Potential for Marxist Social Experiment

[Major K.]

Hi all,

Often I read people on here talking about organizing as the key to social/political/economic transformation. This is great and all, but organizing isn't going to do anything unless it's focused on a clear, short-term objective. If you aren't focused, you attract all sorts of people who will unfocus the group even more, and the front will be diluted and not unified in the slightest -- like Occupy Wall Street.

After a few weeks of browsing on here I have yet to find any reference to concrete, specific actions that would advance a cause like ending labor or abolishing private property in a significant way.

This could be for two reasons:

1) To avoid trouble from publicly speaking of such things.
2) Because there are no clear methods.

I guess that it's a little of both.

In my daily life, when I encounter people with revolutionary ideas, many of which I believe would make society a better place for everyone, I can't help but feel that we're not ready for it. People aren't ready for a communist experiment, and if we were to pull a Mao or a Lenin, people would feel compelled into it and there would be something fundamentally false and strained about it.

If you force a Marxist revolution on people, it would be forcing a communal style of life on people who are not ready for it.

I don't think an experiment of this kind could work until we have a changed sense of our own identify.

I'm in a way an anarchist. A philosophical anarchist though, not a bomb-throwing anarchist -- more like a Kropotkin style of anarchist, who would like to leave things pretty well alone so they can sort themselves out.

How I see it, the most revolutionary thing we can do is trust each other.

All society depends on our trusting each other. We're all untrustworthy, but there's no alternative to this besides a police state -- and who trusts the policeman? Do they have our best interest at heart? Of course not -- all governments become self-serving corporations, with their self-interest at heart.

So face it. In the hard-boiled realistic way, we've got to trust each other. There's no way of going on unless we manage to do that.

-Major K.

[Hit The North]

Trust each other to do what?

,,.

[Major K.]

I use to the term "trust" in two primary ways.

First there's the categorical way, which is, I'm not mistaken, the way your question implies you read my previous post. This is not how I'm using the term here, however. Though, it is good that you brought this up, because many people seem to think trust is a sort of "on/off" thing, and you either have it or you don't; a person earns it or they don't. Of course, it's more spectral/categorical than that.

Yet I'm using trust in a different way here.

When I use "trust" in the initial post I am talking about it temperamentally -- as an attitude with the dominant traits of rational faith (beyond belief), non-clingingness, and a certain "let's see what happens next" undertone. It's sort of like a lens that changes the tone of how you experience "the other". Or maybe the absence of a lens would be a more apt analogy.

I'm not using it to mean "undiscerning naivety" either -- more the opposite, actually. You sort of lean back and find the limits of another's capacity to trust by practicing discernment (distinct from being judgmental) coupled with openness.

Hopefully that cleared things up a bit.

-Major K.

[ComradeAllende]

After a few weeks of browsing on here I have yet to find any reference to concrete, specific actions that would advance a cause like ending labor or abolishing private property in a significant way.

Well, that's probably because most of us here don't want to give any credence to reformism and gradualism. I mean, there are some things we could do to advance the socialist cause and enhance social consciousness (impose a basic income, support full employment, fight for expanded welfare benefits), but this would be highly impractical for two reasons. First, the modern political environment isn't conducive to restricting the reach of the market; quite the opposite, in fact. In the US, for example, supporting the current tax rates and public schools puts you to the left of the mainstream political debate.


In my daily life, when I encounter people with revolutionary ideas, many of which I believe would make society a better place for everyone, I can't help but feel that we're not ready for it. People aren't ready for a communist experiment, and if we were to pull a Mao or a Lenin, people would feel compelled into it and there would be something fundamentally false and strained about it.

If you force a Marxist revolution on people, it would be forcing a communal style of life on people who are not ready for it.

Of course we're not ready for a revolution; the social consciousness of the working class is inadequate, and in any case the modern working class is too disorganized and too dispirited by neoliberalism and the (perceived) absence of alternative social systems to launch a revolution. No socialist (except maybe the Leninists and Blanquists) is suggesting that we organize a top-down revolution; that's just a recipe for totalitarianism (as Mao and Lenin illustrated).

[Major K.]

And by "hard-boiled way" of trust, I am referring to working together to solve our problems instead of relying on outside authority. Operating as much as we can on person to person levels, and arguing/resolving problems with principle based arguments as opposed to positional ones (as those are almost always a prisoner's dilemma).

