Being a Communist as an adult [Archive]

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Laika

16th June 2017, 10:07

hey,

I will be turning 28 in a months time and its got me thinking about a lot of stuff. I've had nearly a decade with depression and thankfully that's coming to an end and I'm nearing full recovery. (if you think its weird I think of myself as "old", a year with depression feels more like a decade and it really ages you.) I've thought a lot about whether I can really still be a Communist as I get older and its struck me just how "odd" it is. Communism is (at least in the west) something for young people. The enthusiasm of the young is great, but it tends to burn out and doesn't really "mature" into something that can survive the bad times as well as the good. They are also very new to the ideas and so still live with the "honeymoon" phase of the ideology when it all seems new, fresh and rosy. the initial seduction by the ideology as a way to imagine our own future and the possibilities of what we could achieve is something that very much fits in a young person's psyche- especially students for whom the fascination with radical ideas can be a bit of a narcotic. I have had doubts about communism, some of them very serious given the sheer brutality and cruelty of the systems involved, and felt burnt out from it. I still get those moments but I'm learning to manage them and be open about my doubts as its healthier. often it just makes it come back stronger. I do feel that I am a better person for doubting the theory though and thinking about what it "actually" means outside of pure theory. language is necessarily deceptive and never gives you the whole picture, especially when its political.

I'm wondering if I'm alone in thinking along these lines (probably not) and if there are any communists, anarchists or radicals who have made the transition to "adulthood" without being sucked in to the conformist "maturity" that ruling class have on offer.You don't really think about Communists being parents having kids and taking them to school, or being a mother or father, or anything like that. Nor does having a family or a job and a career fit into the stereotype of the "dedicated revolutionary" who puts the cause above everything else. its the young who have that amount of time to read, think and be political active in the main.

it's just weird realising that you're walking such an unfamiliar path and wondering how much the ideology really separates your own experiences from that of everyone else as an adult. Nor is any form of "conformity" really sustainable given the fragility of the status quo (especially on environmental issues) so just putting it down to "youthful idealism" is really dishonest. Anyone have any advice or insight on this?

guevarism

16th June 2017, 10:36

ckaihatsu

16th June 2017, 13:21

it's just weird realising that you're walking such an unfamiliar path and wondering how much the ideology really separates your own experiences from that of everyone else as an adult.

Well, do you think it's a *positive* thing, or not-really -- ?

I think getting down to this core of the issue -- mostly in how you yourself feel about it -- would be the key to your question.

Nor is any form of "conformity" really sustainable given the fragility of the status quo (especially on environmental issues) so just putting it down to "youthful idealism" is really dishonest. Anyone have any advice or insight on this?

Yeah, this reminds me of the 'belief' issue that was just brought-up at another thread:

To put it simply, our revolutionary politics doesn't rely on any kind of 'belief', because we already know enough about how the human social world works to say that it's *class struggle* that drives developments forward through the centuries. Those who have power have an interest in *hanging onto* that power, even if it costs millions and billions their well-being -- and even their lives -- so that the elite power structure is kept intact (the bourgeoisie). For the sake of entrenched power the ruling class would rather see death and destruction (etc.) than allow regular people to have access to that which is already produced (food, technology) so that people can live better lives.

Thus 'belief' in how the world works *isn't* required, because we already *know* how the world works, including the overarching dynamic of class struggle, also known as 'historical materialism' (how history is determined in the most broad / general ways).

https://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/197003-Do-you-think-that-a-communist-revolution-from-above-is-possible?p=2883781#post2883781

---

So, likewise, our politics don't *depend* on any kind of spontaneist 'youthful idealism', because the facts of the world are greater than any one of us -- larger than how anyone may subjectively *interpret* what 'communism' may or may not happen to be. A *proletarian revolution* is what's long overdue, for strictly human-societal-*objective* reasons (rational optimization of social production for actual *humane* needs instead of for increasing *exchange* values).

Worldview Diagram

http://s6.postimg.org/qjdaikuwh/120824_Worldview_Diagram.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/axvyymiy5/full/)

Laika

16th June 2017, 14:11

Well, do you think it's a *positive* thing, or not-really -- ?

I think getting down to this core of the issue -- mostly in how you yourself feel about it -- would be the key to your question.

Yeah, this reminds me of the 'belief' issue that was just brought-up at another thread:

---

So, likewise, our politics don't *depend* on any kind of spontaneist 'youthful idealism', because the facts of the world are greater than any one of us -- larger than how anyone may subjectively *interpret* what 'communism' may or may not happen to be. A *proletarian revolution* is what's long overdue, for strictly human-societal-*objective* reasons (rational optimization of social production for actual *humane* needs instead of for increasing *exchange* values).

Worldview Diagram

I feel that it is potentially a "bad" thing, and purely in personal terms, putting yourself in a situation where you are potentially involved in political violence is dangerous for yourself or anyone around you. worse, it relies on a series of beliefs that are necessarily an incomplete understanding of the world- so revolution is basically gambling or Russian roulette even at the best of times. there is an unreality about the "beliefs" because they are so abstract they don't connect with personal experiences. talking about "class struggle" is one thing, mounting the barricades with bullets and shrapnel flying around is quite another. its not possible to know "how" revolutions will turn out, whether you win/lose, whether the revolution "eats its own children" (i.e. you or someone you care about) because as an individual you are only a very tiny piece of the big picture. When your a kid, its cool because you get so "high" off the thought of being important by having these ideas. there's still the narcissism of youth at work thinking the world will change simply because you "will" it to and your somehow protected from the worst things humanity can do to each other. When you're an adult however, the sense of mortality is at work and you don't evaluate the situation in the same way because you value different things. you recognise just how insignificant you are and how little control you have over the situation as an individual. ultimately "history" doesn't care about what happens to you- whether you end up in prison, get lynched by a mob, buried a mass grave or live out your life inconsequentially as an activist who other people just think is a bit of a "weirdo". You start to wonder how best to look out for yourself and its not something I hear get talked about much. its rare to hear a communist talk about the possibility that they will fail or get it wrong and how they deal with that possibility on a day to day basis.

ckaihatsu

16th June 2017, 14:39

I feel that it is potentially a "bad" thing, and purely in personal terms, putting yourself in a situation where you are potentially involved in political violence is dangerous for yourself or anyone around you. worse, it relies on a series of beliefs that are necessarily an incomplete understanding of the world- so revolution is basically gambling or Russian roulette even at the best of times. there is an unreality about the "beliefs" because they are so abstract they don't connect with personal experiences. talking about "class struggle" is one thing, mounting the barricades with bullets and shrapnel flying around is quite another. its not possible to know "how" revolutions will turn out, whether you win/lose, whether the revolution "eats its own children" (i.e. you or someone you care about) because as an individual you are only a very tiny piece of the big picture. When your a kid, its cool because you get so "high" off the thought of being important by having these ideas. there's still the narcissism of youth at work thinking the world will change simply because you "will" it to and your somehow protected from the worst things humanity can do to each other. When you're an adult however, the sense of mortality is at work and you don't evaluate the situation in the same way because you value different things. you recognise just how insignificant you are and how little control you have over the situation as an individual. ultimately "history" doesn't care about what happens to you- whether you end up in prison, get lynched by a mob, buried a mass grave or live out your life inconsequentially as an activist who other people just think is a bit of a "weirdo". You start to wonder how best to look out for yourself and its not something I hear get talked about much. its rare to hear a communist talk about the possibility that they will fail or get it wrong and how they deal with that possibility on a day to day basis.

I'll suggest that you probably don't have much *experience* in on-the-ground struggles, because you're positing a line that sounds more like *alienation* than arm-in-arm political struggle in the streets and workplaces.

Your pessimism is understandable, but I don't share it -- there's much to say about the momentum of *initiative*, especially considering that our collective class foe is *conservative* by nature and can quickly become *overwhelmed* by mass movements that have far more *direction* (will / impetus / interest) going-forward into the future than they themselves ever will, because their interests are in hanging onto what they already have, to maintain *stasis*.

Our *weakness* is as atomized individuals, and our *strength* is in numbers -- you're only looking at the *individual* and not in common interests and causes internationally, from the world's proletariat. A recent example could be the pipelines thing where much support came in from all over the world -- it's not a *labor* struggle, exactly, but it's not far from it, either.

Laika

16th June 2017, 15:12

I'll suggest that you probably don't have much *experience* in on-the-ground struggles, because you're positing a line that sounds more like *alienation* than arm-in-arm political struggle in the streets and workplaces.

Your pessimism is understandable, but I don't share it -- there's much to say about the momentum of *initiative*, especially considering that our collective class foe is *conservative* by nature and can quickly become *overwhelmed* by mass movements that have far more *direction* (will / impetus / interest) going-forward into the future than they themselves ever will, because their interests are in hanging onto what they already have, to maintain *stasis*.

Our *weakness* is as atomized individuals, and our *strength* is in numbers -- you're only looking at the *individual* and not in common interests and causes internationally, from the world's proletariat. A recent example could be the pipelines thing where much support came in from all over the world -- it's not a *labor* struggle, exactly, but it's not far from it, either.

That's a fair criticism. I'm living in a rural area and there aren't readily available opportunities for political activism, nor is there somewhere I can go (regularly) to be around people who are more sympathetic and understanding of my views. revleft is the closest online equivalent to that. so I'm perhaps more self-conscious of the isolation than I necessarily need be. Stepping up to dissent from what other people believe can be intimidating if you feel you're doing it alone and difficult to process emotionally.

ckaihatsu

16th June 2017, 16:35

That's a fair criticism. I'm living in a rural area and there aren't readily available opportunities for political activism, nor is there somewhere I can go (regularly) to be around people who are more sympathetic and understanding of my views. revleft is the closest online equivalent to that. so I'm perhaps more self-conscious of the isolation than I necessarily need be. Stepping up to dissent from what other people believe can be intimidating if you feel you're doing it alone and difficult to process emotionally.

Well, there's far more to (revolutionary) politics than activism -- I'd much rather see a smallish nucleus of laser-like-focused revolutionaries in the streets (who know what they want to see societally, from A to Z), than a large protest movement that can get no further ideologically than *identity* politics.

Look at the recent British elections -- the Corbyn thing shows that there's a real conscious grassroots surge going on that simply *can't* find expression in the bourgeois framework of political representation. And now that Corbyn is enjoying this kind of support he's just lurched rightward to support the status quo agenda.

