of production but they are still wide spread and they will still remain, because there would have to be really big change in capitalist mode of production that would turn those peasants into workers. For example, highly industrialised societies, such as Yugoslavia, haven't put peasant class into danger of existing. "Neo-liberal" capitalism isn't making them extinct either.

And they are quite relevant for any political process.


I think you really wanted something to say but didn't have it


Just because they're an existing class does not make them "relevant for any political process", they're so small today as a class that it's not very likely at all that they will ever be relevant again, unless they side with the working class in the event of a revolution (which they historically have in the Ukraine, Vietnam, China, etc, so it's kind of funny how some of you are saying they are not "revolutionary")

[consuming negativity]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=1364&pictureid=11756

Maoism is not a communist movement. Indeed, as BB more or less said, Maoism plays on the uprooted elements of the peasants facing modernisation and capitalist development.

you should explain this table/chart thing because either i don't understand it or it doesn't make sense

how are the lumpenproletariat not exploited?

how can you say that all proletarians are impoverished? what does poverty even mean in this context?

how are any of them free from private property? what does that even mean?

what does 6 mean at all?

[Redistribute the Rep]

you should explain this table/chart thing because either i don't understand it or it doesn't make sense

how are the lumpenproletariat not exploited?

how can you say that all proletarians are impoverished? what does poverty even mean in this context?

how are any of them free from private property? what does that even mean?

what does 6 mean at all?

I assumed exploitation in this context specifically meant by means of extracting surplus value, so the lumpenproletariat who exist outside the wage labor system would not be considered exploited, but then that raises the question of why the peasant has a plus... 6 I assume refers to the fact that the nature of proletarian work is more social, as they work together in say a factory, an d can unionize easier

[Tim Cornelis]

Ok but Maoism is still the most popular, widely adhered to communist tendency.

Its definition of peasantry is a bit more wide than yours or mine

Again, in what sense is Maoism meaningfully communist? Its vision of the first phase of communism involves 'socialist commodity production', for which private labour is a prerequisite. It may advocate a classless, moneyless, stateless society in the future beyond the horizon, but only as abstract ideal to aspire to, not as originating from material conditions and brought about via social revolution. It has no objective basis for communist construction: only optional, voluntaristic reforms -- in which Maoism is steeped. Therefore, it is a bourgeois socialist movement, not a communist one.


you should explain this table/chart thing because either i don't understand it or it doesn't make sense

how are the lumpenproletariat not exploited?

how can you say that all proletarians are impoverished? what does poverty even mean in this context?

how are any of them free from private property? what does that even mean?

what does 6 mean at all?

"1. Such a class must be one that has been economically exploited and politically oppressed under capitalist society; otherwise, the class will have no reason for resisting the capitalist order; it will not rebel under any circumstances.

2. It follows - to put the matter crudely - that it must be a poor class; for otherwise it will have no opportunity to feel its poverty as compared with the wealth of other classes.

3. It must be a producing class; for, if it is not, i.e., if it has no immediate share in the production of values, it may at best destroy, being unable to produce, create, organize.

4. It must be a class that is not bound by private property, for a class whose material existence is based on private property will naturally be inclined to increase its property, not to abolish private property, as is demanded by communism.

5. This class must be one which has been welded together by the conditions of its existence and its common labor, its members working side by side. Otherwise, it will be incapable of desiring - not to mention constructing - a society that is the embodiment of the social labor of comrades. Furthermore, such a class could not wage an organized struggle or create a new state power."

"In other words, the peasantry-for instance-lack several elements necessary to make them a communist class: they are bound down by property, and it will take many years to train them to a new view, which can only be done by having the state power in the hands of the proletariat; also, the peasantry are not held together in production, in social labor and common action; on the contrary, the peasant's entire joy is in his own bit of land; he is accustomed to individual management, not to cooperation with others. The lumpenproletariat, however, is barred chiefly by the circumstance that it performs no productive work; it can tear down, but has no habit of building up."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1921/histmat/8.htm

It seems pretty straightforward that the lumpen-proletariat doesn't contribute, doesn't add anything to the economy, and only takes from it, often by thievery. It then constitutes a parasitic element, entirely opposite of being exploited.

The proletariat has a double freedom: it is free from the individual capitalist (not bound to a feudal lord), it is free from ownership of the means of production (not bound to private property). Pretty straightforward as well.

6. is the socialisation of production.


I assumed exploitation in this context specifically meant by means of extracting surplus value, so the lumpenproletariat who exist outside the wage labor system would not be considered exploited, but then that raises the question of why the peasant has a plus... 6 I assume refers to the fact that the nature of proletarian work is more social, as they work together in say a factory, an d can unionize easier

Peasants are productive.

[RedWorker]

Ok but Maoism is still the most popular, widely adhered to communist tendency.

Maoism is communist in the same way Venezuela is socialist.

[Illegalitarian]

Maoism is a theoretical advancement of Marxist-Leninism, you might as well claim that the M-L's aren't "real communists" while you're at it.

Which hey, I'm fine with, but you're not going to find many other people on the left who are.

[Illegalitarian]

Those ITT trying to make the lumpenproles out to be a non-revolutionary class seem to be ignorant of the criminal, non-working element that has historically partaken in revolutionary activity throughout history

[Creative Destruction]

Which hey, I'm fine with, but you're not going to find many other people on the left who are.

You've used this argument in a couple of threads now. Why do you think this matters at all?

[Illegalitarian]

You've used this argument in a couple of threads now. Why do you think this matters at all?

Because using fringe definitions of things that almost no one else follows matters.

[Blake's Baby]

I doubt there are many supporters of Mao on here. I think those who regard Maoism as a horrible counter-revolutionary ideology would outnumber its supporters about 4:1.

[Creative Destruction]

Because using fringe definitions of things that almost no one else follows matters.

This becomes much less convincing when you realize how fragmented the left is, even inside the variety of tendencies.

[Tim Cornelis]

Maoism is a theoretical advancement of Marxist-Leninism, you might as well claim that the M-L's aren't "real communists" while you're at it.

Which hey, I'm fine with, but you're not going to find many other people on the left who are.

I'm not saying Stalinists aren't "real communists" I'm saying they are not communists. They are also bourgeois-socialists. It doesn't matter that there are 'may of them on the left'. That's not a relevant comment. What is relevant is first, if they advocate communism, and if so, how fast they foresee its establishment, third if what they advocate is actually capable of bringing it about.

First, yes, they advocate communism.
Second, in a very long time.
Three, no, because in the meanwhile they advocate a capitalist system incapable of organically turning communist without 'shock therapy' (revolutionary overthrow).

Therefore, yes I concede that they are socialist, but bourgeois-socialists.


Those ITT trying to make the lumpenproles out to be a non-revolutionary class seem to be ignorant of the criminal, non-working element that has historically partaken in revolutionary activity throughout history

I'm not overly familiar, but yes, people are not automatons for their clearly objectively determinable material self-interest. Aristocrats have joined the side of the bourgeoisie in bourgeois revolutions; individual petty bourgeois have joined the proletariat in its revolutions; aristocrats have joined the proletariat (e.g. Kropotkin); as have industrialists (e.g. Engels). But that doesn't say whether they are structurally capable of themselves becoming a revolutionary agent, instead of following a revolutionary agent class.

[Illegalitarian]

I doubt there are many supporters of Mao on here. I think those who regard Maoism as a horrible counter-revolutionary ideology would outnumber its supporters about 4:1.

On revleft, maybe, but when it comes to the actual number of semi-relevant (still not relevant) parties out there, movements, those waging war against their government, etc, a disproportionately large number of those organizations are Maoist.



I'm not saying Stalinists aren't "real communists" I'm saying they are not communists. They are also bourgeois-socialists. It doesn't matter that there are 'may of them on the left'. That's not a relevant comment. What is relevant is first, if they advocate communism, and if so, how fast they foresee its establishment, third if what they advocate is actually capable of bringing it about.

First, yes, they advocate communism.
Second, in a very long time.
Three, no, because in the meanwhile they advocate a capitalist system incapable of organically turning communist without 'shock therapy' (revolutionary overthrow).

Therefore, yes I concede that they are socialist, but bourgeois-socialists.


I'm not sure if this is really a stable argument.


Who knows if what they advocate is capable of bringing it about? Nothing at all has been capable of bringing it about, who knows what sort of movement will eventually get the job done. They advocate a rather extended period of the dotp and put too much stock in the power of natlib, but to say they're not communists at all? Maoism has came along way since Mao, after all.

It just doesn't hold water. Disagreeing with their methods is one thing, personally I don't think Shining Path or the Filipino People's War is going to lead us to revolutionary victory, but they're most definitely communists.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think they are. That's like saying yogic flyers are spacemen, because they believe they can travel to other planets. They can't. They're not.

[Zanthorus]

On revleft, maybe, but when it comes to the actual number of semi-relevant (still not relevant) parties out there, movements, those waging war against their government, etc, a disproportionately large number of those organizations are Maoist.

I advice you to reassess your Concept (Begriff)* of relevance (or 'semi-relevance').



*These are the kind of jokes you start making when you read nothing but Hegel for a week

[Illegalitarian]

I don't think they are. That's like saying yogic flyers are spacemen, because they believe they can travel to other planets. They can't. They're not.

They could make it one day, you don't know :|


Seriously though there is nothing that makes them not communist, so

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think Marxists should take a more contextualized view of peasants. They have locally and culturally dependent relations to the means of production, and to the proletarian class. There are campesinos in Latin America who endorse revolutionary politics just as vociferously as the working class.

[motion denied]

Depends on what country in Latin America. Since Brazil never had an agrarian reform, the peasantry doesn't represent a force, be it numerically or politically. Land is owned by transnational corporations such as JBS-Friboi (which gets almost 80% of its receipt from abroad), soy plantation and agribusiness in general. So, rural proletariat is predominant.

[Illegalitarian]

Again it also just seems ahistorical to dismiss the peasantry when, especially in South East Asia, they have been quite the strong revolutionary force. India as well.

[Blake's Baby]

You put 'Revolutionary Marxist' as your tendency and yet you have no class analysis whatsoever.

What is the class interest of the peasantry, Illegalitarian? Please explain how being small property-owners makes peasants a revolutionary class.

[consuming negativity]

You put 'Revolutionary Marxist' as your tendency and yet you have no class analysis whatsoever.

What is the class interest of the peasantry, Illegalitarian? Please explain how being small property-owners makes peasants a revolutionary class.

Since when is the peasantry defined by owning land?

Of course, that's half of the problem with even talking about this subject. Nobody even really knows what the fuck a peasant is, because it is a catch-all political term to describe several different groups of people.

[Devrim]

Since when is the peasantry defined by owning land?

Of course, that's half of the problem with even talking about this subject. Nobody even really knows what the fuck a peasant is, because it is a catch-all political term to describe several different groups of people.

No, it's not. Communists have always used the term peasantry to refer to small landowners. Those who don't own property are referred to as the agricultural proletariat.

Devrim

[consuming negativity]

No, it's not. Communists have always used the term peasantry to refer to small landowners. Those who don't own property are referred to as the agricultural proletariat.

Devrim

engels disagrees


We have seen in the introduction how, simultaneously with the small bourgeoisie and the modest independence of the former workers, the small peasantry also was ruined when the former Union of industrial and agricultural work was dissolved, the abandoned fields thrown together into large farms, and the small peasants superseded by the overwhelming competition of the large farmers. Instead of being landowners or leaseholders, as they had been hitherto, they were now obliged to hire themselves as labourers to the large farmers or the landlords.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch12.htm

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That just proves Devrim's point. The ruined small peasantry became labourers and therefore ceased to be part of the peasantry.

[Devrim]

engels disagrees

No, he doesn't. Read it again he exactly agrees.

Even if he had disagreed it wouldn't make him right though.

Devrim

[consuming negativity]

That just proves Devrim's point. The ruined small peasantry became labourers and therefore ceased to be part of the peasantry.

............

the point he was defending was that peasants are defined by owning land

engels making a distinction in the peasantry between those who own land and those who do not own their land is directly opposed to this and also to the idea that "communists have always defined peasants by owning land"

in other words, y'all don't know what the fuck you're talking about and apparently cannot read

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Is someone still part of the petit-bourgeoisie after their business fails and they have to get a job at another firm?