[Hatshepsut]

This is great and all, but organizing isn't going to do anything unless it's focused on a clear, short-term objective.

Generally true, although organizers have stuck together for the haul as well; the Chinese didn't call it the "Long March" for nothing. The quarter century from the CPC's founding in 1925 to its victory in 1949 kept the same cast of characters throughout for the most part. And Lenin was active in the 1890s.

I favor interim reforms within the system, not because I give them credence, but because they are better than nothing if a long wait for real social change is forthcoming. A raise in U.S. minimum wage to $10 would help workers now, instead of asking them to hope that wage exploitation will end in their lifetime when it may well not. It's also true that attempting to launch a revolution prematurely, when the population isn't receptive and the power structure too firm, would be a foolish way to commit suicide.

A difficult paradox attaches to revolution. Lenin was quite correct to assert that only a vanguard party can effect one; workers on their own or in leaderless oppositions like the short-lived Occupy or the Seattle WTO demonstrations can't get far. Decentralized socialist movements either enter coalitions with the bourgeoisie or stay on the sidelines. Yet once they win, all the historical vanguard parties have immediately been corrupted by the terror they had to use, devolving into brutal forms of statism. I consider this paradox unsolved, yet the contradiction should be amenable to analysis by dialectical methods.

Democracy lacks for good answers. Many socialists and DOTP advocates promoted a slogan, "democracy within the party, dictatorship against class adversaries." Communist parties did have soviets, central committees, and formal electoral processes, all of which turned out insufficient in preventing a politburo's becoming a closed club in sole power. Democracy is the form of government in bourgeois states that allow the private corporation's interest to have first priority in setting policy amid mere concessions to popular will. In practice, it is nearly as corruptible as any authoritarian system.

The accountability democracy insists upon is, however, necessary. It may be that the potential for "revolution within the revolution" must always be maintained even if the first stage in communist society isn't a democracy in the current sense of representative republics. One thing I believe a future revolution should do is seek the disarmament of a vanguard immediately after victory. Such policing as is needed in a legitimate worker's state can be done without guns; after all British bobbies don't usually carry them. This will be easier to do if revolution occurs internationally, so that armed capitalist camps and military threats are abated. In the end, people will have to want communism if they are to get it, otherwise they must find only more power struggles.

[John Nada]

Hi all,Hello.
Often I read people on here talking about organizing as the key to social/political/economic transformation. This is great and all, but organizing isn't going to do anything unless it's focused on a clear, short-term objective. If you aren't focused, you attract all sorts of people who will unfocus the group even more, and the front will be diluted and not unified in the slightest -- like Occupy Wall Street.There needs to be someone to have a short-term objective with. Otherwise the short-term objective of an organization will be to exist. The very nature of what form an organization will take is probably the most divisive debate on the left for over a hundred years. The form it takes(centralized vs decentralized, cadre vs mass, ect.) helps determine the makeup.

And not all types of organizations are unfocused like Occupy. It operated on the Quaker consensus model, which is okay for a small group that knows each other like a small church, not so much for a populist mass movement that gets a few reactionaries there to override the supermajority.
After a few weeks of browsing on here I have yet to find any reference to concrete, specific actions that would advance a cause like ending labor or abolishing private property in a significant way.

This could be for two reasons:

1) To avoid trouble from publicly speaking of such things.
2) Because there are no clear methods.

I guess that it's a little of both.There's also 3) It's in the realm of armchair revolutionary for most att.:)
In my daily life, when I encounter people with revolutionary ideas, many of which I believe would make society a better place for everyone, I can't help but feel that we're not ready for it. People aren't ready for a communist experiment, and if we were to pull a Mao or a Lenin, people would feel compelled into it and there would be something fundamentally false and strained about it.Capitalism is fake and forced as shit. We could only dream of a latter-day Lenin and Mao to end it:wub:. Say what you want about Leninism, but the Russian and Chinese people did go further than most. And there are places where more people are serious about going down the socialist path.
If you force a Marxist revolution on people, it would be forcing a communal style of life on people who are not ready for it.Yet you could flip it around. If you withhold a socialist revolution, you'd be withholding a communal lifestyle from people who not only are ready, but need it. The default position is forcing capitalism on everyone, and nobody cares if they're ready or not.