Laika

16th June 2017, 17:42

Well, there's far more to (revolutionary) politics than activism -- I'd much rather see a smallish nucleus of laser-like-focused revolutionaries in the streets (who know what they want to see societally, from A to Z), than a large protest movement that can get no further ideologically than *identity* politics.

Look at the recent British elections -- the Corbyn thing shows that there's a real conscious grassroots surge going on that simply *can't* find expression in the bourgeois framework of political representation. And now that Corbyn is enjoying this kind of support he's just lurched rightward to support the status quo agenda.

I agree with you. Corbyn's "shock" result is very much a symptom of the crisis in British (and international) politics. there is a real anarchy in what is going on and a deep disconnect between the media narratives and what seems to be happening on the ground. The media particularly promotes identity politics as a substitute to real change by directing people's anger towards substituting class politics for politics based on race and gender. Worse, identity politics has alienated people to the extent that they support far-right nationalist politics when it offers no solutions to the immediate economic and social problems (much like identity politics).

The importance of activism is in the unity of theory and practice; it is in people being willing to take the risks involved in publicly committing themselves to a revolutionary communist platform, being willing to make mistakes and to learn from them. I worry that the sort of student-based parties are not a substitute for a working class organisation, yet in the UK (as in the US) there are few far-left political parties that are in a position to take a revolutionary message out into the streets. They are too small, badly organised and constantly short of money and most of them are "nowhere" theoretically. They've been pretty much frozen in time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and haven't united into a single united party that could maximise its national impact.

The value I place on activism is partly to compensate for my own deficiencies as an "arm chair theorist" whose been very busy online making a lot of statements but has never committed himself to a party or an ideology but is also to do with the new urgency of living in a "post-trump election" world where we can no longer take the stability of global capitalism for granted. its easy to be radical when you don't have to act on it.

Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement is pretty decisive in fulfilling capitalism's death wish (even though the Paris agreement was already insufficient to actually combat climate change). Even if Trump were impeached, the damage is done and its global (and the problem is bigger than Trump as an individual but he's the most visible sign of capitalist decline and collapse). I might have said revolution was possible for kids or grand kids (if I had them), but it now looks increasingly likely that I will live long enough to actually see a revolution in the west. I may have had an intuition that something "wasn't quite right" and things couldn't go on like this forever, but I never expected it to get this bad this quickly. This is not the world I expected to grow up in and its hard to get my head around. it turns my stomach thinking about where we are heading next.

ckaihatsu

16th June 2017, 18:30

I agree with you. Corbyn's "shock" result is very much a symptom of the crisis in British (and international) politics. there is a real anarchy in what is going on and a deep disconnect between the media narratives and what seems to be happening on the ground. The media particularly promotes identity politics as a substitute to real change by directing people's anger towards substituting class politics for politics based on race and gender. Worse, identity politics has alienated people to the extent that they support far-right nationalist politics when it offers no solutions to the immediate economic and social problems (much like identity politics).

The importance of activism is in the unity of theory and practice; it is in people being willing to take the risks involved in publicly committing themselves to a revolutionary communist platform, being willing to make mistakes and to learn from them. I worry that the sort of student-based parties are not a substitute for a working class organisation, yet in the UK (as in the US) there are few far-left political parties that are in a position to take a revolutionary message out into the streets. They are too small, badly organised and constantly short of money and most of them are "nowhere" theoretically. They've been pretty much frozen in time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and haven't united into a single united party that could maximise its national impact.

The value I place on activism is partly to compensate for my own deficiencies as an "arm chair theorist" whose been very busy online making a lot of statements but has never committed himself to a party or an ideology but is also to do with the new urgency of living in a "post-trump election" world where we can no longer take the stability of global capitalism for granted.

its easy to be radical when you don't have to act on it.

This is a common misconception -- I happen to be something of a 'Wilde'-ist, and the following excerpt comes to mind:

Ernest. But, my dear fellow—excuse me for interrupting you—you seem to me to be allowing your passion for criticism to lead you a great deal too far. For, after all, even you must admit that it is much more difficult to do a thing than to talk about it.

Gilbert. More difficult to do a thing than to talk about it? Not at all. That is a gross popular error. It is very much more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual life that is of course obvious. Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it. There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought. Action, indeed, is always easy, and when presented to us in its most aggravated, because most continuous form, which I take to be that of real industry, becomes simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatsoever to do. No, Ernest, don’t talk about action. It is a blind thing dependent on external influences, and moved by an impulse of whose nature it is unconscious. It is a thing incomplete in its essence, because limited by accident, and ignorant of its direction, being always at variance with its aim. Its basis is the lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/887/887-h/887-h.htm#page95

So what this means for politics -- in my interpreting -- is that it would be far more advantageous to 'get everyone on the same page' (coordinated subjective social reality) than to have many 'actions' on-the-ground that just turn out to resemble political zombiehood. Look at *religious* zeal, for example -- much effort is put into proselytizing for the sake of a having a common *culture*, or collective *groupthink*. Every religious appeal pretty-much ends with a call for the new convert to give up control of their own life, obviously for the sake of the group and however it's being led at the moment.

There are parallels to politics, too, where some would rather have a solid 'groupthink' platform over a given issue, regardless of its veracity or correlation to reality, than to just provide everyone concerned with a path of provable *conclusions* that all can verify and accept as being based in reality and real events.

Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement is pretty decisive in fulfilling capitalism's death wish (even though the Paris agreement was already insufficient to actually combat climate change). Even if Trump were impeached, the damage is done and its global (and the problem is bigger than Trump as an individual but he's the most visible sign of capitalist decline and collapse). I might have said revolution was possible for kids or grand kids (if I had them), but it now looks increasingly likely that I will live long enough to actually see a revolution in the west. I may have had an intuition that something "wasn't quite right" and things couldn't go on like this forever, but I never expected it to get this bad this quickly. This is not the world I expected to grow up in and its hard to get my head around. it turns my stomach thinking about where we are heading next.

Well, the '70s were the real turning-point where the economy had already been stagnating for awhile (since about the mid-'60s), and then we saw the beginning of the attacks on labor unions, with 1981 being the year of the Volcker Shock (raising of interest rates in the U.S. to pay the bill for the Vietnam War) -- things have been declining ever since. I happened to be born into the downslope (I'm 44 now), and now we're seeing the ruling class attack the vestiges of a government social-service orientation. The upside is that this aggressive class warfare feeds-into *accelerationism* -- meaning that people have no choice but to *become* class-conscious, if they weren't already, so the political spectrum takes on a *sharp* dividing line between the status quo, and everything to its left becomes *revolutionary* because left-reformism (trying to 'fix' the system) is shown to be unrealistic and impossible due to the relentless fascist-right-type actions of the ruling class.

Laika

16th June 2017, 19:09

This is a common misconception -- I happen to be something of a 'Wilde'-ist, and the following excerpt comes to mind:

So what this means for politics -- in my interpreting -- is that it would be far more advantageous to 'get everyone on the same page' (coordinated subjective social reality) than to have many 'actions' on-the-ground that just turn out to resemble political zombiehood. Look at *religious* zeal, for example -- much effort is put into proselytizing for the sake of a having a common *culture*, or collective *groupthink*. Every religious appeal pretty-much ends with a call for the new convert to give up control of their own life, obviously for the sake of the group and however it's being led at the moment.

There are parallels to politics, too, where some would rather have a solid 'groupthink' platform over a given issue, regardless of its veracity or correlation to reality, than to just provide everyone concerned with a path of provable *conclusions* that all can verify and accept as being based in reality and real events.

Well, the '70s were the real turning-point where the economy had already been stagnating for awhile (since about the mid-'60s), and then we saw the beginning of the attacks on labor unions, with 1981 being the year of the Volcker Shock (raising of interest rates in the U.S. to pay the bill for the Vietnam War) -- things have been declining ever since. I happened to be born into the downslope (I'm 44 now), and now we're seeing the ruling class attack the vestiges of a government social-service orientation. The upside is that this aggressive class warfare feeds-into *accelerationism* -- meaning that people have no choice but to *become* class-conscious, if they weren't already, so the political spectrum takes on a *sharp* dividing line between the status quo, and everything to its left becomes *revolutionary* because left-reformism (trying to 'fix' the system) is shown to be unrealistic and impossible due to the relentless fascist-right-type actions of the ruling class.

Quoting Oscar Wilde? I like you're style. That deserves a friend invite. :D

...and you're right: getting people on the same page is more important.

You're also right about the shift in the 70's as what is going on now is an extention and an aggrevation of neo-liberalism. Really, it has only stripped Capitalism of its reformist pretensions of class collaboration and peace. Perhaps I'm too pumped up on climate change hysteria, but I find a sort of accelerationism into an ecological catastrophe truly terrifying. I'm still attached to the status quo and my pessimism lies in that I don't look forward to open class warfare.

Do you think that being afriad of the future is the wrong response? Wilde's Great men have yet to write a course of events for history that may yet provide a humane outcome for this century. Imagining a solution is perhaps the greater task so that people may agree on a change of direction.

guevarism

16th June 2017, 19:23

guevarism

16th June 2017, 19:33

Laika

16th June 2017, 21:03

Why are you afraid of an open class struggle ?- - - Updated - - -I have a dream to reorganise our nation's Student Radical Faction ....when I reach adulthood in its true sense ....I have talked with old Marxists of India who tell me ,"Communists are dying owing to lack of unity" and whats the reason - internal revolts arising from Internal Intersecting contradictions....Is communism few pages of theory or few lines of story written down the ages ......Tell me 1 word will it be happening in Praxis ?I am afriad of an open class struggle because revolutions cannot be controlled. by definition, they are the absence of control and a failure of control (by the ruling class). they cannot be made "safe" for anyone. As much as I distrust the status quo, there is still something resembling the rule of law, and there is still space to think and feel differently in limited government and free societies. admittedly it may not last. however, revolution means that violence is democratised from the state to the people, and a truly democratic state may yet provide the people with the right to decide who lives and who dies in a revolutionary terror expressing the will of the people, a tyranny by majority. if the state is to be abolished, its power must return to the people and the people must decide for themselves how to use violence and determine their own future. I don't trust the masses because I don't believe human beings are wholly rational; we have our lusts, our hatreds and our fears and given the power to decide who lives and who dies the evidence would suggest that we care very little about human life if killing others is the means by which to ensure our own life. the scariest thing is that people may not even need a reason to kill as obedience may mean it is the decision to kill is at such a low level of consciousness that people may not need a reason. it becomes habitual. empty. revolutions are like machines grinding flesh and bone in the search for ideological purity; they fill mass graves and they call it justice. terror is driven not by reason but by the incentives within state apparatus of "kill or be killed". guilt is irrelevant- you just have to feed the beast its pound of flesh or else you will be eaten. that is frightening to conceive of and Even if fascists do it, I cannot comprehend how supporting such a system may be just, moral or compatible with individual conscience. it reduces ideology to the level of nonsense. the problem is that communism, in is desire to plan everything, gives the state the unlimited power of life and death in order to "plan" the course of people's lives. Can we really risk that power based on the assumption that it is somehow temporary?I n the 20th century, men had machine guns and gas vans. In the 21st century, our weapons are chemical, nuclear and biological. As the productive forces have developed, so has man's capacity for destruction in order to wage a class struggle. if you gave me the choice, I wouldn't wish revolution on anyone- but its not my choice because the forces at work are much greater than any single individuals ability to control or to humanise. I don't think its unreasonable to be afraid of such a thing, though in any communist country my fear of a system which gives power to the people is enough to condemn me as an enemy of the people. In the end, I'm just not that loyal to the cause because I still believe in a morality greater than the will of the majority (or the minority that claims to represent the "will of the people").