[Tim Cornelis]

On revleft, maybe, but when it comes to the actual number of semi-relevant (still not relevant) parties out there, movements, those waging war against their government, etc, a disproportionately large number of those organizations are Maoist.

I'm not sure if this is really a stable argument.

Who knows if what they advocate is capable of bringing it about? Nothing at all has been capable of bringing it about, who knows what sort of movement will eventually get the job done. They advocate a rather extended period of the dotp and put too much stock in the power of natlib, but to say they're not communists at all? Maoism has came along way since Mao, after all.

It just doesn't hold water. Disagreeing with their methods is one thing, personally I don't think Shining Path or the Filipino People's War is going to lead us to revolutionary victory, but they're most definitely communists.


They could make it one day, you don't know :|

Seriously though there is nothing that makes them not communist, so

I'm presupposing a Marxist view on communism here. It is not enough that these groups have a professed allegiance to communism; unless you think socialism can be willed into existence. If you you uphold that voluntarist notion then it makes sense that all you need to do is grab power and then will socialism into reality. You seem to uphold this, and therefore conclude that the 'communists' in South-East Asia and India can realistically, at one point, seize power and implement socialist reforms.

What makes them not communist? That they advocate a capitalist system based on state property; and that this capitalist system does not organically, mechanically transform itself into communism. They are not communists.


Again it also just seems ahistorical to dismiss the peasantry when, especially in South East Asia, they have been quite the strong revolutionary force. India as well.

Which is presupposing that these Maoists are communists; they're not.


............

the point he was defending was that peasants are defined by owning land

engels making a distinction in the peasantry between those who own land and those who do not own their land is directly opposed to this and also to the idea that "communists have always defined peasants by owning land"

in other words, y'all don't know what the fuck you're talking about and apparently cannot read

He says peasants are stripped of their land and then become labourers. Read it again.

[consuming negativity]

He says peasants are stripped of their land and then become labourers. Read it again.

lease
lēs/
noun
noun: lease; plural noun: leases
1. a contract by which one party conveys land, property, services, etc., to another for a specified time, usually in return for a periodic payment.


like really i don't know why you guys are having so much difficulty here

you realize that a leaseholder is not the same thing as a landowner right

[Devrim]

like really i don't know why you guys are having so much difficulty here

you realize that a leaseholder is not the same thing as a landowner right

But a leaseholder is essentially a small producer, not a wage labourer. In England, where Engels was writing, leases are most often for 99 years, and are renewable automatically, so in fact they are pretty much the same.

Devrim

[consuming negativity]

But a leaseholder is essentially a small producer, not a wage labourer. In England, where Engels was writing, leases are most often for 99 years, and are renewable automatically, so in fact they are pretty much the same.

Devrim

"i will let you farm my land in exchange for crops or money" is not "pretty much the same" as owning the land and farming it for profit

it is fucking serfdom

moreover, just to be clear, you are now admitting that you were entirely incorrect when you said "Communists have always used the term peasantry to refer to small landowners. Those who don't own property are referred to as the agricultural proletariat.", because you are now trying to argue that "it's basically the same thing", that "peasant" is a catch-all term like i said it was, and that what makes a peasant a peasant is not owning land.

awesome

i'm glad we had this discussion

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"i will let you farm my land in exchange for crops or money" is not "pretty much the same" as owning the land and farming it for profit

it is fucking serfdom

moreover, just to be clear, you are now admitting that you were entirely incorrect when you said "Communists have always used the term peasantry to refer to small landowners. Those who don't own property are referred to as the agricultural proletariat.", because you are now trying to argue that "it's basically the same thing", that "peasant" is a catch-all term like i said it was, and that what makes a peasant a peasant is not owning land.

awesome

i'm glad we had this discussion

Well, no, leaseholding is not (necessarily) serfdom; for example a leaseholder generally does not own a labour obligation to the leaser. Ownership is defined by effective control, not by the precise legal form into which the control is cast. Long-term cheap leases are effective ownership, just as for example in the Ottoman State many landowners were technically leasing their land from the state.

edit: I don't get why people get so angry whenever the peasantry is mentioned, particularly to reiterate the common Marxist position that only the proletariat has the clear compulsion of objective interest and the social power to bring down capitalism. It's quite strange.

[Devrim]

"i will let you farm my land in exchange for crops or money" is not "pretty much the same" as owning the land and farming it for profit

it is fucking serfdom

No, it's not. In serfdom the peasants were tied to the land. Leaseholders are not.

Incidentally swearing and being rude doesn't do anything to convince me of your argument.


moreover, just to be clear, you are now admitting that you were entirely incorrect when you said "Communists have always used the term peasantry to refer to small landowners. Those who don't own property are referred to as the agricultural proletariat.", because you are now trying to argue that "it's basically the same thing", that "peasant" is a catch-all term like i said it was, and that what makes a peasant a peasant is not owning land.

I sort of took it as read that when I used the term agricultural proletariat, it would be understood to mean those who preformed wage labour for others. It is supposed to be a communist board.

I think that the communist idea of class is connected to the relationships to the means of production. Maybe I could have been more precise earlier, but the tenant farmer controls the means of production in the same way that the small landowner does. A 99 year lease (common in Englan and Wales, where Engels was writing) was obviously more than not only the original holders life time, but his children's and possibly his grandchildren's. Upon completion it was automatically renewable. The tenant farmer is effectively a small business man, which the agricultural labourer is not.

Devrim

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The problem though is that "peasant" catches a number of different means of being related to the land. For instance, a Ejido member in Mexico is a peasant, but his claim to the land is communal, not individual. Incidentally, Ejido members in Mexico have been at the forefront of a whole host of radical leftist movements, and seem at least as likely as the workers to think that their class interest is in the revolution. There have been other cases of anticapitalist campesinos in Latin America expropriating land as a collective effort.

There's no a priori necessary rule determining that the class interests of peasants will be with the bourgeoisie. I think the bigger issue for a Marxist should be that they lack the same kind of collective mode of labor, but peasants are often better served by collectivization nonetheless. Really, I think it depends a lot on the unique history and the kinds of property laws which are predominant.

[consuming negativity]

No, it's not. In serfdom the peasants were tied to the land. Leaseholders are not.

Incidentally swearing and being rude doesn't do anything to convince me of your argument.

I sort of took it as read that when I used the term agricultural proletariat, it would be understood to mean those who preformed wage labour for others. It is supposed to be a communist board.

I think that the communist idea of class is connected to the relationships to the means of production. Maybe I could have been more precise earlier, but the tenant farmer controls the means of production in the same way that the small landowner does. A 99 year lease (common in Englan and Wales, where Engels was writing) was obviously more than not only the original holders life time, but his children's and possibly his grandchildren's. Upon completion it was automatically renewable. The tenant farmer is effectively a small business man, which the agricultural labourer is not.

Devrim

you have my apologies if i came across as rude, but i swear all the fucking time and it's really nothing personal or angry

yes, the communist idea of class is about relationship to the means of production, which is precisely why i found it necessary to point out the difference between the various "classes" which are all considered under the larger banner of "peasants", which render the term useless at best, or annoying and inarticulate at worst

i was probably going a bit overboard when i described the leaseholders as necessarily being serfs, but i'm still not wrong about the fact that they're hardly the same as landowners. their relation to production is fundamentally different. they are leaseholders, not owners. if "controlling" the land, as 870 suggested, resulted in ownership, then we wouldn't need a proletarian revolution.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The problem though is that "peasant" catches a number of different means of being related to the land. For instance, a Ejido member in Mexico is a peasant, but his claim to the land is communal, not individual. Incidentally, Ejido members in Mexico have been at the forefront of a whole host of radical leftist movements, and seem at least as likely as the workers to think that their class interest is in the revolution. There have been other cases of anticapitalist campesinos in Latin America expropriating land as a collective effort.

One's relation to the means of production does not change based on the number of people in this relation. Just as the haute bourgeoisie who set up a joint-stock company do not stop being bourgeois, so the petite bourgeoisie who pool their resources do not stop being petit-bourgeois.


i was probably going a bit overboard when i described the leaseholders as necessarily being serfs, but i'm still not wrong about the fact that they're hardly the same as landowners. their relation to production is fundamentally different. they are leaseholders, not owners. if "controlling" the land, as 870 suggested, resulted in ownership, then we wouldn't need a proletarian revolution.

That doesn't follow at all. The proletariat does not control the means of production in any way, shape or form. And the impact of a proletarian dictatorship on agriculture is not land redistribution but the socialisation of land and the end of the peasantry as a class.

Anyway, let me ask you this: what is the difference between someone with a 99-year lease on land and someone who owns the land and pays the land tax?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Geeze, a lot of peasant-hate up in here.

For starters, I think we gotta clear up exactly who we mean by "peasants". I know the "standard" definition, or at least the one being pushed in this thead as standard: Small holders of agricultural land (either formal owners, or de facto long-term lessees). The thing is, this leaves a hell of a lot unanswered. Like, for example, at what point does a lessee cease to be a de facto owner? Certainly there are many, many poor tenant farmers whose objective interests are not in private ownership of the land, and yet they are not part of the agricultural proletariat proper. Similarly, sustenance farmers with traditional (but not legal) title almost certainly have a different set of interests than land-owning small farmers whose farms constitute a means of production for markets. And what about communities that hold land in common?

Basically, I think that the line is being drawn in a politically useless place. Either we ought to divide peasants into two relatively distinct categories (those who individually own their land and produce for the market and those who don't), or we should divide them into two classes - the upper segment simply being a section of the petit bourgeois, and the lower being peasants proper.

In any case, in many Marxists' dismissive approach to the peasantry, I think we see some of Marx's (and generally European enlightenment thinkers') god-awful "progress" fetishism and metaphysical conception of history's "forward" motion. There's a bit of circular thinking to it too: Peasants can't change the mode of production because history has passed them by, and history has passed them by because they can't change the mode of production. Well, the jury's out. Certainly, capitalism isn't in their objective interest - proletarianization tends to be a process of violent displacement, and if capitalism tends toward the proletarianization of the peasantry, well . . . you can see their responses in India, in Colombia, in Peru, in Mexico, etc. The question is whether or not they are strategically placed within the global capitalist order so that their activity can overthrow it, and replace it with communism.

On this second matter, I'm inclined to what I would think of as "weak agreement" with the more orthodox Marxists in this thread. Insofar as the peasantry is a tiny numerical minority and economically insignificant at the imperialist centre, they're ill-placed to topple global capitalism. In the periphery, however, the issue isn't so much that they don't have the ability to effect communist transformation (in concert with other forces), but that the global balance of power is such that they're bound to be bombed into the stone-age for trying (and fighting a never-ending war against imperialism tends to produce forms of organization that aren't particularly egalitarian).

That said, as in Chiapas, transformations which "point the way" are certainly possible.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Geeze, a lot of peasant-hate up in here.

For starters, I think we gotta clear up exactly who we mean by "peasants". I know the "standard" definition, or at least the one being pushed in this thead as standard: Small holders of agricultural land (either formal owners, or de facto long-term lessees). The thing is, this leaves a hell of a lot unanswered. Like, for example, at what point does a lessee cease to be a de facto owner? Certainly there are many, many poor tenant farmers whose objective interests are not in private ownership of the land, and yet they are not part of the agricultural proletariat proper. Similarly, sustenance farmers with traditional (but not legal) title almost certainly have a different set of interests than land-owning small farmers whose farms constitute a means of production for markets. And what about communities that hold land in common?

I don't think class is ever easy to delineate. And of course, there exist, in addition to what is known as the peasantry, other rural strata (although it needs to be kept in mind that all of these are integrated into global capitalism). As for common ownership, again, this is the same as a joint-stock company or a co-operative. It does not change the relations of production.


In any case, in many Marxists' dismissive approach to the peasantry, I think we see some of Marx's (and generally European enlightenment thinkers') god-awful "progress" fetishism and metaphysical conception of history's "forward" motion. There's a bit of circular thinking to it too: Peasants can't change the mode of production because history has passed them by, and history has passed them by because they can't change the mode of production.

But you know that's not why we say that history has "passed peasants by" (I don't know anyone who would put it like that, to be honest). We say that because the peasant as a petty landholder has no place in the objectively-socialised, large-scale production that characterises the modern world.


Well, the jury's out. Certainly, capitalism isn't in their objective interest - proletarianization tends to be a process of violent displacement, and if capitalism tends toward the proletarianization of the peasantry, well . . . you can see their responses in India, in Colombia, in Peru, in Mexico, etc.