A socialist revolution is not a small group launching a coup with no support from the working class. By its very nature it'd have to have at least the passive support of a significant proportion of the people.
I don't think an experiment of this kind could work until we have a changed sense of our own identify.A revolution and the process leading up to it would change everyone's identity. Since communism entails abolishing classes altogether it'd require the participation of the majority. If there's still those classes, then it's going nowhere.
I'm in a way an anarchist. A philosophical anarchist though, not a bomb-throwing anarchist -- more like a Kropotkin style of anarchist, who would like to leave things pretty well alone so they can sort themselves out.The two are not mutually exclusive:ninja::blackA:, nor is anarchism just about bomb-throwing.
How I see it, the most revolutionary thing we can do is trust each other.

All society depends on our trusting each other. We're all untrustworthy, but there's no alternative to this besides a police state -- and who trusts the policeman? Do they have our best interest at heart? Of course not -- all governments become self-serving corporations, with their self-interest at heart.

So face it. In the hard-boiled realistic way, we've got to trust each other. There's no way of going on unless we manage to do that.

-Major K.I don't know about you, but I'm very trustworthy. Just give me your pin number(j/k).:lol:

Sadly in this fucked up capitalist society, trust has to be earned. Large part possibly due to said policeperson. Though there is something to be said about undoing the individualist shit capitalism promotes.

[Q]

After a few weeks of browsing on here I have yet to find any reference to concrete, specific actions that would advance a cause like ending labor or abolishing private property in a significant way.

This could be for two reasons:

1) To avoid trouble from publicly speaking of such things.
2) Because there are no clear methods.

I guess that it's a little of both.
Revleft isn't a political organisation. While activities are posted, they don't have a focus. Revleft is just what it appears to be: an online community of self-proclaimed revolutionary leftists of all stripe.


In my daily life, when I encounter people with revolutionary ideas, many of which I believe would make society a better place for everyone, I can't help but feel that we're not ready for it. People aren't ready for a communist experiment, and if we were to pull a Mao or a Lenin, people would feel compelled into it and there would be something fundamentally false and strained about it.

If you force a Marxist revolution on people, it would be forcing a communal style of life on people who are not ready for it.
There are basically four ways to "force" a "revolution":

1. The coup d'etat, which you mention, where a small minority of leftists take the reigns of power and sweep through radical reforms. While this happens sometimes, mostly in third world countries, this is not broadly supported by the diverse tendencies represented on this website.
2. The "democratic" road, where you play by the bourgeois rules, mostly an option in Western regimes. Syriza would be an example. Syriza would also be a great example of why this isn't a viable road at all.
3. The minoritarian spontaneous revolution, building on spontaneous mass movements against the system, often "guided" by a small group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries.
4. The majoritarian "revolutionary patience" strategy, building on mass organisations of the working class that both fight to defend against capital today and to improve our position as a class vis-a-vis the state and aim for a socialist future. In this scenario we aim for convincing a majority for our views, in which case a revolution is the democratic expression of the general populus (at least in the West, where the proletariat makes up the vast majority of the population).

Since you mention Lenin: While he's often claimed by the proponents of the minoritarian spontaneous strategy, he actually strongly stood in the tradition of the majoritarian "revolutionary patience" of the Marxist Second International. This appeared to be a minoritarian strategy since the proletariat was only a (tiny) minority in Russian society at the time.

[Flavius]

I agree with the OP on that we should trust each other, and that we can't force communism on a majority of people who are not ready for it.

On the other hand, the problem with short-term objectives is that they are either reformist intentions (which I support to some degree, because they are better than nothing), protests against government actions (which is alright, too) or some blanquist kind of planning the coming revolution. My problem with the last one is that until the time comes, a revolution is just not going to happen. In Russia, there were revolutionary narodnik and marxist groups working since the 1860's. Conclusion: brewing a revolution of course takes time. In the meanwhile, what we can do, is fighting for reforms, or minor changes. If history gives us a wave, however: we must ride it if the majority of people supports us. And then we can discuss how to build a socialist society. (Oh, it seems like I'm slowly becoming a utopist, help)

And also it seems like I kind of drifted away from the main problem mentioned by OP. Oh, well.

[Major K.]