guevarism

16th June 2017, 21:38

Thats cowardice -> Remember what Rosseau said , teach your child how to live not how to avoid death .In case otherwise , my ideological equation doesnt balance I wont fear losing my life cause an Ideological defeat is like losing all the life you had and you had dreamed of- - - Updated - - -
I am afriad of an open class struggle because revolutions cannot be controlled. by definition, they are the absence of control and a failure of control (by the ruling class). they cannot be made "safe" for anyone. As much as I distrust the status quo, there is still something resembling the rule of law, and there is still space to think and feel differently in limited government and free societies. admittedly it may not last. however, revolution means that violence is democratised from the state to the people, and a truly democratic state may yet provide the people with the right to decide who lives and who dies in a revolutionary terror expressing the will of the people, a tyranny by majority. if the state is to be abolished, its power must return to the people and the people must decide for themselves how to use violence and determine their own future. I don't trust the masses because I don't believe human beings are wholly rational; we have our lusts, our hatreds and our fears and given the power to decide who lives and who dies the evidence would suggest that we care very little about human life if killing others is the means by which to ensure our own life. the scariest thing is that people may not even need a reason to kill as obedience may mean it is the decision to kill is at such a low level of consciousness that people may not need a reason. it becomes habitual. empty. revolutions are like machines grinding flesh and bone in the search for ideological purity; they fill mass graves and they call it justice. terror is driven not by reason but by the incentives within state apparatus of "kill or be killed". guilt is irrelevant- you just have to feed the beast its pound of flesh or else you will be eaten. that is frightening to conceive of and Even if fascists do it, I cannot comprehend how supporting such a system may be just, moral or compatible with individual conscience. it reduces ideology to the level of nonsense. the problem is that communism, in is desire to plan everything, gives the state the unlimited power of life and death in order to "plan" the course of people's lives. Can we really risk that power based on the assumption that it is somehow temporary?I n the 20th century, men had machine guns and gas vans. In the 21st century, our weapons are chemical, nuclear and biological. As the productive forces have developed, so has man's capacity for destruction in order to wage a class struggle. if you gave me the choice, I wouldn't wish revolution on anyone- but its not my choice because the forces at work are much greater than any single individuals ability to control or to humanise. I don't think its unreasonable to be afraid of such a thing, though in any communist country my fear of a system which gives power to the people is enough to condemn me as an enemy of the people. In the end, I'm just not that loyal to the cause because I still believe in a morality greater than the will of the majority (or the minority that claims to represent the "will of the people").I dont think Revolutionaries fear death ...The proletariat in backward regions of the world is still dying of pain hunger and of the cold-heartedness of sundry men ,that has stripped them of their rights , the entitlements a human is supposed to get , so first Unity and Solidarity needs to be entrenched and retrenched....If the proletariat denies , big economies shall tremble

Laika

17th June 2017, 07:05

I think there are worse things than cowardice comrade. It is unavoidable that a revolutionary should fear death as all humans have the biological instinct to survive and to want to live. the capacity for self-sacrifice is not normal human behaviour (Huey P. Newton called it "revolutionary suicide"), nor is it truly self sacrifice unless you have a "self" with value to sacrifice. I don't agree with Sergey Necheyev's view from "The Catechism of a Revolutionary" (below) but I can certainly see what he is getting at. The problem with the nihilist conception of a revolutionary is that revolutionaries become the model for the revolutionary state and society. So if a revolutionary is "wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for the revolution" so will be the society that results from it. That is dangerous because it is so authoritarian;
"1. The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution.____________2. The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted conventions. He is their implacable enemy, and if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily."

ckaihatsu

17th June 2017, 13:26

Quoting Oscar Wilde? I like you're style. That deserves a friend invite. :D

...and you're right: getting people on the same page is more important.

You're also right about the shift in the 70's as what is going on now is an extention and an aggrevation of neo-liberalism. Really, it has only stripped Capitalism of its reformist pretensions of class collaboration and peace. Perhaps I'm too pumped up on climate change hysteria, but I find a sort of accelerationism into an ecological catastrophe truly terrifying. I'm still attached to the status quo and my pessimism lies in that I don't look forward to open class warfare.

Do you think that being afriad of the future is the wrong response?

No, it's certainly understandable that since the future is by definition *unknown*, it can cause trepidation if one is trying to 'figure it out' or is mulling over certain potential trajectories like that of climate change.

The thing, though, is that our *politics* is something we *can* control, collectively -- once the world's working class has the reins we could quickly fix many outstanding problems that simply can't be addressed within the domain of capitalism (poverty, access to technology, etc.). If you'll notice, there's much less emphasis on environmental issues from within the revolutionary / hard left, compared to the liberal / *soft* left, because of this urgency over societal control. The soft left would prefer to do a lot of hand-wringing, and try to 'fix' environmental issues from the context of the here-and-now, under capitalism, while the *revolutionary* left says 'Let's get to workers power as quickly as possible and then we *all* will have the wherewithal to address environmental issues directly, that couldn't be fixed under capitalism.'

Wilde's Great men have yet to write a course of events for history that may yet provide a humane outcome for this century. Imagining a solution is perhaps the greater task so that people may agree on a change of direction.

Regarding world-historical development, the following book is invaluable:

https://www.google.com/search?q=harman+people%27s+history+of+the+world+pd f&oq=harman&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0l4.2638j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And -- for a ready-made 'solution', I've already created the following model:

labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/jjc7b5nch/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://s6.postimg.org/7liqtmar5/2526684770046342459_Rh_JMHF_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/nwiupxn8t/full/)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/entries/1174-revolutionary-policy-*solution*-(communist-supply-amp-demand)

A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673

Laika

17th June 2017, 14:02

I'm not sure whether subordinating environmental objectives to the class struggle for socialism is necessarily a good thing. it could be argued that it is unavoidable as the capitalist class have subordinated the sustainability of humanity on the planet to their pursuit of profit by lobbying political influence and promoting "climate change denialist" narratives in the media. working for reforms risks postponing revolutionary socialism for class collaboration. I guess it depends on what the revolutionary left should see themselves as responsible for and what is within the scope of their control (as the bourgeois state- democratic or not- clearly isn't within their ability to control). The soft left as you put it have however become utterly hysterical and seem to sense that a major crisis of capitalism is on its way or has already arrived. Their capacity for moral outrage is directly proportionate to the utter futility of reforms, the more powerless they are the more urgently they wrap themselves in the cloth of "principle" to rationalise defeat. they let the far right goosestep right over them as if they aren't even there. I can't think of a 20th century comparison to what is going on now in terms of the sheer anarchy of whats going on. comparisons with Nazism and fascism suggest the danger we are in but are still overblown in that there is still a legalistic-democratic camouflage for the bourgeois state in the west. Whilst Trump supporters are wrong on alot, they have occasionally get things right in order to channel dissent and have at least grasped that the ruling classes relationship with reality is now remote. As crazy as things are now, its still hard to see how a few people meeting in a basement somewhere could produce a working revolutionary socialist government in maybe a few decades. But its never happened nor will happen any other way.

perardua

17th June 2017, 14:19

It seems you are in a place similar to me. I am your age, and about one year ago started studying and thinking about Communism seriously once again after many, many years of basically not caring at all. And it is certainly the case that I am by no means able to dive into these things with such abandon, or convince myself so fully, as I once might have been. While it is true that youths take to radical ideas easier and with more enthusiasm, it is because their minds are more superficial. One might miss this childish enthusiasm sometimes, but really: When you meet a 30-year old whose political thinking is like a 16-year old's, everyone cringes.

Many people confuse "growing up" with becoming de-radicalized (and this is certainly part of ruling ideology). What can be done is keeping one's radicalism while abandoning one's *idealism*. Accepting the frustrating nature of everyday politics and mundane life in general and how life as lived has to be dealt with as it happens and cannot be forced into a pre-conceived model of some kind. Killing off idols and so on. I commend you for taking your doubts seriously and not being afraid to air them - far too many leftists refuse to do this, as I'm sure you're aware.

So this is all part of maturity, of passing into adulthood. We want of course to avoid the trap of adult=conformist, but this is a little more tricky. See the "rebellion" of youth is not really something that threatens any ruling order. It is a sort of sanctioned ritual, something you are expected to go through, even encouraged. It can even be argued that adults are increasingly "allowed" this sort of transgression as well - 30 is more like 20 nowadays. Here the thing is I think to preserve and nurture for oneself the seeds of this youthful spirit - desire for autonomy, disgust with the arbitrariness of the adult world, etc. - while avoiding the ego-satisfaction that comes from merely "being against" and shocking other people.

It is possible that antidotes to these things can be found within the tradition itself. Lenin for example did a good job of ripping to shreds many of those airy-fairy notions one is likely to fall into at the onset of political engagement (and here I mean not just Lenin as a person, but also the experiences of the Russian revolution from within which he was writing, and from whence these lessons were taken).

ckaihatsu

17th June 2017, 14:28

I should say , theorising communism into Works of Literary supplements wont add an iota to the "Mass Movement " one looks for .....Explain how and when ? Dont use subtlery explain clearly ......Mutual agreement and understanding ....