Yes, we can see that. And we can see the relation the peasant movement in these places has with the proletarian movement for the abolition of class society, which would mean the end of the peasantry as a class, and in the meantime an end to their independence and a subordination to a proletarian state.


On this second matter, I'm inclined to what I would think of as "weak agreement" with the more orthodox Marxists in this thread. Insofar as the peasantry is a tiny numerical minority and economically insignificant at the imperialist centre, they're ill-placed to topple global capitalism.

I don't think they're insignificant in the metropole. In the EU, for example, they are a significant political force. And numbers are never the problem. How many proletarians were there in Russia? No, the question is one of social power. The proletariat has power by being the class of dispossessed direct producers in modern industrial production. The peasantry has no such power. Every peasant could stop producing tomorrow and the effect would be the same as if a new tax has been voted in, if that.

[VivalaCuarta]

On the Internet everybody gets worked up about the peasants because the peasantry is a very inconvenient material reality that tends to break the fragile logic of idealistic/dogmatic schemes.

So depending on which idealistic/dogmatic fake-Marxist scheme you subscribe to, you either have to insist that the peasants are revolutionary, or that they don't exist anymore. Good luck with that!

[Illegalitarian]

There's no a priori necessary rule determining that the class interests of peasants will be with the bourgeoisie. I think the bigger issue for a Marxist should be that they lack the same kind of collective mode of labor, but peasants are often better served by collectivization nonetheless. Really, I think it depends a lot on the unique history and the kinds of property laws which are predominant.

This is what I was driving at, more or less. It's just ahistorical vulgar determinism to claim otherwise. Even if you do take the rather strange position that the peasant armies of Vietnam, India, the Ukraine, etc, were not communists (which again is just absurd. You can argue all the day long about how effective their pre-revolutionary strategies were/are, but they were absolutely communists), but at the end of the day the peasants sided with the working class, not the merchant class nor the bourgeois military re: Vietnam.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I don't really care if Maoists or others want to call them communists. It obviously doesn't fit the meaningful definition of communism. Like how the Fabians of the early 20th century called themselves socialist. Sure, I'll acknowledge that they're 'socialist' since they want to redefine that and call themself it, but in a discussion in which the meaningful, historical definition of socialism is relevant, we're not going to include them as it wouldn't make any sense

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

One's relation to the means of production does not change based on the number of people in this relation. Just as the haute bourgeoisie who set up a joint-stock company do not stop being bourgeois, so the petite bourgeoisie who pool their resources do not stop being petit-bourgeois.


It depends on the manner in which the resources are pooled. If a ejido in Mexico owns the land as a community, it means under a Capitalist framework, they will always be at risk of their land being expropriated through state action. This, incidentally, was what instigated the peasant uprising in Chiapas against NAFTA. This is also what prompted collective land appropriations by peasants in Honduras, which is being violently oppressed by the interests of Capital. It also means that components necessary for productivity (wells, water holes, etc) are most efficiently maintained collectively. This isn't so it can be exploited as capital (though such ejidos do, of course, participate in the system of trade) but so the community can survive off of their labor.

The issue is less whether or not they have a means of production which can be held collectively, it is in the localized nature of their economy, and the fact that the mode of production they use is more individualized. That means they have less capacity to organize on a global level, among other things.

[Tim Cornelis]

This is what I was driving at, more or less. It's just ahistorical vulgar determinism to claim otherwise. Even if you do take the rather strange position that the peasant armies of Vietnam, India, the Ukraine, etc, were not communists (which again is just absurd. You can argue all the day long about how effective their pre-revolutionary strategies were/are, but they were absolutely communists), but at the end of the day the peasants sided with the working class, not the merchant class nor the bourgeois military re: Vietnam.

You keep repeating yourself, but you're not addressing the points raised against your position. "They were absolutely communists", without additional explanation of why they are supposedly communists. Again, what they advocated for the immediate establishment was a capitalist system they deemed socialist, and a system they somehow believed would turn communist at some point in time, presumably some time beyond the horizon. How then do they qualify as communist if they advocate the immediate establishment of a system that is contrary to communism and could not, under any conditions, transform communist mechanically?

It also presumes that the the Vietnamese revolution, etc., had a proletarian class character, and therefore that peasants aligned with the proletarian working class (peasants are still working class). You have not justified that statement.

[Illegalitarian]

I don't really care if Maoists or others want to call them communists. It obviously doesn't fit the meaningful definition of communism. Like how the Fabians of the early 20th century called themselves socialist. Sure, I'll acknowledge that they're 'socialist' since they want to redefine that and call themself it, but in a discussion in which the meaningful, historical definition of socialism is relevant, we're not going to include them as it wouldn't make any sense

They believe in fighting for the end of the capitalist mode of production and the establishment of a stateless, classless society where the means of production are used in common. I'm not sure what your definition of communism is, but the last time i checked this was the meaningful, historical definition.

Just because they advocate a bizarre way of getting there doesn't mean they're not communists. They have about as much chance of achieving their ends as they do by building mass networks of revolutionary unions and taking down a nation in that way, but we wouldn't say syndies aren't communist, would we?


You keep repeating yourself, but you're not addressing the points raised against your position. "They were absolutely communists", without additional explanation of why they are supposedly communists. Again, what they advocated for the immediate establishment was a capitalist system they deemed socialist, and a system they somehow believed would turn communist at some point in time, presumably some time beyond the horizon. How then do they qualify as communist if they advocate the immediate establishment of a system that is contrary to communism and could not, under any conditions, transform communist mechanically?


There's not much to address, no one as given me a good reason as to why they don't count. You keep saying they call of the establishment of a capitalist system.. I don't think you know many Maoists, as the ones I've met were some of the most dedicated activists I know and certainly did not advocate a capitalist system.

Just because you disagree with their methods doesn't mean they are not communists. If Maoists are not communist just because you happen to disagree with their program based on perceived past failures (different maoist tendencies believe different things, there is no real maoist monolith anymore) then not a single leninist tendency is truly communist.


It also presumes that the the Vietnamese revolution, etc., had a proletarian class character, and therefore that peasants aligned with the proletarian working class (peasants are still working class). You have not justified that statement.


The Vietnamese revolution consisted entirely of working class people fighting for their interests as a class, that's all of the justification I need.

You could point to the fact that they did not establish a communist society, if you wanted, but that would be a pretty superficial analysis.

[Devrim]

you have my apologies if i came across as rude, but i swear all the fucking time and it's really nothing personal or angry

Thank you, apology accepted. It comes across as really aggressive. Actually I swear a lot, when I'm talking with my friends, but this is a different situation. Most of the people here are people I don't personally know. I don't think it's really appropriate. I think it adds to the culture of flaming and abuse on this board.


yes, the communist idea of class is about relationship to the means of production, which is precisely why i found it necessary to point out the difference between the various "classes" which are all considered under the larger banner of "peasants", which render the term useless at best, or annoying and inarticulate at worst

I'll accept that I was inarticulate. I think the term landowners was wrong. It should have been small producers. I do think that small independent producer is what the term peasant means though.


i was probably going a bit overboard when i described the leaseholders as necessarily being serfs, but i'm still not wrong about the fact that they're hardly the same as landowners. their relation to production is fundamentally different. they are leaseholders, not owners. if "controlling" the land, as 870 suggested, resulted in ownership, then we wouldn't need a proletarian revolution.

Formal ownership of the land can hide the real relationships behind the legal framework. I'm sure that there are some big capitalist modern farmers who rent their land. I'm also sure that some tenant farmers, particularly sharecroppers are reduced to a level near that of agricultural workers, just as some people who are self employed today are actually workers.

Devrim

[Tim Cornelis]

They believe in fighting for the end of the capitalist mode of production and the establishment of a stateless, classless society where the means of production are used in common. I'm not sure what your definition of communism is, but the last time i checked this was the meaningful, historical definition.

I'm sure there's countless of liberals and maybe even conservatives that believe we'll have a Star Trek-like future, and therefore communists. That doesn't make these liberals and conservatives communists.

The definition of communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Stalinists advocate a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Therefore Stalinists are communists.

The definition of anarchism is a stateless society.
Stalinists advocate a stateless society.
Therefore Stalinists are anarchists.

They don't advocate in the immediate abolition of capitalist society, and are therefore not communists in the same way that Stalinists and Marxists are not anarchists because they don't advocate the immediate abolition of the state.

A proper definition of communism would be something like: advocacy of the immediate revolutionary transformation into communist society. This then disqualifies social-democrats and Stalinists, whom you believe to be communists apparently. Social-democrats reject the immediate revolutionary transformation, and want to transform, (at least initially), into social capitalism. Stalinists want an immediate revolutionary transformation, but not into communism, rather into state-capitalism (which in itself cannot be transformed into communism). Therefore, Stalinists are not communists.


Just because they advocate a bizarre way of getting there doesn't mean they're not communists. They have about as much chance of achieving their ends as they do by building mass networks of revolutionary unions and taking down a nation in that way, but we wouldn't say syndies aren't communist, would we?

They don't have a way of getting there. Many would indeed disqualify syndicalists as communists, since their strategy would result in self-managed capitalism. Nevertheless, they advocate the immediate establishment of communism (and self-managed capitalism would be accidental, an unintended consequence). Stalinists, in contrast, explicitly state that they have no interest in the immediate establishment of communism. State-capitalism would be the intended consequence. Hence, why I'm on the fence about syndicalism, but not Stalinists.


There's not much to address, no one as given me a good reason as to why they don't count. You keep saying they call of the establishment of a capitalist system.. I don't think you know many Maoists, as the ones I've met were some of the most dedicated activists I know and certainly did not advocate a capitalist system.

Well if you believe that socialism is complete state control, then yes Maoists believe in the abolition of the capitalist system. If, however, you apply the Marxist method, then what Maoists advocate is capitalism. Since you list 'revolutionary Marxism' as your tendency I presupposed Marxist analysis.


Just because you disagree with their methods doesn't mean they are not communists. If Maoists are not communist just because you happen to disagree with their program based on perceived past failures (different maoist tendencies believe different things, there is no real maoist monolith anymore) then not a single leninist tendency is truly communist.

Again, it's not just methods. It's what they want to achieve with those methods: state-capitalism.


The Vietnamese revolution consisted entirely of working class people fighting for their interests as a class, that's all of the justification I need.

My rebuttal: The Vietnamese revolution did not consist entirely of working class people fighting for their interests as a class.

These are statements, not arguments.


You could point to the fact that they did not establish a communist society, if you wanted, but that would be a pretty superficial analysis.

That's not my analysis. It's not that they didn't establish a communist society, it's that they didn't, didn't want to, and couldn't.
But is it a "petty superficial analysis" to reject that 1960s social-democrats, like the UK Labour Party, and the German Social-Democratic Party, are not 'communists'? After all, these parties were then still committed to establishing a classless society, so were they communists then?

[Dodo]

i have a better question

why are people talking about peasants as if they are a thing in 2014?

While I agree that we should not stick to old concepts and theories, I would not go this far.
The Kurdish movement in Turkey and Syria has a very strong peasant background and they are on the edge of building the "next" society in Rojava.
Farc guerillas too are peasantry based.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Kurdish movement in Turkey and Syria has a very strong peasant background and they are on the edge of building the "next" society in Rojava.

I wanted to write something sarcastic here, but the extent to which people are willing to delude themselves is beyond sarcasm. I have no idea what place a socialist has on this site anymore, apparently we can forget all that proletarian revolution nonsense and just worship nationalist groups as long as they can recite some nonsense about "democratic confederalism".

[Dodo]

I wanted to write something sarcastic here, but the extent to which people are willing to delude themselves is beyond sarcasm. I have no idea what place a socialist has on this site anymore, apparently we can forget all that proletarian revolution nonsense and just worship nationalist groups as long as they can recite some nonsense about "democratic confederalism".

TBH, I'd rather see Marxists break their dogmatic views and obsession with "proletarian revolution" in the way many imagine it. Modernity is over, fordist capitalism is over. Dynamics have changed. Workers movements are not in the form of trade unions anymore, there is way to much false-consciousness and the ways to combat hegemony are diversified.

Not that I reject a "proletarian revolution", but what you imagine in a proleterian revolution in the classical sense might be long gone. I don't see the point in turning ancient beliefs and theories in classical marxism into a religion.