There are basically four ways to "force" a "revolution":

1. The coup d'etat, which you mention, where a small minority of leftists take the reigns of power and sweep through radical reforms. While this happens sometimes, mostly in third world countries, this is not broadly supported by the diverse tendencies represented on this website.
2. The "democratic" road, where you play by the bourgeois rules, mostly an option in Western regimes. Syriza would be an example. Syriza would also be a great example of why this isn't a viable road at all.
3. The minoritarian spontaneous revolution, building on spontaneous mass movements against the system, often "guided" by a small group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries.
4. The majoritarian "revolutionary patience" strategy, building on mass organisations of the working class that both fight to defend against capital today and to improve our position as a class vis-a-vis the state and aim for a socialist future. In this scenario we aim for convincing a majority for our views, in which case a revolution is the democratic expression of the general populus (at least in the West, where the proletariat makes up the vast majority of the population).

Nice list, though it seems to me that all these options are more or less the same, and are only different in the size and form of revolution you can muster.

Fundamentally though, a vanguard group manipulates crowd psychology for the perceived benefit of the lauded group of their choosing (including the crowd in this tribal sense of unity), then seize as much power for themselves as they can, depending on how threatening their revolution was to established power, sometimes for the sake of preserving the ideals from outside threats, sometimes because they were corrupt to begin with, sometimes because power dynamics and influence turned out to be a more complicated game than they thought, and sometimes because they didn't expect to actually be successful.

I still think forcing a Marxist style revolution on people is not the best strategy for transforming society.

[Major K.]

Hello.There needs to be someone to have a short-term objective with. Otherwise the short-term objective of an organization will be to exist. The very nature of what form an organization will take is probably the most divisive debate on the left for over a hundred years. The form it takes(centralized vs decentralized, cadre vs mass, ect.) helps determine the makeup.

Existence is a long term objective. In the interim, an organization needs to stay focused on actual goals. The trouble here is that the main goal of the group is never addressed and it quickly degrades to a group that organizes to organize, or agitates to agitate -- and becomes more and more masturbatory. There are ways to deal with this though, and it mostly comes down to your own personal lifestyle and the way the group leads their lives together.


Yet you could flip it around. If you withhold a socialist revolution, you'd be withholding a communal lifestyle from people who not only are ready, but need it. The default position is forcing capitalism on everyone, and nobody cares if they're ready or not.

Wish we could flip it around like that, but we can't. One is what people have been used to and bred for for generations, the other unfortunately is not. It'd be like saying, "If you are balding, you absolutely NEED rogaine." Just because alternatives to shrugging your shoulders and going with the flow exist does not make those options necessary. Another example is tattoos. "Why don't you get a tat man?" The question implies a sale. I could equally ask about cappuccinos, or a political ideology, and it would be just as loaded.

[Q]

Nice list, though it seems to me that all these options are more or less the same, and are only different in the size and form of revolution you can muster.
This might appear so, but each of the options in the list have a large impact in how we organise, what kind of strategy is to be taken. A tiny putschist group differs greatly from a Western parliamentary party, which in turn differs greatly from a mass party-movement which aims to organise millions of people in its ranks.


Fundamentally though, a vanguard group manipulates crowd psychology...
All organised political currents aim to spread their influence. There is nothing profound in saying that communists do this too.


I still think forcing a Marxist style revolution on people is not the best strategy for transforming society.
The classic Marxist adagium is of course that the only one who can liberate humanity is the working class and the only one who can liberate the working class is itself, acting as a class. I myself am a proponent of a majoritarian approach and don't think we should take power until we can actually carry out our minimum programme of instating the democratic republic, meaning proletarian political hegemony via a democratic regime. This road suggests large organisations, programmatic clarity, an open democratic culture aiming for self-emancipation and self-organisation.

There is little "forcing" involved in this case. It is the will of the working class itself to end capitalism when our time comes.

[Hatshepsut]

I still think forcing a Marxist style revolution on people is not the best strategy for transforming society.

A revolution that takes place without substantial popular consensus regarding its necessity and timeliness will almost certainly fail, the tin pot dictatorships achieved in smaller countries by such means aside. Consensus across the many fault lines in a population is indeed possible: Today 70% or better of people in developed countries support the capitalist consensus.

But capitalism is inherently unstable. As it progresses it is subject to declining marginal returns, so that it needs endless growth, ever-higher velocities in the financial sector, and endless effort to secure cheaper venues for production. When limits are reached, a thing climate change may hasten along, its ability to provide good livings for the masses will end. We'll see an economic contraction that will make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a walk through Disney World. This will cause the capitalist consensus to dissolve and people will become receptive to the idea of a revolution. So, it will not be forced on them, it will be forced on those clinging to stakes in the old system.