I guess Marx knew it well ....the uneducated werent interested about theory while , focusing on educating people what and why ?

Educated people happen to be the ones who make the world go around, in terms of *civilizational* development, since they're the ones in the *professional* professions like government, business, education, engineering, art, journalism, science, etc. -- at the time of Lenin the revolutionaries had to *depend* on such professionals, regardless of politics, in order to make things run properly in Bolshevist Russia.

Lenin understood that economic conditions were dire, so he opened up markets to a greater degree of free trade, hoping to motivate the population to increase production. Under the NEP, not only were “private property, private enterprise, and private profit largely restored in Lenin’s Russia,” but Lenin’s regime turned to international capitalism for assistance, willing to provide “generous concessions to foreign capitalism.”[16] Lenin took the position that in order to achieve socialism, he had to create “the missing material prerequisites” of modernization and industrial development that made it imperative for Soviet Russia to “fall back on a centrally supervised market-influenced program of state capitalism”.[17] Lenin was following Karl Marx’s precepts that a nation must first reach “full maturation of capitalism as the precondition for socialist realization.”[18] The main policy Lenin used was an end to grain requisitions and instead instituted a tax on the peasants, thereby allowing them to keep and trade part of their produce. At first, this tax was paid in kind, but as the currency became more stable in 1924, it was changed to a cash payment.[3] This increased the peasants' incentive to produce, and in response production jumped by 40% after the drought and famine of 1921–22.[19]

NEP economic reforms aimed to take a step back from central planning and allow the economy to become more independent. NEP labor reforms tied labor to productivity, incentivizing the reduction of costs and the redoubled efforts of labor. Labor unions became independent civic organizations.[citation needed] NEP reforms also opened up government positions to the most qualified workers. The NEP gave opportunities for the government to use engineers, specialists, and intelligentsia for cost accounting, equipment purchasing, efficiency procedures, railway construction, and industrial administration. A new class of "NEPmen" thrived. These private traders opened up urban firms hiring up to 20 workers. NEPmen also included rural artisan craftsmen selling their wares on the private market.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

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Bourgeoise is a creation of Marx to vilify those who open up channels for organisation of labour - Cant I say this ? A bourgeoise would have agreed

No, the bourgeoisie *isn't* a subjective label -- the bourgeoisie is the class, collectively, that directly benefits from its private ownership of the means of mass industrial production. The workers, on the other hand, do *not* have any say-so over how production is determined, as they / we are just paid a *wage* for everything that we produce -- exploitation.

Yes, the ruling class (bourgeoisie) is the class that currently organizes labor, but labor doesn't *require* the bourgeoisie to do this since labor could readily organize *itself* if it wasn't being actively *repressed* by the bourgeoisie / ruling-class. (Capital is given freedom for corporate organization, but labor is not allowed to self-organize and control unions from the rank-and-file.)

But what about a proletariat of a THIRD WORLD NATION WHO KNOWS NOT WHAT HE IS ENTITLED NOR IS HE LITERATE

I think workers in Third World countries have a certain sense of what they are being cheated out-of since they are subject to exploitation and repression on a daily basis -- all it takes these days is to watch television (or use the Internet) to see how the wealthy live and what special privileges they take for themselves.

So being communist as an adult would be post-youth reluctancy and a steep parabolic curve against Revolution with inclination towards Reaction .....

Yes, I think that people generally tend to get more conservative as they get older -- more to hang-onto, more to lose, and needing to prepare for old-age -- but there certainly are older revolutionary communists around, so be careful of stereotyping.

Activists are reactionary visionaries who wait for events to occur

Activists are *not* reactionary, unless they are, as we've seen with recent pro-Trump rallies and the like -- generally activists are *radicals*, and susceptible to the lure of nationalism since they're so close to status-quo-based events.

Visionary revolutionaries disseminate their Individualist subjective concern

Revolutionaries are not about individualism and subjectivity -- proletarian revolution is *objectively necessary* for the well-being of most because of existing reactionary conditions that apply to *everyone* who has to work for a living.

Where is union ?

You're talking about the connection of bottom-up struggle, with top-down real-world existing events. This is always the dynamic in front of us -- it's a constant empirical reality of politics.

I am afriad of an open class struggle because revolutions cannot be controlled. by definition, they are the absence of control and a failure of control (by the ruling class).

I *don't* agree with this definition -- the whole *point* of having collectivist planning is that so that things *can* be controlled by the masses, over 'economic'-*material* concerns, entirely, as in what is produced for society instead of for private profit.

they cannot be made "safe" for anyone. As much as I distrust the status quo, there is still something resembling the rule of law, and there is still space to think and feel differently in limited government and free societies. admittedly it may not last.

Marxists don't say that bourgeois society is the *worst* form of class society to ever exist -- it's not counterrevolutionary to acknowledge the material gains that have been made under the capitalist system. Sure, civil law and civil rights are 'positives', but we also have to look at the raw *destruction* wreaked on humanity, such as with two world wars and ongoing imperialist warfare today, for starters.

however, revolution means that violence is democratised from the state to the people, and a truly democratic state may yet provide the people with the right to decide who lives and who dies in a revolutionary terror expressing the will of the people, a tyranny by majority. if the state is to be abolished, its power must return to the people and the people must decide for themselves how to use violence and determine their own future. I don't trust the masses because I don't believe human beings are wholly rational;

One correction here -- it wouldn't be 'the people' in control, it would only be active *workers* in control.

The best way to contextualize the issue of violence is that it could be used for collective *self-defense* against counterrevolutionaries -- sections of the bourgeoisie that wouldn't want to give up power over social productivity.

we have our lusts, our hatreds and our fears and given the power to decide who lives and who dies the evidence would suggest that we care very little about human life if killing others is the means by which to ensure our own life. the scariest thing is that people may not even need a reason to kill as obedience may mean it is the decision to kill is at such a low level of consciousness that people may not need a reason. it becomes habitual. empty. revolutions are like machines grinding flesh and bone in the search for ideological purity;

I think you're missing the forest for the trees here -- you're taking a very *individualistic* perspective on class warfare and missing the fact that the ruling class can always *give up*. There's no need for proletarian violence as long as the ruling class abdicates without lifting a finger of opposition. Of course I don't think that those in power would give up so readily, but any violence would be on a *class* -- not individual -- basis. If a successful revolution requires grinding flesh and bone due to the need for the revolution to succeed, then that what would be objectively called-for.

they fill mass graves and they call it justice. terror is driven not by reason but by the incentives within state apparatus of "kill or be killed". guilt is irrelevant- you just have to feed the beast its pound of flesh or else you will be eaten. that is frightening to conceive of and Even if fascists do it, I cannot comprehend how supporting such a system may be just, moral or compatible with individual conscience. it reduces ideology to the level of nonsense. the problem is that communism, in is desire to plan everything, gives the state the unlimited power of life and death in order to "plan" the course of people's lives.

This 'power' -- if you like -- *already* exists. The imperialist war machine *every day* lives by the principle of 'kill or be killed', because the ruling class' very existence requires repression of its class enemy.

The scenario you're putting forth is *dramatic*, but it's just your particular contrived narrative -- we don't know how an ultimate class showdown will look, and neither does anyone else. The point remains the *reason* for any realized violence -- who, or what institutions, if any, *should* have the power over life and death -- ? Imperialist ones, or proletarian ones -- ?

Yes, a proletarian revolution *could* make use of a workers-state vehicle, if that's collectively deemed appropriate to the situation at-hand, but *nothing* would be done on a strictly *individual* basis as you're indicating here. And once the class enemy is defeated there would no longer exist any *purpose* for that revolutionary vehicle (the workers state), and so it would be obsolete in the context of a newly empowered world public that can now direct its *own* productivity through its *own* work, for humane ends.

Can we really risk that power based on the assumption that it is somehow temporary?I n the 20th century, men had machine guns and gas vans. In the 21st century, our weapons are chemical, nuclear and biological. As the productive forces have developed, so has man's capacity for destruction in order to wage a class struggle. if you gave me the choice, I wouldn't wish revolution on anyone- but its not my choice because the forces at work are much greater than any single individuals ability to control or to humanise. I don't think its unreasonable to be afraid of such a thing, though in any communist country my fear of a system which gives power to the people is enough to condemn me as an enemy of the people. In the end, I'm just not that loyal to the cause because I still believe in a morality greater than the will of the majority (or the minority that claims to represent the "will of the people").

There's no such thing as a 'morality' outside of people themselves -- if a revolution is needed that massacres counterrevolutionaries in the most bloody and gruesome ways, then so be it. Counterrevolutionaries always have the option of *giving up* if they want to forestall their own ends in that way.

You keep showing that you don't *trust* collective power, and that you'd prefer decision-making to be placed in the hands of an *individual* -- whether it's done the first way or the second way would greatly depend on actual *circumstances*, but *either* of these would have the same aims / ends, anyway -- the overthrow of the ruling class -- so don't sweat the *means* of effecting that so much.

Thats cowardice -> Remember what Rosseau said , teach your child how to live not how to avoid death .In case otherwise , my ideological equation doesnt balance I wont fear losing my life cause an Ideological defeat is like losing all the life you had and you had dreamed of

- - - Updated - - -

I dont think Revolutionaries fear death ...The proletariat in backward regions of the world is still dying of pain hunger and of the cold-heartedness of sundry men ,that has stripped them of their rights , the entitlements a human is supposed to get , so first Unity and Solidarity needs to be entrenched and retrenched....If the proletariat denies , big economies shall tremble

Exactly -- I think Laika is suffering from reductionism, a mindset that can't accommodate *gains*, like life itself.

We have a present-day *holocaust* going on, and we can't be spending so much time on the particulars in-the-abstract of *which methods* exactly to use -- what counts is where things are once all the dust has settled.

Laika

17th June 2017, 14:52

ckaihatsu

17th June 2017, 15:10

I'm not sure whether subordinating environmental objectives to the class struggle for socialism is necessarily a good thing.

Right after making this statement you're then admitting that the capitalist class doesn't give a shit about the environment, or even humanity itself -- so wouldn't the class *overthrow* of the bourgeoisie *be* the best option for humanity to realize healthy hands-on approaches to repairing the environment, as expediently as possible -- ?