That being said, what do you know about the Kurdish political movement? The ideological structure and background of YPG and PKK?

[[Insert clever name here]]

Does a peasant class even exist anymore?

[Illegalitarian]

I'm sure there's countless of liberals and maybe even conservatives that believe we'll have a Star Trek-like future, and therefore communists. That doesn't make these liberals and conservatives communists.

No, it doesn't, but Maoists do not simply "believe" in communism, either, they have pretty concise theories and adhere to Marxism just as any other Marxist, with an emphasis on the theoretical advancements made by Lenin, Mao etc.




The definition of communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Stalinists advocate a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Therefore Stalinists are communists.


Yeah, that's.. pretty much it, very good. This is their end goal, disagreeing with their means doesn't make them not communists.

By that logic every revolutionary throughout history wasn't a real communist.


The definition of anarchism is a stateless society.
Stalinists advocate a stateless society.
Therefore Stalinists are anarchists.


As the M-L's I know say, If you can't scratch the surface of a Marxist-Leninist and find an anarchist, then you don't have a communist.

The differences between all of these tendencies lie in organizational methods and revolutionary strategy. Disagree with it all you want, that does not, however, mean they are not communists.


They don't advocate in the immediate abolition of capitalist society, and are therefore not communists in the same way that Stalinists and Marxists are not anarchists because they don't advocate the immediate abolition of the state.


They advocate a dotp and believe that it will by necessity, during the revolutionary process, retain some vestiges of capitalism. This is a pretty common theory among most Marxists.


A proper definition of communism would be something like: advocacy of the immediate revolutionary transformation into communist society. This then disqualifies social-democrats and Stalinists, whom you believe to be communists apparently. Social-democrats reject the immediate revolutionary transformation, and want to transform, (at least initially), into social capitalism. Stalinists want an immediate revolutionary transformation, but not into communism, rather into state-capitalism (which in itself cannot be transformed into communism). Therefore, Stalinists are not communists.


Social democrats advocate for a "reformed capitalism" as the end, not as any sort of transitional means during a revolutionary period.

So to you, what makes or breaks someone from being a communist is how long they believe it will take to transition into communism, or how? Again, this is a definition that immediately collapses when put to the test. By this very definition everyone except for anarchists who reject the notion of proletarian dictatorship are not real communists, I guess, since they see the transition being more immediate than Marxists and other non-anarchist communists.



They don't have a way of getting there. Many would indeed disqualify syndicalists as communists, since their strategy would result in self-managed capitalism. Nevertheless, they advocate the immediate establishment of communism (and self-managed capitalism would be accidental, an unintended consequence). Stalinists, in contrast, explicitly state that they have no interest in the immediate establishment of communism. State-capitalism would be the intended consequence. Hence, why I'm on the fence about syndicalism, but not Stalinists.


Unfortunately we don't know what their strategy would result in.

Again with this "immediate transition" standard that isn't quite up to code, as if what makes a communist is how long they believe, or what the transitional period into the communist mode of production will look like.

Most "Stalinists" don't advocate literally what Stalin did, they too believe that socialist revolution must necessarily be global the same as most other communists. I'm sure there are some nutters out there who still hold to the idea of SIOC, some tankie types perhaps.



Well if you believe that socialism is complete state control, then yes Maoists believe in the abolition of the capitalist system. If, however, you apply the Marxist method, then what Maoists advocate is capitalism. Since you list 'revolutionary Marxism' as your tendency I presupposed Marxist analysis.


Again with the notion that Maoists/M-L's are tankie nutjobs who think that socialism = full nationalization in one country. That's simply false, they do not advocate "state capitalism", they just have a rather odd notion of what a dictatorship of the proletariat would look like and believe that the revolutionary period could potentially last a few years and retain certain vestiges of capitalism.


My rebuttal: The Vietnamese revolution did not consist entirely of working class people fighting for their interests as a class.

These are statements, not arguments.


It is an argument when it refutes the claims being made, that's how argumentation works.

The revolution consisted of mostly working class people who were fighting for their class interests, just because they could not establish such due to the necessity for socialist revolution to be global does not mean they were not fighting for their class interests as working class people.

Again, by this logic there has never truly been a communist revolutionary. That is an assertion devoid of a class analysis, seeing things in terms of their outcome rather than their character.



But is it a "petty superficial analysis" to reject that 1960s social-democrats, like the UK Labour Party, and the German Social-Democratic Party, are not 'communists'? After all, these parties were then still committed to establishing a classless society, so were they communists then?

Sure. I don't believe that their means could ever achieve their desired ends, but that doesn't mean they're not communists. Shitty communists, but communists all the same.

[Tim Cornelis]

Wow. Okay, Stalin was an anarchist, and the UK Labour Party in 1970 was communist, all just to hold on to the illusion that Maoists and Stalinists are communists. If you refuse to see it, I can't make you, but I think that this is sufficient to state why you're wrong.

I also don't feel like responding to the misrepresentations, the silly remark that what I said is somehow "devoid of class analysis" (again a statement without justification or argument) when you believe that the belief of willing socialism in existence at some point is sufficient to qualify as communist, and some other silly stuff like that somehow according to my definition no one was ever communist. Maybe later.

[John Nada]

Wow. Okay, Stalin was an anarchist, and the UK Labour Party in 1970 was communist, all just to hold on to the illusion that Maoists and Stalinists are communists. If you refuse to see it, I can't make you, but I think that this is sufficient to state why you're wrong.

I also don't feel like responding to the misrepresentations, the silly remark that what I said is somehow "devoid of class analysis" (again a statement without justification or argument) when you believe that the belief of willing socialism in existence at some point is sufficient to qualify as communist, and some other silly stuff like that somehow according to my definition no one was ever communist. Maybe later. Well,
That does not mean, of course, that since capitalism is decaying the socialist system can be established any time we like. Only Anarchists and other petty-bourgeois ideologists think that. The socialist ideal is not the ideal of all classes. It is the ideal only of the proletariat; not all classes are directly interested in its fulfillment the proletariat alone is so interested. This means that as long as the proletariat constitutes a small section of society the establishment of the socialist system is impossible. The decay of the old form of production, the further concentration of capitalist production, and the proletarianisation of the majority in society—such are the conditions needed for the achievement of socialism. But this is still not enough. The majority in society may already be proletarianised, but socialism may still not be achievable. This is because, in addition to all this, the achievement of socialism calls for class consciousness, the unity of the proletariat and the ability of the proletariat to manage its own affairs. In order that all this may be acquired, what is called political freedom is needed, i.e., freedom of speech, press, strikes and association, in short, freedom to wage the class struggle. But political freedom is not equally ensured everywhere. Therefore, the conditions under which it is obliged to wage the struggle: under a feudal autocracy (Russia), a constitutional monarchy (Germany), a big-bourgeois republic (France), or under a democratic republic (which Russian Social-Democracy is demanding), are not a matter of indifference to the proletariat. Political freedom is best and most fully ensured in a democratic republic, that is, of course, in so far as it can be ensured under capitalism at all. Therefore, all advocates of proletarian socialism necessarily strive for the establishment of a democratic republic as the best "bridge" to socialism.
As you see, in the opinion of the Social-Democrats, socialist society is a society in which there will be no room for the so-called state, political power, with its ministers, governors, gendarmes, police and soldiers. The last stage in the existence of the state will be the period of the socialist revolution, when the proletariat will capture political power and set up its own government (dictatorship) for the final abolition of the bourgeoisie. But when the bourgeoisie is abolished, when classes are abolished, when socialism becomes firmly established, there will be no need for any political power—and the so-called state will retire into the sphere of history.
As far back as the end of 1847 Karl Marl and Frederick Engels said that to establish socialism the proletariat must achieve political dictatorship in order, with the aid of this dictatorship, to repel the counter-revolutionary attacks of the bourgeoisie and to take from it the means of production; that this dictatorship must be not the dictatorship of a few individuals, but the dictatorship of the entire proletariat as a class :

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands . . . of the proletariat organised as the ruling class . . ." (see the Communist Manifesto).
That is to say, the dictatorship of the proletariat will be a dictatorship of the entire proletariat as a class over the bourgeoisie and not the domination of a few individuals over the proletariat.[/quote=Joseph Stalin]Clearly, everybody who wants to know what the dictatorship of the proletariat is as conceived of by Marxists must study the Paris Commune. Let us then turn to the Paris Commune. If it turns out that the Paris Commune was indeed the dictatorship of a few individuals over the proletariat, then—down with Marxism, down with the dictatorship of the proletariat! But if we find that the Paris Commune was indeed the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, then . . . we shall laugh heartily at the anarchist slanderers who in their struggle against the Marxists have no alternative but to invent slander.[/quote]
As you see, Messieurs the Anarchists know as much about the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Paris Commune, and Marxism, which they so often "criticise," as you and I, dear reader, know about the Chinese language.(Was Stalin psychic?:ohmy:Me)

Clearly, there are two kinds of dictatorship. There is the dictatorship of the minority, the dictatorship of a small group, the dictatorship of the Trepovs and Ignatyevs, which is directed against the people. This kind of dictatorship is usually headed by a camarilla which adopts secret decisions and tightens the noose around the neck of the majority of the people.

Marxists are the enemies of such a dictatorship, and they fight such a dictatorship far more stubbornly and self-sacrificingly than do our noisy Anarchists. There is another kind of dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletarian majority, the dictatorship of the masses, which is directed against the bourgeoisie, against the minority. At the head of this dictatorship stand the masses; here there is no room either for a camarilla or for secret decisions, here everything is done openly, in the streets, at meetings—because it is the dictatorship of the street, of the masses, a dictatorship directed against all oppressors. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm Bold mine. What the fuck happened to him?:confused:

[Illegalitarian]

Wow. Okay, Stalin was an anarchist, and the UK Labour Party in 1970 was communist, all just to hold on to the illusion that Maoists and Stalinists are communists. If you refuse to see it, I can't make you, but I think that this is sufficient to state why you're wrong.

Stalin's early writings, as John as shown, were very anarchistic. It's only after he was touched but Lenin's vanguardism that this changed.

I didn't say Stalin was an anarchist, though, I said that many Marxist-Leninists have no problem with anarchism and probably wouldn't shun the label, aside from organizational differences.

Of course Labour were never going to bring about a communist society simply due to the fact that their strategy was not conducive to such, but just because they were wrong doesn't mean they were not communists.


Your standards are as rigid as your definitions, and both are quite fallacious. Your assertions continue upwards on weak foundation, I guess that means they're not assertions at all, by your own logic. :o

[Tim Cornelis]

What happened John Brown is rationalisation. Confronted with the failure of the Russian revolution, but the deep, binding investment made by Bolsheviks and Stalin to this experiment, caused them to rationalise and realign, and therefore reinvent their political positions to accommodate the new reality of Russian society.

Illegalitarian. Stalin's early writings were Marxist, not anarchist.

My definitions are not rigid, they just contrast with your 'flexible' definition which is so flexible that it's inconsistent. You didn't say that Stalin was an anarchist, but it directly follows from the defining premise you accepted. If communism is mere advocacy of a stateless, classless, moneyless society at some point, and anarchism is mere advocacy of a stateless society at some point, then Stalin was an anarchist because he advocated, when in power, that a stateless society would at some point come about. So, Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Lenin, Marx: all anarchists. If you don't see a problem with defining things in this matter I can't help you.

The problem with this approach to definitions is that they're not really meaningful. Communists are those that advocate the immediate establishment of communism through a revolutionary reconstruction period. Immediate does not mean instantaneous. Therefore, anarcho-communists, Left Communists, me, Kautskyists, perhaps anarcho-syndicalists, 'Hekmatists', and probably many, if not most, Trotskyists are communists. Then there are those, the Stalinists and Proudhonists among others, whom believe that the revolutionary reconstruction involves the rearrangement of the management of capital. Bringing it under the management of a combination of self-managed and public-state enterprises, as many Stalinists do, with those enterprises bound together by market exchange (commodity-monetary exchange as the KKE calls it) advocate in effect for a radically different form of capitalism compared to liberal capitalism. Their vision of socialism, which does contain elements of socialism, is married to concepts that arise uniquely from capitalism (such as the nation-state) or would disappear with it (such as commodity-production). Since this state-capitalist system which they advocate has no internal mechanical dialectical process which leads to its own negation (and to socialism), the Stalinists do not advocate, in any meaningful sense, communism. Meaningful in that what they advocate stands in accordance with the historical development toward communism. The only way to characterise them as communist is to accept that such an internal mechanical dialectical process is unnecessary and it is possible to will socialism into existence. But by doing so, you abandon all pretence of Marxism.