Existence is a long term objective...Another example is tattoos. "Why don't you get a tat man?" The question implies a sale.

Here you've answered your own question. Existence, the meeting of needs, what Marxism calls "from each according to ability, to each according to need," is indeed a long-term objective. The tattoos thing is an example of capitalism's manufacture of wants that didn't exist before the salesperson called. People do have to be educated about revolution in order to understand what it means; this is the function of cadres. But once history has made them receptive to a phase change in social relations and they understand the nature of the revolution, it won't have to be sold to them. They will know that it is inevitable.

[Q]

To further put down this idea of "forcing a revolution on the people", let me quote Kautsky, back when he still was a Marxist (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch06.htm):


Where these conditions exist a great transfer of political power that shall destroy a tyrannical regime is only to be expected where all of the following conditions exist:

The great mass of the people must be decisively hostile to such a regime.
There must be a great organized party in irreconcilable opposition to such a regime.
This party must represent the interests of the great majority of the population and possess their confidence.
Confidence in the ruling regime, both in its power and in its stability, must have been destroyed by its own tools, by the bureaucracy and the army.


This was written over a century ago. As you can see, for a successful revolution to mature, there must both be an element of spontaneity and of organisation: Without a mass party of opposition any mass upheaval against the regime will dissipate or be hijacked by other forces. Without mass discontent of the population, all the party of opposition can do is build further in order to prepare for its revolutionary task. As Kautsky put it (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch05.htm): "The Socialist party is a revolutionary party, but not a revolution-making party".

[John Nada]

Existence is a long term objective. In the interim, an organization needs to stay focused on actual goals. The trouble here is that the main goal of the group is never addressed and it quickly degrades to a group that organizes to organize, or agitates to agitate -- and becomes more and more masturbatory. There are ways to deal with this though, and it mostly comes down to your own personal lifestyle and the way the group leads their lives together.What do you mean by "here", the country in which you reside or this website? Revleft is an internet form for leftist discussion. There are various different opinion from users around the globe. Some are in their own organization IRL, some not. Some IRL might fit that description, others not. Group cohesiveness and a minimum/maximum program are issues orgs IRL deal with. Not so much a website open to anonymous people around the world, though group cohesion has some degree of importance to the point of making this site coherent and accessible.
Wish we could flip it around like that, but we can't. One is what people have been used to and bred for for generations, the other unfortunately is not. It'd be like saying, "If you are balding, you absolutely NEED rogaine." Just because alternatives to shrugging your shoulders and going with the flow exist does not make those options necessary. Another example is tattoos. "Why don't you get a tat man?" The question implies a sale. I could equally ask about cappuccinos, or a political ideology, and it would be just as loaded.Nobody is bred for capitalism. The coercion of capitalism which was imposed by force in the first place is only excused out of familiarity and habit. And the necessity of communism is literally not a choice in some places, and likely the whole planet due to climate change. Someone in Rojava or the Red Corridor likely does not view it as like picking out a tattoo.

What is lacking in many places is the subjective condition for a socialist revolution. Objectively, there likely could've been a revolution in say the US a bunch of times, yet other times impossible. However, there was not anyone able to act on it. That is what would-be revolutionaries attempt to change, the subjective forces(support, ideological awareness and organization)

Besides, a "Marxists style revolution against people's will" is a bit of a strawperson. Marxism does not call for coups made by conspiracy. That's Blanquism. A revolution must be supported by the masses. It's the proletariat who makes the revolution, not a small cabal. Besides even Lenin said:
To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/13.htm

And since you mentioned Kropotkin:
The party which has made most revolutionary propaganda and which has shown most spirit and daring will be listened to on the day when it is necessary to act, to march in front in order to realize the revolution. But that party which has not had the daring to affirm itself by revolutionary acts in the preparatory periods nor had a driving force strong enough to inspire men and groups to the sentiment of abnegation, to the irresistible desire to put their ideas into practice, — (if this desire had existed it would have expressed itself in action long before the mass of the people had joined the revolt) — and which did not know how to make its flag popular and its aspirations tangible and comprehensive, — that party will have only a small chance of realizing even the least part of its program. It will be pushed aside by the parties of action. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-spirit-of-revolt

[Major K.]

It sounds like we all more or less agree here, despite a clear (and healthy) desire to play word games.

Useful stuff. Thanks everyone for posting!

-Major K.