If not class revolution, then what *would* be possible regarding the environment, more in the here-and-now, according to you -- ?

it could be argued that it is unavoidable as the capitalist class have subordinated the sustainability of humanity on the planet to their pursuit of profit by lobbying political influence and promoting "climate change denialist" narratives in the media. working for reforms risks postponing revolutionary socialism for class collaboration. I guess it depends on what the revolutionary left should see themselves as responsible for and what is within the scope of their control (as the bourgeois state- democratic or not- clearly isn't within their ability to control). The soft left as you put it have however become utterly hysterical and seem to sense that a major crisis of capitalism is on its way or has already arrived. Their capacity for moral outrage is directly proportionate to the utter futility of reforms, the more powerless they are the more urgently they wrap themselves in the cloth of "principle" to rationalise defeat. they let the far right goosestep right over them as if they aren't even there. I can't think of a 20th century comparison to what is going on now in terms of the sheer anarchy of whats going on. comparisons with Nazism and fascism suggest the danger we are in but are still overblown in that there is still a legalistic-democratic camouflage for the bourgeois state in the west. Whilst Trump supporters are wrong on alot, they have occasionally get things right in order to channel dissent and have at least grasped that the ruling classes relationship with reality is now remote. As crazy as things are now, its still hard to see how a few people meeting in a basement somewhere could produce a working revolutionary socialist government in maybe a few decades. But its never happened nor will happen any other way.

Laika, you *continue* to mix scales -- matters like revolution, the environment, and humanity, *far overshadow* any small-group 'meeting in a basement somewhere'. I'm finding this to be a rather disingenuous illustrative approach when we both know that large-scale class struggle goes on all over the world, on a daily basis.

Trump and Trump supporters -- and all Republicans, and probably most Democrats -- are *liars*. They are only interested in financial self-aggrandizement, and they see politics as a means to an ends in that direction.

I do agree with this part of yours:

working for reforms risks postponing revolutionary socialism for class collaboration.

And, regarding this:

I guess it depends on what the revolutionary left should see themselves as responsible for and what is within the scope of their control (as the bourgeois state- democratic or not- clearly isn't within their ability to control).

The revolutionary left is the revolutionary working class -- it / we certainly don't have control of the bourgeois state, but that's the reason for revolutionary overthrow, so that a workers state, if needed, can be used to spread the revolution worldwide and can begin to control decommodified production for humane ends.

ckaihatsu

17th June 2017, 15:21

My hesitation of accepting open class struggle is that I'm assuming we already *have* seen what such a situation would look like. The historical experience of the communist regime in the 20th century was pretty definitive in the use of terror as a method of rule unrestricted by law.

So you favor bourgeois law over revolutionary terror -- ? (!)

To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason to believe that any non-dictatorial system or anarchist version of communism will be any more successful today than were the Ukrainian or Catalonian anarchist territories. Nor is it likely that we will come up with a wholly original conception of a revolution or the state as that is a wholly anti-marxist and idealist assumption, unless you make a case for a "revolutionary" leap in the understanding of "revolution" and a new set of institutional practices that would result.

Proletarian revolution doesn't *have* to have institutions of any kind, and my model at post #16 shows a certain approach as to how this might be done -- as ever much would depend on actual conditions / circumstances at the time.

the structure of the state and of the revolution is determined by objective qualities and not simply the will or ideas of individuals as "preferences". What is more likely is an *evolution* of the Marxist-Leninist model (probably derivative of Anti-Revisionism) as the most effective model to perpetuate itself in the 20th century being reinvigorated and adopting the new technological inventions and scientific discoveries of the 21st century. I will concede I am heavily under the influence of anti-communist propaganda, but as long as the above assumption holds true, 21st century communism will be either a continuation or an escalation of its 20th century Marxist-Leninist counterpart. A 21st century Lenin would look on the communist systems of the previous century and draw conclusions, as the real Lenin studied the Paris Commune and drew the conclusion of the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat for Russia in 1917. hence, I'm not eager to support a movement that could reasonably produce a stalin/mao/pol pot or assist in creating such a regime even if I recognise there may be an underlying historical necessity for it. I'd like to say we could do better, but we have to work with what is available.

I see the flat vs. hierarchical configuration issue as being a material *trade-off*, depending on what circumstances may indicate / call-for:

[A] corollary of a stepped-up, hurried revolution (that's considerably substitutionist, per the thread topic) is that such a revolution would most-likely have to act like a rival nation-state since it's not entirely grounded in mass participation.

Perhaps 'government' is the right word for this in-between, interim kind of social order, absent the more-preferred mass worldwide upheaval that would *immediately* displace bourgeois rule, leaving minds reeling at the 'overnight' pace of change.

By virtue of this revolutionary organization / party being a 'government' it would be relatively-more-ambiguous as to whether this government was *competing* as a *rival nation-state*, or was going-through-with the proletarian revolution for a full paradigm-shift to socialism, towards communism.

(In other words, the 'material pyramid' applies here, where a more-focused, vanguard-party-type approach makes for a *taller* pyramid, reaching new heights, but is also necessarily *thinner* in shape, indicating less-robustness and relative-top-heaviness. A *broader base* material pyramid would be an option, for more stability, but it would confer much less height from ground to tip.)

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/197003-Do-you-think-that-a-communist-revolution-from-above-is-possible?p=2882563#post2882563

Laika

17th June 2017, 16:30

So you favor bourgeois law over revolutionary terror -- ? (!) I'm certainly inclined to, yes. I think the chances of survival are higher in the US than in the killing fields or the gulag. Bourgeois Law does at least discriminate on the basis of guilt and uses evidence to decide if someone is guilty of violating laws on attacking person or property. Revolutionary terror does not, because its purpose is to intimidate the class enemy, not punish the guilty. its therefore utterly indiscriminate and the "class enemy" can easily be members of the working classes who fall under the influence of "counter-revolutionary" ideologies. So in practice, the workers state attacks members of the working class.
Proletarian revolution doesn't *have* to have institutions of any kind, and my model at post #16 shows a certain approach as to how this might be done -- as ever much would depend on actual conditions / circumstances at the time. We're going to disagree here, but there are specific characteristics to a *capitalist* state as determined by the economic base. In order for private property to operate, capitalists must be "free" to buy and sell within the marketplace. This creates a *private* sphere of economic activity that is independent of the state. Under Socialism, as economic activity becomes part of the state so the "private" sphere ceases to exist. whole areas of society that were once in private hands, such as art, culture, science, family relations, sexuality, etc become politicised as a part of the state. In order that these activities may be planned as part of social production they are necessarily subordinated to the state. In the Soviet Union, socialist realism became the official ideology for art and literature, science was regulated to correspond to dialectical materialism as the official ideology, and family and sex were politicised with sex being treated as hetrosexual as a form of "production" of children, and men and women performing semi-traditional gender roles based on a division of labour between the sexes. There is a great deal of fluctuation in the pattern this takes, and variation based on nationality, culture, traditions and geography, as well as the intensity of the class struggle at a given moment. but I'd argue that- to a greater or lesser extent - socialism must produce a "totalitarian" society as a superstructure corresponding to the needs of planning the economic base. This relies on a right-wing libertarian analysis and so could well be revised but I think the basic outline is still pretty sound. it also treats the blueprint coming out of Marxism-Leninism as representative of Socialism and so can be historically substantiated based on using the experience and practice of those systems. This isn't desirable, but crudely it would seem more scientific.
Right after making this statement you're then admitting that the capitalist class doesn't give a shit about the environment, or even humanity itself -- so wouldn't the class *overthrow* of the bourgeoisie *be* the best option for humanity to realize healthy hands-on approaches to repairing the environment, as expediently as possible -- ?If not class revolution, then what *would* be possible regarding the environment, more in the here-and-now, according to you -- ?I don't have one. thats not the answer I want to give but its where I am at. the conclusion I've reached of the necessity of socialism and that socialism necessarily has totalitarian characteristics is a catch-22 situation. I respect the fact if you decide this position is a waste of time as I certainly could not advocate it as an ideal, just as the best approximation of what is practically possible. nor am I comfortable acting on that position by joining a political party based on a double negative. You are older than me, have more experience and can remember a time before "neo-liberalism" as an absolutist capitalist ideology that goes out of its way to present itself as infecting everyone, everything, everywhere, so the reactionary influence of libertarianism on my own thinking is at least in part generational.
Laika, you *continue* to mix scales -- matters like revolution, the environment, and humanity, *far overshadow* any small-group 'meeting in a basement somewhere'. I'm finding this to be a rather disingenuous illustrative approach when we both know that large-scale class struggle goes on all over the world, on a daily basis.If I am in error, its going to be a pretty big one. I'm not intending to be disingenuous in shifting from the "historical" to the "individual" levels of struggle, but rather using it to clarify my thinking. I have never explicitly and all out accepted an Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninist ideology as would make sense given my views because I find it so difficult to stomach. If I were bold enough, I'd say that my "moral" objections were the result of capitalist thinking and that my own emotional discomfort is the product of ideological error, but I still can't square supporting a Stalinist model with my own conscience and that has proven resistant to change. I am inconsistent, but it is because I want to be persuaded by evidence and experience rather than logic alone.

ckaihatsu

17th June 2017, 18:14

I'm certainly inclined to, yes. I think the chances of survival are higher in the US than in the killing fields or the gulag.

You're still relying on your *own*, contrived scenarios -- you're assuming *too much*, in other words, by trying to make it sound like the future will automatically resemble *past* historical events.

Bourgeois Law does at least discriminate on the basis of guilt and uses evidence to decide if someone is guilty of violating laws on attacking person or property. Revolutionary terror does not, because its purpose is to intimidate the class enemy, not punish the guilty.

What you're missing is that a revolution is not about *civil law* -- the point of it is to push past our current bourgeois era so that people are no longer dependent on *exchange values* (private property) for their life and livelihood. The only reason that civil-type laws exist *at all* is because there is a historically-received *dichotomy* between the public sector and the private sector, and civil law is the patch-over that attempts to resolve these inherent contradictions. (For example, when is violence *currently* considered appropriate under civil law -- ? Is it when people are calling for justice in a pro-active way after police have summarily executed someone of color in an impoverished part of a city, or is it when a union of workers has gone without a new contract for months and the members strike and attempt to physically prevent hired scabs from taking their jobs while they're on strike -- ?) (The answer, of course, is 'neither', because both of these realities aren't recognized as 'legitimate' according to bourgeois law.)