The proper classification would be bourgeois-socialist, since their vision of socialism involves marrying socialist elements to a bourgeois framework producing an illiberal capitalism.

[motion denied]

I said that many Marxist-Leninists have no problem with anarchism and probably wouldn't shun the labelI don't want to get into this but I literally have never encountered such a ML. And believe me, I've met a fair share of them.

[Illegalitarian]

I'm not sympathizing with Marxist Leninism. I don't believe that what they advocate could lead to a communist society, no.

It's just that a definition more focused on the effectiveness of means rather than desired ends seems fallacious (and again, most M-L's advocate the utilization of the nation state and capital-based production under the control of the working class as part of a revolutionary period, they do not see State-capitalism as you call it as the ends).

Would you say that the BPP were not truly civil rights activists because their ideas failed to implement the liberation they had hoped for? Would you say, then, that there never truly has been a communist revolutionary, since the revolutions they were involved with did not bring forth their desired society?


I understand what you are saying, and I agree that M-L organizational and strategic methods will never achieve their desired ends, I simply don't see how you could say that this means they're not communists, though.



I don't want to get into this but I literally have never encountered such a ML. And believe me, I've met a fair share of them.


My experience has been quite the opposite *shrugs*

[Tim Cornelis]

Probably for about the third or fourth time, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Stalinists are not communists because their strategy is unlikely to produce communism despite advocating communism; I'm saying Stalinists are not communists because what they advocate and fight for is state-capitalism.

"Would you say that the BPP were not truly civil rights activists because their ideas failed to implement the liberation they had hoped for? Would you say, then, that there never truly has been a communist revolutionary, since the revolutions they were involved with did not bring forth their desired society?"

No. Because that's not what I've been saying at all. I'm saying they are civil rights activists if they advocate the immediate implementation of civil rights; I'm saying they aren't civil rights activists if they advocate that there aren't civil rights today (and that's what they fight for), but only in some undefined, unspecified period in the future.

[Illegalitarian]

Well, that's the issue then, you're viewing Maoists and M-L as a monolith.

There are a lot of tankie types out there who think that the USSR and Mao's China did it right, but I've hardly met any M-L's who aren't sharply critical of both regimes and do not, indeed, advocate state-capitalism.

[Tim Cornelis]

You seem to run into odd Marxist-Leninists; that supposedly have no problem with identifying as anarchist, are sharply critical of both regimes, and do not advocate state-capitalism. All of which I find hard to believe. And those that did are apparently 'Tankies'.

I have not met these Stalinists personally, and you have no produced any evidence to back up the above mentioned claims. In contrast, I base my assessment on the official documents of the Portuguese Communist Party, the Communist Party of Greece, the Communist Party of Britain, and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. These all indicate that these parties pursue a system based on the state (and cooperative) management of capital. I don't view them as a 'monolith' at all. The KKE is quite a staunch Stalinist party with conventional Stalinist positions; the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia is less 'dogmatic', allowing for more competitive markets under state control; the PCP stands somewhere in between these two; and then there are anti-revisionists, Hoxhaists whom think the KKE is not staunch enough.

Those 'Tankies' that say China and the USSR did it right aren't tankies, they are representative for Stalinism. A Tankie is someone who believes the USSR was an autocratic dictatorship and communist (which Stalinists deny -- claiming it was democratic and socialist) but support it nonetheless.

[Illegalitarian]

Most of the Maoists I know are ex-RCP affiliates who operate out of New York City and Seattle, as well as many members of the CPI(M) and a handful of ladies and gentlemen who have been staunch members of the Communist Party of the Philippines for many, many years.

There are many others as well that I have met through the aforementioned lot, and almost none of them I have talked to advocated for any such, and the anarchist quote I mentioned a few posts back came directly from them.

You can believe it or not, it's of little importance to me. I'm just warning against grouping all M-L's together as advocates for state capitalism who hold up Mao and Stalin's example as those of universality, that should be recreated. If you don't want to believe this is the case, again, it's on you, but it's absolutely not.


A 'tankie' is someone who strongly romanticizes the USSR and China, avidly defending them as perfect model societies, being more enamored by the aesthetics of socialist realism and militarism than interested in the facts. This has not been my experience with any of the M-L(M's) I've met outside of the internet.

[Devrim]

A 'tankie' is someone who strongly romanticizes the USSR and China, avidly defending them as perfect model societies, being more enamored by the aesthetics of socialist realism and militarism than interested in the facts. This has not been my experience with any of the M-L(M's) I've met outside of the internet.

A 'tankie' was someone who supported sending in the tanks back in '56.

Devrim

[Illegalitarian]

A 'tankie' was someone who supported sending in the tanks back in '56.

Devrim

Is that a fact? I've always wondered how the term originated.

Learn something new every day, thanks!

[consuming negativity]

Originally Posted by Joseph Stalin
That does not mean, of course, that since capitalism is decaying the socialist system can be established any time we like. Only Anarchists and other petty-bourgeois ideologists think that.

Petty-bourgeois ideologues such as Vladimir Lenin and yourself, apparently.

Anarchists are often criticized as being idealist and not understanding Marxism, but I think we understand Marx better than the Marxists themselves. Kinda like how so many "reactionaries" I meet have an implicit understanding of the system they're a part of, but are unable to articulate that understanding in words that would ever be respected by the academics on this board.

[Tim Cornelis]

Most of the Maoists I know are ex-RCP affiliates who operate out of New York City and Seattle, as well as many members of the CPI(M) and a handful of ladies and gentlemen who have been staunch members of the Communist Party of the Philippines for many, many years.

There are many others as well that I have met through the aforementioned lot, and almost none of them I have talked to advocated for any such, and the anarchist quote I mentioned a few posts back came directly from them.

You can believe it or not, it's of little importance to me. I'm just warning against grouping all M-L's together as advocates for state capitalism who hold up Mao and Stalin's example as those of universality, that should be recreated. If you don't want to believe this is the case, again, it's on you, but it's absolutely not.

It seems every time I say something it falls on deaf ears, and we go in circles. Again, "You can believe it or not, it's of little importance to me. I'm just warning against grouping all M-L's together as advocates for state capitalism who hold up Mao and Stalin's example as those of universality, that should be recreated." Even though I have already addressed this, which you ignore and then reiterate without justification. I've already stated that "I don't view them as a 'monolith' at all. The KKE is quite a staunch Stalinist party with conventional Stalinist positions; the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia is less 'dogmatic', allowing for more competitive markets under state control; the PCP stands somewhere in between these two; and then there are anti-revisionists, Hoxhaists whom think the KKE is not staunch enough." Address this or move on, but please stop repeating yourself when I've already commented on it.

The programs of all Stalinist parties I've laid eyes on all clearly indicate a support of the USSR as socialist under Stalin; and a desire to create a society based on complete state ownership. You claim to have spoken to different Stalinists. You mentioned the CPP and CPI(M). You claim that the individuals "almost none of them I have talked to advocated for any such..." state-capitalism presumably. The CPP is a stagist party, advocating for a national-democratic revolution in which there is a state sector, a cooperative sector, and a private sector (which is incidentally the same position of the Portuguese Communist Party). This is evidently not socialism, and the CPP doesn't claim it is; but they do claim it's the first step of socialist construction.

Some comments:

"The cooperativization of agriculture and nonagricultural enterprises as well as joint state-private ownership can be carried out from one stage to a higher one in conjunction with socialist construction and further industrialization."

"After the New Economic Policy served its purpose, Stalin carried out fullscale socialist construction." And revisionists ruined this. Tito was also a revisionist: "He considered as key to socialism not the public ownership of the means of production, economic planning and further development of the productive forces but the immediate decentralization of enterprises; the so-called workers’ self-management that actually combined bureaucratism and anarchy of production".

"China under the leadership of Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China was able to demonstrate that there could be a well-balanced growth of agriculture as the foundation of the economy, heavy industry as the leading factor and light industry as the bridging factor between the first two."

"They prate about the law of value but at the same time they obscure the critical Marxist theory of surplus value and the creative line of using what is otherwise private profit as social profit and of converting what is otherwise an anarchic yet monopolistic production for private profit into a system of planned production for use and for the benefit of the entire society."

". Within the system of public ownership of the means of production and economic planning, the new value created is allocated for the wages fund for consumption, economic reinvestment not only to cover depreciation but also expansion of production, general welfare (education, health, infrastructure, etc.), administration and national defense."

"Aside from the wage system with differentials which corresponds to the system of commodity values, the commodities produced incorporate inputs which are bought from other parts of the domestic or world market at certain prices and which are taken into account in the market price of the commodities. Price comparisons can also be made with similar commodities produced abroad."

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/documents/stand-for-socialism-against-modern-revisionism

Yada yada yada. I remember reading the same nonsense in CPI(M) documents about establishing a New Democracy and whatnot. Long story short, CPP advocates full state ownership, surplus value extracted from labour, ('socialist') commodity production. In other words, what you said is categorically wrong. Of course Stalinists do embrace the USSR as leading example of socialism, and of course they seek to recreate something very much like it (with vague rhetoric about different conditions justifying its contemporary application), and of course they blame revisionism for their demise. None of what you said, unsurprisingly, turned out to be true.


A 'tankie' is someone who strongly romanticizes the USSR and China, avidly defending them as perfect model societies, being more enamored by the aesthetics of socialist realism and militarism than interested in the facts. This has not been my experience with any of the M-L(M's) I've met outside of the internet.

More or less yes. Most Stalinists are not Tankies, and most Stalinists do embrace the USSR as leading example, and most Stalinists do want to recreate the USSR "adapted to new conditions" (which means very little), as I've said and as is corroborated with all the programmes and declarations of the Communist Parties of Greece, India (Maoist), Portugal, Philippines, Britain, and the Czech Republic.




Anarchists are often criticized as being idealist and not understanding Marxism, but I think we understand Marx better than the Marxists themselves.

I really think you're overestimating the average anarchist's knowledge of Marxism, and presumably yours as well. I'd like to see this put to the test, maybe start a new thread on it if you'd like.

[consuming negativity]

Quote is being a shithead.


I really think you're overestimating the average anarchist's knowledge of Marxism, and presumably yours as well. I'd like to see this put to the test, maybe start a new thread on it if you'd like.

Knowledge and understanding are two different things. It is not difficult to copy/paste from Marx. Nor is it difficult to repeat what he said or connect his concepts together. But when it comes to understanding what Marx was talking about, who he was, and what his perspective on the world really was? Anarchists understand him far above and beyond the Marxist intellectuals to whom what is human is foreign and must be studied like nuclear physics. All Marx really did was articulate what is obvious to him. Just like any good observer, including those who are far less renowned, he opened his eyes, he saw what was going on, and then he explained it in words. It really is not necessary to extensively study Marx to understand his thought. If it was, then the Marxists are all wasting their time, because most of his writing is as dense as it is brilliant and falls squarely into the category of things that people wish they had read but will never bother to read.

[Tim Cornelis]

Quote is being a shithead.



Knowledge and understanding are two different things. It is not difficult to copy/paste from Marx. Nor is it difficult to repeat what he said or connect his concepts together. But when it comes to understanding what Marx was talking about, who he was, and what his perspective on the world really was? Anarchists understand him far above and beyond the Marxist intellectuals to whom what is human is foreign and must be studied like nuclear physics. All Marx really did was articulate what is obvious to him. Just like any good observer, including those who are far less renowned, he opened his eyes, he saw what was going on, and then he explained it in words. It really is not necessary to extensively study Marx to understand his thought. If it was, then the Marxists are all wasting their time, because most of his writing is as dense as it is brilliant and falls squarely into the category of things that people wish they had read but will never bother to read.

This doesn't really tell me anything. From personal experience, when I was an anarchist and now as a Marxist, anarchists do not have a better grasp of Marxism. You can counter that with your personal experience, but that doesn't prove much to me. I really can't see what you're basing this on.