[revolutionary terror is] therefore utterly indiscriminate and the "class enemy" can easily be members of the working classes who fall under the influence of "counter-revolutionary" ideologies.

This seems fitting, though -- a revolution is about mass class consciousness, and if people decide in that context to be *counter*-revolutionaries then they should be treated as such by the revolution.

So in practice, the workers state attacks members of the working class.

In this scenario, this action would be entirely appropriate because people have free will and can decide for themselves what their own politics are -- if anyone acts *against* the working class, revolution or not, they should understand and deal-with the consequences of their anti-working-class actions, whatever those happen to be.

We're going to disagree here, but there are specific characteristics to a *capitalist* state as determined by the economic base. In order for private property to operate, capitalists must be "free" to buy and sell within the marketplace. This creates a *private* sphere of economic activity that is independent of the state.

Your 'superstructure' example here -- exchange values -- is erroneous because: Who or what issues the *currency* in the first place -- ? How is monetary *policy* determined -- ? In both cases there's no 'independent' base because the monetary aspect is an artifact of the bourgeois *superstructure*.

Under Socialism, as economic activity becomes part of the state so the "private" sphere ceases to exist. whole areas of society that were once in private hands, such as art, culture, science, family relations, sexuality, etc become politicised as a part of the state. In order that these activities may be planned as part of social production they are necessarily subordinated to the state.

During a revolutionary period, yes, I imagine that much -- approaching *all* -- of social life would become highly politicized, but it wouldn't *have* to be a nightmare totalitarian state overseeing every tiny second of every person's moment-to-moment activities. Again you're over-relying on historical examples, and in so doing you're conflating the fUSSR's *bureaucratic* collectivism with what could be a future *true* workers collectivism, without any dependence on specialized, fixed administrative roles or institutions (because such would be elitist-bureaucratic compared to regular, *productive* work roles). The end of a private sector doesn't mean the end of *personal* ('private') lives, because the *political* meaning of private is in the sense of 'private property', or private ownership of pieces of mass industrial production, for profit.

In the Soviet Union, socialist realism became the official ideology for art and literature, science was regulated to correspond to dialectical materialism as the official ideology, and family and sex were politicised with sex being treated as hetrosexual as a form of "production" of children, and men and women performing semi-traditional gender roles based on a division of labour between the sexes. There is a great deal of fluctuation in the pattern this takes, and variation based on nationality, culture, traditions and geography, as well as the intensity of the class struggle at a given moment.

(Again) this is *bureaucratic* control you're describing, a necessary downslide from the initial 'soviet' workplace formation due to foreign invasions and the resulting famines at that time.

I *don't* think that people's personal lives would have to be politicized, although the 'superstructure' that emerges from collectivist control would certainly *influence* and *shape* the personal sphere, as with free birth control and abortions being available -- we're in a different time now and much advanced industry has been built up in the last 100 years. Revolutionary politicization *now* could mean that people pay attention to news on the Internet and participate regularly over matters of collectivist policy and planning, such as on a forum like this one, RevLeft.

but I'd argue that- to a greater or lesser extent - socialism must produce a "totalitarian" society as a superstructure corresponding to the needs of planning the economic base.

I accept this reasoning, and such 'totalitarianism' would be part of the 'humane efficiency' of planned production (some comrades will argue against the existence of dozens of different types of toothpaste today).

What's most to-the-point, of course, is what the *characteristics* of such a 'total society' would be like -- I'll reiterate that I don't think people would even have to forfeit their *personal* lives, even in the midst of contentious global revolution. Politicization has a *positive* connotation in that the spread of politicization -- a revolution -- can displace the logistical messiness of conventional exchange-values ('economics') *altogether*, so that mass formal public demand enjoys a quick responsiveness from liberated-production, such as for food, housing, etc., without a single dollar changing hands.

This relies on a right-wing libertarian analysis and so could well be revised but I think the basic outline is still pretty sound. it also treats the blueprint coming out of Marxism-Leninism as representative of Socialism and so can be historically substantiated based on using the experience and practice of those systems. This isn't desirable, but crudely it would seem more scientific. I don't have one. thats not the answer I want to give but its where I am at. the conclusion I've reached of the necessity of socialism and that socialism necessarily has totalitarian characteristics is a catch-22 situation. I respect the fact if you decide this position is a waste of time as I certainly could not advocate it as an ideal, just as the best approximation of what is practically possible. nor am I comfortable acting on that position by joining a political party based on a double negative. You are older than me, have more experience and can remember a time before "neo-liberalism" as an absolutist capitalist ideology that goes out of its way to present itself as infecting everyone, everything, everywhere, so the reactionary influence of libertarianism on my own thinking is at least in part generational. If I am in error, its going to be a pretty big one. I'm not intending to be disingenuous in shifting from the "historical" to the "individual" levels of struggle, but rather using it to clarify my thinking. I have never explicitly and all out accepted an Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninist ideology as would make sense given my views because I find it so difficult to stomach. If I were bold enough, I'd say that my "moral" objections were the result of capitalist thinking and that my own emotional discomfort is the product of ideological error, but I still can't square supporting a Stalinist model with my own conscience and that has proven resistant to change. I am inconsistent, but it is because I want to be persuaded by evidence and experience rather than logic alone.

Well, I do appreciate your honesty and openness -- unfortunately history is a *linear* thing and we don't have that many unique examples of socialism-in-action. Hopefully we'll have imminent opportunities to do this thing in a '21st-century' kind of way.

I'll invite your reflections on what 'totalitarianism' / 'total society' could potentially mean, in both positive and negative ways, and I'll note that the 'Stalin' model -- socialism-in-one-country -- is *not* necessary, nor is the model that we should be striving for in our *contemporary* reality.

(My own framework model that I developed and advocate is at post #16.)

Full Metal Bolshevik

17th June 2017, 18:51

I'm certainly inclined to, yes. I think the chances of survival are higher in the US than in the killing fields or the gulag. Bourgeois Law does at least discriminate on the basis of guilt and uses evidence to decide if someone is guilty of violating laws on attacking person or property. Revolutionary terror does not, because its purpose is to intimidate the class enemy, not punish the guilty. its therefore utterly indiscriminate and the "class enemy" can easily be members of the working classes who fall under the influence of "counter-revolutionary" ideologies. So in practice, the workers state attacks members of the working class. .You're ignoring the daily violence of the status quo that is necessary so things do not change, but that is taken as natural.
"There were two 'Reigns of Terror', if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors of the... momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."So what if millions die from revolutionary terror, it's still nothing compared to the slow continuous terror from contemporary societies. Besides failure is not a guarantee, neither that the only result from terror are authoritarian soviet style states.

The Intransigent Faction

17th June 2017, 18:58

I'm certainly inclined to, yes. I think the chances of survival are higher in the US than in the killing fields or the gulag.If you'll just do a bit of research, you'll easily find this is wrong. Even the incarceration rate in the U.S. is higher. We also have to take into account the wider social conditions at times when mortality rates in Gulags were higher. If, for several reasons, resources are strained in the country as a whole, naturally the problem will be more acute in the most remote regions. It's not just a matter of comparing body counts, either---the U.S. prison system is there to sustain the existing system as an end in itself by segregating "undesirables."A prison system in a revolutionary socialist society is there to help sustain a revolution---that is, a process of transition from bourgeois to communist society. There's risk of excesses in the midst of upheaval of the current system, but as others said, they don't compare to the piling up of bodies by an unchallenged status quo.
Bourgeois Law does at least discriminate on the basis of guilt and uses evidence to decide if someone is guilty of violating laws on attacking person or property. Revolutionary terror does not, because its purpose is to intimidate the class enemy, not punish the guilty.Legal guilt...perhaps. Even that is by no means a certainty, but when it is, bourgeois notions of "justice" are selective and at best incidentally in the interest of workers. Bourgeois Law is not inherently evidence-based...it's evolved this way for sustainability purposes where expedient, just as other reforms have been accepted. In other places where class rule is more blatant, you see groups like the "Death Squads." Then there's the legal regime of say, Saudi Arabia, propped up for the sake of bourgeois interest in access to resources.
its therefore utterly indiscriminate and the "class enemy" can easily be members of the working classes who fall under the influence of "counter-revolutionary" ideologies. So in practice, the workers state attacks members of the working class.Again, this is circumstantial. Excesses do happen in the context of revolution. We can do our best to limit these, especially with a benefit of hindsight that didn't exist before. Even without that benefit, this is no argument for leaving an ultimately worse system intact.
We're going to disagree here, but there are specific characteristics to a *capitalist* state as determined by the economic base. In order for private property to operate, capitalists must be "free" to buy and sell within the marketplace. This creates a *private* sphere of economic activity that is independent of the state.We (and much of the capitalist class, at least) recognize the necessity of a state to keep the economic machine running. Without an imposed legal basis for private property to dress it up in the language of "rights", it truly is "naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."Even if such a private sphere were somehow kept entirely disconnected from a bourgeois state, this would be no more of a mark of "freedom" than southern slave-owners escaping the legal authority of the federal U.S. government in the north. This idea of a dichotomy between private enterprise as "freedom" and state-run enterprise as "totalitarian," and the resultant view in some cases that market intervention is a "compromise" of freedom even if for laudable purposes, is ideological nonsense. It's only material basis is in ruling class hegemony.
Under Socialism, as economic activity becomes part of the state so the "private" sphere ceases to exist. whole areas of society that were once in private hands, such as art, culture, science, family relations, sexuality, etc become politicised as a part of the state. In order that these activities may be planned as part of social production they are necessarily subordinated to the state. In the Soviet Union, socialist realism became the official ideology for art and literature, science was regulated to correspond to dialectical materialism as the official ideology, and family and sex were politicised with sex being treated as hetrosexual as a form of "production" of children, and men and women performing semi-traditional gender roles based on a division of labour between the sexes. There is a great deal of fluctuation in the pattern this takes, and variation based on nationality, culture, traditions and geography, as well as the intensity of the class struggle at a given moment.Somewhat true, sure. Of course, none of this precludes spontaneous communal activity which sometimes went further than the state had intended. If we treat the state as the point of cultural origin, then we see its ubiquitous influence as "totalitarian." If we treat the people, in socialist fashion, as culture's point of origin then the state is an expression and reflection of this. Then such a system is not tyranny imposed from above, but the proletarian dictatorship widely embraced.The trouble is when inorganic, entrenched "leadership" develops, with its own separate aims. This is where the state's ubiquitous influence is a problem---not merely because it is ubiquitous, as the term "totalitarian" implies.
to a greater or lesser extent - socialism must produce a "totalitarian" society as a superstructure corresponding to the needs of planning the economic base. This relies on a right-wing libertarian analysis and so could well be revised but I think the basic outline is still pretty sound. it also treats the blueprint coming out of Marxism-Leninism as representative of Socialism and so can be historically substantiated based on using the experience and practice of those systems. This isn't desirable, but crudely it would seem more scientific. I don't have one. thats not the answer I want to give but its where I am at. the conclusion I've reached of the necessity of socialism and that socialism necessarily has totalitarian characteristics is a catch-22 situation. I respect the fact if you decide this position is a waste of time as I certainly could not advocate it as an ideal, just as the best approximation of what is practically possible. nor am I comfortable acting on that position by joining a political party based on a double negative. You are older than me, have more experience and can remember a time before "neo-liberalism" as an absolutist capitalist ideology that goes out of its way to present itself as infecting everyone, everything, everywhere, so the reactionary influence of libertarianism on my own thinking is at least in part generational.The "libertarianism" you're referring to here is not "libertarianism" at all---it's the private tyranny of capital let loose.
If I am in error, its going to be a pretty big one. I'm not intending to be disingenuous in shifting from the "historical" to the "individual" levels of struggle, but rather using it to clarify my thinking. I have never explicitly and all out accepted an Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninist ideology as would make sense given my views because I find it so difficult to stomach. If I were bold enough, I'd say that my "moral" objections were the result of capitalist thinking and that my own emotional discomfort is the product of ideological error, but I still can't square supporting a Stalinist model with my own conscience and that has proven resistant to change. I am inconsistent, but it is because I want to be persuaded by evidence and experience rather than logic alone.All or most of us here would rather be experiencing revolution/socialism rather than simply discussing or engaging in polemics about it."Totalitarian" is really a meaningless buzzword, but yes, authoritarian methods may well be necessary to realign an economy in which, currently, different fiefdoms work at cross purposes or engage in everything from direct and immediate harm to criminal squandering of potential. This may well necessitate a sort of secondary revolution to keep or grab the means of production from an entrenched bureaucracy if such a development could not be prevented with hindsight. That said, where the alternatives is the status quo, such means are vastly preferable.

Laika

17th June 2017, 20:29

So what if millions die from revolutionary terror, it's still nothing compared to the slow continuous terror from contemporary societies. Besides failure is not a guarantee, neither that the only result from terror are authoritarian soviet style states.Doesn't the indifference to the deaths of millions from revolutionary terror prove how little we care about the proletariat as people and simply wish to use them as an instrument for our own ambitions? how is it millions of people can become disposable?

Full Metal Bolshevik

17th June 2017, 21:34

Doesn't the indifference to the deaths of millions from revolutionary terror prove how little we care about the proletariat as people and simply wish to use them as an instrument for our own ambitions? how is it millions of people can become disposable? MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DISPOSABLE! These hypothetical millions of deaths from terror (that would be enacted against the ruling class) are nothing compared to the deaths due to global capitalism, how many die of hunger and curable and preventable diseases every year? Or victims of oppressive regimes? Or in the US where the prison system is nothing more than an excuse to put away the undesirables, (drugs users, mentally ill, poor people in general), are those deaths indifferent to you? You can't say no but then being afraid to enact change. Use them for our own ambitions? you are the one separating communists from the working class when many communists are part of the working class.

Laika

18th June 2017, 06:37

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DISPOSABLE! These hypothetical millions of deaths from terror (that would be enacted against the ruling class) are nothing compared to the deaths due to global capitalism, how many die of hunger and curable and preventable diseases every year? Or victims of oppressive regimes? Or in the US where the prison system is nothing more than an excuse to put away the undesirables, (drugs users, mentally ill, poor people in general), are those deaths indifferent to you? You can't say no but then being afraid to enact change. Use them for our own ambitions? you are the one separating communists from the working class when many communists are part of the working class. Yes. But Communists didn't kill people under Capitalism. They killed people under Communism when they may have had the power to do otherwise. they used that power deliberately and consciously kill people in the name of the revolution. nor can the workers benefit from communism if we kill and bury them for not being class conscious enough. its not hypothetical, its history- so its not wrong to ask whether that is really the true and fullest expression of a communist morality. if human life is worthless under capitalism, why should we treat human life as worthless under socialism and communism when we have the power to change it?

ckaihatsu

18th June 2017, 12:22

Yes. But Communists didn't kill people under Capitalism. They killed people under Communism when they may have had the power to do otherwise. they used that power deliberately and consciously kill people in the name of the revolution. nor can the workers benefit from communism if we kill and bury them for not being class conscious enough. its not hypothetical, its history- so its not wrong to ask whether that is really the true and fullest expression of a communist morality. if human life is worthless under capitalism, why should we treat human life as worthless under socialism and communism when we have the power to change it?

Such treatment of human life is *not* treating it as 'worthless' -- your scenario posited that certain working-class types would become counterrevolutionaries and would oppose the proletarian revolution and its red terror. This means the same as it meant before, at post #23:

So in practice, the workers state attacks members of the working class.

In this scenario, this action would be entirely appropriate because people have free will and can decide for themselves what their own politics are -- if anyone acts *against* the working class, revolution or not, they should understand and deal-with the consequences of their anti-working-class actions, whatever those happen to be.

---

Also, your formulations are *continuing* to look disingenuous:

nor can the workers benefit from communism if we kill and bury them for not being class conscious enough.

Who's 'we' -- what's the scenario on this one -- ?

And who said that the red terror would be directed at those who are 'not being class conscious enough' -- ?

If you'll note, the standard is / should-be about who in the population are *counter-revolutionaries*. You're making it sound here like a devilish version of a game show, where contestants have to be 'class conscious enough' to escape with their lives, otherwise the boogeyman's gonna get them.

Laika

18th June 2017, 15:25

Also, your formulations are *continuing* to look disingenuous: I don't anticipate pushing this line of argument any further will be constructive. So I'm just going to agree to differ and let it be.

ckaihatsu

18th June 2017, 16:18

I don't anticipate pushing this line of argument any further will be constructive. So I'm just going to agree to differ and let it be.

You may just want to *rephrase* and try a different tack.

But what I'm seeing is that your self-admitted 'morality' is a difficult basis to use for argumentation, since it's -- by definition -- *idealism*, and so you have to formulate situations / scenarios that are artificially / abstractly putting revolutionaries and the revolution in a bad light.

You're basically not-accepting the material premise for proletarian revolution, anyway -- that the world *needs* an overthrow of current private property relations so that workers can control social production and give rise to an egalitarian social order.

Laika

18th June 2017, 18:46

You may just want to *rephrase* and try a different tack.But what I'm seeing is that your self-admitted 'morality' is a difficult basis to use for argumentation, since it's -- by definition -- *idealism*, and so you have to formulate situations / scenarios that are artificially / abstractly putting revolutionaries and the revolution in a bad light.You're basically not-accepting the material premise for proletarian revolution, anyway -- that the world *needs* an overthrow of current private property relations so that workers can control social production and give rise to an egalitarian social order.bluntly, I am trying to be a revolutionary and a conscientious objector at the same time. it doesn't work and I know it. The idealist morality of non-violence still contains some truth about the value of people's lives, the natural propensity for human beings to empathise with one another, and to want each others happiness. you couldn't really build a decent society without something like that. moreover, idealism means treating political language about class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, revolutionary terror etc as deceptive and not taking it at face value. dialectics makes this a lot harder because it muddies the waters about what violence is right and wrong almost exclusively on who is committing it, and blurs the distinction between dictatorship and democracy so that "peace" is a relative state dependent on which ruling class it serves. Marxism understands society as in a semi-permanent state of civil war and so insists that a revolutionary and socialist state wage a class struggle accordingly, using the objective character of class struggle to turn the state into an instrument to wage a war against (at least) a section of its own people. its all very unnerving and rings alarm bells. ultimately this is a view that's opposed with Marxism, particularly if the defence of the revolutionary state takes precedence over the rights of individuals to the protection of the law as a probable basis for a free and civilised society (or at least some measure of autonomy and civil peace). In the end I can't reconcile my own conscience or capacity with empathy with the necessity of violence. that's not an uncommon experience amongst communists but I've never definitively "picked sides" because, this is all fine in a theoretical discussion, but in real life that could get nasty pretty quickly. there isn't a book or person I could turn to for moral guidance because communists never anticipated just how ugly things could turn out, and there aren't many contemporary theorists even posing this sort of question because they won't directly equate communism with the violence and will say it either didn't happen or is not representative of the communist "idea" even if marxism-leninism (and maoism) are the most historically significant example of it being put into action.. so, yeah.... its pretty messed up. definitely not what I signed up for when I started out reading communist literature.

guevarism

18th June 2017, 19:02

Laika

18th June 2017, 20:51

I dont think whats happening in todays world is no less than barbarism. Savage beheadings to avenge the slaughter of a religious animal in India gives you a full - view of this situation where fear and natural reductionism , reactions throttle the proleteriat to live his life in security amidst plasticly synthesised communal elements that catalyse capitalist exploitation by intensifying inter-community conflicts ..Is this not reactionary violence ? Where people dont dare to challenge the feudal leaders pronouncement though it being irrational?If a communist cant love and love beyond shocking gory and bloody aftermath his ideological aims, of a small ,say, street clash between him and sundry he is pretending to revolt while he is engaging in a self-satisfactory contradictory verbiage .If I speak of revolution I should mean it.*division* and compartmentalisation is promoted by capitalist conservative forces who generate inter-repulsive bonding forces which entrench their stronghold over their Capital and the men they bought as serfs and animals , letting them divide and fight as animals for no reason *owing to generated situations of lack of unity * is all they want ...P.S. - Are you one of them hiding under the refuge of hypocrisy and pretence ? I wish I had the refuge of hypocrisy and pretence, for I do sincerely wish to do what is right for the people. That is no easy thing, and my revulsion at what has been done in communism's name is an expression of my desire to do what is right. it is not easy to reconcile the passion for a better world with recognising our common human capacity for cruelty. I am conflicted and confused as to what is right and I find it disturbing that communists have learned so little from the past century of atrocity and fall into stereotyped responses. our theory is crippled and our depth of feeling impoverished by the illusion of security in repeating thought terminating cliches. we have yet to attain a level of wisdom where we could exercise power in such a way that it shows a humility before the forces that the class struggle unleash. we are ideologically in our infancy, full of ourselves because we think our ideas make us special. we are like children wielding a gun: we have yet to know death and see that the measure of a man cannot be quantified merely in loyalty to our cause. if we are the vanguard of humanity, it must be greater and deeper than that.