[consuming negativity]

This doesn't really tell me anything. From personal experience, when I was an anarchist and now as a Marxist, anarchists do not have a better grasp of Marxism. You can counter that with your personal experience, but that doesn't prove much to me. I really can't see what you're basing this on.

knowing what marx said is different from understanding what marx was saying

i don't know how else it can really be put

this is something i was taught when i was studying to become a teacher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy#Cognitive

it is relevant to this conversation only insofar as i am not the only person who makes a distinction between comprehension and knowledge and other higher levels of critical thinking. in short, i guess what i'm saying is that most marxists don't really know what they're talking about, and they're more like computers who just spit out information that they don't understand rather than anarchists who don't sit and read marx all day but can tell you what is actually going on

the knowledge that has people here talking about "how do we get the proles to do this" versus the knowledge that working people already have wherein they implicitly understand how things work without knowing the terminology to describe such things

i guess the ultimate takeaway here is that there's a reason why marxism/marxism-leninism is something i've only encountered online or among professors, whereas maoism and anarchism are both readily available for those who would go searching to find such people

because you don't need to read to understand, and actually i think reading about shit rather than learning it yourself is probably bad. stalin sounded like he knew what he was talking about until he started listening to a shithead academic like lenin, and then look what he turned into

there's just something to be said for the ability of people to figure shit out on their own that i think we overlook

[Tim Cornelis]

knowing what marx said is different from understanding what marx was saying

i don't know how else it can really be put

this is something i was taught when i was studying to become a teacher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy#Cognitive

it is relevant to this conversation only insofar as i am not the only person who makes a distinction between comprehension and knowledge and other higher levels of critical thinking. in short, i guess what i'm saying is that most marxists don't really know what they're talking about, and they're more like computers who just spit out information that they don't understand rather than anarchists who don't sit and read marx all day but can tell you what is actually going on

the knowledge that has people here talking about "how do we get the proles to do this" versus the knowledge that working people already have wherein they implicitly understand how things work without knowing the terminology to describe such things

i guess the ultimate takeaway here is that there's a reason why marxism/marxism-leninism is something i've only encountered online or among professors, whereas maoism and anarchism are both readily available for those who would go searching to find such people

because you don't need to read to understand, and actually i think reading about shit rather than learning it yourself is probably bad. stalin sounded like he knew what he was talking about until he started listening to a shithead academic like lenin, and then look what he turned into

there's just something to be said for the ability of people to figure shit out on their own that i think we overlook

I'm really trying to understand what you're saying, but it just doesn't make sense to me. True, knowing what Marx said is different from understanding what Marx was saying. You don't have to put it otherwise, but it simply doesn't follow that anarchists therefore understand Marxism better than most Marxists. I'm roughly familiar with the cognitive "bloom's taxonomy" (though not that specific phrase). This is how education, and more so academics, is built up. You begin with elementary knowledge of what people said, and so forth, until you can analyse, evaluate, and create, the highest tier of academic achievement in a sense. Therefore it seems odd that you would say that "marxism/marxism-leninism is something i've only encountered online or among professors", meaning you are suggesting that professors haven't surpassed the first level of 'remember', which would simply disable them from becoming professors in the first place. You become a master's of political science or economics by applying; you become a Phd by analysing, creating, evaluating. So how then is it that these professors (Phds) haven't surpassed the education level of a first year's student?

"what i'm saying is that most marxists don't really know what they're talking about, and they're more like computers who just spit out information that they don't understand rather than anarchists who don't sit and read marx all day but can tell you what is actually going on" And you base this on a gut feeling. Or can you actually substantiate this by going through what Marxists on these forums write, and 'evaluate' it and point out that flaws? I very much doubt it. It seems you think Marxists have no clue what they're saying because you have no clue what they're saying, so really, it seems, you are projecting your own ignorance of Marxism on Marxists.

Now, what you said, that somehow anarchists and Maoists instinctively know stuff without reading Marx (while Maoists always refer to Scripture to ensure that what they're saying is validated by Marx and whatnot, but whatever), that to me underscores that you don't understand it at all. Marxism is a method of social analysis, more or less synonymous with a materialist class analysis. Somehow anarchists can instinctively "tell what's going on", but this 'class instinct' does not preclude Marxism at all -- it's kinda related to the whole 'class conscious' thing isn't it?

"the knowledge that has people here talking about "how do we get the proles to do this" versus the knowledge that working people already have wherein they implicitly understand how things work without knowing the terminology to describe such things" But that's what Marxism says. The working class is exploited and becomes class conscious. It doesn't become class conscious because of preaching, it becomes conscious instinctively under a particular constellation of conditions and circumstances, and culminates in a revolutionary crisis. Marxism merely provides a tool to understand the situation for the most advanced workers, but had Marxism not existed, communism would still have.

"whereas maoism and anarchism are both readily available for those who would go searching to find such people [as opposed to Marxists and non-Maoist Stalinists]". This also seems like a strange observation. First, about what country are we talking about? Not Belgium where Stalinists, followed by Trotskyists, is the largest tendency and the most involved; not the Netherlands; not Ireland; not France; not Spain; not Portugal; not Greece; not Brazil; not Italy; etc. The United States presumably? I have no hands on experience and all sects seem equally small, but I bet you can find just as many Trotskyists, if not more than Maoists.

"because you don't need to read to understand" You don't need to read to understand the position of the working class (which, again, is fully emphasised by Marxism in its opposition to idealism); you need to read to understand some other stuff though.

This hilarious gem: "stalin sounded like he knew what he was talking about until he started listening to a shithead academic like lenin, and then look what he turned into". I suppose it would be cheap to say that this gem is representative of your overall understanding of these topics. Stalin was just failing to become a Christian Orthodox priest, then he met Lenin and became a communist, and then wrote 'Socialism or Anarchism?' where he correctly equates socialism with a stateless society. "What he turned into" was not the product of a "shithead academic like Lenin". First of all, Lenin wasn't an academic. Second, Stalin wouldn't even have written what "sounded like he knew what he was talking about" if he hadn't met Lenin and started listening to him. Third, Stalin turned into what he turned into because of rationalisation. Confronted with the failure of the Russian revolution, but the deep, binding investment made by Bolsheviks and Stalin to this experiment, caused them to rationalise and realign, and therefore reinvent their political positions to accommodate the new reality of Russian society.

All in all, you don't give the impression that you know what you're talking about.

[consuming negativity]

Of course you don't think I know what I'm talking about. If you did, I'd be worried, because you also said you don't understand what I'm trying to say, and if you did understand what I'm trying to say, you'd also understand that I know what I'm talking about. Everything fits together.

It does not take reading Marx to be able to analyse the world around you. All you have to do is have a brain, make observations, and then build on it as you described. Marx did it. Anybody can do it. This is my point - that it does not require reading Marx to understand what Marx was talking about, because what he was talking about is readily available to any thinking person. For you to then suggest that we should make a thread and talk about terminology and specifics of what Marx's analyses were only goes to show that you don't understand what I'm saying, as if you had not admitted it before, because you think that terminology such as has been used in this thread is an indication of anything other than having read Marx. But reading Marx is not necessary to understand the the individual, the society, and the world. Plenty of people before and after Marx have understood how things work, even if they did not articulate it in the same words, with the same clarity, or with the same mistakes. Not only that, but to stop reading and learning in the mid-1800s or with, say, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, is to deprive oneself of at least an approximate century of thought since then. I don't even really like the term "Marxist"; it is a bit crude, it leaves out Engels who was much more articulate, and it strands us in a world that existed before either world war. So I suppose that wraps up what I think about self-described Marxists.

For you to say that Lenin was not an academic is... well, telling. Lenin came from a wealthy family and attended university in a time where only the wealthiest of persons could ever attend university. By all accounts, Lenin is an intellectual, an academic, and a politician. This is undeniable. As is his influence on Stalin.

[Fakeblock]

I understand what you're trying to say, communer, but you obviously don't know what you're talking about. As if Marx didn't spend decades upon decades formulating his method and his theories. As if understanding the mechanics and structures of social relations is simply a matter of opening your thid eye and 'seeing things as they are', and not a field of rigorous investigation. Marx opened this field to scientific knowledge, he allowed an understanding of it. No known thinker has done this before Marx. It's very easy, 150 years later, to say that 'it's just a matter of making observations', but Marx's theories weren't just 'observations'. They constituted a complete break with ideological understandings of history.

Workers, anarchists and Maoists (who are both Marxist and Marxist-Leninist, but whatever) aren't superhumans. Like academics, politicians, capitalists, police etc. etc. they can't instinctively understand the structure of the social world. Understanding requires (self-)education. Such is the nature of all scientific subjects.

[Tim Cornelis]

In addition to what Fakeblock said, analogously, what you suggest is that the Theory of Gravity is useless, since just anyone can readily see that things fall to earth (and by extension that therefore you and me understand gravity better than physicists). Obviously, I don't need to know the algebra behind the theory of gravity to navigate myself through everyday life; the same as an ordinary worker doesn't necessarily need Marxism to navigate himself toward emancipation. But Marxism is a useful tool for understanding society, an understanding that one cannot obtain from simple observation. If we understand how society works, we can deduce an effective roadmap toward liberation from it.

"For you to say that Lenin was not an academic is... well, telling. Lenin came from a wealthy family and attended university in a time where only the wealthiest of persons could ever attend university. By all accounts, Lenin is an intellectual, an academic, and a politician."

Whether someone is an academic is not a matter of opinion. An academic is "a teacher or scholar in a university or other institute of higher education." He simply wasn't.

[consuming negativity]

I understand what you're trying to say, communer, but you obviously don't know what you're talking about. As if Marx didn't spend decades upon decades formulating his method and his theories. As if understanding the mechanics and structures of social relations is simply a matter of opening your thid eye and 'seeing things as they are', and not a field of rigorous investigation. Marx opened this field to scientific knowledge, he allowed an understanding of it. No known thinker has done this before Marx. It's very easy, 150 years later, to say that 'it's just a matter of making observations', but Marx's theories weren't just 'observations'. They constituted a complete break with ideological understandings of history.

Workers, anarchists and Maoists (who are both Marxist and Marxist-Leninist, but whatever) aren't superhumans. Like academics, politicians, capitalists, police etc. etc. they can't instinctively understand the structure of the social world. Understanding requires (self-)education. Such is the nature of all scientific subjects.

I never said it was instinctive. One of the persons who "thanked" this post said it was instinctive, actually, which is fucking hilarious. I said it was "implicit", as in they implicitly understand because they are not so stupid as to not be able to see what is directly in front of them.

But I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about when you can't even be bothered to read my damn posts.

You keep saying that shit because you don't understand what I'm saying. You think you're so much more knowledgeable and intelligent and that I just have no idea what I'm talking about. As if I didn't school you fuckers earlier on your own stupid terminologies. No, quite the contrary, you're sitting there arguing with yourself. What do you think rigorous investigation is if not observation and analysis? That's what I mean about saying shit and having no idea what it is you're even saying.

[consuming negativity]

In addition to what Fakeblock said, analogously, what you suggest is that the Theory of Gravity is useless, since just anyone can readily see that things fall to earth (and by extension that therefore you and me understand gravity better than physicists). Obviously, I don't need to know the algebra behind the theory of gravity to navigate myself through everyday life; the same as an ordinary worker doesn't necessarily need Marxism to navigate himself toward emancipation. But Marxism is a useful tool for understanding society, an understanding that one cannot obtain from simple observation. If we understand how society works, we can deduce an effective roadmap toward liberation from it.

"For you to say that Lenin was not an academic is... well, telling. Lenin came from a wealthy family and attended university in a time where only the wealthiest of persons could ever attend university. By all accounts, Lenin is an intellectual, an academic, and a politician."

Whether someone is an academic is not a matter of opinion. An academic is "a teacher or scholar in a university or other institute of higher education." He simply wasn't.

marxism is not a tool, what a ridiculous statement. i'd love to hear you tell me how exactly we can use "marxism" as a "tool" to understand things. mao said the same thing, amusingly enough. no, the tool we use to understand shit is called our brains.

good job, you managed to catch me on misusing a word (academic)

alright bro, he was just a shithead intellectual. happy now?

[The Feral Underclass]

I'm sorry for being lazy, but would Tim, or someone, be good enough to give me a brief summary of their objection to Maoism and to the concept of peasants as a revolutionary force? I'd like to understand.