Full Metal Bolshevik

18th June 2017, 20:55

ckaihatsu how can you make paragraphs? I couldn't in my last post, and judging by the last Laika and guevarism posts they couldn't either.After pressing enter twice it starts a new paragraph on the editing screen, but it's removed after posting.

guevarism

19th June 2017, 03:56

Laika , you are a visionary delusionist , dont take the world to be like the past it has changed and historical literature of the last century which are right-oriented , for me they carry no relevance. So whats good according to you ??To keep mum and let the atrocities spill the beans and bring the spells of horror amidst the dryness of mental courage and strength.Marxs ideas still are worth a great insight ....His ideas as I investigated are true ....In my nation , communists couldnt establish a communist state government on top of the underlyong existing capitalist bedrock layer....This was a reactionary move by communists according to Marx not to last long and so did it ...

ckaihatsu

19th June 2017, 15:48

bluntly, I am trying to be a revolutionary and a conscientious objector at the same time.

A conscientious objector of what -- ?

it doesn't work and I know it. The idealist morality of non-violence still contains some truth about the value of people's lives, the natural propensity for human beings to empathise with one another, and to want each others happiness. you couldn't really build a decent society without something like that.

Okay, now you've made your 'morality' more-concrete. However, you're not addressing *this* point from post #28:

Doesn't the indifference to the deaths of millions from revolutionary terror prove how little we care about the proletariat as people and simply wish to use them as an instrument for our own ambitions? how is it millions of people can become disposable?

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DISPOSABLE! These hypothetical millions of deaths from terror (that would be enacted against the ruling class) are nothing compared to the deaths due to global capitalism, how many die of hunger and curable and preventable diseases every year? Or victims of oppressive regimes? Or in the US where the prison system is nothing more than an excuse to put away the undesirables, (drugs users, mentally ill, poor people in general), are those deaths indifferent to you? You can't say no but then being afraid to enact change. Use them for our own ambitions? you are the one separating communists from the working class when many communists are part of the working class.

---

moreover, idealism means treating political language about class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, revolutionary terror etc as deceptive and not taking it at face value.

I really don't think that the definition of 'idealism' is *that* elastic -- here's the definition as applicable to our common usage in the *political* context:

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism

---

dialectics makes this a lot harder because it muddies the waters about what violence is right and wrong almost exclusively on who is committing it, and blurs the distinction between dictatorship and democracy so that "peace" is a relative state dependent on which ruling class it serves.

No, this is incorrect as well -- dialectics is nowhere near as specific in meaning as you're positing here -- it's more of a *framework* (the resolution of the 'continuous' with the 'discrete'), so it contains no particulars itself.

I think you're *projecting* your *own* assertions here, falsely onto 'dialectics', which we can still deal with:

You're saying that dialectics can't inherently distinguish between 'right' and 'wrong' -- and you're *correct* because it's just a cognitive / empirical *tool* -- actual interpretations are left to the reasoning ability of the 'user', such as what is 'right' and 'wrong', moralisticallly. I myself prefer to use the terms 'constructive' and 'deleterious' instead of the much-more-vague 'right' and 'wrong'.

The use of violence is just like the use of any other tool -- it's *not* entirely subjective, as you're contending, and that's why civil laws / rules exist to regulate its usage in the everyday context (though not to the benefit of those who do the *producing* for society).

You're implying that a proletarian revolution would introduce a new 'ruling class', which is not exactly accurate -- yes, a revolutionary vanguard would have the socio-material latitude to *act* in a ruling-class kind of way, but only to the extent that it uses that mandate to suppress the *bourgeois* ruling class, to then displace it entirely. Once the class divide has been abolished the revolutionary vanguard would no longer have the same context of *class* in which to operate and its social-planning functions could then be done by everyone generically -- specifically those who are an active part of the classless collectivist social production.

We can clarify that there would be *no* peace during a dictatorship of the proletariat transitional phase, since its very purpose would be to wage class war against the bourgeois ruling class.

Marxism understands society as in a semi-permanent state of civil war and so insists that a revolutionary and socialist state wage a class struggle accordingly, using the objective character of class struggle to turn the state into an instrument to wage a war against (at least) a section of its own people.

'[T]he objective character of class struggle [turns] the state into an instrument to wage a war against (at least) a section of [class struggle's] own people.'

This makes no sense -- class struggle is not a *person*, or people, and it's not an *institution* like the bourgeois state. There's no clear possession available in your statement regarding 'its own people'. You may want to rephrase.

its all very unnerving and rings alarm bells. ultimately this is a view that's opposed with Marxism, particularly if the defence of the revolutionary state takes precedence over the rights of individuals to the protection of the law as a probable basis for a free and civilised society (or at least some measure of autonomy and civil peace).

Your own opinion aside, the objective social dynamic of class struggle is *not* opposed to Marxism -- it's the opposite, it's *defined* by Marxism.

Yes, the operations of the revolutionary workers state, if any, would *not* be analogous to your precious '[bourgeois] civil law'. The revolutionary workers state would be to *insert* the working class as the collective decision-makers over all social / societal matters, since bourgeois 'civil law' cannot resolve the inherent contradictions between the public sector and the private sector (who gets to use what machinery and natural resources, why, and for-what, etc.).

In the end I can't reconcile my own conscience or capacity with empathy with the necessity of violence. that's not an uncommon experience amongst communists but I've never definitively "picked sides" because, this is all fine in a theoretical discussion, but in real life that could get nasty pretty quickly.

This is your *own* personal opinion, and is *not* based on any reasoning rooted in actual material conditions. You yourself don't *have* to reconcile your own conscience with this plan of action, proletarian revolution, and you *don't* have to disparage such as '[getting] nasty pretty quickly'.

there isn't a book or person I could turn to for moral guidance

I'm not a moralist, so I may not be the most qualified to speak on this topic, but, again, your own need for 'moral guidance' really isn't applicable here, because the subject of 'morality' simply isn't relevant to the process of proletarian revolution -- the politics for such is more of a *judgment call* based on one's weighing of empirically counterposed socio-political factors, particularly the mutually exclusive interests of the ruling class versus those of the working class.

because communists never anticipated just how ugly things could turn out,

(Again) this is just your own opinionating on history -- note that you're not *discussing* the actual *historical factors* of such, you're just putting forth a perfunctory *opinion* on it, for whatever that's worth. (I, for one, am not interested in your personal *opinion* on such.)

and there aren't many contemporary theorists even posing this sort of question because they won't directly equate communism with the violence and will say it either didn't happen or is not representative of the communist "idea" even if marxism-leninism (and maoism) are the most historically significant example of it being put into action.. so, yeah.... its pretty messed up. definitely not what I signed up for when I started out reading communist literature.

Well, all *you're* doing is putting the word 'communism' on one tile, then the word 'violence' on *another* tile, and then putting the two tiles side-by-side. You seem to think that making multiple assertions over abstract terms is sufficient to make a point, and -- guess what -- it *isn't*. You're not discussing anything about the actual history, so why bother with this contrived line of yours -- ? I've already suggested that you may want to take another approach, and I'll reiterate that suggestion now.

ckaihatsu

19th June 2017, 16:00

I wish I had the refuge of hypocrisy and pretence, for I do sincerely wish to do what is right for the people. That is no easy thing, and my revulsion at what has been done in communism's name is an expression of my desire to do what is right. it is not easy to reconcile the passion for a better world with recognising our common human capacity for cruelty. I am conflicted and confused as to what is right and I find it disturbing that communists have learned so little from the past century of atrocity and fall into stereotyped responses. our theory is crippled and our depth of feeling impoverished by the illusion of security in repeating thought terminating cliches. we have yet to attain a level of wisdom where we could exercise power in such a way that it shows a humility before the forces that the class struggle unleash. we are ideologically in our infancy, full of ourselves because we think our ideas make us special. we are like children wielding a gun: we have yet to know death and see that the measure of a man cannot be quantified merely in loyalty to our cause. if we are the vanguard of humanity, it must be greater and deeper than that.

Let me ask you this, Laika -- why are you so satisfied with the current elitist, class-riven social order of capitalism, to the point that you eschew the risks and realities of violence associated with a potentially successful proletarian revolution -- ?

ckaihatsu how can you make paragraphs? I couldn't in my last post, and judging by the last Laika and guevarism posts they couldn't either.After pressing enter twice it starts a new paragraph on the editing screen, but it's removed after posting.

Hmmmm, I'm not sure how to respond -- the website's been acting rather goofy lately regarding some of my posted images (in [img] tags), and with [youtube] tags, but I've always been able to do blank lines easily enough.

Maybe it'll help to say that I do use a text editor, and then copy-and-paste the whole text into the thread's 'post' / edit area, for posting. Maybe try that -- ?

Laika

19th June 2017, 20:16

Let me ask you this, Laika -- why are you so satisfied with the current elitist, class-riven social order of capitalism, to the point that you eschew the risks and realities of violence associated with a potentially successful proletarian revolution -- ?

Let just stop here and live and let live. I think its best I solve this one on my own as its connected with personal problems (i.e. depression) that won't be solved in the course of a thread. It wasn't my intention to unload on you or anyone else on Revleft but continuing down this route would be unfair and selfish. We may disagree but nonetheless thanks for your input.

ckaihatsu

20th June 2017, 14:31

Let just stop here and live and let live. I think its best I solve this one on my own as its connected with personal problems (i.e. depression) that won't be solved in the course of a thread. It wasn't my intention to unload on you or anyone else on Revleft but continuing down this route would be unfair and selfish. We may disagree but nonetheless thanks for your input.

I won't press any arguments if you're just not up to doing conversation, but please keep in mind that reformism is *counterposed* (mutually-exclusive) to revolution, so if you're not for one then you're for the other.

Regarding the physiological thing, there's no way to 'think' your way through that, so I'll recommend the following treatment:

Depression - Rife Frequencies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plTsrMQxUBU

https://www.youtube.com/user/newtimer5/videos

(Only the audio portion is significant -- you can keep the volume fairly low and play music on top of it as well -- try multiple times consecutively.)