[Tim Cornelis]

marxism is not a tool, what a ridiculous statement. i'd love to hear you tell me how exactly we can use "marxism" as a "tool" to understand things. mao said the same thing, amusingly enough. no, the tool we use to understand shit is called our brains.

good job, you managed to catch me on misusing a word (academic)

alright bro, he was just a shithead intellectual. happy now?


I never said it was instinctive. One of the persons who "thanked" this post said it was instinctive, actually, which is fucking hilarious. I said it was "implicit", as in they implicitly understand because they are not so stupid as to not be able to see what is directly in front of them.

But I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about when you can't even be bothered to read my damn posts.

You keep saying that shit because you don't understand what I'm saying. You think you're so much more knowledgeable and intelligent and that I just have no idea what I'm talking about. As if I didn't school you fuckers earlier on your own stupid terminologies. No, quite the contrary, you're sitting there arguing with yourself. What do you think rigorous investigation is if not observation and analysis? That's what I mean about saying shit and having no idea what it is you're even saying.

There's no talking to you apparently. Look how defensive you get when people challenge you. It's not even an antagonistic challenge.

What you said is that workers, anarchists, Maoists, don't need Marxism since they have an "implicit understanding of how the system works". I call this instinctive -- which is for some reason such an absurd leap that it's fucking hilarious, and can therefore be dismissed out of hand. What you're saying, it seems to me, is that you believe that these people more or less automatically or spontaneously -- in the sense that they don't need to investigate theoretically to -- see the system for how it is. That's what instinctive means: a spontaneous tendency toward something. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/instinctive . You also didn't explain how this supposed difference between an implicit understanding and an instinctive understanding is so relevant that it invalidates Fakeblock's comments.

I can't speak for Fakeblock but I do think I'm more knowledgeable because you haven't given any indication of you having a clue what Marxism is, quite the contrary. You could begin by what Marxism is, its method and its conclusions, and then argue why these are meaningless or useless. You haven't done that at all. You have made some vague ramblings about how people instinctively know the system without specifying this, and how exactly this invalidates Marxism -- or how these people then understand Marxism better than Marxists, for which you've still not provided any justification.

Marxism is a tool insofar it is an analytical method that equips a person to see the dynamics of social structures, and specifically capitalism, accurately, which enables him to find its exploitable flaws and change the system. We can use Marxism as a tool to understand things as follows: we work from the materialist and class proposition and work from there. We can see that capitalism has brought forth a fundamental contradiction between capitalist appropriation and socialised production. Additionally, by using Marxist economics we can see that the social character of labour is presently expressed as private labour and that this takes the value-form. Then, when socialism enters into possession of the means of production, and it is administered under the free association of producers and consumers, labour becomes directly social and value and commodity production disappear. Consequently, we know that it's of fundamental importance to integrate productive establishment into one cooperative body, as opposed to allowing self-directed cooperatives to operate autonomously. We can then distil this and propagate it among the working masses in non- and revolutionary situations to ensure that the attempted socialist revolution consolidates as soon as possible, as quick as possible, and as successful as possible.

None of this is revealed by simply living in capitalism or simple observation, and indeed requires rigorous investigation, " What do you think rigorous investigation is if not observation and analysis". That may be true, but that's entirely different from what you suggested, namely that such rigorous analysis of society is not necessary, and workers 'just' know it spontaneously by living it. You're contradicting yourself: either we just need brains as tool, or analysis can be beneficial.

I also don't recall you schooling us about stupid terminologies. And if you did, wooh, so what, you caught us on misusing a word, congratulations! Or something.


I'm sorry for being lazy, but would Tim, or someone, be good enough to give me a brief summary of their objection to Maoism and to the concept of peasants as a revolutionary force? I'd like to understand.

My opposition to Maoism does not rest solely on its emphasis on peasants, although they specifically use the uprooted peasants facing the modernising forces of capitalist development. As such, I think it casts doubt on the revolutionary nature of this specific appeal to peasants (working from the presumption that capitalism is necessary for socialism). My position on peasants in general is less pessimistic, although I think the Zapatistas prove the limits of using peasants as primary revolutionary agent. Ultimately, they got isolated to a backward rural area with little possibility of developing themselves, let along socialist construction. (But then, were they even really peasants in the sense we are talking about, or were they agricultural workers?).

My opposition to Maoism is its class collaborating concept of New Democracy, or national-democratic revolution. Under certain conditions the working class should struggle for liberal democracy, but not in permanent collaboration with the 'progressive' bourgeoisie. Maoism also upholds state ownership as socialism and the useless concept of socialist commodity production.

[Fakeblock]

I never said it was instinctive. One of the persons who "thanked" this post said it was instinctive, actually, which is fucking hilarious. I said it was "implicit", as in they implicitly understand because they are not so stupid as to not be able to see what is directly in front of them.

But I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about when you can't even be bothered to read my damn posts.

You keep saying that shit because you don't understand what I'm saying. You think you're so much more knowledgeable and intelligent and that I just have no idea what I'm talking about. As if I didn't school you fuckers earlier on your own stupid terminologies. No, quite the contrary, you're sitting there arguing with yourself. What do you think rigorous investigation is if not observation and analysis? That's what I mean about saying shit and having no idea what it is you're even saying.

Well, excuse me for saying instinctive instead of implicit, though I don't see how it makes much of a difference.

You're right to an extent. Workers do form an implicit - I think instinctive is the right word, actually - idea of exploitation based on their living experiences, which can manifest itself as progressive, if not revolutionary ideology. But the point is that this is an ideological representation, not an understanding - like knowing that things fall to the ground when you drop them from a roof in no way constitutes a scientific understanding of gravity. If we truly want to understand the processes and structures behind the phenomena, we need 'to read books' and educate ourselves. Knowledge about the social and natural world was acquired through millennia of scientific practice, of trial and error. We can't just gain this knowledge ourselves by making observations and thinking about stuff real hard, even though this is a necessary aspect of it. We need to take into account what came before us. Remember that Marx's theories didn't just one day leap out, fully armed, from his head. He could formulate them only because he spent decades upon decades meticulously researching political economy, philosophy, history, science etc. Actually, Marx was much more of an intellectual than Lenin, whose theoretical investigations and philosophical works were carried out mostly in prison/exile (like 'The Development of Capitalism in Russia' and 'Imperialism' I believe), or for propaganda/polemical purposes (like 'The State and Revolution') or both. Lenin was definitely a revolutionary militant first and a Marxist theorist second.


What do you think rigorous investigation is if not observation and analysis?

Observation and analysis forms a part of scientific investigation, but not nearly everything. We can't gain scientific knowledge without first constructing the concept of what we're trying to gain knowledge of, i.e. the object of knowledge. It's obvious, for example, that if we embark on an investigation of the nature of phlogiston and analysise our observations with this object in mind, the result will be unsatisfactory. We'll have observed the nature of something that doesn't exist. If we instead set out to gain knowledge of the nature of oxygen, we might produce an actual knowledge, an understanding. Similarly Marx could only gain knowledge of the laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production, because he had already constructed its concept. Constructing a a body of concepts, a framework through which we observe and analyse is as necessary as the process of observation and analysis themselves. This is a process of trial and error and of application and misapplication. Marx did a lot of the work for us, which is why I think dismissing him as unnecessary is a bit silly (indeed as silly as dismissing Pythagoras, Galileo, Lavoisier or Darwin).

[Fakeblock]

In addition to what Fakeblock said, analogously, what you suggest is that the Theory of Gravity is useless, since just anyone can readily see that things fall to earth (and by extension that therefore you and me understand gravity better than physicists). Obviously, I don't need to know the algebra behind the theory of gravity to navigate myself through everyday life; the same as an ordinary worker doesn't necessarily need Marxism to navigate himself toward emancipation. But Marxism is a useful tool for understanding society, an understanding that one cannot obtain from simple observation. If we understand how society works, we can deduce an effective roadmap toward liberation from it.

Indeed, but I think Marxism's gift to the proletariat goes beyond this. Think of the fatal blow dealt by the scientific discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and so on to feudal religious ideology. These discoveries were of indescribable value to the revolutionary bourgeois ideologues and philosophers, because they utterly discredited the dominant ideology. The bourgeoisie could now, with science supporting them, extol their ideas of the supremacy of Reason, Justice, Liberty of thought and being etc. Marxism must in this way be made to serve the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat.

[The Feral Underclass]

My opposition to Maoism does not rest solely on its emphasis on peasants, although they specifically use the uprooted peasants facing the modernising forces of capitalist development. As such, I think it casts doubt on the revolutionary nature of this specific appeal to peasants (working from the presumption that capitalism is necessary for socialism). My position on peasants in general is less pessimistic, although I think the Zapatistas prove the limits of using peasants as primary revolutionary agent. Ultimately, they got isolated to a backward rural area with little possibility of developing themselves, let along socialist construction. (But then, were they even really peasants in the sense we are talking about, or were they agricultural workers?).

What would you have suggested he do then, under the circumstances?


My opposition to Maoism is its class collaborating concept of New Democracy, or national-democratic revolution. Under certain conditions the working class should struggle for liberal democracy, but not in permanent collaboration with the 'progressive' bourgeoisie.

Was it really a struggle for liberal democracy? As far as I understand it, it was an effort to construct proletarian power that was neither liberal nor parliamentary. Can bringing bourgeois elements under the control of the communist party constitute collaboration?

I'm not giving you an opinion, as I don't really know enough, I'm just asking the questions.


Maoism also upholds state ownership as socialism and the useless concept of socialist commodity production.

Can you elaborate on this?

[Tim Cornelis]

What would you have suggested he do then, under the circumstances?

He being? Mao, Zapata, Subcommandante Marcos?


Was it really a struggle for liberal democracy? As far as I understand it, it was an effort to construct proletarian power that was neither liberal nor parliamentary. Can bringing bourgeois elements under the control of the communist party constitute collaboration?

They don't use liberal democracy. They speak of a new-democracy or national-democratic revolution. "The national bourgeoisie is the most wealthy of the forces that may be won over to the side of the revolution. It is restricted by foreign and feudal domination in its goal of nationalist industrialization. Though it wishes to lead the patriotic and progressive classes through its entrepreneurship and its political actions, its kind of class leadership has already been surpassed historically by the revolutionary class leadership of the working class. The vacillating dual character of the national bourgeoisie should be recognized by the working class while working for a national united front of all patriotic and progressive classes, groups and individuals under the leadership of the working class."

"Encourage the people and the national bourgeoisie to build a self-reliant economy and at the same time confiscate foreign goods that depress or eliminate the local production of goods by patriotic Filipino citizens while urging the broad masses of the people to boycott imperialist businesses and consumer goods;"

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/documents/program-for-a-people-s-democratic-revolution


I'm not giving you an opinion, as I don't really know enough, I'm just asking the questions.

My opinion on the subject is not very pronounced either.


Can you elaborate on this?

It believes socialism is compatible with state ownership and commodity production when it's not. Not sure what there's to elaborate. Socialism is a classless, moneyless, stateless society.

[Rafiq]

Because there are no more peasants in the traditional sense, just subsistence farmers and agricultural proles


As Bakunin pointed out, however, the peasantry have historically been the most revolutionary force throughout history whenever they were a thing, so Marx got this wrong imo

The problem for Marx was not that the peasants were incapable of putting up a good fight, or more specifically - incapable of being radicalized. The problem is that the peasantry's fight against capitalism made seldom distinction between reactionary and revolutionary endeavors against capitalism. Certainly the peasantry has always been capable of radical mobilization, i.e. from Thomas Muntzer to Mao's romantic revolution, but the point is that it is not proletarian in nature and thus - not the kind of Communism of the proletariat. The peasantry constituted a different relationship to production than the proletariat. Their interests were thus prone to be contradictory, i.e. one of the big problems of the civil war in the former Russian Empire was precisely this: The peasantry generally held that the Bolsheviks were more favorable to the industrial proletariat in adhering to their needs than themselves. The landless peasantry can only be absorbed into the process of proletanization or urbanization - and the majority of the peasantry as such, the land-owning peasantry have no aspirations to give up their land. That is the problem, they are within capitalism a petty bourgeois class (just as I explained how in another thread, American slaves in the south were essentially proletarians - the remnants of feudalism gave the peasantry a petty bourgeois role).

[The Feral Underclass]

He being? Mao, Zapata, Subcommandante Marcos?

Mao.


They don't use liberal democracy. They speak of a new-democracy or national-democratic revolution.

I don't think Mao ever used the term 'national democratic revolution', but I could be wrong. But I thought the concept of New Democracy was a solution to the problems faced by the fact that China was not an industrialised nation, which is one of your criticisms, right?


It believes socialism is compatible with state ownership and commodity production when it's not. Not sure what there's to elaborate. Socialism is a classless, moneyless, stateless society.

Don't Maoists advocate for a transitional phrase?

But I guess I was asking to see what commodity production and state capitalism actually looks like in Mao's China or source texts outlining Mao's position on commodity production and state capitalism in a transitional society?

[Rafiq]

Which kind of makes me wonder how on earth Maoism is still the most popular communist tendency on earth


That is certainly a good question. It all relates to the petite bourgeois and reactionary turn the Left has taken following the collapse of Communism globally. Essentially, capitalist globalization, neoliberalism and de-industrialization in developed countries represented a fundamental revolution in capitalist production - and the Left had taken up the role of the petite bourgeois socialists of the 19th century, reactionary socialists as Marx described them. Maoism's popularity is one and the same for "anarchism"'s popularity, or local grassroots autonomous organization - they are all fundamentally petite bourgeois who seek to retreat from society, or the excesses of global capitalism.

[Rafiq]

You've used this argument in a couple of threads now. Why do you think this matters at all?

Maybe because playing with words is meaningless: Words have meaning contextually here. Maoism is technically a "Communist tendency" because the word Communism has different connontations as a result of the developments o the 20th century. Words have different meanings in different contexts. Playing with phrase-mongering, or more specifically, trying to dis-associate yourself from our legacy does Communism no service. We can talk of Communism with regard to Communist states - which Mao's China was not even much of an exception. Being that Russia was THE ONLY country to experience a proletarian revolution, every single Communist state essentially took the role of destroying the remnants of feudalism. Communism happened so capitalist globalization could happen. This is the conclusion we draw in retrospect.

The question now isn't "returning" to a time when Communism didn't carry the same connotations - but revolutionizing Communism. You want Communism to mean something else? Then the movement to abolish the present state of things must be fought for. Without this movement, the word "Communism" as you use it has very little meaning (we can differentiate the word communism as used by Marx, and 20th century Communism though - because context).

[Illegalitarian]

Yada yada yada. I remember reading the same nonsense in CPI(M) documents about establishing a New Democracy and whatnot. Long story short, CPP advocates full state ownership, surplus value extracted from labour, ('socialist') commodity production. In other words, what you said is categorically wrong. Of course Stalinists do embrace the USSR as leading example of socialism, and of course they seek to recreate something very much like it (with vague rhetoric about different conditions justifying its contemporary application), and of course they blame revisionism for their demise. None of what you said, unsurprisingly, turned out to be true.

And unsurprisingly you, again, attack a strawman argument. I said that they did not advocate any sort or state-capitalist theory as an end of itself, but rather, they see it as a necessary phase of a dotp, a transitional period into communism.

Your definition is useless and recognized by pretty much no one I have ever met before, and I think Rafiq said what I wanted to say all along: Words have meaning contextually here. Maoism is technically a "Communist tendency" because the word Communism has different connontations as a result of the developments o the 20th century.

Just because you have very specific fallacious standards of who can and cannot be considered a communist doesn't make it true, I'm afraid, and for all of your pseudological posturing you've yet to back this statement up with anything more than assertions based off a criteria that you created. You don't believe in stagism, we get it. That doesn't mean stagism isn't a communist tendency, however.


Most Stalinists are not Tankies, and most Stalinists do embrace the USSR as leading example, and most Stalinists do want to recreate the USSR "adapted to new conditions" (which means very little), as I've said and as is corroborated with all the programmes and declarations of the Communist Parties of Greece, India (Maoist), Portugal, Philippines, Britain, and the Czech Republic.


And most of them recognize that there were fatal mistakes made by the USSR that musn't be repeated. You seem to ignore this fact to attack yet another straw man.

[Illegalitarian]

I think the crux of what communer is saying is that Marxism, while being more or less giving us the methodological approach needed to understand the inner most working of class society past and present, isn't very accessible to those very same people that Marx claimed had nothing to lose but their chains.

You don't have to be well versed in Marxism to be a good communist, to understand what is fundamentally wrong with capitalism and what capitalism must necissarily be replaced with. As the situationists somewhat put it, Dialectics don't break bricks.


That is certainly a good question. It all relates to the petite bourgeois and reactionary turn the Left has taken following the collapse of Communism globally. Essentially, capitalist globalization, neoliberalism and de-industrialization in developed countries represented a fundamental revolution in capitalist production - and the Left had taken up the role of the petite bourgeois socialists of the 19th century, reactionary socialists as Marx described them. Maoism's popularity is one and the same for "anarchism"'s popularity, or local grassroots autonomous organization - they are all fundamentally petite bourgeois who seek to retreat from society, or the excesses of global capitalism.

Thanks, this is basically the sort of answer I was looking for.

What would you say is the exact cause of this deviation towards reactionary thought? A sense of hopelessness among these parties that arose when communism collapsed? Simple deviations brought about by Bernstein types who think that Marx's fundamental works can be tampered with to come up with something "more applicable", perhaps?

[Rafiq]

What would you say is the exact cause of this deviation towards reactionary thought? A sense of hopelessness among these parties that arose when communism collapsed? Simple deviations brought about by Bernstein types who think that Marx's fundamental works can be tampered with to come up with something "more applicable", perhaps?

What happened was both the massive defeat suffered by the working-class, in which decades of organization and militancy was eroded by a massive assault waged by western bourgeois states, a revolution in capitalist production, and finally the collapse of global Communism.

This revolution in capitalist production completely changed ideologically the coordinates of society. The remnants of the Communist movement, revoked of their working-class social basis, became reactionary in that they wanted to revert back to the conditions which brought about 20th century Communism. The Communism of the 1990's had not been derived from the new and developing changes in capitalism, but from previous circumstances. So, being a Communist no longer meant the same thing that it did decades before - not because definitions changes, but because the application of the same definitions in different conditions meant something different.

"Communism", Maoism and so on - became synonymous with the "rogue" elements of capitalist development, from Islamism to Neo-Fascism. It is no surprise that so many former members of the Red Army Faction became Fascists during the 1990's, as one example among many.

The website Platypus1917.org has an excellent phrase: "The Left is dead, long live the Left!" Essentially, in order to save Communism from historical damnation a Communism derived from present circumstances must exist. And this is where we might yet find hope - not by clinging to unchanging definitions of Communism (a MOVEMENT) - but by recognizing that the intensification of capitalist development also means the intensification of the possibility of Communism.

[John Nada]

Was it really a struggle for liberal democracy? As far as I understand it, it was an effort to construct proletarian power that was neither liberal nor parliamentary. Can bringing bourgeois elements under the control of the communist party constitute collaboration? They don't use liberal democracy. They speak of a new-democracy or national-democratic revolution....
To sum up our experience and concentrate it into one point, it is the people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the working class (through the Communist Party) and based upon the alliance of workers and peasants. This dictatorship must unite as one with the international revolutionary forces. This is our formula, our principal experience, our main programme. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_65.htm New Democracy was the initial democratic revolution, led by the proletariat in an alliance with the peasantry, along with friendly members of the national bourgeoisie. They were supposed to have been assimilated into the proletariat peacefully, then a phase of socialist construction would begin. Only 15% of the population could read at that time, likely disproportionately bourgeois, so suppressing them would be a challenge.

The CPP document was from the 1968, hence why they talk about China and Albania as allies. IIRC their position now is that capitalism has been restored in Albania(obviously) and China, with China being social imperialist. I suspect that they've had some changes to their program and strategy over the past 46 years.

On "socialist" commodity production:http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_66.htm What was the reason behind this? Is this a permanent idea? It doesn't seem like the end goal of socialist construction. He said that there's commodity production, all capitalist produce commodities but not all commodity production is capitalist. But labor isn't a commodity and the law of value doesn't guide production. Then why have commodities? I don't see how it would have worked.:confused:

I was think about the peasantry as a class. This is actually an important question, considering that it concerns food.

Though they're dying out and nearly extinct in some countries, in many place agriculture is a major sector. The Green Revolution, with fertilizers, pesticides, mechanization, selectively breed/GMO seeds, factory farms, food processing plants and big agribusinesses, is increasingly turning the relation between peasants into one similar to proletariat or the petty-bourgeoisie, if not displacing them. The lower strata might be sustenance/tenant farmers or sharecroppers, perhaps some work as laborers in the off-season. The upper strata employing laborers for large farms or ranches. Yet unlike the past, they must depend on the bourgeoisie for supplies, equipment, credit and as a buyer.

Working the land by themselves, engaging in speculative trading, and maybe employ some farmhands, probably gives them an individualist outlook. The ones that engage in collective labor or are poor might be more willing to be class allies. I'd imagine that if I had a farm, I'd be suspicious of someone trying to turn it into a communal farm or moving to the city to work. Why bother when you can just grow your own food or sell a surplus to the proletariat?

Since food is very important, I don't think the peasantry can be ignored, particularly where the make up a large portion of the population in some places.

[Tim Cornelis]

And unsurprisingly you, again, attack a strawman argument. I said that they did not advocate any sort or state-capitalist theory as an end of itself, but rather, they see it as a necessary phase of a dotp, a transitional period into communism.

Your definition is useless and recognized by pretty much no one I have ever met before, and I think Rafiq said what I wanted to say all along: Words have meaning contextually here. Maoism is technically a "Communist tendency" because the word Communism has different connontations as a result of the developments o the 20th century.

Just because you have very specific fallacious standards of who can and cannot be considered a communist doesn't make it true, I'm afraid, and for all of your pseudological posturing you've yet to back this statement up with anything more than assertions based off a criteria that you created. You don't believe in stagism, we get it. That doesn't mean stagism isn't a communist tendency, however.

And most of them recognize that there were fatal mistakes made by the USSR that musn't be repeated. You seem to ignore this fact to attack yet another straw man.

Whether they don't think it's end in itself still doesn't change the fact that they think state-capitalism is socialist.

You apparently meet loads of weird people with implausible positions I doubt they really hold, firstly. Secondly, most of the world considers the USSR to have been communist.

A different interpretation is not a strawman -- you on the other hand do construe strawmen. Whether they don't want to make the same 'fatal mistakes' (obviously) doesn't change that their vision of socialism is bourgeois in nature. I don't ignore this and I do, since it simply doesn't factor into it.

You literally said:


That's simply false, they do not advocate "state capitalism", they just have a rather odd notion of what a dictatorship of the proletariat would look like and believe that the revolutionary period could potentially last a few years and retain certain vestiges of capitalism."

Again: "they do not advocate "state capitalism". Now that I've proven they did it's "I said that they did not advocate any sort or state-capitalist theory as an end of itself". That's not me construing a strawman, that's you shifting the goalposts. You also said "Again with the notion that Maoists/M-L's are tankie nutjobs who think that socialism = full nationalization in one country." Which was also a false suggestion on your part, not a strawman on mine.

It's true, later you said "they do not see State-capitalism as you call it as the ends", a bit vague though, but I already addressed that: "Since this state-capitalist system which they advocate has no internal mechanical dialectical process which leads to its own negation (and to socialism), the Stalinists do not advocate, in any meaningful sense, communism." Something about communism being the real movement that abolishes the present state of things, and not some bourgeois reform movement thinking socialism can be willed into existence.

Stagism has nothing to do with what I wrote (a strawman). I don't think stagism invalidates someone being a communist. State-capitalism is not recognised as a stage, it's recognised as socialist by Stalinists.

Rafiq also has no problem with calling the USSR Communist. Do you follow him in that logic? Because yes, if we are going to concede to the liberal and conservative ideologues the word Communism, then yes Maoists are Communists.

You haven't substantiated how my approach is 'fallacious'.

What makes it true is that it's logical based on the criteria I've created. How is creating criteria an invalidation of it? It isn't.

I define, in accordance with Marxism, communism as socialisms relating to the real movement, and the real development of history, and those with socialist schemes that do not stand in relation to the real development of history are therefore utopian socialists or bourgeois-socialists. But if you want to go ahead and define communism as just a nice abstract idea you merely have to advocate, and still style yourself 'revolutionary Marxist', go ahead -- it just doesn't make sense.

Also, Stalin is not an anarchist.